The Last of the Renshai

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Morning sunlight glazed the Granite Hills to a vast vista of ruddy crags and shadowed hollows. To Mitrian, the distant peaks had always symbolized adventure and ultimate freedom. The reality of cold, dull stone, the stomp and roll of the horse beneath her, and the autumn wind cutting beneath her sleeping gown stole all romance from the image. She pictured Santagithi just awakening from sleep. Soon he would discover Mitrian missing. He would realize how much he had taken from his daughter, and he would regret the hurt he had inflicted upon her. A self-satisfied grin rose, then wilted into a frown as Mitrian’s thoughts turned to Rache. Will he feel guilty, too? Or will he be relieved that he no longer has to worry about me getting in the way of obedience to his general?

  The day wore on as the horse meandered through the passes. Occasionally, it slid on a loose stone or tripped into a crevice, rocking off-balance with a suddenness that made Mitrian gasp. But it always reestablished a pace an experienced rider would have considered reckless on mountainous terrain. Time exhausted Mitrian’s rage, and more immediate concerns replaced it. As midday flowed into afternoon, her stomach pinched and groaned, and her throat felt parched. Lack of sleep made her thoughts fuzzy, and her thighs ached from clutching the horse. Lightning split the sky, and thunder boomed as if in a heavenly battle. Then the rain gusted down, pelting her with droplets as sharp and cold as ice.

  Discomfort sparked irritability. Mitrian alternately resented and appreciated the lack of social training that kept Garn silent far longer than courtesy demanded. Her thoughts turned to him, turbulent with doubt. Rache’s description of gladiators came clearly to the forefront of memory: “Wolves in man form. Unpredictable killers who need no cause or reason but the joy of slaughter.” Yet she could not banish the memory of Garn’s naive embarrassment when he found himself unable to say the word “breasts,” the soft uncertainty of his features, his wild, childlike eyes. She recalled his motions, too, graceful, confident, never wasted. Animal? Maybe. But not a wolf. Mitrian considered. Once, Nantel had brought a cat from Pudar. She had watched it glide silently through shadows and shrubbery, leaping to rocks and windowsills at a full run. Even when it fell short, it managed to make the mistake seem intentional, never losing its agile dignity. Garn’s lithe commitment to every action reminded her of that cat, but Rache’s even more so.

  Water plastered Mitrian’s hair to her cheeks. The rain soaked through the light fabric of her gown, chilling her skin to bumps. As Mitrian became completely wet, the rain ceased to bother her, and her discomfort stemmed from the icy wind blowing across damp flesh.

  And still they rode on.

  As evening lengthened, the storm darkened the sky early, though the rain eased to a trickle. The horse stumbled more frequently, slowing to a halting walk. Finally, it balked at moving forward at all. Garn’s kick sent it into a rear. Mitrian caught a handful of mane, clinging as the world seemed to surge beneath her and momentum hurled her backward. The saddle horn bit into her spine. Garn shifted his weight too late. The horse’s abrupt movement dumped him to the rocks.

  Mitrian seized the opportunity. The instant the bay’s hooves touched ground, she leapt to the rocks beside Garn, catching the bridle, though she doubted the horse would run. The landing shocked pain through knees held far too long in one position.

  Garn reached around Mitrian for the reins, standing so close she could feel the touch of his body through wet leather that now reeked of sweat. “We need to keep moving. The guards will catch us.”

  Mitrian turned to face Garn. Water wound down his bronze locks, and he wore a frenzied expression. Still, he offered her a smile.

  Mitrian shook her head, as unwilling as the horse to take another step. “We have to rest, and we have to eat. A head start will do us little good if you work the horse to death and we have to continue on foot.”

  Garn’s smile faded. The lost look reappeared on his young features, lending them a handsome, harmless innocence. “I didn’t know.”

  How could he know? Mitrian could not help picturing herself locked behind bars day after day as her life stretched into years, her only reprieve the time spent fighting and learning weapon craft. Prying open the buckles, she stripped off the saddle and bridle, setting them down among the stones. The horse wandered a few steps. Its head drooped with exhaustion, and it nuzzled the rocks in search of grass and water.

