by R. T. Donlon
The Elite dropped to one knee, raised the longsword into his bent arm, and returned to his feet. The sound of scraping metal against the floor rose heavily above the whistling wind. Even in taerji, Curala could not help himself—a quiet smirk pressed to the corner of his white-lipped mouth.
“Give me the word, Kyrah,” the monster said, “and this will be over in a matter of moments.”
“This is not your fight, boy!” Curala yelled. “Foreigners who intrude in Portizu affairs shall suffer the same fate as the traitors they harbor.”
Renay crouched into an athletic stance, mostly to keep the wind from propelling her backward, but also to mirror Curala’s intensity.
“I know you think you are doing the right thing, but you are interfering with something bigger than the Portizu. Take your Warriors and leave,” the monster said.
Lider turned to the Elite and held two hands toward him palms-forward.
“I’ve already warned you once,” Curala growled. “I will not do it again.”
The boy’s fingers stretched taught against tendon and bone. The longsword drew upward, slicing the air in quick thrusts.
“It is time,” said the Elite. “I have waited long enough.”
Kyrah turned to Lider, but the monster could no longer be distracted.
“Don’t,” Kyrah whispered.
“I must do what needs to be done,” he said, “but I have heard you, Kyrah. He will not be harmed.”
Curala would survive. He must for the Portizu’s sake, so time slowed as it had on the Highlands stage. Curala’s sword stiffened behind white-knuckled fists mid-swing.
“This is your chance, Kyrah,” the monster spoke. “What will happen next will not be easy, but it is indeed your final test. Tonight you will overcome the Darkness within you or simply become it.”
This was beyond taerji. Kyrah’s heart fluttered.
“It is the only way,” it continued. He pointed at Curala with deadpan eyes. “I will not kill this man, by your request.”
Fenir, who had dropped the bow to his side, gaped in astonishment.
“So it is true,” he spoke. “You’re working with magic.”
“It is not what you think!” said Kyrah. “You will see in time, Fenir.”
“You chose magic over Tribe,” Fenir continued.
It was not a question, but a definitive statement.
“I chose magic so that I could choose family.”
Fenir lifted his empty hand to Kyrah, running his thumb against her bottom lip. It had been so long since he had felt the softness of her, the intimacy of a single touch.
“I have missed you so much,” he spoke, “but I must stay and protect our people. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never abandon you. The Elite will need guidance and much support if he is to lead us. Only I can give him that. Together, we will work toward a better future.” His fingers wrapped gently around the back of her neck. “Curala will never know about our connection, but I will stay close to him. I will watch him. And when you return, I will be the first to welcome you home. Send word if you need me. And Kyrah—” he cleared his throat before he spoke his last words. “I will forever run to the ends of the Range for you.”
“Thank you,” Kyrah whispered. “Find my mother and father. Tell them that I am fine. Tell them Velc has taught me well. That will ease their worries.”
Fenir nodded, then kissed her gently against the lips.
“May Turisic be with you, my love,” he whispered, “and may he help you find what you are looking for.”
He lifted the bow to his chest, raising his eyes to Lider.
“Whoever you are, whatever you are,” he continued, “take care of her. She is the best among us. She is the best part of me.”
The Ruganon nodded, but said nothing more.
“Kyrah,” the monster spoke. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. Fenir lifted the bow. Renay ripped a dagger from its sheath at her waist. The monster’s eyes illuminated a blinding, turquoise-crystal blue.
And time began again.
Curala rushed furiously toward the trio, but met an invisible barrier three feet from collision. His longsword clanked hard against the magic wall. With a final gaze, Lider waved his hand in the direction of Kyrah. A single pulse of wind shook her from balance and flung her over the backside of the Wall, careening toward the clouds of Shadows below. She tumbled awkwardly toward the ground, eyes wide and scared.
Find it within yourself, the monster’s voice echoed deep in her mind. You are the ruler of your own destiny. Search within. Break the Shadows. Use the god-strength!
