AMONG THE SCYTHIANS

AMONG THE SCYTHIANS, by Deborah L. Davitt, art by Simon Walpole, audio by Deborah L. Davitt

 

 

 

 

Copper, so expensive, so rare—

did you know that the sunbright ore

only comes from a distant island

in a sunbathed sea we’ll never see,

where it’s so common

the people there

walk on streets made of it?

 

That the tin blended with it

to make sturdy bronze

comes from another island—

they say it’s on the moon—

this one made of ice,

cloaked in fog;

 

and it’s carried in boats,

and then on horseback,

hand to hand to hand,

till it finally reaches us:

 

scraps,

enough to make

needle-pointed arrowheads

nothing more.

 

There are no roads here

just the faint tracks

of where our herds walked

last year, the year before

the year before that;

and we followed,

our dogs keeping the horses

and the cattle

from straying too far—

a road is only

a dream in my chieftain father’s eyes,

the memory of where

we’ve always gone before.

 

Only kings have enough wealth

to deck themselves in armor

alloyed of sun and moon—

my father’s not a king.

Nor am I.

 

Chieftains like him

can only afford wooden shields

breastplates of linden wood—

still costly, still dear

there are few trees on the steppes.

 

Our weapons aren’t just for show;

tales abound of the perils faced

by lone travelers,

of young lovers, bound for

one village or another,

who never arrived—

a young bride stolen,

and young groom slain

by roving bands.

 

The stranger from another clan

was always our most dangerous foe;

the worst penalty that could be imposed,

exile;

no one would trust someone

turned out of the safety

of another caravan;

they’d be alone

forever.

 

Young warriors are encouraged

to demonstrate their courage

by lightning raids

on other tribes and herds,

but there are rules;

prisoners can be ransomed,

slaves can be freed,

and no one has to die.

 

My own mother loved

to reminisce about how

my father kidnapped her

from a meeting of the clans—

all with a wink and a nod,

and her father’s feigned reluctance,

her shrieks of feigned outrage

as she bounced over the withers of his horse;

the secret jealousy of her sisters

at the outrageous romance of it all.

 

Her needles came with her from her clan,

splinters of bone

patiently bored through

with the fine tip of a flint tool;

the points of our spears bone, too;

the whipstock in my hand

leather-wrapped bone.

 

What we have

is just our flesh

the bodies of our herds

one with our own.

 

Raiders came in the night

to steal our herds—

that’s common enough,

but they had sunmetal swords

and needle-pointed arrows.

 

Why did they need to take

when they already had so much?

Maybe stealing was just easier

than waiting endlessly

for foals and calves to grow,

perhaps they were just bored

with the whole cycle

of living.

 

I don’t know,

but I hold my father

as he shakes and screams.

I didn’t know that even

a big man

can sob in pain,

that a chief can be afraid of death,

that my father was mortal.

I didn’t want to know that.

I didn’t want to have to know.

 

I didn’t want to know

what it would feel like

to be an exile,

alone in the world

as a ghost,

except I was never cast out—

I simply didn’t follow my kin

into the shadowed lands

that lie beyond this life.

 

But what I also know

is that the skull

of a slaughtered bull

will make a fine helmet;

that the ribs of my brother’s horse

will shelter my body

that the fingerbones

of my father’s hand

of my mother’s

of my brother’s

will rattle in my pouch

sounding like the susurration

of ghostly speech

 

and that all the arrows

the raiders left behind

tangled in ribs

embedded in skulls

melted down

will make a sword

fit, if not for a king,

than at least for vengeance.

 

________________________________________

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but
 currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her poetry
 has received Rhysling, Dwarf Star, and Pushcart nominations and has
 appeared in over fifty journals, including F&SF and Asimov’s
 Science Fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in Galaxy’s Edge
 and Flame Tree anthologies. For more about her work, including her
 Edda-Earth novels and her poetry collection, The Gates of Never,
 please see www.edda-earth.com.

 

Simon Walpole has been drawing for as long as he can remember and is fortunate to spend his freetime working as an illustrator. He primarily use pencils, pens and markers and use a bit of digital for tweaking. As well as doing interior illustrations for various publishing formats he has also drawn a lot of maps for novels. his work can be found at his website HandDrawnHeroes.