The White Dragon - Softcover

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When the last dragonfish is dead, then will I set my foot upon land.
--Motto of the Lascari Clan
 
 
The deck of the fishing boat rolled beneath Zarien's feet, rocking and soothing him as it had every day of his life, since the moment he'd been hauled out of the sea where he had been born. For as long as Sileria's sea-born folk had existed, their women had given birth to their generations in sacred coves, then midwives blessed the infants with ritual immersions before passing them to waiting paternal arms aboard nearby boats. It had now been some fourteen years since the midwife had held Zarien underwater to introduce his spirit to the spirit of the dragonfish, whom his people feared, fought, and must someday vanquish.
And for fourteen years Zarien had lived by the creed which bound his clan, the Lascari--and many other sea-born clans--to life upon the waves: He had not set foot upon land, not once in his life.
True, many sea-born folk did walk among the landfolk of Sileria. They traded on shore and supplied the floating markets upon which sea-bound clans like the Lascari relied for those things which the sea did not provide. They met with smugglers, rebels, and outlaws on land. They personally delivered cargoes, carried from the nations surrounding the Middle Sea, to wealthy merchants, aristocrats, and waterlords. Some had even marched inland to meet the Firebringer himself, Josarian, to pledge the many clans of Sileria's sea-born folk to his cause.
But the Lascari did not walk the dryland, nor would they until the last dragonfish in the Middle Sea was finally dead. Since before memory began, since before there had been waterlords in Sileria or the Palace of Heaven in Kinto, since before the empire of the Moorlanders had risen from the mists or disappeared centuries later into ashes, since before the Valdani had built the great city of Valda and struck out to conquer so much of the world, including Sileria…Since before all this, the sea-bound Lascari had thrived without going ashore; indeed, to do so ensured banishment from the clan, without exception. Theirs was a proud and ancient tradition, one to which they clung fiercely. Zarien had been taught not to rudely ridicule clans who mingled with the untattooed landfolk or who profaned their sea-born heritage by treading on solid ground while yet a dragonfish lived, but he was proud to be coming to manhood in a clan which did not do such unworthy things.
During the Festival of the New Year this year, he had finally received the tattoos of adulthood, as had all other sea-born children born fourteen years earlier, in the Year of Dark Skies. The intricate indigo markings he now bore on his hands, face, and forearms forever marked him as sea-born, as Lascari, and as a man. But only now might he become a man in truth; if he presented his mother with the heart of his very first dragonfish kill, then he would earn the right to say to her, as generations of sea-born males before him had said to their mothers, "Today I am a man."
They called it Bharata Ma-al in sea-born dialect: the Time of Slaughter. Now, as spring ripened into its full promise in Sileria, the dragonfish swam close to shore to lay their eggs in warm coastal waters. Now they were vulnerable. Now the sea-born showed them no mercy.
The rest of the year, these ferocious creatures might strike the sea-born folk anytime, anywhere in the Middle Sea. Many a boat had never returned from the open sea, many a man had died in those voracious jaws. No one--not marauding Moorlanders, not Kintish pirates, not the Valdani themselves with their sleek warships--had ever killed as many sea-born folk as the dragonfish had. Zarien's people had faced and fought this enemy since they first took to the sea, and until they had spilled the dark purple blood of the very last one left alive, there could be no peace. Only then would their destiny be complete. Only then might the children of their children's children set their feet upon land.
Zarien shrugged and lifted his face to the wind, indifferent to the knowledge that he would never walk the dryland. Why would anyone want to? The sea was the only life for real men, the dragonfish the only enemy worth facing. Let the shallaheen, Sileria's mountain peasants, slaughter each other in their endless bloodfeuds. Let the assassins of the Honored Society kill and be killed in bloodvows which were sworn to serve the power struggles of their masters, the waterlords. Let the vast armies of the world's rising and falling empires grapple for supremacy on the mainland all around the Middle Sea. What concern was any of this to the Lascari and their kind, whose enemy had been chosen for them by their gods at the dawn of time?
The sturdy two-masted boat upon which Zarien's family lived drew near the ancient killing grounds of the Lascari, the stretch of coastal waters which they had claimed as their own centuries ago. Zarien's heart began thudding with mingled pride, fear, and excitement. Tonight, for the first time, he would join the men of his clan in the bloody ritual through which they honored their gods and proved their manhood by voluntarily facing the dragonfish. It was during the Time of Slaughter that, for once, the sea-born folk rather than the dragonfish staged the ambush, chose the time and place of the confrontation, and challenged the enemy rather than simply awaiting their unpredictable attacks.
By the time the bharata was over, the shores of Sileria would be stained with blood and the sea would be dark with it. Not all of it would be purple either; Bharata Ma-al claimed many sea-born lives, too, every year.
The season of slaughter was a short one, lasting only while the first new moon glowed alone, before the second one appeared to join it in the night sky, during the fourth month of the year. It was a sacred span of three days and nights, an opportunity which came only once a year. If Zarien did not slay a dragonfish during the bharata, the traditional time for a first kill, then he would have to rely on chance until next year, on the mingled hope and fear that a dragonfish would attack him somewhere in the open sea. And until he finally killed one, he would be excluded from the rights and privileges granted only to those who had done so. He would also, he reflected sourly, be obliged to meekly listen to the other men's endless boasts wherever boats met and mingled at sea or in Sileria's harbors.
"Stop scowling," his mother advised him, brushing past him as she busily prepared the deck to receive the first dragonfish corpse of the bharata.
"I wasn't scowling," he corrected. "I was thinking."
"You were thinking?" Her dark brows rose. "Ah, for that alone, we should hold a special festival."
He scowled at her but didn't retort. A sea-born man who was not respectful to women--especially to his mother--would be dragonfish bait before long.
He didn't help her with her work, nor did she ask him to. Work was strictly divided among the sea-born, and each person stayed out of the other's way when it came to chores and duties; boats were small and unsteady, after all, and the sea-born couldn't afford to trip over and bump into each other all the time like clumsy landfolk. So Zarien stayed out of his mother's way and attended to his own work--which currently meant trimming the foresail as the boat drew near the killing waters.
Some of the boats of the Lascari clan were already there, and others were arriving even as Zarien's family brailed their sails up to the yard and prepared to drop anchor, positioning their boat for the setting of the nets. The women of each family had folded the huge nets aboard their own boats with care so that they would feed out smoothly and quickly when they were being set.
Only let this slaughter make me a man, he prayed to the spirits which...