Chapter 105: Dagor's Past!

Su had not managed to hear Wang Chen explain the whole story, but he could still be certain of one thing: Dago wanted him dead.

Though he did not yet know why, he understood enough to know that Dago was an enemy, not a friend.

So Su decided to leave Dago at the summit for the time being and go back down the mountain alone. After reporting the matter to the tribe, his people would naturally judge Dago themselves.

As for questioning Dago on his own and uncovering his motives, Su had no such thought at all.

In the heart of this twelve-year-old boy, there lingered a subconscious resistance to conflict with others.

Before leaving, Su did not know how long it would be before he could return, and he had to give Dago some food and water so that he would not starve or die of thirst.

So Su took food and drink from his leather pouch, tied it to his waist, and climbed the rock handhold with both hands.

After rousing the unconscious Dago, Su explained his intentions and was about to feed him.

Instead, Dago bit hard into Su's palm and cursed him savagely, saying he did not need his hypocritical help.

Stung by the pain, Su fell from the rock handhold. Looking at the blood gushing from his palm, he could not help feeling deeply wronged, and demanded to know why Dago was so heartless and ungrateful.

And it was precisely that question that plunged Su into a deep loathing of himself.

It also peeled back the veil of mystery surrounding the Wind-Hunting Clan for Wang Chen.

...

At first, the Wind-Hunting Clan was not a single tribe, but dozens of tribes large and small, all worshiping Wind Hunting and living by nomadic fishing and hunting.

Through years of warfare, all those tribes were eventually merged into one, forming the Wind-Hunting Clan as it existed now.

By absorbing the populations of dozens of tribes, the clan expanded to unprecedented size. Its chief adopted a ranked naming system to divide and rule the people.

The standard of this system was simple: blood ties. Those who had led wars and conquered others, the members of that tribe were honored with the most prestigious single-syllable names.

These people could bear single-syllable names, possess their own grazing lands and property, hold the authority over sacrifices, do no labor, and the clan chiefs were all chosen from among them.

For example, Su, his uncle Gang, and even his grandfather...

Then came the double-syllable names.

These people could bear two-syllable names. They were permitted a limited amount of grazing land and property. In wartime, each household had to furnish one warrior; if that warrior died in battle, the family would receive a sheep or a stretch of pasture as compensation.

For example, Yabo, Dago...

The best among them could at most become a chief's attendant.

After that came the three-syllable names.

They could not own grazing land of their own, and could only attach themselves to those of the two higher ranks, eking out a living on their pastures.

Even in peacetime, those of the upper ranks could conscript them to fight, and no compensation need be paid to their families. It was enough merely to pay indemnity to the owner of the pasture from which the conscript had been taken.

And so it went, rights being stripped away again and again, until after the five-syllable names came the untouchables.

They wandered beyond the tribe, with no means of livelihood, surviving by picking at bones left behind by the upper ranks, and serving as the first warning before the grassland wolf packs came raiding.

The rigid hierarchy disciplined every member of the Wind-Hunting Clan, leaving almost no movement between the levels for centuries.

A child of the Wind-Hunting Clan was doomed from birth to his future; no matter how hard he tried, a double-syllable name could never become a single-syllable name.

Did Su know such things? Of course he did.

From childhood, his father and brothers had told him that he bore the noble single-syllable name, that he must mind every word and deed, and that he must live up to the honor of the nobility.

He had always believed this was only natural. In his mind, perhaps he would enjoy certain privileges, but those came with obligations as well.

For example, he must be wise enough to lead his people through the occasional cruel winters of the steppe.

Or brave enough to lead his people in hunting the great wind and repelling foreign enemies.

These were the duties he was meant to shoulder, just as the lower ranks were bound to labor diligently to support him. It was all the same: each had his own duty.

Su had always told himself this.

Until Dago roared at him and, in doing so, revealed the reason he wanted Su dead. After that, Su could no longer persuade himself in the same way.

As a double-syllable name, Dago had fallen in love with a girl of the four-syllable names from the neighboring pasture.

As a four-syllable name, that girl had been born to the fate of a slave; nothing in her life was ever her own to decide.

She was like merchandise, bought and sold at will by the household that owned her.

Until Dago appeared in her life.

He respected her. He would not treat her like livestock, and he would not force her to do anything she did not wish to do.

As time passed, the girl came to understand Dago's feelings, and she too fell for this handsome, gentle young man. Yet constrained by her status, she could only keep her love hidden, answering him with a buried and profound affection.

When she pastured the grazing lands, she would look at Dago with tender eyes. When mending his clothes, she would embroider a heart-herb on the inside lining, a sign of yearning. When Dago came down with a chill from the wind, she would go into the mountains to find herbs for him, and only secretly leave them at his door at night.

She hoped this secret love could go on forever, until she was bestowed upon another slave of the same four-syllable rank as a reward by her owners.

Yet she did not know that Dago intended to save her from such a life, and that he had no intention of doing as his father and brothers had done—of taking a girl of the lower ranks as a plaything.

Instead, he meant to truly and forever rescue her, and spend the rest of his life growing old beside her.

Dago planned to elope with the girl on a night when the moon was veiled by clouds, and flee to the human world.

A moon-covered night was the darkest time on the steppe; even the moon itself would be sealed behind thick black clouds. It was the best moment for escape.

Dago packed away all his valuables and hid them at the edge of the mountains, waiting only for the girl to meet him there.

He had prepared an old horse, one that could carry them safely off the steppe under the obscuring cover of that moon-hidden night.

But he waited until the sky began to pale and still saw no sign of the girl.

His heart was torn with sorrow and dread. The sorrow came from wondering whether he had misread her actions, whether she had never truly loved him, or perhaps had loved him but not enough to risk eloping.

The dread came from fearing that she had indeed been willing to flee with him, but something had happened on the way. After all, it was a night without moonlight—had she been attacked by a lone wolf?

With a hundred terrifying possibilities flashing through his mind, Dago hurried back the way he had come.

He kept watch on all sides, afraid of missing the girl if she needed help.

Yet all the way back to the bounds of his own pasture, he still saw nothing of her.

Then, suddenly, from a ramshackle low tent on the neighboring pasture, there came the cries of a woman.

Dago's heart tightened, and he hurried over.

The closer he came, the clearer the woman's cries became, and the heavier Dago's heart grew.

With one motion, he flung back the felt flap and thrust his torch forward, revealing everything inside the low tent before his eyes.