The Rage Within

by B R Crichton

  They were well trained. At the sound of Blunt’s voice they had taken a defensive formation, and Valia did not have all of their backs as she had hoped. A soldier stood facing her, five strides away, as she rounded the corner. She did not hesitate though, and the spear took him from his feet with a grunt. She had the second in her right hand before he hit the ground, and the next nearest soldier was too slow to dodge the missile. It took him in the shoulder, spinning him as he fell. She pulled another spear from her back, and hurled it as she ran at the next. But this one was ready, alerted to her weapon of choice by the fate of his fellows, and parried the spear with his sword; he had barely recovered when Valia was upon him, sword drawn. He was quick, but on the back foot after her initial attack, and fell when her blade opened a deep gash at his neck.

  Blunt arrived as two turned to face Valia. The last remaining invader took on Blunt. The two that faced her spread out, stretching her defence across a wide arc, then both attacked at once, steel flashing in the moonlight. They came at her with long, slender blades. They were quick, too, with the lighter weapons, and Valia was forced back immediately. She danced out of reach of their swords and tried to put enough space between them to use her spears, but they were wise to her intentions and pursued her relentlessly.

  She stumbled in the dark, as she backed off, sending a wooden bucket skidding across the packed dirt with a hollow clatter. Suddenly, Blunt was at their backs. He hacked at the back of the first he came to, cutting deeply into the leather armour right through to bone, and the man fell with a grunt. Valia took the moment of indecision from the other to launch her counter attack and soon had him desperately parrying her blows. She knocked the sword from his grasp as he collapsed to his knees. Valia levelled the point of her sword with his throat.

  “Don’t move a muscle, you foreign filth,” Blunt growled as the man went to his pocket to retrieve something. The man continued regardless, taking something small from his hip, and putting it to his lips before Valia could stop him. His eyes grew wide, and then a spasm racked his body before he collapsed dead on the ground. They watched as black foam bubbled from between his lips.

  “Quick,” Valia said, remembering the soldier she had winged, but even as they rounded on him, the last convulsion shook the life from his eyes, and he lay still, black bubbles dribbling obscenely.

  “Suicide!” Blunt spat. “Bastards.”

  “I doubt we would have got much information from them anyway. How’s your Jendayan?” But Blunt only growled in disgust.

  Valia crouched beside the body to inspect the enemy. These men were not big, especially when compared to her, probably a hand or two shorter than the locals here. Their skin was dark olive, and their eyes strangely down-turned at the outer corners. She inspected the light leather armour these men wore. It was nothing unusual, not that different from her own, but stained a deep red that she had never seen in a leather.

  She lifted one of the swords and hefted it in her big hand. It was two fingers wide with a gentle curve along its length. The cross-guard was small and the grip was large enough to be held with both hands, and bound with leather. Too delicate for her own use, but a worthy trophy all the same.

  “Let’s move,” Blunt grunted, eyeing the bodies sourly. “Whoever sent these bastards will no doubt not be far behind.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Beginnings…

  Elan found his friend sitting on a rock, on the slopes above the milking sheds. He was looking thoughtful and did not notice Elan’s approach until he was very close.

  “Fate!” Kellan exclaimed. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry, but I was hardly creeping up on you,” he replied.

  “If this is about missing dinner last night, then I am sorry, but I needed to speak with someone.”

  “It’s not me you need to apologise to,” Elan said, “it was my mother who prepared the meal, and my sister who was looking forward to your company.”

  “I’m surprised you noticed my absence,” Kellan said petulantly. “You never come out any more. All you do is tinker with your loom and work late.”

  Elan laughed. “Now hold on, we’re not married you know. You sound like a spoilt child.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I have a duty to my family,” he replied, “and to myself. I need to make the business grow to justify my involvement, and that requires hard work.”

  “Oh, yes of course, you’re the first person to ever have to work hard,” Kellan sneered.

