by Dean Cadman
Cole pushed deeper, following the memory to its source. Then he found it. Her father was all she had left. Her mother had been killed by someone just like him several months earlier, and now in her mind, he had come back to kill her father as well. The images of that day flooded Cole’s mind, and what he saw made him feel ill. The cruelty and depravity of his fellow countrymen sickened him to his core. They hadn’t simply killed these people because they had to, they had taken a perverse pleasure in making them suffer while they did it.
They had forced one man to watch while they violated his wife, then they had viscously killed her in front of him. As if that hadn’t been enough, the same woman had then been reanimated and commanded to kill her own children, all whilst the father watched, and all for the sick amusement of his countrymen. No. They weren’t his countrymen any more. From that day forward, they were his enemy too.
Her overriding memory of that day was of her own mother’s death. She could still hear her mother’s final screams: “Run Mia. Run!” She had been in that very barn when the attack had begun. Almost in the exact spot where Cole had found her only moments before. As Cole forced the painful memory back to the surface of her mind, she renewed her struggle in his arms. Even though he only sought the information to help her, he knew he couldn’t make her relive it all again. It just wasn’t right. So he let the memory recede again, tracing a new path from where that one had ended instead.
Her father had been working in the outer fields when the attack came. Only later did he discover his dead wife, and the devastation wrought on his fellow villagers. It had been the plumes of smoke which had alerted him and the other field workers to the attack. But by the time they had traversed the five miles back to the village, the attackers had already gone. And his entire world with them.
More memories now came flooding to the surface. Images of a broken man. One who had spent a lot of his time indoors after the attack, often heartbroken over what he had lost. There had been a boy too. A brother to Mia. The body never found.
Cole needed to know if her father still lived, but she seemed to sense his intentions, and fought him harder than anyone he had ever known before. Her strength of will and mind were truly incredible. Her desire to protect the only thing she had left in the world, went way beyond anything he had ever felt. He tried to reassure her that he meant her father no harm, but it made no difference at all. He knew that fear was a powerful ally against any mind probe, but this small girl resisted his best efforts for longer than anyone had ever done before.
Finally he found what he was looking for, and had to drag it out into the open of her mind. He felt like he had just abused her worse than the men who’d killed her mother. But if he was to save her, and her father, he needed to know where he was right now. Hopefully it wasn’t already too late to help him—or Mia. But she stubbornly held on to the information that he sought, like a rabid wolf unwilling to relinquish its kill. Eventually he tore it from her mental grasp, and finally he knew where her father was. She visibly slumped in his arms. As if the last of her will to live had just been stolen from her, along with the information she had given everything to protect.
“I won’t hurt him, Mia. I promise,” Cole whispered in her ear. Then he spoke a simple incantation, and she fell unconscious in his arms. Quickly, he moved her unconscious form into one of the empty stalls, and covered her with a layer of fresh straw. Then he raced to the door of the barn. It was getting dark outside now, but he could still see Zedd at the far end of the village working his way from building to building, systematically checking each dwelling or structure for any signs of life, before moving on to the next.
Cole scanned the street for the house which matched the images in Mia’s mind. It wasn’t easy. They all looked very similar to each other. Then he saw it. A single broken pane of glass in an upstairs window that he recognised from her mind. He had seen a fleeting glimpse of a bird striking the window in her buried memories. It was her bedroom, and she had been looking out at the street below when the small bird had flown into the glass. She had been a little younger then, maybe only five-years old, but the memory of the bird’s death had stayed vivid in her memory.
Cole walked briskly across the street in the direction of the house. It didn’t look like Zedd had reached it yet, but that didn’t mean Mia’s father wasn’t already dead. Bodies littered the ground up and down the street. Some were obviously not Mia’s father, but a few had been damaged beyond recognition, so he had no way of telling if his body was amongst those. He hoped not.
He tried the door but it was firmly locked. With a single word the lock clicked open, and door swung inwards on its well oiled hinges. Another blood-curdling scream came from further up the street. They were getting closer, and he was running out of time. Just inside the doorway he found an oil lamp hanging on a hook, and another simple spell soon had it shedding its light inside the darkened house.
The door suddenly slammed shut behind him, and he spun just in time to see a large man wielding an axe towards his head. The axe impacted harmlessly on his shield, but it still sent shock waves through his body, as the extra magic was suddenly consumed to keep the axe at bay. The man repeatedly struck out at him with all of his strength, but his shield held firm.
“Stop. Please. I mean you no harm,” Cole said in his thick Thulian accent. The man paid no heed to his words. If anything, his attacks intensified even further. “You must save Mia,” Cole said, ignoring his weakening attacks. “She will be killed by the man outside unless you save her.”
The man’s attacks ceased abruptly at the mention of his daughter’s name. His eyes were wide with fear, but they also held a deep hatred for Cole.
“What have you done with my daughter? If you’ve harmed her, I’ll kill you,” he snarled at Cole.
