A Warrior's Penance

by Davis Ashura

  There came an echoing boom, felt more than heard, from somewhere down below and the tower shivered to a halt. Rukh conducted more deeply from his Well. His heart pounded with adrenaline, and he worked to slow it. Jivatma filled his senses. Sights and sounds grew more intense. Possibilities opened up and the world slowed. All along the line, other Kummas looked ready to move in the eye-blurring swiftness that was the hallmark of their Caste.

  A few seconds later, with a creaking groan, the tower's ramp thudded heavily onto the Outer Wall. Rukh didn't bother sighting. He fired several Fireballs straight into the maw of the onrushing Chimeras. Jessira did the same.

  “Hold the line,” the Marshall shouted.

  More Fireballs burned the air and were answered by arrows from the Chims in the siege engine. Seconds later, Rukh was forced to draw his sword as a horde of Chimeras boiled past the withering fire of Fireballs and arrows. Jessira stood by his side while Farn and Jaresh moved with the eerie synchronicity of those who were Annexed.

  Jessira stepped forward. Her motion caught Rukh off guard. He swore before moving quickly to defend her side. A leopard-spotted Tigon reared before him. A quick thrust finished the cat. A pair of Braids stepped up to replace the Tigon. Rukh managed to entangle their swords. Before they could disengage, a hard kick to one sent both of them tumbling over the edge of the Wall.

  Jessira moved with an economy of motion. She slid past a slice aimed at her chest, and her return thrust took an Ur-Fel through the throat. Rukh reached her side. They stood back-to-back.

  Brief impressions came to Rukh as he fought. Fireballs still screamed overhead. The smell of burnt flesh and hair crowded the air. Cries of pain, howls of agony. A bolt from a ballista slammed through a nearby Kumma, punching past the man's Shield and impaling the Tigon he had been fighting. Pockets of Blended Murans and Rahails, hidden and lethal, fought as unseen assassins against the Chimeras.

  Jessira stumbled, threatening to go down before a nest of Ur-Fels. A lurch of fear stilled Rukh's heart. An instant later, the fright left him when Jessira regained her balance. Between the two of them, they easily wiped out the nest. A final parry and cut ended the matter, but Rukh's next step forward yielded a hollow sound.

  He and Jessira had reached the ramp to the tower. In the front and on both sides, the siege engine was covered with panels of wood layered like shingles, but the back end was open to the sky.

  “Push them back!” someone shouted.

  “Throw them off their fragging tower!”

  A Quad silently swept into position to Rukh's left. It cleaved a claw of Tigons.

  A Bael loomed large before Rukh and Jessira. Its whip was alight and its trident held steady and ready. It let loose a basso roar of challenge but moved with an unhappy hesitancy. A feint from Jessira drew the Bael's attention. A slice from Rukh removed the hand holding the trident. Jessira's thrust took the Bael through the armpit.

  It fell with a gurgle of pain. “Forgive me,” the Bael rasped, staring Rukh in the eyes.

  “There is nothing to forgive, brother,” Rukh answered with a pang of regret.

  It was only a flicker of feeling, though. The battle remained, and he set aside his sadness.

  “We need to reach the center of the tower!” Rukh shouted to Jessira.

  She nodded understanding.

  A wild melee stood between them and their objective. Rukh saw a simpler solution. “Can you make the jump?” he asked Jessira.

  Again, she merely nodded.

  Rukh caught the attention of Farn and Jaresh's Duo.

  “I'm going for the center of the tower. I need you to cover my back.”

  He didn't wait to see if the Duo would acknowledge his request. He simply took a deep breath and leapt forward. His launch carried him ten feet into the air and twenty feet away. Before landing, he hurled Fireballs, clearing a path in the area where he intended to touch down. Nevertheless, he was soon surrounded on all sides by snarling Tigons, hissing Braids, and barking Ur-Fels. Jessira landed at his back as did the Duo of Jaresh and Farn.

  Rukh conducted more deeply from his Well, and Jivatma flooded his senses. He needed it all for what he intended. His Shield brightened. “Jump!” he shouted to Jessira and the Duo. A split second later, he released a Fire Shower.

