by Licia Troisi
She thought back to her first battle. In just a few months, everything had changed.
She had been tense and excited. Scared, too. Now, she marched and that was it. Impatience was all she felt. It was just another battle, nothing else.
When they reached the place where the battle would take place, Nihal mixed in with the troops and snuck into the base.
The helmet she wore was a nightmare. It fit tight over her ears and made it hard for her to breathe. The armor and weapons she carried became a fetter to her movements, but she was happy when she realized she could decide for herself where to fight. Ido usually decided on her position and placed her in the central rows where it was safest. Now no one else would decide for her.
She headed straight for the front line. Today she would give it her all.
When midmorning came, the troops marched toward the battlefield.
Until that day, Nihal had only participated in surprise attacks or small battles. This battle was something else altogether.
For the first time, she found herself before the enemy line. All that separated her from the Tyrant’s assault troops were a few meters of terrain and a dense curtain of snow that made it hard to see; snowflakes flew into her mouth with every flurry.
The black line of lances and shields blocked her view.
The line was alive. It snaked like a serpent lying lazily in the sun. It was compact like a serpent, as well. It was a single body made up of hordes of Fammin who moved as one: limbs of a single organism moving only at the Tyrant’s will.
It was a disturbing spectacle. Her heart was racing.
A general she’d never seen before inspected the troops and reminded them of the tactical plan for the battle. They’d charge in order to break through the enemy lines and try to get through as far as the second line. Then they’d break into two wings in order to surround the outermost divisions.
“When I give the order, scatter and begin the retreat!” the general said before moving on.
All of a sudden, Nihal saw a thin man appear at the general’s side. His long gown was buffeted by the wind.
Sennar!
She moved. The suit of armor was such a hindrance. Sennar! She wanted to go to him, hug him tight, beg his forgiveness, ask him not to leave, to stay with her. She pushed another warrior and gained a bit of terrain.
Then the man turned. It was not Sennar. He was a sorcerer, perhaps a representative of the Council, but he was not Sennar. Sennar was gone.
Nihal felt a pang in her chest.
The Dragon Knights would leave from the second line. Nihal saw Ido among them, but she didn’t feel a moment’s remorse over what she was doing.
She prepared to charge when the attack signal came. Her heart beat wildly at the sight of all those enemy troops. The snow continued to fall heavily. Despite the cold, she was sweating under her armor.
Then she heard the yell that signaled the charge.
The first line began a mad race that for many ended on the lances the Fammin lowered at the last minute.
The impact with the enemy line was incredibly violent, and in the confusion, Nihal fell to the ground. Her armor saved her from an axe blow. She got back to her feet with difficulty. She began to fight.
The Fammin seemed to pop up out of nowhere, as if they were multiplying. The ground was already littered with corpses.
Nihal tried to keep her mind free of thoughts. She threw herself on the enemy with hatred, but this battle was different than usual. There were no lines of warriors to cushion the impact. It felt like all the enemies were going for her. She had trouble advancing. All she could see was a forest of lances and swords that blotted out the sky.
She continued to strike, landing blows in all directions as blood reddened her armor.
Just then, a thick rain of arrows began to fall. But Nihal had stopped paying attention to what was going on around her.
Finally, her mind was empty. Thoughts of Sennar, loneliness, death, and her mission melted into the arithmetical clanging of the swords and the precise movements of her body. Even her physical pain disappeared. Nihal didn’t feel the metal of the enemy swords as they pierced her flesh.
The yell ordering their retreat rose up unexpectedly. The moment was well chosen, because it really seemed as if the Army of the Free Lands was in trouble.
Nihal heard it, but it didn’t make sense to her to retreat. This was her war, her vendetta. She followed her own logic.
She ignored the signal. The other warriors retreated rapidly and she remained alone among the enemy troops. She didn’t notice until the enemy front had advanced two rows beyond her. For a moment, she was lost.
Wherever she turned, she found the repugnant beings. They attacked her with bloody axes.
A blow to the head sent her helmet flying.
A single cry rose up from the mouths of the Fammin. “A half-elf!”
Nihal drew on all her strength. She advanced toward the first enemy, but she was attacked from all sides. The creatures were laughing, their mouths open wide to show their tusks. They were laughing at her.
She gave in to despair. She began to move randomly, losing her coordination. They struck her everywhere, and every blow hit its mark. Nihal felt a leg give out. She noticed she had a wound on her thigh. She fell to her knees. The enemies gathered around her in a flash. Everywhere she turned she saw Fammin snickering at the easy prey.
Am I afraid?
The question flashed through her mind like lightning.
Ido’s words echoed through her head. Fear is a treacherous enemy. You have to learn to control it, to listen to what it tells you. If you can do that, it will help you do your duty well. If you let fear take charge, it will take you to your grave.
No, she wasn’t afraid.
She moved mechanically, dodging the blows.
I’m about to die, she thought.
She didn’t feel anything except for a slight discomfort on her wounded leg.
