The First Death of Segitars Arpadi

The First Anecdote of The Samyuzot.

This story is the first anecdote from the The Samyuzot, an ongoing collection of short stories; I won’t say too much more, lest I spoil the beginning below.

Every story in the series is stand-alone.

There will be more to come very soon, but for now…

I invite you into a story of love, rivalry, pride, and bloodshed. I invite you to the Plains under the Sacred Skies, where horse-lords and wagoner clans live and breathe and feast and die under the watchful eyes of the gods above.

I invite you into the opening anecdote in the life of the Samyuzot.

A red stallion tore through the darkness across the plain. His hooves pounded against the earth, and with every step he sensed the urgency of his rider. They raced against the dawn. Within the hour, he would have his bride—or else be dead.

The man held a war-spear in one fist, in the other a rope-lead which compelled another five horses to follow the stallion. Decades in the saddle made even this hasty, hands-free gallop as thoughtless as a walk. He spurred his war-stallion to such speed that the five lesser horses struggled to keep up, even without burdens.

The first rays of morning threw gray into the blackness of the eastern sky. The rider nearly panicked—the law demanded his arrival before dawn—but the dim light brought clarity with its alarm.

There, silhouetted on the horizon: a lonely pole, a dozen horse-tails lashed atop it. The demarcation of a blood-boundary. The edge of Clan Torzsh’s territory.

The rider steered his horses straight at the marker, then stopped beneath it and let the horses recover their wind.

Now began the routines of the sacred customs. He could go no further. To go beyond this would be trespass, and by waiting here at blood-boundary—alone and armed—his errand would be clear to his “hosts,” the Torzsh.

He gazed down on the Torzsh camp. House-wagons and tents, cow herds and sheep flocks, wattle-marked paddocks and weaving lines—all were shadows of darker gray under the fading moon. Some of the sprawling camp, perhaps half, was hidden behind an aspen wood. Such small woods were the closest thing to shelter that these plains offered, at least in this border land between the clans.

The thought of his own people sent a wave of dread over the man. Would today’s events turn this borderland into a war-path? Would these grasses come to be soaked in blood?

No, he reassured himself. If he died today, it would be his own fault. If he lived, then the sacred laws would give him what he sought, and that would be the end of it. Even the Torzsh could not make feud over something so rightly won.  

With nothing to do but wait, he pulled out one of his three braids and rewove it; this was no time to look sloppy. The Torzsh sentries did not keep him waiting long.

Two riders came out from the wood—night watchmen. They came close enough to see him, the style of his dress, his spear, his braids; in these they discerned his intention. They galloped back towards their great camp, motioning the newcomer to follow.

Segitars robbed his horses of their rest and thundered them down the hill. Custom had been met—so far—but there were more formalities to come. 

Likewise, the demands of custom brought onlookers to the edge of the wagon-camp to greet the foreigner. There was little welcome to be had, however; hands held spears and bows and reins. Chief among the delegation—as expected—was the clan’s Gokte, their priestess; her headdress was piled high with glazed hooves, horse-mane, and leather harnessing. It marked her out from a distance and made her visible to the gods in the sacred Sky.

“You’re known to us, Arpadi,” she called. The Gokte’s raspy voice lilted over the intervening grass as Segitars reigned in his steeds. The priestess’s tone was sharp, as was her gaze. “What brings you, interloper?”

“Interloper?” Segitars called back. He was offended that a Gokte would ignore the laws she was sworn to protect. She might not wish to apply the holy laws, but she could not deny them either. “You know that I am not trespassing. And you know perfectly well why I have come.”

“Then say it!”

He took a deep breath, then announced at a near-yell: 

“I am Segitars Kalmanik, Prince of the Clan Arpad! Before you all, and in the names of They Who Look Down, I challenge your man Heza to combat for the hand of the maiden Koyotuil. Let him come out! Let him face me!”

“You did not arrive at our camp before dawn,” the Gokte objected.

“You do not lie, woman, but you mislead! The camp boundary is not what matters. I waited at your horse-tails. I arrived before dawn. My challenge is legal. The Skies witness to this!”

The priestess stared at him as if willing the gods to strike him down. But she had no choice. “Have you brought price?”

For answer, the challenger hefted the horse-lead. “Four mares and a yearling colt. I add to them my own stallion. Together, this is more than double the life-price of any man here.”

“You wager horses and tack against a woman?”