Fenir sent two arrows slicing the air on either side of Renay and Lider, but missed a headshot of each by inches. He had not meant to hit them, but came close enough to make it appear that way. Curala bent backward and sent a shivering longsword blow to the forcefield. It cracked and splintered against the Elite’s power-rage. Another blow and the barrier would collapse.
“Take my hand,” Lider barked.
Renay reached and squeezed tightly.
May the god-strength save us all, the monster breathed. Our fates now lie in Kyrah’s hands.
The forcefield shattered. Arrows fluttered angrily through the air. Curala angled himself into the wier attack pose, rose the longsword above his head, and swung barbarian-style as quickly as metal could travel.
But he hit nothing.
The Prophet of the Ruganon had vanished once again into the throes of the night’s thin air.
ROSE PETALS (BEFORE)
The summer had nearly turned the sky green.
“There is restlessness in your eyes, Kyrah,” Velc said. “This is what happens when you have not mastered even the easiest meditative skills, like traji…the thing is, you have, so what’s wrong?”
Thoughts pummeled Kyrah’s mind like a flurry of fists. Nothing had challenged her more than the past several months.
“Have I pushed you too hard? Surely not,” her Teacher continued.
Kyrah broke from traji, knowing it had not done much good. She breathed deeply, then turned toward her Teacher beside her.
“The Darkness within me takes hold after our training. It is easily contained now, but it is there. Traji does nothing to suppress it. Tansij is useless. I need to learn taerji, Teacher. It is time,” said Kyrah.
Velc lowered his eyes and bowed his head to suppress his waning suspicion.
“It will only be the right time when you can master the forces within yourself,” her Teacher continued, suddenly a bit more morose in his words. “Without balance, you cannot hope to minimize your emotions. It will consume you.”
She held a sigh deep within her throat, knowing there would be repercussions if she allowed it to expel.
“It’s not that you are not ready,” he explained. “It is simply that you have not found yourself yet. Without a true identity, the taerji is a dangerous thing. I have seen it change people. They never return the same.”
The idea clicked somewhere in the depths of her mind, remembering the stories Velc had told her years before. She remembered the images of Warriors conjured in her dreams, nightmarish ghoul-like Tribesmen with nothing but the savage, primal squeals of Portizu unhinged.
“The Lost Warriors of the Mountains,” whispered Kyrah.
She had not even noticed that the words had slipped from her mouth.
“They were once honorable followers of Turisic—just like you—learning the ways of the Portizu to protect us from the lurking Darkness.” Velc’s voice trailed off toward the end of his thought. “But all that is left of them are shells—useless, dangerous shells of the Warriors they had once been.”
“I am ready, Teacher,” Kyrah said. “You must know that.”
Her voice flattened against Velc’s fading tones, keeping each syllable at a strong, unwavering frequency.
No fear, Kyrah thought.
Only the sound of buzzing insects hummed delicately in the brush surrounding the two of them. All e
lse succumbed to natural silence. It calmed the restless beating of Kyrah’s heart enough to relax her traji pose at the hips—more structured, more angled.
“You truly believe you have reached the need for taerji?” Velc asked.
Kyrah nodded quietly. The gears of Velc’s mind turned over on themselves.
“Very well,” he began, “but I require one task before you learn the ways of taerji. It will not be easy. You will find yourself in grave danger, but that is what taerji is. If you complete my task, I will grant you permission to learn the ways of taerji without restrictions.”
“Teacher,” said Kyrah. “Anything.”
Velc’s eyes rose from his head’s suspicious bow, creating a vague sort of cynicism.
“Beware of what you wish for. This will not be easy.”
Kyrah thought about her response, but only for a moment.
“Anything,” she repeated.
I am strong, she thought to herself. Confidence rang true through her. I am ready.
