Plato's Cave During the Slicer Wars and other short stories
Page 20
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It had been three days since Anrew left the cave and headed to the front line. His body was in tatters, he couldn’t hear out of his left ear and he had broken six swords against Glagremel steel. But they had prevailed. The mighty fortress itself, with its high gate and thick walls, had cost the Glagremel half its number. And the Huodon warriors took the rest.
The thirty-seven Silver Swords, those trained and christened by Fahevial, had proved to be better than their reputation. He had never seen such skill, such mastery, such determination. Even Menos, the newest Silver Sword, with his fury and his phantoms, had proven his mettle. On the battlefield Menos had learned to reign in his fury and cast it against the enemy with deadly effect.
Anrew returned to the cave, to tell the women to find their husbands and mend or bury them. He stood frozen, blinking in the half light of fags, the fire licking the cavern walls with yellow flame and black smoke.
He had fought for three days and finally on the third night the Glagremel had been defeated, driven back, out of the Huodon Valley and over the Nitenfard Ridge. And now he returned to the safety of the cavern, to the women and the children he had fought to protect, only to find them in no better shape than he himself.
There had been fighting in this cavern; he saw the dead Glagremel bodies strewn across the ground at the back, but only Glagremel bodies. He followed the raw scent of blood through a tunnel and grabbed a burning fag from a tired woman heading toward him.
The tunnel walls were coated in the black blood of the Glagremel. It dripped from the ceiling and ran down the back of his neck. His feet sank into a warm river of Glagremel blood as he stepped over body parts that littered the tunnel. He had watched almost ten thousand Glagremel die on the castle wall and in the keep after the wall had been breached. But the sight of so many bodies, in so tight a space, made him shudder.
“There must be a thousand bodies here,” he mumbled to the dead.
Another woman came toward him, her dress soaked up to the knees with the black sticky blood of their enemy, a baby strapped to her back, it’s face protected by a silk cloth.
“What happened here?” Anrew asked.
“They breached the back wall and snuck in through the escape tunnel. They surprised us this morning.” It was all she could say before she stumbled on her way.
The tunnel opened into a small cave and his fag caught a fresh breeze. It flared and lit the walls, streaked with black, oozing blood. Again he found no red blood, no bodies of men or women or children.
He found the tunnel the Glagremel had breached but it was bare; none had escaped through here. He followed another tunnel and heard the sounds of battle. There were still Glagremel inside.
He rushed forward to help his comrades, slipping on the broken bodies and slick rivulets. The wail of a Glagremel pulling his last breath echoed down the tunnel toward him before it was cut short with a slap and a grunt. Its armor clamored as it fell.
Anrew burst into a silent cavern, his sword ready to fight or fend. Neither was required.
A woman knelt in the middle of the room, her head almost touching her knee. Three old women surrounded her and poured clear water over her head to wash away the black blood that coated her body. She bled from cuts across her arms and legs. Her clothing had been hacked almost clean from her body. She cringed when an old woman poured water onto a deep gash in her leg.
He tried to see her face, to see who had brought such carnage against the Glagremel, but he knew who it was without looking. He did not need see the face to know who had saved his people.
“Fahevial.” His hoarse voice was barely above a whisper.
Her head twitched but she did not look up. Glagremel blood dripped from her hair that hid her face.
An old woman came up from behind him and ushered him back into the cramped tunnel.
“What happened here?” he asked.
The old woman refused to look at him.
“She broke her vow,” the old woman answered in a whisper, talking to the cave walls.
“She saved us, but Fahevial broke her vow.”
The End
Rendezvous in Ashland
I’ve been happily married for eleven years. He’s thin, a little stoop-shouldered, starting to lose his hair in an oddly-shaped patch on his crown. But he has held my heart in his hands since the first day we met when he dented my fender in the Safeway parking lot. He now says that I dented his fender. Maybe his hair isn’t the only thing that’s starting to go. But for three weeks every year, another man cradles my heart in his large, thick hands.