“I bring what the gods say I must.” He looked out over the crowd. Somewhere out there, he was sure, his beloved Koyotuil was watching. It would not be long until he rescued her away. Segitars tried not to get swept away into the thought of it.

“If you perish, what are we to do with your saddle?” 

A ritual question gave way to a ritual answer: “I would have it returned to my mother,” said Segitars.

The Gokte nodded. The liturgy was done. The challenge was announced. But it was not yet accepted. “Your rival, Heza… he is beloved among us. Among us all.”

“I do not doubt it! But let him come, and we will see whom the gods love more.”

“Heza holds Koyotuil’s betrothal already.”

“Does that mean something different to you Torzsh?” Segitars demanded. “Are they already wed? Has her family presented her bride-wagon? Have the gifts been given and eaten?”

The Gokte’s silence told Segitars the answer.

A man stepped out of the crowd and pointed a finger at the Arpadi prince: “You come here wishing violence! Violence you will receive!” The man’s spittle flew through his beard and added itself to the morning dew. 

“Are you confused about my purpose, old man?” Segitars lifted his spear over his head. “I bring violence, yes, and honor demands I receive it! Or do you dare speak of clan-feud? If so, your own Gokte should have taught you better! I am an Arpad, and I seek challenge. Whether I win or die, it ends with peace. So say the laws. You are plainswalkers like me, are you not? Have you forsaken the gods? I tell you that you and I share in this: we are nothing without the laws of the Skies! There will only be violence—clan violence—if you refuse me my rightly-won prize. Or,” Segitars now shouted over the assembled heads, “if that coward, Heza, refuses to come forth!”

The priestess averted her gaze and leaned against her staff, defeated.

“Heza!” Segitars shouted. “Where are you? Come and save your people from dishonor before the Skies!”

“Enough of this!” The shout came from the far edge of the crowd, where the wagon-camp met the wood. Heza stepped out from the line of watchers, his arms held wide, chest out. “I will face you, you fiend!”

Now, Segitars noted, the duel could not be stopped. He looked at the priestess, and absorbed her contemptuous leer with vengeful satisfaction. They knew: one man must die—before noon—or both forfeited their lives to the Gokte’s sacred knife. 

Segitars dismounted, handed his horses to a nervous youth, then began to pace and stretch his sore legs. The night had been long in the saddle, but he felt ready. Awake. Exuberant. Alive.

Heza sent for his own spear, a fighting robe, and fresh boots. He braided his hair to match Segitars’s, a sign of the coming bloodshed.

Segitars stamped at the omnipresent grass to learn the feel of the ground. He searched the crowd, hoping to see the one face he knew he would never tire of seeing. Heza began jumping and stretching. Segitars did the same, jogging about, but using his movements mostly to see more of the Torzsh onlookers. Nothing but forgettable face after forgettable face.

Then he saw her. His Koyotuil.

She was the very beauty of the Skies come down to the earth. Her high cheeks, her wide and proud jaw, her hair like shimmering twilight. She was the only woman Segitars had ever cared to look upon, the only one for him.

The sunshine of her face appeared through the mist of the crowd, but that face was torn with worry. Koyotuil watched Segitars—the challenger, the champion—with rapt attention.

Segitars saw in her expression both concern and hope. Her anxiety was plain as the midday grass. She had not known he was coming, but he had always delighted in surprising her. Three years in a row now, he had given ritual gifts and words of courting to her at midsummer festivals—when all the tribes would gather to worship. And all three summers she would flutter and demur, laughing and delighting with him, too shy to bring him before her father. But a maiden was supposed to demur, and Segitars knew her heart. She was no less beautiful today than she was in those happier moments, but this morning was one of trial and risk rather than laughter and diversion. Koyotuil’s look of worry only served to prove to Segitars how desperately he wanted to see her smile, to see her laugh with him, to see her face brighten whenever he arrived.

In the silence of his heart he crafted a message of love and willed it to fly from his spirit to hers, hoping that Koyotuil would hear him and be at peace. Then he turned his attention to the task at hand.

Heza was changing into his war-robe, a rich garment the color of stormclouds. He was a fit man, tall and lithe, muscular and long-limbed. But Segitars, though much shorter, felt that he had the true advantage of size; his own arms were thicker, his chest stronger. If he could get in close, Segitars knew, he would win. Better then, if Heza was reckless. 

Segitars decided to goad him.

“You are so quiet, Heza,” he called. “I know why: you sense already that Koyotuil is lost to you. You know she is not yours. It is obvious: she yearns for me, and no other.”

