Beyond Ragnarok

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  At first, the horses tripped over the uneven ground and stumbled on loose hunks of shale, except Frost Reaver who seemed as surefooted here as on the roadways. Over time, the animals adjusted to the change, and their shoes rang against stone in even rhythms. Pathways so wide the enclosing walls disappeared into fog narrowed abruptly to chasms that admitted only one horse at a time. As they rose higher, ledges jutted over dizzying heights, a fall to the crags below meaning certain death. The horses huddled against the solid side of the mountain at these times, sometimes so closely their riders had to hover sideways in the saddle to protect their ankles from banging against the crags.

  Concentrating on the terrain, the party spoke little. Darris and Matrinka seemed content to ride side by side in silence when the pathways allowed it. Darris’ bard curse had accustomed them to a quiet that would have seemed awkward to other couples. Tae and Kevral occasionally made gestures that indicated they chatted, but Tae clearly held up more than his share of the conversation. Trusting his mount, Ra-khir did not require the intensity of attention to each step that the others did. He kept his ears tuned to sounds around and behind them, listening to the trickle and soft patter of water running along the rocks in rivulets. Rare bird calls cut through the mountain stillness, in songs Ra-khir did not recognize from home or their months of travel through wilderness. Tiny brown lizards skittered from patches of sunlight, and insects chittered deep inside crevices so that the mountains seemed to vibrate with the sound.

  The party did not stop for the midday meal, and each ate and drank in his own time, without fanfare. Kevral did not eat. Once, she pulled her waterskin from her pack, the gesture thoughtless habit. A moment later, she returned it without drinking.

  They approached the highest point of the pass in mid-afternoon, still leagues from the mountain’s summit. Its peak disappeared among the clouds, a distant blur that seemed endlessly high. The path ascended in a long, zigzagging switchback that kept Ra-khir always one level below Kevral. Tae dropped back on the narrower parts of the passes. Sunlight sheened from the granite, reflecting glimmers from the shoes of Kevral’s and Tae’s horses with every step.

  Suddenly, Frost Reaver tensed, shying several steps forward. A moment later, a rumble ground through Ra-khir’s hearing, seeming to come from all directions. The charger surged forward, crashing into the rump of Darris’ horse and sending it dancing ahead in a wild scramble. Rubble bounced from the ledge above Kevral, ricocheted over her head, and crashed down the mountainside with a deafening roar. The ground shook, jerking Ra-khir into helpless tremors and threatening to tear him from the road like so much flotsam. Matrinka’s mount stumbled. Darris fought his horse as it reared wildly and tried to run. Frost Reaver braced his feet and held steady, even as tons of rock slammed the path at his heels. A stone hammered Ra-khir’s shoulder, and agony shot through his arm. The impact sent him spinning from Frost Reaver’s back. He tumbled wildly, stabbed abruptly with a certainty of doom. He crashed to the path and rolled beneath Frost Reaver’s sheltering form. His arm ached, and he gasped for air. Suddenly, the quaking stopped. A few small rocks trickled down the cliff face in the wake of the avalanche, then all went still. The silence seemed as deafening as the quake.

  Ra-khir scrambled to his feet to assess the damage. Rubble blocked the path behind him, preventing retreat. All of the horses remained standing, and only he had fallen from his mount. The other mounts pranced directionlessly. Their eyes rolled white, and their ears twitched frantically. Kevral’s horse jerked forward and back, alternately attempting to bolt and being jerked under control.

  Relieved to find his friends well, Ra-khir scrambled into Frost Reaver’s saddle, nursing his injured arm. His mail had broken much of the impact. The shoulder would bruise, but nothing felt broken or dislocated. He drew breath to inform anyone who had seen him fall that he was well. Only then, he realized his friends had naturally turned their attention in the direction from which the rock slide had come. He glanced up, spying half a dozen figures poised on a higher ledge. Another seven raced down the roadway to finish the task their avalanche had begun.