“You will travel—alone—to the Mountains. You will seek out the Lost Warriors. There are caves, where they live, that a particular sort of rock-mineral is in abundance. They are called Rose Petals. They glow a soft red in the dark. The Lost Warriors feed off of their energy. It is what makes them feel…right. Return with proof that you were there, experience what those Warriors are like, then tell me if you still wish to continue ahead of schedule.”
The Warriors that came from the Northern Lands—fierce, loyal, filled with the best of both calm and rage—were known more for their self-assurance than skill. She had grown up knowing only these. The Mountain Tribes were an entirely different animal. There, life could be rough, and flipped upside-down in a matter of moments.
“My mother and father—” Kyrah began, but Velc interrupted before she could finish her thought.
“If you are to do this, you must leave now. You must prove to me that this is something that you are truly willing to fight for.”
Her Teacher’s will had been set in stone. There would be no defying it now.
“As you wish, Teacher,” she said. “I will go.”
Kyrah rose to her feet, snapped from traji, and allowed her heartbeat to return to the forefront of her breathing. It was not until she reached the edge of the jungle that she turned back to where her Teacher sat at the distant part of the knoll, but he had already disappeared back into the Northern Lands.
She sprinted through most of the jungle paths and, even then, continued to sprint up the steep inclines of the Mountain Territories. The true Portizu Mountains stood more than a day’s journey to the southwest of Kyrah’s Northern village.
The jungles eventually opened into the chopped tundra of rock lands. It was there that Kyrah stopped to rest. The sun had dipped into its final descent at the tip of the horizon, barely making contact with the outer edge of off-shooting tops of jungle canopy. A thin fog jostled the air around her, interweaving quietly amongst the sparse, deadened grass and withering, leafless trees. She could hear the shallow breathing of a subtle wind whispering to her through the hills. There was something about the wildness of it that contained the loneliness within her. Even here, alone with her thoughts, she felt safe, comforted. She closed her eyes, breathed heavy against the fatigue of her aching legs, and allowed the sensation of it all to pass.
You are near the true Mountains now, she thought to herself. There is no time to waste, even in the dark.
So, despite her better judgement, she trudged forward up the escarpment toward the crag in the cliffs. Only the Mountain Warriors dared to roam these cliffs at night. Each step she took echoed through her mind. She felt the rough touch of field grass under her feet, but it was the fatigued sting in her lungs that kept her from quickening her pace. The air had grown thin here and the oxygen shallow. She stopped many times to catch her breath, yet she continued to make good time, despite the deepening black of impending night.
She reached a level halfway up the base of a crag perfect for fire. She scoured the rock for anything salvageable—clumps of brush and bundles of whittling branch refuse—piling all of it at the center of a flat edge sheltered by an angled face of smooth, dusty rock. She did this several times before she had layers of twigs upon thicker twigs huddled nicely in the far corner of the crag.
The best fire-makers, she understood, made their camps like this. Her aunt—Shara Laethe—was one of these. Her fires had been known to last well into the darkened nights, sometimes reaching into the hours of dawn. With any help, by the strength of Turisic, Kyrah would have similar luck with hers.
She had finally found a moment to recline when a quick snap of a twig caught her attention. She sat straight up and listened. Her right hand reached quietly for the makeshift dagger sheathed to her waist. Another rustle and, this time, Kyrah stood into warouw, prepared to attack whatever animal pounced from behind the shrubs. The dagger’s hilt felt rough against her calloused hands. It reminded her of normalcy, of the Hunt.
“Show yourself, beast,” she whispered.
A quickening whistle caught her by surprise, slicing the air just beyond her ear. It was enough to force her to jerk her head in the opposite direction and spin to a safer position against the rocks. The darkness of the night had all but consumed the tiny area she had claimed and now, she feared that she had unwittingly placed herself in harm’s way.
Another whistling cut the air to her opposite side, forcing her to flinch against the jagged rock at her back. An arrow clanked forcefully at the base of the cave and sparked brightly as it fell to the ground. Kyrah raised it to her eyes and, for the briefest of moments, admired its craftsmanship. She had heard of the famed Mountain Archers of these Portizu parts, but had never thought she would be witnessing one in full glory.