Heza looked up, but otherwise did not react.

The challenger went on: “It is a wonder Koyotuil could even pretend to settle for a pig-herding wanderer like you. Especially when she could have a prince. You’ve no lineage. No pride. No deeds to speak of.”

Heza continued fastening his war-robe. Silent.

“Tonight,” Segitars called again “your Koyotuil will sleep under my mother’s wagon-roof, and tomorrow they will begin work on her bride-wagon. She will be one of us Arpadi by sunrise. She will rejoice with us when we drink to your death.” Yes. That got through to him.

“Whatever else you win for yourself today, Arpadi,” Heza said, “whatever rights you claim by whatever laws, know this: Koyotuil is her own. You will not win her. ”

Segitars waved this away. “So says the man who must content himself with failure. It must be bitter knowing she wants another.”

“The gods will decide.” With this, Heza took his war-spear from an attendant, and so brought their repartee to an end. Time now for the true fight.

The wizened Gokte came out of the crowd again and came between the two men. The combatants stood, spears at the ready. 

The priestess lifted her arms and turned her face to the Sky. And then she began to shriek. She yelled and yipped, to silence the crowd, to seize the attention of the gods above, to call ancestors in the Sky to come and bear witness to the courage of their children. The woman screeched until her old breath gave out.

Then, having met the duty of ritual, she lifted her staff in her hand, held it out over the grass between the rivals, and let go. The wood hit the grass. 

The duel began.

It wouldn’t last long; duels never did. With nothing but two spearheads between warring men, any fight was bound to end within heartbeats of the first fully committed attack. 

The fighters came near to striking distance and began to circle each other. 

Inching closer, their spear heads passed each other, and right away Segitars smacked his spearshaft against Heza’s. There was little in it. Just enough to make Heza flinch.

Unlike Segitars, Heza was no warrior. He was a herder, a rider, a sworn man. But the Arpadi prince was well-seasoned, and he could see fear in his rival’s eyes. 

He gave a jab, saw Heza avoid it. He thrust again, earning a flinch. Segitars tried to get even a hair or two closer, but the long-armed Heza was trying to stay further back.

Heza gave a tight jab—Segitars diverted it and tried to move closer. Heza retreated, thrust again, but reflex let Segitars turn the strike aside all the more easily this time. 

Heza back-pedaled, his steps hastening, but the prince was on the hunt now. He came in close. 

Heza planted his foot and lunged. Segitars swatted it away, dove in. 

Heza scrambled.

Segitars screamed.

The spear-point landed in Heza’s neck. Red bloomed in the gray morning.

The man’s eyes went white with shock. His empty hands came up to grab the spear, but there was no strength left in those fingers. He fell back onto his rump and began to sprawl as he clung to life. With a yell, Segitars struck again and buried the spearhead deep in his enemy’s chest. Heza fell back, his spirit gone before his head slumped to the ground.

And in that instant, as the dead man’s head was hurtling onto its pillow of earth, as the sacred sun was just shedding its unfiltered light onto the bloodshed of honor, the demands of custom were over. One man had died. One man had killed.

That moment—that heartbeat between death-stroke and fall, when the victor’s defiant shout still hung in the air—was, for Segitars, the last instant of peace.

Because just as Heza’s head hit the ground, the wailing began.

It was a wretched sound. It rose from the depths of grief, came up through twisted tongue, and pierced the ear. It was the unthinking wail that only unimaginable pain could yank from a heart, a sound forged only by love, brought forth only by loss.

Segitars watched—all strength and desire and confidence melting out of his body—as Koyotuil pushed through the crowd, tear-stricken and wailing, and threw herself onto the body of her betrothed.

He whispered: “No.”

Her wail assaulted his ears. He had heard this sound before. He had heard it when returning from war, as those at camp counted the returning riders and noted the missing. He heard it from his mother while she watched them lay his little brother’s body on the pyre; Segitars never forgot the sound. It was not the wail of death. It was that of those left in death’s wake. Segitars had heard this cry from mothers and fathers, wives and sisters. And now, from Koyotuil. 

He saw her look back at him—eyes swollen to slits, Heza’s blood intermingled with tears and clumping in her hair. She buried her face in Heza’s chest, her back convulsing with sobs. Her muffled cries still pounded Segitars like a torrent on the open plain.

“No,” he whispered again.

