“Just when we were starting to get along….”
Kaia’s eyes widened.
“Really, you couldn’t think of anything sweeter to say on my deathbed?” he murmured, sitting up on his elbows to look at her with tired hazel eyes. For a breathless moment, Kaia was shocked into stillness. “And do you really have to talk so loudly? People are trying to sleep around here. I—”
But Kaia didn’t let him finish the thought. She threw her arms around his neck, pushing him back onto his thin pallet. “Klaus,” she choked, his name heavy with emotion.
“Ow, ow, ow, careful,” he hissed with a wince. Kaia released him gently, shifting herself from his chest to lie by his side. She couldn’t still her gasping to say anything, so she just pressed closer, trying to smother her sobs against his chest. He stroked her hair with a soothing hand.
“What’s the matter, Firefly?” he chuckled. “I’m still in one piece." Klaus lifted the blanket so she could see the bandages wrapping his chest, his right arm, and his right leg. “He tried to gut me, but my armor was tougher than he counted on. I got away with an ugly gash.”
“Klaus,” she whispered, as the tears only flowed faster, “I thought you'd left me.” She buried her soggy face into his bandaged chest.
“I know,” he murmured, tossing the blanket across them. “It’s ok now.” He gently brushed her braid from her cheek and tucked it back behind her ear. "Just relax."
"I lost control," she sobbed. "How many of our own did I…." Kaia couldn't finish the question.
"None." Klaus squeezed her shoulder. "The only one near enough to you to be caught in the Dragon Rage was Everard, and he was prepared with a yanaa shield."
Kaia exhaled a rush of air, and her heart unclenched. "It would have been unforgivable," she whispered.
Klaus rolled to his side with a wince. "But it didn't happen.”
"What if Everard hadn't protected himself?"
"Kaia," Klaus locked his stern eyes on hers. "We needed it to happen. That's why you and Everard were kept behind, away from the rest of us. Everard was ready."
"But Conrad!" she protested. "I used the dragon fire on the living…."
"Stop this, Kaia," Klaus warned, bristling. "War is an ugly thing. Do you think you're the only one who killed yesterday?"
Kaia turned her tear-streaked face away from him. Klaus spoke the truth, of course. The Shadow Heir was known as a skilled assassin, but she hadn't been prepared to take another's life.
The Shadow Heir exhaled, deflating. "Kaia," he murmured, rubbing his thumb along her arm, "I'm sorry. It was my task to deal with Mogens and Conrad, and I failed."
Tears budded in Kaia's eyes again as she turned back to Klaus.
"But, those two hewed their own paths. They chose evil.” He squeezed her arm. "If it hadn't been for you, we wouldn't have survived the day." He reached out a hand to wipe away one of her tears. “Thank Odriel for you, Firefly."
✽✽✽
Kaia woke just before dawn to find the tent still dark and Klaus' pallet empty. Gus' feathery tail swished through the dirt as she stirred. Her body had stiffened, only intensifying her aches, but Kaia could not abide being in the confined space a moment longer. She pulled a privacy sheet aside to find rows upon rows of pallets filled with the injured. The sides of the tent were open and she could see that some even lay in the yellowed grass surrounding them.
In the early morning gloom, the able-bodied glided like ghosts among the wounded, passing out bandages, food, and water. Hot jets of pain shot through Kaia's limbs as she forced herself to stand, sucking air through her teeth. She hissed as she took stumbling steps through the prone forms of men, Dracours, and Maldibor to the open air outside the tent.
Kaia limped through the camp, anonymous in the dark, unsure of her destination. She hadn't gone far before a hand grasped her uninjured arm.
Klaus sighed. "And just what are you doing up?"
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "I could ask you the same thing.”
In the approaching dawn light, she could see his dark hair sticking up and the charcoal circles framing his hazel eyes. He held on to her elbow as he walked with her, but Kaia couldn't tell if it was to steady her or himself. She looked away from him and spotted Fiola's obsidian ropes of hair to the far right of the pallets.
