An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  She turned to exchange a few, soft words with Enosh before she turned to him. “Ke-if,” she murmured. She came up to him. He couldn’t stand that, and bowed. “Oh, Kefier,” she said again, allowing him to bury his head in her lap, her fingers weaving through his hair. Enosh watched motionless from the corner.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, haltingly, in Jinan. “I meant to tell you about Oji but I was afraid. I wanted to go to Akki. I made it all the way to Fuyyu. But I couldn’t find the courage to face you.”

  “Then you met me, anyway.” She smiled from the corner of her lips. “And now fate has brought you here once more.”

  “Fate,” he repeated. He remembered holding Oji in his arms as he died. His hands shook. He pulled away to look at her face and saw a question in her eyes, one he was afraid she would voice out and he would have to answer.

  But Enosh cleared his throat and the moment passed. “We’ve got business to take care of. You can catch up later.” Sume got up. As she walked past Enosh, her fingers trailed along his shoulder, and he patted her hand in response. So. Kefier had thought she was involved with that young man from Fuyyu, but clearly she had managed to make her way to the Boarshind and caught Sir Ylir’s attention. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. His friend’s sister and his brother. He wasn’t even sure what to make of anything anymore since he’d learned what he learned the evening before. The few hours’ of sleep he’d managed to catch before they headed to camp that morning seemed only to add to this dreamlike haze to everything.

  “Let’s see what Bannal has to say,” Enosh said, pulling the knot off the scroll. He unrolled the parchment and silently read the contents.

  Sume appeared beside Kefier, a cup of tea in her hand. She placed it beside him. “You’ll stay the night,” she said, not really making a question of it. “Some of the men went out hunting, and if we’re lucky there’ll be wild boar for dinner. Surely you can’t be expected to return so soon?”

  “These shores are cursed,” he said. “If the boar they find have been drinking from the water, it is said that parts of us will shrivel up. Or grow where they shouldn’t. “

  “Everything is cursed in one form or another,” Enosh said, snorting. He didn’t even glance up. “The mages of Enji have kept invaders at bay for centuries by inventing these stories. I walked barefoot around the lake when we first arrived. You don’t see eyes growing out of my legs.”

  “Well,” Kefier said. “Not yet.”

  Enosh frowned, tugging at his sleeves. He opened a jar of ink, and started to pen a response.

  Kefier slumped back against the tent wall and watched Enosh’s fingers fly over the parchment. The years behind them faded. He had the sudden impression of being back in a hut in Gorent, waiting while his brother busied himself with the inks and books that meant the world to him. Exhaustion gripped him. His head dropped to the side and he caved in to the darkness around him.

  It felt like an instant later when he woke up to a blast. His senses swirled. The only thing he was aware of was the taste of dirt in his mouth and the strong, steely scent of the blood on his face.

  Chapter Seven

  In the darkness and confusion that followed, Kefier heard Enosh screaming Sume’s name and forced himself to get up. The movement was too fast. He crumpled to the side, his head reeling, and felt himself gag. The blood, he realized with a start, wasn’t his.

  Somebody grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Bannal sent you to kill me,” Enosh said, and only he, in all the world that Kefier knew, could add so much venom to his voice without raising it. There was blood on him, too; lacerations marked the side of his neck and his left ear was in shreds. “Help me find Sume, or I swear to Ab you will die here today, no matter who you were.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said helplessly.

  “I know you don’t, else you wouldn’t have stayed. But he used you. The scroll was soaked in fire-spells.” His face tightened. “Sume left right before it happened. I don’t know if she was caught in the explosion.”

  “I’d never intentionally hurt you. Or her.”

  “No. I don’t think you ever intentionally did anything in your life. When Bannal sent you to me, what did he say exactly?”

  “Only what I’ve told you.”

  “And you didn’t think beyond that. You never think. If you had ever used one lick of your brain, way back, we wouldn’t be here. We’d be—Agartes be damned.” He trailed off, glancing in the distance. There were boats on the lake. The men in the camp below seemed oblivious. “No,” he murmured. “No. That spell wasn’t to kill me. That spell was to mask their arrival—no! All my work, undone in an instant! Open your eyes, you idiots!” And he pushed Kefier out of the way, heading for the shore.

