They told us we carried the blood of the War Goddess, that we were blessed by the hymns of the Lyrical Lord. Sharp of blade and sharp of tongue—we were the emperor’s chosen, defenders of his peace and the proclaimers of his majesty. This was what they told me.
But it is not what I will tell you, my son.
Through my poems, you shall understand.
* * *
My sword falls like lightning, my wrath swallows the world.
Crimson rain leads to supple clay; by His hand is the universe remade.
I wrote those words on the bloodied surcoat of the enemy. Atop a mountain of corpses, my sword-hand fell to earth and my quill-hand rose in recordation.
For we are Eutka, and we captured our red victories in the black of verse.
When the imperial dignitaries collected our work, we recited our words like a war cry; there is no difference between a throat slashed and a sentence punctuated. This is what we knew.
In the capital, our gilded poetry surrounded the emperor. Sown high on the walls, billowing like banners. When the ambassadors came, the translators worked so the foreigners felt our written fire—all requests were retracted, all foreheads kissed the mosaiced floor.
When I watched their tears fall, I thought to describe their sorrow like rivers and like petals.
This is what they have taken from me, my son. This is what they tried to take from you.
* * *
The weight of foreign plunder pushes us into broken earth.
My eyes focus on where we are going, not from whence we have come.
We wrote together on the tablecloth of a slain duke. Our quill-arms braced like hilts around our swords. We marshalled a legion of words to describe the legion we slew.
My hand cramped, I looked up; dark eyes stared back at me. I smelled blood amongst a perfumed throne room.
There was no deliberation—winter had come, and had gnawed at the flesh of the Imperial Granaries. Our orders were from His lips, and we were oath-bound to serve in His name.
When we hauled fresh grain to our camp, we did not gloat upon the ruined villages we pass. We stepped over corpses with the precision that guided our formations.
Brother Yulin’s hand found my shoulder; he read my work.
‘The dignitaries will not take this,’ he said, tone low, unsure. ‘Write again.’
Questions unfaithful and unholy stir within, but they were quelled as quickly as they are formed. To question our oath was to threaten our bloodline—the treason of Eutka were meted upon their partners, their children. This was His justice.
When I knelt beside a river, I looked into the rapids saw my mother. A luminary of our order, not all of her poems had been sent to the capital—many remained at home, locked away, holding a biting truth no dignitary would wish to hear.
This was why she laid in the onyx tombs beneath the emperor’s palace. Buried with the greatest of Eutka.
She chose honour. She chose me.
And this is why I sent you away, my son. You will read this message in a land where nobody will know your name.
* * *
The mountains of someone’s childhood cut a shadow against the heavens; the stars above burn fresh with old memory.
I look forward, and glance back; I glimpse another, and see myself.
We fought in the dark, and the blood of the enemy was pitch upon the soil. The battle tide was sweet, delicious, and the world arrayed itself into a shape that pleased Him.
Moonlight flooded the battlefield, black met white; my left hand tingled as my right hand burned.
I found a vista to write—the foreign mountains of our foes loomed familiar and jagged; their cities wavered, candles in the dark. Guttering, spluttering, fading.
Brother Yulin offered me a lantern, and I summoned my intent.
‘Brother,’ he said, ‘your quill-arm shakes.’
My armour was unwashed with innocent blood, and the flame of the lantern played with my verse. The words gleamed crimson, dripping off the page.
The dignitaries waited in our war camp; Yulin told me they whispered of me. Their missives to the emperor were long and flared with ill suggestions
They knew I had a child, and they knew the name of his second father.
You may wish to visit your homeland, my son. For I know you will miss the mountains you played in during your youth. How they cut a silhouette into the summer sky. The flowers of jasmine and magnolia, the ruby towers rising over sun-kissed seas.
But those flowers were not nourished by water, those ruby towers not built of stone and mortar.
* * *
An umbral star cuts into the perfect void; my son dreamed in my arms as I dreamed and send him away.
My words tatter in the throne room.
I was writing when Brother Yulin’s hawk arrived with a message. My quill had fallen when I had read the news, desecrating my work with a dark scar. The scar is still there, still here; wine-coloured gore moved uninterrupted from quill-arm to sword-arm.
He had died in battle. Imperial words holding imperial truths.
As I write this, your carriage will be hundreds of miles away, and I hear Eutka coming up the mountain pass. Golden bells chiming from carriages. Silver swords screeching from sheathes. They will write about me after this. Poetry inked in my traitor blood.
So, I write for you—for you are my red victory, and I record you in the black of verse.
My hawk is ready to fly.
You will hate me. You will hate me. I accept this. Through this death-poem, I accept it all.
I go to my blade now. To wield it against my former comrades. Fight for the life I hope you will live.
For this is my gift to you.
My son.
About the Author
A writer currently teaching English in Wuhan, China, his work often deals with the power of spirituality, and the power of once was and might be again. His work is found in Sci-fi Shorts and Andromeda Space Ways, and is upcoming in Hyphenpunk and Kaleidotrope.
