“I may have seen Neevan, but I’m not sure.”
Without hesitating, Clarian got to his feet and called for a horse. “Take me there, cousin.”
They set off on a fast pace, and in a brief space of time, Jolsani showed Clarian the site of the pitched battle, spread over a large area. Kobani warriors were off their horses, spread out, walking among the downed. Occasionally, a sword would descend. Others called for help when a Kobani was found. The wounded were loaded on wagons.
“Where?” asked Clarian, a note of urgency in his voice.
“Well, I’m not sure now. Maybe over there.”
They picked their way through the dead bodies of men and horses, weaving back and forth, checking the faces of the corpses. Clarian desperately scanned for anything that might signal it was she. The night and the heavy rain fell upon them, and the wind carried the smell of blood and death.
Clarian leaned low over the body of a woman lying broken beneath a horse, but it was not her. Jolsani left his horse and walked along a small stream, then crossed over and worked his way back. A Kobani warrior was nearby, checking for life. His sword flashed in a short, hard arc.
“Selu.”
Jolsani stood over a pile of dead horses and a cluster of Maggan bodies. Clarian hurried over, and together they pulled apart several bodies that had fallen over one another to look at the one on the bottom, lying twisted and bloodied, with long black hair tied in the back. It was a woman, but was it Neevan, and was she alive? A moan escaped the lips as they rolled her over. Clarian wiped the bloodied face with his sleeve as a Kobani warrior walked up.
“I’ll do that, Jolsani,” he said, drawing his sword and stepping forward.
“No, not this one, brother,” replied Jolsani.
The warrior shrugged and moved on, inspecting bodies as he went.
“It’s Neevan,” whispered Clarian. “It is she, Jolsani.”
“She looks almost dead.”
“She’s badly wounded.”
Clarian pulled off his violet cloak and wrapped it around Neevan to hide her Maggan uniform. Jolsani didn’t help.
“You cannot save her, Selu. She’s Maggan. She must die.”
“No.” Clarian snapped off the arrow protruding from her back. “Get a horse.”
When Jolsani returned with Clarian’s horse, Clarian mounted. “Lift her up to me.”
Jolsani lifted Neevan’s sagging body and pushed her into Clarian’s arms. He cradled her over his saddle. He touched his horse’s flanks and slowly moved off. Shortly, he crested a rise, and his white cottage appeared, lamps casting light through the windows onto the courtyard. He could hear the continuing shouts and cries off to his right as he made his way through hurrying soldiers and townspeople. His name was called, but he paid no attention as he guided his horse through the crowd in front of his house.
He called to a soldier standing by the door. “Come and help me!”
The soldier took the limp form from Clarian’s arms. Clarian jumped down and nodded toward the door as they carried the wounded woman. Clarian covered Neevan’s face at the door and then pushed it open.
Ranna saw him first, with Helan close behind. Somehow they knew and rushed over. “It’s Neevan.” The room was filled with soldiers in chairs and on benches along the walls, being treated for wounds. No one paid much attention to Clarian and his bundle—just another wounded soldier. They carried her into Clarian’s room and placing her on his bed. He thanked the soldier and ushered him out before turning to his mother.
“Neevan is hurt badly, Mother. They are killing all the Maggan soldiers.”
Ranna nodded as she wiped dirt and blood from Neevan’s face. “I will try to save her, my son. I will use all my knowledge.”
“Tell no one.”
“I know.”
Putting her hand on Clarian’s arm, Helan asked, “Is the war over?”
“Yes.”
“Are there any other Maggan you wish to save from death, Clarian?”
“What do you mean?”
Helan had already turned away and was rolling Neevan onto her side.
“Go now. We’ll do this,” said Ranna.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Clarian rode out into the last of the conflict. The Maggan and Drumaggan armies were broken. Large groups of the foe, surrounded by Karran archers, died packed together. There was little, if any, resistance. Some tried to break out and run, only to be caught by mounted troops and cut down. Some sat down where they were and waited for the arrows to come and end their lives. As the night began, and the darkness swept in, torches were lighted to better illuminate the task. Karran soldiers crowded close to the enemy, drawing back arrow after arrow. The cries of the dying and those about to die hit a crescendo as the killing continued. Maggan soldiers stoically gave in to the inevitable.
