Ardent

by Florian Armas

  Mohor refused to mount his horse. “I want a last word with Aron,” he said to Bern.

  “Mount!” he threatened Mohor, his hand on the hilt.

  Mohor feigned to finally mount his horse. Moving erratically, he only made his horse prance on the ground until it moved between him and Bern.

  “Idiot!” Bern snapped at him.

  “Such a coward you are, Aron!” Mohor shouted, leading his horse by the halter to keep it between him and Bern. “You sold us to Orban, to take Severin. You are nothing but a traitor. And your son bought his chance to become ‘king’. Your ‘king’ never won a fight. A despicable young man, good for nothing. Codrin won every battle for us. He is the only one who can unify Frankis and bring order again, not your wicked son. And those Sages of the Circle... How stupid could they could be?”

  Biting his rage on his thin lips, Bern tried to move around the horse again. Mohor kicked it, and the horse jerked aside, knocking Bern down. In the corner of my eye, I surprised Doren’s amused stare.

  “I will kill you,” Bern growled, crawling fast to escape the horse’s clattering hoofs, and laughter filled the plaza.

  “Look at the Sage.” Mohor pointed toward Aurelian, who with his two guards was hiding among the merchants. “That deceitful Sage is the cause of all this. Frankis would be a better place without him.”

  Afraid, the merchants stepped away from the three men, who did not dare to react in any way. Slowly, the people from Severin came closer, just to have a look at the Sage and his guards. It was a rare display for them.

  “Mount!” Bern growled, finally able to get round the horse, and he grabbed Mohor by the shoulder. “M...” His words drowned in the gurgling of blood as his body fell slowly, his hands sliding on Mohor’s clothes, unable to grasp onto anything, more unnatural sounds leaving his red mouth.

  There was a knife in Mohor’s hand, a small one, but he did not try to defend himself when two of Aron’s guards attacked him with their swords. Mohor fell in silence.

  “Hold Mark,” I rasped at Vio and jumped from the chariot. Orban’s soldiers did not try to stop me; they even stepped away to let me run. Mohor was still alive when I took him in my arms. He was breathing slowly, like a man falling asleep; his face serene, as if he was not badly wounded. In the corner of my eye, I saw Father, taking down one of Aron’s soldiers with a blow to the back of his head, grabbing his sword, and falling upon the distracted enemies.

  “Doren, this is between me and them,” Father shouted to Orban’s Spatar, who stayed silent, and I thought that he nodded slightly. He did not move either, staring away. It took Father just a few blows to put down another soldier. Aron’s seven remaining men moved to encircle him, none of them daring to be the first one to cross swords with Father.

  Blindly, I groped for Mohor’s knife.

  “Stay.” Mohor grabbed my hand, and remained silent, his eyes following the fight.

  “Father!” little Mark cried, fighting Vio to escape from her tight embrace. In all that noise, his bell-like voice made almost everybody turn toward him, and a murmur rose from the people of Severin; there were more than two hundred now.

  A stone hit Aurelian’s head, then another one. Blood welled from his wounds. Panicked, he raised his arms in front of him. His guards unsheathed their swords and stepped between him and the angry men and women moving slowly to surround them. Coming from nowhere, an arrow put one of the guards down. “Help me!” Aurelian pleaded in a strident voice, staring at Doren, who just grinned at him.

  Another arrow pierced one of Aron’s soldiers, who fell, turning, his hand clutching on the little part of the shaft still out of his body. Unwillingly, all of them jerked away, trying to find the archer, and Father’s sword cut through another one. A second arrow, coming from another direction, pierced another soldier.

  A stone hit Aurelian’s second guard, and he faltered, almost dropping his sword. One man with a long staff got closer fast, and swiped at his legs. The guard fell, surrounded by silent men and women. For a few moments, Aurelian’s desperate shouts still lingered, fainter and fainter, until they vanished. None of the surrounding people said a word; they just moved back, exposing the battered bodies.

  Caught between Father’s sword and the hidden archers, in two more minutes, none of Aron’s soldiers remained alive. From the tower, more of his soldiers arrived a moment later, but Aron was not there to lead them. Neither was Bucur. Codrin would have been the first one to arrive, leading his men. It was already too late; wary of Orban’s men, they stopped at some distance.

