Sisters of the Storm_Triad

by Guy Estes

  "Oh, don't worry," he said as he walked into the night. "My meaning shall become plain enough."

  Anlon had no idea what Jase was going on about, but he knew it sprang from last week’s event. Jase had led his group to steal some horses from a neighboring tribe. Thankfully, the tribe had not been Amazons, lest Anlon would probably be the last Charidean standing. However, the rightful owners of the horses had caught up with Jase’s group. In fact, they had caught Jase and his group in a small bowl in the plains, a depression with sharp sides. It left no room for horse archers to maneuver. The owners of the horses were from one of the few tribes on the steppes to produce renowned swordsmen. They came down into the depression through its only entrance, eight of them, drawing their swords with vengeance in their eyes. They had Jase and his group

  cornered. There would be time for perhaps one volley of arrows before it came to sword strokes.

  “We’ll be havin’ our property back,” the one in the lead announced. Jase was at a complete loss for words. He was so frightened it never even crossed his mind to grab his bow. He had been caught in his crime, brought dishonor to his tribe, there was no hiding it and he knew it.

  Suddenly something streaked down into the depression between the two parties. It was Anlon. He hit the ground, rolled, and came to his feet, a longsword in his hands. He and his group had been riding by purely by chance when he heard, then saw, what was happening. He did not hesitate to draw his weapon and leap to the defense of his tribesmen. He had finally saved enough money to buy what he considered to be a proper sword from a merchant. It had a straight, double-edged blade three feet long and a plain steel cross guard. The grip was ten inches long. The entire weapon weighed just a bit less than four pounds and its balance point was four inches down the blade from the hilt. His heart swelled every time he gripped it. Holding such a weapon made Anlon feel as if he could conquer the world. He faced the rival tribesmen, his sword held low and right, its blade pointed to the rear.

  “Go back to your tents,” Anlon told them. “We will return your horses.”

  “To the seven hells with that! We’ll take our horses now!”

  The man advanced and swung his sword at Anlon. It was an overhand blow, coming from over his right shoulder. Anlon whirled his blade up and smashed the incoming weapon aside and down to his left. He then whipped his blade up and hacked into his opponent’s skull up under his ear. Anlon felt like a living eruption. His joy was primal and boundless. He was doing what the gods fashioned him to do, he was getting to use his gift to its fullest, he was receiving a worthy test, yet what made it even more enjoyable was the fact that it was forbidden. It was like making love for the first time.

  Anlon instinctively knew that his best option was offense. He moved past his foe even while he was still falling and advanced on the others, sword cocked over his right shoulder. He swung down at the next man’s neck. The man blocked Anlon’s blow with his blade pointed at Anlon’s face. Before he could thrust into Anlon’s handsome features, though, Anlon used his blade to shove the other man’s down and pivot slightly on his forward right foot. He then slew this man the same way he had slain the first one.

  The next man swung down at Anlon’s head. Anlon blocked with his sword point down and hilt high. From this position, he was able to execute his own powerful downward stroke and cleave through the man’s right shoulder and into his chest cavity. This was the first of Anlon’s opponents to scream, but it quickly became gurgling because Anlon had hacked into his right lung. The next man thrust at Anlon’s chest. Anlon smacked his blade aside and cut down into his forearm, slicing off his sword hand. He, too, commenced screaming, but Anlon moved on to the fifth man. That man chopped down at Anlon’s neck. Anlon deflected the blow by intercepting it with his own, his hilt level with his face and his blade pointed at his enemy. From here it was a simple matter to stab the man in the throat. Anlon pulled the hilt towards himself as he withdrew the blade from the choking man, opening up the entire right side of his neck.

  Number six brought a strong cut down at Anlon’s head. Anlon countered by cutting up into the descending arm as he slipped off to the left. The result nearly removed the man’s sword arm, leaving it dangling by a few tatters of meat and skin. Anlon followed up by stabbing the man in his right side. The thrust popped both lungs and skewered the heart. Anlon withdrew the blade as the seventh man was swinging at him in a low diagonal cut on Anlon’s left. Anlon blocked with his hilt high and his point low. He then thrust into the man’s belly, again pulling the hilt towards himself as he withdrew the blade and disemboweled the man. Then he advanced on the last man.

