The Children of Anthi: Anthi - Book One

by Deborah Chester

  Hihuan slipped, and they broke apart, circling warily, testing both mental and physical guards.

  “Choi’hana!” shouted the Bban warriors suddenly in encouragement. “It is a death-duel of the Tlar leiils. Choi’hana! Death! Death!” And the reek of their musk rose up over the air.

  Asan feinted with a swing of his sword, then sprang in close, seeking to knock Hihuan’s sword from his hand. Their force fields collided with a furious crackling of incompatible energy, and Hihuan wrenched free with an oath, throwing himself forward almost at once in a fierce attack. Bracing his feet, Asan met it, although the shock of their clashing blades vibrated up his arms. He saw an opening and lunged for it, channeling his mental power to the tip of his blade. But just as he pierced Hihuan’s force field, Hihuan dodged by seizerting. Grimly Asan spun about, seeking to be ready for Hihuan’s reappearance from any direction. In that moment he had time to look out and see the Tlar’jen massed and ready, farther away than the Bban’n, the sunlight shining down upon their black, disciplined ranks. He regarded them scornfully. Did they think Anthi would still mute the Bban’n powers to give Tlar an advantage? If so, they had a rude awakening due. Look at them, two thousand against a dozen times that many!

  “Hah!” With a roar Hihuan reappeared, almost within Asan’s own space.

  Alarmed by that recklessness, Asan spun away, stumbling as his boots sank deep into the moist earth, and Hihuan’s sword thrust through his force field, shattering the barrier with a crackle of sparks. He missed Asan’s ribs by a hairbreadth. Grunting, Asan dropped his force field altogether, rather than bother to reform it, and shot pure mental fire at Hihuan with a flash of his eyes. Hihuan reeled back, shaken, and Asan had time to scramble upright.

  The cold air whipped about him, making him shiver without the protection of his force field, but still he did not raise it again. Instead he held himself ready for Hihuan’s next move. When it came, it was an unexpected one. Hihuan snarled something and dropped his force field, startling Asan. Then he drew a fire-rod from his belt and fired it in rapid short blasts at Asan, who threw himself flat, rolling off the knoll in a desperate attempt to dodge the blue bolts. Catching his breath at the bottom, he flung up part of his force field barely in time to deflect another blast and hurled his jen-knife in retaliation. It was an impossible throw at that angle, but grimly he guided its flight with his rings and had the satisfaction of seeing it rip into Hihuan’s side where the heavy battle shielding was weakest. Hihuan staggered and fell to one knee. Asan frowned as he sensed Hihuan close the wound with a mental command. That was a dangerous game.

  Asan seizerted himself back to the crest of the hill, only to gasp as he found Hihuan’s blade waiting wickedly to impale him as he rematerialized. How had Hihuan known? he wondered, twisting desperately to one side. Was Aural watching this with her senses, guiding Hihuan? The very thought of such evil treachery took his breath. Despite his dodge, the knife still found its mark. Blood, warm and vital, spurted down his side, staining his battle mail, taking some of his mental force with it. Only then did he realize how much his triumph over yde had drained him.

  “Choi’heirat! Za! Za!” howled the Bban warriors, rattling their javelins in a deafening din.

  “Finished!” gasped Hihuan in triumph, but Asan was not.

  Not stopping to consider the consequences, he closed his own wound, warding off the pain and shock, and swung his sword at Hihuan’s head with all his strength. The blow came agonizingly near, but somehow Hihuan deflected the blade, grunting at the shock of impact. Both swords went spinning, and Asan leaped at Hihuan, driving him to the sticky earth. Hihuan rolled under him, one hand ripping away Asan’s mask as he grasped Asan’s throat in a throttling grip, the other bringing forth his jen-knife.

  Gasping as his vision spun, Asan seized Hihuan’s wrist, striving to hold the knife as far away as possible while his rings hammered viciously at Hihuan. They strained at each other for a seemingly interminable time. Then Hihuan’s ring of defense gave slightly. With a grunt Asan pressed his mental attack harder. Hihuan writhed, abruptly dropping the knife. Asan tried to seize it, but Hihuan got him by the throat with both hands, swearing hoarsely.

  Asan’s lungs heaved, and the world spun into frightening grayness. He was being shaken like a rag. His control over his wound slipped, and blood gushed forth again. He groaned, bringing up leaden hands to flail vainly at Hihuan’s mask.

  “Merdarai!” swore Hihuan, his voice a hoarse croak of determination. “Why will you not die?”

  His rings were shattering when his desperate fingers suddenly clasped the knife. But he was too weak to lift it, too weak to plunge it through the heavy battle shielding protecting Hihuan’s chest.

  Anthi give me grace, he thought in a blur. But even as he resigned himself to defeat, the other lying deep within him stirred fiercely to urge him on. His air was gone; he thought it impossible to move; any moment would see the exploding of his heaving lungs…yet somehow he must bring up the knife.