  “Will it be all right?” Garn asked with sincere concern.

  “I think so,” Mitrian replied, wishing she had considered the horse’s welfare sooner. I hope so. Accustomed to trusting Rache’s and Nantel’s judgment, she had simply assumed Garn’s competence. And self-righteous indignation had left room for little else. “But we’ll have to find some grass and let it graze a long time tomorrow.” She rubbed her hands along arms speckled with gooseflesh. “For now, I don’t think she’ll go far.”

  Garn watched the mare.

  “I’ll gather as many dry twigs as I can find for a fire.” She glanced through the dark, frowning at the sparsely forested hills. “Why don’t you ready whatever rations you brought. Oh, and dry clothes would be a blessing.”

  The pained expression forming on Garn’s face alarmed Mitrian. When he offered no explanation, she put the clues together. “No rations?” she guessed.

  Garn said nothing.

  “And no dry clothes.”

  Garn lowered his head.

  Mitrian made a noise of annoyance and frustration. “No destination. No supplies. Kadrak! What were you thinking?”

  A flame flickered through Garn’s eyes. “I was thinking about freedom. I was thinking that I no longer had to kill.” He tensed, muscles bunching into knots. “I’ve been hungry before. And wet.” There was a gauntness about his features that lent credence to his words, and Mitrian knew from his touch that little of his huge frame was fat.

  Aching muscles, fatigue, cold, and hunger made Mitrian curt. “No bow, no streams, no hunting skills. Who needs to worry about guards? We’ll die of starvation long before anyone could find us.”

  “I’d rather die in the wilderness than in the pit. I’m free.”

  “Yes,” Mitrian snapped. “And, frankly, I’m tired of hearing it. If you hated your life so much, why didn’t you just refuse to fight?”

  Garn’s fist tensed at his sides, the movement rippling through his forearms. But his voice was controlled. “I did.” He peeled off his sodden tunic, placing it neatly beneath an overhang. “This is my reward for refusing to fight.” He thrust an arm toward Mitrian.

  The sudden motion sent Mitrian skittering backward. Gradually, she realized Garn had intended it for demonstration, not violence. For the first time in nearly a decade, she took a close look at the man with whom she had run away. Scars marred the perfect sweep of sharply defined musculature. Narrow, pink flaws marked blade cuts, the largest ones hatched with suture lines. Mitrian had seen similar blemishes on the guards; one had a flattened nose and dense bands of healed tissue across his face. But she had never seen so many scars on one man, nor grouped in close, parallel lines. Mitrian had grown up surrounded by her father’s guards, the biggest, strongest, most savage men in the village. Yet, somehow, Garn’s conformation and power went beyond her understanding. Though no older than Listar, Garn already sported a tangle of chest hair, each of his arms as thick as both of Rache’s together.

  Apparently attributing Mitrian’s interest to the scars, Garn explained. “Whip cuts.”

  Mitrian started, embarrassed to be caught staring at his body.

  “I was lucky. One gladiator met his cousin in the pit. He refused to fight.” Garn’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Nantel shot him.”

  “No!” Mitrian looked away. The anger at her father and Rache did not extend to Nantel, and she loved her people too much to believe Garn’s accusations. “Nantel wouldn’t do that. You’re lying. No one forces the gladiators to kill. It’s what they do.”

  Garn waved his hand in a gesture of frustrated dismissal. “Believe whatever you want. What difference can it
make to me now? I’m free.”

  Mitrian scowled. Santagithi’s words to Rache still hounded her, compounded by Rache’s apparent decision to ruin her life rather than stand up to her father. Cold, wet, and irritable from the ride, Mitrian needed to vent her frustration against someone. And Garn was the only possible target. “I’ve heard stories. I know the gladiators scream in triumph after a kill and brag about it to the guards.”

  Garn remained calm. “Have you heard that I do those things?”

  Mitrian considered. “No,” she admitted. “But—”

  Garn interrupted. “And I’ve heard the guards boasting about all the men they killed in battle.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Yes,” Garn agreed. “And the difference is that they choose to kill. They force men like me to do it for their entertainment. Which is more brutal?”