  “We are done,” Father said to Doren, letting his sword fall to the ground.

  “Stay back!” Orban’s Spatar shouted, and Aron’s soldiers did not dare to disobey him.

  “Orban would have killed me anyway. At least my death serves a purpose,” Mohor whispered. During the day, we never spoke about Arad, but both of us knew what Orban wanted from me, and that Mohor was just an ‘obstacle’ for that beast of a man. “More people know now that Aron is a traitor, and his son, the ‘king’, is good for nothing. I had a dream last night: Codrin killing Aron. I hope it will come true. I am sorry that I could not protect you better. Farewell, my wife,” Mohor said with a last effort, and his head fell heavy on my arm. Slowly, I closed his eyes. Warm droplets fell on my fingers, and it took me a while to recognize my own tears. I sobbed bitterly, feeling bile in my mouth, fighting hard to avoid throwing up.

  “Farwell, my husband,” I whispered, even though he could no longer hear me.

  Father came, and crouching alongside, he embraced me. “Mohor planned all this,” Father said in a soothing tone. “He wanted to give Codrin more chance to save Saliné. We hoped that Aron would be here too. The coward. But at least he now has fewer men to defend Severin, and word about his treachery will spread. And we’ve set a precedent: Sages can be killed too. Rest in peace, Mohor. You died a brave man.”

  “I am sorry for your loss, Lady S’Severin.” Doren’s voice sounded distant, as if coming to me through a nightmare. “I will accept a day of delay for a proper ceremony to be held this evening. Severin will remain in my custody, so you can mourn in peace.”

  All I could do was to nod at him, whatever words I might say refusing to leave my mouth.

  The funeral was short, with just a handful of people to attend it: Vio, little Mark, Father, Doren and me. Aron did not want to let anyone else participate, not even Saliné. At one point, I saw Veres, and our eyes crossed for a brief moment. I did not make any sign of recognition. Veres was no longer my son; he was Aron’s creature. Veres was dead to me too, and I mourned him along with Mohor. They left me alone in front of the grave, and until darkness came, I talked to Mohor and to myself. At least Mohor had a place to rest; Malin’s body was burned by Orban.

  Early the next morning, the gate of Severin closed behind us, as happened already with another gate, in a past that I wanted forgotten. But the past had repeated itself; Malin and now Mohor. I must be cursed by Fate. My children too. Afraid of crumbling, I could not turn for a last look at my old home, yet somehow I remembered the soldier who was the last one to disappear from sight. Maybe I was dreaming. In the carriage, little Mark was crying in Vio’s arms. I forced myself to ignore him; any answer would have just intensified his cries. We were running to freedom five years ago. We are going to prison now. The carriage turned left, on the road to Arad, where Orban was waiting for his ‘guests’ to come.

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  The Shamans at the End of Time

  Chapter 1 – Vlad

  Technically, I’ve been a soldier from the day my conscription orders arrived seven months ago, on the day I graduated from university. The bright future in front of me is no longer bright. I am not a fighter. This is true. I never wanted to fight and, for all my training, I’m still not able to hit a moving target. The cold black rifle in my arm is a soldier’s best friend, but still a strange object to me. I am better with a bow, or a sword, but modern wars are not foug
ht with antiques. While this is not my first mission, there’s been nothing like this before, and I wonder how my poor skills will cope when they attack us. Or my mind. Our enemies are of course moving targets. There is a strange irony in my being in the Special Forces. It’s not for my shooting skills. Having two black belts in martial art helps in close combat, though. Two years ago, I was the European champion at judo. This year I should have been the Olympic champion, everybody was expecting that, me included. It will not happen. Cosmin or Andrei can shoot a fly, at three hundred paces, with their rifles. I have to watch their backs, but who will watch mine?

  Morning comes slowly, an opening eyelid over a giant black eye morphing into dark blue. With the binoculars attached to the top of my helmet, I can see the enemy soldiers around the hill we occupy. My device can track five targets simultaneously – the most dangerous ones – and feed them directly into my goggles. There are only seven of us, not even a platoon. On my arm, the tactical display records the movement of our enemies on the map: red spots sliding slowly across the screen. They are still far away and, hopefully, unaware of our presence. Down in the valley, the morning mist is sneaking along the river. Perhaps so is our death. There must be some iron ore in the entrails of the surrounding hills; the lazily flowing water has a reddish hue. The cursed color forces me to look away.