  The survivor was backing off and looking desperate. When his blade lowered, Anlon stabbed him in the chest. He withdrew his blade and let the man fall. He struggled on the ground, choking and gagging, his limbs spasmodically trying to crawl away, then he fell silent. The one whose hand had been chopped off was screaming.

  “Don’t let me die! For pity’s sake, please don’t let me die!”

  The screaming went right up Anlon’s spine, like the high pitched yapping of a small dog. He stormed over to the man and hacked his skull in two. Then the small depression was silent. Anlon began to absorb what he had done. Then his group, who were still standing at the rim of the depression, began to cheer him and chant his name. Anlon’s heart had been tottering on revulsion and nausea, but now it swelled with pride. He had passed the test! He had used his gift to defend his tribesmen, the perfect use for it! He had done what the gods meant for him to do, and he had done it magnificently!

  He turned to regard those he had defended. Most of them were also cheering and chanting. Jase and his friends, however, looked ill.

  Word quickly spread throughout the tribe and Anlon was hailed as a hero. Men praised him and women swooned for him. Brona’s response, however, was what he had come to expect.

  “Then why don’t you rule this tribe? You are obviously fit for it. Why be satisfied with a mere brawl? Ascend to true heights and make your mother proud.”

  In the days that followed Jase’s veiled threats, Anlon noticed that he and Cahir were the subjects of suspicious gazes from some of their people. When Auron finally died, the gazing eyes were joined by whispering mouths hidden behind hands, and the number of whisperers was increasing, but they managed to still their wagging tongues long enough to provide the dead chieftain with a proper farewell, but they picked up where they'd left off even as the flames of Auron's pyre still lit the sky, and their faces were disturbingly stiff during Cahir's crowning. Lenore was about to crown her son High Chieftain of the Charidian when a voice rang out.

  "Stop! I'll not let this travesty continue any longer!"

  Jase came forward, followed by his four closest followers. They were all armed.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Lenore demanded. Jase had come to the front of the crowd to stand with Lenore and Cahir. Anlon and Brona were also there. He turned to address the crowd.

  "Do you not see what is happening here? Auron falls mysteriously ill. If it was a bad batch of wine, why did no one else fall ill? Why was it only one person, and why was that one person the High Chieftain? They," he gestured at Lenore and Cahir, "would have you believe it is coincidence, but I say it is conspiracy!"

  "Hold your tongue, tribesman," Anlon snapped. "Are you accusing Cahir of assassination?"

  Jase turned up his palms. "You say so, not I."

  Anlon started forward and drew his sword. Lenore grabbed his arm. "No, Anlon!"

  "I'll not idly stand by while this jealous peacock dishonors my king and my friend! If he wishes to level charges than, by Asura, he can -"

  "I made no charges, Anlon. It was you who brought up the subject of assassination. I wonder why. Is it guilt, Anlon? Is it because your conscience is eating away at you that you brought it to the forefront?"

  Anlon's eyes were blazing with rage that pulled at its chain.

  "No man," he said through clenched teeth,
"may accuse my king and not answer for it. If you cannot justify your accusations with proof then you can either stand down or back your words with steel."

  "If you feel compelled to fight, then you must feel some threat. If you feel threatened, then it must be -"

  Anlon advanced. "I'll have your lying head, traitor!"

  Jase drew his own weapon, that damn grin of his in place. Anlon's eyes were locked on him, his attention focused on one thing, so it came as a total surprise when he struck down one of Jase's cohorts when he tried to take Anlon from a blind side. Anlon never looked at him. He hardly even broke his stride as he slashed the backstabber's belly open. He felt that same curious sensation he had when he first slew. It could only be described as something rushing through him, like a mountain stream swollen from spring thaw.