  “It’s . . .” Mitrian sputtered. “I. . . .” Realizing she did not know how to answer him, she went silent. She stared out over the peaks. Coming night and the overcast sky turned them into a strange, dark sea of points and crags. The rain had stopped. Cold evening wind washed over her soaked sleeping gown, and she shivered. Suddenly, she felt glad for Garn’s company, and the idea of antagonizing him seemed folly. Hasn’t my family done enough harm to him? The urge seized her to defend Santagithi. She recalled the gathering before the meeting tree, when he had sent only those men who volunteered to war. But the image of Santagithi snatching the bow from Rache’s hand replaced the initial memory. And with it came a feeling, foreign but pleasant, and the whisper of a Wizard’s words: “For you, Mitrian, finding adventure would require an act of defiance.” This time the memory was accompanied by the inexplicable certainty that she neared that act.

  Garn said nothing, apparently seeing no need.

  Mitrian had thought leaving home with Garn had been the answer to the Wizard’s reference, but the encouragement that now flooded her mind told otherwise. Freed from social conventions by Garn’s ignorance of them, she focused internally, trying to decipher Shadimar’s intention. What could the act of defiance be? And what does it have to do with Garn? She glanced at him again. The lengthy snarl of hair seemed out of place, a lion’s mane surrounding simple features that were almost attractive, in a more savage, less classical way than Rache’s.

  Garn lowered his head, an abashed child. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring food. I didn’t know it would be hard to find. I didn’t really think. I just wanted to be free. And I wanted you.” He stared at Mitrian with an intensity she found disarming yet flattering.

  Mitrian chided herself for letting a childhood ordeal destroy a friendship and a man’s life. In all the times I sneaked out to practice near the South Corner, I never once let Garn tell his side of the story. Mitrian remembered how she had watched the gladiators shift restlessly in their cages. Night and distance had blurred them to hulking shapes, yet she had often wondered which was Garn. Still, she carried the memory of Garn’s wild killer’s eyes in a child’s face, his repeatedly pounding at a companion with the power and impersonal coldness of the blacksmith’s hammer on steel. And she had accepted the guards’ word that Garn had become as much an animal as the other gladiators. A life like that could make anyone into an animal. Now she looked at him with new insight. Except maybe Garn. There’s something special, something different about Garn.

  Garn turned, headed for the saddle and bridle.

  Garn’s movement reminded Mitrian that she still had not started on the camp. “I’ll get that wood now. In the morning, I’ll show you how to get food and water.” The words came more easily than the solution. She guessed they might find some berries but, for more substantial rations and clothing, they would need to find a town and buy what they needed. And I didn’t even bring money. Kadrak! What was I thinking?

  Mitrian assessed what little gear they carried. She had her own weapon, and Garn also wore a sword, apparently taken from a guard. She hoped but doubted the bulge in his left hip pocket was flint and steel. Other than the horse’s tack and their current clothing, they had nothing. We’d better hope we didn’t ride that mare too hard. She may be all we have to barter for food. Mitrian unfastened her sword, laying it beside Garn’s tunic. She felt safer with the weapon at her hip, but for now the fire took precedence. She might need to range far for wood, and she could carry more sticks unburdened. “Watch this for me, please.”

  No longer familiar with conversational patterns, Garn did not question. He simply waited in silence for Mitrian to continue, accepting her leadership without objection.

  Free man or not, he’s used to following orders. Still, for an instant, Mitrian feared she had made a mistake. Pride of ownership turned to jealous possessiveness. Surely Garn could see the gems and craftsmanship of the hilt. He need only draw it to realize how superior it was to any weapon he had ever held. And if he chose to take it from her, she could do little to stop him.

  Mitrian forced her concern aside. Garn truly seemed to care for her. And his upbringing did not prepare him for deceit and treachery. When the guards wanted something of him, they demanded it; and he submitted or died. His only other contact with men was in the pit, and there the conflict was always straightforward: kill or be killed. “I’ll be back.” She trotted off into the night.