“Clarian! Come see what we have found!” called a young officer, waving his arm.
Clarian dismounted, handing his reins to an aide, and walked over to a group of soldiers gathered around a kneeling man. Clarian called for a torch. The kneeling man was bareheaded, his clothes mud-covered, but they were violet.
“Who are you?”
“I am Zefran, the Flamekeeper,” croaked the distressed man.
He looked up at Clarian, his eyes filled with fear and the sure knowledge he was about to die.
“He must die,” called a Karran soldier a few paces away, his knife already out.
“Go find Rokkman,” ordered Clarian, holding up his hand to forestall any killing.
In a short while, Rokkman arrived on horseback, his violet robes drenched and streaked with mud, his face pale in the torchlight. Informed on the way over, Rokkman knew who he was looking at. Dismounting, he squatted down to look the old priest in the eye. “You have come a long way out of your forest to die here on the frontier in a land not your own.”
Martan and Rogeman arrived as the word spread about the capture of the enemy Flamekeeper. They clustered around the abject man, their eyes flicking back and forth from Rokkman to Clarian and then back down to the kneeling man. The rain continued unabated, drenching them all, and thunder shot through the clouds to the east. The countless bodies of dead soldiers carpeted the field—dark, black lumps, twisted and broken among the mounds of dead horses. The cries of the trapped Maggan soldiers nearby and the shouts of the Karran tormentors rose to a cruel pitch, making it difficult to think or hear.
Clarian spoke to Rokkman. “After we kill all these Maggan,” he said, his sweeping arm taking in the entire field of battle, “do we march into the Forest of Darkness again and go down into Minteegan and kill all the night people? And then do we march on to the Drumaggan country and erase them, too, Flamekeeper? Tell me, Rokkman. You are the Flamekeeper now.”
Martan leaned forward, his jaw jutting out, his mouth grim. “We must kill this Flamekeeper, Clarian. Or they will come again as they did before and before that. They will always come back and try to take the Flame.” He spat on the ground and wiped a ragged sleeve across his mouth. “You know this to be true, Holy One. We will never be safe from their treachery.”
Zefran’s violet cloak clung to him, his hat gone, his silver hair matted and plastered on his head, his body shivering from cold and fear. He began to cry, his tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks, his luminous eyes gleaming in the torchlight.
More officers and soldiers crowded about the group, their heads turning away from time to time to gaze out at the killing taking place so close. Rokkman rose from his crouch. His face was conflicted, his mouth turned down, and his eyes locked onto Clarian’s in the torchlight, showing confusion.
Clarian was exhausted. His mind could barely function, crowded with endless images of the dead, of Ferman’s last moments, of Neevan crumpled in his arms and perhaps dying now in his house. His heart felt like it would burst, with all the pent
-up emotions over all the years and all the dying. Could there ever be an end to all of this?
He drew his curved knife from its sheath at his belt and held the blade out to Rokkman. “Take my knife, Rokkman, if you will, and kill the Flamekeeper.”
Rokkman licked his lips, which parted as if he would speak, but no words came out. He looked hard at the sharp knife extended to him as if he had never seen one before. In the tight group gathered around the defeated Zefran, no one spoke, but all eyes were fixed on Clarian and Rokkman.
“Here! Take it!” growled Clarian, straightening his arm and shoving the knife toward Rokkman over the head of the terrified Zefran. “If the situation were reversed, Zefran would kill you, wouldn’t you, Zefran?”
Zefran, his body shaking as he tried to wipe tears from his eyes with a filthy sleeve, said, “Truly, I cared nothing for the war. But I admit that I wanted to capture the Flame. It was all about the Flame. We have lived a long time without the Flame, and in our hearts we cried for it, to behold it, to possess it.”