  Kefier found his feet. His first instinct was to chase after Enosh. But a hand on his shoulder stopped him from lurching forward. “Kill him.” Sapphire’s voice was clear as daylight.

  He turned to her. “Did you know about this? “

  She shrugged. “I warned you. This isn’t as simple as Bannal wanting a truce. You should have figured it out yourself.” She tugged at her sleeve, producing a dagger. “You can get close to him yourself before Bannal gets here.”

  The sight of the blade made him feel ill. “I won’t do that.”

  “Don’t you understand? Bannal’s mages will kill you unless you can prove you’re on their side. He used you to get this far, but now he has no more use for you.” He caught a flicker of emotion in her eyes.

  “Tell me what this is really about.”

  She turned away. “It’s about you deciding whether you want to live or die. Maybe you don’t care.”

  “You didn’t before. Why all the concern now?” He stepped away and saw her visibly flinch. “He’s still my brother.” He heard something shift behind him and turned to see Sume limping towards the clearing. Blood from her arm dripped to the ground.

  Her expression was composed, but her skin was white as a sheet. “Where’s Ylir?”

  “He went down to the shore. He’s fine.” He placed a hand on her elbow. “You need to sit down.”

  “I can deal with this,” she said, but a moment later she knelt beside him. “What happened?”

  “The man who sent me had laid a spell-trap. His mages are on their way here now.” He looked at the distance again, then at Sapphire, and swallowed. “You need to get out of here before they arrive.”

  “They might already be here,” Sapphire broke in. There was a hint of amusement in her tone. “You and your strays.”

  Sume looked up at him. “Did you come here to kill Ylir? Are we enemies, Kefier?”

  Saying that name—the name her own brother had given him—sent a chill down his spine. He didn’t know what to tell her. He didn’t really know what he was doing here, come to think of it. Ever since Oji’s death, his life had spiralled out of control. “We’re not enemies,” he said. “I didn’t know that this would happen.”

  She nodded, and he had the sudden impression that even if he had stated his reasons, she wouldn’t have cared about hearing them. “Help me go to him, then,” she said. “My legs are wobbly.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She gave him a look. Ab in heaven, she was Oji’s sister. “If you’re not my enemy, you will help me. Kefier, I need to be with him.”

  “He can take care of himself,” he said, with some doubt, but he allowed her to lean on him as she got up. Sapphire started to say something and he shot her a look to silence her.

  They slowly made their way to the beach. Bodies were strewn across the sand—mostly Boarshind men, the ones caught by surprise when the mages arrived unseen. The fighting had now begun in earnest. Kefier felt Sume tighten her grip around his wrist. He scanned the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of Enosh’s black cloak.

  She saw him first and called his name. “Enosh!” was what she said, a sound lost amidst the clatter of steel and the cries of dying men. He w
as so near that he must have heard, but he didn’t turn. He slammed through a mage’s barrier and slid his sword through the space between the man’s ribs, but even when he finally lay dead on the ground, he paid no attention to Sume or Kefier. His face, usually emotionless, was now contorted in rage. He lifted his blood-drenched sword and continued past them, his eyes searching.

  An injured mage, left for dead, reached out with his staff to cast a spell from behind. Kefier saw him before Enosh did. He ran out, kicking the man’s staff away. Enosh reacted almost immediately; the karis impaled him deep into the sand. As his blood began to pool around their feet, they saw a boat drifting towards them. The mage at its helm pulled his cloak back and lifted his hands.

  “Kill him, Kefier!” Bannal’s voice sounded like thunder amidst the chaos. The boat drew closer. Kefier saw a small figure huddled on the prow, next to Bannal, and his heart dropped. There were no other children in the island. Bannal must have seen his face, because he smiled, the blues in his eyes all the more clear in the waning light. “Kill him, or they die.”

