by A. Evermore
‘Thank the goddess,’ she said, a little sarcastically. ‘It got what it deserved.’ She shut her eyes readying herself for the pain as he laid a warm hand gently on her side, touching only lightly. He closed his eyes and frowned in concentration.
‘Not broken. One rib, a small fracture, the others are badly bruised. Still intact,’ he sounded pleased. ‘Not as bad as I feared.’
‘It still hurts like hell!’ she replied.
He moved his large hands slowly over her side. She felt no pain only warmth verging on hot. The Flow moved a little, barely detectable, and it carried the feel of the forest. An earthy magic, a little like Edarna’s witching magic but more natural and purer. The gentle flow of magic surrounded her and then there came a strange intense unscratchable itch within her side. The air became warm and heady. Her head swam for a moment and then all was still and a fresh breeze blew once more. He took his hands away and she opened one eye.
‘Is it done?’ she asked, unsure what “done” actually meant. He laughed at her fearful expression.
‘Aye it is done. The fracture is sealed but you will have to be very careful for a few days whilst the bone knits together. Then they will be as they were before. As for the bruising I can only assist the body with that and help reduce swelling. Bruising is the body’s own healing process and we will never interfere with the natural more powerful healing force of nature,’ Palu’anth said helping her carefully to her feet. ‘The pain will lessen with time.’ He looked paler than before as if the healing had taken something from him. Using the Flow always carried a cost.
‘My thanks. Maybe you can tell me how you did it later. There is much I need to learn,’ she said and touched her side gingerly; it was tender and hot. ‘Right, where to next?’ she asked breezily stiffly picking up her discarded bow. They laughed.
‘I think three foltoy in one day is more than enough. Killing one of those beasts is taxing but three at once?’ Rhul’ynth chuckled, ‘It took four of us to bring two down but you took one on your own,’ her face was incredulous.
‘I had help, the leopard,’ she reminded her but Rhul’ynth shook her head.
‘You still had the courage of ten warriors to face it and I think you would have won without the leopard. All that and you have only had one or two days training with a weapon. It comes naturally to you. I think with time and training you might become a great warrior,’ she said and her face was serious.
Issa smiled but was silent, even she wasn’t sure what had happened. She looked back at the black and bloodied bodies of the foltoy. I had been so furious and vengeful. I wanted to kill them all. I will never forgive them for Little Kammy. But she worried about the murderous fury she had felt. Something she would think about later when she was alone.
‘Should we leave them there?’ Issa nodded to the three bodies.
‘Yes, those things stink of corruption like all Maphraxies stink,’ Fris’anth said, ‘we will not touch them and neither will the forest, not even the flies. Nothing that lives can abide the immortals; their bodies will soon shrivel into dust and blow away. Look, you can even see them crumpling now. Hideous things.’
Fris’anth was right, the dead foltoy seemed to be sinking slowly in on themselves.
‘Ugh,’ Issa scowled and looked away, ‘let’s get away from them, they stink worse now.’
The others nodded and sheathed their knives.
‘We must tell everyone as soon as we get back. The foltoy are bigger, cleverer, and attack in numbers now,’ Rhul’ynth said with a worried frown.
They walked back the way they had come, this time bunched closely together. It would take a while to get back at this pace but Palu’anth said riding fast would undo the healing he had done on her ribs. No one agreed to go on ahead, they felt safer travelling together.
Issa reflected on the battle as they walked. She realised what frightened her now was not the foltoy but the ferocity with which she had fought. It was like a cold rage that descended on her and she forgot all fear for her own life, whether or not it was in proportion to her ability. How many would I have taken on before realising I’m outnumbered? Five? Ten? An army?
When she fought she lost all sense of reason, all sense of fear, the fear had come later. She would have fought them all to the death, even her own, and done so willingly. Could she have killed one alone? Possibly, she couldn’t be sure, but possibly. She certainly felt like she could, misguided or not. She had wanted to draw blood, had wanted to maim and kill the hated immortals, and that realisation made her afraid.
