“Then let me tell you what we will not do. We will not betray the Nymphs, we need them as allies. Let them keep the Kudzu and we will ask them to share their food supplies with us. We will not assassinate Jamais, we need the other kings to know that we respect their autonomy- they must join us of their own will. We will not kill prisoners and we will not force our captives to breed with our warriors. The gaps in our defenses will remain as we promised Atlas.”
“Donus would disapprove of your unwillingness.”
“Donus, or Ignatius?”
Ignatius paused briefly, and then answered, “I do not approve of your unwillingness. It will cost the tribe in the end.”
“What will we tell our children if we are no different than the South?”
“What children will remain if we are not?”
“We can do this if you work with me,” answered the chief.
“The Riders will follow your plan for what we will not do, what is it you would have us do?”
“Your griffins will fill our greatest gap, information. Send a pair of riders south as far as you can to scout for the Southern army. This will give us advanced warning and will free up the Plainswatchers to work on our defenses. Send Riders to Wotan and Ryogen to alert them of our plans and let them know that a Rider will come for them when the time comes. I need you to breed and train as many of these griffins and Riders as you can.”
“I can do these things, just know that I do not approve of the lack of resolve you are allowing into the tribe. I would rather lie to our children about what their fathers have done than let the tribe go nobly into extinction.”
“You will never approve of my choices until you have learned to believe in my reasons. That Nymph will show you as Caldera has shown me, we can win without becoming something no one could love.”
“You want me to learn to be like you?”
Oberon nodded, smiling now, poking his friend in the head.
“There is room in there for Donus and Oberon.”
Ignatius smiled as well, the tension of months of thinking about Oberon released by the simple act of an open-minded conversation.
“Perhaps,” he said, seeing, for the first time, the possibility that knowing how to be like Donus didn’t have to mean he couldn’t also be like Oberon. “Maybe learning to listen to my inner Oberon will balance out the Donus.”
“Maybe you will stop worrying about it so much, so you have some energy to keep that Nymph warm this winter.”
Ignatius grinned, remembering a time before they had left to go to war, a time when they had been young together. Oberon sensed the mix of sadness for the premature aging the world had laid on their young shoulders and the happiness that they could still laugh like they were youths. We can control how some things change.
“Come on,” said Ignatius, “I’ll introduce you to Sage.”
“Is she the one you ride or the griffin?”
Ignatius laughed again at the immaturity of the war chief who would soon lead his people to battle and led the way back up to the sand. Hadrian was there talking to Sage when they arrived and the South-Man flinched, stepping back at the sight of the warrior that had butchered his way into Therucilin. Sage looked from the Man to the Cherub and Oberon worried that she would realize what Ignatius was capable of.
“Hadrian has taken to our little tribe quite well,” said the chief. “He is advising Taragon on the construction of our defenses and has been teaching me more about the tactics of his people.”
“Not too well,” said Hadrian.
“Why is that?” asked Sage, flashing a smile at Ignatius that said she knew why the man was afraid of the Cherub Rider.
“The cold!” came the reply.
“Don’t you have winter in the South?” asked Ignatius as he stepped away to take a bone away from Kaizen in a ritual of dominance that seemed to extend to the man.
“We have seasons, but never snow or frosts. How else do you think they could afford to feed an army? The fields grow year-round.”
Oberon saw Ignatius cock his head in thought and wondered if the fighter was thinking what he was thinking. That food will never reach their army if my plan to attack their supply lines is successful. The war chief walked with the trio of riders, learning about their saddles and plans for the griffins as they made their way around the lake to the Nymphs’ forges. He felt the practical discussion of logistics lulling away the tension he felt with Ignatius, and the two discussed how they would coordinate Oberon’s plans with the Riders, which races the Riders would visit first when the Southern army was spotted, and how they would protect and grow the precious griffins. Eventually he left them, his thoughts no less nervous about the fate of his people, of the North, now that he had a new weapon that could solve so many of his challenges.
