And then Carly spoke, her tone soft, as if not to give power to the harrowing idea, “Ime,” she said in Rieevan, then paused and used the common term for the benefit of the others: “Winter. I wonder where the non-occupying forces of the Ka’ull will spend it?”
The small group was quiet before Monteray spoke. “We will take that as it comes. Until then a plan is in place. You,” he said, looking at Wing, Nien, and Carly, “me, and SiQQiy. It is a good start.”
The day after their meeting with SiQQiy and Monteray, Monteray looked up to see Nien coming in through the Mietan doors.
For the first couple of days, he played alone with one of Monteray’s swords, simply feeling it, moving it through the air as Monteray and Wing worked together in their own practice.
With one eye, Monteray watched Nien anxiously: Would he find it again? Would it still be there?
By the third day there was no doubt that it was. Nien was strong, centered. There was neither fear nor excitement in his eyes. His strikes were accurate, clean, efficient.
Placing the brothers to spar together, Monteray noticed that Wing’s tension and fatigue eased when he practiced with his brother. Wing was moving the sword as he never had with Monteray himself: blocking, striking, staying relaxed, his breathing deep and controlled.
Between training sessions, the three set to projects of war — Monteray to an endeavor he kept from the brothers; the brothers to the collection and construction of heavy leather body armour set with small, flat pieces of metal, knives, and short blades.
Most nights, Wing would return to the cabin to see Nien working, not on the small carving he usually found him musing over, but with awl in hand and drape of leather over knee. There were trips into town to trade for materials, and the smithery burning at all and strange hours, the brothers and Monteray taking turns, all of them picking up a permanent reek of smoke and sweat that even trips to the river and house bath could not extinguish.
And through it all they continued their physical training.
As much as Monteray loved working with the brothers, he enjoyed watching them more. There was poetry in their interplay, grace in every move. Whether sparring free-hand or with weapons, there was not a moment Monteray could remember being more moved by any act, symphony, or opera in the finest halls of Quieness than he was watching the Cawutt brothers as they trained beneath the shining dome of the Mietan.
Chapter 77
Saviour in Despair
T he two young men crouched together behind a large tree. They thought they’d heard something move in the woods behind them.
“I can’t take much more of this, Jhock,” Pree K said quietly.
Jhock glanced at his friend, and their leader now that all of the adults had either died or were too sick to manage. He knew Pree K was tired. They all were, but Pree K more than rest, carrying the burden of their survival. He’d seen nearly every emotion play across Pree K’s face in the past turns, but rarely such despair. Even before the elders and adults had died, though, Pree K had really been their leader. Jhock remembered how, that first horrible night, Pree K had tried to convince them to go to Legran. He told them he knew the way. He confessed that he’d visited Master Monteray with his father on a few occasions. But the elders would have none of it. So Pree K had gotten them out of Rieeve and into the safety of the caves.
As time in the caves had worn on, the adults had deferred to Pree K in every matter — except leaving the caves. And even now that nearly all the adults had died, Pree K managed to keep it together, never letting those still alive in the bowels of the mountain see any doubt, any hopelessness; but Jhock heard it in his voice today.
“What else can we do?” Jhock asked.
“I don’t know,” Pree K said with a deep and weary sigh. “But we can’t stay in the caves forever.”
“They won’t leave. Not as long as Grek’s alive.”
“I know.”
Jhock hated that he even had the thought, but there were times, like now, he wished the Council Spokesman would die. Then they could leave, go somewhere — anywhere! Anywhere would be better than the caves.
“We’ve already held on longer than I ever thought we could,” Jhock said.
In his imagination, Jhock tried to find some glimmer of the light he maintained had to be at the end of this dreadful tunnel — for there would come an end to the interminable days of darkness and hiding and cold and hunger.
Nothing in life remained forever.
So, maybe, he thought, the only question that really matters is: Will any of us leave the caves alive? Or, like the adults, will the rest of us die there as well?
