Last Stand of the Blood Land

by Andrew Carpenter

  “I’ve thought of you since I saw you that day in the woods.”

  “What did you think?” she asked, cocking her head and pursing her lips.

  He paused for the briefest of seconds and she knew whatever he said next would not be what he had thought.

  “Our forests are defended by female warriors now, we call them the Plainswatchers. You could return with me. They need a warrior like you.”

  “Do they need a warrior like me or do you?”

  She knew she was being hard on him but she could feel that he was hers if she wanted him and so felt no need to work to impress him.

  “I do,” he said.

  “At least you’re honest. You’ve only met one female Nymph. Perhaps you should meet a few more before you try to make one stick. What’s wrong with your Cherubim females?”

  She stood but he remained sitting next to the water. With his wings wrapped around himself he looked up at her and she found him cute despite the violence she knew he had poured over the North. Cute is not what I need.

  “I love our females but I’m looking for something different.”

  You’re looking for something more attractive. She smiled at his hopelessness and realized that everything she did, from tying feathers in his hair to showing him the movements of her kusarigama, would be interpreted as a sign of her attraction to him whether she felt it or not. She turned to continue their journey, wondering if it was in the tribe’s best interest to let him continue his fantasy.

  “I’m different but I’m not looking for a warrior. I may come to teach and fight with your Plainswatchers but I won’t be coming because of you.”

  She didn’t look back to see the effect of her words. She knew she could have him if she wanted him and the trail was long. He had given her the power the way his griffins had given him the power even though they could crush him if they understood the situation. With the griffin feathers in his hair he even looked the part of a beta animal. Knowing she was in control did not attract her to him.

  Chapter 9

  B eing a fighter as a youth and a warrior as a young adult had changed Ignatius’ muscles and their relationship with his mind. The signals his body sent to him when the altitude began to reduce the flow of oxygen to his lungs were more informational than painful. He had trained to climb mountains in preparation for taking Therucilin and part of that conditioning was knowing just how far he could push himself. When he was younger the pain would have bothered him, slowing him, clouding his thinking. Now, after years of grappling and boxing, dozens of fights, and a few battles where every muscle had been pushed to new limits when his adrenalin had run out, he remained calm and thoughtful despite the physical exertion of the trail.

  His mind was changed as well, and he remembered a different mission that had taken him into the mountains further to the south the year before. He had been lonely, alone for a few days for the first time in his life. Now he was always alone, even when others surrounded him, the simple forest mind of a hunter replaced by the complex thoughts of a warrior. This time I have the griffins. He sniffed the air, not looking up but becoming aware of the shadows in the clouds that blanketed the mountain and knowing his traveling companions were there. He wasn’t truly alone; the catbirds that had been bred and trained for war responded well to his whistles but also to his words and emotions. They kept watch from above, alerting him to danger, and on the cold nights when the temperatures still dropped below freezing they lay next to him, sharing their warmth. I am more a part of this pride than my tribe.

  Despite the frosty mountain air he had tucked his fur vest into the saddlebags next to his weapons, enjoying the physical and emotional weight that his companions helped him to carry. With the moist, cold air pounding directly onto his wiry, scarred chest, he could move without overheating. Aware of the rocks beneath his moccasins and the weightlessness left behind by the removal of his omnipresent weapons, he followed Sage’s directions and thought about the Nymph he had left behind to await his return.

  Her beauty startled him every time he looked at her and even now, miles away, he tried not to think of the way her bright green eyes were highlighted by the freckles on her cheeks, the bare place on her skin between her white leggings and loincloth, the liquid motions of her body when it melded with the kusarigama. The physicality of the Nymph was overwhelming. He knew unless he moved past it, at least initially, he would never understand her. If he never understood her, if he never grasped her needs and wants, she would never be his. When he thought of her bubbling personality, the smile that was always springing to her lips, her confidence, he felt a tingling that rose from his stomach to his chest and broke his focus as it swelled into a light of desire. He wanted her and as his wings pulled him forward through the mists his mind pulled him forward blindly in a cloud of ignorance about how to pursue the Nymph.