  Elan bit down on his reply. It would be too easy to score points in this argument. Kellan milked cows. Perhaps that was part of the problem.

  “You should really consider my father’s offer of a job,” he said reasonably. “Fate knows we have need of the help, and if you and Eloya are to…” he left the sentence hanging.

  Kellan fell backwards onto the soft grass and groaned.

  “It is not that simple, Elan. Understand that I am tied to the Northlands by birth. I cannot pretend that everything I need is here.” He rubbed at his temples as though soothing a headache.

  “Too much wine last night?” asked Elan.

  “Jealous?”

  Elan did not answer. He knew what Kellan was like when these moods took him. It was best to approach him from a different angle to get to the root of the problem.

  “What’s brought this on Kellan? Aren’t you happy here any longer?” Elan sat on the grass beside his friend.

  Kellan struggled for the words. “Do you remember those caged men we saw in Ravenswold?”

  “Yes,” he replied after a pause.

  “They have joined the images that I cannot scrub from my memory. I see my mother die. I see my father dead. I see men caged like animals, and mutilated for sport.” He was staring at the sky. Wisps of cloud blew from the mountains and dissipated as they drifted south. “I am one of the lucky ones you know, living here. By rights I should be down there with them, suffering or worse, but I am not.”

  “What are you saying, that you have no right to happiness?”

  Kellan rolled onto an elbow and propped himself up to look at his friend. “That’s exactly it. I could stay here in safety, but lose my right to ever call myself a Northlander.”

  “Would that be so bad?” he regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them, but Kellan let them pass.

  “That trader, the one that arrived yesterday. It was him that I met last night,” Kellan explained. “He told me that there are the beginnings of an uprising.”

  Elan scoffed. “Please Kellan, you have seen the uprising for yourself. Men in cages, remember?”

  “This is different. There is real hunger now for rebellion,” he said firmly. “All over the Empire people are making a stand. If I stay here and ignore the call, then I can never return to the Northlands, or any other part of the world to the south. I will become a prisoner here regardless of the outcome. I will regret it until the day I die.”

  “Are you seriously thinking of leaving here to fight the Empire based on hearsay?” Elan said incredulously.

  “Elan, I saw the way you looked at those caged men. Maybe you have forgotten, but I remember the look on your face. You were disgusted that men should be treated like that.”

  Elan remembered his disgust, and his shame at having pulled Kellan back. He knew that they could not have saved the men, but to not try smacked of cowardice and he knew it. He remembered how he had cringed behind that log when Kellan had fired on the Militiamen, and the fear he had felt when he himself fired an arrow at a man. He had run. He had dragged Kellan with him as much to save his friend as to prevent himself being alone as he ran. He did not have Kellan’s impulsiveness, but dressed his reluctance up as discretion and justified his inaction.

  “Of course I was disgusted, but what can one man do?” he said softly, avoiding Kellan’s eyes.

  “Join me,” Kellan said.

  “What?” he replied with disbelief.

  “Come with me into the North
lands and join the fight.”

  He laughed. “Kellan, we don’t even know there is a fight to join. That trader was no doubt spinning tales for his own ends.”

  “Then you can return home quickly,” Kellan said.

  Elan shook his head. “I cannot abandon my father now to go on a fool’s errand.”

  “Then I hope the memories of those caged men do not give you nightmares for the rest of your days.” Kellan snorted.

  “This is ridiculous,” Elan stood, “what about Eloya? Have you told her about this?” Kellan’s expression gave his answer. “No, I thought not.”

  “I always thought you had more courage.” Kellan said quietly.

  “I will not rise to that,” Elan replied.

  “I did not think you would,” Kellan said, but it was to Elan’s back as he stomped down the slope to the cobbled road below.

  Kellan met with Ganindhra later that day. Ganindhra had summoned him with a thought, slipping into Kellan’s consciousness. He had been practising that trick with Eloya, and had become adept himself, but was only able to impart simple images and messages. Ganindhra had told him that was all he himself could do and that Kellan’s ability proved a strong disposition for that particular skill.

