The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  Chapter Eleven

   

  Nathan Rook tried futilely to rub the fatigue from his eyes as he looked out towards the horizon. He and the others had managed a solid seven hours of travel today before nightfall, which was impressive for all kinds of reasons. It was hard to believe that the compound had been attacked this morning; the last two days had completely blurred together. Now they were almost thirty miles south of the city, and he was surprised how exposed it felt to be outside its walls once again.

  “You sure this is far enough out?” Van asked as he clumped together a few more pieces of wood for a campfire.

  Rook shrugged. “We haven’t slept in almost two days. It’ll have to be.”

  Ten years ago, at the end of the last war, he’d been able to make it three days without much more than a light nap. Now, after only about forty hours, he was ready to collapse. It was a rather annoying reminder that he wasn’t twenty years old anymore.

  “Could be worse,” Rynne said, flopping down to the ground. “Some of us have only been awake for a day.”

  Rook smiled tiredly and turned to Selaste. “I imagine the prospect of sleep isn’t particularly appealing to you.”

  The woman didn’t respond immediately. She stood a few yards away from their makeshift campsite on top of a pile of rocks, arms crossed as she stared out at the edge of the forest.  They hadn’t been able to talk much since they left Haven, and Rook wondered idly what she’d been thinking about—or if any of her memories had returned.

  “It’s a little terrifying,” Selaste admitted eventually. “The thought of falling asleep and being unable to wake up again…” She shook her head and sighed. “But I’m incredibly tired.”

  Rook nodded. “We’ll need to set up watch. The Faceless don’t patrol all the way out here in the Banick Wood, but there’s always the distant possibility someone managed to tail us out of the city.”

  “No Faceless also means bandits and probably more vretarg than usual,” Rynne added. “I’ll go scout around a bit before the daylight is totally gone.”

  “Good idea,” Rook said.

  Tiel glanced between them. “Should you really be going out there alone?”

  Rynne cocked an eyebrow. “It’s a forest, not a Darenthi citadel.”

  “I just mean that…well, you said it could be dangerous is all,” he stammered. “Going alone seems risky.”

  “You’re welcome to tag along if you want. You just don’t strike me as the outdoorsy type.”

  “Says the minstrel,” Van muttered.

  “I’ll have you know I spent a lot of time outdoors back home before I became a city girl,” she said with just the right touch of wounded pride. “I am one with the land.”

  Van snorted and folded his arms across his chest. “You hate bugs, you hate sleeping on the ground, you’re scared of wild animals, you—”

  “I don’t remember asking you,” she huffed, sticking her tongue out. She swept her eyes to Tiel. “They did let you outdoors at that monastery where you grew up, right?”

  “Of course,” he said. “We, uh…we had a garden.”

  Rook chuckled despite himself. Van glared at him.

  “You probably won’t find this as amusing when they stumble across an old bear trap or something.”

  “You’re just jealous I’m taking him instead of you,” Rynne said tartly, grabbing Tiel’s hand. “We’ll be back before sundown.”

  Rook watched them go before shaking his head in amusement. “You worry too much.”

  “Maybe,” Van said softly. “I’m going to grab some more firewood so we don’t run out in the middle of the night.”

  He walked off to the edge of the forest with his axe in hand. Rook leaned down over his backpack and rummaged through it just to be certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. Van seemed to remember his basic military survival training vastly better than he did at this point.

  “So what’s a vretarg?” Selaste asked once the others were out of earshot.

  “A quadruped a bit bigger than a wolf,” Rook explained. “They lurk around the woods but typically leave people alone. Nasty when upset, though.”

  “Ah.”

  He smiled tiredly. “Look, before we settle in, I mentioned weapons to you earlier. If we do run into trouble, it’s best for everyone if we know how well you can defend yourself—aside from your magic, I mean.”

  Rook stepped over to the horses and unstrapped a rolled up leather tarp then sprawled it out across the ground. Inside were a handful of blades ranging from Sunoan rapiers to Vakari broadswords.

  “Have a look—see what you find comfortable.”

  She eyed them curiously. “I can’t remember my own name. What makes you think I’d remember how to use one of these?”

  “You can walk just fine, and once you learn how to swing one of these it’s just about as hard to forget,” he told her. “Besides, I doubt those are just for show.”

  Selaste glanced down to her toned arms and flexed her hand a few times. Rook had seen people uncomfortable inside a particular outfit many times—he had personally always felt silly in the dress uniforms the Ebaran military used at ceremonies—but he had never seen anyone so uncomfortable inside their own skin. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity. 

  She leaned down and studied the blades, lifting a couple and testing the weight in her grip. It wasn’t exactly a collection worthy of a master blacksmith, but it was the best they could do given space and time limitations.

  “This feels…familiar,” she said as she held up a Darenthi sabre.

