Page 21 of Humans Don't Have Horns
I feel my sanity coming back to me after I clean up. Well, at least the part of it that doesn’t involve him. I wear the white shirt and red pants he gave me, the Aldonian military uniform. I also wear a pair of new boots he brought me, since even my shoes are covered in gore. The clothes and shoes are a bit too big but they’ll do. I braid my hair loosely. I can’t help but wonder what Daton thinks of my colors. Do colors even matter when you have horns? They probably do. Most Mongans have black hair and eyes. Which is kind of a paradox within the True Religion, come to think of it. If the Cursed Ones are Puresouls who have been cursed for their sins, shouldn’t they have the same coloring as the rest of the Puresouls? The True Religion never claimed the curse changed their colors. It couldn’t have, because even though it is rare, there are Cursed Ones with Aldonian colors.
By the time I finish, the sun is setting, and the skies have darkened. It will be night soon. As I move out of the greenery, I find Daton squatting with his prayer beads in his hand. Deft fingers play the wooden beads with ease. Memories of my dream of him flash into my mind, and I can’t help but blush. I’m frightened of how much his presence calms me and makes me feel less alone. At the same time, it inspires something else entirely, something exciting and terrifying at the same time. And I can’t help but wonder why he is here. I’m tiredof being a pawn in everyone’s games. That wonder nags at me, like a dream I have forgotten and know for certain is vital that I remember.
“What were you doing on King’s Road?” I ask him.
Daton looks up at me, his face blank. “I had a feeling the Renyans would sell you out to Aldon.” He shrugs as if trying to minimize the meaning of his words. “And I didn’t have anything better to do anyway.”
Right. Because he got exiled. Because of me. And yet he is not truthful with me. I can feel that there are things he isn’t saying. “You’re holding back.”
He only watches me wryly.
“Tell me,” I say in a commanding tone that, for some reason, sounds more pleading.
“You really don’t get it. Do you?” He’s staring at the beads, his knuckles whitening from the hard grip.
“Get what?” I glower at him.
But he only looks at me and stands up. He starts making a fire. Did I say I missed his brooding manner? Well, I find it highly irritating in fact. And annoying. And irritating. What am I not getting? I want to shout at him and kick him. But I have some pride left, so I bite my tongue and don’t push it further.
I’m exhausted, by death, by betrayal. I’m dead tired.
Daton hands me an Aldonian army sleeping bag. He roasts a quail in the fire, and even adds salt and pepper. Living on Aldonian supplies is far more convenient than living on Mongan scraps. I look at his face, lit by the dancing flames of the fire. He doesn’t look at me. I realize he’s avoiding my eyes. What am I missing?
If I weren’t so annoyed, I might thank him. For not killing my sister. For finding me, giving me fresh clothes, and cooking me dinner. Instead of all this, I say, “You should have told me of Renya.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.” He’s stating a fact, no rebuke in his voice. “You had too much hope of them.” It’s probably true. I would have never believed my mother’s family would be so traitorous, so cruel.
“Tell me now. All of it,” I say, my head propped on my hand, thewarmth of the fire caressing me. Daton looks at me pensively as if evaluating what I meant. He stretches out on his sleeping bag, his head propped on his hand, mirroring my position. And so he tells me the tale of a hundred years.
He begins with what the Mongans call the Oblivion, the attack of the demichads. “My parents and six of my brothers died in the Oblivion, like many other Mongans. Our village lost nearly half of its population. Yet even more Puresouls were killed. The demichads wiped out complete villages and even some of their towns. Mongans recover quickly from injuries, and we are five times physically stronger than a Puresoul. So while our toll was high, the Puresouls’ toll was higher.
“The demichads didn’t just prey on Amadans. They preyed on all mammals. So when the demichads finally vanished, other predators like direwolves, lions, and bears attacked Amadans as never before, since their natural food sources had depleted as well.