All of a sudden, a burst of flame hit some of the Fammin standing around her. Nihal felt someone grab her by the hair. With her remaining strength, she clung to the hand holding her. A moment later, she was astride Vesa.
With yells of rage, the surviving Fammin threw themselves upon the dragon.
An axe hit Ido’s arm, but he didn’t seem to feel it. As Vesa spit fire and flames, the knight unsheathed his sword and began to strike the Fammin. Blood gushed from the wound, but he continued fighting. He clutched Nihal to him with his free arm to protect her from the arrows.
Nihal watched her tutor. Even though she had disobeyed him, he’d come to her aid. Now he was risking his life for her.
What happened to me? Why wasn’t I afraid? Why didn’t I obey orders?
Only then did she realize the enormity of what she had done. Hot tears began to flow down her face, which was covered with dust and blood.
At last, they rose up in flight. From on high, Nihal noticed that the action had not been successful. The enemy was about to surround a group of troops from the Army of the Free Lands that was trapped in the forefront.
She closed her eyes and wept in silence.
They landed behind the battlefield. Ido roughly pushed Nihal from the saddle. She fell at a soldier’s feet.
“Put her with the prisoners,” Ido ordered.
“But isn’t she one of ours?”
“That was an order!” Ido barked as he flew back up to return to the battlefield.
Nihal did not protest when the boy took her by an arm and dragged her to the big pen where prisoners were held.
She was still crying, and she didn’t stop when she noticed that five Fammin were her companions. The monsters didn’t look at her, didn’t deride her. They huddled in pain.
Nihal withdrew into a corner of the pen and curled up with her head between her legs so as not to see them.
Then something strange happened. From that tiny group of prisoners, she felt a wave of hopeless sorrow, an affliction she would never have imag
ined those creatures were capable of feeling.
Nihal was stunned by the sensation.
Her legs were pulsating. She must have lost a lot of blood.
She lacked the strength to recite a healing spell.
She felt lost and alone. Sennar …
She slowly slid into unconsciousness.
After a few hours in the pen, they brought her to the infirmary, where they tended her wound. It was just a flesh wound that soon felt better. She went immediately to see the result of the battle from the hill that overlooked the battlefield. She spent the entire afternoon there, a teary-eyed witness to her army’s defeat.
There were two days of uninterrupted fighting, blood, and death.
The battle ended in utter defeat. The Army of the Free Lands did not gain one inch of terrain. Hundreds of dead bodies littered the battlefield.
The troops carried the wounded back to the base. Nihal walked with difficulty but refused all offers of help. She walked slowly over the same terrain she’d traversed so impatiently two days earlier.
Ido was waiting for her in the hut, smoking his pipe as usual. He was sitting on a sturdy wooden chair, a few pillows supporting his back. Spots of blood stained the wide bandages covering his torso and one of his arms.
Nihal entered with lowered head. She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
Ido puffed angrily on his pipe and sent little clouds of smoke up to melt in the cold air of the room. He looked at her for a long, grim moment that seemed endless to Nihal. Then he pulled the pipe from his mouth.
“Will you tell me what on earth you were thinking?”
Nihal raised her eyes to look at him. “I wanted to fight.”
Ido hollered. “You disobeyed me and ignored the order to retreat. You could have wrecked the whole plan. You were fighting for the enemy!!”
Nihal responded in a tiny voice. “Forgive me, Ido. I didn’t know what …”
“Nonsense, girl! You knew exactly what you were doing! Of course you did. Do you want me to tell you why you did it? Because you don’t care about your own life or anyone else’s. All you want is to kill. You’re not a warrior. You’re an assassin.”
Nihal clenched her fists. “That’s not true!”
“Oh, no? What distinguishes our army from the Tyrant’s? Tell me. Come on.”
Nihal thought, but Ido’s words had wounded her so deeply that she couldn’t think of an answer. “Because we’re fighting for freedom,” she stuttered.
“You’ve never even thought about it, have you?” snickered Ido. “That’s right. All you care about is your vendetta.”
“That’s not true,” Nihal yelled.
Ido leaped to his feet and pointed at her. “Silence! The difference is that we fight on the side of life. Life, Nihal! The thing you don’t know, that you deny with all your strength. We fight so that everyone will have a right to live their lives on this earth, so that everyone can decide what to make of his or her own existence, so that no one will be a slave, so that there will be peace. We fight for the people we danced with in that square, for the merchant who hosted us, for the girls who kissed our soldiers. We fight with the knowledge that war is horrible and the awareness that if we didn’t do it, the world we love would be destroyed. It’s not hatred that moves us! It’s the hope that one day all of this will end. The Tyrant is moved by hatred.”
Ido sat back down and lowered his voice. “There’s no reason for you to be here. You don’t even know what you’re fighting for. The only thing you know is that you want to die.”
“No! I’m not like that!” Nihal hollered.
“You’re afraid to live. Every time you go into battle, you’re hoping for the blow that will relieve you of the responsibility of facing life. What do you think, that it takes courage to die? Dying is easy. It’s life that requires courage. You’re a coward, Nihal.”