“You’ve done what you came to do, Arpadi.” The Gokte was suddenly beside him. “Now let us part with our Heza before you make your demands on the girl.”

“No,” he said, still staring ahead, “this isn’t what I wanted.”

“This is what you demanded of the gods.”

“This is not what I wanted.”

It was crowded now. People were all around, some joining Koyotuil in her grief, some bringing the funeral linens. Others cursed Segitars, but these were all at the edge of his awareness. Someone placed the lead of his six horses into his limp palm, his spear having slipped to the ground some time ago.

“Here!” he held out the lead to the priestess, “take my horses! The life price, take it! I make no demands.”

“That cannot be done. You cannot undo this.”

“Please, take it!” Segitars begged. People were pressing in on him, and he began to speak to anyone and everyone. He had to speak up to be heard over the commotion. “Take it all. I will leave! I should not have come!”

“And you shouldn’t stay either! You’re not taking her!” A sun-baked man was shouting into Segitars’s face. Something about the man’s eyes caught Seg’s attention. A resemblance: Koyotuil’s father. Segitars tried to speak but other men were jostling him. In the tussle, the girl’s father shouted at him: “We refuse the promise! You won’t have her!”

“That would lead to feud,” Segitars said. The words came from him automatically, quietly, useless and unheard. Something prodded at his belly: a spear-point, pressing just enough to send a blink of panic into the man.

“Leave! We curse you, Arpadi!”

Segitars scrambled for his horses, hopped onto his stallion, and spurred them away.

The man could not ignore the awful wailing, nor could he deny himself from looking again at its source. He saw—through the crowd that was huddled around Heza’s body—a moment’s glimpse of Koyotuil, still bent over the corpse of her betrothed, clawing at the earth with her fingers.

Segitars let the horse lead slip from his grasp. The five spare horses chose rest over another long journey, and they lingered at the Torzsh camp. The mares, this colt. They had been brought as a bride-gift, but now they would stay as a blood-price. He kicked his stallion on. 

It was a long journey home, over hard ground and unforgiving Skies.

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“Where have you been?!”

The eyes of clan-king Ungars raged from within his weathered face and their fire bore down upon the head of his grandson. Segitars tried to meet that gaze, but his heart faltered. Beside the king was the Arpadi’s own Gokte, an old crone named Recha.

Rumor of his errand must have leaked through the camp that morning, for the trial-gathering had been called within moments of his return. Now Segitars was the focus of a half-circle of elders before the clan’s great-wagon. A crowd had gathered behind him. All faces were familiar to him, all expressions were grim. There was nowhere to hide, and nothing to be gained from it. 

So Segitars told them everything he had done. 

After his story, there was a long silence. Eventually, Recha the priestess spoke up from beneath her horse-hood headdress.

“The Gokte sanctified the duel?”

“She did,” he replied.

“And you killed this Heza?”

King Ungars interrupted his Gokte, “We know clear enough that he has! Tell us, son of my son: did they refuse her?” There was anger in his voice, but it was losing wind. Desperate resignation was coming in its place.

“I did not press her,” Segitars said. “She was grieved, she… I offered blood-price for the man.”

“Did. They. Refuse her?” 

“Yes.” This sent a murmur through the collected horse-lords. 

The Gokte announced: “Custom and law demand we give ourselves over to blood-feud.”

“This is not what I wanted,” protested Segitars.

“The Torzsh don’t know that. Nor do they care.” The priestess’s words might well have been prophecy, for she had hardly finished speaking them when a messenger came and hurried before the clan-king. He held out three arrows, each painted red from tip to fletch.

“From the clan Torzsh,” the messenger held up one. Then holding up the others: “And from their allies in clans Ludj and Kengyel. Three riders, together, shot them over the blood-boundary and shouted challenge as we watched.”

The declaration of blood-feud.

“It seems,” said Ungars, dismissing the messenger, “that the Torzsh have not waited to find out our decision.”

“Then we’ll fight,” said Segitars above the rising murmurs around him. “We are the proud Arpadi! We made the saddle and stirrup, and we rule these plains. We can fight.”

“It has been a long time since we gave the other clans the saddle. And it has been long since we truly ruled. We are perhaps stronger than the Torzsh—and I say only perhaps—but certainly not three tribes together. And the other clans will not support us in this. We will be alone. Our people will die.”

“But we must fight!” said Segitars. “My brothers made oaths to me. They—”

“Oaths?! What oaths?” the king was fuming, and the wind of murmurings continued to sweep in.