“Let’s check the southing trap,” Jhock said, hoping to redirect the gloom of his thoughts to tasks. “There’s bound to be something in there after that last storm.”
Pree K nodded and they moved off into the woods.
The southing trap lay at the top edge of a long scree field. There was shelter beneath the giant trees, and creatures would often make for those holes during heavy storms.
For the first time in five days, there was food in the trap. Problem was, the food was still alive.
Pree K and Jhock looked it over from a safe distance. The creature in the trap was not of great size, but it was fierce. Gejn’dy-a bore thick shaggy coats, sharp carnivore teeth, and claws as long as a man’s hand on their front feet.
Jhock watched Pree K’s hand slip to the smooth sword-hilt at his side.
Pree K carried his father’s sword at all times — he’d taken it from the house on that last night before setting his magnificent home to flame — so there would be a fair length of blade between Pree K and the creature, but that didn’t mean either of them was looking forward to the confrontation.
“I’ll do the distracting, you do the slaying,” Jhock said. “Uh, make it quick.”
The two young men understood one another and began to make their way toward the creature, which was now staring defiantly up at them with deep black eyes.
Skirting the tree, Jhock came round behind the gejn’dy-a and tossed a rock at it. It scrambled about, facing him, and snarling.
Jhock glanced up; Pree K drew in. Jhock clapped his hands, assuring the animal’s attention. The gejn’dy-a growled for a moment, then lunged.
The snare broke.
In a flash, the animal was on Jhock. Jhock screamed. Pree K struck. The sword landed between the animal’s shoulder blades, and though the once-perfect blade was now nicked and scarred, it still managed to sever the thick hide and bone of the animal right down to its front legs.
In the scuffle Jhock had lost his footing in the loose rock of the scree field. He slid a fair distance before coming to a stop.
Above him, he heard Pree K gasp and swear as he came down the side of the scree field.
Precariously, Jhock raised his head. Pree K had stopped across from him and plunged his sword into the ground, lodging it between rock and root. Pulling a thin length of rope from one of their hunting duffels, Pree K tied it around the hilt before setting out across the shifting surface of rock.
Aching to try and meet him, Jhock forced himself to remain inert knowing that any movement could send the scree sliding away beneath him again.
“How are you?” Pree K asked, his words whispered as if the sound itself might cause the rocks to slide.
“Fine, so far,” Jhock answered. They still had to get back to solid ground.
Slowly, Pree K reached out a hand. Just as slowly, Jhock reached out and took it. For a moment the scree held, but as Jhock tried to rise to his knees, it began to move again.
Pree K’s hand clenched the rope looped around wrist and fist, and held on as his own feet slid away beneath him.
In a life-saving chain — hand to hand, hand to rope, and rope to sword — the line held. At its end, Pree K and Jhock came to a halting stop.
Crawling up the rope, the boys made their way to the edge of the field and the blessed safety of dirt, tree, and soil.
&n
bsp; Pree K rolled over onto his back, breathing heavily. Jhock sat beside him, trembling, and holding his left arm with his right hand. When Pree K sat up and looked at him, Jhock saw the fall of despair in Pree K’s eyes. His heart plummeted.
They had all tried very hard to stay injury-free for the damp and dark of the caves was a hard place in which to heal, and they all had little enough strength for the daily task of survival.
Moving over to him, Pree K separated Jhock’s jacket and shirt. Jhock saw that there was a deep gash in his shoulder, starting near the front and reaching around to his back. And just above his wrist, puncture marks from the gejn’dy-a’s bite.
“Can you move your arm? Is it broken?” Pree K asked, glancing as he did — as they continually did — into the trees, hoping all the commotion had not attracted attention that could get them and what remained of their people discovered and killed.
Jhock tried to move his arm and succeeded, but with great pain. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“One of the rocks cut you pretty deep,” Pree K said, checking his back.
Moving back around in front of him, Jhock saw Pree K’s expression when he saw the gejn’dy-a’s bite in his arm.
