by R. J. Larson
But the Infinite’s warriors weren’t going to kill her. Evidently something else would. But what? Ela composed herself with a breath and marched forward until the Infinite halted her.
Stand here, as My servant.
Obedient, Ela spiked the radiant branch into the damp soil, then stood within her insignia’s light, weaponless, praying, and wholly dependent upon Him. As His servant.
More Istgardians entered the field, forming haphazard ranks, archers placed before the swordsmen. Another wave of arrows slashed through the air. Despite herself, Ela gasped, watching the arrows’ flight—a grass-green downrush like a lethal waterfall. Aimed at her. Her vision would hold, wouldn’t it? When the weapons thudded into the ground directly in front of the branch, she exhaled. No doubt about it. The branch was drawing the arrows. Otherwise she would be dead or dying this instant. Words from the ancient scrolls unfurled in her mind. Give thanks to the Infinite, for He is good. His love is eternal. . . .
She tried to focus wholly on praises. To distract herself from the knowledge that she, the Infinite’s servant, was the Adversary’s target in this battlefield. An advantage to the jubilant Traceland swordsmen waiting to her left and right.
Unseen by either army, a luminous messenger swung his sword in a dazzling arc, directing the battle’s next incident. Black and red Tracelandic arrows rained from the treetops at the field’s northern edge onto the unsuspecting Istgardians. Scores of soldiers fell. Astride his destroyer, a nobleman screamed. Ela watched him clutch the black arrow’s shaft in his side. He tore the barb from his flesh, screaming again, pouring blood as he fell from his groaning destroyer.
Ela continued to pray and await the initial charge, though she longed to shut her eyes, sickened by violence and carnage.
Again the messenger signaled to the Traceland’s archers, slashing his sword downward. Fatal black hail cascaded from the treetops, striking most of the Istgardian soldiers along the battlefield’s northern edge. Screams of agony rose from the wounded.
A wail lifted in Ela’s throat, and she swallowed it hard. She wanted the battle to stop. Now. Let this instant stay as it was, forever, with no more men dying. “Infinite? Please?”
Child of dust, can you make their decisions for them?
“No, but . . .” Ela froze, watching another fragment of her vision spring to life.
An Istgardian swordsman charged toward her across the open space, his green cloak flaring, his sword lifted as he roared a battle cry. Shadows seethed and twisted around the man, revealing their malicious, ever-shifting spirit faces as they goaded him onward. The Adversary’s deceivers. Was she—like the messengers—invisible to everyone else in this battlefield except the deceived ones?
Ela watched the man’s approach, horrified. His eyes locked on hers in triumphant certainty of her death. She’d seen the Adversary’s immortal deceivers urging him forward. She’d seen— “No!”
The messenger nearest Ela raised his powerful hand and motioned to Ela’s would-be assailant. Just as the swordsman dashed within range to cut Ela down, a black and red arrow struck his neck, just below his ear. The one vulnerable gap between his helmet and body armor. Another arrow slammed against his side, knocking him to the damp grass. Eyes huge and shocked, breath rasping, he fumbled at the weapon fatally embedded in his throat. Until his eyelids went heavy, and his focus faded.
Surely now he saw the eternal fire he could never escape. Unable to cry, Ela mourned. If she could have collapsed, she would.
The messenger urged, “Be strong, and pray.” Though calm, his powerful face reflected sorrow. The Infinite’s sorrow. Ela breathed more prayers, feeling her Creator’s love and aching concern for her, and for the men now falling beneath a black cloud of the Traceland’s arrows.
Look, the Infinite commanded, as the messenger nodded toward the Istgardians following the royal banner, just visible at the edge of Ytar’s ruins. Even now, I will save them if they repent. As I would save Tek An. Yet, in his pride, he will prefer death.
Ela watched the gold and green banner ripple in the rising wind. Tek An was entering the field, majestic on his destroyer, the heir riding another destroyer alongside him, their shields upraised against the Traceland’s hidden archers.
Not all of the king’s soldiers and noblemen were as cautious. The next hail of arrows decimated their ranks. Several destroyers fell. Others scattered, riderless, groaning as Pet did in deep distress.
The ground rumbled, its vibrations horrifyingly familiar. Pet . . . no, Scythe charged past. With Kien. Despite knowing the battle’s outcome, Ela couldn’t look.
