The Path of the Fallen

by Dan O'Brien

  Her military air had already returned to her.

  Dean and Leane exchanged looks.

  “What do you need to do?” queried Dean with a raised eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Kyien needs to pay. I plan on carrying through with that.”

  Leane shook her head. “Absolutely out of the question. With everyone gunning for one another as they are…”

  “I don’t care,” she spoke, meeting Leane’s hard gaze. They were two women of equal fortitude, both with much to lose.

  “We need a plan. We need to assemble armies. This revenge does not do any good,” reasoned Leane with a sort of desperation.

  “We need a general. Your death would be disastrous,” interjected Dean, to the dismay of both Leane and T’elen.

  “We need to raise alarms in Illigard. No matter what Kyien wishes to do, the Intelligence must be dealt with in the end.”

  “And so they shall,” snapped T’elen. “Once I have finished off Fe’rein and that snake Kyien. Both must die by my hand for their cowardice.”

  Leane placed a hand on T’elen’s shoulder as the general turned.

  “Don’t do this…”

  T’elen knocked her hand away and turned to face her. The general’s fists clenched. “You may be the mother of a messiah, but you do not lay a hand on me.”

  Dean backed away, the heat of the place rising despite the bitter cold outside. “Hey now, ladies. None of this…”

  “Shut it or lose it, Dean,” snapped Leane. She pulled away her robe, revealing a warrior’s garb. “In order to defeat the enemy before us, we need to give E’Malkai time. He is the key. If you go get yourself killed, then everything is in vain. There will be nothing for him to help save.”

  T’elen smiled. It was a cruel feature really, like the smile of a predator watching its prey. “So sure that they can do it, are you?”

  “Ryan was strong before he became Fe’rein. Kyien commands a legion of Umordoc and men alike. You would be walking to your death, whether you see it or not.”

  T’elen paced now.

  Two jungle cats faced off against one another. Dean backed up, tripping against a chair in the way. “Heal me up, but use me for your own ends?” challenged T’elen.

  “It’s not like that. I thought we were on the same side.”

  “So did I,” she returned, pointing at Leane’s warrior pose. “But, now you present me with what looks very much like a challenge.”

  It was Leane’s turn to smile and she did, joining in on the pacing as well. “I will keep you here if I have to. Certainly, with time you will see that revenge is not the right course.”

  “Perhaps I already have, and now I just want to knock you around a little,” mocked T’elen.

  Leane reeled in surprise.

  “Free country down here,” Leane replied, trying hard to hide her fear. T’elen was a seasoned warrior. Even when Umordoc and All-gods were considered, she ranked among them all.

  “Indeed.” The first strike was like a crack of thunder. It caught Leane completely by surprise and sent her sprawling across the floor. “Still want to play?”

  Leane closed her eyes.

  Pain flooded her vision, and she pushed herself to her feet, slowly. A grunt emanated from her lips. Dean reached in to help, and she brushed him away with a scowl. She opened her eyes once upon her feet and regarded T’elen with as fearless a gaze as she could muster.

  “No turning back now.”

  T’elen hit Leane with a roundhouse, her boot catching Leane along the side of the face. Leane rebounded quickly. Dancing around her, Leane saw death in the other woman’s eyes.

  Leane struck out with her fists as best as she could. The strikes connected with air mostly, but the last rung true and struck the general across the face. Laughter ripped through the room as T’elen cackled at the punch.

  “You get one.”

  T’elen and Leane were about the same size in most respects. However, agility and speed were heavily in T’elen’s favor, which became painfully apparent as each blow knocked Leane around the room.

  T’elen lifted her off the ground for a moment before throwing her to the ground with a pained, strangled sound. She was on her knees, hands planted on the floor. Her face had already reddened from where T’elen had struck her. Blood dribbled from her lips as she meet T’elen’s gaze.

  “Enough of this.”

  T’elen turned and marched toward the door.

  Leane stood.

