Chapter 13 – We Shall Not Return to Thee Dishonored
!
Borz stood alone in the piercing chill of the summit. The air he drew into his lungs was no longer mere oxygen; it was the suffocating cry of a homeland in agony. As he looked down from the jagged heights, his heartbeat slowed, replaced by a cold, crystalline resolve.
The invading army snaked through the valley below, a river of polished steel and flickering torches that felt like a dagger thrust into the emerald heart of the land. This was no nightmare. This was the grim, metallic reality of foreign boots treading upon the throat of the sacred Wainakh soil. From the direction of his own village, columns of black smoke rose like funeral veils, the scent of soot riding the wind to meet him. In that moment, the shattering truth took hold:
His home was under occupation.
The mountains he had always believed to be untouchable were now a sanctuary turned prison, surrounded by the filth of an invading horde. Borz felt the lingering metallic tang of the Kindjal against his tongue once more. He realized then that his ascent of the Baw had been more than a trial of strength; it was a ritual of awakening. The mountain had summoned him to its peak because the valley no longer belonged to him.
He looked at the silver hilt of the Kindjal in his hand. This steel was no longer just a tool for survival; it was a silent, blood-bound oath against the rhythmic thud of the invaders' drums. Borz, staring down at the hundreds of torches and the sea of iron, was no longer the trembling youth who had fled into the shadows. He was a **Laman**—the very spirit of the peaks breathed through him.
"This is mine," Borz whispered. His voice was swallowed by the gale, yet it felt etched into the ancient memory of the stone. "This is ours."
The glint of armor below did not signal the invaders' strength; it marked Borz's targets. The invading army believed they held the valley, believed they had conquered the silence. They had no inkling that above the clouds, hidden among the crags, a pair of wolf-like eyes was counting their every breath. The occupation had not frozen the blood in Borz's veins; it had turned it into a river of molten lava.
His fatherland (Daymokh) was being trampled, and he would descend from the summit like a storm to cleanse it. He was alone, but he carried the weight of ten thousand years of defiance.
...
The smoky depths of the cavern hung in a heavy silence as Borz descended from the suffocating vertical corridor of the Baw. In his lungs, he still carried the sharp mountain air from the summit; in his mind, he bore the silhouette of that towering Abrek he had seen under the sun—a monument of majesty hewn from shadow and light.
However, the moment he reached the floor and stepped into the gloomy hall, Borz froze in his tracks. His eyes widened in disbelief; there was no trace of the titan from above. Before him stood the same **old pagan**, his skin a map of deep canyons, his frame hunched over the cauldron. Borz could not comprehend the chasm between the impossible grandeur he had just witnessed on the heights and the withered old man waiting below. As his heart hammered against his ribs from the shock of this supernatural transformation, the Elder spoke without even lifting his head, his voice vibrating through the stone walls.
His voice was as heavy and resonant as the grinding of a thousand-year-old rock.
"Do not be startled, Borz," the Elder said, piercing through the smoke with a gaze that searched Borz's soul. "And never forget; for us, the Nakh, time is not the flow of a river, but the weight of a stone."
As he continued to stir the cauldron with his iron rod, he struck the unshakeable Nakh Proverb into Borz's mind like a seal:
We are young enough to fight, and old enough to die."
These words froze Borz's astonishment, replacing it with a savage gravity. This was not merely a statement of age; it was the relentless paradox etched into the soul of this land's people: To be wise and weary enough to return to the earth, yet young and fierce enough to die protecting it.
The old man, without breaking his stooped posture by the hearth, gestured toward the crudely hewn wooden desk. Leather-bound books shimmered under the flickering candlelight, each grain of their ancient dust harboring a dormant history. The Elder did not even touch them; he simply whispered:
"Go there, Borz. Choose a book from that desk and read a passage at random. See what your soul wishes you to read."
With hesitant and curious steps, Borz approached the desk. His fingers traced the covers of the books that had waited in silence for centuries. While the agony of his bleeding dog in the ruins weighed heavy in his chest, touching the knowledge within this ancient dust felt like an act of impossible audacity. Finally, he chose a volume whose leather binding felt cold against his palm. The pages parted with a heavy rustle. Focusing on the sharp ink stains in the center of the page, Borz released the harsh consonants of that primordial tongue into the void of the cavern:
**"Bos arja va latta molhanah lelharah, Theshan siy dohkina, tho latta dorzur dats."**
Borz fell silent. The weight of what he had read left a metallic taste on his tongue, but the meaning remained hidden in the dark corners of his mind. He sensed that the Elder, without moving from the cauldron or even looking at the page, knew exactly what he had read. In a voice carrying the weight of a final testament, the Elder translated:
"It says, Borz: **'Even if the black earth fills with gunpowder, we will not sell our faith and honor to return to that earth!'**"
The Elder lifted a steaming bowl from the cauldron. "This is no poem," he said, his voice turning into a low rumble from beneath the earth. "This is honor. Now, go! That dog is the final fortress of your loyalty in this world. If you leave him there to the mercy of a world smelling of gunpowder, you shall never return to that black earth as its son."
Borz gripped the bowl like a sacred mandate. He lunged toward the exit of the cave, toward the ashen sky and the freezing silence. As his steps hit the frozen ground of the ruins, he felt the ache of his "old enough to die" side. But for the sake of the ancient medicine in his hand and his friend gasping for breath in the rubble, he had to remain "young enough to fight."
When he reached the ruins, he caught the sharp, cold scent of death lingering on the stones. The dog lay motionless in the shadow of a crumbled wall. Borz dropped to his knees and pressed the bowl to the dog's mouth. As the wind whistled through the gaps in the ruins, it seemed to repeat the verse he had just read in an eternal loop:
Even if the black earth fills with gunpowder... We are young enough to fight, and old enough to die...
...
As the dog began to drink deeply from the vessel, gulping down the ancient medicine prepared by the old pagan, the trembling in Borz's hands finally ceased. With every swallow, he felt the steaming, resinous liquid tearing the poison from his friend's veins. But it wasn't just the bowl that was emptying; the fog of uncertainty in Borz's mind was being replaced by a sharp, cold clarity.
He was no longer a mere orphan struggling to survive. By the time he had closed that ancient book in the cavern and witnessed the reflection of the **Abrek** in the Elder's eyes, the void in his soul had been filled with a **purpose**. The sage's testament, the cold steel of the Kindjal, and the amber light returning to the dog's eyes—they all pointed toward a single destiny.
The invader army in the valley remained oblivious to the catastrophe beginning to loom over them. Borz now had a plan; a strategy woven with the patience of stone, sharpened by the instinct of a wolf, and sealed with the blood of his ancestors.
The final verse he had read in the cave now transformed into a solemn vow against the ruined walls. Borz stood up, turning his face toward the scent of gunpowder rising from below. As darkness fell, he whispered into the wild silence of the mountains:
"You cannot change the flow of time, but you are destined to be crushed under the weight of a stone."
Borz's descent into the valley would not be a mere raid; it would be a thousand-year awakening.
"Silence is the herald of the greatest storm. What is the hidden plan Borz has devised to infiltrate the valley? Will this shadow rising from the ruins become the invaders' living nightmare?"
...
If you are curious about Borz's justice and the secrets behind his mysterious plan, don't forget to add the story to your **COLLECTION** and share your thoughts in the comments! Every **Power Stone** you drop will hasten Borz's descent into the valley.