  Kevral’s war cry echoed hauntingly between the mountains. She vaulted over her horse’s flailing head, even as it spun into a panicked run. It crashed into Tae’s mount, sending the dark brown into a rear that foiled any plans the Easterner might have had to assist. Darris threaded between oblivion and Matrinka, planting his mount directly in front of hers to shield her from Tae’s horse as well as enemies. Trapped behind them, Ra-khir watched with frustrated need as Kevral’s swords flew from their sheaths and cut separate arcs so different in direction and timing it seemed impossible for one person to control them both.

  Kevral waded into battle like a rabid creature, slashing and jabbing without attention to defense. The first two Easterners fell dead before they could return a strike, and the others pressed forward in a mass even Kevral could not hope to defeat.

  The arrangement of ledges placed the battle beside Ra-khir, and his inability to reach enemies with his sword became a boiling frustration. Unable to control his horse, Tae also dismounted, charging toward the fray to assist Kevral; but the Renshai swung with broad, frenzied sweeps, keeping Tae as much at bay as the other Easterners. He retreated, swearing, violently jamming his useless sword back into its sheath. He scrambled for something in his pocket.

  Three swords sped for Kevral at once, and Ra-khir knew she could block only two. Snatching up his makeshift spear, he jabbed wildly at the battle above and beside him, vision hampered and aim all but impossible. Kevral parried and returned two attacks. “MO—” she started, biting off her triumphant death cry as Ra-khir’s spear pierced the third man’s thigh. Tae’s thrown dagger sped between the savage blur of swordplay and sent another staggering backward.

  Kevral plunged ahead, howling wordlessly. Ra-khir withdrew his spear, then lunged in for a second attack. One of Kevral’s swords hacked an Easterner’s neck, and blood fountained from the wound. Warm droplets pattered over Ra-khir as his spear grazed an Easterner’s head. A looping cut of Kevral’s other sword severed the shaft of Ra-khir’s spear, dangerously near his fingers.

  Ra-khir jerked back, disbelief displacing thought. No doubt, she had removed him from the combat on purpose, wasting a stroke better used to dispatch enemies. Effectively cut off from the battle, he watched as another Tae-thrown dagger whizzed over Kevral’s head and buried itself in an Easterner’s face. The man staggered backward, screaming and clawing mindlessly at his mangled nose. Only two enemies remained alive, one down and bleeding from Ra-khir’s spear. Kevral skewered the one left up with an animal sound more tortured than victorious. Then, she whirled, lunging for Tae with a bloodcurdling shout of rage.

  Tae skittered into desperate retreat, tripping over a loose boulder. He fell, twisting, shielding his face. Kevral surged over him before he could move, sword raised for a killing blow.

  Horror stole over Ra-khir. Even if he could fight his way past the others, he could not rescue Tae in time. The bravado that had seemed so steadfastly Tae shattered in an instant, revealing terror. Closest, Darris sprang from his horse, leaping between their grounded colleague and the sword that could have descended but had not yet done so.

  Kevral’s arm jerked backward. For a terrible moment, Ra-khir felt certain the crazed Renshai would kill them both. Then, her focus shifted. She pivoted, slaughtering the last of the Easterners instead. Tae scrambled to safety.

  Only then, Ra-khir turned his attention to the enemies who had caused the avalanche, expecting them to charge down upon them in a second wave. But the Easterners had gone, apparently frightened by the speed and ease with which the party had dispatched their companions. He dismounted, threading through the horses to assist.

  “Come back, you cowards!” Kevral hollered at the cliffs. A last shadowy figure disappeared into the fog. Her challenge reverberated, unanswered.

  Darris seized Kevral’s forearms before she could clean or sheathe her swords. Blood dripped
down the tip of one blade, pooling on the rocks. “What in Hel is wrong with you?” he demanded, the curse and tone so unlike Darris, Ra-khir had to look twice to make certain he was the one who spoke.

  Tae held Matrinka’s reins, peeking around Darris’ horse. His unflappable expression had returned, but Ra-khir would never forget the set of his features in that one moment of weakness. “She wanted to die, and we wouldn’t let her.”