Chapter 14
S age recognized Erithea as Ignatius’ mother the moment she saw the relief in the eyes of the beautiful, red haired Nymph. Oberon had left them here, above Devil’s Lake, at the forges her kin had constructed so that they might aid their offspring in their time of need. Looking at the slender yet capable master smith who had raised Ignatius, greatest of the Blood Born, the blond-haired Nymph couldn’t help but feel intimidated. She reached back and rested her hand on Katana’s muscled forearm and leaned back so that she sank into the protecting feathers of her steed, watching from a place of safety as mother and son embraced. Onidas stepped forward from where he nervously held Kaizen. Erithea released her young warrior to great the renowned Dwarven archer. The pair shook arms, the short female Nymph still standing a foot taller than the black haired and exceptionally short dwarf.
Then, from within the shelter that housed Erithea’s forge, a young female Cherub sprang from her work on an arrowhead. The little half Angel half Nymph exploded between the group and embraced Ignatius, her affection for the much older warrior unconcealed. Sage laughed at how awkward he was at rebuffing the inappropriate, but all too natural affection, with an awkward hug and a grimace on his normally stoic features.
“Who is she?” ask the young Cherub.
“Timna, Mother, meet Sage,” said Ignatius.
Sage stepped forward, unaccustomed to needing to prove herself. She smiled shyly and felt Erithea sweeping her up in the Nymph’s characteristic playfulness.
“Well Timna, it looks like another contender for you to compete with.”
Sage shook her head and squatted down to look at Timna.
“Do you have some meat we can give to these beasts? Perhaps one day you will ride them as well.”
Timna giggled, the Nymph in her alerting Sage that this Cherub would have no trouble finding her own mate.
“You mean the Griffins or the males?” answered the little Cherub.
Sage laughed at the grown-up joke and felt herself blushing when she heard Timna whisper “She’s pretty!” to Erithea before running to get meat for the Griffins.
“She is indeed,” answered the Nymph.
“Mother,” said Ignatius, moving to sit where at a stone table, “we need you to fashion something for us.”
The others joined him, and Sage appreciated the view the forges had of the lake below, the orange and yellow leaves that grew on the great trees surrounding the boulder-strewn bluffs glowing in the fall light. She watched Erithea and the affection she could feel between mother and son was stronger than it was between most and tinged with pain. He must remind her of his father.
“Anything,” said Ignatius’ mother.
“We need you to make armor for the griffins,” said the Cherub.
The foursome followed the Nymph’s eyes back to where Timna was hauling the gutted carcass of a small doe up the hill towards the Griffins. The griffins looked back towards their riders expectantly, waiting for the signal.
“They are too precious to leave unprotected, yes?” asked Erithea, pushing a curl over her pointy ears.
Sage hadn’t spent any time with Dwarves, had hardly believed in their existence, until the previous year,
so when Onidas spoke in the thick accent of his people, she couldn’t help but notice his black and white hair before staring into the pure black of his deep-set eyes.
“We have only a few, and I will be teaching the Riders to protect them while still attacking. If you can armor them, it will make it easier to keep them alive, and working, for the North.”
“You’ll want spikes on the tails,” said Sage.
“And helmets,” added Ignatius.
“Something to protect the vitals,” finished the Nymph in a mumble, thinking of the enormity of the task. “Will they wear it if I forge it for them?”
“They will do just about anything for food,” said Ignatius.
“Not unlike my son,” she said, looking at Sage with a smile. “He doesn’t even spend time asking about me before he wants new armor. I hope he treats you better.”
“He’s not going to get me cooking for him unless he does,” she answered with a bluff. “But, he does say that no one can sharpen a blade better than you.”
She is coaxing more out of me than I’d like. Sage still wasn’t sure which part of Ignatius she would see on a given day, the warrior whose emotions turned his face into a storm, or the calm philosopher who could reason through the thunder. She did, however, like the way he was with his mother.
Erithea smiled at the complement and nodded. “Yes, leave me your weapons and stay the night, I will have measurements for the armor.”