  The whole world is mocking me, Kefier thought, just as he heard Sapphire behind him. “No,” she murmured. “No. They were supposed to escape.”

  “You planned this behind my back, Sapphire?”

  “He would have never kept his word to you, and I didn’t know if his plan was going to work, if he was going to succeed in ridding the shores of these vermin. I told them to flee but Bannal must have caught up with them. Or’anesh!” She pushed Kefier aside, sending a bolt of light hurtling towards Enosh.

  It caught him unaware, smashing into his leg. He fell backwards. Sapphire was suddenly on him, her dagger flashing close to his neck. Enosh knocked the hilt of his karis into her belly and then up to her wrists. The dagger slid out of her grasp, flying across the sand.

  The boat hit land. Bannal stepped onto the shore, one arm around Dai’s neck.

  The next rush of movement was so entirely unexpected that it caught Bannal off guard. Sume had somehow managed to retrieve Sapphire’s dagger and hurled her small frame at Bannal. He dropped Dai. In that instant, Kefier joined her, his own sword finally free from its scabbard.

  It was him and Bannal now; the mage momentarily lost all composure as he fell to the ground with Kefier on top. “He still has Xyl!” he heard Dai call out. He didn’t have time to react to that. Bannal gave a loud cry and a thin, yellowish wall appeared between them. Kefier flew back and landed on his back.

  Another barrier appeared. Kefier saw it before he saw the flash of Bannal’s sword over him. A crack flickered along the barrier before it broke over Moon’s head. Bannal’s sword went through that, digging into her collarbone. Her blood sprayed over him. He caught her before she hit the ground and didn’t notice, and didn’t care, when the ground started shaking and Enji Island disappeared behind a black fog in the distance.

  When Sume saw Dai, she’d reacted before she had time to fully grasp the realization that he was standing there and that they were in some forgotten corner of Gaspar, away from all they knew. Kefier saved her from having to finish the parts she didn’t think through. Moments later, she found herself standing away from them, one hand on the boy. The other was still holding on to the unused dagger.

  She dropped it when she realized it was still in her grasp. She turned to the boy, who’d cried out towards Kefier, knowing him. Dai. It was Dai, but a little bit taller, his voice a little bit deeper. She realized, with a start, that it had been nearly a year since she last saw him.

  “Dai,” she murmured, pulling him close to her. He looked up, recognizing her for the first time.

  “Sister.” His hands were clammy and he suddenly looked like he wanted to cry.

  Their reunion was short-lived. Kefier was on the ground, and a girl—one of the mages, from the cut of her clothing—ran out to him. The sword struck her. Sume turned away, but the scent of the blood rushed into her nostrils. She held her breath to stop herself from vomiting. Her senses swirled and when she felt the ground begin to shake, she swore, thinking it was just her, and that she needed to get hold of herself.

  A scream, like a dying woman’s, pierced the sky. Five feet from her, Enosh glanced up, and she read fear in his eyes. A dark shadow appeared over the horizon. Her head still swimming, she turned to Dai. He was bent over with his hands over his ears. She tried to get him to look at her, but his eyes were ground shut and he was uttering an old prayer Hana had taught them, calling on spirits who couldn’t possibly exist in this land.

  She saw it, then. Wished in that instance that she didn’t; that she hadn’t been so stubborn fighting her choices in life, so that it might have ended without her ever having stepped off the shores of the town she loved. The beast was hideous—a dark mass with wings like a dragon’s and a single, bloody eye rolling around where its head would have been.

  The mage, the man who was going to kill Dai, seemed to have forgotten Kefier. He was watching the beast circle over the sky where the island was, before the fog had come in. It screamed again before it landed. The mage swore and began calling for his men to return to their boats, that they’d been fooled, that the attack was coming from elsewhere.

  The woman mage, the one Kefier had named Sapphire, began to laugh. She was cradling the dead girl in her arms. “You really think you can stop that? You’re as blind as you are a fool, my Lord Bannal.”

  “Be silent!” Bannal roared.

  “If it’s broken through the island’s spells, then yours would be useless.”