She lowered her head, shut her eyes, and fulfilled her duty. Praying. Waiting to die.
Grateful for the command to proceed, Kien pressed his booted feet hard into the leather-clad rungs of the destroyer’s elaborate battle collar. “Ha! Forward, you monster!”
Every battle drill he’d memorized with Jon in his training for the army’s reserves returned now, blade-sharp.
Jon’s expression had been deathly serious as he issued Kien instructions before the battle:
They were to assemble in a crescent formation. The archers would have thinned enemy ranks and weakened them; whatever sunlight there was would be in the Istgardians’ faces. And so would Kien. He and the other men must draw them into the field’s center. . . .
Kien halted Scythe sharply before the battlefield’s open space, making the beast leap.
While Scythe snorted ferocious threats, Kien watched the field. Istgard’s destroyers—many now without masters—paced and turned in obvious uncertainty. Had they ever faced an enemy in battle who rode an Istgard destroyer? Evidently not. Scythe’s opposition increased the Istgardian destroyers’ confusion.
Gleeful, Kien muttered to his mount, “Tell them! We’re going to pulverize their forces. They’ll be defeated!”
Scythe’s equine taunts redoubled as he paced, reared lightly, and tossed his massive black head, shaking out his long mane. Kien grinned. Obviously he was riding the master of destroyer bravado.
Kien kept his own challenge short and fierce. As Scythe continued to huff, Kien whipped out his sword and yelled, “Ytar!”
Alongside Kien, the black-clad Tracelanders roared and echoed his cry. “Ytar!”
Ytar. Wal. Kien’s slaughtered servants. Ela . . . Kien clenched his jaw, thinking of all the lives the Istgardians had taken or threatened.
As Jon expected, the Tracelandic archers had done their work, thinning the Istgardian ranks enough to even the odds. But they hadn’t counted on the riderless destroyers being thrown into chaos as if whipped by an unseen lash. Turmoil rippled through the Istgardian ranks as their unmanned destroyers fled herd-like, trampling nearby foot soldiers.
Odd. Were destroyers so easily routed?
Seeming eager to give chase, Scythe strained forward. “Not yet,” Kien warned, holding him back. “Let the enemy come to us.”
Around him, Kien’s fellow Tracelanders were howling taunts, beckoning the Istgardians. King Tek An’s banner neared, fluttering and wavering in the rising wind. No doubt Tek An was reacting like his banner, agitated by his welling fear.
“Come on!” Kien muttered beneath his breath.
How long could he keep this destroyer in check? Scythe’s pacing and huffing increased. He reared. Kien dug his feet into the war harness’s rungs, amazed he’d kept his seat. Yet the warhorse and his harness were perfectly suited for battle—easier to manage than Kien had suspected at first glance. “Steady,” Kien soothed.
Just beyond the king’s banner, Kien saw foot soldiers rushing to assemble the short towers used to hold their bolt throwers, tightly wound weapons resembling giant bows. Had Jon or any of the commanders planned for those huge bolt throwers?
As Kien was contemplating the best method for disabling the throwers, the Istgardian heir rode forward. Doubtless without the king’s permission. He lifted his sword, bellowed a war cry, and signaled his countrymen to advance. Echoing their heir’s battle
cry, the Istgardians charged, their attack encouraged by the blaring trumpets.
Pulse quickening, Kien waited and studied the enemy’s advance.
The Istgardian ranks frayed. The few noblemen riding destroyers abandoned their formations, while the foot soldiers behaved as individuals instead of a unit. Undisciplined fools!
Tracelanders and Istgardians met in a clattering press of shields and a ringing of swords. The sounds of metal impacting metal were punctuated by shouts of challenge and screams of agony. Several enemy destroyers merged into the clash. Sighting the nearest one, Kien pressed his knees into Scythe, guiding him toward the nobleman and his massive warhorse. “Go!”
The destroyer lunged, eager to obey. Caught in the battle’s tide, two Istgardian foot soldiers veered toward them. Scythe bent his massive head, clamped his powerful jaws around one ill-fated man’s arm, and flung him into a second soldier, clearing Kien’s path.
Obviously alerted by the soldiers’ flying bodies, the nobleman turned his destroyer toward Scythe and swung his longsword at Kien.
