War and the Wind

by Tyler Krings

  Jon grinned and threw the sheets to the side. They dressed quickly and found their way to the forest path approaching the clearing as the sun climbed across the mountains, playing merrily with the frost on the ground and tree limbs. Ana walked behind Jon wearing loose clothes that had already lost much of their warmth. She appreciated the scene before her: the practice field was a perfect circle, the trunks of dead trees lined the rim perfectly one behind the other, a meter apart, their bark shaved. Each bore years’ worth of marks from Jon’s sword. The circle only just grazed a small cliff looking over a river that lazily passed, giving the impression that it was uninterested in anything other than its path. Jon approached the middle of the circle and knelt on both knees, placing his scabbarded sword in front of him. He said quiet words that she could not hear but knew from their flow that they were a mantra of some sort. She smiled as she watched him, seeing Arthen in his movements, surprising herself that she had not noticed the semblance before. Perhaps I did not want to, she thought. Jon stood and walked to the edge of the circle, drew his blade, and set the scabbard beyond the line of dead trees.

  She extended her hand and called forth Galeblade, its tall shaft and long thin blade glimmering with silver light.

  “So, no practice swords then,” Jon remarked with a smile. “You sure you know how to use that thing?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Go easy on me, it’s my first time.” She launched through the air, using the wind to propel her forward quickly. Jon parried her lunge and pivoted to the side. She whirled and delivered fast blows with shaft, butt, and blade, using the spear’s reach to her advantage. Jon parried every strike. His feet moved with precision and balance; his carefully timed ripostes were defensive and probing. She backed a step, one hand on the shaft and the other on the butt, as she brought the spear to her armpit, parallel to the ground. She made quick jabs and cuts to either side, keeping him in front of her. Her future husband continued to parry, until she feinted left, then threw herself forward with a fast lunge. When he moved, she almost did not see it. He stayed in front of her, but her lunge had missed by the width of a hair. He raced the length of the spear, his sword held tight across his chest with the edge forward. He stopped when the edge of the blade kissed the flesh of her throat, the flat of the sword resting on Galeblade’s shaft. Jon smiled and removed the blade.

  “I thought you said you knew how to use that thing?” he asked, clearly amused.

  She felt her throat for a line of blood and found none. “I told you, it’s my first time.” Aside from their brief battle with the Hunt, it was her first time facing an opponent in a mortal body. There was a fire in her belly now. She had not been beaten one on one since the days she had sparred with Arthen himself and she did not appreciate the thought of losing.

  “Oh, I doubt that very much, my lady,” Jon replied.

  She readied herself and came at him again. He moved with the grace of water and vipers, every step planned and foreseen. His sword moved through the air like lightning and each blow he delivered was a hammer to her shoulders, but there was too much time between strikes. He’s holding back, she thought. For some reason, this made her angry. She distanced herself quickly, moving toward the edge of the circle. She kept Galeblade’s tip in front of her and circled him. He remained in his defensive posture, cocking an eyebrow as he waited. He doesn’t want to hurt me, she thought. His mistake. She gathered will and power into the small of her back and rear and held it there. She made as if to challenge his guard but instead threw the spear directly at his head and released her hold on the wind. In a surge of power, she flew through the circle and tackled him just as he was deflecting the spear throw, bringing them both to the ground. Astride him, she placed both her elbows into both of his, using weight and godly strength to pin his arms to the ground. She brought her face to his. “Yield?”

  He looked at both pinned arms, spared a look to the sword a short distance away, before resting his head on the ground. He met her victorious smile with a grin and shifted his hips. She could feel his manhood rising against her and felt herself responding.

  “Never,” he said. His legs came up suddenly and both ankles wrapped her face in an impressive show of dexterity. He plied her off him and they rolled into a tumble, resulting with him sitting on her rear, her face in the dirt. “You made me drop my sword,” he said, “In Nathera, that’s ten lashes.”

  “Do I get to wield the whip?” she mumbled into the earth. She gathered will into her hands and chest.

