by Davis Ashura
“Can you Heal her?” Bree demanded.
Jessira shook her head. “I just used up almost all of my Well, but even if I hadn't . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “Her spinal cord's been severed. Even on my best day, I couldn't help her with something like that”
Bree looked around in desperation. Maybe there was a physician nearby.
Their entire section of the Outer Wall was empty. For yards around where the fighting had taken place, there was no one. Beyond the open space, the crowd which had come to watch the spectacle of the Advent Trial stood still and quiet. They viewed the carnage from the melee with expressions of shocked disbelief. Eventually, they began moving. It was like a dislodged rock allowing the stream to flow once more. The crowd on both sides of the Shektans began moving, running forward. They called out offers of help.
Bree scowled. Where had they been seconds before? What had they been doing while the Shektans had been desperately fighting to survive?
She shook off her angry sense of betrayal. Amma needed help.
Jessira was already yelling. “Is there a physician?” she cried out.
Bree joined her.
Seconds later—an eternity—a Shiyen with a bald pate and a long, pleated beard arrived. “What happened to her?” he asked, brusque and no nonsense.
“Severed spine,” Bree answered. She looked to Jessira for confirmation who nodded agreement.
The Shiyen spent no more time on questions. He had his hands by the side of Amma's head. A fierce look of concentration and determination took hold of his features. A glow built up in his hands. It kept building before suddenly draining down into Amma. The shape of the bones in her face became briefly visible.
The Shiyen remained focused and sent another flow of Jivatma into Amma. Another flow. One more, and the Shiyen sat back with a sigh. “I've got her stabilized,” he said. “It's the best I can do for now. We need to get her to a hospice.” He glanced at Jessira. “Let me help with your breathing.”
While he did so, Bree's heart eased. Her amma would live. It was over. Relief, sudden and fine like the sweetest water, overwhelmed her. By the barest of margins, she held back the sobs. She feared she'd never get them to stop if she allowed them to start.
Any sense of comfort she felt immediately dissipated when she looked around.
The debris of dead bodies and moaning wounded littered the battlements of the Outer Wall. Too many of that number were of House Shektan.
Jessira was so tired. She wanted to lie down and sleep. She was relieved to know that Satha was going to live, and now she needed to make sure her cousin was safe. “I have to find Sign,” she said to Bree, who nodded mutely.
Jessira squeezed the other woman's arm before standing up and tottering away.
She hadn't been this tired in a long time, and the fatigue wasn't entirely physical. Much of it was emotional as well. Jessira and the other Shektans had been attacked. It had been as violent a clash as anything she could ever remember, and her sense of safety was shattered. She'd almost died today.
Her heart also ached for what she had been forced to do during the battle. She had killed another Human; many of them. Even now, her mind shied away from the memories of what she had done. The finality of death. The smooth parting of flesh. The expression on the faces of those men just before her sword had cleaved the life from their bodies . . .
Jessira bit back a cry. She feared those images would haunt her for the rest of her life. She wished Rukh was with her. If nothing else, his presence would be a comfort, and she needed comforting.
And so, too, would Rukh when he learned what had happened to his amma. Satha would live, but nevertheless, Jessira feared for her. She wasn't sure if Satha would ever again walk. It might be possible—the physicians of Ashoka were almost magical in what they could accomplish—but it seemed unlikely.
Jessira momentarily beat back her fatigue when she saw Sign slowly sitting up. A physician had Healed her cousin and had already moved on to someone else injured in the battle. Sign rose to her feet, tottered, and almost fell.
Jessira rushed to support her. “You know better than to stand up so quickly after a Healing,” she chided.
“I'm fine,” Sign said irritably. “The Shiyen said I lost some blood and that I should eat some extra meat over the next few weeks. She Healed the wound, and I hardly even feel it now.”
“It still takes a lot out of you,” Jessira reminded her.
“I'm fine,” Sign insisted.
Jessira was about to reply, but a movement in the sky caught her sight.