“The worse it got, the more obsessed the Aldonians became for salvation within this life and the one after. The Aldonians clung to the True Religion in their despair. On top of that, Aldon claimed they eradicated the demichads, and we all believed them. We weren’t accustomed to lies on such a magnificent scale back then.
“The Renyans and Kozaries were overwhelmed with grief for their losses. And the Aldonians were willing enough to take advantage. And so Aldon’s claim on all Puresouls became stronger, and the True Religion was forced on everyone. Yet the Mongans refused to submit to it. We didn’t refuse to submit to Aldon. It’s not as if we had a status or right to dispense of anyway. We refused to convert to the True Religion.
“The Mongans’ reluctance to submit and our better stamina in the face of the Oblivion made us hated even more fiercely. And trust me, we were hated before. But our greater survival during the Oblivion drew attention to the power of our horns for the first time. It didn’t matter that we lost so many of our own people. The Puresouls only had eyes for their own suffering.
“Then the Kozaries discovered that mixing gold with the horns’extract made a powerful weapon and sold those weapons to Aldon. Aldon was in great need of cheap labor, with so many of Aldon’s young men having died in the Oblivion. And what’s cheaper than free? With the Kozari lassos and the burning hate for the Mongans, Aldon started enslaving us. We didn’t see it coming. That was our biggest mistake. We assumed things would go back to the shitty reality we had known for so long.
“After Baghiva died, my lord enslaved me and made me work in one of his coal mines. I was there for eight years, subdued with Nimatek and punished with the lassos whenever they found the Nimatek not to be enough. They had a hundred of us there. And we survived, although I doubt any Puresoul would have survived such conditions.
“But they became greedy and complacent. They thought watching Mongans fight each other would make good entertainment. So they moved several of us to the castle area. They had a big arena there. Only with so much Nimatek and lassos, it was a poor show. So they gave us less Nimatek. But the show was still lacking. There wasn’t enough of that animal-like behavior they like to affiliate us with. So they gave us a little bit less Nimatek. And that was enough for me and the other three Mongans with me to kill them all. And I mean all,” he stresses.
“The royals, their wives, the servants. We only spared the livestock. There was so much blood it actually poured downhill in streams toward the village. And so the Butcher was born. And it took me decades, but the greatest threat to the Mongans became very rare because I did butcher them. Every Puresoul in the perimeter who enslaved Mongans – I killed them all in the worst ways. Fewer and fewer were willing to risk my wrath, and slavery, at last, became very rare. I guess it didn’t make a good economy in the end.” His voice is scathing.
“But then, twenty years ago, Renya started producing immortality potions from the Mongan horns. And all hell was set loose on the Mongans. Kozari lassos had always been scarce, and slavery had not become widespread because of the murderous name I gained bykilling their owners whenever I had a chance. But the temptation to heal from uncured sickness, the temptation to remain forever young, was irresistible.
“It doesn’t matter how many Renyans I killed or how many Renyan monasteries I burned to the ground. Puresouls are still willing to pay an obscene amount of money for immortality. And so more and more hunters emerged, more Kozari lassos were created, and the Mongans had to escape to the swamps and stay hidden to survive.”
“Didn’t you think of fleeing through the sea to farther lands? Away from Amada?” I ponder.
“We have horns. In what land under the stars can we not be persecuted?” he answers dryly.
I lie in my sleeping bag at night, and I can’t fall asleep until the wee hours, despite my exhaustion. Everything I knew and thought of the ways of Amada is useless and irrelevant, like old snow that melted and all that remains is broken gray ice and mud.
I never saw Mongan slaves in the palace, and Daton said they stopped enslaving people there fifty years ago after one of the enslaved people nearly killed the queen herself—my great-grandmother. Enslaving Mongans became too much of a risk. But there are still Mongans enslaved in Aldon. Some enslavers feel it is worth the risk, I guess. The idea that women and men sleep as enslaved people under the same stars I lie under is crushing. How can such darkness lie in the lands of those who worship the light, who worship Sun?