Kaia's heart quailed as she gazed beyond the old woman to see the fallen gathered at the edge of camp. There were almost as many dead as wounded. Granny Fiola’s voice rang through the still dawn as she appointed gravediggers and ordered the bodies to be arranged for identification. Her movements were quick and her commands sharp, but her normally lively amber eyes betrayed a tired dullness. She had obviously worked through the night.
As Kaia watched, Everard approached the old woman. When Fiola saw him, she seemed to shrink as she crumbled into his arms. Kaia could see her shaking slightly from a distance, but she only allowed herself a moment of weakness before pulling away from Everard to direct another soldier. Seeing the crotchety magus comforting someone was a disconcerting spectacle. Kaia wondered briefly again about their bond as she and Klaus limped over to them.
When Fiola saw them, she rushed over. Her tattooed arms crushed Kaia and Klaus against her chest in a fierce embrace, and Kaia tried not to wince.
“Oh, my dears, my dears!” Fiola exclaimed. “I'm so glad you're all right.” She released them and wiped her dewy eyes.
Kaia turned to Everard. “How bad was it?”
The magus sighed deeply, “It was a costly battle.” He paused as he looked over the rows of dead.
“How many?” Kaia pressed. She wanted to know how many lives she had lost. How many she had failed. Her conscience needed to know.
“We began with five hundred, and we will be burying more than five score,” Everard said, not looking at her.
Kaia gasped at the number. So many. "Were any of them…” her voice shook, “…burned?"
"No," Klaus, Fiola, and Everard said at once.
"Ours were safely out of your path," Everard reassured her, his tone strangely gentle.
“But…” Granny Fiola began, her voice uncharacteristically weak as she turned her gaze downward. Kaia looked up sharply as a tear trickled down Fiola’s wrinkled cheek. “Your brother wanted to explain,” she finished, shuffling away before Kaia could respond.
Kaia's heart fluttered in panic, and she looked to Klaus for explanation, only to see her own confusion mirrored in his face. Klaus squeezed her elbow, and they followed Fiola through the rows and rows of dead. As they passed Maldibor, Dracour, man, woman, and beast, each step felt more difficult. Kaia’s guts tightened with dread as she searched for familiar faces among the mangled bodies. Ahead of them, Fiola stopped next to a man standing over a body that Kaia could not see. As they drew closer, Kaia realized it was no warrior, but Bram standing beside Fiola. With trepidation, she stepped up beside Fiola and Bram, her whole body pounding along with her throbbing heart.
Bram turned his dirty face to her. His blank eyes blinked slowly as if he had forgotten why he was there at all. “Kaia…”
Kaia looked down, and nausea washed over her in a tidal wave. She fell to her knees with a hand to her open mouth and spewed the contents of the stomach on the ground. Little Mackie Tannen lay in the grass, his body sliced from neck to navel. Felix pawed at his still shoulder with small brown hands, cooing softly. Fiola bent down to scoop the animal up, her tears falling silently into his golden fur. Kaia drew gasping breaths as tears cascaded down well-worn paths on her cheeks.
“What happened?” she whispered, looking to Bram. Reading the guilt on his face, she rose to her feet. Kaia grabbed his shirt with a shrill scream. “WHAT HAPPENED?!”
Bram turned his face away from her, avoiding her eyes. When he finally spoke, his words were stunned and flat. “At the end, there were only a few of us left. I was so tired. Mackie was there, just running in and out, helping the injured and handing out flasks. When he passed me one, I was so thir
sty I drank it right there in front of him. Then, a squad of soldiers came out of nowhere. Mackie caught one coming up behind me. I would have been gutted like a fish, but…Mackie just shoved me out of the way.” Bram looked back to her with pleading eyes. “It all happened so fast, there was nothing I could do! He didn’t have to do it! He didn’t even know me!”
Kaia was looking at Bram, but her mind was back in Summerbanks. I’m not brave like you. Mackie had asked her with adoring eyes. Anyone can be brave, Mackie, she had told him.
And of course, he had been.
Kaia glared at her brother with disgust as she shook with grief and rage. She wanted to shout and curse in his face. Bram, who was only there to avenge Papa and blame her for his death. It was your damned jealousy that killed Mackie! You aren’t worth it!