  “Is our sex life about to get complicated?” he asked. “I’ll have you know I draw the line at bringing swords and spears into the bedroom.”

  “Well then, my love, it seems we are at an impasse!” She released her will and launched the two of them several meters into the air. He came off her and landed on his side with a grunt as she gently guided herself down with the wind’s aid. She walked a step to him and kicked him gently onto his back. He was breathing hard as she lowered herself atop him a second time. She found his manhood with her hand and held it strongly.

  “Okay…” Jon grunted. “Everything else is fair game, but that’s cheating.”

  She smiled and let go. She moved her hips against him and removed her shirt. “Yield?” she said softly.

  Jon looked from her face to her breasts and back again. “Never?”

  Tao Magrin stared at the sergeant through the bars of the cell. The frown on his face had become permanent since their assignment and arrival in Errol’s Fortune. The days had been filled with vague order upon vague order from a man whom the captain was sure was not a man at all. The efforts of the Maddogs had revealed that not only was this town exactly what it seemed, they were not allowed to move on the only lead they had found. Now, the deaths of prostitutes were no longer the latest in the strange happenings. The sergeant in question had been found dumping the bodies of two well-known and liked corporals into the river.

  The captain approached the cell. “Sergeant Baylor.”

  The young man rocked on his rear with his hands over his knees, shaking his head and mumbling incoherently. Or maybe he’s praying. Captain Magrin squatted to the prisoner’s level.

  “Sergeant,” he said softly. Arne Baylor did not stop his mumbling as he raised his head briefly and met the captain’s eyes. Magrin had seen that look before, in men a torn from their world after a battle, after they had lost all sense of the world around them, after having seen the horrors that men could commit, or the horrors that they had committed themselves.

  The captain rose and turned to Lancer Killian. “Nothing?”

  “Not a word, sir.”

  “The squad?”

  “Had some interesting things to say. Corporal Romlin had taken them down to the local whorehouse just this morning. Asking questions. Our man can confirm as he saw them leaving.”

  Magrin cursed. “Our ‘man’ was there?”

  “Aye, sir. Tailing the Ambassador.” The prisoner made a sound like a dog getting kicked. Magrin looked and found the sergeant shaking his head.

  “Dontgodontgodontgo…DONT GO!” Arne Baylor resumed crying.

  The captain turned away. “Gather a detail. Meet me at Isend’s mansion.” Orders be damned.

  A quiet snow blanketed the harvested fields overnight, travelling quickly from the mountains on the backs of southern bound winds. In the following days, work turned from labor in the fields to maintenance and repair, the goal being to wait out the cold for the chance at another fruitful season the following year.

  Might not be a next year. Jon looked up from his place on the roof, confidently hanging from a secured rope thrown around the chimney, and watched as the old man and Irving made their way through the snow. The old man’s sack was laden with the few things they needed: sugar and spices and wax, all things they did not make themselves. He waved, and the old man answered. The door to the house opened, and Jon heard the sing-song voice of his wife-to-be greet the old man. Listening to the murmur of their conversation below, Jo
n finished patching the roof and made his way down slowly, mindful of the hidden ice and forceful winds, back to the warmth of the kitchen and the crackling hearth. The smell of coffee and roasting meat kept his attention as he shed his heavy coat and boots, careful not to drag too much water across the floorboards.

  He took a cup and filled it to the brim with the blackened sludge the old man called coffee. He decided to forgo sugar and milk, as this day he needed more to warm his belly more than appease his tongue.

  “It smells like sex in here,” said the old man as he smoked by the window and casually stoked the fire.

  Jon came to the hearth and found his chair before finding his pipe, trying his best to keep a neutral expression. “Sure does.”

  The old man grunted.

  “You do know that’s what married couples do, right?” Jon asked.

  The old man stared at him. “You had sex on my chair.”

  Jon feigned trying to remember if they had or not, holding back a smile, “We’ve…uh…had sex in a lot of places.” The old man continued to stare, allowing the silence to drag on. “So,” said Jon, “About the town?”

  “Hm. Something’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the wedding, the Moon, is to move on as planned. It is to be quite the spectacle.”