“Embrace your fear, it teaches courage…” the leopard had said. Was ferocity the same as courage? Maybe. Was this what blood-lust was? Perhaps it is revenge I lust after, revenge for all those taken from me and from everyone by the Maphraxies.
‘Come, hunters!’ Palu’anth broke their subdued silence. ‘Today we have won a great victory. Not only have we slain the hated foltoy but three of them at that! We should celebrate and honour our new warrior, Issa, Queen of Ravens!’
Everyone cheered and she stood there blushing awkwardly.
Chapter 40
The Final Price
MARAKON awoke and stood up abruptly, a terrible fear knotted his stomach as he swayed between remembering his previous life as King Marakazian and his current one as Marakon.
‘Who am I?’ My name is... he shook his head.
‘Marakazian,’ he gasped and sank to his knees, the name echoing tauntingly around him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand. He looked down at his other hand, he held his sword but all he saw were the faces of those slain by their king’s hand. His hand. Madness crept at the edges of his mind.
‘Follower of the dark moon,’ the voice was nothing more than a mocking whisper that caressed his ear.
‘Who said that?’ He whirled around and shouted, his sword high and ready to strike. ‘Who’s there? Coward! Show your face to me! What is this madness? What games are these? Tell me why I am here, damn you!’ he screamed until his voice was hoarse.
A voice chuckled and then became the wind.
‘You still deny who you are? Murderer.’ The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once but the valley was empty, nothing but dust and bones.
‘Wait,’ Marakon breathed to himself, blinking against the sand he had kicked up. ‘Wait,’ he tried to be calm and rational. He stood still and spoke loudly to the voice, to himself, to the wind and the dust and the bones at his feet.
‘I am Marakon Si Hara the half-elven, Commander of the Second Fleet in the war against the Maphraxies. And I know who I am!’
The same voice chuckled; its echo resounded around him. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his shirt. Without his armour he felt very vulnerable.
‘You are who you’ve always been, King Marakazian, slaughterer of innocents! Leader of the Banished Legion cursed to live a life of suffering forever!’
The voice raked through his head and memories of that terrible day flooded through his mind until he thought it would burst. The sweat, the screams, the endless pools of blood… He fell to his knees unable to hold back the tide of grief and pain. He clung to the pommel of his sword as he sobbed, grinding the tip into the sand.
‘The price has been paid, we have suffered enough! The price has been paid!’ He sobbed laying his head against his sword. He could not deny the past any longer, he remembered it all as if it were yesterday. It was him, it had always been him. The darkness, the guilt, had been with him his whole life like a black hole, a void he could never fill.
‘We were glorious once,’ he whispered and closed his eyes, ‘we were the Knights of the Shining Star. We were the light and the truth once,’ he breathed heavily trying to regain himself. There was silence for a time and anger seeped into his heart.
‘We were tricked!’ he yelled staring up at the cliffs towering above him, looking for the owner of the voice in the wind. ‘We have suffered enough, suffered far beyond any curse could dictate. The price has been paid!
’ he said and stood up. There came a great cracking sound of rocks breaking and the ground trembled beneath his feet.
‘The price will never be paid!’ the voice howled so loudly that Marakon dropped his sword and clasped his hands to his ears, howling himself to be rid of the awful noise. The ground shook violently, forcing Marakon to his knees again and there he cowered, shaking and covering his ears against the din as boulders tumbled down the cliffs either side of the barren valley.
He stumbled upright, swaying as the ground rocked, and staggered out of the way of the crashing boulders. Dodging one brought him into the path of another, then another. Sand and bones spewed into the air in great billowing clouds that choked him and filled his eyes and ears. Something moved in the sandstorm. Marakon blinked. In the haze a huge shape taller than any boulder moved towards him with a heavy lumbering gait.