  A wave of fiery light swept outward in all directions. Chimeras were tossed aside, slammed into the sturdy frame of the tower or blasted past the wooden shingles on the sides. The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones caught fire, howling in pain as they leapt off the back of the platform and into empty sky in their panic-stricken need to escape the burning.

  “Now what?” Jessira asked.

  The top of the tower was temporarily cleared, but even now, more Chimeras ascended the ladder leading up to their position. Rukh pointed. “We hold them back,” he said.

  Four against a horde should have been impossible, but the ladder only allowed two Chimeras to ascend at a time. Rukh moved, slashing, thrusting, kicking, and punching. The Duo stood at his side, moving with mechanical efficiency. Jessira hurled Fireballs, incinerating those still on the ladder.

  A Tigon screamed and leapt forward. A parry and thrust, and the creature was done, but the Chim snarled one last time and held tight to Rukh's sword. He struggled to regain control of his blade. The fragging Tigon wouldn't let it go. A kick to the Chim's chest finally allowed Rukh to disengage, but by then the damage had been done. Many more Chimeras had managed to attain the top of the tower. They boiled upward, regaining a foothold on the topmost platform.

  Just then, more Ashokans arrived to fill the breach and throw the Chims back. Fireballs burned the air. More Chimeras caught fire or were blasted out the back of the tower.

  There then came an ominous creaking. It steadily grew louder.

  “We have to get out of here,” Jessira shouted to Rukh. “The top of the tower is about to come down. Look at those support beams.”

  Rukh looked where she pointed. The ceiling rafters had caught fire and many were cracked. They'd break at any moment. “Ashokans! Fall back. The top of the tower is about to come down. Move it!”

  He wasn't the senior-most officer present, but nevertheless, his orders were heeded. The Ashokans began a steady retreat out of the tower.

  A sharp crack, and several trusses gave way. More followed. The ceiling along the open side of the tower gave way. Heavy beams crashed through the floor. The Ashokans piled out of the tower.

  “Run!” someone yelled. “The entire thing is about to fall.”

  The tower took a series of lurches, first slamming into the Outer Wall and then falling away from it. With a groan, the entire structure slid downward.

  A hollow sensation and a feeling of no weight came to Rukh. The tower was falling. He and Jessira were the only two still inside.

  They sprinted for the edge. Rukh drew all the Jivatma he could hold. They leapt, and in the midst of it, he threw Jessira upward. She sailed over a merlon, while he barely caught hold of the edge of an arrow loop. He slipped, and his heart nearly stopped. Why the frag hadn't anyone pulled him up yet!

  He was suddenly gripped hard and hauled over the Wall.

  It was Jessira who had pulled him up, and he grinned in relief. The smile faded when he caught sight of her look of irritation. “What did I do this time?” he protested.

  “You gave me a push when I didn't need it,” she said. “I don't mind your help, but . . .” she shook her head. “You almost didn't make it yourself because of that decision.” She sighed a moment later. “Priya, why do you insist on doing such stupid things?”

  Rukh didn't know what to say. He would always choose the ones he loved over his own safety.

  “I know,” Jessira said with faint smile. “But remember what I told you before: 'Guaranteed to do something stupid.' Looks like I was right.”

  “Er,” Rukh coughed out.

  “Er is right,” she mocked, putting the lie to her supposed annoyance when she ran her fingers through his hair.
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br />   “The stone-splitter managed to break the other tower,” the Marshall interrupted. He wore a satisfied smile. “It fell over and must have taken out a thousand or more of the Chims.”

  Rukh's tension abated, and the tightness in his shoulders and neck eased.

  “Now that we know how they're built and how to break them, those towers won't stand a chance,” Jaresh said with a cocky grin.

  A sharp retort followed by the sound of thunder snapped their attention north. A section of the Outer Wall, at least a hundred feet long, was in the process of crashing to the ground. Rukh stared at the sight in disbelief. He couldn't come to grips with what he was witnessing. The sight was surreal.

  A part of the Outer Wall had been broken?

  Rukh's mouth went dry with what he saw next. The Sorrow Bringer's whirlwind fury was a shriek of triumph as She slowly pressed forward into Ashoka.

