The Rage Within

by B R Crichton

  Kellan was lost in thought, staring into the coals, considering the things that Alano had told him. At least now he had a name. Beklis. The name was burnt into his memory.

  Blunt was still wearing his wide brimmed hat, perched on the back of his head, as he reclined against a grain sack.

  Alano came round to sit beside him. “Thank you again, Kilarn, for being so free with your wine,” he said. “These people need all the cheer they can get.”

  Blunt almost did not realise to whom Alano was speaking, unused as he was to that name. He had used it in their introduction, unsure as to where these men’s loyalties really lay. “Your man, Dimas, is certainly taking advantage,” he scowled, as the drunk almost fell off the crate he was perched on and then giggled as he took another swig from the wineskin.

  “He is not one of my men,” he replied. “We found him on the road a few days from Balina. He was naked. Catatonic. We dressed him in a spare uniform and offered him a drink. He took that drink and has not stopped since. He has his reasons.”

  “Jendayans?” Granger asked. Alano nodded.

  “War truly is the destroyer of men,” said Truman sadly.

  Alano looked from Truman to Blunt, and then shook his head.

  “What?” said Blunt.

  “Nothing,” he laughed softly. “Only it’s funny, that’s all.”

  “What’s funny?”

  Alano looked from one to the other again. “To hear that from him. I mean, I know who you are. You’re Scurrilous Blunt, aren’t you? Your business is war. ‘Destroyer of men’,” he barked a laugh. “Maker of money, more like.”

  “If you have a point, make it,” Olimar warned, rising, but Blunt held up his hand.

  “The news is still fresh,” Alano said. “Was it not you that massacred the Korathean army at Hadaiti?”

  “‘Massacred’ is a strong word,” Blunt answered. “I prefer, ‘deterred from invading yet another sovereign country’, but you may call it what you wish.”

  “I only bring it up because the garrisons have been stripped from Eritania to Moshet to pursue the campaign against King Rashun of Dashiya and those he ‘employed’ to defend him. Now my question must be; how many of those Heavy Infantry can we expect to return to the Western provinces before the Jendayans reach Kor’Habat?” Alano looked at the mercenaries pointedly.

  The question hung in the air, everyone around the fire silent. A few hands had settled on sword hilts, and eyes were watchful.

  “He makes a fair point,” Valia said into the silence. All eyes turned to her. “The Empire left the battlefield with fewer than twenty thousand Heavy Infantry remaining. Many fewer.” There were gasps from around the fire from the ex-militiamen. “The Kodistai will keep them close now that he needs their protection. They will not go beyond Kor’Habat, of that you can be certain. I’m afraid any hope that support may arrive soon is a vain one.”

  “Seems you did your job too well,” Alano said with a patronising smile.

  Blunt grunted. He knew it to be true, but how was he to know the Jendayans were plotting to invade? It must have been in the planning long before the garrisons were stripped, so could not have been a reaction to that. Just bad timing that was all.

  “So retreat to Kor’Habat then,” Alano said decisively. “Let the Heavy Infantry do their work for us there.”

  “Even then,” Olimar stated, “the numbers are stacked against them.”

  “No,” Valia said quickly, “I do not believe it is in our best interests to rely on their succour. We have only just ended a campaign against them.”

  “What about Shol’Hara?” Foley asked. “There must be a good few thousand in there.”

  Valia squeezed her long braid until her knuckles hurt at the mention of that place.

  “The breeder camps?” Alano said, “I suppose there will be a healthy number of soldiers there.”

  “They will still be undergoing their training, not soldiers yet.” Blunt replied.

  “Fate,” Truman added, “I’ve seen those trainees. The ten year-olds are bigger than me. They could easily raise an army of thousands from that place.”

  “Children?” Foley said.

  “No, The Heavy Infantry train until the age of nineteen before going into the field. Push that a year or two back, and you will have an extra,” Truman did a rough calculation in his head, “five thousand. Even putting them in the field prematurely, they will be a force to be reckoned with.”

  Valia realised her jaw was clenched shut. She released the cramped muscles, and her braid, flexing the stiff fingers of her hand, then rubbing her jaw.

  “Alano saw in excess of a hundred thousand Jendayans,” Olimar argued, “an extra five is of little value.”

  “But they must hold what they have taken,” Valia argued. “Alano, what was the size of the entire Korathean Army, before Hadaiti. Include militiamen, cavalry and archers.”

  The man floundered for a figure. “I don’t know. Including militias? Maybe two hundred and fifty thousand. Give or take.”

  “They will be leaving thousands behind in every province, just as the Empire had to do to maintain their grip. By the time they reach Kor’Habat, their numbers will be much less.” Valia realised she was gripping her braid again, and threw it over her shoulder to remove the temptation.

  “How does that help us?” Alano asked.

  “My point is,” Valia went on, “that we could retreat back as far as Kor’Habat and make a stand there with what remains of the Empire’s army,” she gave a look that suggested just what she thought of that idea, “but I believe a better plan would be to remain here hidden, and wait for the main body of the army to pass, then harry those they leave behind.”