  Miles wore past before he calmed enough to realize that he was expecting her to fulfill a one-sided role. Oberon had made it look so easy with Caldera, the northern beauty who had rolled into his life like a wave, fitting naturally into the war chief’s rocky crevices, filling his empty places to complete his center. Ignatius knew that his idea, his dream for a home and a mate and simple pleasures, born of war and near death experiences, was his own. Finding a Nymph, this Nymph, was his way of making meaning out of the trauma he had experienced. It is my dream, not hers. He realized he would have to move beyond his dream to make a dream she would share, a dream she helped to create. His desire and expectations had gotten in the way of his happiness and although Sage had known it on some level, her every move led him on. He resented the fact that he would have to control the magical feelings he had, to wrap his desire deep down within himself and put out an exterior that forgot how much he wanted her to come with him, to have her in his pride. Instead he would have to become a canvas for her to paint her own desires so he could learn them and adapt at least part of himself to fit into her vision, slowly revealing the layers he had built around his true desire after she had learned that he had overcome his attraction. To get what I want I must stop wanting it.

  Some of the clouds lifted later in the morning but only enough to show him cliffs and trees, the nearby world of his journey became clear but the bigger picture of what he had left behind remained shrouded. His thoughts turned to his father, and he wished he had Augustine there now so he could ask him about Sage and Donus and the tribe. He is here. I am him. The thought made him smile a little, realizing that he had expected his father to live forever. In me he does. He knew that whatever he did would be partly his father’s doing and he realized that with his fathers passing he had lost his attachment to the idea that his friends and family would always be there. Loosing the attachment had been painful but once it was gone Parfey’s death, Donus’ death, didn’t sting as badly.

  Thinking of Donus made him wonder what his old friend would think of Oberon’s war plans. The big Cherub wouldn’t have argued about the hit and run tactics, the traps, the planning. Oberon, guided by Rebus and building on what had worked for the Centaurs, knew what to do. But Donus knew how to do it. Donus wouldn’t have been able to come up with such a complex, coordinated plan, but the Cherub would have known that Oberon wasn’t willing to do the killing, the torturing, the lying, necessary to pull off such a plan. Ignatius remembered slitting the throats of the men who had surrendered at Therucilin and felt his pace quicken involuntarily as his body tried to outrun the memory. I wish Donus were still here.

  But Donus was still there in the same way Augustine was. I know what is necessary and I am willing to do it. What was necessary was a plan, a plan that was beyond Donus’ limited, brutal, approach to accomplishing his vision for the tribe. But the plan had to go beyond Oberon’s mind as well. The chief was limited in what he was willing to do to find his third way. Because he was unwilling to follow Donus in his descent into monstrosity, a decent that war required, Oberon was unable to understand an enemy that was as incomprehensibly large as it was ruthless
. I must go beyond both of them. A third way that is more violent than Donus and more thoughtful than Oberon. He didn’t have the answer but he knew part of the solution was up here in the lonely mountains.

  After days of trails and climbs, trials that made him respect the courage of any wingless Nymphs who had made this journey, he reached a turquoise lake, turbid with minerals from the spring runoff. Sage had told him that this lake rested below the highest peaks in the western mountains and from there he would be able to see the south facing cliffs where the kudzu grew. She had told him he would be able to recognize the right spot by the lights of the koona that attended the plants but when he arrived the overcast clouds still hung too thickly over the rocky precipices for him to spot the red glow of the beetles. After running so hard for so many days, pushing himself to the limit to save time, to be stopped by the weather was hard to accept. He had envisioned himself finding the plants easily and without delay; after that he knew the giant griffins that hunted these slopes would find him.