  The search for dry kindling sent Mitrian in broad circles, but she returned with an armload and a deer antler she found lying in a crevice. Starting the fire proved more difficult. Without flint, she was forced to use a bow and drill while Garn watched with rapt curiosity. But, once begun, the fire burned brilliantly, drying the moister twigs and logs Mitrian set nearby for later use. Garn slept with his back propped against the cliffs. Mitrian chose a spot on the opposite side of the fire. Clipping her sword back to her belt, she placed it near her right hand, the weapon’s presence reassuring. She used the horse’s saddle for a pillow.

  Irregularities in the surface of granite gouged Mitrian’s back. Her sandals proved scant protection on the crags, and her feet throbbed from stepping on stones and branches in the darkness. Her lower spine ached, and her muscles felt sore from a day hunched over a running steed. Her stomach gnawed at its own lining. Amid a chorus of pain, sleep would not come. She flopped from side to side without relief. Finally, unable to sleep and needing to inflict the same misery on another, she found the hole in Garn’s defense. “You say you don’t like to kill and that you killed Mukesh to protect me. But you would have killed Rache out of hand.”

  Garn did not move or tense. He gave no indication of awakening, yet his distinct reply made it clear he did not sleep. “Yes.” The same sibilant tone that Rache used when speaking of Garn now entered the escaped gladiator’s voice. “I would have killed Rache. I still would.”

  “I thought you hated killing.”

  “I hated being forced to kill,” Garn clarified. “When the cause is right, killing can be good and necessary. Haven’t you ever hated anyone enough to kill him?”

  At the moment, Mitrian considered several people she would like to slap unconscious, not the least of which was Rache. But the thought of actually raising a weapon against Santagithi or Rache or even Emerald sobered her. “Of course not.”

  Unaware of Mitrian’s thoughts, Garn responded to her words. “Perhaps that’s because your father protected you, and the guards did your killing for you.”

  The accusation angered Mitrian. She gathered breath to reply when the whisk of brush caught her attention. Three human figures appeared, skulking just beyond the edges of the firelight.

  Garn rose to a crouch, grip tight on his sword hilt. Mitrian groped for her own weapon, never taking her eyes from the trio.

  One stranger spoke, sneering. “Well, look what we have here. Two children alone in the hills.”

  “Do you think we should help them?” the second asked in the same mocking tone.

  “Oh look,” the first and largest of the three said, his hand casual on his own hilt. “The girl has a sword. Maybe we shouldn’t attack.�
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  The one who had not yet spoken piped in. “Don’t worry about her. We’ll take care of him, then stab her with something friendlier.”

  Mitrian could not suppress a whimper. Her chest seemed to squeeze closed around her pounding heart. All of her training had made her certain she would respond to threat with skill. But she knew only fear.

  Garn stood, revealing the huge physique that had impressed Mitrian. For the first time, the strangers hesitated. Then one chimed in. “No worry. A man that big’ll be slow.”

  Garn’s serious tone made a sharp contrast to the sarcasm of the strangers. “Go away. If you’re not gone by the time I draw my sword, I’ll kill all of you.”

  The largest of the three, apparently the leader, stepped into the light. His nose and cheek merged into an indistinguishable mass of scar tissue. Three days of black stubble covered his chin. “Oh fear.” He clutched his chest in a grandiose gesture. “Oh fear. Should we run?”

  Garn drew and sprang. His sword whipped for the leader’s head. The stranger blocked, sword ringing against Garn’s. Before Mitrian could think to draw her own weapon, Garn reversed the stroke, driving his blade into the other’s neck. Blood geysered from the wound, splashing Mitrian, and the stranger sank, lifeless, to the ground.

  The odor of blood made Mitrian gag.

  Garn lunged for the others who were not caught as unaware as their leader. Swords rasped from sheaths, their blades almost invisible in the darkness. Garn met the first with a block. He used his superior strength to shove through the joined swords and plant a foot behind the stranger’s heel. The man sprawled, rolling. The other dodged behind Garn.