  The muscles of her body screamed in agony and defeat.

  “Not yet, we aren’t finished.”

  T’elen had lost her patience. Throwing aside her coat, she drew the blade at her back––the echo rung defiantly. Dean stared wide-eyed, moving in her path despite the convictions of either woman.

  “This is madness…”

  T’elen stepped forward and back-fisted the doctor across the face. Lifting him off the ground, she sent him flying into the side wall. His eyes rolled as he slumped against it.

  “I believe she said shut it or lose it, old man.”

  Leane tried to laugh, but she grabbed her stomach in pain.

  “I have lived through two and a half generations. I have seen dictators rise and fall, seen the many faces of the Intelligence. Kyien and Fe’rein have offended me in such a way that my honor must be avenged. I must have their heads for their trespasses. Yet, you stand in my path. Your honor redoubled with each blow I land, for you are noble.”

  “Tried to ask––you nicely,” sputtered Leane, standing now at her full height.

  T’elen studied the woman. Sighing, she replaced her blade in a smooth movement and regarded Dean’s unconscious body. “He should have stood aside.”

  “Men rarely listen. Haven’t you learned anything?”

  T’elen scoffed.

  Then laughing outright, she sat in the chair that she had taken the coat from a moment before. “Even between the army at Illigard and the Resistance, we will be vastly outnumbered. The army Kyien commands is almost a million, even more so at the behest of the Intelligence. Illigard is a hundred thousand strong. The Resistance could lend perhaps ten thousand more men and women. This is a war that we cannot win without your son. Not to mention, that in the north your tribes of old will face the wrath of the Umordoc. I do not have a doubt in my mind that Fe’rein, inspired by others or not, will see to it that they begin to run down the Fallen and the other tribes, placing your son in a rather precarious position,” continued T’elen.

  Leane sighed and sat next to T’elen, wiping the blood from her mouth before she spoke. “I would not count the tribes out so easily. The Fallen may not practice rites of violence, but the Utiakth do and will see the Umordoc as fair game,” replied Leane, wincing as she straightened herself against the chair.

  “Hurt pretty bad?” queried T’elen with a lopsided grin.

  Leane smiled through the pain.

  “Not as bad as you would have, had I got going.”

  They both laughed.

  That laughter continued long into the night and did not end until Dean had awoken. He was confused more than when he had been knocked unconscious, for now they talked and laughed with each other like sisters.

  ⱷ

  Kyien

  The glass walls of Kyien’s office had seen better days. Between the temper of Fe’rein and the failed assassination attempt of T’elen, they had gone from bad to worse. Gigantic cracks lined the walls and spread like cobwebs in every direction. Kyien watched them glumly as Jilen approached.

  He, as usual, shuffled instead of walked. “High Marshal Kyien, you have a visitor,” he called in his squeaky voice.

  Kyien could truly care less, but he waved his hand all the same.

  “Send them in,” he replied without real interest.

  The dead eyes of the Umordoc stared at him from the walls. Their numbers lined up shoulder to shoulder along every inch of the room that was not covered in glass. The spaces left by those that th
e general had dispatched were already filled. Jilen returned, but someone walked in front of him. The cloaked figure of Fe’rein wore a strange garb for a man who so seldom took the time for such things.

  “I present…”

  “Dispense with the pleasantries, worm. Disperse,” growled Fe’rein, his mood even darker than that of the High Marshal. Jilen disappeared without as much as another word.

  “What brings you here?” queried Kyien, not bothering to look at Fe’rein.

  “The Intelligence spoke to me. It seems we have bigger fish to fry than T’elen.”

  “How did you know?” he spoke with a startled jerk of his head

  Fe’rein pulled back his hood. His energy already surrounded him, only the reds of his eyes shone through. “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not.” There was defeat in his voice even then.

  “They say that E’Malkai is our concern now,” called Fe’rein as he paced away from the desk and into the surrounding darkness that complemented him so well.