  With his mind suddenly forced to stop moving towards his goal he realized there was nothing to do but sit. This far above the tree line there was nothing to fuel a fire, he had plenty of food, and he could do nothing about the weather. Crossing his legs on the edge of the lake and looking out from the flat boulder on which he sat his eyes could see only the green blue of the water, snow covered rocks, and the enveloping white grey haze of clouds that had stopped his journey in its tracks. This is the first time in my life where there is nothing I can do. He was powerless to take action and, at first, the feeling disturbed him more than the loneliness he had felt the year before. I cannot build, hunt, fight, think, say, or influence anyone or anything.

  And so he sat, looking at the water, eventually letting go of the discontent of his situation and closing his eyes to simply breathe and be for a time. He had pursued this state of clarity before, when he had killed Donus, before the battle for Therucilin, sometimes for brief moments alone in his tree home, when waiting in ambush for deer or enemies. The time had always been short but here, in the mists, he had no concept of when the weather would shift, of how long he must wait, and eventually he let go of his concepts of time and self as well. The griffins hunted and played, sometimes sitting for hours next to the meditating Cherub. He slept in the warmth of their feathers but awoke on the second day to find his situation had not changed.

  For a time he pulled rocks from the lake, stacking them into elaborate cairns that surrounded his boulder. Ignatius felt his mind unwinding and he became content, nearly happy, to sit there, alternating between simply existing with an empty mind and stacking rocks, a meaningless art that he appreciated for the simple elegance of balance taught by the stones. When, late in the second day, he felt the sun breaking through he followed its rays up with his closed eyes and felt neither relief nor excitement. Here was simply something else, neither better nor worse than the existence that had been his alone next to the lake. His fears and plans, dreams and regrets, desires and expectations had receded like the snow on the mountain; perhaps they would return but the foundation of rock had been exposed even if only for a season.

  As the clouds parted it was easy for him to spot the koona. Looming snow-covered peaks surrounded the lake, a desolate place of lichens, moss, and isolated fields of grass. On a small south facing patch of cliff, steep enough for snow to slide off but not so steep that soil could not collect, he caught the red glow that showed him the way forward. It was a thousand feet above the lake, still several thousand feet below the highest peaks, and the clouds quickly re-covered the spot. Still, it was enough to show Ignatius a way forward. After feeding Currar and Tulma, and munching one of the sweet, meaty kudzu pods, he glided across the boulder field to begin his ascent.

  The granite cliff he needed to climb grew directly out of the lake. The pluton had been marked by the ages, leaving handholds and chimneys that Ignatius could see running up its face when he assessed his route from shore. They would make his work easier considering there would be no thermals generated off the ice-cold lake to lift his wings. From where he stood the Cherub could see no resting places despite the relatively easy route up the rock and he shook his head in wonder that any Nymphs at all had been able to make the climb. For them a fall would have been fatal, not to mention the smaller, more challenging routes Ignatius had been able to fly over to even reach the lake. Some adventurer made it this far and couldn’t resist the lights they saw above. Thankful that he could fly and wouldn’t have to swim, he ran across the chalky turquoise waters, toes and fingers pushing off the unruffled surface, and swooped up to find his first holds on the rock.

  With his wings to reduce his weight and the granite offering up generous holds he made swift progress through the morning. From time to time he would pause when he found a bit of rock large enough for his moccasins to support him. From there he could release one hand and twist to look out at his progress, the lake growing smaller beneath him while the mountains grew larger around him. He would whistle and one or the other of the griffins would glide in out of the clouds, rushing past with their wings brushing over him. He was conscious of how exposed he was, how small compared to the rock on which he clung. During one of his breaks he spotted goats across the empty expanse and remembered that his were not the only griffins hunting in this place. By afternoon, however, the rhythm of his six limbs working in concert had pushed all thoughts from his mind.