Lightning coruscated within a bruise-purple cloud that was moving faster than any cloud had a right to move.
Jessira raced to the edge of the Outer Wall. She gawked at what she was seeing. The fine hairs on her arms stood on end. She knew what was coming. “Rukh,” she breathed in terrified horror. He was out there.
The storm beckons the tired warrior.
Blood courses like a blessed, sorrel steed.
Veins burning with fire.
Bones adamantine.
Breathe out unmanning fear and ride the tide.
~A Romantic Notion by Anto Jakper, AF 1454
As soon as Black Platoon broke free of the forest, Rukh ordered the firing of their remaining signal arrows. He had to make sure that their message got out. The Blacks had launched their original flares while still deep in the depths of the forest, and though the arrows had climbed up past the upper canopy, what if the other warriors of the Advent Trial had been too far away to see them? Everyone had to be back behind Ashoka's sturdy Walls and even sturdier Oasis if the Sorrow Bringer was truly headed their way.
Black Platoon's final signal flares flashed green fire across the sky, and Rukh's heart unclenched when an answering red blaze climbed heavenward from the Outer Wall. The green arrows had been the call, and the red fire the response that Black Platoon's warning had been seen and heeded.
Rukh turned to the Kummas in his unit. “Run hard. Straight to the Outer Wall. The ladders will be waiting. Don't wait on us. I mean it. If you do, it might be your life. Go!”
As one, the Kummas saluted and broke off. They raced forward in a ground-devouring run. It was Jivatma infused and for anyone else, would have been something just short of a dead sprint, but it was a pace the Kummas could keep up for miles.
Rukh turned to the remaining warriors. “Even though Suwraith can see through our Blends, I still want them up. Make them as tight as you can. Now let's run hard like all the hounds of hell are chasing us!”
Rukh led the Murans and Rahails toward Ashoka at a fast trot. As they ran, he did a rough calculation of how long it would take them to reach the city. The plain outside Ashoka was about four miles wide. At their current pace, it would take them a little less than half an hour to cover that distance and reach the Outer Wall. There, rope ladders would have already been lowered so the warriors of the Advent Trial could more quickly gain entrance to the city. It was part of the emergency procedures that allowed those trapped outside the city quicker access into Ashoka beyond just the three main gates or the few scattered sally ports.
Rukh also realized that in their current situation, he and the warriors racing to get back to the city didn't actually have to climb the ladders. They just had to get close enough to touch the Outer Wall. If it was just the Queen coming after them, that's all they would need. The Outer Wall had actually been built ten or fifteen feet inside the bounds of the Oasis, a protection She couldn't penetrate.
That was it then. Get to the Wall, and they'd be safe. It was a mantra Rukh repeated to himself as he ran.
However, with the passage of time, Rukh fretted over the distance yet to travel. The plain flowed beneath their feet in a slow, painful procession, and the Outer Wall seemed no closer now than it did when they had started their run. How much time did they have before the Sorrow Bringer arrived? Rukh wasn't sure, but it couldn't be much. With every passing moment, he worried that they would be caught out in the open
.
Rukh mentally grimaced and pushed aside his worrying thoughts even as he pushed the pace a little faster. Run. That was his only duty. It was the only duty of every warrior still out in the field. Run. That was all that mattered.
And while Rukh could have already made it to the Wall by now—find himself safely atop the Outer Wall—he'd never be able to live with himself. These were Trims. These were young, inexperienced men. They had no one to look after them. Rukh would not simply abandon them out here to be annihilated.
By staying with them, he could push them harder than they likely would have pushed themselves. The pace he set—the pace he expected them to maintain—was likely faster than any they would have managed on their own. It might be the difference between somehow seeing these warriors returned safely to Ashoka or watching them die.
“Sir. There are a number of Blends all around us,” panted Lift Toilpeat—a Muran—coming up alongside him. “Both north and south.”