  He struggled, his powerful will hurling itself vainly against exhaustion and agony. There was nothing left; all resources of strength had been tapped. And then, suddenly, almost incredibly, he sensed the presence of another, dimmer ring beside him, the ring of a single individual…Fflir. He made no further move, for to enter the challenge of blood unbidden was not permitted. For a moment pride blocked Asan. But he felt his lungs shake, and in desperation flung his rings wide, permitting Fflir to focus through him. Their strength combined. He gripped the knife and plunged it straight through one of the meshed eye guards of Hihuan’s mask.

  Hihuan’s scream rang out as Fflir withdrew. Asan felt the splintered disorder of Tlar death and swayed toward it, then drew back, opening his eyes and dragging in a painful, but delicious lungful of air. Profound silence hung over the plain. After a moment he grew aware of it and grinned feebly. He managed to push Hihuan’s heavy body off and roll onto his stomach, resting there another moment before getting on his hands and knees, then rising to his feet. Hihuan’s blood glistened across the front of his mail, and his side still oozed. Pressing a hand against the wound, he stood erect and wiped his face with a trembling hand.

  The two armies stood on either side of him, silent, waiting. He fought off a wave of dizziness and lifted his head, regaining a bit of strength as he recovered his breath.

  “I am Asan of the Tlar. Hear me!” he shouted, his deep voice ringing out. “Blood challenge has been fought and won. Hihuan is no more.”

  No one spoke or made a sound. With difficulty Asan picked up his sword from the mud and staggered down from the knoll. He held it out. “The blood of a Tlar leiil has been spread upon this ground. No lesser battle can be fought here.”

  Pon Fflir came forward stiffly to take the blade reverently in his gloved hands. “We claim thee as our leiil, Noble Asan,” he said in a clear voice, falling to one knee. “Permit us to carry the battle to another place and fight the Bban horde under thy banner.”

  But for answer Asan turned to the Bban warriors. “Is battle still your desire? It is not my wish to rule over Bban’n or to make quarrel with the tribes,” he said, to the obvious shock of the Tlar’jen.

  “My Leiil!” cried Fflir in protest, anger in his voice, but Asan ignored him.

  “Let us part in peace,” said Asan. He lifted his head with pride as they stirred restlessly. “I have kept my word to you. Anthi is no more. Tlar tyranny is no more. Battle is not required.”

  The Bban’jen growled among themselves. Asan had closed his eyes for a moment, certain they meant to argue the matter until he collapsed. But when he opened them, it was to find that one elder warrior had stepped forward, his scarlet and black cloak whipping in the wind.

  Fierce silver eyes studied Asan’s face, and at last Ggil said, “Thou art not the man I know. What manner of guile hast thou brought unto us now? And why talk of peace today, when last night thine heart swore revenge upon our blood?”

  Asan’s lips drew back in a smi
le that was more a grimace of pain. He pressed his hand to his wound. “As you have said. I am not the one known to you. No man can ever know the Tlar leiil. Let us make an agreement of peace.”

  Ggil’s silver eyes shifted past him to the Tlar’jen massed in tense silence. Reluctantly he raised a fist in salute. “There shall be no battle this day,” he said gruffly. “But we are not settled, and let the Tlar’n not seek to deceive us again.” He drew himself proudly erect. “The Soot’dla we trust to a measure. They shall come to see if there be truth in thy heart.”

  “They shall be received,” said Asan. As he spoke he lifted his eyes to the sky, measuring the endless sweep of it. How good it was to know the scent of the wind in his nostrils once again! He breathed deeply, then glanced down at his side as blood bubbled through his fingers.

  “Come, my Leiil, and let us tend thy hurts,” said Fflir, stepping forward after giving the sword into the keeping of a Tlar subaltern. The Bban’jen, with mutters and much rattling of their javelins, were turning away to go back the way they had come. “Good Leiil, lean upon my support,” said Fflir, putting an arm around Asan.

  “No,” said Asan, listening to his own thoughts. Grief welled up suddenly as he faced the end of the purpose. The Tlar ships would never come, bringing true men to stride the earth of this harsh world. Tlar civilization would never raise Ruantl to the greatness comparable to the rest of the known galaxies. The black star would never be tamed as he had planned it to be. Those who lived here must forget the old ways, must learn to adapt and start again from the very bottom of existence, as the Bban had done. They must eventually become as the Bban were.

  He sighed, aching beneath the bitterness of disappointment from what could have been and was never to be. And yde, although conquered, had robbed him of a measure of strength, never to be replaced. The challenges Ruantl presented no longer stirred him. He knew only a great fatigue. Besides, how could he go on without Aural? She hated him now. Never again would she walk willingly at his side. Never could he ask her to soothe away the homesickness for their old world of lakes and long meadows of sweet cighi flower. No, it was far better to lay the challenge in another’s hand, someone who would never miss the fiery passion of Aural’s rings linked with his own, who would never know the past that was lost or the future that was not to be.