  “When we get back, I will have someone Court Martialled,” Dan growls, the fingers of his left arm dancing gently in the air to control the movements of his binoculars, his right hand gripping the rifle tightly. He never lets AI control his binoculars.

  If we get back. As if he hears my thoughts, he turns toward me, and I struggle to avoid his stare.

  There was no need to say what everybody already knows: we are surrounded. Dan is our lieutenant, in charge of our lives as well as his. His frowning eyes betray some inner search for a miraculous escape plan. We trust him, but what is coming now is something that none of us have encountered before, not even him. We can’t even communicate with our base; our transmission would be intercepted instantly, and a missile would pay us a courtesy visit.

  My eyes move again from the enemy soldiers swarming on my screen to Dan’s face. Impassive, it reveals no feelings – as if his growl was just an illusion. He is a good lieutenant, or at least he has half a year more fighting experience than us, plus time at the military academy. I understand his apprehension. We are on this hilltop because the wrong coordinates were sent by a lazy soldier who did not take time to check the encrypted order he sent to us. Maybe he was dreaming of his girlfriend, or maybe his brother was killed in action. Or maybe it wasn’t anything like that, just plain negligence. One wrong digit in the coordinates Dan received sent us into this hell. I can’t say we were totally unlucky. Passing unobserved through the first enemy line during the night was a lucky shot, especially when we knew nothing about it. We even hummed a tune, walking through the forest to replace our comrades in an observation post that was supposed to be safe, at our edge of no-man’s land. Instead we found ourselves on this bloody hill.

  “This place is magical,” Cosmin whispers, a few paces in front of me. His left hand makes an ample gesture, to include the whole hilltop in that magical spot. The hill resembles a half-bald man’s head, thick hair on his nape, and a full beard. There is an old oak forest on the lower parts, some trees so large they could hide a car. The bald area is partly covered by old ruins that we had no idea about until today, no more than a few decayed stones arranged in a small circle between larger natural rocks. Propelled by some strange curiosity, we tried to find them on the maps, but there was nothing. “I can feel the energy surrounding us.”Fingers spread wide, his left hand is now rigid and stretched in front of him, trying to feel what he calls the ‘energy’. The quiet excitement in his voice transfers into my mind too, I don’t know why.

  Cosmin is a math teacher. I’ve known him since childhood. The same quarter of the city, the same school, the same dreams. Almost. One year older, he finished university the year before me. His dream was already taking shape: for one year, he taught children the beauty of math. “Life is like a math equation,” he used to say. “It’s up to you to find the most beautiful solution.”

  What solution did our marvelous politicians find? The last economic crisis went on for almost a decade, and they decided that war was the best way to end it. At least no nukes have been used yet.

  What are my chances of getting out of here alive, returning home and fulfilling my own dream? My dream is to build planes, or even better, space planes ready to fly to Mars. Last year, I applied for several jobs, before graduating. By the time they answered, I was already in uniform. My parents informed them, and they promised to hire me when I got back from the front. With two permanent bases established on Mars and monthly shuttles to the Moon, there is a definite shortage of specialized engineers.

  Cosmin is not just a math teacher. Some years ago, he found, in his grandfather’s cellar, a box filled with strange books about spirituality and hidden mysteries from the past, and his life changed. He loves legends about energetic portals linking unknown places and time lines. I have heard them all. I don’t believe in such things, but Cosmin is a colorful storyteller, recounting lost civilizations that may never have existed and esoteric mysteries. No one can prove that Atlantis or Lemuria were real, but Cosmin is my friend. Why should I upset him? And he sees things that others cannot. I will believe that when I have proof, but I never contradict him. He takes my silent behavior as an endorsement of his peculiar beliefs.

  “The main vortex is right there,” Cosmin points at the stone resting my back and, involuntarily, I touch the stone. It’s cold.