  The Marshall was the first to shake off his shock. “Fall back!” he bellowed. “All Kummas, grab hold of a Muran or Rahail or anyone else who can't make the jump. Fall back! Regroup in the fields.”

  The Outer Wall of Ashoka had been blown open. Where once had been unbroken stone, there was now a ragged rent. Mother had been the cause. Her power had ripped a gaping wound, broader at the top than the bottom where it narrowed to a breach that was about fifty feet wide. The breaking of the Outer Wall had occurred with an unexpected swiftness, one that had left Ashoka's defenders unprepared.

  When Choke had first seen the Wall tumble down, he had been left slack-jawed with horror. To see what had seemed an insurmountable obstacle fall so suddenly had been shocking. And to then see Mother loom monstrously large within that entrance had struck him nerveless with fear. Choke had been certain that Mother would erupt through the opening and cast down the entirety of Ashoka.

  Instead, She'd merely pushed forward a few yards before pulling back. Choke later learned that the Oasis had been shredded apart only in the portion of the Wall that had fallen. However, it had also quickly been resealed and reformed several yards behind the Outer Wall. As a result, Mother had been unable to fully enter Ashoka's confines. She'd been held at bay, but Her Chimeras had not.

  The Oasis had never stymied them. They had raced through the opening in the Outer Wall like a spring flood through a broken dam and pushed deep into Ashoka's farmlands before finally being halted and thrown back. It had required three days of hard fighting.

  The result was an uneasy stalemate with the Chimeras on one side of the breach and Humanity holding the other. But the price of such an impasse had been costly: the death or injury of far too many Humans. It was an irreplaceable loss, and one Ashoka couldn't afford. By comparison, while the Fan Lor Kum had lost five times as many of their own, they had the numbers to waste and hardly slow down.

  And now, rumor had it that the Rahails might pull the Oasis back even further, all the way to the Inner Wall. Until that happened, though, the Ashokans were determined to harvest as many crops as they could and torch the rest. Even the farm animals would be affected. They were to be sacrificed, killed en masse. It was yet to be determined just how much damage the poisoning of the Fan Lor Kum's water supply had actually done, but if it had somehow killed a large number of the Pheds, then it wouldn't do to have the Fan Lor Kum resupply from Ashoka's own stores.

  Chak-Soon lifted his nose to the air. “I smell Bael,” he announced.

  Choke glanced his way. “You're surrounded by them,” he reminded the jaguar-spotted Tigon.

  Soon shook his head. “Different. Not us. Other.”

  Choke straightened in surprise. The Chimeras under his command—both the Tigons and the Baels—currently held a forward position. It was near enough to the break in the Outer Wall to be able to throw a stone and hit it, which wouldn't be hard even now, in the middle of the night.

  “Where are they?” Choke asked Soon.

  “In opening,” the Tigon replied.

  Choke frowned consternation. Why hadn't the Humans sensed the approach of the Fan Lor Kum? The Chimeras were not known for subtlety when it came to an approaching battle.

  No matter. He quickly called out orders, eventually turning to Li-Silt. “The little ones must be protected at all cost,” Choke told the older Bael. “No matter what happens to me or anyone else here, that is the command you must carry out.”

  Silt gave a solemn nod but said nothing in response.

  While the Ashokan farm animals were to be sacrificed, the same would not happen to the Bovars. They were to be transported to empty land within the boundary of the Inner Wall, in Ashoka proper, but the exact location had yet to be agreed upon.

  A young Kumma came up to Choke and his small band of Tigons and Baels. “There's a group of your kind in the breach that say they want to talk to you. They came through it yelling for us not to attack them.” The Kumma grinned. “Good thing Rukh and Jessira were on the line or we might have killed them before giving them a chance to speak.”

  Choke felt a stirring hope in his heart. Perhaps those approaching Baels wanted to coordinate a means to end this awful siege. “Please take me to them,” he requested.

  “Follow me,” the Kumma said. When other Baels moved to flank Choke, the Kumma paused. “Just him,” he added. “We don't need the Queen wondering why a bunch of Her commanders are having a meeting in the breach.”

  Li-Choke gestured for his brothers to remain behind before he moved on and followed on the heels of the Kumma. At the edge of the Human encampment, he was passed on to Rukh and Jessira. They were waiting for him, looking relaxed and confident.