“To support me in my pursuit of the woman.”

“And did they know what you planned? A spear-trial?”

“No. But the laws of our people still hold. Gokte Recha heard the oaths. They are bound to me, as I am to you all. By custom—”

“You fool!” Recha’s anger now boiled over completely. “The Skies gave us the laws so there would be peace! Spear-trials are there to give satisfaction without war between the tribes. What you did today, you did the opposite! You draw us into war! The Torzsh have long envied us, and now they will use this to burn our wagons and drive us from the plain.”

“No, no!” Segitars stammered. “The Skies will not forsake us.”

“Enough!” Ungars raised a hand with his voice. The assembled crowd came to silence. “Tell me, Recha: do the oaths hold? Must we go to clan-feud?”

“Do you wish to go to feud, my king?” 

“No.” 

Recha spent a long moment staring at Segitars, eyes wide and unblinking as she sought to weigh his worth against the horrors she foresaw in her weary imagination. 

“The oaths were rightly taken,” she said at last, “and this one would lawfully call his brothers into the feud. He has a right to demand war from us, since the Torzsh refused him and they have since shot the red arrow. However—” the Gokte stood taller and her voice grew “---no man is bound, either by oath or blood or the bonds of kinship, to a samyuzot.”

Seg’s heart seized at the thought. Not exile! Not banishment! But Recha’s speech rolled on.

“You know my cousin is a Gokte among the Torzsh,” she said. “She can help me sway them. If we name him samyuzot and pay restitution, they may accept our judgment and retract the feud. We can live on.”

“Then it shall be so,” the clan-king did not hesitate. He and his Gokte walked forward to Segitars.

“No,” he whispered.

“We must,” said his grandfather.

“Custom demands it,” said Recha, “and we are nothing without the laws of the Skies.”

“Please,” Segitars whispered.

Ungars spoke up: “Once I named you Segitars Kalmanik Ungarsik, son of the Clan Arpadi. Now I name you samyuzot.”

The Gokte repeated his words: “We name him samyuzot.”

Segitars’s legs buckled, and without deciding he fell to his knees before his Gokte. His eyes began to cloud from exhaustion. They focused in on a tuft of grass near the chief’s left foot. He watched the grass blades tremble in the breeze. He was only vaguely aware of his surroundings: someone came close to him, a woman began a shrieking funeral-chant.

In just a few moments, the man named Segitars would be dead, and in his place would be the desolate soul bound to a homeless body. He would be a husk, an empty vessel of a man, banished from beneath the Skies and beyond the sight of the gods. To never eat while present on the plains. To never wear the hair of his people. To never cover his bare head under the Skies. If he broke these, custom demanded his immediate death at the hands of any who saw him.

So he would wander thus in the highlands, toiling all his days, marked irrevocably for a death cut off from the Skies. He could delay that death only if he let himself linger in exile.

Pain scored across his forehead.

He tore his unseeing eyes from the spot of grass. There had been a shing-ing sound, a moment ago: shears, snipping at his braids. Segitars saw his hair accumulating at his knees. He felt blood dripping down his brow.

The Gokte’s knife cut again across his scalp. Shaving, scraping, scouring. Segitars clamped his eyes and forced his teeth down to strangle a moan into a hissing breath. It would be over soon.

He trembled in his very soul. Any life worth living would be over soon.

The funeral chant ended, the last hairs scraped away from his scalp. There were no goodbyes, only a rushed ushering towards the edge of the wagon camp. His eyes stung from the drops of blood which had flowed into them. He had spent all night in the saddle, fought a duel at dawn, then rode back through the whole day; finally, exhaustion took its toll, and Segitars floated in a haze of fatigue and disbelief.

There was one great mercy: they gave him a horse. His own horse, but no saddle or stirrup; no luxuries for a samyuzot, for a forsaken son.

And so: a man once called Segitars, former son of Kalman, once of clan Arpadi, was now dead. What remained was only a samyuzot, a husk, spiritually undead. The accursed man kicked his beleaguered red stallion away from his home. At best, it would be a three-day ride to the highlands—to the edge of the plains where he could eat beyond the sight of the sacred Skies, where he could live without calling down the wrath of the gods.

There was nothing else to do. He was an exile—bald and bloodied, visible like a night-fire to They Who Look Down—to wander until death took him in obscurity.

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Thank you for reading. Want more of The Samyuzot? 

Keep reading with: An Exile’s Curse →

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