by Lisa Maxwell
Chapter 17
Is was jarred from her thoughts by the trumpeted challenge of a horse. She had heard that sound too many times not to recognize it for what it was – a berserker's horse. The echoes rolled around the valley, confusing the direction of the sound. Lark snapped to a halt, his head up. His ears flicked this way and that uncertainly.
The whinny came again while they were both standing undecided. Lark's head came around to the right and he set off in that direction. For a moment Is considered stopping him. She didn't want to be anywhere near a berserker or his fully trained horse and she didn't want such a horse seeing Lark. But there was something else at work in her mind. What if the berserker had found John? What if he had found the Mirror? She would learn nothing wandering around in the fog. If she was too timid to investigate, she should probably go back to Ondre's people and admit her defeat. They might want to send someone else.
Is let Lark have his head, but when the meadow funneled them into a ravine she pulled him back from the entrance and made him go along the ridge top instead. She didn't want to get trapped in a narrow space with a berserker. From up here they could look down on him and he wouldn't be able to get at them quickly.
She spotted the berserker and stopped Lark. All she could see was horse and rider in a bare spot in the ravine, their attention riveted on the empty air in front of them. The horse was in his most aggressive posture, neck arched, nostrils flared, stepping high as he advanced on the empty air. The berserker had drawn his long saber. He appeared ready to strike. That was all Is could see. She wondered what Lark was picking up with his keener senses.
Lark's head was up and his ears pricked but he did not seem aggressively inclined or frightened. He was merely interested. Is was glad he hadn't whinnied. Suddenly the berserker's horse reared. Lashing out with his front hooves, he plunged forward exactly like a horse fighting another horse. The berserker slashed to the left with his saber. Slashed again. Is couldn't see what they were fighting, but they were definitely fighting something. The horse plunged, wheeled, kicked, wheeled again. The rider struck first to his left, then to his right, parried and stabbed repeatedly.
The hair on Is's arms stood up. She had never seen a war horse or a berserker in full action. The horse was magnificent. There was a beauty to it, yet there was something in her that responded positively to the violence, surprising her.
For several minutes the horse lunged, struck, and kicked with all his might while the rider was equally busy. Then the horse began to tire. His dark bay coat became black with sweat. White foam formed between his hind legs. The whites of his eyes showed. The red lining of his nose was visible as his nostrils stretched wide with his exertions. The man was becoming tired too. His strikes had less power in them, his parries sometimes collapsing in the face of a force Is couldn't see. When that happened, he called on the horse to wheel him away and attack again from a new angle.
The horse reared, lifting his rider clear of some blow Is couldn't see. His hindquarters gave way and he collapsed to a sitting position. In an instant he had righted himself. The rider drove his spurs into the horse's ribs. The horse lunged frantically against the unseen force. The rider swung with his saber and dropped it as though he had hit something so hard he could not hold onto it. Is had expected to hear the clang of metal. All she heard was the harsh breathing of horse and rider.
The rider wheeled the horse away and drew a shorter blade. Is saw him dig his spurs into the horse again. The horse leapt forward, but now his movements were desperate and ill coordinated. She saw the rider's exaggerated aids with bit and spurs to make the horse rear. Before, the signals between the two had been invisible as though they saw and reacted to the same thing with one accord.
Where the beauty of the horse's movements had drawn awe from Is, now she felt awe for the gallantry of the animal. Where the violence had elicited a response in her gut, now it drew sharp pity. Where she had felt an unfocused anger, now that anger was focused against the rider who was going to push his horse to its death.
The horse reared and lost control again, going down on his hindquarters and this time over onto his side. The rider jumped clear. Ignoring his horse's struggle to rise, the berserker attacked the invisible foe on foot. He had lost his blade in the horse's fall and now he struck with his hands and feet.
Is had enough training in Hluit self-defense to appreciate the skill the berserker showed in his attacks. Meanwhile the horse got to his feet. His sides heaved and his nostrils expanded with each breath. Is expected him to stand, head low, legs wide and wait to recover. Instead he charged viciously biting the air to the left of the berserker.
A cold shiver shook Is's body. Horses shouldn't behave like that!
A stallion would fight another stallion, but when beaten he would retreat. But the war horses were crazy. Whatever had been turned on in their brains could not be turned off. She had been feeling sorry for the horse, thinking she should somehow try to rescue it. Now she saw the proof of all her years of training in the Berserker's Barn and the Last Station: you could not handle a berserker's horse after it had connected to its berserker.