They sat and spoke for a time, trading news even though Hael had kept Erithea informed about the Riders. Timna brought bacon and cornbread with honey, and Sage felt a desire to stay there with her kin, Erithea, seeing the unguarded side of Ignatius, for as long as possible. Still, she knew they didn’t have the luxury of time, and Ignatius soon moved the group back to the feasting griffins so Erithea and Onidas could begin taking measurements. While Timna took her kusarigama in practiced hands, honing the blade ever so slightly to perfection, she sat with Ignatius and watched the Nymph and the Dwarf as they searched for a location to strap a quiver and assessed how a blade could be attached to the long lion tails that helped to balance the steeds in flight. His hand crept towards her thigh and he squeezed just above her knee where her goatskin loincloth covered her tanned skin. Strong hands. She couldn’t help but remember how they had felt on her body that night under the pines when she had stopped him. I won’t stop him next time.
Archeo appeared with Timna who handed them back their assorted daggers and blades. The little kestrel jumped from the Cherub to Ignatius before pecking him on the ear and flying to Katana who was tolerating the probing hands of Erithea.
“Climb on board you two,” called the Nymph, “I need to check these measurements with riders in the saddle.
Sage moved deftly, feeling herself hopping effortlessly up the kudzu saddle. Katana ruffled her feathers and cocked her massive beak, so her eagle eye stared back questioningly at her partner. I haven’t been out of your sight in weeks, have I? While the others finished their measurements, she thought about how her fate was now tied to this animal. I wouldn’t dare stray too far from her, she is too precious to my tribe. Katana meant freedom to her, but also food for the North, and a chance in the coming battle.
“Do you have what you need?” Ignatius asked his mother, calling Sage back to the moment.
She looked over at him, so different from her in how he handled Kaizen, yet similar in many of the ways they had inherited from their shared ancestors. It must be the Angels that gave the Cherubim the edge, the cold steel that the Nymphs never had.
Erithea nodded and answered her son. “Go you two, I will work with Onidas tonight on a frame so that we can re-measure in the morning. Then you may leave, the armor will take weeks.”
She could tell Erithea wanted more time with her son, but she also knew the Nymph was a practical being whose experience with the Angels made her no stranger to the necessities of war. Taking off in the cold moonlight she followed the shadow of Kaizen, looking down on the rocky terrain and recognizing just how difficult it would be to move down there without wings. Any being that must walk here would need to pick their way across the rocks. Easy prey.
They were soon alighting in the treetops of the main village on the west side of the lake and she felt the practiced paws of her steed finding purchase on the massive limbs. Ignatius jumped down a few feet to the roof of his tree home and she followed, running her fingers through Katana’s feathers as a reminder that she would be nearby. The duo of griffins, mated alphas of their pride, watched their riders disappear before settling into the treetops where they could spend the night in direct contact. Sage looked back as she hit the roof and knew that she wanted to spend the night in the warm embrace of her own alpha.
Ignatius led her down through the branches and into the wood home, trusting to the athleticism of his fellow rider to guide her wingless, forest adapted frame. She stood inside the Spartan, one room home while her eyes adjusted to the light and her companion lit a fire in the hearth. She could tell from the speed with which the fire burned that it was old, dry wood, and had probably been sitting in the wood box for months. As the light spilled out over the meager accouterments she took in the sights, and the woody, leathery must of the air with a curiosity that surprised her. How has he lived?
He turned towards her and took a deep breath, as if finally realizing he was safe, if only for a moment. She followed his lead and took her own breath, smiling across the small room at him while she shut the door. The bright little fire he had started created a light behind him that served to accentuate the simple dress and hard lines of his weapons and muscles. She followed the lines of light to his tools, simple smith equipment, and to empty shelves she assumed must have once been stocked with food and drink. Then her eyes settled on the weapons, a long, curved katana, and a massive spear. He must have noticed her eyes on the instruments of death because he moved towards her to cut off her view of the memories they represented.