“We’ll need to bandage it until we can get back,” Pree K quickly said, trying to sound encouraging. “It should be fine.”
Jhock nodded, forcing a stoicism he only wished he felt.
Pree K ripped away a portion of his own shirt — the last one, Jhock knew, that he had — and wrapped Jhock’s shoulder, circling it around his chest in a brief, makeshift covering for the wound.
Back on their feet, the two climbed back up the slope and packed up the gejn’dy-a for the trip back to the caves.
Following along behind Pree K, Jhock passed over the root and vine-choked ground, ignoring the pain in his arm and back as he concentrated on the moving feet of Pree K, knowing that the hurts he’d just sustained may, finally, be something Pree K could not guide him out of, nor save him from.
Chapter 78
Presence of the Ancients
M onteray sat in a tall chair at one end of the Mietan. His training with the Cawutt brothers had come to an end. Soon the Plan would be set in motion. Soon the brothers would be returning to Rieeve.
At the center of the Mietan, Wing and Nien stood facing one another. Nearly thirty steps above them the large stained glass threw refracted sunlight into savory rays of colour across the great hall’s floor.
Each brother’s hand held a sword: broad steel blades, double-edged and beaten to perfection by Monteray himself. The tangs were wrapped in leather, gilded to the pommel and collar with engraved, folded metal. Three steps long and perfectly balanced, they had turned out to be the finest blades Monteray had ever made.
“Your training is over,” Monteray said, the hall amplifying the depth of his voice. “I’ve made quite a few blades in my life; if these two are the last I’ll be satisfied.”
Well, that explains his late arrivals and early departures from meals of late, the brothers thought, imagining Monteray in the smithery, labouring over the weapons they now held in their hands.
All that effort for them. Indeed, everything Monteray had done since they’d arrived had been for them.
“In returning to Rieeve you are taking the first step in what may be a long war to reclaim our continent,” Monteray said. “We move upon our world, sometimes like kings, sometimes like beasts, but we are all brothers. The exchange of life should, perhaps, be a matter left alone to a god; nevertheless, here it is before us.” He looked them over. “Trust yourselves. Trust each other. What we build here will unveil our new world.” Monteray’s face was solemn as, with a short raise of his hands, he said, “Begin.”
The brothers’ eyes left Monteray and came to rest on one other. Formally, they cut and raised their swords. As the honed edges of each broad-steel blade touched, a ray caught fire between them. The fire rushed the blades, flashed at the apex, then leapt to a point of starlight just beneath the Mietan dome.
Monteray’s lips parted. He’d seen many things in his life and travels — especially among the more mystical races of their continent, the Majg and the Criyeans — that most would count as magic, but Monteray knew to be an inherent part of the energy of life. Some of that same magic was being worked here, now, between the brothers as Monteray’s eyes shot up and caught only a glimpse of the star point before it burst with a crack of lightning, flooding the room in a brilliant cascade of light. From there, the energy polarized and leaped from the walls in two opposing currents. One grounded in Wing, the other in Nien, passing along the invisible networks in the fabric of their flesh before diving into the depths of the planet on an errand Monteray did not immediately comprehend.
The conflict began as Wing and Nien parted slowly, both trying to steady their quaking hands as sinew, nerve, and bone streamed residual fire from the current’s charge. Mirror images, they each cross-stepped to their left, beginning to draw a slow circle around the room.
From his chair upon the raised platform at the Mietan’s northing corner, Monteray was taken by how alike they were not only in appearance but also in nature, the way they moved, held their bodies and swords. Flint and spark, sun and moons, they were the two necessary halves of the fire that burned through the Mietan and the tidal pull that Monteray felt might have to the power to bring the walls in upon them.
Gliding ‘round each other like birds of prey, the circle Wing and Nien traced across the floor drew in on itself.
As the circle closed to completion, both drew up on their right — and swung.
Their connecting swords went off like a detonation. The boom pulled back on the energy that had dived into the depths causing it to re-emerge in a pulse of brilliant blue light. The light broke like a wave, releasing a cacophony of strange voices.
