Last Stand of the Blood Land

by Andrew Carpenter

  He brought his knee into his chest and struck out at the shield with his foot, sending the man, who had braced himself for the power, back several feet. He pointed to his foot.

  “The weight of the earth came through me but only because I have the flexibility and balance to transfer it through my body. You need to get more flexibility into your legs.”

  The man nodded and Fritigern put his hand on the Cherub’s shoulders, positioning her to face her opponent.

  “Kick,” he said.

  She did, once again sending the man back several feet as he absorbed the kick on his shield.

  “Good, you struck him with the earth. Now, add the power of the sky.”

  She looked at him with confusion, too accustomed to her wings to get his meaning.

  “He can hit with the power of the earth because he is connected to it through his feet,” said the master, pointing at the man’s boots. “You are connected to the earth and the sky. Hit him with both.”

  She smiled, capturing his meaning. The man braced himself again and she turned to face him. Her wings flapped forward in unison with her leg as she drew it into her chest. As she spun on her heel, driving forward off the earth, her wings pumped back, pushing off the sky. The combined power split the man’s shield and sent him flying into the air before landing with a muffled thump on the sandy ground several yards away. The Cherub laughed at the discovery of her power and Fritigern nodded at the grimace on the soldier in training’s face. This is why I teach.

  He turned to Rondo, noting the lesson as one of a thousand he could draw from in the future. The big blond Cherub had an easy going look to him that Fritigern didn’t see very often and couldn’t help but like. This was an experienced fighter that wasn’t weighted down by war. It was as if nothing could stick to him and that was a gift Fritigern wished he could add to his lessons. Even Aram couldn’t teach that lesson with anything except time.

  “To strike with the air and the earth,” said the Cherub with a nod to show that he had internalized the lesson as well.

  “What do we face?” asked the commander, ready now for the news.

  “Riders from the North. A dozen bears, fifty buffalo. All Dwarves.”

  Fritigern thought for a moment about which of his people would come in such numbers. Bears were hard to come by, prized war steeds of his people that bred too slow and took too many years to train. He had only three at the Fort but knew there were hundreds among the Dwarven armies in the mountains of his homeland to the south of Therucilin. Still, for twelve to come for anything but war could mean only one thing. A king. If it was his king, Jamais, he knew he would have to defend his training of the other races. Jamais had been maimed quite badly fighting for the Old Alliance over his lifetime and he had no love for the Cherubim.

  He looked at the Cherub in front of him, recognizing that he had received warning of the approaching warriors hours before he could have if Dwarves were on lookout. He could see the Northman picking up the splintered pieces of his shield and knew that his loyalty to his students was stronger than his loyalty to his king. He would meet Jamais with the combined forces of the North in his service. He ended practice early, setting his students to preparing the fort for the arrival of the visitors. He took warriors from each of the races, experienced fighters who were stationed at the fort to learn but also to advise and to help to hold it when the South came, and headed for the battlements to watch for the approaching riders.

  With Rondo the Cherub and Nicolo the Northman at his side he looked out across the plains, spying Onidas where he made his way out of the Canyon Lands. Below Brogdar, the Centaur war chief, and a Giant knight stood ready to open the gates. Fritigern let out a deep breath, the strength of the Northern races helping him to brace for the coming confrontation with his king. He looked out across the baking grasses, shielding his eyes and wondering if he was taking the right course as the first Dwarven master to train the other races. Jamais and I both want what is best for the people. We disagree about what that is but we are on the same side. He pondered the strength of the united forces and wondered if it weakened his people until the sight of the empty plains reminded him to empty his mind as Aram had taught him.

  After a time the master spotted the dust of the approaching Dwarves rising up to taint the blue bird sky to the north. He took in the impressive sight of buffalo and bears, powerful beasts of the Blood Lands, as they crested a rise and brought the warriors into view. The Dwarves had always bred and trained bears but now that the Centaurs were supplying buffalo their army was mobilizing as never before. The earth shook under their hooves as they made the final approach and Fritigern spotted the marred figure of his king at the head of the column. Jamais had been as loyal to the Old Alliance as any member of their race and now he was here to show his subjects just how far that loyalty would run.