  Jase's grin faltered, a sign of weakness that encouraged Anlon. Jase raised his sword to ward off Anlon's descending blade, only to have Anlon kick him in the belly. He was moving to fulfill his promise to take Jase's head when one of Jase's minions interfered, so Anlon took that one’s head. He then whirled around to face the next man coming up to his back and disemboweled him. Jase slashed at Anlon's neck, and Anlon did the one thing Jase never expected. He stepped into the swing rather than away from it. In so doing, he was too close for Jase's long blade to hit him. He held his own blade up, letting Jase's swinging arms slam into his edge so that Jase amputated his right hand. He followed this with a swift blow to Jase's face.

  The crowd began to cheer his name. When they saw the simple but brilliant maneuver Anlon had executed to avoid decapitation, they could not help but cheer as this young man acted with the nobility of a king and the skill of a predator. Jase was on his knees, bleeding to death. His remaining follower tried to run, but the crowd threw him back into Anlon's reach. The boy, who had been one of Anlon's lifelong antagonists, had tears streaming from his eyes. His sword was still sheathed.

  "Anlon," he sobbed, "please, I beg you! Spare me!"

  The spectators' demands were quite different.

  "Slay the cowering bastard!"

  "Take his slobbering head and cease his whining!"

  "It is for the good of the tribe, Anlon! We cannot trust a coward! He will betray us at the worst possible time!"

  It was this last argument that moved Anlon's sword and removed the wretch's head. He tried to forget the boy's pleas by returning his attention to Jase, who was now staring into the distance, apparently resigned to his fate. Only when Anlon stood over him did he look at him. He looked Anlon directly in the eye.

  "He is a traitor, Anlon," someone shouted. "He will stab Cahir in the back the first chance he gets!"

  Anlon tried to feel that the shouter was right, but it was difficult.

  Still, I cannot afford to take the chance, he decided. The tip of his sword ran through Jase's chest, knocking him on his back and pinning him to the ground. His eyes, the life rapidly evaporating from them, never left Anlon's.

  The crowd fell silent. Anlon looked around him, taking in the five wrecked bodies around him, five corpses that were fellow tribesmen. His bile began to advance.

  "To the chieftain's champion," someone shouted, and the entire Charidian tribe broke into a tidal wave of cheering and whistling, a joyous sound that pushed Anlon's bile back into his gut and locked his conflicting emotions in a cell. He breathed in deeply, savoring the sound of his name being cheered and adored. Cahir, Lenore, and Brona all came to him, embracing him and patting him on the back. Cahir had moist eyes.

  CHAPTER 11

  "Whoever is content with solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” – Sir Francis Bacon

  “All great and precious things are lonely.” – John Steinbeck

  Aleena made good progress, putting Akhbeer well behind her and dodging the occasional caravans. Once, at a small watering hole in a canyon, she saw what appeared to be a sandal print, but it was two feet in length. That would indicate a man over eight feet in height. Giants lived in mountains north of the Artisan League and in the forests on the eastern end of the continent, but not in the desert. However, tribes of cyclops were said to inhabit certain isolated parts of the Badlands. Aleena went on her way, keeping a wary eye out.

  Aleena looked forward to her renewed journey each night. Though the country was barren and hostile, it also managed to be quite beautiful. Perhaps this was due to the strangeness of it all. Aleena's home was one of semi-tropical forest, lush and verdant.

  The Southern Badlands were emphatically different – a blast furnace by day, surprisingly cold during the night, endlessly vast, and wind in perpetual motion. Aleena had noticed this when she was being taken into the country by the genteel and gracious slave traders, but she hadn't been in the proper frame of mind to take it all in. Now, overjoyed to be going home, her spirit drank in the rolling vista, endless in the moonlight, a silver and grey sea of waves. She would study the shifting sands with an almost child-like fascination, noting with great detail every little ripple or divot, would watch as the wind fashioned a carpet of miniature dunes and troughs, a microcosm of the entire Badlands, then erase it and start anew.

  Of equal interest were the geological formations. Aleena was accustomed to seeing stone sculpted by water, but here it was scoured by wind. The eternal winds, blasting the harsh sands, created out of the raw stone objects of true beauty, even art. The sharp angles and edges were worn down to smooth curves while holes and fissures became graceful dips and hollows, as if the gods had used modeling clay to fashion them rather than stone. The beauty of the place, due to it being so foreign and exotic, never became dull for her. Even though she was so far from home and in such a hazardous situation, Aleena was amazed at how happy she was.