  “My Leiil! Please! Let us tend thee!” urged Fflir’s voice, but Asan scarcely listened, though he knew he owed Fflir much.

  As a father gazes tenderly down upon his young sleeping son, Asan smiled and ordered himself to calmness as he spread his rings one by one, until they could be spread no more. “Blaise…” he called gently within, feeling the other stir as he let himself float beyond the stretched circumference of the rings. For an instant he knew fear. Then he faced the final void and permitted the rings to snap together again behind him. There was a brief agonizing rip of separation, and then all pain and sensation ceased…

  Blaise swam forth from the darkness, frowning at the unwelcome assault of noise, pain, and noxious smells. So the yde had not killed him after all, he thought bleakly as his eyes flickered open. To his bewilderment he realized he was sitting propped up against a stranger’s knees while another figure in mask and cloak smeared a stinking salve on his side before binding a length of cloth far too tightly around him. He winced in protest, unable to understand how he came to be outside in the middle of nowhere, sitting in the mud, surrounded by an army.

  “Careful,” muttered the man supporting him, and the physician paused for a moment before knotting the bandage and standing up.

  “I can do no more here,” he said. “With quiet and rest the wound shall heal cleanly. But he should return to Altian at once for proper care.”

  Wound? Blaise looked down, blinking at the quantity of blood drying to a black stain across his mail. What had happened? How had he got out here? What had the yde done to him?

  He raised his grimy hand to his forehead and rubbed it. “I…do not understand,” he said, and the weakness of his voice puzzled him. Irritated for not snapping back more quickly he glared at the physician. “How do I come to be here?” he asked sharply. “Where is Hihuan?”

  Several of the onlooking men glanced at each other. “Thou spread the blood of Hihuan upon the sands,” said the man supporting Blaise. “Gently…” He helped Blaise get to his feet, keeping a steady hand on his elbow. “My Leiil fought a noble fight.”

  Blaise turned to glance back at the small rise of ground where Hihuan’s body lay, now covered by someone’s cloak, which had been pinned to the earth at all four corners by spears. Striped banners of bronze and black fluttered from the shafts. He drew in a deep breath, wincing at the pull in his side.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  As the officer complied somewhat anxiously, Blaise frowned. An unclear tangle of memory seemed to unravel in his mind as he followed the hesitant words describing his appearance in the camp at dawn, his challenge, and the battle. And the memories unfurled back yet further, into the caverns, toward other deeds. But they had not been his deeds. He had known nothing once the yde smothered him. Determined to reach to the bottom of this, Blaise lifted his hand to silence the officer and looked on himself with truth, tightening his rings into a shaft of concentration. And then, suddenly he knew. The other…the real Asan was gone. It was he who had done those things, and now he was gone.

  A surge of relief swept through Blaise, and he could not hold back a smile. Freedom! At long last…complete freedom!

  “It is time to go to thy tent, my Leiil,” said the officer, tugging gently at him. “Let us place thee upon this litter.”

  Blaise looked at him, blinking, and accepted the mask he proffered. “What is your name?” he asked.

  The officer saluted. “I am the Pon Fflir. Now, please, let us retire to thy tent. We must not meet the Soot’dla unprepared, for they are harsh bargainers.”

  Fitting on the mask, Blaise signaled assent even as the first qualms shook him. Diplomacy on any scale was not in his past list of occupations. Furthermore, while these Tlar were honor-bound to serve him, they were too proud to welcome that service readily. They would have to be won. With that thought he finally realized that this planet was indeed his, to rule and mold as he chose. But it was not as he had envisioned in all his days of cursing authority. He suddenly saw responsibilities looming up, decisions to be made and implemented, hard work. Yet even as he frowned, he knew he would not wish to go back.

  Tlar leiil…First Honored of Ruantl. He stood erect, hiding his wince behind the mask, and lifted his head high as he turned to face the waiting men.

  “We have much to discuss, my Tlar, of the changes that will come,” he said as a hastily fashioned litter was brought forward. He swept out his hand palm down. “Pon Fflir, give me the support of your arm. I shall walk to my tent.”

  More from Deborah Chester

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  Time Trap

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  Medieval Greece is little more than a way-station for European knights headed for the Crusades. All but forgotten, this small pocket of history is awash in treachery as Greek bandits, French knights, and Constantinople's diplomats battle for supremacy. Caught in their clash to rule Greece, Noel fears that any alteration to the course of history could destroy his own time, until he meets a stranger who is his mirror image. This twin, as determined to destroy the future as Noel is to save it, will take both Noel’s fate and history into his own hands.