“I haven’t. I promise. But unless we get her away from here right now, she will be killed by the man outside. She is unconscious in the large barn across the street…” The man’s eyes went wide at his words, and he struck out once again at Cole’s shield with his axe. “I haven’t harmed her,” Cole said, trying to reassure the man. “I just put her to sleep, so she didn’t run into the man outside, that’s all.” The man’s crazed look softened somewhat, and his axe swings stopped. He seemed to look at Cole differently now. As if trying to judge if his words were true or not, but neither of them had time for that now.
“I know you don’t trust me, and after what my people have done to your village, I don’t blame you for that. But you must know that if I wished to kill you, I could have already done it,” Cole said, but the man didn’t reply. “I’m very sorry, but the man outside is more powerful than I am, so I can’t stop him from killing anyone he sees. But if we act now, I can help you save your daughter. She needs you. You are all she has left,” Cole pleaded. If he couldn’t save the rest of these people, he was determined to at least save Mia and her father. The man seemed to break on Cole’s final words. Of course, he already knew he was all Mia had left in the world, but to hear the words spoken by Cole, was the push he needed.
His nod was almost imperceptible to Cole, but he saw it all the same. Cole knew that it must have been incredibly difficult to accept his help after what his people had already taken from him. But he was glad he did. Cole nodded back, extinguished the lantern in his hand, and rehung it back on the wall where he’d found it.
“Don’t come outside yet. I need to check where he is first. When I signal to you, you must run as fast as you can to the barn. Do you understand?” Cole said quietly. The man nodded. Cole opened the door and peered out into the street. He could still hear the occasional cry coming from Zedd’s general direction, but he had no idea exactly where he was. He stepped out into the street and made it appear like he was checking the house next door for any signs of life. Three or four agonising minutes went by, before Zedd reappeared from inside a house further down the street. He glanced in Cole’s direction with a grin spread across his face, and then he blasted his way into
the next house along.
Cole waited no more than a few heartbeats before signalling to Mia’s father. He instantly bolted from his home, just like a rabbit when threatened by a weasel in its normally safe warren. Only now, it was Cole who felt like the weasel.
Cole watched Mia’s father race towards the safety of the barn, and he had almost made it there, when a huge chunk of the barn exploded by the side of him. It sent him crashing to ground, dazed and disorientated as he tried to pick himself back up. Cole turned in horror to see Zedd preparing to fire again at the defenceless man on the ground.
“No!” Cole shouted at Zedd, then suddenly realised what he’d just said. Thinking quickly, he added, “We won’t be able to reanimate him if you hit him with that. Don’t worry, I’ll get him.” Zedd nodded, and extinguished the large fireball he was holding in his right hand. Cole breathed a sigh of relief. If Zedd had released his fireball, he would not only have killed Mia’s father, but very likely Mia inside the barn too.
Cole watched as Mia’s father staggered to his feet and entered the relative safety of the barn. He too raced across the street towards its sanctuary, knowing that the time they had to escape was fast running out. He almost tripped over a man’s body in the darkness, but just about managed to stay on his feet.
“Are you hurt?” Cole called out quietly into the darkness.
“No. Where is my daughter?” the man said. Cole’s eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness of the barn, and he could just about make out the silhouette of Mia’s father standing next to one of the horse stalls.
“She’s in here,” Cole replied, opening the last stall. He carefully removed the straw and revealed Mia to her father. He gasped and almost knocked Cole sideways as he forced his way past to his daughter’s side.
“She will probably sleep for another hour, but after that she will be perfectly fine,” Cole reassured him. He couldn’t see her father’s face in the darkness, but he could hear the relief in his voice when he finally spoke.
“Thank you,” he whispered in a choked voice, as he picked up his daughter.
“You’re welcome,” Cole replied. “But you shouldn’t come back to your village until the morning. I think my friend out there will want to stay here for the night. We will be gone from here tomorrow, and we won’t be coming back this way later. I doubt that any more of my countrymen will either.”
“We won’t be coming back here. Ever,” the man said, holding his sleeping daughter tight in his arms. Cole nodded. He knew Mia’s father couldn’t see him in the darkness, but he could find no words to answer that. It was no comfort to realise that they now shared something in common: now neither of them had a place they could call home.
Cole watched as the man kicked two loose boards free at the back of the stall, and exited into the night with his daughter safely in his arms.
‘At least I’ve managed to save their lives tonight,’ he thought to himself, as he turned and headed back outside. It was little comfort when he saw the carnage Zedd had wrought on the rest of the defenceless villagers.
Chapter Seventeen
Alexia’s back, leg and thigh muscles ached constantly as her sturdy little horse pushed on through the rough terrain. The road—if you could even call it that—was little more than a rutted mud track, littered with rocks and debris. On more than one occasion they’d had to stop and clear away large branches or fallen trees from the road so their wagons could pass.
Ever since they had left Lamuria more than a fortnight ago, the tough travelling conditions had limited their progress to a mere fifteen or twenty miles a day. It had been Hershel’s idea to take this route, instead of the much faster and easier one to the east of the Kucas Peaks. When Alexia had asked him why, he had assured her that it would help to build a good level of camaraderie between the new recruits, as well as expose any of their potential weaknesses. Right now, she felt like one of those ‘weaknesses’ herself. She had ridden a horse before, but not for so many days straight, and not over such rough terrain. Her body felt like one giant bruise as her horse lurched from side to side, and she tried to stay upright in the saddle.