“Stop!” Kyrah screamed. “I am no foreigner! Do not shoot!”
“Name your Tribe, girl,” a deep voice boomed from the bush.
“Northern Territories. By the strength of Turisic, I have been sent here, to the Mountains—” she hesitated a moment only to correct herself, “—your Mountains, for a specific purpose.”
“Who has sent you? What you speak of is no ordinary task.”
“I am the student of Velc Tahjir—Warrior Elite of the Portizu Tribes. Surely you know his name.”
“What has he sent you to do in our Mountains? This is hostile territory…even for our people.”
“I seek taerji. I seek the Lost Warriors.”
At this, the voice in the bush ceased. Kyrah wondered if she had spoken of her intent too soon, but in the midst of her own people, she was taught that there could be no secrets. Intent should be clear for objectives to be met.
Two figures emerged holding bows that fell to their sides as they walked. Kyrah relaxed her stance, hoping that that alone would instill a bit of relief in the strangers’ rigid stances.
“What you seek is impossible. The Lost Ones are dangerous, even to the Mountain Warriors like us. Tell the Elite that he has sent you on an errand too perilous for a girl your age—taerji or no taerji,” said the larger of the two silhouettes.
They continued to approach with caution.
“Allow me to light the fire,” Kyrah insisted. “Sit with me. Tell me of them.”
She watched as the two Mountain Warriors turned to each other, quietly deciding whether this girl—apprentice of the Warrior Elite—would be worth their time. She could feel their indecision floating through the air, surrounding her with a bit of doubt.
“We cannot be long,” the larger of the two spoke. “The night carries with it a sense of urgency.”
Kyrah lit the fire with purpose. She felt the warmth of it rise into her hands and venture from her shoulders into her core. The two Mountain Warriors had finally joined her and sat on the rock floor positioned in traji, calming nerves and caution in the midst of another Portizu.
“Taerji is a sacred state. There is a reason why most never accomplish it. Our people were first to achieve such feats, but no
t without sacrifice.”
Kyrah could see the two men clearly now. The taller one—built of rugged muscle and tufts of black body hair—sat slumped with his forearms rested on top of his knees. Pulled back hair wrapped into a makeshift braid at the back of his skull, kept tight against his neck. His eyes seemed almost black against the color of the night, bleeding deep into the whites of his eyes. Warpaint circled his sockets. Only mastery of the Mountain skills achieved this kind of paint and, rightfully so, he lifted his chin as if proud to adorn it.
The smaller of the two, however, seemed almost out of place. Next to his comrade, this one seemed scrawny, weak. He wore the white paint of an apprentice in lines from the center of his eyes to the ridge of his jaw. In his long-fingered hands, he sharpened an arrowhead with a piece of chiseled rock. His eyes gazed a bit more softly at her than the first, but not enough to warrant friendliness.
“What is your name, apprentice?” the larger of the two asked.
She answered him and returned the question.
“I am Latvala Simmelo of the Mountain Warriors,” he replied, “and this is Fenir Alterre, my apprentice.”
For only a moment, Kyrah noticed a shimmer in the boy’s eyes. Perhaps it was the glow of fire. Perhaps it was only a moment of lapse, but, for some reason, Kyrah saw appeal in Fenir’s eyes—the kind a boy only shows a girl in a state of vulnerability. She felt a flush of heat run through her face before she turned her attention back to Latvala.
“I have known Velc Tahjir for many years,” Latvala continued. “If he sent you here, it was for a reason. He must see great promise in you.”
To compliment a stranger meant high praise, so she bowed her head in appreciation.
“If my Teacher requests I do something,” she said, “I must do it. It is the way of Velc Tahjir.”
Latvala’s softened demeanor suddenly turned cold.
“If you choose to continue, however, you will be on your own. We cannot be responsible for what the Lost Warriors may do to you. They are—”