  Fritigern greeted the king with a bow, smelling the dust of the trail that had caked onto Dwarves and animals alike. Jamais nodded, reaching out a mangled hand to grab the commander’s arm and the two locked eyes, Jamais’ scalped and scarred face outlining a single eye that scanned the black stone of Fritigern’s eyes before moving up into the fort in judgment. Without letting go of the arm, Jamais watched Fritigern’s students as they fed and watered the animals, sorting them into lines in the confined space of the fort. The king took in the military efficiency and the respect the warriors paid to the visitors before releasing his patron’s arm and nodding to the watchtower that stood above the fort.

  “Let us talk.”

  Fritigern followed the king up the ladder to the winding stair that took them above the day-to-day concerns of the world to a place where they could see the bigger picture. Here, away from the fighters, Fritigern watched the king’s demeanor soften although he did not remove his sword or sit. Instead he moved to the window and looked out at the buildings of the fort, the farms running out toward the Canyon Lands, and east towards the plains. Fritigern joined him, the pair of leaders taking in the strategically critical view.

  “You have done well to take this fort for our people,” said the king.

  “We have built tunnels throughout the canyons and into the fort. No one will be able to remove us from this position.”

  Jamais nodded without smiling. “Very good.”

  “With the forces I am training here we can hit the South with the power of the earth and the air, from above and below.”

  The king pulled his eye from the view, breathing out a long, disappointed sigh before placing his hand on the younger Dwarf’s shoulder.

  “You are a good warrior Fritigern but it is time for you to grow up. The tunnels are brilliant but they won’t be used against the South.”

  Fritigern snapped his eyes to meet the commander, searching for an answer to the confusion his king’s words had sown.

  “But we hold Therucilin, and the wall. We have eliminated the last of Theseus’ army. We hold the North.”

  “That was the Cherubim’s plan. Oberon’s plan. It has worked so far but now you must follow my plan, your people’s plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “We will not die to hold these forts fighting against the South. The Cherubim have given us these positions so that we may bleed out, so that we may waste the blood of our people against the South.”

  Fritigern shook his head, trying to understand. “But the Cherubim fight with us.”

  “The Cherubim can fly away when the South breaks down your walls. We must open the gates for the Men.”

  “But we are free of them. For the first time we are not servants.”

  “Are you really free? You have a new alliance that makes decisions for you.”

  “But we are equals in this alliance. The North belongs to Northerners.”

  Jamais removed his hand from his subject’s shoulder, his lack of patience evident from the deformed muscles that bulged as he gritted the teeth in his twice broken jaw.

  “You have a king you must obey and I will not let your i
mmature notions of freedom interfere with the survival of our people. I know the South as you do not. They are too big, too powerful, too ruthless. They will take the city and they will take this fort and you will not lead your warriors to their deaths defending ideas for the Cherubim.”

  “Did Aram agree to betray Oberon and open the gates of Therucilin?”

  “I have spoken with Aram and told him what he must do so that we may escape the vengeance of the South. You must side with your people. You must do your duty as a leader.”

  Fritigern felt the anger rising inside him. This was a betrayal of the other races, of his students, of the idea that had united the tribes around the land. Why can’t my people see the path as I can? Unable to respond to Jamais’ plan without betraying the duty he owed to his king or the duty he owed to the North he remained silent, lost.

  “It must seem monstrous for me to side with the South, to ask their forgiveness for our people so that we may not receive the same fate as the other races. But remember, I must do what is best for our people.”

  “Isn’t freedom the best thing?”

  “Don’t you think I would rather we stayed free? Do you think I like serving them, groveling, giving them our gold?”

