She could see that the clouds were moving out towards the sea in the east and the dawn was cresting over the ocean that was said to lie in that direction where the plains ended. She could see Archeo leading the way where the bird was silhouetted against the silvery clouds below. They drifted southwest, pink morning rays cresting behind them ahead of the break of dawn. Sage could see the clouds thinning ahead and she felt a swell of courage as she flew with her friends. Some inner power had been brought on by the blood of the buffalo that had anointed her blade and her face, making them both wholely willing for the first time. A warrior’s cry swelled in her chest, but she suppressed it, channeling the newly baptized feelings into an intense focus she had never felt before.
Katana swooped down through a gap in the parting clouds, dew dripping off her hide. The keen bird eyes of her friends spotted the prey before Sage. Sensing the shiver of excitement in her steed, the Nymph allowed the huntress beneath her to position them as she had with the buffalo. The sun was rising now and, in the moment, when starlight gave way to daylight she spotted him. A solitary rider on a black steed, cantering towards the valley where the buffalo had stampeded the night before. They were positioned perfectly, far above and not directly behind, but off and behind the rider’s right where a patch of clouds obscured their silhouette. An outrider.
Katana knew what to do but the Rider paused. She had hunted, but never another sentient being, and doubt crept in as the untested Nymph let her thoughts ponder what she saw. A human on a horse. The idea of attacking a stranger was so foreign she didn’t know if she was willing to do it. But then she saw the panoply the soldier carried, an aspis, short sword, and the massive spear. It was then that she thought about what the rider would see if he were to look back over his shoulder and into the sky. A blood covered savage to be conquered. In that moment the power of the buffalo returned to her and she released the griffin, trusting in Taragon, trusting in the North, trusting in Ignatius, but most of all trusting in herself.
Archeo joined them in their dive with the sun cresting over the ocean of grass, sending dynamic hues of purple, orange, and red across the scattering clouds and turning the griffin’s white wings to gold. The wind didn’t bother her eyes as the adrenalin of the moment and clarity of purpose cleared her mind. She knew that in the last moment of the stalk a deer hunter would make noise to freeze the prey and, as they blistered through the sun beams and out of the torrid skies she chose to unleash the warriors cry, not because she couldn’t contain the blood lust, but because she knew what effect it would have.
“AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAA!”
The rider’s horse stumbled as the cry split the morning stillness. The outrider spun the steed to face an attack from the rear, looking up too late to realize the attack came from above. The sight of the eagle’s face, the blood covered rider, and the talons that reached for him overcame the hardened warrior and his spear was too slow. The horse reared instinctually, its hooves striking at the sky and throwing the rider violently into the air. Katana’s talons slammed into the horse, ripping its rear legs from the earth and lifting it violently into the air. The griffin slammed down onto the horse, its back broken by the power of the strike.
Sage had already flipping from the saddle, flying gracefully towards the fallen soldier. Dazed, the man rose, reaching for his shield and drawing his sword. Sage’s blow gun moved too swiftly for him to notice, his shock and the pain of his fall overwhelming the pinprick on his neck. For the lightening quick Nymph, the soldier’s movements were slow, but the novelty of her first fight made the moment seem to last forever. She could see the black stubble of a beard on his face and the hard, determined look of his eyes where they looked out from his battle-hardened features. The sun glinted off his sword as he raised it, ducking behind his shield.
“Who are you?” he said, the first words a Southerner had ever spoken to a Nymph.
She didn’t answer but instead watched his gaze where it ran to Katana. The griffin sat crouched on the body of the horse, her tail flicking as she prepared to pounce. His eyes darted from the elemental, blood-soaked beast to the beautiful, blood-soaked savage.
“What is that?” he said again, stumbling slightly as he tried to circle so Sage was between him and the catbird.
She let him move, feeling the smoothness of the blowgun in her fingers, remembering the care her father had made her take when he showed her how to make it. His hands had guided hers as she used embers to hollow the joints from rivercane, and she hadn’t understood why he had insisted she take such care to oil the inside, heating it over the fire to smooth out the bore. In that moment she remembered his insistence on the details of painstakingly heating and straightening the weapon, drying it in the sun over many days. I understand now.
“How many of you are there?” she asked the man as Archeo landed on her shoulder.
“You Northerners belong to us. I am an outrider serving King Vespasian and you will answer to him for this assault on…” His speech drifted off into a grunt as he sank to one knee.
“Answer my questions and I will give you the antidote.”
He dropped his weapon, supporting himself on his shield while his sword hand reached up to his neck. The pain flowing from the dart there told him she wasn’t bluffing, and his eyes searched hers for a way out.
“What is this?” he asked.
“You’ll be dead in an hour unless I help you, and I will only help you if you answer my questions.”
He struggled to his feet, snatching up his sword and lunging at her. She side stepped the attack deftly, drawing her kusarigama and cartwheeling out of his range in one fluid motion. Her momentum shot the chain straight into the sky and she spun, extending the handle from her body so the chain fell around her only to shoot out like a whip. The chain connected with the handle of his xiphos, ensnaring it. Kicking her leg to build power, she spun, ripping the weapon out of his grasp. It landed harmlessly in the grass and he stumbled again, the poison slowing his actions.