The horse fell again. This time he thrashed on the ground and could not get up. It was terrible to see the massive animal down like that. Whatever force the berserker battled, it had moved away from the dying horse. Is felt a deep sorrow for the animal. It had not wanted to be a berserker's horse. Its destiny had been determined by people and Is was as guilty as anyone. In her mind's eye that horse represented all the horses she had ever trained and sent to their deaths. In her heart she knew that horse was also Lark. There was no way to save him from his fate.
To avoid watching the horse die, she watched the man fight. She could not let herself get lost in grief and guilt. She had to stay focused on the danger here and now. The man had grown so tired he could barely lift his arm to deliver another blow. Kicks were out of the question for him now. His technique had vanished. He was a drunken street brawler, staggering, striking wildly without focus and without force. He fell more and more often and took longer to get up, but he could no more quit than the horse could have.
Is locked all emotion away in cold storage. She watched the berserker dispassionately and she began to see something. Whatever he was fighting never struck him. When he fell it was from his own exhaustion.
She had seen him counter blows, and seen his arm give under the impact of those blows as he tired, but he had not been cut. There was no sign of bleeding.
Is could only conclude that he wasn't fighting anything. He struggled to get up off the ground again, looking around for his adversary. Now he saw it. But the adversary didn't take advantage of him. It could have knocked him flat. She could have. Why didn't it? Was it exhausted too? Was it hurt? Or was it nonexistent?
With that final thought, a berserker appeared in front of her up on the ledge, fully armed, rested, and mounted on a horse that seemed equally fresh. Fear raced through Is. She started to wheel Lark to run away.
Lark didn't respond right. That broke through to her. If Lark saw what she saw, he should either be aggressive or scared. At least he would be attentive. Instead he was still staring at the man and horse down in the ravine.
The berserker in front of her advanced, saber drawn. His horse, poised for action, snorted its challenge with every breath. Lark didn't even notice.
Is forced herself to sit still. The berserker's horse reared and came forward on its hind legs. Its front hooves thrashed the air. In an instant it would crash into Lark, sending both of them sprawling into the ravine. Is froze.
Just as the horse should hit her, a strange tingling sensation rushed over her skin and the image disappeared. A moment later Lark shook himself like a dog, waggling his ears, as though he too had felt something strange.
Is glanced into the ravine again. The horse lay flat out on his side now. His hind legs were still kicking,
but feebly. She looked away, keeping her emotions in deep freeze.
The berserker was down too. He rolled onto his side to stare up at her. He raised a hand toward her, obviously at great effort.
"Help me."
She could barely hear him. Her skin crawled. She would never have expected to hear a berserker plead like that.
"Help me." It had to be a trap. He sagged back onto the ground, his sides heaving as though breathing were an effort.
For a moment Is felt pity Then all the fear she had ever known broke loose of the control she had slapped on it. She could not go near that man.
Immediately a berserker appeared at her side, unmounted. He reached to pull her from Lark. She felt the heat of his hands on her thigh as he grabbed her. He could easily drag her from the horse. She could smell him and hear the grunting sound he made as he breathed, excited and violent. She swung at his head with all her might, nearly throwing herself from the saddle when the berserker dodged, and startling the heck out of Lark. Until that moment she had sort of forgotten Lark, but now he spooked and snorted, rearranging his legs to balance a rider who was doing crazy, unexpected things.
In spite of her fear, Is realized that Lark did not see, feel, smell, or hear the berserker who was still at her side, ready to pull her from his back. Although Lark wasn't a fully trained war horse, he would respond to anyone suddenly appearing beside him exuding such bad intentions.
Is sat still. The berserker grabbed for her, grinning wickedly. For a moment her mind replayed scenes that were intermixed and inseparable from the memories of watching her mother being raped and killed. It took every bit of her willpower to not move. As the berserker's hand touched her, he disappeared.
Is breathed a shaky sigh of relief and stroked Lark's neck. Twice Lark had saved her from believing in the illusions that had seemed so real to her.
She looked into the ravine again. The horse had stopped kicking, but his hind legs stuck stiffly out from his body, vibrating with quick little jerks. As a fully trained, fully augmented, mature, switched-on war horse, he had seen what his rider had seen: An enemy, probably another berserker mounted on another war horse. Feeding on each other's emotions, horse and rider were connected to a degree that was unreachable by Is's unaugmented senses. They lacked the cognitive powers to realize that what they were fighting wasn't real.