   “Good weapon. My father used to call it the “blade for real swordsmen.”

  “As opposed to fake ones?”

  He chuckled. “He grew up in a generation where everyone was still trying to figure out how to fight Faceless. The best swordsman in the world could stab one of them with that thing a half dozen times before it even slowed down. They don’t bleed or feel pain, so it takes a lot of raw force to actually destroy one. Most infantry units in Ebara and everywhere else switched to much heavier weapons as a result.”

  She gestured to the sword at his belt. “But you still use one.”

  Rook slid his sword from its sheath and twirled it in his grip. The waning sunlight sparkled off the polished steel. “It’s his, actually. He insisted I learn how to use it regardless of the trend. ‘You’ll never impress a lady with a claymore. They want to see skill, not a blade that’s bigger than they are.’” He grunted and lowered the sword. “I suddenly wonder if that was a metaphor for something else…”

  She laughed. It was a pleasant sound, and he immediately decided she needed to do it more often.

  “Anyway,” he continued after a few moments, “once Kimperan rifles started showing up near the end of the last war, lighter blades have been making a comeback. I know the Darenthi have even scrapped heavy armor on their human infantry these days.”

  Selaste stood and sliced a few times with the weapon. “I need a shield.”

  Rook walked back over to the horses and unstrapped a pair of bucklers. “I don’t have anything heavier except for Van’s,” he said, tossing her one, “but this is the normal complement.”

  “It feels right,” she said, fastening it on her arm. She stopped awkwardly after a moment, her eyes narrowing.

  “Something wrong?”

  “A memory,” she whispered. “Almost. I think it’s gone now.”

  He finished strapping on his own. “That’s good news. Maybe more of them will start to surface.”

  “Maybe.” Her eyes lost their focus for a second before she shook her head and turned to face him. “You want to practice?”

  “That’s probably not a good idea. I’m desperately tired and I’ve barely swung the thing recently.” He shrugged. “But I admit I’m curious. Just try not to disembowel me or anything.”

  “I imagine if you so much as cut me, the Kirshane would hunt you down.”

  Rook frowned. “Probably…” />
  “It was a joke,” Selaste said with a faint smile. “Defend yourself!”

  She offered a faint thrust and he deftly parried it away, his body dropping easily into a combat stance. Other than his tussle with that Faceless earlier in the day, he hadn’t even drawn the blade in months, but oddly enough it felt as familiar to him as ever. His father had beaten the technique into him, and even if straight-on duels weren’t exactly commonplace on a real battlefield, the skills had nonetheless saved his life many times over.

  For now he kept it simple, offering slow, wide sweeps and easy thrusts designed to test her technique more than her reflexes. As expected, her instincts took over when her memory did not. She parried away his attacks without any trouble, and her footwork was measured and precise. Within a minute, she had him backpedaling to stay ahead of her assault. She might not have been a master, but someone had evidently trained her well. 

   “Not too fast,” Rook warned, leaping back and getting clear. “I like my limbs attached.”

  “Sorry,” Selaste whispered, her cheeks flushing. “It just felt good to remember something again.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, watching as Van approached out of the corner of his eye. “It will be a long trip; we can do it again tomorrow. You probably want to talk to Van about it, too. He has his own style.”

  “I might do that.” She glanced down to the sword and slid it back into its scabbard. “So you don’t mind if I wear this?”

  “It’s all yours,” he told her. “Just remember that it’s probably better to rip a Faceless apart with your magic than to try and hack him to pieces.”

  She smiled again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He sheathed his own blade and removed the buckler as Van thumped over towards them. The big man dropped the pile of wood and eyed Rook with obvious annoyance.

  “You want to come help me get the rest?”

  Rook glanced down to the already impressive pile. “We’re camping here for a night, not a week.”

  “Yeah, well I already cut it. No reason to leave it out there.”

  He didn’t need help with anything, of course; he just wanted to talk to his friend alone. It was a conversation Rook had been avoiding since this morning. He didn’t feel any better about having it now, but he knew Van well enough to recognize when his friend wasn’t just going to let something drop. They might as well get it out of the way.

  “All right,” Rook said. He glanced back to Selaste, but she was unfolding her own bedroll. Whether she was oblivious to the whole thing or just being polite he wasn’t entirely sure. They had made it halfway to the tree line when Van broke the silence.

  “So what are you doing, Nate?”

  “Helping you pick up some imaginary wood, what does it look like?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  Rook sighed and came to a stop. They had known each other since they were fresh-faced sixteen year-olds in training with the Ebaran army, and there wasn’t a soul in the world he trusted more. But he also understood that Van was, at heart, a simple man. He acted on instinct more than reason, and he was perfectly content to make snap judgments about people and situations. It was a good trait to have as a bodyguard, but it did tend to limit his perspective.