“Tell me,” she said.
He slid down into the dusty grass, his heart pumping death rather than life, and realized he could not overpower her.
“Twenty legions,” he said, coughing blood into his hands.
“What is a legion?”
He looked up from his hands at the fiery sunrise glinting in her green eyes. His eyes narrowed in confusion before looking back towards the griffin. He restrained his own curiosity, the promise of the antidote his only motivation.
“An army of soldiers, more men than the north has ever held. Siege weapons you cannot imagine, beasts from the southlands that will destroy any that oppose us.”
“What do they want?” she asked, unable to fathom his answer.
“Revenge for King Theseus.”
She nodded, suddenly remembering the weight of the kusarigama in her hand and sheathing it. The Nymph stepped in closer and squatted down. The Centaurs killed Theseus. It was well known throughout the North what had befallen the King of Men who had ruled over the Old Alliance. The Cherubim killed Prince Alexander. It was less well known, though rumored, that Donus had killed Theseus’ son.
“The antidote,” coughed the outrider as he made one last effort to stand. Leaning on his shield he rose to one knee and eyed her hopefully.
“Revenge against the Centaurs?” she asked, not ready to admit to herself that the question meant a way out, a way not to face war.
He started to slide to the side off his shield then caught himself, blood dripping onto the golden shield of the phalanx that emblazoned his own shield.
“Order,” he whispered, “the South wants order. Whoever destroyed the Alliance here must be brought to justice, whosoever rebels against Galatia in these lands must be brought to justice.”
Sage felt a wind rising in the west, pushing cold air over the mountains and sending rippling waves across the grasses. She breathed it in and looked away to the north and west, sensing what would come next. This is wh
y they call it the Blood Land. Her eyes moved from the glowing mountains of her home just in time to see the blade of her dagger bury itself in the soldier’s temple where he was making a final lunge at her with his own dagger.
“There is your antidote,” she said.
His body slumped onto his shield and her mind remained clear for a brief moment while she experienced an awareness of the North, of her land, that she had never felt. She watched the blood seeping into the grass. The blood of the land. She felt the mountains and her people behind her and sensed the immense toll that would need to be paid.
Then, the thoughts returned and with them doubts, questions and fear. More men than the north has ever held. What if I shouldn’t have struck this blow? She regretted the dead horse, a horse the North needed. What if they find these bodies? She took a calming breath, recognizing that she was a Rider and a scout, and it was her duty, that the lie about the existence of an antidote was the best solution she had in a tough situation. For a moment she thought about crying but refused to let that be her reaction. I am willing to do what must be done.
She retrieved her dagger without fear, remembering the lesson her father had taught her about poison. The Nymph knew that, when diffused through the body, what was a deadly dose on a dart was perfectly safe; even when hunting with poised darts it was perfectly acceptable to eat meat from throughout the body. Next, she collected the sword, shield, spear, food, and saddle and tied them to Katana. Too precious to waste. There were enough supplies here to arm several warriors. The added weight was well worth the trouble. Finally, she considered trying to drag the body of the man and the horse over the grass to hide them with the buffalo carcass but realized it was too late to hide the bodies. Good scouts will follow the trail easily.
As she circled up into the clouds she looked back upon the bodies, growing smaller and smaller until they were swallowed up by the grasses. My order. She turned Katana south with the intention to see for herself what weapons, what beasts, what numbers they would face. The cold wind no longer fazed her. Something had grown harder inside the Rider now that she knew what she was willing to do. Knowing that she would fight and kill for her people gave her a strength that wondering had never produced.
They didn’t have to travel far before she saw a sight that tested her resolve. By late morning she spotted dust on the horizon. She urged her griffin higher, seeking cloud cover to obscure them from eyes on the ground. Banking between patches of dispersed cumulus clouds she cut west towards a front that was pushing a low hung bank of stratus clouds out onto the plains. Making her way towards the protection of the grey wall on the horizon she began to spot larger groups of riders scouting ahead of the dust cloud that continued to grow in the south. Katana sensed her anxiety and flapped with excessive power through a final puff of white clouds before streaking down to brush the unbroken tops of the clean white bank of clouds that allowed them to turn due south without being seen.
Sage guided the griffin along the edge of the clouds, looking over the cliff in the sky at the sunlit plains below. She could see the shadow where her cover was blocking out the earth below and there, finally, she spotted them. The legions of the South covering the plains looked like buffalo from above. Ordered lines of buffalo. She could see them, streaming away endlessly to the south, spears glinting now and then as the cloud’s shadow cast them slowly into darkness. Sage urged Katana lower, down into the clouds, and for a moment she lost sight of them. Then, where the clouds turned to smoke, mixing with the open air beneath, she leaned forward and saw exactly what it was that the North would face.