  “Then fight. Send the army to our aid, follow Oberon’s plan. This is our land, we can win.”

  Jamais was silent for a moment, looking out the window but seeing the years he had spent working with Theseus, coordinating the fight against the Centaurs, and watching his tribe survive with their homeland intact.

  Fritigern saw all of this in the king’s eye and knew the Dwarf’s hatred towards the Cherubim and the practicality of age prevented him from undertaking the journey that younger warriors were too ignorant to turn down.

  “It is a good thing,” said the young master, “that youth do not know their dreams are impossible or that the cost is too high. If you had told me when I began my journey to become a master warrior the toll that would be extracted, I might never have begun the journey. Our young warriors will undertake this journey if the old warriors can guide them instead of stopping them.”

  Jamais shook his head knowingly, unmoved by Fritigern’s words.

  “In this, you are wrong. This journey does not lead to freedom, it leads only to death. You will open the gates to the South when they arrive and you will ask for forgiveness for our people.”

  Fritigern felt anger flare inside of him and knew he needed to kill Jamais if the battle plans of the North were to succeed. Without the Dwarven army to harry the South when they laid siege to Fort Hope and Therucilin they were lost; they would not be able to extract the blood their plan required. He knew he had to kill his king, but his mind searched for Oberon’s third way, a plan that would unite the Dwarves behind the cause of freedom. If we fight to the last they will see that the journey is worth it, they will join us.

  “Yes, my king.”

  Jamais nodded, finally smiling.

  “If all of our young warriors knew that the only way to avoid learning lessons the hard way was to listen to your elders we would be better off.”

  Fritigern nodded, discussing the plans he intended never to follow, knowing that it would mean death for his students. As Jamais spoke, outlining his plans to trade gold for forgiveness and to negotiate a new alliance with the South under any terms they dictated, the master looked out to the south, not listening to his king.

  They will come and I will show my people that the North can fight as one, that we value freedom more than life. He knew that this was his own third way but a part of him wondered if he would be wiser to kill Jamais then and there, to try and turn the Dwarves to their cause by cutting of the head. The other kings might listen. But as Jamais continued to speak, he knew he didn’t have it in him to betray his own kind.

  Chapter 12

  S age’s shoulders were sore from practicing with her kusarigama and she felt the hot mid-summer sun tanning them while she rested in the sand gardens. Archeo sat nearby and she watched the little kestrel drinking from a spring, his blue head and red wings glistening in the sun against the dull backdrop of the stone. He began to bathe, cleaning his feathers, and the sight of her constant companion reminded her of the Cherub who had gotten along so well with her bird. When the weeks had turned to months the tribe had reached the consensus that Ignatius was dead, and the talk had shifted from his fate to the alliance with the northern tribes. He was brave and foolish, a dangerous combination. Even a Nymph would have reached the kudzu and returned by now. A winged being would have returned weeks ago.

  She began to stretch, loosening the lightening quick muscles in her legs and arms, muscles that made her deadly at a distance with her blowgun, throwing knives, and the whirling chain of her kusarigama. As she stretched she watched Taragon where he spoke with a group of ten warrior Nymphs whose packs bulged with weapons, poisons, and food. The chief’s grey braid tossed from side to side while he provided encouragement and last-minute instructions to the warriors who would serve as advisors to their neighbors. The leader had yet to fully commit the tribe to Oberon’s cause, holding the bulk of their five hundred male and female fighters back while sending small groups of advisors with supplies instead. Sage knew Oberon needed more; Ignatius had come to tell them the Cherubim needed everything the Nymphs had. I would go to fight. She looked at her kusarigama’s blade and again thought of the missing warrior. He was beyond different. He was unique. Many of the Nymph males had taken an interest in her and she had been with some of them but in the end, she had become bored with them all. Even their differences were the same. Some were quiet and wise, others brash and playful, but none of them could keep her attention. Still, Ignatius was too obviously interested in her for her to be interested in him. Sage knew herself well enough to know that the Cherub wasn’t challenging enough to attract her even if he was more exciting, more unique, than any of her tribe. You think about him too much for that to be true. She smiled at herself and jumped out of her stretch into a squat, nuzzling Archeo’s gleaming feathers before dipping her own face into the spring to drink and cool her blond hair.

