For the next few days, Kitandi fell into a comfortable rhythm. The Gaias often gave him suggestions, and mindful of the disruption caused by his early arrival, he always accepted these. He spent time in the baths, sometimes followed by a massage. He spent time in meditation and prayer at various spots of significance in and around Gaia’s Rest. He walked naked and barefoot in the woods. Not exactly a pleasure this time of year, but he did it more than once, then went to the hot springs to thaw himself out.
There came a day when Gaia Mbala advised him that his absence would be particularly welcome to the community. He rose before daybreak, in fact he was literally kicked out of her bed, wounding his dignity more than he liked to admit. He started west in total darkness, carrying a small lantern. A single, healthy ember glowed in the metal mesh. He blew it into greater brightness when he needed light for choosing his path, and the rest of the time the small glow it cast was enough to keep him from stumbling.
By the time he reached the river, the sky had started to lighten. He dumped the ember into the river and and rinsed his lantern before stowing it away. Parts of the river were lightly crusted with ice that would melt once the sun rose, but the wide, marshy span was mostly running water. There were no hot springs here to thaw his frozen feet, either. He planned his path carefully, removed his boots, then ran for it. The cold triggered a jolt of energy that pulsed in his eyeballs, in his groin, and everywhere in between.
He restored his boots after drying and cleaning his feet on a patch of grass, then paused. It was… uncomfortable to awaken his warrior’s spirit over a trivial matter then the next moment instruct it to go back to sleep. The time of healing in Gaia’s Rest helped him forget for a little while, but this feeling was the reason he was weary. Bone weary of the warrior’s life. He stood awhile, looking back over the river in contemplation and so chilled he wasn’t sure he could start moving again if he wanted to. Then the sun crested the mountain to the east and the landscape was transformed. The quiet, purple-shadowed landscape gave way to sunbeams so bright they obscured more than they revealed. The thrill in his heart found an outlet in greeting the new day. The promise of warmth made him feel even colder than he had been, but the chill was more energizing than exhausting.
Freed from his stupor, Kitandi turned and began to walk again. The walking and the sunrise began to warm him, his heart slowed, his muscles eased. He was headed to Daaraadhi, the world’s greatest monument to war and death. It was right to experience the battle within himself as part of this journey.
The climb out of the valley was astonishingly wearying. This was no hill or mount, nor even a valley between mountains. He was headed straight up the lowest slopes of the mountain itself now, and the air had already been thin even in lower parts of the valley. Kitandi was a very fit man, and feeling faint was not a manly thing to do, but… he came close. He had never fully believed the story of Daaraadhi but experiencing this now himself, he was starting to understand what had happened here.
Back when this valley had belonged to the North, it was said that ten thousand warriors from the valley had held off a hundred thousand from the South. The army from the South went home with less than half the numbers it started out with. The army for the North had been all but obliterated. One thing was undeniably true about the story - the slope Kitandi was currently climbing was where they had made their last stand. Scanning the valley with a tactician’s eye, that would have been obvious even if he hadn’t known it already. This location gave them every possible advantage except one - it left no possibility of retreat.
The valley had been a place of healing and holiness even then. The ambitious warlord who aimed to open up a route to conquer the North returned home to find that his brethren in the South had turned against him. Moral objections aside, he had taken warriors equipped with metal up against wood and stone and LOST… if he had retreated when he should have. Logical objections aside, with half his army gone, he was now extremely vulnerable to attack. He and his army were obliterated in their turn, and the warlords of the South were left with the question of what to do with Daaraadhi. Intermediaries from the East brokered a deal between the North and the South, and Daaraadhi was awarded to the Gaias - to the Goddess. In the North, the entire valley was still known as Daaraadhi, but everyone else thought of the eastern bank as Gaia’s Rest. Daaraadhi was the western side, the location of the battle and the monument.
Kitandi stood a while on the rise, taking in the view of the valley. Catching his breath though he would never admit it. The cold of early morning was starting to yield to the strength of the sun. It would be a reasonably pleasant day by the time he was ready to walk back to the Rest.
He imagined the battle playing out in front of him. The massive army from the South. The relentless army from the North. Not a hundred thousand people, as the historians claimed. The number was incredible in and of itself, and it was obvious to his practiced eye that the space around him could never accommodate so many. However, he could easily believe it had been 10,000 from the South and 2,000 from the North, and that was still larger than any battle he had seen.
The Northerners had harried the Southern troops for miles. They had stampeded a herd of bison into the vanguard. They had assassinated Southern commanders as they stood in their ox-drawn carts above the marching troops. They had directed the invading army away from the town and sacred spaces and brought them to the battle ground of their own choosing. Then, with the mountains at their back and no way to retreat, they had turned to face the enemy and made their last stand. Here. It was the greatest battle anyone had ever heard of.
When he was done in Gaia’s Rest - either two weeks from now or a year from now - he thought he might head North.