As Scythe fended off the destroyer, Kien parried the Istgardian’s blade with the flat of his sword—so ferociously that the nobleman wavered in his seat. Pressing his advantage, Kien braced himself and swung his sword into the Istgardian’s helmet. Stunned, the man reeled.
For Wal.
Kien plunged his sword into the nobleman’s segmented plate armor, just as Scythe charged the enemy destroyer. Nobleman and destroyer screamed. Scythe gave Kien no chance to assess the damage. He kicked backward at a foot soldier, then brought Kien about to face another mounted Istgardian. Seeing the golden sash draped at a diagonal across this nobleman’s chest, Kien gasped.
The heir.
“Die!” the young man roared. He swung his sword at Kien. Badly aimed. The blade glanced off Kien’s armored shoulder.
Infinite! Within the frantic one-word prayer, Kien stabbed his blade at the heir’s single visible point of flesh. His throat.
The heir’s warhorse retreated. Scythe lunged. Kien’s sword pierced its target.
Gaping in disbelief, the young man dropped his sword, then fell after it, silent.
A scream erupted behind him. “No!” Tek An wailed. “My son!”
Scythe dashed away from the king, mowing down more foot soldiers, who cried out as they fell beneath his hooves. Kien leaned over the destroyer’s harness. Surely someone would attack him to avenge the heir’s death. Trying to anticipate his next confrontation, he scanned the battlefield. The Tracelanders had folded their army’s crescent formation around the Istgardians discordant forces. The entire field was a seething mass of foot soldiers, clashing shields, and ringing swords.
A spear bolt flew past, startling Kien. If he hadn’t been leaning forward . . .
He recovered, adjusted his grip on his sword, then urged Scythe onward.
Weren’t prophets supposed to face their visions?
Ela watched the battle become a massacre. Archers, still positioned in the trees, targeted any soldiers who dared to man Istgard’s bolt throwers. The few remaining noblemen were attacked repeatedly until they succumbed and fell, despite their destroyers’ valiant attempts to save them.
At last, the Tracelandic army encircled the Istgardian foot soldiers and began to cut them down. Exactly as the citizens of Ytar had been slaughtered. Tek An’s banner swayed. Then fell.
“Tek An.” Ela recalled his face and grieved. If only he’d forgotten his pride.
If only . . .
A trumpet blared. When the Tracelanders paused, the Istgardian survivors knelt, hands upraised in surrender. An expectant hush stole over the battlefield. The Traceland’s general raised Tek An’s shredded green and gold banner in his black-gloved fists. “Victory! For Ytar!”
A ragged cheer echoed from the fallen king’s position, then grew until the Tracelanders were all whooping and celebrating. Unsettled, Ela looked around. Now? Wouldn’t she somehow die now? The Infinite’s messengers looked upward, then vanished within the blink of an eye, leaving her.
“Infinite? I don’t understand! I saw myself lying dead and . . .”
Ela felt herself whisked from the field, into the trees. To her vision’s end—to Tzana, kneeling where Ela had left her, huddled beside a bound, stilled form. The body. Ela stared at her lifeless mortal shell. So waxen, fragile. Had she died without realizing it? “Infinite?”
The instant she breathed His name, calming darkness overtook her, blotting out all sight.
A deep chill and unbearable weight summoned her to consciousness again. Exhausted and unwilling to move, Ela rested and breathed in the scent of dried leaves and damp soil. Her limbs ached. And the bonds chafed at her wrists and ankles. Still alive . . . How? Was she a mere vision within the battle? “Infinite. Who is like You?”
She strained to hear His voice. Instead, she heard only the Tracelanders celebrating, oblivious to the One who had given them this triumph.
Tzana nestled against Ela, then peeked at her, remarkably calm. “Are you awake?”
“Yes. It’s good to see you.” Ela wished she could hug her little sister. Dear, sweet girl. Obviously she’d obeyed Ela’s commands. From the corner of her eye, Ela glimpsed the branch, pallid and sun-bleached, looking as age-worn and frail as she felt. The approaching thuds of hooves made her turn.
Pet. Scythe. Carrying the disheveled Kien toward her. Ela’s very soul seemed to leap at the sight. Dear Kien! Safe . . . She longed to fling herself into his arms and hug him. So unprophet-like. Thankfully, she was still bound, unable to make a fool of herself. Even so, tears of relief stung her eyes.
