After the Apocalypse

No, I thought, almost in unison with Ani’sja’s yelling.

“That’s not how it works,” Chieftain ‘Sja told him. “The person has to be able to fight.”

But Chief ‘Uji only smiled. “And she is able to. She took down a boar and a sow herself, she should be able to take down my son.”

“I will kill you!” My father roared, as if only realizing that fact now.

“Ali’uji, we both know that your son is the best fighter these two tribes have seen and that fighting a boar or a sow is very different from fighting a human being.” Our chief said, “Please, Brother ‘Uji, show some mercy. Do not make this young girl fight your son.”

“Rules are rules.” Their chief said, “I am following them, and you cannot refuse it, anyway, without losing your honor and your tribe.”

“Honor. Power.” Our chief said, ponderingly, “What are they compared to the life of innocents. I would gladly give up all of my power to let this young girl go free from this duel. I refu—”

“No,” I said, steely resolve hardening in my heart, knowing that I did not have any other choice, “I will do it.”

“The girl accepts.” The chief said, smiling, as a hundred other voices cried out, but there was only one I was focused on.

“Don’t.” Ani’sja told me, “Do not do it, Asha’rai.”

“No,” I said, “I will. It would be the death of our tribe if I do not.”

“No, it won’t.” Ani’sja told me desperately.

Ani’sja’s mother was pleading with me now. But I would not let this be the death of my tribe. This moment would be auspicious for me, I knew, and if it wasn’t, there still wouldn’t be a succession crisis.

But people kept on arguing with me. I had to silence them.

“I will do it.” I said, almost yelling now. “I will do it.”

But that only made them talk even more.

“SILENCE!” I yelled.

There was silence, for a second, and that second I used to my advantage. “If I do not do it, there will be a succession crisis in our tribe and people will die. It must be this way.”

But there was still talking amongst the tribe, and I yelled, “I have explained my reasons. Now let me die in peace.”

The other chief smiled as if to say something, but he did not. Good; I did not want him accidentally convincing our chief otherwise.

“Asha’rai, if you wanted to die, I could’ve arranged for you to die honorably, not…not like this.” Our Chief ‘Sja said finally.

“I do not want to die, Chief ‘Sja,” I said, “I only want to help the tribe. And if dying helps the tribe, so be it.”

I heard a clamor from the opening in the seating that I was closest to and my father came out, yelling, “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU MONSTERS! NOT MY DAUGHTER!”

“Father, this is my duty; you cannot stop me,” I told him and instantly regretted it for he instantly pointed to me, saying.

“SEE WHAT SHE SAYS? SHE IS INSANE, NOT IN ANY SHAPE TO FIGHT!”

Then, he fell to the ground, sobbing.

My father was carried out of the stadium, sobbing, while the other chief shouted jeers at our tribe, saying that even their women were stronger, and a hundred other things that even if they were true, would not be good for him.

I still hold to the belief that love is stronger than anything, or at least I did, and so I felt that if their parents would not cry for their children, they would not be strong. They would just be numb or made not to cry. Every parent should want to be able to cry for their children, and especially to stop them from being killed, and if their parents did not do so, well, I did not believe that was strength at all.

My father met me after it all and tried to talk me out of it. “Come on, Asha’rai, you are not some hero of old, straight out of the stories about the Golden Age. You can run away from everything, you can make sure that they never catch you, you can make them pick another…”

“No,” I said, “It has to be this way.”

“Fine.” He said. “I will teach you about fighting alongside the chief. I may not be good at killing animals, but unfortunately, I am very good at killing men. Maybe you can surprise him, he won’t be expecting any woman to be that good…”

Ain’sja tried to convince me to not do it, too, but I did not care. I told him that he would have to bear with me and that all his reasons went out the window when faced with the fact that I had to do it.

On the next morning, the chief grudgingly started to train me, along with my father. Both chiefs had met late after the dramatics to give a place where the duel would be held, as our chief had that authority.

I was trained quickly on the Three Forms of Speardueling, which were ‘Yji, ‘Oja, and ‘Sja, all named for the tribes that had invented them. The chief, now wearing clothing, taught me to fight in ‘Sja mostly, as it was our form. My father taught me to fight in ‘Yji, as it was the form of his previous tribe, a tribe in which he had been a great warrior in. I wondered why he had come to this tribe.

“It had to do with a lot of dramatics, trust me,” My father said grimly.

Chief ‘Sja sighed. “Don’t ask him about it anymore, child.”

I nodded and we got back to fighting.

We fought in the forest, which was where we would eventually fight. The chief was apparently most familiar with fighting in the forest, as was my father and most of the fighters in our tribe, and so the forest would give me a slight advantage.

The duel was scheduled for Septembris, on the fifth of that month, so that I had plenty of time to train and so the slaves of the other tribe had plenty of time to build the stands. During that time, the tribe would also move to the place where the duel would begin, somewhere in the land of Europa, near the city of Europia, whose people would come out to see the duel.

During that time, every day, from dawn to dusk, almost without breaks, I would be trained under either my father or the chief.

By night, I heard the men whisper about the curse passing on by my father’s training, but I did not believe one second of it, and neither did my father, for he kept training me.

They also said something else, and that was that my father had betrayed his previous chieftain for this one, but that couldn’t be true, for he wasn’t a treasonous person.

Both of my trainers, while they taught me the forms, they also taught me something they considered an ‘advanced skill,’ but they said that if I was able to do it, I would most certainly surprise my enemy and win.