  “Leane’s child? I thought he was going to be your golden boy. The next messiah, like you,” chided Kyien.

  Fe’rein emerged from the darkness, his voice like a howl. “This is no game, fool. The boy is playing for the endgame. He travels north as we speak.”

  “Who cares? Nothing north except ice.”

  “How can you wield so much power, but retain such stupidity? The Fallen are in the north. That is where I came from. That is where the texts of the Believer reside. He can find his way to the desert where I found the Shaman and claim its power.”

  To say the least, the High Marshal’s smile dissipated.

  “How can you both wield the power?”

  “Do you not read history, High Marshal? Do you not know of the legends?” Kyien started to speak, but Fe’rein continued all the same. “The power of Terra is eternal. The essence is from the original Creator and is guarded by the Ti’ere’yuernen, the Shaman. It can only be wielded by those who will use it for the preservation of this planet and its true inhabitants. As you can tell, I am doing no such thing. Therefore, the original power is still transient upon this planet. As he seeks the power, and if he can access it, my power will wane. It would be nothing more than a glimmer of what it once was. If he uses it against the Intelligence, all of this is over.”

  The businessman had returned. The abrasive, cold High Marshal was no longer the fool he was moments ago. “What can we do? Can’t you track him in the tundra?”

  “You must think that the Fallen were complete imbeciles.”

  “Well?”

  Kyien was unfettered.

  Focus gripped him once again.

  “I can to a point. But if he goes underground, then we’ve lost him,” replied Fe’rein in complete frustration.

  Kyien came from behind his desk and pounded his fist with an authority that he did not have. “What about the Umordoc in the north?”

  “They pay no allegiance to Culouth. They are roving bands, nothing more.”

  “They hate the humans of the tundra as much as we do.”

  Fe’rein smiled like a jackal. “Not a bad idea. Maybe you are worth something after all. The Umordoc will run them down; every patrol and every scout will hunt them until they’ve eliminated every human they can find on the tundra. The only reason they haven’t until this point is because they can’t find the villages. But, if we give them someone to follow.”

  “Such as E’Malkai,” interjected Kyien.

  “Then they could kill them by the thousands. Perhaps even the whelp if they catch it right, before he tries to find that fool Shaman.” Fe’rein scoffed and flicked at the tail ends of his cloak.

  “You would see the death of one of your own for the preservation of the Intelligence?”

  “I would see it for my own life. You should do the same.”

  Kyien looked at the mion, the messiah of the people of Culouth, and a dark flash of insight crossed his mind. The myth was not as powerful as he claimed. The possibility of the boy coming to power was enough to have him asking for help among enemies. The darkness around them was vast. The night was a protective envelope to their kind, but there was nothing darker than the heart that beat in Fe’rein’s chest.

  ⱷ

  E’Malkai

  E’Malkai stumbled into the Hall of Spines on accident; thanks in part to lack of sleep and hunger. He had moved in the direction that Elcites had set him on for more than three days without finding so much as a large rock for shelter.

  He surveyed the sharpened pikes of the canyon with indifference and even missed the Utiakth patrols as they darted both behind and in front of him. Their shadows were no different than the hallucinations that the youth had begun to succumb to in the cold.

  The white hunter Arile was the first to approach E’Malkai. He did so in a straightforward manner, leaping from the wall of sharpened spines and landing in front of him.

  E’Malkai stopped. The weight of the pack on his back caused him to hunch over. He looked at the almost pale features of the hunter. “Am I dead?” croaked E’Malkai.

  He wavered in the stillness of the windless canyon. The hunter cocked his head and approached E’Malkai slowly, spinning his spear forward with a simple twist of his wrist.

  His cold eyes stalked E’Malkai as he came near. “This is the Hall of Spines,” returned Arile gutturally, recognizing the speech of the south.

  E’Malkai surveyed the walls again.