She wondered if the horse could feel or think anything now. Maybe he was already dead. The twitching of his legs could be some leftover reflex that would die away in a few minutes.
Her gaze went to the man. She could see his lips move. "Help me," he whispered. A strange fear took her, not of him exactly, but of his death.
A strangling sound practically at Lark's feet brought her back. John lay there convulsing and vomiting. All the fear she had felt when she had first rescued him came back, tangled with all the love she felt for him now. She picked up the reins, closed her calves against Lark's sides and guided him to step on John.
Lark went without hesitation. He never even picked his foot high, just set it right in the middle of John's chest. The vision vanished as the others had.
Now Is was curious. Purposefully she thought about something nice, her memory of how John had looked that first time he had opened his eyes and seen her - a look full of joy and rapture and love - and how she had felt.
Mistake! Instantly she was so lonely and bereaved she could hardly stand it. The pain racked her body. Her mouth twisted in a silent scream. She slid from the saddle and clung to Lark's neck. There was no image for her to make him step on this time. She had to handle this one on her own.
Ignoring the emotion was impossible. Turning it off, like a water faucet, didn't work. Covering it with other thought - impossible. Balance, she thought, balance it with something else. Without conscious choice she found herself thinking about the people's martial arts.
"Never meet an attack head-on," they had told her. "Do not take the attacker's force into yourself. Turn with it, deflect it around you, return it to the attacker."
The overpowering emotions vanished, replaced by a small sense of triumph. Careful, Is cautioned herself. “To vanquish the enemy is not the goal. Even if you ‘win’ such an encounter, it is only temporary.” She heard Ondre's voice instructing everyone in one of the classes. “You have done nothing to diminish the overall aggression, or the need to place one person over another, or the need to win or lose.” His words had seemed so esoteric. Is had just wanted to know how to move, where to place her foot or her arm, how to turn her body to throw someone who was attacking her. She had waited through Ondre's lectures, impatient for practice to begin. But now there was no one to throw, possibly no one to beat, no one to place herself above or below, no need to win or lose.
No more visions and no more exaggerated emotions came. She had not given her attacker anything to work with. Good.
She looked at the berserker again. He was still watching her but he had stopped begging. She turned Lark and rode back to the entrance to the ravine. To the berserker it must have seemed that she was riding away.
She turned Lark up the ravine and when they could see the berserker and his horse again, the horse lay still, no longer twitching. Lark snorted distrustfully and sidled by it. The berserker had collapsed onto his face. Is wondered if he was dead. It took a lot of willpower for her to get off Lark. It took more to kneel down by the man. Surely she did not fear his death. He meant nothing to her. And surely she did not fear he could hurt her. He was too spent for that. Even so, Is was afraid.
Suddenly the man leapt up. He wasn't hurt at all.
No! No! Is cried in her mind. He's nearly dead! Desperately she tried to make that be the reality she saw. Lark snorted and pulled back. Is could not take her eyes from the berserker but she heard Lark gallop away. He had seen this. This was real!
She was desperate enough to think that even though her self-defense wasn't very good yet, she would try. Maybe there was some small chance she'd defend herself. She threw out all doubt and waited.
The berserker seemed to sense the change in her from easy victim to composed prepared defender. He hesitated. Is heard a sound she shouldn't have heard, the slurpy sound of a horse opening his mouth to graze. She laughed. If she turned around she would see Lark right behind her trying to pick the few sparse bits of grass that grew nearby. He had not run away, that was just part of the illusion.
The image of the menacing berserker vanished. Is knelt and touched the real man's neck, trying to find his pulse. It was quick and fluttery. His skin felt clammy. With considerable effort she rolled him onto his back. His eyelids fluttered, but only white showed behind them.
Shock, she thought. What was wrong with him? Exhaustion? He didn't have a cut anywhere. Could a person die of exhaustion? Maybe his heart was damaged. But as long as he was alive, he'd be susceptible to hypothermia, pneumonia, and dehydration. Those things Is understood.
She got her jacket from Lark's saddle and put it over the man's chest. He didn't look comfortable lying on his back. She brought over other pieces of her clothing and pillowed his head.
What if he lived? Would he still be crazy? Was she doing him any favor helping him?