  Archeo’s scream jolted her from her thoughts, her head pulling back from the water in time to see Taragon’s group dropping their packs and drawing their weapons, darting for cover. A shadow passed over the water and she rolled across the rocks, listening to the sound of hawks calling out the alarm throughout the pagodas and into the arbor as she crouched in the protective cover of the stone, her hands grasping their weapons. The giant griffins were just a story of the western mountains to her, told by elders around the winter campfires, but her keen green forest eyes scanned the blue skies for the threat she knew was there. The master of the air was impossible to miss, diving down towards her on wings larger than those of the largest Angel with a body whose design was familiar even if its massive size was not. There was nowhere for her to go as the terrifying creature grew larger and larger. She clung to the rock, raising her blowgun to her lips and looking for a place on the body that wasn’t covered in feathers where her dart could get through. Even if I hit my target, it will be on me before the poison kills it. The body of the griffin remained hidden by the mane of feathers before it came into range and she felt the ground shudder as its four limbs slammed into the sand.

  Peeking over the rock she saw two sets of eyes looking at her and she stood in surprise, lowering the blowgun but not sheathing the comforting weapons in her hands. He is alive. Ignatius’ green eyes bored into hers from the back of the griffin, his legs firmly locked into a kudzu vine saddle. The great wings of the animal flapped, erasing the lines that had been raked into the sand for generations. His paws made new tracks in the well-kept rock garden before Ignatius slid off of his back, adding his own tracks to the changing canvas.

  Sage hopped over the spring to meet him and, despite the overwhelming presence of the griffin, noticed that the warrior’s eyes didn’t stray to her bare legs but instead stayed locked on her own with the same intensity as the eagle eyes of
his mount.

  “Welcome back,” she said, holding his gaze despite the temptation to look at the catbird. “You have disrupted our gardens.”

  He smiled, embarrassment on his face telling her he still took her too seriously.

  “I’m sorry,” he said humbly, his hands holding the reigns. “I’m going to be disrupting a lot more than the sand.”

  She nodded with false sobriety, looking him up and down before noticing the vines that twisted out of the satchel on his belt. She sensed Taragon and the others now as they approached cautiously over the sand and she watched the griffin, not yet fully tamed, start to stand, the claws on his hind paws extending into the sand. Ignatius pulled on the reigns, putting up a hand to signal the Nymphs to halt before turning to calm the enormous animal. Taragon moved forward slowly to stand next to Sage, his warriors keeping their distance. They watched as Ignatius pulled the hindquarter of an elk from the vine woven saddlebag and placed it on the sand. The eagle-eyed beast watched the Cherub but did not reach for the meat, his eyes following his master instead. After a minute Ignatius whistled and the griffin grabbed the elk leg in his talons. The Cherub turned, dropping the reigns with confidence.

  “So,” said Taragon.

  Ignatius nodded, reaching out to grab the chief’s arm. “So.”

  “I see you have the kudzu.”

  Ignatius pulled the seedpods from his pouch, one in each hand.

  “You have upheld your end of the deal,” said Taragon. “I suppose you will have your warriors then.”

  “Not quite,” answered the Cherub. “As you can see, things have changed slightly.” He pointed at the griffin with his head.

  “We agreed that if you could tame the griffins you would have our warriors. The kudzus belong to our people.”

  Sage knew something had changed about the Cherub. She could tell from his tone, his stance, the way he carried himself, that he was more confident but also calmer. Brave yes, but foolish only if he is wrong. She reached out and squeezed his arm above the bracer he used to deflect arrows. “What’s changed?”