  “What do you want me to do? Drop them off in the woods?”

  Van shrugged. “It would be a start. I understand you wanted her out of the city and away from our people. I have no problem with that. But this Tiel guy was perfectly willing to escort her to his crazy monk friends all by himself. Why are we here? Where’s the profit in this?”

  “If she really is the Kirshal, money is the last thing I’d be worrying about,” Rook reminded him. “You understand what’s at stake here.”

  “I understand what you want to be at stake. I know how you can’t resist a good mystery, and I know how you love a good scandal even more. You’re seeing what you want to see.”

  Rook grunted and sat down. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”

  Van sighed and put his hands on his hips. “She’s a fraud, Nate. She might not know it—it might not even be her fault—but she’s a fake. Maybe someone buried her in there and set this all up, or maybe this is some bizarre coincidence. I don’t know, and I don’t really care. The bottom line is that at best, this is a waste of our time. At worst…” He shrugged. “A lot of people are going to get hurt, and personally I’d rather not be anywhere nearby when that happens.”

  “We don’t have enough information to make a judgment one way or the other,” Rook said. “I want to keep an open mind.”

  “Oh, come on. I understand why Tiel believes it—the kid’s been indoctrinated his whole life. And Rynne…well, she’s Rynne. But you and I know better.”

  “What I know is that we’re sitting on a powder keg whether Selaste is the real deal or not. I also know that she’s my responsibility.”

  Van shook his head. “You don’t owe her anything. We’re lucky no one died last night—miraculously lucky. It won’t stay that way forever. Eventually Kastrius or someone else is going to catch up with us, and then your real friends are going to suffer for it.”

  “If you don’t want to be here, you can ride back to Haven in the morning,” Rook said sharply. “I’ll even tell Foren you can take over until I get back.”

  “Don’t dismiss me,” Van growled. He jabbed a finger forward. “You’re being an idiot for a pretty face.”

  Rook frowned. It felt like every muscle in his body had clenched at once. “What?”

  Van closed his eyes and sighed again. “Whoever set this up did a damn fine job, just like you said. She looks the part. I just didn’t think you of all people would fall for that.”

  “Gods,” Rook whispered, rubbing a hand through his beard, “I don’t even know how to respond to that. I’m not a teenager chasing around a crush.”

  “No, you’re a grown man whose wife has been dead for five years,” Van told him. “And now some beautiful stranger needs your help, and your head is spinning.”

  The flash of anger was so sudden and so intense Rook wasn’t prepared for it. His fist twisted into a ball and he nearly punched his friend right in the jaw. But fortunately his head caught up with him just in time, and he let the rage drain away as he took a long, slow breath.

  “You’re way out of line,” he said coldly.

  “I’m your friend,” Van murmured. “There is no line. I’m just telling you what you don’t want to hear.”

  Rook grunted. “Well, you’re right about that, at least.”

  They stared each other down for a long moment, and eventually Van shrugged and leaned over to grab the last few pieces of wood. Rook just glared at the man’s back, his fatigued mind suddenly alert and racing.

  “I said my piece,” Van told him as he started walking back. “Do what you want. You always do.”

  Rook watched his friend get all the way to the camp before deciding to move himself. He couldn’t decide if Van was in a bad mood because they had lost the base or if he was just really irritated at having to deal with all of this mythological nonsense. He had always been vocal about his disdain for spiritual types. It had almost certainly cost him his relationship with Rynne a year ago, but instead of learning from the mistake, he’d actually gotten worse. 

  Selaste tilted her head up to face him when he got back. “Heavy load, huh?”

  He glanced down to his empty hands and forced a smile. “Yeah.”

  “You know, you can have the sword back if you don’t trust me with it,” she said, glancing between the two men. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  Rook made brief eye contact with Van. Apparently she had completely missed the mark on what they’d been talking about. It was probably for the better. “No, it’s yours.”

  “It looked like you knew what you were doing,” Van commented. “From a distance, anyway.”

  “It stirred some memories. Hopefully that means more will come.”

  The man nodded
and started setting out his things. Rook just stood there stiffly, his eyes unwittingly locking onto Selaste whenever she wasn’t looking. Van wasn’t actually right about this, was he? It wasn’t as if she was the only attractive woman he had to deal with on a regular basis. He knew how to read people; he knew how to see through their petty charms and manipulations. He had made a name for himself by explicitly not falling for such things.

  But then, she wasn’t trying to charm him. She was just trying to figure out what was going on in a world she didn’t remember, and he found himself sympathizing with her. He just couldn’t decide if that sympathy was based on the fact he had trouble keeping his eyes off her.

  He sighed softly and sat down on his bedroll. The one thing he did know for certain was how tired he was, and that problem, at least, he knew how to fix.