Rukh cursed loudly. If those Blends could be sensed, those men couldn't be more than a mile ahead of the Blacks. They should have been a good deal further along than that. “How long have you known of them?” Rukh asked.
“Since before we left the forest, sir.”
“Suwraith's spit,” Rukh muttered. What were those fragging idiots still doing out here? He scowled. “Link with them.”
The Muran didn't answer, but suddenly something like a hundred men sprang into view. Rukh's eyes widened in shock. It was even worse than he had feared. The warriors ran in clusters of twenty—their platoons—in a long, ragged line that stretched more than a mile north and south of the Blacks. Most raced hundreds of yards ahead of Rukh's unit, but some were merely abreast of them. There were even a few laggards who were somehow behind Black Platoon.
None of those warriors should still be here. Why hadn't they run for Ashoka as soon as they saw the signal flares? Rukh bit back an oath when he saw Kummas amidst those groups. Those men could have already been to the Wall if they had raced flat out. Instead, they ran with the Murans and Rahails. What were they thinking? Had they thought that the signal flares were for incoming Chimeras? Had they remained with their brother warriors in order to protect them from Suwraith's hordes?
If so, it had been the wrong decision.
Rukh fired a whistling arrow to get the attention of the closest cluster of warriors. When they turned in the direction of the Blacks, Toilpeat used hand signals to message the truth of the situation. There was a momentary startlement before the information was passed down the line of platoons. A wave of surprise greeted the news. Soon enough, the Kummas began separating from their units. They ran more and more swiftly. In just a few seconds, they were many yards ahead of the Murans and Rahails and still pulling away
Good. It was what they should have been doing the moment Black Platoon's warning arrows had gone up in the first place. They might still make it to the city in time.
As for those left behind, the Murans and Rahails . . . all their futures were far less certain. Their fates were unknowable.
Rukh tried to be serene about the situation, to act unmoved by the possibility of the Queen's coming. If She arrives, She arrives, was what he told himself, but it was a lie.
Rukh feared the Queen. He feared what She would do to these young warriors by his side. Their lives had been entrusted to his care, and he would be powerless to protect them. His heart thudded, hammering harder than what was needed for this race. Rukh also feared for his own life, especially what would happen to Jessira if he fell.
He could somehow sense her presence. She was on the Outer Wall, just north of Sunset Gate, and he found himself unaccountably worried for her. For a time, it had felt like she had been . . . in a battle? Fighting for her life. It was ludicrous—Jessira was safe in Ashoka—but, still, the sensation hadn't left him. The awareness, the worry had grown, until suddenly, it was gone, disappearing as abruptly as it had begun.
Rukh prayed then to Devesh for peace. It was an appeal that was more fervent than any he could ever recall making. Maybe the prayer even helped, because as he mentally voiced the words, a wisp of calm came to him. He was able to focus on nothing more than the ground before him. The running became hypnotic, meditative.
The flattened grass of the plain blurred beneath his booted feet.
Had She still Her Human form, Lienna would have gritted Her teeth with impatience. It had taken much longer than She had intended to travel the remaining distance to Ashoka. She'd been slowed by the laborious work that only She could do. Lienna had to make sure that no more of the Humans infested the forested hills west of their pus-filled home. Such searching required careful observation. The parasites could no longer hide from Her sight, but if Lienna passed too swiftly, She might easily miss one or two of them. Thus, a journey that She could have made in minutes had ended up requiring almost an hour.
The one aspect of Her travel that brought Her pleasure was the blessed silence in Her mind. Her parents and Mistress Arisa had remained quiet. Still, Lienna anticipated the end of Her journey. Just a few more hills, and She would be there. She overtopped a rise and found her Human lying atop the peak of a tall hill. Hal'El was hidden behind a humped mound of dirt. He appeared to be scanning the broad plain that began at the base of this crest and led to his once home.