Instead of shouting, she shoved him as hard as she could. Bram fell to the ground, and Kaia brought her balled fists to her sides. But when Bram kept his head bowed, Kaia could only sag as her surging anger melted away into grief. Mackie’s sacrifice had not been Bram’s decision, just like Papa’s had not been hers.
Why do the best of us have to die?
She stared at her filthy brother crouching in the field of bodies and spoke low. “Now you know what it is like to watch someone better than you trade their life for yours.”
Then, kneeling stiffly before Mackie’s torn body, she touched her fingers to her lips before pressing them against his cold forehead. She said a silent prayer to Odriel to guide him safely to the other side, rose to her feet, and turned away.
✽✽✽
At sunset, those that could still stand gathered to recognize the dead. First, a warrior with heavy bandages wrapped around his forehead and right eye stepped forward over the row of graves to speak for the fallen humans.
“Odriel, these people fought bravely to protect your beloved land against corruption. May you guide their noble souls to the other side.”
Then, he read the names of the dead. As he read each one, another warrior stepped forward to speak in memory of the lost soul. Eighty-seven souls had fallen—eighty-seven warriors whose families waited anxiously for a return that would never come. When the man called out Mackie’s name, it felt like a stab to Kaia’s battered heart. Fiola stepped forward, Felix at her feet.
“Mackie brought tooth and claw to aid us in battle,” Her voice rang loud and clear. "Then sacrificed himself for another. He died innocent, but courageous as any warrior." She suppressed a sob. “May Odriel guide his sweet soul.”
As Fiola stepped back to her place in line with the Heirs, Everard put his arm around her shoulder and leaned his cheek against her brow.
Kaia tangled her fingers in Gus’ fur beside her, and he pressed against her. We are sad, but I am with you.
After the last human’s name was called, Cressida stepped forward to honor the twenty-three Dracours who now lay in fresh graves. She pulled her sword from its sheath and rested the flat of the blade against her nose and forehead, its tip pointed to the sky. The Dracours gathered behind her followed suit.
“Great warriors.” She closed her eyes. “Though you may have fallen in battle, your spirits join the wind on our faces, the air in our lungs, and together, we fight as one for eternity.”
The Dracour warriors raised their blades to the sky before slowly, silently lowering them back to their sheaths. A soft breeze whistled around them in answer to their elegy.
Lastly, the small Maldibor clan stepped forward. Out of the thirty-six that had joined their battle, only twenty-eight remained. Eight family members had sacrificed themselves to a cause that concerned man much more than beast. Blessed be to Odriel, Tekoa survived, Kaia thought. She didn’t think she could have borne his loss along with Mackie’s.
The shaggy beasts made two tight circles around the graves. They stood there for a moment in silence before Okoni lifted his head to the sky with a heart-rending howl. One by one, each lent his voice to the chorus—twenty-eight souls howling with grief in a dirge that was both beautiful and unbearable. Kaia took an involuntary step backward as their raw emotion seized her. Klaus' hard chest steadied her, and she leaned into him. She had no more tears to shed, but her heart ached with their grief all the same
Finally, the last voice dissolved into the still summer dusk.
All of the Maldibor returned to the crowd except for one. Sensing the burial was over, the remainder of the army dispersed back into the camp in silence.
Kaia watched the last beast standing stiffly over the grave. “What about him?” she whispered.
“The Maldibor clan will share a vigil through the night,” Everard said, as he turned to head back to the tents.
As everyone left, Kaia stayed, regarding the one-hundred and eighteen souls that she had failed. She looked past them to gaze at the dry field where they had taken their last breaths. Her rage had scorched the land in an ashy, black circle.
When Nifras had been defeated in the south, the once fertile land of the battleground had turned to desert and became known merely as the Deadlands. Kaia knew that this plain, watered with the blood of so many and scarred by her own hand, would also bear the name of the atrocious battle. She wondered vaguely what the field would be called. Dragon’s Lea? Ariston’s Stand?
Klaus, waiting patiently beside her, interrupted her thoughts. “Kaia—”
The ground trembled beneath their feet, cutting him off.