The person she felt most sorry for, was Morgan, or Beany, as he was better known to his friends. As part of his punishment for spreading the rumours amongst the new recruits back in Lamuria, Hershel had given him one of their pack mules to ride, instead of a proper horse. Not only did he look ridiculous with his long legs almost dragging along the ground under the animal, but he also looked incredibly uncomfortable.
The saddle he was using was little more than a leather pad attached to the back of the mule with a few rudimentary straps. It offered very little protection against the constant chafing associated with travelling on such an uneven surface. And by the end of each day, that was very evident by the way he dismounted and walked around their camp: very carefully indeed.
To add to his woes, Morgan had been given every unsavoury job possible by Hershel during their long trip. Everything from digging the daily latrines, to feeding and watering their horses. Many of the new recruits—and more than one veteran paladin—found it incredibly amusing to watch him struggle with the heavy buckets of water for the horses, whilst having to walk bow-legged due to his severe chaffing. But to his credit, he never complained, and he never seemed to let any of it dull his sense of humour. Something Alexia was very impressed by, given the amount of discomfort he must have been in.
It often didn’t get much better when they stopped for the night either. On one side of the road there was the Kucas Peaks, a steep-sided rocky incline offering no hope of a campsite. And on the other, a thick forest with an over abundance of biting insects, every one of which seemed intent on eating Alexia alive each night while she tried to sleep. It seemed like most of the others were also suffering the effects of the biting insects too. Many of their faces now resembled someone with the pox, and they spent most of their day in the saddle scratching at hard to reach bites.
It was truly miserable for all involved.
That evening they found themselves making camp on a level stretch of road, in a location not too dissimilar to every other campsite during the past two weeks. The road was still rocky and uncomfortable to sleep on, and the annoying insects emerged from the forest as soon as the sun went down to start their feasting. As soon as camp was set, Hershel led the nightly prayers for his own men and the new recruits. Alexia too knelt in prayer by his side, but she also kept a keen eye on her own female recruits.
Not long after they had first left Lamuria, Hershel had advised Alexia to watch her female recruits carefully during the prayer sessions, for any signs of unwillingness to fully partake. If she had any doubts about any of them, she should deal with it swiftly and appropriately.
When she had asked what exactly he meant by that, he’d replied, “We can teach them weapons skills and fighting techniques. We can even teach them the history, and doctrine of our Order. But we cannot teach them faith. That, they must already possess, or find for themselves. You can help to show them the path, Alexia, but each must choose to take that path by themselves.
“All of the recruits, male and female alike, are already highly trained in the art of battle. They have already received that part of their training from the regular army. But none of that will count for anything, if they are unable to wield a blessed weapon due to their lack of faith. You are now their commanding officer. Their Praefectus. It’s your duty to do whatever you can to help them find the faith they will need, or strengthen what they already have. Just as I saw Aysha put her faith in you, so do I. And I have no doubt, that they all shall too.”
Alexia hadn’t known what to say to his words. It was the first time that Hershel had officially called her by her new rank, and it had suddenly brought the immensity of it all crashing down on her. She would now be the one responsible for the lives of her female recruits. If she failed in her duty to them, it could, and most likely would cost them their lives at some point in the future.
Alexia
remembered feeling completely overwhelmed by it all, even becoming breathless at the rising panic she’d felt deep inside her. She had made her excuses, and sought solitude deep in the cover of the forest. There she had knelt in prayer for a long time, pleading with Aysha to give her the wisdom and strength she would need to fulfil her new role as Praefectus.
And her prayers were answered.
The euphoria she had felt when Aysha’s light washed over her was like nothing else she had ever felt before. She knew in that instant, that she could do whatever was asked of her. Aysha had faith in her. And that precious faith, she would now share with her new recruits.
During evening prayers, Alexia had only noticed two of her recruits slightly distracted within the past two weeks. And both of those she had later taken aside and spoken to in length about the importance of their faith as a future paladin. But in general, she was very happy with the commitment her new recruits were showing.
She was very aware that her recruits were different in two ways from any that had come before them. The first was obvious—they were women. But she couldn’t see how that would be a disadvantage over being a male paladin. After all, a woman’s faith could be just as strong as any man’s. The second difference though, might be more of a problem, and not just for the female recruits either.
Although Alexia still had a lot to learn about being a paladin herself, she had learned enough about their recruiting history to give her reasons for concern regarding the new recruits. Throughout their history, the Paladin’s Order had recruited from the regular army, taking only the very best from their ranks to add to their own. Competition had been fierce amongst the hopeful candidates, as it was considered a great honour to be selected to serve as one of Aysha’s soldiers. Only a small number of those who applied ever made it through the selection process. As part of that selection process, they had been vetted regarding their spiritual beliefs, and tested vigorously on their faith in Aysha. Something which had not been possible to do with the new recruits.