Her children, the Tigons that Lienna had lent Hal'El Wrestiva, crouched down below in a shallow ravine. Upon seeing Her arrival, they fell prostrate upon the ground, quite rightly worshipping the presence of their loving Mother. The soothing sounds of their prayers wafted like rose petals, carried aloft to Her by their devotion rather than the wind.
By Her grace are we born
By Her love are we made
By Her will are we shorn
By Her fire are we unmade
And are reborn once more
When they completed the Prayer of Gratitude, Lienna spoke to them. “Arise My children,” She said. “Know that I am well pleased with you. You have My blessings. Now rest so I may speak to the Human you have so conscientiously served and protected these many weeks.”
Hal'El, of course, offered Her no prayers, nor did he offer Her anything resembling obeisance. But then again, She didn't expect proper behavior from him. The man was a Human. He lacked the ability to act in a civilized fashion. Yes, he was Her devoted follower, but the soul-deep stain of his creation forever marred his being. It could never be washed away. It could never be removed. It would remain with him to the end of his days.
The contrast in comportment between the Human and Her children was striking. The Tigons mouthed the Prayer of Gratitude with heads pressed in humility to the ground while Hal'El haughtily made his way down the hill to the valley where Lienna patiently waited. His unhurried pace betrayed and emphasized his arrogance.
When Hal'El reached the base of the hill, he fell to a single knee and gazed upon the dirt. “My Queen,” he said. “What would you have of us?”
Lienna was surprised by his actions. First, by his bended knee, and second by his humble words. Lienna smiled to Herself. Perhaps there was hope for some Humans after all. For a moment, a doubt, a desire to let Humanity live surged through Her.
However, Her hope sprung from Her generous, loving nature, and She immediately snuffed it out.
The truth was that very few of Hal'El's kind had his restraint and wisdom. Her resolve steeled, and Lienna spoke to Her Human. “You hide here like a slug,” She said. “Why have you not done as I commanded and entered Ashoka?”
“My Queen, You commanded that I enter Ashoka alive, but the plain before the city crawls with their warriors. They would see me and slay me in an instant,” Hal'El said. “I have no means by which to evade them.”
His words were smooth and even. There had been no hint of fear in them. Lienna appreciated that. She hated when Her children trembled with fear before Her. As such, in this one matter, Lienna had to applaud Hal'El's bearing.
Nevertheless, Humans were sly schemers, even one
who was almost moral like Hal'El. In the end, they all lied. Time stretched as Lienna searched the soft words of Her Human for the hidden worm of deceit.
“You mentioned You had intentions for the Tigons You sent with me?” Hal'El asked, breaking into Her thoughts.
Lienna wanted to reply, but, in reality, She had no idea what the Human was talking about. Was this another lie? She couldn't immediately recall what She intended. Eventually, the memory came back to Her. She and the Tigons would provide a distraction while Hal'El snuck back into Ashoka.
“Your 'distraction' will do nothing more than kill all Your so-called children,” Her Mother said, speaking from the depths of Lienna's mind. “They deserve better.”
“Silence,” Lienna ordered. “My children will do as I ask because they love Me.”
“Your children will do as they are told because they fear You,” Mother countered.
“They are heroes and martyrs,” Lienna said, not sure why She bothered arguing with Her Mother. “Their sacrifice will be remembered for all time.”
“For all time?” Mother scoffed. “We once felt the same as You, Your Nanna and I. Our foolish arrogance was proved when You murdered Us and murdered the world We had helped build. And the sacrifice of Your Tigons will simply be another type of murder.”
Again with the charges of murder! Would Mother ever speak of anything other than murder! “I have no regrets,” Lienna averred. “I did what was needed.”
“And You have served Me well,” Mistress Arisa said. Her voice was soft as morning dew. “Kill the Humans on the plain before their foul city, and You will once again offer Me great service just as You have done in the past.”
Lienna didn't want to acknowledge Mistress' presence. It would be easier to pretend She wasn't real. It would be better if Mistress Arisa was simply a figment of Lienna's imagination. It would be simpler to—