Kaia flailed her arms as she tried to keep her balance and stumbled a few steps before falling to her knees. The pink sky turned dark as night, and once again she brought her hands to her ears as the crashing of thunderclaps filled the air. This episode dragged on longer than the last, and Kaia counted the booms. On the nineteenth, a tremendous crack sundered the air.
Kaia searched for Klaus in the near dark with eyes wide with alarm. The Shadow Heir scowled at the sky, waiting anxiously for the light to return. He released a tense breath when the sky finally lightened, and the ground ceased to shake. As the sky turned from a charcoal gray back to orange, Kaia realized that something was wrong. The south remained in shadow.
“Klaus,” she whispered, raising her hand to the sky. “Look at the sun.”
Klaus followed her trembling hand. Although the sun still hung above the horizon, the right half of the great orb burned an angry red while the left half remained eclipsed in darkness.
✽✽✽
The Heirs and other leaders gathered around the fire that night to discuss Nifras’ attack on the barrier. Kaia, still exhausted from the previous day and stunned by the new turn of events, only half-heartedly listened to the conversation. She could already guess the course of the talk. It exhausted her to even contemplate the possibility of facing the necromancer’s army. She and Klaus had barely survived against two thousand. How in the land and sky would they face ten?
"There is the matter of Nifras himself," Everard said, his gaze drifting to the darkness surrounding them.
Cressida tossed her ram horns toward Klaus. "The Shadow Heir is gifted to battle him."
"Yes," Shad agreed, his round eyes glowing in the firelight. "But with what weapon? He cannot use that common blade he snapped in two yesterday."
Okoni, the Maldibor chief, nodded his great head. "To kill a demon god, a blessed edge is surely needed."
"Does such a relic even exist?" asked the warrior that had replaced the fallen Gyatus leader.
Only the crackling of the fire answered his question. Kaia looked from face to face, each shadowed by more than flames.
"Yes," Everard said simply. "It does."
"Well then, where is it?" Cressida demanded in the curt Dracourian manner.
Everard's black eyes stared into the distance, and he did not answer the question immediately. "The weapon that Kallar, the first Shadow Heir, used to defeat Nifras. It is said to be indestructible."
"Odriel's Tooth," Klaus murmured just loud enough for Kaia to hear. "I’ve heard that it's made of shadows, but my father said it was just a l
egend."
Everard crossed his arms. "Unfortunately, through the years, it has been lost.”
Okoni growled at this news while the other chiefs hissed in audible disappointment.
"However," Everard went on, "there is one who knows its location. He lives east of the mountains, in the marshes of Tazgar."
"Why haven't we heard of this before?" Klaus asked, bristling at the thought of his ancestor's inheritance kept hidden from him.
"Because," Everard muttered, his eyebrows arched in annoyance, "when I demanded the blade's return, Dorinar refused to disclose its location."
"And who is this Dorinar?" rumbled Okoni.
Shad answered the beast. "He is Everard's brother."
This news spurred a chorus of comments from the circle:
"Another magus?"
"Well, then we must try again."
"Is there no other way?"
"We have no choice."
"Who can we send?"
Everard's voice rose over the urgent murmurs. "Dorinar will only bestow the weapon upon its rightful owner." Six pairs of eyes turned to Klaus.
Klaus straightened and spoke formally. "I'll retrieve the blade."
Everard gestured to his feline emissary, flicking his tail at the edge of the fire’s glow. "Shadmundar will show you the way.”
Kaia raised her voice. "I'm going, too.” She set her jaw firmly as the council turned their glinting eyes to her. "I'll not allow the remaining Heirs to be separated.” Her voice softened, and she met Klaus' stare. "No good has come of that recently."
The words were met with nods and mumbles of assent.
"You must leave with the dawn and hasten on your journey," Everard faced south. "We will regroup and meet you in the Deadlands."
"What happens if they fail to retrieve the sword?" the Gyatan asked. Once again, the council fell silent. Kaia could hear the wind whistling through the plain beyond.
Finally, Okoni's deep voice echoed in the night. "Then we shall have to pray."
✽✽✽
Odriel's Heirs Page 15