“So, you would steal it and kill all our people to get it,” said Rokkman. “Do you think the Flame would serve a people who destroyed another people?”
“I don’t know. We always believed it was ours, stolen from us by you. Would you not go to war to recover it?”
“Yes, I would.”
Coughing hard, Zefran turned his head to watch the killing taking place a thousand paces away. “My son is over there, somewhere. Or already dead,” he said.
“You should not have invaded us,” said Rokkman.
“You showed Neevan the Flame. She said it was a wondrous thing, that it changed her life, that it spoke to her.” The kneeling man began weeping again. “I wanted to see it. My heart burns with love for the Flame. There is a hole in my being because I am denied the Flame. This is true for all my people. But I don’t expect you to understand. Kill me and get it over with.” He looked back again at the continuing killing, wondering whether his son was there in that mass of dying sons.
Rokkman looked up at Clarian, the torch flickering, the faces of soldiers pressing around the tight circle. “I heard you found Neevan.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I went to your house and Helan told me. Helan said Neevan might not live.”
“I know,” answered Clarian.
“It doesn’t matter. You have to kill her. She’s a Maggan, and we’re killing all the Maggan.”
Clarian stared at him. “Yes, we are.”
“That is the law of war.”
“It’s the law of priests.”
“You understand nothing!”
“After you kill Zefran. After you kill Zefran with your own hand. Take my knife.”
“She is a Maggan, and all Maggan must die. Neevan must die.”
“First, kill this Flamekeeper.”
“I can send a soldier to kill her.”
“Kill this Holy One, Holy One.”
“But if she lives, where will you go? After we kill all the Maggan.”
Clarian did not answer, but his thoughts turned dark as he contemplated Rokkman’s remarks. If all Maggan were killed, no Maggan, not even Neevan, could remain in the land of Karran. They would have to flee his homeland, perhaps go west to another land. Could peace ever come to this land?
A small pale hand came out of the crowd, reaching up to grasp Clarian’s forearm. He turned his head and looked down at Mishan, her blond hair wet from the rain, the bow and quiver over her shoulder. Her bright-blue eyes seemed to pierce into Rokkman’s eyes and then into Clarian’s. For a moment it seemed that time stopped as this slip of a girl challenged the thinking of the brutal men towering over her. She spoke no words, standing straight beside Clarian, looking up at him with her steady, unwavering gaze, her blue tunic dark with rain.
“Who is she?” someone whispered.
“She is Mishan, one of my scouts,” answered Clarian.
She pulled Clarian’s arm down and with it the deadly knife. He nodded and slowly slipped the knife back into its sheath.
Rokkman wiped the rain off his face with his violet sleeve, his eyes filling with a deep sadness. He glanced out at the killing field, at Clarian, at Mishan, and down at Zefran. He sighed audibly and held out his hand to Zefran. “Get to your feet, Holy One. There has been enough dying today.”
Zefran grasped Rokkman’s hand and was pulled upright, his legs shaky, his eyes first on Rokkman, then on Clarian, fear still showing in his face.
Rokkman looked at Clarian, who stared back at him, both knowing decisions made now bring unforeseen consequences in the future. Rokkman nodded.
Clarian turned to an aide. “Sound the horns. All fighting stops now.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The rain ceased sometime during the night. Clarian rode among his soldiers, giving instructions for the orderly return home of the army, the townsfolk, villagers, herdsmen, and farmers. He directed the now disarmed remnants of the Maggan and Drumaggan armies to form up and prepare to march back to their homes. Many on both sides were so exhausted, they fell to the ground and slept wrapped in blankets or cloaks.
Out beyond the immediate area of the ferry and Clarian’s house, in a vast field, Maggan and Karran soldiers dug graves for the dead; the Maggan to the east and the Karran to the west. With Ferman dead, no Maggan wanted to fight any longer. Rokkman had the Flame cart brought out to the burying grounds. The Flamekeepers, Rokkman, Zefran, and their assistant priests conducted services for the dead, each tending to their respective peoples. The Kobani loaded their dead on wagons for the journey back to the plains.