  Bannal uttered another oath before starting for the boat. Enosh blocked him. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said.

  Sweat broke over Bannal’s face. “You—you and your master both. You don’t know what you’re playing with. That creature should not be back in this world. You really think you can control it?”

  “I can control it,” Enosh said. “The blood of Jaeth runs through my veins. It fears me.”

  “Jaeth carried a little piece. An eye. It is more than that, now. I saw what your master did. He used you to break into that temple and remove what Jaeth so very carefully locked away. Then he took you, too. Because you’re Jaeth’s descendant? Because you are so entrenched in the agan I can smell it on your very skin? But you didn’t even know it would be here, or you wouldn’t have risked being so far away from it.”

  “You’re defeated, old man. So now you ramble.”

  “Defeated?” he gasped. “All you’ve done is seal your own doom! If you can control the creature like you said, why aren’t you there now? Unless—tell me, Enosh, what happened in those years between when it could fit in a box and now? You’ve fed it, else it wouldn’t have grown. Where did you get enough people to satisfy its hunger? And a dragon, too...”

  “It’s true,” Sume heard Dai murmur. He still hadn’t lifted his head. “I ran off a few weeks after you left. Because mom was marrying Tetsung.”

  “What?” She almost choked on her spit.

  “I wanted to find you. But those men caught me. There were other children. Orphans, beggars, the kind whose parents don’t go out looking for them. They put us in covered wagons and took us here. To feed that thing.”

  She placed her hands over his head and looked up. There were boats on the lake now—some of the mages had moved to obey their lord’s orders—but Bannal himself was kneeling, his hands being bound by Enosh’s mercenaries. “Don’t worry, my lord,” Enosh was saying. “I won’t kill you yet. Yn Garr would want to see you, first. Talk about old times.”

  “That man,” Bannal murmured. “What is he planning, that you would willingly do these things for him? You’re not like these men. Coin alone wouldn’t sway you.”

  Enosh smiled. “You think too highly of me.”

  “You have to go,” Sapphire said. Sume looked up, realizing that Enosh was dragging Bannal to one of the boats and that they were at the edge of the red-stained sand, otherwise forgotten.

  Kefier was beside her at once. “She’s right. That thing migh
t leave the lake, soon. Dai...” and she stared, wide-eyed, as he pulled the boy to his feet, still seemingly unaware as to who he was. “We need to go. I know this is hard for you.” He spoke in Jinan, now, the Akkian accent thick on his voice.

  Dai nodded. “Ylir,” she said, pressing her hand around Kefier’s wrist. “I need to make sure he’s safe.”

  “He either is or he isn’t. Your presence there wouldn’t matter. It might even make things worse for him.” She started to hesitate, and he shook his head. “I’ll take you as far as the next village. If things settle down by then I’ll come back and tell him where to find you.” He turned to the mage-girl. “Sapphire, I—”

  He stopped, then, unsure of what to say. She was still sitting on the sand, the dead girl on her lap, as she stared out at the water. “You go ahead,” she said, at length. “They’re coming for me anyway.”

  “I don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

  “They’ll let you leave. Not me. I don’t...I don’t want to leave her, anyway.” She glanced down, her fingers tracing over the girl’s eyelids.

  “I’m sorry,” Kefier said, reaching out to touch her on the shoulder. She cringed for a moment, and then nodded, patting his hand once. They left her like that. The Boarshind men came before they were gone.

  They went up the same path they had taken when Kefier had first come through these woods with Sapphire and Moon. Moon’s death still felt like a dream to him. That she had died to protect him made it even harder to accept. Why would she do that? Nobody did that. His own brother was standing nearby and he didn’t even try to help him.

  He swallowed. It helped to stop the tears from falling, because he didn’t think he could handle crying just now. It also helped to stop him from thinking too much. There was still Xyl to worry about, and he didn’t really know how he was going to save her. For all he knew, she was dead, too. He glanced at Dai and saw him waiting for Sume to catch her breath before reaching out to guide her up a steep section on the trail.