Marakon wiped the sand from his eyes and grabbed his sword from the ground. A break in the dust cloud revealed a beast that filled him with terror. He stared incredulously as a human skeleton twice his size came striding towards him, huge rusted sword raised above its head upon which sat askew a rusting metal helmet with a twisted nose guard and a dull gold band atop it. A torn chain mail shirt hung loosely on its shoulders and an old worn scabbard and sword belt dangled around its fleshless hips. Though the skeleton had no face its eyeless sockets burned red and its lipless mouth was twisted open in a howl as it lunged towards him.
Marakon had no idea how to fight something that had no flesh and was already dead. Was this the ancient curse of this land or do I face myself? He could not know. Did not want to know. In the end it seemed he would be forced to fight it anyway. He licked his dry lips with a parched tongue.
The skeleton was upon him in seconds and the smell of something long dead made his stomach revolt. He dodged the first swing of the skeleton’s sword but misjudged its massive length. He ducked down and went sprawling as the flat of it hit him. The blow was painful upon his unarmoured flesh and he could feel a bloody bruise welling on his back.
He rolled to his feet in time to dodge another swing. The thing was not only big but lightning quick and Marakon’s hopes quickly sank. This was no Maphraxie - though immortal they could be killed - and it certainly was no Histanatarn. He dodged left and right, falling back at every strike from that massive sword, unable to even reach the skeleton for the length of its weapon.
He was exhausted before the fight had even begun and now drew upon every ounce of strength and skill just to avoid those crushing blows. There was no time to think about attacking and he dared not parry those pounding strikes for they would surely shatter his arm. Nothing about the warrior skeleton suggested it would ever tire, for what muscles did it have to weaken? What air did it breathe to keep moving? There was no fleeing either for it was faster.
Sweat poured down Marakon’s face as he dodged and jumped and rolled. His heart felt as if it would burst with the exertion. Slash where he could but mostly it was dodge, jump, roll, and repeat, again and again until his arms became leaden and his legs stiff. The sand billowed around them making it harder to see but the skeleton did not even notice as it tirelessly swung its dull rusty blade.
Marakon dodged another whistling blow and with a quick step leapt forward past its sword and smashed his own upon its bony arm with all his strength. The skeleton’s arm fell twitching onto the sand as Marakon’s own arms shuddered from the force of the blow. The skeleton lunged forwards unfazed as if not noticing its missing arm. Marakon was forced to roll again from the jabbing sword. He could not keep this up for much longer, he thought, as he reached deeper into his energy reserves. If I die will the curse end? By demon’s hell we were tricked!
In the flicker of their swords flashed the faces of those he had slain. A knight in a bloodied tabard, the silver star turned red; the blonde curls of the woman he had loved once now matted with blood. That bastard Karhlusus did it all!
He railed against the injustice of that day, the anger gave him strength. He dodged a left swing from the sword only to have to dive on the ground as it whipped back low with ferocious speed. He rolled again and staggered to his feet, the hopelessness closing in. Why carry on? I cannot fight this abomination, I cannot win.
Marakon struggled to avoid that sword as he fought to ignore the voices in his head. The skeleton advanced towards him and he fell back. A rasping voice came from somewhere within it.
‘King Marakazian has not returned to find his Banished Legion, but to pay for a crime, the final price paid in full. I have come to claim it. Your life, for the life of the thousands you slaughtered,’ the voice rasped around him.
‘We were tricked, I was poisoned! We killed against our will, we were not ourselves and for that I have paid a thousand times, a thousand times a thousand!’ his voice faded as he struggled to catch his breath dodging another crushing blow. The skeleton advanced, unheeding.
He would die here, again. And what then? A lifetime wandering this barren plain as a wraith? Or another lifetime spent at war, in pain and suffering, carrying that awful guilt like a cancer in his mind? His death flashed before him in that skeleton’s rusty sword, but it was not fear for his life that came to him now, it was anger; cold, pure, sweet anger. Anger washed away the hopelessness, anger washed away the fatigue that burned in his body, anger focused his mind on not the past or his impending death but in the present.