But if she walked away, would it be because she feared him and didn't want him to recover? Or would it be because she believed that leaving was the best thing for him?
She sat back on her heels and observed him. He was the nightmare she’d had when she was treating John, come true.
If she made a decision there was no way to know what motivated it - fear or logic. There was no way to know what was best to do.
She found herself just sitting, staring at nothing, thinking nothing. After a while she stood and stretched. It would be cold when night came on. She should have a fire. She began to search for firewood and realized that the decision had been made, for now.
While Is collected kindling she looked for grazing f
or Lark. After they had brought the wood back to "camp" Is untacked Lark and took him up the ravine to a place with some grass. He could graze there all night while she sat with the dying man. For a few minutes Is just stood with Lark, watching him attack the grass. She was afraid to leave him. She was afraid of losing him. Her logical mind told her there wasn't much chance of that. The ravine ended not much farther ahead. Lark wouldn't climb up its steep sides. If he went looking for more grass, he'd have to come back by her camp. The ravine was narrow there and she'd see him by the light of the fire. Yet another part of her mind told her that wasn't the only way to lose him. She had awakened from what had seemed like a night's sleep and John had been gone. She wondered if she could lose Lark the same way, maybe even without sleeping. She didn't know what she would do without him. She loved him, and once again he was the only companion she had. He was also her transportation. And how would she tell real from unreal without the horse to guide her?
She was becoming angry and frustrated and scared. How could she make the right decision when she didn't know the rules? She didn't know if Lark could disappear. She didn't know if the man could recover.
Just in time Is recognized what was happening. She calmed herself before her emotions could be used against her again. With sudden clarity she realized that the issue wasn't about making a right decision. It wasn't about whether staying with Lark or the man was more important. It wasn't even about what would give her the best chance to survive. It was about something more important, more subtle, more difficult to define. It was about what was "right." And it was about being brave enough to do what was right.
She left Lark and went back to the camp. It was easy while she could occupy her mind with building the fire. When she checked on the man he seemed to be having trouble breathing. She thought he would be better off sitting up more. She could use her saddle and sleeping bag to prop him up.
He was awfully heavy. There was no gentle or graceful way to do what she had to do. His skin felt cold and clammy as if he were already dead. It took a lot of nerve for her to touch him. To grab hold of him and pull and push to get him situated was almost too much for her.
Finally he looked more comfortable and his breathing sounded less labored. Then Is was glad she'd made the effort.
She took a long time heating water and making a soup of the provisions Ondre had sent with her.
Then it was time to wait. Wait for the man to die or recover enough to give her trouble. Wait for some sort of renewed attack from whatever had attacked her before. Wait for morning. Wait to find out if Lark had disappeared. Wait to become too afraid to go on.
She slipped into the non-waiting mode she used when she hunted and sat a long time without thought. She was in touch with the night and its many small presences. That worked until the man began to snore.
The sound was not an ordinary sort of snoring. It was an unbelievably loud rattling, punctuated by snorts, gasps, and sudden seconds of unnerving silence.
Is tried to reposition him so he could breathe better. His body was even colder than before. She couldn't think of any way to make him warmer. The night was not very cold. The fire was putting out good heat. He was insulated from the ground by her sleeping bag and Lark's saddle.
She was sure he was dying. Well, that should be a relief really, and she could feel good about herself for having tried to help him. She tried to sit and not think again but it was impossible with all the noise the man was making.
She became aware of a new sound within the snoring, sort of like a breeze in the bushes. She'd better cover him more, she thought, if there was a breeze. She was staring at the fire, and the flames were going straight up, as they had all night. There was no breeze. There were no bushes nearby. Then she knew where she had heard that sound before.
She turned slowly to look at the berserker. He was lying, propped against Lark’s saddle just as he had been before. She watched the flickering flames make the shadows dance in the background and let her eyes see anything they wanted to see.
The dark man-shapes were all around the berserker, talking in that quick shush-shushing way that sounded like a breeze. They were in constant motion, as though the heat from the fire buffeted them.
One of them was sitting on the berserker's chest. He seemed more stable than the others. Is thought he was sitting cross legged, then she realized that she couldn't see his legs because they were somehow inside the berserker's body. The other man-shapes moved about constantly. They seemed to be caressing the berserker all over.
After a very long time the man stopped breathing. The night was suddenly very quiet. Is could no longer see the dark bodies.