  “And that’s bad because…?”

  “It’s a trap.”

  Jon nodded. “Well, we suspected, didn’t we?”

  The old man leaned forward, his face more serious than usual. “Rom and Ham are dead.”

  Jon froze. The pipe in his hand turned to lead and fell from his grasp. The pit of his stomach turned. “How…how do you know?” he whispered.

  “Sergeant Baylor was arrested, trying to throw their bodies into the river.”

  “Arne?” He clinched his fists in sudden anger and disbelief.

  “Jon,” said the old man softly, “Arne is complicit, but know that there is no doubt greater evil at play here. Two in a very short list of allies have been removed from the board. Anger is fine, but we must use it correctly.”

  Jon nodded. He could sheathe the anger; he knew how to do so, had been taught when and where to use it. But he was damn sure that he did not want to. Arne killed my friends… “They must have known something…. Or done something to piss it off.”

  “Perhaps. The Lord of Murder is assuredly trying to draw us out, at least you. Whether we take the bait or not, I suspect they will be as ready for us if not more so than we are for them.”

  Fury took him. “Well fuck them then! Bring them to me, and I will show them Nathera remembers!”

  The old man stood quickly. “Keep your tongue behind where it belongs, boy, if you’ve nothing useful to say! I did not brave the fires of Anu and Nathera only to have you drag us into darkness with your pity.” The old man unruffled his cloak in an exaggerated gesture as the boy looked at the ground, chastised but seething. The old man sat again and put the pipe back in his mouth. “Do you know why the Lord of Fate has not attacked us yet? After all, they know where we are, why not show himself and bring down his mighty legions around our ears?”

  Jon stared at the old man with narrowed eyes, feeling the anger seethe through him. He struggled to sheathe it.

  “Because he does not yet possess all the pieces,” the old man continued. “He does not yet know his enemy. There are only a few who could maintain a such an adequate defense to the eyes of Anu. Only a few that would give the Lord of Fate pause.”

  Jon huffed. “And one of those people would be you?”

  “Of course, it’s fucking me. I was not always an old man on a farm, but that is not the greatest weapon I possess; Fate, does not know I am here.”

  Jon sat and looked the old man squarely in the eye. “And just, who are you?”

  The door opened and Ana stomped in a swirl of snow and icy mud. She stripped off her coat and cloak and moved quickly toward the fire. Her hair was now nearly to the middle of her neck and was plastered to her head with either snow or sweat. It did nothing to diminish her beauty; even wearing men’s garb there was no hiding that she did not belong here in the filth. She looked briefly between the boy and old man.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Jon sighed and got up from his chair and walked hurriedly to the kitchen. “Jon?!”

  He heard the hushed tones of the old man. “Give him a moment. Ham and Rom were just found dead.” The old man said something else, but Jon had left the house before Ana could hurry to him. The chill wind had not ceased, but he could not feel it. He stopped a few meters from their home and stared out into the still and frozen fields, daring an attack, anything that would give him leave to make violence. When he found none, he placed his head in his hands, where the only enemy he could find were the tears he shed for the only friends he had known.

  The Wolf waited with his pack at the edge of the farmstead. They had enjoyed the fine feast of their hunt an hour past, and now they lounged about as the pups played under a bitch’s careful eye. The Wolf watched the farm with increasing attention, as there was a scent in the air. He watched the old man arrive some time earlier, listened to a heated debate, and watched the boy come out to mourn wounds that were not physical. Such times were upon them. The scent that carried now was not the work of the boy or the old man, he had known before it was not of the mortal world, gave him pause. Like lightning after it strikes a tree and is drowned in rain. The pack elders grew testy watching his posture; they also suspected something amiss in the night’s silence and prowled in wary circles, ears up and noses to the wind.

  As the scent the Wolf knew grew sharper, and a great pressure filled his ears, he stopped thinking of his pack and three in the house. With flashes of light and the stink of sulfur, three women suddenly stood between him and the farmstead. Their timing could not be worse. The pack slinked away, grabbing the pups and crouching, hidden, in the foliage. The women dressed in heavenly robes, and the Wolf knew each of them. There were ways around the old man’s illusions, but not many. The Wolf suspected these three were here via some knowledge he did not possess. He grunted.