  Behind the blue eyes and his wraps, there was a sort of relief at having made it to where Elcites had sent him. “Didn’t think it was going to take this long to get here,” he replied. The world began to spin in the youth’s eyes, and the fogginess of his breath became funny to him for no discernible reason.

  The world swam out of focus and Arile was at E’Malkai’s side before he fell. The height of the man nearly matched E’Malkai’s. And what strength he possessed, for he held the youth and the pack in one arm as he signaled for more help. As unconsciousness gripped E’Malkai, figures moved out from the seemingly empty spines of the canyon and into focus as if they were ghosts of the icy prison.

  *

  S’rean stood over E’Malkai. The wraps of his head were pulled away enough to reveal his long hair and unkempt features. Arile stood beside the village chief. His cold eyes regarded the youth with a simplicity that betrayed the intelligence of the hunter.

  “He is very weak,” spoke S’rean, as he touched E’Malkai’s face. “But so tan….”

  “He is from the south.”

  It was a simple reply from a simple man.

  E’Malkai’s eyes fluttered open, and a strange sight befell him as he regarded the dark features of S’rean. He craned his neck and saw Arile. “Where am I?”

  “What did he say?” queried S’rean, turning to Arile.

  “He asked where he is,” returned Arile in a tongue that E’Malkai could not understand.

  “Tell him little. We do not know who he is yet,” spoke S’rean.

  Distrust of outsiders was common among the northern tribes.

  Arile bowed and then turned back to E’Malkai, speaking in the southern tongue that they both understood. “We are Utiakth, a tribe of the north. Where are you from?”

  “I was born in Duirin,” he replied. E’Malkai hesitated as well, unsure of how open he needed to be. Deciding to add his Fallen lineage, he continued. “Though my father was born of the Fallen.”

  S’rean had grown impatient at Arile’s side, the conversation moving too quickly for him. “What has he said?”

  Arile tried to calm S’rean with his hands, waving him back as he would a fire. “He said he has come from the south. From a place I have heard of called Duirin, though they do not come this far north.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He has said that his father was born of the Fallen.”

  A stunned silence passed over them.

  “Is he who the winds spoke of?” asked S’rean, visibly worried about the respon
se.

  “They only pave the path, Reverent S’rean. I can only discern that a man was going to walk the tundra and return to the Fallen. I cannot be sure based on the winds alone.”

  “Where is this place?” E’Malkai’s words drew the attention of both of the men. S’rean looked at him darkly and nodded as if he were able to discern where the youth was going with his words.

  “You are far from the Fallen; a week’s travel, maybe more. It has been some time since anyone has dared the plains west of here. The Barren Maiden has ended many lives,” spoke the white hunter.

  “The Barren Maiden, I have heard that before,” replied E’Malkai dreamily.

  “He says that he has heard of the frozen death west of here,” relayed Arile.

  The youth’s knowledge of the place was an ill omen; that much he could be sure of. “Could he be a demi?” queried S’rean, making sure not to meet E’Malkai’s gaze.

  That word sparked E’Malkai’s attention.

  He had heard his mother use it, and now this strange man was using it as well. Then he remembered what Elcites had told him to do: to show them his father’s blade. He struggled, his muscles still weak from the cold, and reached beneath his coat for his father’s weapon.

  He thanked the Believer that they had not yet thought to disarm an unconscious man. Pulling it free, the welcome gaze of the white hunter changed, and he brought his weapon around with a quickness that drew fear from E’Malkai.

  “I mean no harm,” he stammered as he tried to show them the blade, sliding it around in his palm to show them the craftsmanship. “This was my father’s. I am not a demi.”

  Arile watched the weapon for a moment. E’Malkai offered it to him for closer inspection, but he shook his hands in refusal. “That is your weapon, a fine one. You have heard that term before: demi. Where?”

  “My mother spoke of it. There was one in the Fallen once, a long time ago.” He left out the details of their escape from the Fallen and the journey south. He was still uncertain how much he should explain.