It was anger for the injustice of a thousands of years of torment and torture unrelenting and unbending for a deed he did not knowingly commit or condone. It was the same anger that led him to victory against the Maphraxies again and again, driving him up through the ranks of the Feylint Halanoi. He may have suffered a thousand lifetimes of pain but he had gotten what he wanted, he had become invincible.
With a roar that ripped itself from his very soul he leapt forwards, uncaring of the slashing rusty sword. He thrust his own sword, following it with all his body weight, and smashed through that other long-dead ancient arm, driving forwards and down down through its ribs that cracked and splintered.
The massive sword still held by bony fingers fell useless to the floor as both Marakon and the skeleton fell. The skeleton’s bones cracked under Marakon’s weight and he lay there atop it for a moment, shaking with exertion.
‘Ugh,’ he rolled off it in disgust. A strange flicker of surprise worked its way across the skeleton’s featureless face and then it crumpled slowly into dust, joining the bones of countless others that lay there.
Marakon stood swaying on unsteady feet staring at the pile of dust and bones. He shook his head. My death is not the final price to pay. No more, it is done. He slumped down onto the ground, drained the last of the water from his pack.
It is done.
The sorrow welled up, his eyes blurred and the tears fell onto the parched ground. He saw the faces of every one of his knights drift before him, focused in turn on each one. He remembered them so well, somehow, better than he remembered his wife, Rasia! Every wrinkle, every scar, every smile and flick of hair, every eye colour. It was as if he was looking at a painting of each of them.
They had all fought for freedom from the demons, they had all dared to fight against the dreaded Greater Demons. Over the years and countless battles many died but they braved all and in the end they triumphed. They had been loved by all. But then their bravery and great deeds were crushed, erased, forgotten. Their bones lay here, the last of his knights, on this far distant land far from their homes in unmarked graves.
The dust was settling now the battle had ended and the quaking earth and rolling boulders lay still. The air cleared a little but rather than getting brighter it seemed to be getting darker, and quickly too. Like the sun going behind thick clouds, or Dread Dragons passing over the sun. Marakon’s eyes darted upwards but there was no dragon or cloud.
He wiped his face, rubbed his eyes and blinked in awe at the huge dark round orb rising slowly above the cliffs. He had seen the dark moon once, it can only have been we
eks ago but it felt like a lifetime. He had felt unsettled, not knowing what to make of it and always thinking anything new was bad, but now it seemed it rose for him, now it seemed not bad but good.
The land became darker and darker as the blue moon passed in front of the sun. The temperature dropped and the wind stilled. All was silence, all was bathed in the strange blue of the dark moon. All he could do was stare at it open-mouthed, wondering what it meant, it made him feel defiant.
No, his death was not the final price for the sin they committed. The sin was in the trickery, the sin was in remembering only all the evil and not the good done before. No, the final price to pay was to remember the noble values they strove for, the fight for justice and freedom, lest that be lost and forgotten forever from the world. The greatest crime was that the knights and all they stood for would be forgotten and consigned to the realm of oblivion - and that would mean the demons had won. He would bring their memories back, he would remind the world of their deeds, their glory would be remembered once more.
‘I am King Marakazian! No longer leader of the Banished Legion, king of those cursed. I come to claim what is rightfully mine. I am King of the Knights of the Shining Star and I call my knights to me once more. Knights of the Shining Star rise up, heed your king! Look up, see the dark moon rising? It heralds our glory. It leads us home. It calls to us to right a wrong and end our curse. Come to me, your king!’
A great weight seemed to lift itself from his shoulders and the wind sighed around him as if in relief. All about him dust began to swirl. Soon the small dust clouds became swirling eddies of sand and then rock, and then skulls and bones were dragged into the growing maelstrom. Marakon shielded his eyes from the stinging sand.
The sand began to draw together into dense clouds. The clouds then formed human skeletal shapes. There were eleven skeletons now stood before him in the sand storm, each carrying an ancient sword, all wearing rusted old armour that hung off their bones. Eleven skeletons stood before him watching him with eyeless sockets. The dust still swirled thickly around them and their ragged armour rattled in the wind.