What The Fireleaves Danced

"There are those who live by blade and heart. These are the ones who burn twice as bright, yet live half as long."

-Datu Suku, 503th Year of the Masked Moon

The sound of a crashing tree knocked Dimalanta from the realm of sleep and over to that twilight realm between dream and wakefulness. The sound of twigs and branches and grasses breaking, in conjunction with a quick rush of wind and the sound of an eagle's proud call, fully knocked him over the edge of twilit dreams and into the waking world.

It is only after waking up do you realize if you've dreamt or not, and Dimalanta realized he hadn't. So, when he saw the pale-skinned, silver-haired humanoid bounding out from the forest behind him and into the burnt down village-effigy he'd offered to whatever god that would accept, he knew he wasn't dreaming.

The blue eyes, the sharp ears -- the thing that erupted out of the foliage of the forest and into the center of the village was, by all the stories, a tamawo.

He blinked again, and rubbed his eyes. When he saw that the seven-foot-tall, indigo-eyed creature was still there, now no longer running and rather looking about the vast burnt village, he knew that this was real.

Dimalanta managed to hide the abject fear that danced underneath his gambling face. Cold sweat trickled down the side of his face. He swallowed and licked his lips. Deciding that staying in that spot would be dangerous, the maharlika grabbed his equipment and vaulted over the roots of the tree h'd slept against. He managed to find a spot far enough from the village, yet near enough still to spy on the tamawo.

He watched the tamawo walk about the village -- each step a deliberate movement. He saw the creature go inside the burnt and charred huts, presumably perusing the destruction. Before long, the spindly humanoid stepped out of the houses, and approached the torogan in the middle of it all – the Datu's house.

There was nothing there, he knew. They'd pillaged all of it.

And before long, the tamawo knew as well.

He stepped out of the concrete house, having to bow down to fit through the small doorway. He moved out into the space in front of the Datu's house, turned, and then stared.

A young, brown-skinned girl with a sleek, black, spotted civet quickly running at her heels, emerged from the forestry and ran into one of the houses that hadn't been completely burnt over.

Eerily, a quiet silence shushed the zenithian Sun, and everything seemed to bow in reverence for the tragedy that had happened to Datu Sariman's Barangay.

Dimalanta watched on.

Before long, the girl came out of the house, lugging a kampilan with her, and approached the tamawo. Dimalanta squinted as they began to make rounds around the houses, burying each of the charred corpses still left over. The maharlika would hide behind the t.h.i.g.h-high roots of the tree he hid behind every time it seemed they would look in his direction.

Eventually, they completed the task for the entire barangay. Dima watched as the girl grabbed a narrawood bow – how could they have missed that? – and the tamawo spun a new taut bowstring with it, seemingly plucking silk from a spider's web, and then weaving it into a taut bowstring with a flourish of a hand.

Dimalanta grit his teeth.

And then the tamawo paused, turning and then staring – his deep, dark blue eyes piercing – right exactly at the direction of Dimalanta.

Dimalanta vanished into the cover of the roots, grabbing his spear and his leather sack., pressing against it for a few moments. Then, realizing that staying there would be the stupidest thing he could do, he crawled away from the root, away from the vision of the tamawo.

"Apung Okot, protect me, and guide me, so that the forest may be my friend." He prayed to the Lord of the Forests as he vanished into the shrubbery.

He had gotten far enough when he realized he was deep into the forest, a lot of the light from the sun only fell onto the detritus-ridden floor in large specks; he could hear the rushing of the Bokosan River.

Deciding that he should be safe enough, he approached the sound of the river, and broke out of the forestry. Before him, the Bokosan, rushing and the color of midnight green. Dima decided that it would be safe for him here, since the tamawo and the girl would be heading the other way. Presumably to another barangay farther inland.

Pinagsama, maybe? That's where they all go.

He knew all about the riverpath of the Bokosan, and they'd raided almost every barangay that was nestled beside it, having used powerful sorcery from their own katalonan to power them upstream.

Right before Barangay Sulaiman was Datu Daranay's Barangay. There were no other barangays after this--the river continued on until it opened up into the Meriganian Sea, where his slave king Lakan Gaputan sat on his thalassocratic throne.

Dimalanta slung off his shield and arquebus, laying it down on the river bank. He pulled the plate mail and the woven rattan shirt underneath over his head and laid it down beside his weapons. He unclasped the hooks on his steel boots, and removed the woven rattan leggings that he wore, which provided him with complete protection.

Now, utterly n.a.k.e.d, he walked into the river to cleanse himself. Cold wrapped around his t.h.i.g.hs and in between his toes, the white brine cascading against his hard, dark c.h.e.s.t, which was firm like the trunk of a narra tree. He dipped his head into the water, and then pulled it out to rinse his hair. He had cut it the year before, but now it had grown once again, under the light of the moon, reaching his shoulders in length. .

As he showered, he pondered about the identity of the girl that had emerged out of the forest. It did not take him long to come to the conclusion that she was the final survivor of Datu Sariman's village -- the barrier between Dimalanta's chains to Gaputan and his freedom.

She was the one who had to die.

But if she had a tamawo with her, that job had entirely become more complicated. Another weaving thread looping around their fates. What a pain. Why can't things be as simple as a thrust of a spear?

In the water, standing tall, as the sun bore down and illuminated him, cleansing him and blessing the water, the maharlika known as Dimalanta prayed to the anito, the ancestral spirits. He prayed that they would give him strength to finish this task – this convoluted, final task – that he may earn his freedom, and that he may return home to his children, to his beloved wife. To his family. To his heaven.

* * *

Clasping back on the final portion of his boot, Dimalanta walked on ahead, into the forest once again. He gambled another look at the burned down village, to see if the tamawo and the girl were still there.

They were not.

He moved out of the umbral foliage of the trees and into the rescinding Sun, into the holy grounds that had become the barangay -- the barangay that had become a burnt sacrificial offering. He wandered amongst its ruins, noting the shattered port -- of which the wooden debris had been carried away by the rushing river -- and the charred rice paddies. He saw the mounds indicating the buried bodies of the dead. He knew there would be nothing to find here, anymore. Anything left would've been seen by the tamawo, after all.

He walked past the concrete abode wherein the Datu slept. Underneath the torogan was a hole that led to an underground room, supported by concrete structures. He realized that this was where the daughter of the Datu -- the binokot or princess -- rested and slept and studied and trained and was taught, away from the sun, keeping her skin immaculate and intact. This was where she lived.

Dimalanta saw the footsteps and the bootprints of the tamawo and the girl. He followed it north, eventually ending in the spot where the tamawo had made a bowstring out of web. The prints continued on into the foliage. This was more or less the direction of Pinagsama, he knew.

He shrugged. He knew the riverpaths more than he knew the inlands. He was trained enough to dog down their steps.

If I were to get lost, he thought, the anito of my past families will surely lead me to the correct path.

And so, Dimalanta – with another silent prayer to the anito and another supplication to Apung Okot – stepped past a fallen branch and into the forest.