  Her happiness ended that night when she stumbled across a band of nocturnal bandits just before sunrise and they had inaugurated a little game of chase. The sun rose and found Aleena still on the run. She was winded, for running through sand was far more difficult than she'd anticipated. She had managed to outmaneuver them in the dark, but now the glaring sun revealed her as plainly as an actor in a spotlight. The only cover within sight was a canyon and, briefly stopping to see if her pursuers were still game, Aleena entered the gorge. The bandits pulled up short at the canyon's entrance, muttering to each other in the savage, guttural dialect of the southern kingdoms. They turned their mounts and headed off, though Aleena knew they would not go far.

  Nevawn’s claws, what cursed region have I stumbled into now? This place is rife with forbidden canyons.

  She drew her scimitar as she started down the canyon, for she wanted steel in her hand. She had a feeling that if she needed it there would be no time to draw it. For the first half hour, nothing unusual happened other than the occasional trickling of pebbles among the boulders of the canyon wall. Aleena took notice of them, evaluated the possible causes, and dismissed them as the results of a constantly changing world. The glaring sun was hard on her cobalt eyes, and her squint, combined with the heat and the silence, lulled her into a semi-conscious state. She moved like a ship that had its helm lashed into place by a weary helmsman just before he dozed off. Every now and then the falling pebbles would tickle the edges of her consciousness, like fingers tickling the back of her head, relaxing her even more. Her closed eyes, the heat, the silence...

  The silence!

  Aleena snapped to full alertness. The silence. It was too apparent. Her surroundings seemed expectant, perched on the edge of its seat waiting for something interesting to happen. Nothing stirred. Aleena noticed how still the air was in a place of perpetual wind. More pebbles rattled. After several minutes of nothing, Aleena moved on, but all of her senses remained on full alert. Naked steel glinted in her hand, ready. Several more minutes passed with nothing more than pebbles sifting down through the walls' fissures. Was it just her or were they falling with greater frequency than they had a little while ago?

  Aleena kept moving on, but she was certain now that something
was amiss. Still, she flinched when the attack came. A figure jumped out from a fissure in the wall, shrieking a subhuman cry. Aleena took a few steps back to put some distance between her and that thing. In combat, distance equals time. It was the size and shape of a human, clothed in tattered brown and grey hooded vestments that totally concealed its features, but no human could produce the nightmare sounds that were coming from it. Aleena dropped into a stance and waited for the thing to make its move.

  It shuffled towards her in a chilling parody of human movement, its breath huffing like that of a boar. It raised its arms, causing its sleeves to fall back and reveal arms of pebbly olive skin and hands with fingers long and narrow but strong, ending in black talons. Aleena stopped backing away, suspecting that it was driving her towards some trap it may have prepared. She began circling to her left. It charged, attempting to slash her face. Aleena ducked the dark arm and hacked into its exposed belly. The thing continued past. A new fear blossomed in Aleena's chest. It had felt as though she'd struck a tree when she'd hit it. Had she injured it at all? The thing turned to face her, and she was gratified to see a dark stain on its front, and the creature was clearly in pain. Still, that blow would have gone clear to a man's backbone, yet on this thing it seemed to penetrate only an inch or two, if that. She decided that it either wore some armor underneath its cloaks or it had a hide like a rhino's.

  The thing approached her again, cautious now. It kept its knees bent and its arms in front of it, the talons opening and closing as it flexed its fingers, hissing.

  "Do you want more or shall you let me pass?" Aleena ventured. It answered in the form of a second charge, trying to stab her with its great claws. Aleena knocked the arm aside and slashed at its hidden face. The creature stumbled back, clutching its face and screaming. Its hood fell back and allowed Aleena to behold her enemy's face. She wished it hadn't. It had a great hooked beak for a mouth, the same olive color as its skin. The yellow eyes were crowned with bristling grey brows, and they gleamed with raw hatred. A livid cut ran diagonally down the face from right to left. It wore no helm, and yet a powerful blow from a sharp blade had done little more than break the skin. All she'd accomplished was to anger it.