South of the battleground, a massive outcropping sheltered his true destination. He wended his way down from the rise, following a path through the scrub that alternately widened and disappeared, and was probably not a path at all. Three long buildings formed a U-shape at the base of the rise. The cave opening must be near the open end of the U, but he couldn’t see it yet. He walked this way and that, chasing hopeful signs that turned out to be shadows or small depressions. His experiences in the South did him little good here, but the rocky scrublands started to awaken much older training that had been dormant most of his adult life. He gave up chasing mirages and went straight downslope. He was headed for the wash of gravel at the bottom, but before he got there, he encountered another path. A definite path, clear and well-worn… even maintained in spots where haphazard lines of rocks or boulders protected it from erosion on one side or the other.
The entrance to the caves, when he reached it, was unremarkable at first glance. Irregular in shape, taller than he was but giving no hint of the massive spaces that must be contained within. On second glance, he spotted smoothed handholds around the opening. It wasn’t until he arrived directly in front of it that he felt the massive power of the place. It settled over him gently, but the weight of it made him pause to catch his breath. The opening was so easy to overlook, invisible from every angle except the path he had used. Even from this position, the eye was drawn more to a small creek further along the ridge. At this season it was most noticeable as a streak of ice down the face of a bare wall of stone. However, it was the source of the wash that he had spotted before, and clearly formed a raging torrent from time to time. Water and stone, scrub and sunshine, and a cache of darkest night at the end of the path he walked… this place had already reeked of power before human eyes ever touched it.
No one but the Gaias - not even all of the Gaias - was allowed to carry light into the caves. However, there was no rule against exploring as far as outside light would take him. He made his way through the opening carefully, then paused to see what he could see. The first chamber of the cave had been a large space at one time, large enough for the elders of Daaraadhi to gather to discuss important decisions and conduct important ceremonials. Now it was about the size of a sleeping chamber. The remainder held what he had come to see - the dead of the battle of Daaraadhi.
Less than half of the people of Daaraadhi had taken part in fighting the army from the South. Those who weren’t strong enough to fight, and those with children to care for, had climbed to find any one of a hundred thousand hiding places in the surrounding mountains, or they had come here and sheltered in the caves even as the battle proceeded above. Part of the reason the town had survived was because it had been entirely empty before the main battle began. No cookfires, no smells pleasant or foul, no pulse of life to call to the subtle human connection that the people of North and South shared even in their worst hour.
Once the danger was past, these survivors emerged to survey the carnage, and knew that they would never rebuild their community. Some left and never returned. Some started building a fully fortified town in the northern mouth of the valley. A few stayed and helped establish Gaia’s Rest. Before the majority left, they dealt with the dead as best they could. The enemy soldiers were burned where they lay. Those blackened bones had been the most notable feature of Daaraadhi for uncounted years, but were mostly ground to powder now. Their own dead, they carried to the caves under the battlefield and laid to rest in the gathering spot that had anchored their community.
It was both the most awe-inspiring and most sickening thing that Kitandi had ever seen. His past experience with battlefields didn’t protect him from this. It left him that much more vulnerable, as the aura of grief in the place crashed through all the barriers he had built to protect his heart. Scattered tiny bones that had once been part of hands or feet. Remnants of clothing that took longer than flesh to decay. Larger bones, some of them still bound in a crouched position as they had been when they were placed here. A faint mustiness, a little like the smell of death; however, like remembered pain, it lacked the impact it had once had. The stench must have unbearable for years, even decades after the battle.
He was crouched against the wall, in unintentional mimicry of the dead, his arms wrapped around his legs like a frightened child. He put his face down and waited until an emotion similar to panic subsided, aware that that didn’t take nearly as long as it felt like it did. He had gotten through the first wave without running outside. He would remain here until this place was done with him.
When he felt calm, he raised his face again and took in further details. There were bundles of herbs and flowers, left by recent visitors to the cave. A pile of broken pottery most likely had once contained food, or maybe oils or paints - whatever people thought the dead might need. Skulls that had fallen free had been carefully lined up along the bottom of the pile. Even in death, every face was individual. Forehead sloping or rounded, teeth intact or missing, cheekbones below the eyes or curving around them. He spent the most time looking at the skulls, trying to imagine what each person had looked like in life. His tears started to flow, and he put his face down again.
A long time later, Kitandi’s tears subsided enough that he started to notice the discomfort of his situation. He had cried so long and hard that his face and throat were raw. The hard stones he leaned against were prodding him, maybe even leaving bruises. His legs were begging for a change of position. He dried his face one last time and stood straight as a mountain. He saw a bluestone pendant lying on the ground and picked it up. Finding a spot in the pile where the bones formed a sort of nest to hold it, he placed the stone there. Now that he was close, he could see that others had done the same thing. Stone, metal, and wood, probably they were all intended to help lay the ghosts of this place when visitors disturbed them. The bluestone had come from the East. He wondered whether Mbala had brought it here.
There was more pottery lying among the bones and in front of them. He sorted through the pieces, brushing them clean, throwing some more onto the pile of discards. He picked out one, small and flat, and painted with a multi-colored pattern that he liked. It was from the South, probably from Yinxu. Pottery that had been given to the dead could not be used by the living, but it could be reused by the dead. He would return to this place with gifts for the dead, either when he left Gaia’s rest, or many times over the coming year if he stayed.