“Donus’ spear,” he said. “The spear he used to kill Parfey, Pathmaker of the Giants, and Alexander, King Theseus’ son.”
She felt his warm hands on her arms, but she couldn’t help looking over his shoulder at the cold weapons. I have always carried my kusarigama, but these are more real. She wondered what happened to weapons, to warriors, whose purpose was carried to its logical conclusion.
“And the sword?” she asked.
“Elvish, taken from another warrior Donus killed.”
“And you killed him?”
She regretted asking the question as soon as she spoke the words. The legend of how this Cherub had killed his brother in arms to protect a member of another race was spoken around fires throughout the North. It’s too soon, go slow.
She felt him trying to calm her, the uncertainty of his violent reality drawing her back from her desire to quit resisting. He stepped slowly to the side, letting them sink together onto the bed. How convenient, the only place to sit. She let him hold her to his side and they leaned back with their legs dangling off the edge of the bed. Resting against his wings she could see the empty shelves, the fast burning firelight flitting across the pieces of exposed steel on the legendary weapons, on their own weapons where the Cherub’s twin katanas, her kusarigama and her blowgun leaned against the wall next to their nine throwing knives.
“Its who I am now,” he said without remorse as an answer to her question about Donus.
“I think you are still who you were with Erithea as well.”
He sighed again. “I didn’t want to be a Blood Born warrior, to have weapons that have stories of death, deaths that are a part of me.”
“You didn’t want it?”
He looked over at her, and she pulled her eyes away from the weapons, watching the light in his eyes.
“I don’t want it,” he answered softly.
“So, there is some Oberon in you.” Or he is just saying that.
He replied, as if reading her doubts.
“I am who I am, and you a
re becoming a warrior too. We will both have to fight and kill, and it will never be over. But we can pull some good out of it, some hope, and that is all I can offer you.”
Honesty. She smiled, and she couldn’t help feeling even more attracted to the complexity of the warrior, his many parts. So real. Suddenly her concerns about the war, her desire to wait, her fear of the sides of the warrior that were not calmed, were sweeping away. When he began to talk she realized he didn’t know that she was his.
“Oberon wants to know that I am like him, that I’m not all rage and violence like Donus, that I can think for the tribe. It was so clear to me after I spent those many weeks with the griffins in the west on the deserts’ shore. My mind was calm like Oberon, not wanting anything, not addicted to anger or fear, but also willing, willing to fight and strive without compromise for my ideas.”
She tried to listen to him, but she wished he would stop talking and kiss her like she knew he had wanted to when they had first met in the arbor. Still, she needed to understand him, and so she delayed for just a moment. She smiled, and squeezed his arm, running her fingers playfully along his pectorals before nodding towards the fire.
“Donus burned out, just like the fire,” she said with a grin. “But Oberon is too cold, like ash. You were an ember when you came back from the west, mindfully resting between fire and ash and capable of both.”
“Yes, but talking to Oberon today I was right back to fire.”
“You are the embers,” she said, pulling off his vest and pushing him flat onto the bed, her head resting so she could feel his pounding heart in her cheek while she stroked his braids. “You are not Donus, you are not Oberon, you are both, you are Ignatius. But it will take time. You’ve been forced to kill and fight before you were ready.”
“Time,” he said, blissfully, the worries that had crept back in fading. “Yes, and practice, I can’t live as the balanced warrior philosopher I’ve always known I could be if I haven’t practiced being that version of myself.”
She smiled and kissed his chest and felt his fever finally breaking. His hands and skin were responding to her now, not to the ghosts in his mind. Those strong hands pulled her up so their mouths met and he kissed her, her blond locks falling down over his brown curls in a little cave that made their world too small for the concerns that had taken up their day. He is here, in the moment with me. She remembered her own inhibitions and knew that inhibitions had no place in a world as small as a moment. She sat up and pulled off her jerkin, feeling his neck craning to follow her in his desire to keep kissing.
Last Stand of the Blood Land Page 24