  The southern mountains had long since eclipsed the sun when he was startled out of his flowing mind state by the appearance of a buzzing koona. The insect hovered around his head for a time before landing on his arm. He watched it’s red pulsing body contrasted against the blue of the veins running in his arm and knew he was getting close. The beetle flew a few feet away from his route and landed in first sized patch of grass where the granite created a flat pocket just large enough for the green shoots to take root. Ignatius flew over, something a Nymph climber could never do, and watched the koona set to work devouring the tender shoots. Hanging from the little nest of life on the otherwise barren mountain he was amazed at the speed with which the koona ate. The little creatures wings never stopped buzzing while it chewed through blade after blade, its droppings falling down to fertilize the next generation of grass. If there is anything left to seed the next generation. Such was the ferocity of the insect’s appetite that even before the Cherub’s eyes the grass in the niche was decimated by the incessant chewing. Up here the altitude and the cold keeps them in check but in the forest this is why they must be hunted. Watching this solitary little koona work hammered home to him the delicate balance between birds, koona, and kudzu that the Nymphs had to monitor as the price for keeping the bountiful plants. What a responsibility.

  He climbed on for another hour, passing an increasing number of the little grassy crevices and feeding bugs. Their glow became more pronounced in the half-light of the early sunset and he started to notice little glowing cocoons that represented the next generation of the ravenous koona. He plucked one of them and cut into it with his dagger while his wings kept him tight to the rock, one foot balancing in a tuft of grass. On a whim he popped half of the cocoon into his mouth but immediately spit out the bitter, slimy substance. Inside of the seedpods the cocooned koona were delicious and satisfying, surrounded by the plant’s meaty fruit that kept them alive through the winter with its insulation. On their own, the little creature was not palatable and he felt a pang of amazement that the Nymph’s birds could stomach the little creatures.

  Then, with darkness falling, he reached the kudzu. He came across their vines first, snaking out from roots that clung precariously to a few dozen closely spaced crevices where enough dirt had collected from decaying koona, grass, and moss to sustain their roots. At first he took hold of thin green vines to pull himself up but he quickly realized these kudzu were too frail to support his weight. Here, in the cold, snow covered patch of mountain where just a few dozen plants literally clung to life, there wasn’t enough at
mosphere to allow the plants to grow at the tremendous rate they did in the Nymph’s arbor. When the Cherub reached the center of the little colony, with hundreds of koona fighting each other to stay near the plants that kept their species alive, he realized just what a shell these plants were compared to the potential they could have in the right environment. They are like the Blood Born, evolved for life in one world where life’s challenges make them appear insignificant. When you take them out into the rest of the world they are more powerful than I could imagine after seeing them here.

  The little vines covered no more than a hundred yards of pocketed grassy cliff where the angle of the summer sun and the slope of the rock combined to give them a brief window of a growing season. The seedpods had to drop at exactly the right time in exactly the right place to fall on one of the few empty patches of grass where they could take root. If they missed they would tumble down where there was nothing but rock, doomed to starve as the meat of the seedpod ran out of sustenance for its vines. Here on the mountainside the koona and the kudzu had eked out a life together for longer than the Cherubim had been in existence, alone and insignificant, their potential waiting to be extinguished by a rockslide or discovered by chance.

  The Cherub was in the process of jumping between the vines, searching for a spotted female seedpod with the telltale glow of a koona inside that had pollenated the plant when he heard the scream of his griffins. His hands reached up instinctually over his shoulder for his absent swords before settling for the solitary dagger in his belt. He turned away from the rock, peering out into the clouds for his companions, knowing what it was that had found him.

  With reflexes that could sense an incoming arrow detecting the striking griffin was simple; he had been hunted before. As the beast approached out of the mist he jumped from the wall, twisting and diving in an areal maneuver that unpinned him from the rock. Outstretched talons large enough to pluck a horse from the earth nearly snared him, the shadow of the beast passing over him like an eagle over a sparrow. If he had been fastened to the rock as a Nymph would have been he would have been taken.