“I won’t die before I help save this world.”
“You think you’re a hero? Is that what you think? Well, let me tell you, you’re not.”
Nihal fell to her knees, her hands over her ears and her eyes full of tears. “Shut up! Shut up!”
Ido stood and went to her. For a moment, Nihal thought he wanted to console her, but he took her hands and forced them away from her ears.
“No! Now you listen to me. I thought there was something good in you. I saw it buried under a mountain of resentment and I hoped I could uncover it. But you’ve never wanted to listen to me. You’ve always pretended everything was OK.”
“No! No!”
“I’m going to say it again. There’s no place for you here. If you’re looking for somewhere to fight, you should go to the Tyrant’s army. You’re the one who decided to become a death machine. Go fight with them.”
Nihal hollered. Tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes. Ido, standing before her, looked at her without pity. She huddled to the ground and cried. Sobs shook through her. She thought she might never stop, that she’d cry forever.
“What was I supposed to do? What?” she asked her tutor, her red face raised to his. “I was just a little girl, do you understand? A little girl! What do you know about what I’ve seen in my dreams, the massacres I’ve witnessed?”
Ido bent over to look her in the eyes. “What are you talking about? What’s all this?”
Nihal continued sobbing. “I saw my people being slaughtered. Children, women, and men! Night after night, my whole life long. They whisper words I can’t understand. They persecute me and tell me I have to avenge them. What was I supposed to do?”
Ido was thoughtful for a moment. Then he sat down in front of his cadet. He spoke gently. “You’re free, do you understand? Free! The land of spirits is not here. That hatred is theirs, not yours.”
“What about all the ones who died? Why did it happen? Someone has to avenge that massacre. I’m the only survivor of an entire people. Why me?”
“The dead are dead, Nihal. Someone who’s been killed has no more chances in this world. You can’t do anything for them. But you can do something for the living, for those who fall victim to the Tyrant’s atrocities every day.”
Ido brushed the hair off Nihal’s wet face. “Listen to me. I’ve also seen terrible things. I’ve also had to struggle against the hatred within. That’s why I decided to fight. I don’t know why you survived. But you’re here, and you’re alive. You can’t waste your life, because it’s not only yours. It belongs to your entire race.”
Nihal burst again into desperate tears.
Ido put an arm around her shoulders. “Go ahead and cry. Cry it all out. When was the last time you cried?”
Nihal couldn’t stop. “I saw my father die. And then Fen. I loved him, Ido. He was my only tie to this world. He was my reason for living. After that, hate was the only thing left.”
Ido looked at Nihal and felt pity for her.
“You won’t find an answer in hate, Nihal. Only an ideal can give meaning to combat. It’s not easy to find, it’s not easy to let it guide you, but a life and a struggle without ideals are meaningless.”
He patted her head.
Nihal cried all day. The violent sobs subsided, but her tears did not stop.
Ido said nothing more. He was convinced she had to find her own way. He had left her sitting on the floor of the hut, sobbing, her eyes pressed to her knees.
He ate alone. For that whole somber dinner, he remembered many things he thought he’d forgotten but that he’d never actually managed to banish from his mind. His memories came back to haunt him.
When he’d finished eating, he realized there were no longer any sounds coming from Nihal’s room.
He peered through the door.
Nihal was lying fully dressed on her bed, her sword at her side. She was sleeping, and at long last she seemed serene.
The next morning when Nihal woke, it seemed like a day like any other. Then she began to remember with increasing sorrow all that had happened. She buried her head in her pillow.
Ido stuck
his head in the door. “Good morning. You slept a long time. How do you feel?”
“My leg still hurts,” she said, chasing back the tears.
“Come have something to eat. Afterward, I’ll take you to the infirmary,” Ido said as he handed her a mug of warm milk.
Nihal’s stomach protested, but she drank it anyway.
In the infirmary, they did a healing spell. The wound was infected.
Nihal remembered how she had lain for three days on the verge of death; Sennar had cast the strongest spell he knew, contending for her life against death. She wished he were here now to lay his hands on her. If her friend Sennar were with her, things would not seem so hopeless.
Ido came back to the infirmary toward evening.
He found her looking out the window. Everything was so peaceful out there. Nihal found that the sleepy white landscape somehow resembled her soul. She had been emptied out by her crying. Now she was calm.
“Nihal.”
She turned toward her tutor.
“I have to talk to you.” Ido sat beside her on the cot. Nihal waited in silence.
“I think it would be best if you left the camp for a while.”
Nihal smiled bitterly as tears began once again sliding down the oval of her face.
“I’m not sending you away for good, girl. But there’s no sense in your being here now. All I want is for you to go on leave. Of course, if you decide to stay, there’s no way I can force you to go. But I think you have to go away if you really want to find a reason for what you do.”
Nihal looked at him. “I need someone, Ido. I can’t make it on my own.”
“That’s a lie and you know it. You’re strong and you’ll manage. I can’t help you any more than this. You have to choose. Do you want to take this leave?”