  He shed his fur and stood on his hind legs, taking again, the appearance of a man in hunting furs. The women stared wide eyed at their surroundings, not unlike tourists in some exotic locale, and did not notice him as he approached. They were not goddesse’s in the sense that they were queens of some aspect of Anu or Evanna. No, these were the Wise, sisters of Wisdom’s court: The Red, the White, and the Black. While they had not participated in the Revolution, they had been instrumental in devising the underground network of spies and smuggling channels that had preserved a thousand gods from Fate’s noose after the war. They had pressured and provided the Wolf a way of rescuing Arienaethin from Fate’s laboratory, and had secured the Way he had used to fling her to Earth. What they were doing here, however, on what was perhaps an eve of battle, the Wolf did not know.

  Nearly a yard from them he spoke. “Wise.” They turned as one in surprise and gasped in relief upon seeing his face. They looked as barely adult humans would; tall and budding, lush hair and skin different shades. Their skin, unused to the elements, glistened in the moonlight. The first, fire-headed and pale, ran the last few feet to him and threw her arms around his shoulders. The Wolf grunted.

  “We’ve travelled so far…” she sobbed softly. His eyes flickered all around and his ears perked. From her and the others he smelled one thing above all else: Fear.

  They made their dinner together, Jon and Ana. The old man had made it his job to keep the fires in both the kitchen and den burning as the two worked to make something of their ample supplies. Soups and porridge were often the course of the evening, with beer basted rabbit or deer. Ana had made the case for more fruit, but in the winter, there was only the dried option readily available. Jon burned his finger when removing the bread from the oven, much to Ana’s amusement.

  “Balls,” he said while setting the bread down and sticking his burned forefinger
in his mouth. Ana took his hand from his mouth and gingerly placed her lips on his fingertips.

  “Better?” she asked. Jon eyed his finger.

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “Thanks.” He took his finger back and focused on the bread. Allowing himself his sorrow was something that the old man counselled. Ana, too, had lost friends in the wars of the past, but seeing it on the man she loved caused her pain that did not come from the deaths of Rom and Ham. Jon lay the bread on the counter and began to carefully slice. She hugged him from behind, forcefully, and rested her head between his shoulders. She felt it then, a brief pause, as the sorrow threatened to overwhelm him, then the shuddering breath as it eventually did. They remained like that for several moments before Jon dropped the bread knife, turned, and hugged her back. “Thank you,” he said.

  They set the table and the old man joined them, filling glasses and arraying the dishes. They ate to the crackle of fire and the cracking of forks. The old man and Jon discussed certain things around the house to be done eventually, distracting from the events of the past and not-so-distant future whilst Ana listened half-heartedly and nibbled her bread. There was a certain pleasantness to being human and participating in the simplicities of daily life. Not that life in Anu had been overly complicated for her, but here they talked about things that only mattered in relatively short terms, and nothing decided would ever affect the outcome of worlds. She looked from the old man to Jon and wondered briefly how it was they could be so calm in the face of what was to come. It is because they have done this before. Shared a hearty meal the night before a battle. She knew they had travelled and done things that were not always farming, but it occurred to her that she knew little of their lives before they came here.

  There was a knock at the door. Talk and thought ceased as the three of them stared at one another. Then in a flurry of movement, Ana slipped around the corner as Jon and the old man reached their swords. The old man stepped to the door with sword in hand as Jon crouched low to the side. Hiding his sword arm, Noah opened the door with caution at first before quickly flinging it aside. Ana watched from her covered position as the Noah quickly greeted the Wolf in human form and stood aside, letting in three women. She knew each of them. Jon stood with a confused frown and shot her a look and a shrug. Recognition flashed in his eyes as the three moved into the sitting room and shed their shawls. Ana approached them slowly, noting the caution in their movements and the fear behind their smiles.