“The move is switching forms mid-fight.” Chief ‘Sja said, “If you are able to do this enough, any enemy will be surprised by you, especially if they recognize that you are switching forms. And if you do switch forms, I don’t see a good reason why your enemy will not recognize it, after all, it would take me and your father to defeat him. And even if he isn’t surprised, he still has to switch forms to counter you.”

The trick was hard at first, but we all knew that it was necessary, and I kept on working on it, until I was able to surprise my father. That was the first time that I saw him smile in months as it was Augustus, the month before the duel.

When we arrived in Europa, the temperature was cold, or at least colder than Asoa, and almost immediately, I saw all different sorts of mutated animals, and we had to take a break from my training as we were constantly fighting off those animals. Once, I wondered to my father why the chief had even picked this place. He told me that the reason was simple: more people lived in Europa permanently, as they had to, with the mutant animals and all, and building a city with fortifications was the only way to keep them out.

But the training continued, even if it was at a slower rate. It appeared that the chief and my father had planned on this, since I was already trained in most of what they could give me in this short time; they said it themselves.

Over all of these months, my relationship with Ani’sja was almost put on hold, but one night, he came into my small hut, and he sighed.

“I have been cruel to you, Asha’rai,” he said.

“No, you haven’t.” I said, “It’s because you love me that you tried to stop me.”

“No,” He said, “It’s not that. It’s that I’ve been absent at this time when I should be with you the most. I should not be absent at this time. You must have the strength to take on the world in this time if you are going to win this…this terrible fight that you have you put yourself in for this tribe. For my absence, I am truly sorry.”

“No,” I said, “It’s okay. I could understand it myself…if someone I loved was going to die, I might want to put as much distance between them and me as I could. I wouldn’t want to feel for them. It would only add to my misery.”

“But this time, you have a chance to win, a chance that no one has ever had. All of my cousins…they were…they were killed by him in fights like this. But you have something that they, unfortunately, did not have. You have his expectations, and he is expecting that, while trained a little, you will present no difficulty. And so I have no excuse.” He told me.

It was too much for him to bear, so I took him in my arms and kissed him, crying while I did so. “Oh, Ani’sja, do you really believe that I could…I could win.” I said when we stopped kissing.

He nodded. “My father certainly thinks so, and he knows a winner when he sees one. In fact, he almost won against the chief himself.”

A thought occurred to me. “What if this is how all of the tribes have been dying? What if…what if their chief implies that they can win, but they really can’t, giving them false hope which…which makes them overconfident…”

I had heard about multiple tribes mysteriously disappearing from the face of the world, but I hadn’t connected the dots until now.

“Thereby ensuring that the son will win?” He asked. “It could be possible, but I have never heard of a tribe challenging a woman for Deuse Fight,” (that was what they were called), “Unless they thought that she was really good and the fight would not just be a murdering of some poor woman. No tribesman likes that; most of us think that it is dishonorable to murder someone who cannot stand up to you and make a good fight of it. Come to think of it, I still wonder why the other chief picked you.”

“Maybe he thought that he wanted to prove the old phrase wrong and in so doing, humiliate our tribe,” I told him.

“Huh.” He said. “Still doesn’t really make too much sense. He could’ve just used a male to make that example.”

“Maybe he fears our warriors, then, and believes in that old phrase,” I said.

“Hmm.” He said. “Could be.”

At that moment, a messenger found us and told Ani’sja something in his ear. Ani’sja kissed me on the forehead and left, saying goodbye.

It all mounted eventually, all my training, all my life, everything, to the one day. It was the day of the duel. On the night before, my father sat by my bed and told me a story, a story about an ancient prophecy about the tribe, a prophecy that could give me hope for the future, he hoped.

“One day,” he said, “There will come a time when the tribes need to be unified to face a singular threat, the threat of something coming that is much more advanced than them. At first they will resist, but they will not resist when the person who is called the ‘man of the tribes’ comes. He will convince them in both blood and peace that they must unify, that unification is the only way. Some people say that it will be the villages, some people say that it will be creatures from above, some people say many things. I think that it will be someone in this tribe. The stars are aligning, as some will say, and I think that it is possible that the tribes could be unified soon by a prophet, or someone of that magnitude.”

“Father,” I said, sadly, for I knew that my death could be at hand, “Tell me a story.”

“No,” He said, “I will do better. I will sing to you the Song of the Sacred, the song which gives all heroes hope even in the darkest of times.”

I frowned. “What is it about?” I asked.

“It’s about the heroes of old who fought for all that is sacred, all that they valued, even when the evil seemed to be taking the high ground.” He told me. “It is a song of the people that shaped our world.”

“Then sing it to me,” I told him and he sang it.

It was a great song, but long, telling the story of heroes and villains lost. The song kept on going, a song that was not just a song, but a heroic ballad. It told of heroes going up against the worst odds and winning. My favorite, one about a hero who did not fear death who sacrificed himself for good after killing many enemies, whose first heroic act was to win a duel against the cruelest chief ever to live, a chief who had raised an empire.

“Every generation, one more hero is added to this epic ballad by a council of the Shantus.” He said. “Maybe you’ll be the next one, though I will not lie to you, the chances are slim.”

I nodded. Afterwards, I lay in bed, awake and thinking what the next day would bring me, what kind of things that I would do, and how I would possibly slay the son of the other chief, even if I did have the element of surprise on my side.