  A cold vortex, I almost laugh, and bite my lip, unwilling to upset him. Convinced that there is nothing to see, I don’t turn around.

  “It goes a hundred feet into the sky. These ruins…” he continues, scratching his beard, his face thoughtful. “They must have been a temple a long time ago. What a pity to fight here.”

  What a pity to fight, period.

  “Shut up, Cosmin,” Toma growls. In normal circumstances, he would choose to ignore the story, and Toma is not the only feeling annoyed one right now.

  “Let him speak,” I say – better listening to Cosmin’s fairytales than thinking about a hundred ways to die. There are so many ways to vanish in a war. I had no idea about most of them in my previous life. There is more for the imagination in a real war than in a hundred movies. All morbid. “Your vortex must go underground too,” I tease Cosmin.

  “Yes,” he says quickly, unable to feel my friendly dig; it’s so easy to get him to talk about the hidden things that no one but he is able to see. “It’s like a hidden fire. Fire, walk with me,” he casts something resembling a spell from his old books, his eyes tense and searching.

  “Will this do it?” Andrei flicks his lighter and laughter fills the hill; the enemy is too far away to hear us.

  “I’m afraid that your vortex won’t help. What about a flying saucer? Can you summon one?” Dan jokes in his most serious tone, and that provokes more laughter. Even Toma joins in, a bit later, like an afterthought.

  “Only a flying can,” Cosmin replies, still laughing. “Make your choice. I have chicken or chicken.” Our usual meal for more than six months already. Swiftly, he opens the backpack, and tosses a can out. Then he does it again, and again, his repetitive movements resembling a peculiar metronome, counting the seconds of our lives.

  How I’d like to eat something cooked by Mother. My mind slips back to a past that has nothing to do with war and destruction and killing people like us. A past of love and happiness. A present of attrition and despair. Even the most regular meal with the family, a thing you used to ignore and take for granted, is now just a pleasant, distant dream you crave for.

  “They are coming,” Dan warns, watching the tactical com attached to his arm, and in sudden silence, we take up firing positions between the stones.

  The first projectile hits the ground just sixt
y feet in front of our position. Alerted by the whizzing sound, Andrei and I withdraw a few seconds before the explosion, our backs pressed to the old stone protecting us, its coldness passing slowly through our uniforms. It’s calming. We stare at each other and our nervous laughter fills the silence before the next explosion. We escaped. In the corner of my eye, I catch Cosmin squeezing the trigger of his rifle, which has a silencer, and I know that one enemy is down. One of many. Another explosion shatters the earth to the left of our hell-hole. It seems distant, and I am not bothered by it. Unexpectedly, a lone shard of shrapnel hisses through the air in front of us. With a muffled sound, it hits a stone covered with dried moss, on our right, and recoils, leaving behind multi-colored sparks. Andrei bends in pain and grunts loudly. I hear gurgling, and his head rolls. My mind registers its fall with an unwanted level of detail. It seems impossible, but Andrei’s head rolls down from his shoulders and falls into my lap. His body bends, then slips aside, away from me. In a few moments, the grass below changes from green to red, my camouflage trousers too. I can’t move; I can’t react in any way. I can still breathe. Logically, I realize that I am in a shock, not only because I am paralyzed, but because my mind has shed its self-preservation mechanism. Andrei’s eyes are serene, like he is resting, like he is still alive. I have the foolish hope that he will wink at me and smile, telling me that it’s all just a joke. All war is a bad joke.

  My breath comes out in spurts, one in and out each second, and I feel as if I’m breathing like a dog trying to cool itself down. My pulse goes up; I am hyperventilating; the oxygen in my blood is 100 percent, my pulse 187 heartbeats per minute, and the monitoring Lifeband around my head sends messages to my tactical com, warning me. It’s useless, my pulse still goes up. I feel an electric shock from the Lifeband, and I realize that I passed out for a while. The com shows me that I was unconscious for 5.7651 seconds. I don’t understand the need for so many decimals, and I blink rapidly. Andrei’s head is still sitting quietly in my lap, his blind eyes staring at me. Death is like sleeping. I look into his glassy eyes. All I can think now is to calculate the probability of that shrapnel hitting him and not me – a useless, yet somehow calming exercise, or at least numbing.