By the following midday, the clouds remained dark, threatening more bad weather to come. With wagons loaded with water and what little food was available, the Maggan armies under the command of junior Maggan officers began the long trek back to the Forest of Darkness and beyond. There were not enough wagons for all the troops or horses to pull them, so many walked.
Alongside the marching Maggan rumbled the wagons of the displaced Karran people on their way back to the Citadel or to towns or farms across the land. On the long journey back, these two peoples mingled on the road. There were acts of kindness. Townsfolk gave food to the struggling Maggan soldiers. Some placed wounded Maggan soldiers in their wagons. Others picked up exhausted soldiers who had given up and collapsed by the side of the road. By the time the columns of wagons of the armies, both Karran and Maggan, and the townspeople and farmers, neared the Citadel, all the peoples were intermixed.
Clarian met Rokkman outside his cottage. The cart carrying the Sacred Crystal and the wagons belonging to the Flamekeeper with all the sacred texts and materials of the Flame were in line, well guarded by Citadel guards and ready to begin the long way back to the Citadel.
“I will not be coming with you, Rokkman. My work is done,” said Clarian.
“I need you back at the Citadel. There is much to rebuild, much to be accomplished.”
“You have Martan and others who can do the work. I am a man of the frontier. I will stay here.”
“As your Flamekeeper, I could order you to return to the Citadel.”
Clarian did not answer.
Rokkman laughed.
Clarian smiled faintly. “What are you going to do with the Maggan Flamekeeper?”
“I am taking him with me to the Citadel as my guest. I introduced him to the Flame early yesterday before dawn. It was an unusual experience. And I have sent a letter to the Flamekeeper of Madasharan. They have more crystals, I am told. I have asked that Zefran and I be permitted to travel to Madasharan to discuss this. It is time to restore harmony to what has been a great chasm between our peoples.”
They stood together in front of the white cottage, the cold wind brushing back the tall grasses, horses stomping and whinnying, men shouting. A great group of soldiers was gathered at the ferry—the Ma
dasharan army, waiting to cross back over to its own country. Clarian could see Rostan giving orders as wagons were pushed onto one of the ferry craft, the other already empty and on its way back from the other side. Zefran waited by the Flame cart.
“Where is the young girl, the scout?” asked Rokkman.
“Mishan? I don’t know.
“Who is she, then?”
Clarian did not answer.
“You really were the ‘Chosen One,’ said Rokkman, smiling. “The Oracle spoke true. You brought us through the dark days and saved our people. But I have one question for you. Did you ever feel like the ‘Chosen One?’”
“No. I am just a ferryman living on the frontier.”
“Well, Clarian, Selu, ferryman—farewell.”
“Goodbye, Rokkman, Holy One.”
Rokkman smiled and turned toward the departing wagons.
Later that day, Jolsani and Kajmin said good-bye to Clarian and with the Kobani forces rode south into the Kobani plains. Clarian promised to visit soon with his mother.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Helan stood up and stretched her back from bending over in the garden. She turned and looked at the foundation Clarian and Rostan were laying in for Clarian’s new cottage to the north of the old one. Like the home his father built, this one would also stand high on the embankment overlooking the river below with a view to the dry lands and the Crystal Mountains to the west. Ranna, picking vegetables and placing them in a basket, took her turn to stand and stretch.
“We shouldn’t be watching them,” she chuckled.
“No, I guess not. She’s better now. She may start walking before long.”
“I wonder if he knows?”
Neevan lay on a cot covered with a green blanket next to the foundation work, a makeshift awning over her head to block out the strong rays of the morning sun. The bell rang from across the river, and Rostan hurried off to ferry a waiting traveler. Wiping sweat from his head and neck, Clarian came over to take a break and sit next to Neevan. His shirt was plastered against his chest.
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