  Ra-khir looked at his hand where he still clutched the remains of his broken spear. He knew Tae spoke the truth. Their interference had bothered Kevral not because she refused to share the fight but because she had hoped to die in it. His spear thrust had simultaneously saved her life and betrayed her. Her last chance to die in battle had come and gone, and now she could never find Valhalla. He dropped the shattered pole, the hollow thunk of wood against stone amplified by the enclosing mountains.

  The words released the torrent Kevral had held inside for too long. She collapsed to the ground, sobbing, but too dry to form tears.

  Ra-khir held himself back and let Tae comfort her. After what he had just suffered, he deserved that minor solace. Returning to Frost Reaver, Ra-khir watched the path ahead to ascertain that their enemies did not return. He did not fear another rock slide; it would take too long for them to gather that much loose stone again. Boulders rolled down the mountainside, however, might prove dangerous if the party did not reach the high point soon. Once there, they need battle only those lower on the cliff face.

  The dilemma seemed both unsolvable and unbearable. Torn in two directions, Ra-khir found himself glad he had acted and simultaneously wishing he had not. Love had driven him to protect Kevral at all costs, the same love that told him it was time to let her go. Forcing her to die from poison when she had dedicated her entire life to a glorious death in battle was a torment she did not deserve. What good had it done him to learn to respect her honor when he did not allow her to follow it in the most crucial situation of all? The pain of Ra-khir’s shoulder disappeared beneath an anguish that racked mind and body together. “We have to keep going,” he finally whispered.

  Matrinka nodded, her expression pained and her movements restless. Even after many months with Kevral and himself, warrior honor made little sense to her. Ra-khir hoped Darris would have a soft song about Renshai that could bring the message home without inflicting the same distress the knight-in-training suffered now. He watched Darris climb reluctantly back into his saddle. Then his eyes tracked Kevral as she accepted Tae’s assistance for the first time, wriggling into place on her gelding with an awkwardness that pained Ra-khir. The battle had taken far more from her than it should have.

  They rode on, Ra-khir tensed for more interference from the Easterners who had triggered the avalanche. Though no one voiced it aloud, he knew they all longed for the safety of the open plains. If the gem continued to draw them straight south, they would soon veer from the route of Easterners jamming into the Westlands to damage travel. No one should bother them on empty plains, no one except for he or she whom the strange green jewel tracked. Aloud, they had speculated little about the gem’s owner, and concerns about Kevral had exclusively held Ra-khir’s attention for the past several days. Now, as they approached the Western wasteland, new wonder crept into the knight-in-training’s mind.

  The party pushed on into the night, despite the danger of navigating mountain terrain in darkness and the need for torches that might draw undesirable notice. They did not stop until their descent became level movement and granite turned to shattered flagstone and sand beneath their feet. Only then, they swerved westward, beneath a sheltering overhang and beyond sight of anyone headed toward the pass from the East. Here, they should find safety from all but the most persistent enemies.

  Clouds bunched, gathering into dense clusters as the night wore onward. Moonlight spilled through a gap in the clouds, sparkling from chips of quartz in the sand. Accustomed to their nightly camps, Ra-khir had no difficulty performing his part of the routine in the dark. He groomed horses with brisk, efficient strokes and released them to graze on the scrubby mountain grasses and the rare weed patch poking through flagstone.

  Tae talked more than usual as he cleaned and arranged the sweat-soaked tack. He told stories of a flagstone quarry, not far from their camp. There, the finest general in Eastern history had made his only mistake, one so heinous it had turned the tide of the Great War against the best-trained and biggest army ever assembled. Ra-khir had heard the centuries-old story from the opposite perspective: how the East’s forces had massed to slaughter all the peoples of the West but were thwarted, about the many heroes still glorified in song and story. No Western child’s upbringing was complete without tales of King Sterrane and Arduwyn the archer. The former was the only Béarnian and the latter the only Erythanian to fight in the war, and both had proven their mettle repeatedly on the battlefield. So many others had won permanent fame in that war, including Colbey Calistinsson the Deathseeker, the charismatic yet rabid general of the Pudarian army.

  For the first time, Ra-khir listened to the other side of the story, hearing about Eastern heroes with names omitted from his West-skewed books. The Eastern general had hidden his army with the expectation of catching the Westerners by surprise. Yet, the tide turned when enemy scouts discovered them, and the flagstone quarry turned into a flagstone tomb.