The wave pressed Monteray up against the back of his chair even as it entered the brothers along the same electrically charged paths through which it had gone to ground.
And in that moment, Monteray understood why it was the brothers were the key to the advancement of their world. They were the tension, the tide and moons, Wing the spiritual counterpoint, Nien the physical. What Wing would do in the ethereal realms was the beginning, the opening, the softening of the rigid consciousness of the past. Nien would be the one to carry that change forward into the temporal. With certainty, Monteray understood that this was what Commander Lant had seen as well. Why he’d said the Cawutt brothers were essential to the Plan. It wasn’t the plan on parchment that mattered. That was merely a matter of strategy and organization. Anyone with combat or military training could have come up with such a plan. No, what Commander Lant had known was the deeper matter, what lay beneath the movement of people, races, worlds. Whether they knew it or not, Wing and Nien were the catalyst and carrier of that change.
And then, Monteray understood something else: The wave of blue light had drawn back with it the awareness of the ancients, the ancestors. They knew, as well.
Moving as if through the deepest of water, Wing and Nien laid blade upon blade. Each time their blades connected the blue energy would flash and the ancestors would cry out the same questions:
Who are you?!
Wing swung his sword over his head and stepped into Nien. Nien leapt back and blocked.
Do you remember?!
The clash and consequent prevalence of ages was addicting. Monteray felt transported and could see that so were the brothers — they were not confused nor dubious of the fantastical occurrence, it simply was and they were simply were.
Nien circled and Wing jabbed. Nien knocked it down. They ringed each other. Nien drove in. Wing met him — another threshing of weight against steel, another wave crashing from beyond crying:
Will it be different?!
As the voices echoed through their minds, Monteray watched as Nien moved in on Wing, the momentum he carried knocking both of them to the floor where, in a web of cyclon
ic fury, they fought.
Swords clanged wildly against the Mietan floor, nicking the wood and carved inlay. Taut and seasoned muscle pushed forward and retreated back, bone and nerve giving themselves over fully to the energy that moved them, flowed through them, created them.
Somewhere in the nether-reaches of his mind, Monteray wondered at the strangeness and beauty of the brothers so whole-heartedly battling with each other, how the interchange between their blows and bodies could happen in the absence of malice, hate, even the need for there to be a victor.
They were simply…dancing.
In blinding spirals of strikes and parries, full-body impacts and twists that carried them into feats of wrestling, the struggle continued until, as if rising from the depths of a sea, the brothers came up upon their knees, each with a sword edge pressed into the throbbing heart-vein of the other’s throat.
The voices ceased their desperate cry. With a fading whisper, Monteray heard them breathe across the receding distance: You are not alone. We are with you.
And in the heat of Nien and Wing’s breath the cry of the ancients died away.
Panting heavily, the veins in their temples throbbing full and heavy, Nien nodded his head to Wing.
“Brother,” he said. “This is finished.” Raising his sword, he cried: “Forefathers! Loved ones! We will not forget!”
Wing placed his own sword flat upon the floor and seemed to be remembering something, a darker time, perhaps.
“Not so long ago, I lost hope between these walls, beneath this stained-glass dome. That memory now feels like a ghost, a painting of a stranger. I feel a peace now, an acceptance so profound it is as if its threads stretch across the planet, reaching into the great black beyond our sun and stars to countless worlds I can feel and see and not touch.” Wing raised his eyes to the apex of the Mietan. “Forefathers and loved ones,” he said. “Many lessons have I learned, but none so great as this: I am what I am — I stand between all that is and all that is not. My prayer is that our legacy may be one of understanding, not fear.” Wing looked back at his brother. Monteray saw his eyes fix upon Nien’s neck. There was blood there where Wing’s sword had touched. Wing reached out and smudged the blood clear. “What is within our power to do we will do, together, and perhaps by taking a stand in Rieeve many may be preserved — both those who kill and those who might yet be.”
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