  “I have sensed a growing unease in you today, Aemoran,” the creature rumbled in that deep tone.

  “Today?” Kellan said. Feeling the distant growl of that other presence, as it crouched, animal-like within him. “Am I to take it from that, that you rummage through my head every other day?”

  “I sense all the minds in Lythuria all the time. That is different from spying if that is what concerns you,” he replied.

  “I have long since stopped caring what you do or don’t see in my thoughts,” Kellan said tiredly.

  Ganindhra gave what Kellan assumed to be a gruff laugh, and the young man reined in his foul mood.

  “You are restless,” Ganindhra said. “That is to be expected from a man of your age. You are finding it harder to carve a place for yourself in this society. Every man must find a niche into which he can fit comfortably, or regret will plague him all his life.”

  “What if my niche is not here?” he asked.

  “How do you know it is not?” Ganindhra replied.

  “I feel drawn to the conflict in the Northlands,” he said, and Ganindhra raised a gnarled eyebrow. “If the Empire falls how can I ever return to a free land, knowing that I took no part in its emancipation? Equally, if the rebellion is crushed, could I live with myself knowing that I did nothing to help?”

  “What are your reasons for wishing to join this struggle?”

  “What I have just said,” Kellan answered, “I feel bound by my pedigree to lend my weight to the fight.”

  “And you would go purely out of altruism?”

  “That is not the only reason.”

  “Revenge?”

  The thought of it quickened the anger in him. “Perhaps. You know my history.”

  “So, you would throw yourself at an Empire to avenge the actions of one man?”

  “One man of the Empire. I see little difference,” Kellan said.

  Ganindhra was silent. He leaned back stiffly in his throne, fused as he was from the waist down to the twisted growth. Kellan did not expect the old creature to understand; he was not a man as he was, and could have no real understanding of the workings of the conscience.

  “Revenge can be a fickle mistress,” he finally said. “You will never find peace with Her as long as you attempt to salve your soul with the blood of your debtors. You will find yourself chasing vendetta after vendetta as the path you take is paved with injustices against those you hold dear.”

  “So better to live in fear than to fight back?” Kellan scowled.

  “Oh no, Kellan, fight with all of your strength at all times,” he replied, “but never with the desire for retribution guiding your hand. Never let hatred cloud your judgement, and always,” he leaned forward again, fixing Kellan’s gaze with his emerald eyes, “always in control of your anger. Never allow your rage to command you. Use the Calm you have discovered to look upon your anger as a tool and channel its energy with indifference to its source.”

  “So you think I should go,” Kellan said.

  “I think you should stay, and try to learn more of what is happening in the world below us. Master your own internal struggle first. Speak with Granger, if you have not already. He will advise you as I have I am sure.”

  Kellan left, feeling that he had more questions now than before he had spoken to the Lythurian leader, who had not given him any useful advice at all. Perhaps Granger would be less obscure.

  “Absolutely not,” Granger said, “that is a ridiculous idea.”

  Kellan was speechless for a moment. Granger had always been so measured in his responses to him, but no sooner had Kellan broached the subject, Granger dismissed it as lunacy.

  “I was not seeking your permission,” he glared at Granger, “it is my decision to make. I was merely asking for your opinion.”

  “And my opinion is that you should not be taken in by stories of rebellion,” he replied.

  “What if the trader is right and the people of the Northlands and beyond are rising up to defy the Empire?” Kellan asked. “Could I ever hold my head up, and call myself a Northlander, knowing that I did nothing.”

  “Kellan,” Granger said reasonably, “the Empire is too powerful. It will crush any uprising. I do not want you getting hurt over a struggle you cannot hope to win.

  Kellan glowered. It was as though Granger thought him a child, that he needed someone to hold his hand to keep him from harming himself out of stupidity.