  Alano shook his head. “I will not even attempt to hide from them here. We are too many, and I will not risk my wife’s life. Nor will any of these men risk their families. We must go east, to Kor’Habat.”

  “Or send them on ahead,” Emirico suggested. “They will easily move faster than an army of that size anyway. Get them to the safety of Kor’Habat, while we remain behind and raise an army in their wake to retake Bal Mora.”

  “Raise an army?” Blunt threw his hands in the air. “From what? All I see is frightened bloody farmers and weeping women clutching snot-faced children in that city. Most of them wouldn’t know their arse from their bollocks.”

  “Bollocks!” shouted Dimas, as he briefly awoke from his drunken stupor. All eyes turned to him, but he had no more to offer and slumped down instead.

  “It is too soon to be making snap judgements,” Blunt grumbled. “But if I had a wife or children here, I would send them on as fast as the buggers could travel. Cross the canal at Ara Dasari; the Koratheans will destroy the ferries if it looks like an army is approaching, so get them into that enclave and they will be as safe as anywhere can be. Between us, we can muster, what, a hundred and twenty able bodies, nowhere near enough to take this bloody army head on, but we can harry them from the mountains and forests to the North. Slow them up and give the lands to the east time to prepare. We can swell our numbers with any who can wield a sword or draw a bow. In fact anyone capable of finding his own arse without the use of both hands and is willing to take the coin.”

  “Noble indeed for a mercenary,” Alano said with a smile. “And what is in it for you?”

  “Fate, man, I live here too,” he took off his hat and slapped it against his knee, “and I’m too old to learn a foreign bloody language, so I’d sooner see the back of these buggers. There’s a bloody principle at stake here.”

  There was a muttered agreement about the fire.

  “I think we should sleep on it, Blunt” Olimar suggested, “see how things look in the morning.”

  “Arse,” said Blunt. “Foley! Tap another cask. I intend to get so drunk I can’t piss straight. The bastard world doesn’t make any bloody sense anymore.”

  “Eh up,” Dimas perked up in the shadows behind them.

  Kellan listened to the arguments wi
th a detachment that had nothing to do with his learnt mind trick.

  Beklis.

  Now I know your name.

  There was a satisfaction from learning the identity of his mother’s murderer that gave his soul a stillness he had never felt. Putting a name to the hazy figure from his darkest, most trauma torn memory, tamed the phantom that changed with every recollection. He had dreamed of that day so many times, and each time was subtly different, growing further from the true event. He knew this, and with every dream a different face tormented him; every build and every posture claimed to be that of the man who gave the order.

  But now he had a name.

  Through the fog the wine cast about his senses he wondered why it had taken him so long to seek the man out personally. It was surely a matter of public record, who had governed the Northlands at that time, but Kellan had seen his enemy as something more than one man. He had been throwing himself at all things Korathean. Battling the Empire as though it were a single person, inflicting cut upon cut until the whole would eventually succumb.

  He smiled to himself as he considered what a sweetener that fight had been.

  I have smashed your Empire, and now I will come for you.

  I know your name.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Beginnings…

  Their progress back up the mountain to the steps in the cliff was slow and arduous. They kept off the roads as much as they could, and slept without a fire in case they attracted the attentions of any Militiamen. It was cold at night with no fire to warm them, and they huddled together for warmth silently until morning. The joking and banter was a lifetime past; something had changed in them at the little settlement. There had been a loss of innocence.

  Kellan had the harsh realities of the world thrust upon him at an early age, and had seen how cruel men could be. He had watched his mother murdered, and seen his father hanging like meat in a butchers shop. He and Elan had seen the caged prisoners, parched and terrified on their way to their painful ends, but these things had been carried out by others, and they had merely been horrified witnesses. The world had been turning about them, showing them its capacity for perversion and injustice but always from beyond some indeterminate barrier.

  All of that had changed in a heartbeat.

  They had broken through the barrier into the world and all its vicious depravity. Perhaps that was when boys became men, Kellan thought, when they started to realise that the world was moulded by them as much as any other; that to be a part of the world, you had to make a stand.

  But, they had run. Perhaps Kellan was not ready to join the ranks of men, or perhaps his fear was only right and good, life being too precious to squander on ideals. There was no shame in self-preservation.

  He was different now, he was certain of that; the boy was no more and the mantle of manhood had settled on him these past few days, constantly mindful of what he had done.

  A dark thought was brooding however. He remembered how his scream as a child had spurred the people of Goat’s Pass into action, which undoubtedly led to their slaughter, and now he had almost certainly doomed the villagers where the trapper had been caught. Those people who had scattered into the wood would no doubt be hunted down, if they had not been already, and put to death. The blood of the trapper and the woman was on the hands of the militiamen, but how much blood did Kellan have on his hands now? Was he responsible for more than just the deaths of the four soldiers?

  He pushed that thought away; that his actions may have cost innocent lives. Instead he focused on the killing of the militiamen. He no longer felt sick when he thought of that now. He felt justified in what he had done and would do it again if he had to.