  “We'll take him the rest of the way,” Rukh told the young Kumma, who saluted and turned aside. “Let's go,” Rukh said, leading the way to the break in the Outer Wall.

  There, hidden in the shadowed depths of the breach were three Baels. They wore feathers of high command.

  Rukh and Jessira took positions on either side of Choke. “Come forward slowly,” Rukh ordered.

  The Baels stepped out of the shadows. “I am Li-Grist,” one of them said. “I am the Sarpan of the Dread sent east from Continent Catalyst.” He turned to the others and introduced them as well. “Li-Drill, my SarKi, and Li-Jull, a Vorsan.”

  Li-Choke introduced himself and gestured to Rukh and Jessira, naming them as well.

  “The stories are true. You do have Human friends,” Grist breathed, sounding as if all his deepest prayers had been answered. “Hume's heir is found.”

  “We need to speak quickly,” Jessira said. “The Queen might notice our presence at any moment.”

  Choke nodded agreement. “What do you wish to discuss?” he asked Grist.

  “Our new SarpanKum, Li-Boil—”

  Choke hissed. “Exactly what happened to Shard and Brind? I want to know.”

  “They were killed when Mother discovered that it had been Shard who had planned the destruction of all Her breeding caverns,” Grist answered. “Boil says that Shard sacrificed himself so the rest of the Baels of the Eastern Plague would be spared.” Grist hesitated. “Those of us here may be the last of our kind.”

  Choke struggled to understand why Shard would have done as Grist said. “That makes no sense.” A moment later, he latched on to something else the Sarpan had said. The last of our kind. “What of the Baels sent to Hanuman and Kush?” Choke asked, urgency in his voice.

  “We have no way of learning what happened to them,” Li-Drill said with a sad shake of his head.

  “And we likely will never know,” Grist added. “The reason we sought this meeting is because of Li-Boil. He is not very devout in his beliefs.”

  “No, he is not,” Choke agreed.

  “He leads the Fan Lor Kum with far too much competence,” Grist continued. “It can't go on. Those of us from Catalyst will seek a confrontation with him. We will provoke a civil war if need be.” Grist hammered his trident on the ground. “We must do everything we can to end this siege.”

  Choke nodded. “What can I do to help?”

  “I thi
nk most of our brothers from the Eastern Plague follow Boil out of fear and uncertainty. It seems to be some infection in their spirits. Even knowing that Baels are present in Ashoka, they obsess over the death of our race. It fills their minds and stills their willingness to serve. Will knowing that you still live, that what is said about you”—Grist gestured to Rukh and Jessira—”that you have Human friends, will that be enough to soothe their terrors?”

  Choke mulled over the other Bael's question. “Boil is terrified by what he believes will happen if the Baels continue to go against Mother's will. He is certain that our race will be destroyed. It is what consumes his thoughts and drives his ambitions. Many in the Eastern Plague share that concern to varying degrees, but if they knew that the Bovars we brought with us still live, that they will be kept safe behind the Inner Wall, and even transported to Defiance if need be, perhaps that would ease their worries.”

  Drill nodded enthusiastically. “When our Eastern brothers learn what you've accomplished, what the Ashokans have offered, they are certain to turn aside from this wicked path they've too long trod.”

  “There is one other thing,” Choke announced with a slow grin. “Something to give our Eastern brothers further hope in these dark times. A miracle.”

  The other Baels waited expectantly.

  “The Bovars in Ashoka are protected, but they've also achieved something wondrous,” Choke continued.

  “Why does he always stretch out a story?” Rukh muttered to Jessira.

  “Must be something in his nature,” Jessira said with a shrug. “Or how Dirge trained him.”

  Choke eyed them askance and rumbled in annoyed embarrassment before turning back to his brother Baels. “The Bovars have birthed three Bael crèches. There are fifteen young ones in Ashoka.”

  Grist laughed gladly and in triumph. “Our purpose in this world will not end with our passing!”

  “Why did you rally an Assembly of the Baels?” Li-Boil asked. “Such meetings are only called to witness the election of a new SarpanKum.”