The men marched in lose formation, ten across. Each man carried a pack, his shield, a spear, and a sword, but to Sage’s eye, thousands of feet above, they looked like terrifying, hunched bears stretching in a line as far as she could see. At their head were a dozen riders atop Rhinoceroses. The grey steeds were enormous, even at her altitude, and she could tell they were at least twice the size of the old bull Katana had felled the day before. Then they were gone, and they were back inside the clouds. Moments later they reemerged, and she could see the line of soldiers where it continued to snake south. They flew on for many moments, darting in and out of the clouds. Finally, the line of soldiers was replaced by a herd, thousands of horses and rhinos, that were being driven behind the army. Sage could see this is where the bulk of the dust came from and she thought that it was finally over, that she had seen the enemy, but then came the siege weapons. Massive catapults, dozens of them, were being pulled by furry, giant like creatures with curved horns that struggled to make headway over the uneven plains. What are those?
Sage recoiled at the sight of the giant creatures and the wooden contraptions, neither of which she had ever seen or heard of. She didn’t have time to contemplate the terrifying sight before she observed a long stream of wagons, overflowing with goods and pulled by oxen. There were hundreds of the carts with hundreds of horse mounted cavalry surrounding them, ceaselessly protecting the supplies the army needed to sustain them on the march north. And then, after one more duck into the clouds, she saw she had reached the end of the army. The marching boots of the soldiers, along with the herd of war steeds, and the catapults being pulled by monstrous creatures had beaten a dirty brown trail into the plains that stretched to the horizon.
Turning back to the North, the Nymph rider caught one last glimpse of the retreating enemy through the dusty cloud that trailed behind the army. Endless enemies. Now she understood the outrider’s words. There are more men in this army then all of the men that have ever come to the North put together. She finally felt the cold of the air and tried to balance the hopelessness of what she had seen with the clarity and willingness she had experienced in killing the buffalo and the Man. They angled west, over the clouds and away from the plains to follow the forest north towards the Angel’s castle where she would alert the Riders. She knew she must tell them what she had seen, what she had done, but she did not know what the people of the North would do when faced with an endless enemy that would attempt to impose its own order on a freedom loving people. They are legion, how can we remain free? She tucked herself into the bearskin robe and hoped her Blood Born warrior would have answers.
Chapter 16
W otan could feel the earth moving beneath his hooves. He sniffed the air, his enormous lungs filling with the scent not of buffalo, but of marching Men. The Centaur chief had climbed a butte in the Canyon Lands so he could see the sight for himself. It was the same butte his father had climbed, and his father before him, and he knew it well. The view it provided, of the southward approach to the Canyon Lands that stretched away from Fort Hope onto the plains, was as much a part of him as the black feathers in his hair or the massive antlers that protruded from his brow. The glinting, mechanized structure of the approaching army, with its siege weapons and rhinos and endless rows of armored soldiers was out of place. He felt the cold air and looked at the empty mountains and the dense forest, then the sweeping tan grass stretching east, and concluded that the time had come to do what he had been born to do. I will destroy this unnatural thing that comes into my homeland.
The fur on his black back stood up and he tensed, unable to overcome the instinctual fear of an attack on his exposed rear. He knew it was Rondo, the winged Skraeling that was working to help him position his forces. The Cherub Rider had landed his griffin silently on the northern side of the lookout to avoid being seen and had picked his way quietly through the grass and over the stone strewn summit until he was close enough to alert Wotan that the time had come.
Wotan knew the Southlanders had seen him but not the Rider- it was a tactic he had used in this area before. He followed Rondo down towards where his bucks stood concealed in the depths of a box canyon underneath the bluff, remembering the last two battles he had fought in this same oft contested gateway to the North. They made their way down a tiny goat trail that cut along the backside of the bluff before Rondo dismounted to tell him of the positions of the key pl
ayers in the coming battle.
“It’s just as Hadrian said it would be,” said the Cherub in reference to the Southland captive that now counseled Oberon. “A small number of scouts entered the Canyonlands, searching for a campground where they can launch the siege of Fort Hope.”
“My scouts?” said Wotan, still feeling slightly awkward speaking the language of the other races.
“I guided them into the perfect ambush- we killed two bands of Southland scouts, none escaped.”
“They will find bodies?” he asked, hopeful that their plan to draw a larger force deeper into the canyons would work.
“They already have.”
Rondo nodded, and Wotan noted the cool calmness on his features. More like Donus, this one. His people had always respected the warrior that Donus had been. He was pure. The Centaur reached into a pouch that hung from his armor on his forward shoulder and pulled out a purple belt of wampum. The belt had been given to him by an elder of a clan that lived along the coast to the northeast of his own village. It was meant to signify the elder’s trust in Wotan’s decision to change the way of their people, to unite with the races that had been their ancient enemies. Now, knowing the countless hours that had gone into collecting quahog shells from the sea and drilling them so they could be strung on the belt, he handed it to the Rider.
Rondo smiled solemnly and tied the belt on his narrow waste so that it sat comfortably above his throwing knives and tomahawks.
Wotan nodded his approval. “We go.”
“We go together,” said Rondo.
Last Stand of the Blood Land Page 26