  In fact he looked forward to it.

  “I keep thinking about the arrows,” Elan said as they made the final climb to the base of the cliff.

  “What arrows?” Kellan said distractedly.

  “The arrows we used to kill those soldiers,” he said, then shook his head as if he could not believe he had spoken the words.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lythurian,” he replied, “unmistakeably Lythurian. Do you think they will come here, to look for us?”

  “The militia? No,” Kellan replied. He had lain awake the previous night worrying about it himself. “They will ask around, and learn of a Lythurian boy briefly visiting Ravenswold. He could have sold those arrows to rebels, or had them stolen by bandits. The Militia will not come all this way to chase one person. They will probably execute some poor innocent wretches in our stead.”

  “Fate. Do you think so?” Elan looked shocked. Kellan saw his friend’s guilt ridden expression and regretted saying as much.

  “No, of course not,” he said reassuringly, “but they won’t come here for us either. It is too far to come to make demands of a People that they fear and respect. Lythuria has never been threatened by the Empire, even after all of the Northlands were taken. Didn’t you pay attention in lessons?”

  Elan came the closest he had to laughing since that day in the forest.

  “But no-one can know of what happened,” Kellan said.

  “No, no-one,” Elan agreed hurriedly.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Kellan headed for the lower steps in the cliff beside the thundering waters of the Veil.

  Another two years passed and Kellan had begun to put the events on their trip to the Northlands behind him. He still thought of Lythuria as home. Everyone he knew was here.

  Granger; his guardian and friend, with his unusual ways and obsession with cooking was always there for him. Sometimes he seemed so naïve, and Kellan often teased him over his enthusiasm for the mundane. Ganindhra; his strange but perceptive tutor, who had given him such control over his mind and led him to skills and abilities that he had never dreamed of. He continued to meet with Kellan, though they mostly talked now, and he wondered if the unfathomable Lythurian leader was simply lonely. Elan; his closest friend, who had shared so much with him as they had grown up, from boyish pranks and mischief to the killing of Korathean Militiamen. Their bond was stronger than ever now.

  Eloya. Eloya still made his stomach tighten with her smile. He felt lighter with her, full of boundless energy, ready to take on any challenge. She was warm in his arms, soft skinned and fragrant, he would spend hours running his fingers through her silken hair and tracing her hairline behind delicate ears.

  She was undoubtedly a woman now, and their desire for each other was unbearable. But Eloya was stronger than he and held back from the final act of love, inflicting exquisite pain with every gentle rebuff.

  They had met at their secluded clearing in the Grove. They were lying on the grassy mound where the daisies grew thickest, beside the small waterfall and the crystal pool; their fingers entwined. Kellan’s ardour had been dampened again by her unyielding defences.

  “Soon,” she giggled.

  “When?” he whined petulantly, hating himself for his tone. “Later today? In a week? A year?”

  “Have patience, my sweet,” she said with a smile, placing a delicate finger on his lips. “For now, kiss me.”

  He complied; though this time kept his hands respectfully to the areas she had granted him permission to touch. She lay back and closed her eyes, dozing dreamily.

  “I have something to show you,” he said.

  “What is it?” she asked, lifting her head again and opening her eyes with a warning look.

  “Lie back,” he said, “and relax.”

  As she did so, he reached for the Calm, releasing his emotions reluctantly. He found the layer where the minds hung in space around him, and easily found Eloya’s. He pressed his consciousness against hers, and felt her body momentarily stiffen against his, before relaxing again.

  Eloya, he whispered into her mind, and she sighed.

  He wrapped her mind in his, pushing his images and impressions of her upon the facets of her consciousness, sharing his every thought of her, with her. He wanted her to not only know how he
felt about her, but to feel it to. If he could only show her how precious she was to him, then she would know beyond doubt that they were meant to be together.

  She sighed again as he caressed her mind and searched for her impressions of him. He pulled back quickly, and she moaned disappointedly.

  What had he been about to do?

  To willingly share one’s inner thoughts and secret desires with another was one thing, but to pry into even a loved one’s mind to steal knowledge that hadn’t been offered felt wrong. They were only impressions, not coherent thoughts, but even so. Guilt flooded him as the Calm lifted.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “That was wonderful,” she said dreamily. “What was it?”

  “Just a trick,” he said.

  “I liked it,” she replied. “Did you say my name?”

  “I thought it,”

  She looked up at him. “Thought it?”

  “Something Ganindhra taught me to do,” he said, “I think that is how he communicates with the bowmen around his tree. He never seems to speak to them and yet they always know what to do, and just when to do it.”

  “Really?” she said

  “I need to practice, but I think I can get better with time,” he replied. Eloya sat up excitedly.

  “Practice on me,” she said.

  “Really?” he said. She nodded vigorously.

  After Elan had returned from his trip to see the land below the mountain, he had begun his training as a weaver; his father’s profession. He had applied himself studiously to the task of learning everything his father could teach him. The new challenge was a welcome distraction from his thoughts of those two weeks in the Northland forests, and with time he had begun to put the events behind him.