  Darris waited only until the story concluded. Brushing the ever-present curl from his forehead, he announced softly, “I have to see it, you know.”

  Ra-khir smiled. The bardic curiosity never died, and Darris was informing, not asking. “If we survive the quest, we’ll stop on the way back.” Rescuing Béarn’s only heir, the man Darris would eventually dedicate his life to guarding, had to take precedence over side trips. Yet he also knew that learning, for Darris, was a god-inspired compulsion.

  Kevral remained quiet. Forgoing her practice for the first time ever, she dropped into sleep before the others had finished eating. No one mentioned the oddity, though they did exchange worried glances as they stretched out on their own blankets.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Ra-khir volunteered, knowing even exhaustion could not lull him to sleep now. Kevral seemed unlikely to make it through the night. He would spend her last moments at her side.

  No one argued, though Matrinka did tousle his hair with a sympathy beyond any he could have conveyed with a gesture. After keeping a weeks-long vigil at Darris’ side, she understood. Ra-khir sat with his legs in front of him, staring out over the vast wasteland. Even at night, his vision seemed to extend forever. Faraway sand dunes broke the contour; and, from his reading, he knew they would have to slog through a narrow salt marsh to reach the ocean. The final battles of the Great War had taken place in the shallows that lapped the beach.

  Ra-khir continued to study the view in front of him long after his companions had drifted into their own quiet worlds. He listened to the cacophony of deep regular breathing, punctuated by snores whose source he did not isolate, feeling it rude. He did sort Kevral’s breathing from the others, regulating his own to its pattern, as if he could continue for her should her life slip away in the night. He watched the horses, some lying down, some standing with lowered heads, and one still seeking scant mouthfuls of vegetation. Near Frost Reaver, something moved.

  Ra-khir stiffened, preparing to awaken the others. As recognition dawned, he froze in place. Colbey had come, stroking the nose of his stallion in a silent greeting. Less careful, the horse whickered a soft welcome that sent Tae rolling into a wary crouch. Ra-khir scurried to his light-sleeping companion’s side and gripped an arm in a plea for silence. Together, they watched the immortal Renshai reunite with his horse, moonlight flinging gold and silver highlights with the slightest of their movements.

  “Colbey?” Tae whispered.

  Ra-khir tightened his hold and nodded, hoping Tae could read his meaning in the darkness.

  “Impressive, isn’t he?” the Easterner hissed.

  Colbey turn
ed toward them, answering the question for Ra-khir. “You should see me fight.”

  It was the most insolent answer Ra-khir had ever heard, yet Colbey’s attitude and tone made it seem proper. He marveled at how Colbey could speak such a line without raising an iota of irritation or malice. Now, Ra-khir believed he understood Kevral’s arrogance and the verbal delivery to which she aspired.

  “I think,” Tae said carefully, “I would be happier and healthier if I didn’t.”

  Colbey laughed. “Good answer. And don’t worry. You won’t see me fight. But you will see me ride. I’m going with you to the shore.”

  “Really?” Ra-khir’s hopes soared, then plummeted an instant later. “My lord, is that because . . .” he sought a euphemism that would not immediately drive him to tears. “. . . because we need a Renshai with us?” He left the implication obvious, that Kevral would not survive the night.

  “No.” Colbey patted Frost Reaver’s neck. “You don’t need a Renshai with you, and if you did, you already have one.”

  Ra-khir kept his emotions in check, though he felt as if poison gnawed through his own belly. “So Kevral isn’t going to die?”

  “Of course, Kevral’s going to die.” Colbey’s matter-of-fact delivery seemed cruel until he added, “Like every mortal. But whether she dies tonight depends on her.”

  “Forgive my ignorance,” Tae said, voice revealing all the negativism Colbey had managed to avoid. “But doesn’t it depend on the poison?”

  “The poison has already done its damage. The healing has to come from Kevral.”

  Ra-khir knew it was wrong to expect assistance from gods, though he had prayed for it. Nevertheless, he had to ask. “Lord Colbey, can you help her?”