Ela struggled, forcing herself to sit upright. Kien dismounted in a clatter of armor and weapons and half knelt beside Ela’s feet. Pulling out his dagger, Kien cautiously sawed the cords from her ankles. “The general must be convinced you were correct. I’m granted permission to release you. Are you well?”
“No.” Ela swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “But it helps—seeing you two unharmed.”
“Just because there’s no blood doesn’t mean there are no wounds,” Kien said, moving to free her wrists.
If only he knew. Why was she still alive?
Pet arched his black neck and leaned down to nuzzle Ela, obviously distressed by the rawness of her wrists and ankles. “It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I’m so glad to see you!” She rested her cheek against his big face, then hesitated. His muzzle was sticky. She caught a harsh, metallic scent and nearly gagged.
Tzana began to cry. “Pet! You’re bleeding. . . .”
22
Finished with his tepid water, Pet nudged Ela with his dripping muzzle. Her tunic stained with blood-tinged water, inciting a pang of guilt.
Really, she should be on the battlefield now, tending wounded or digging trenches for the dead. But the Tracelanders had insisted Ela return to their encampment while they questioned the surviving Istgardians.
If she wasn’t allowed to help the wounded, then she could at least see to Pet.
“Will he die?” Tzana whimpered. She clutched at Ela’s tunic, her small face a fretwork of delicate wrinkles.
“No.” Ela ran her hands over Pet’s black coat. Her fingertips stagnated over a series of crusted patches. Drying blood from scratches. Beyond the cut mouth, he had no other wounds. His legs weren’t swollen or warm. But coagulating blood met her every touch. Istgardian blood. Ela shuddered. “We need to wash him. And his collar.”
She tugged at one of the large buckles securing the destroyer’s huge black war collar. More blood. The collar’s leather bands were saturated. A wave of nausea made Ela lean forward, hands on knees. Perhaps it was for the best she hadn’t been allowed to tend the wounded.
“Ela.” Kien’s voice echoed to her from the trees at the clearing’s edge. “Wait. Let me help you.”
Her heart lifted at the sound. “Yes, please.”
She straightened and eyed the Tracelander as he approached. Kien had removed his armor and dous
ed his face and hair, banishing any blood. If his black garments were bloodstained, she couldn’t tell. A mercy.
His gray eyes reflected fatigue. And sudden concern. “Are you about to be sick?”
“Not if I think of something beyond death and battles.” Ela warred with queasiness as she reached for a second buckle.
Kien brushed away her hands. “I’ll do that.” Leaning into Pet’s line of vision, Kien narrowed his eyes at the destroyer. “Don’t bite me.”
Lips curling, Pet bared his big teeth, as if considering Kien too disgusting to eat. Ela didn’t dare look closely at those teeth. If she saw more blood, she would definitely vomit.
Oblivious to Ela’s discomfort, Tzana giggled. “Pet, what a silly face!”
“We have to wash that silly face.” Ela patted her way tentatively around the huge horse and stationed herself opposite Kien. The instant Kien opened the last buckle, she gripped Pet’s collar and—on Kien’s count—they lifted it off the destroyer.
Well trained, Pet bowed his big head and stepped backward without being urged. Ela and Kien set the collar in the trampled grass. Kien grimaced. “That will take days to clean.”
If it could be cleaned. “I need to tend Pet first.”
“He’s ‘Pet’ again, is he?”
“For now.” She couldn’t think of Scythe. Death.
“Are you taking him to the river?”
“Yes.” Cautious, she lifted a corner of the thick quilt on Pet’s back. No blood. Of course, if there had been blood on this rider’s quilt, it would have been Kien’s. A horrible thought—her stomach twisted at the very idea. If Kien had died, she would have longed for death herself. She loved him too much to . . . “Oh my.”
Kien raised his voice from the warhorse’s opposite side. “What?”
“Nothing.” Stupid, stupid prophet! She shouldn’t allow herself to love him. Too late . . .
Kien helped her unfold the quilt to cover Pet’s back, then circled the destroyer to face Ela. “I’ll walk with you. The chief commander sent me away. It seems we’re the topic of discussion right now. Our fates are being decided.”