  “It is that attitude that keeps people in chains, Granger,” he said accusingly.

  “And you know so much about war,” he replied mockingly. “Believe me when I tell you, the best place for you is here. War is a terrible thing. More terrible than I can describe. It breaks even the strongest body as though it were a butterfly’s wing. War twists a man’s morality until he finds himself no better than the enemy he hates. It fills the mind with horrors.”

  “My mind,” Kellan shouted, “is already filled with horrors. I cannot sleep a single night without being haunted by them. This could be my chance to dispel them for good.”

  “Or die in the trying, is that it?” Granger raised his voice in return.

  Kellan had never seen him angry before, or heard him speak like this. He had always been ready to discuss openly with Kellan, every step in his growing up and every new idea he had. He felt betrayed that the man he had come to think of as his father should deny him his right to liberate his homeland. Could he not see that this was the point at which Kellan chose to be a man, or else quail from his responsibility and remain less than that forever?

  “If I die, at least it will be with pride,” he said evenly, his fists clenched. He felt the rage in the pit of his belly begin to stir, and revelled in it for a moment, before forcing it down.

  “Most die wretchedly on the battlefield, Kellan,” Granger said sadly, holding the boy’s gaze. “Most men cry for their mothers as the life leaks from their shattered bodies. There is little glory in death when it comes violently.”

  “And where is the glory in grovelling here?” Kellan said almost in a whisper.

  “To live is not grovelling, Kellan,” he replied, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It takes courage to face the challenges of life. Facing up to responsibility, and making decisions that you do not like are what makes a man. Fulfilling your obligations to those you love is harder by far than adding to the world’s woes with more brutality.”

  “And if my obligations lie out with this haven?” asked Kellan.

  Granger placed his other hand on Kellan’s shoulder and smiled at him. “Take some time to think,” he said. “You belong here. These feelings will pass.”

  After Kellan left, Granger sat at the worn table and rubbed his greying temples. He was not sure why he had reacted as he had a
t first to Kellan’s idea. His instinct was to keep the boy safe. His first thought was for Kellan himself, and not the greater disaster that threatened. He thought about the tales of great sacrifice that fathers had made for their sons, stories told in the Great Hall and committed to the written word by Athusilan.

  For the first time he truly understood the bond that existed. This boy was not his own and yet his every fibre screamed out to stop Kellan from being so foolish, to force the boy to forsake honour for reason.

  Children grew up with selfish inevitability, relentlessly filling their guardians’ minds with fond memories and moments of proud tearfulness. Then, they would turn on those that loved them so completely, and with the cruellest of twists, show their parents that they were no longer needed simply by proving themselves to be independent adults.

  Granger realised that he had been dreading the day that Kellan realised he did not need the old man in his life any longer, and the greatest reason was not that Granger feared for the world without his guiding hand steering Kellan’s path.

  The greatest reason was that Granger feared for Kellan himself.

  In the evening, in Eloya’s family grove, Kellan lay on the grassy mound where the daisies grew thickest, beside the small waterfall and the crystal pool. He had reached out for Eloya’s mind, and having found it, urged her to join him here.

  The water tinkled like glass chimes as it fell over the smooth rocks into the clear water below. In this place of perfect peace, he had thought to find the solution to his inner turmoil.

  He desperately wanted to prove himself by joining the fight, but when he thought about it, everyone he trusted thought he was being a fool. He needed to test his own resolve for no-one but himself. This wishing to put himself in harm’s way was a rite of passage he felt he must endure to lay the ghosts of his past to rest, and to allow him to look in the mirror without needing to avoid his own eyes.

  Eloya glided through the trees like a spirit. She was wearing a flowing dress of pale purple that left her shoulders bare and revealed the top of the swell of her breasts. Her hair was midnight black in the failing light, and her flawless, jade coloured skin made the foliage about her drab by comparison.