by Terri Kouba
“You must fight.” He closed her hand around the hilt and held it.
Her hand clasped the well-worn hilt, her fingers sliding into their grooves like a glove long thought forgotten. Heat spread from her wrist, up her arm and into her shoulder; the sword comforted her like a warm blanket. She slowly shook her head. “I cannot. I will not.”
“The enemy gathers at our gates,” Anrew said. “He numbers not in the tens. Not in the tens of tens. The Glagremels are ten thousand strong. We are not even five hundred. We need every sword we can get.”
“A month ago you jeered at a keep whose master swordsman was a woman,” she reminded him unkindly.
“A month ago we thought there were a thousand, maybe two thousand, Glagremels. Ten thousand to our five hundred, Fahevial. We need you on the battle line.”
“I cannot. I made a vow. I teach the sword, but I will never again kill with it.” She dropped her chin to her chest. The memories were too fresh, even now, twenty years later.
He pulled her chin between his thumb and forefinger roughly. “Look at them.”
Her eyes scanned the women, children, sick and elderly who clung to the cave walls like drowning rodents.
“They will die. We will all die. I have watched you train the keep men and children. I have watched you win every tournament each night. You wield the best sword in the keep. Without you, they will all die. All of us will die.” He shook his head. “No vow can be worth all of our lives.”
She looked into his eyes. When desire ran in his blood, yellow swirls spotted his brown eyes. And his eyes flared yellow now. “Then it is our fate for my people to be wiped from the face of this earth under the Glagremel’s blade.”
“No,” he shouted. His anger echoed off the cave walls. Children stopped crying. Women stopped whispering. The elderly scuttled into the shadows, turning their shoulders against his rage.
“You cannot believe that. You cannot just sit here when you know you can help. One sword, your sword, could turn the tide of this battle. I know your husband died on the battlefield but even he would not want this. He would want…”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him down to his knees.
He resettled on the rock but the yellow spots whirled wildly in his eyes.
“Do not presume to tell me what my husband would or would not want. Likewise,” her voice hissed in the tall cavern, Ado not presume you know what desperate measures have brought me to where I am today.”
He closed his eyes to calm himself. “I’m sorry, but I cannot…”
“I was sixteen when I had married my childhood friend, my sparring partner, the other part of my soul. We had four children before the Houdon Clan was split in two, parted by my father and his.”
Her eyes showed the pain of that day long ago.
“He chose his blood over his wife and joined his father. I stayed with my bloodline.”
She watched a drop fall from a stalagmite into a puddle and become indiscernible from the other drops that had fallen before it.
“At first there were just skirmishes by each side, cow raids, sabotaging each other’s dams and irrigation ditches. But then, on the first black moon of the year, Donodar declared war against my people. He attacked a farm, massacred the farmers, torched the land, poisoned the water. Women, children. Made no matter to him. He killed them all. And my husband, the man whom I loved more than anyone who walked this earth, was at his side. He plunged his sword into the belly of my people and our blood gushed forth, soaking into the burned ravages of the arid sand.”
Her fingers shook and she pressed them tightly against her palms.
PI joined the battle. My mother begged me to stay in the keep, to stay safe with the women and children. But rage flowed in my veins. My friends, people I had known since childhood, had died on my husband’s blade. I rode with my father and on the day of Midyear, the two sides joined in what would be the last battle for Houdon Valley. Even then, a mere twenty years old, I was the best swordfighter on the field. I fought with fury. I was relentless. With each stroke I recited the name of someone they had killed. With each stroke, my rage increased until it roared in my ears and colored my vision red.”
Anrew was still. He could see the strain the telling of the tale was taking on her. Her face was white, as if she walked with the ghosts her tale conjured.
“A new enemy rode up. I knocked him from his horse and he rolled to his feet. I lunged and he turned my blade away. He thrust and I saw that he left his heart open, unprotected. I knew his style. I had sparred against it my entire life. But I could not recognize it through the fog of my rage. I waited, knocking his blows aside, until he thrust again. I stepped forward. I knocked his blade to the side with my sword and with my right hand I plunged my knife into his heart. I felt a little pop and his legs collapsed underneath him. The hilt of my knife caught on his rib bone and it pulled me to the ground on top of him. I looked into his blue eyes. His beautiful blue eyes. The eyes that were once the sun and the moon to me. I watched his azure eyes fade to nothing. I had killed my husband.” She closed her eyes. “I had killed myself.”
She looked up. Her gaze caught and held his. “I will never fight on the battlefield again.”
Anrew gasped for air. He turned his eyes away and stared at the puddle instead. After a moment he rose and left the cave.