Shara stood rigid, turning her head slowly to stare firmly into the eyes of each troop commander after another, until she had sized up each of them and was back to looking at Hafi. They were all desperate. They knew the men dying under their command in a way Shara never could. She waited, trying to will some of that softness into her eyes, simply because she felt herself stretching over her own hardness. Slowly, each head at the table turned from her to face Hafi.
He finally looked up from the markers and around to each man at the table, just as she had, then back to her.
“Alright. But not you, not up on the front ridge.”
Shara felt the heat rising inside of her again. She bit her tongue when she saw the hard look on Hafi’s face. It was the mirror of the hard look she wore that she had been trying to soften. He was not compromising. Shara had not realized her recommendation had been a compromise until he reached out and grabbed the blue marker that represented her.
“You will lead the squads against the source positions. You will kill every fucking thing you find at each position. You will destroy them. Then you will fall back and find new places to strike along the Xenai line, until the smallest glimmer of silver hair behind a tree makes every Xenai want to shit their fucking pants… If they wore pants.”
Shara smiled. This was the Hafi her mother loved so much. When this was all over, the two of them would face her wrath together.
Someone cleared their throat behind Shara. She turned her head to the side slightly as the person stepped forward.
James.
“Sir, I would like to volunteer to be a member of Shara’s squad.”
Hafi shrugged, “Might as well put that fucking shield to use. Taeri and his men are familiar with guerrilla tactics, so he can help guide the second team. You will be her personal guard.”
38
James
James watched the tree line. He fiddled with the strap of his shield, then ran his fingers over the tree in front of him until he knew every bulge and indent of the bark on it. He had failed as Shara’s personal guard already. Of course. She had set her mind to her course of action, and no one would have been able to change it. He let his mind wander so that he was not focusing on why she had not returned yet.
She seemed to enjoy his company. They’d eaten a heavy meal that evening, while the base camp was broken down around them and pulled back a few miles. The light from a low fire bounced off her face as they exchanged more stories. She told him about the caves she used to sneak off to when she was a child. She had paused as if about to tell him something when Taeri had joined them around the fire and their conversation had died out.
James’s worry about Shara broke through his thoughts, bringing him back to the present. He leaned into the tree, feeling the roughness scrape against the exposed leather of his armor, reflecting on when she had told him about accidentally ripping off a side of a house. He turned it over in his mind like a lucky coin. She would come back from the trees… From the darkness. There is no way she would go down without some wild display of force that the squad would see.
He wasn’t sure if the entire group was as nervous as he was, or if he was merely projecting his fragile state onto them. They had all chosen their own trees to hide behind. They all stood still, eyes focused on the tree line, ears alert for any sounds of movement. The occasional creature skittered around behind them, but aside from that, everything was quiet.
The third Xenai vantage point for their source users lay ahead of them, along with Shara. They has scouted the previous two that lay on the other side of the ravine. More accurately, they had escorted Shara and she had scouted the source points. She was the only one powerful enough to not just hide her approach, but also hide her power, which any other source user would normally sense. Taeri, behind the second tree to James’ right, was the only other source user in their lot.
James pushed his worry away and recalled when Taeri had sat with them earlier that evening, to James’s surprise. He had sat down in the dim firelight and kept to himself. James found it difficult to keep his eyes off the scarred half of his face. The Illara had healed nicely, his skin simply displaying no pigment at all. Half his face was a pure white, while the other half had a normal almond tint to it. The only other indicator of the burn was his eye. The surrounding skin turned down at the outer edge, like it had melted and been on the verge of dripping down his face when someone took pity on him and put out the fire that was consuming the man’s face.
He was trying not to stare, but just found himself thinking about what his father had told him about the early days of the Sundering. Of the known settlements of survivors, Ceafield had formed shortly before Prin. It had started as a small band bent only on surviving. As the number of known settlements had grown and the landscape became more civilized, Ceafield had found itself in a unique position: the town had a set of skills everyone needed, but not everyone wanted to live with. They were all fooling themselves, of course. Every single survivor from the early days had lied to, tricked, and killed other people, most of whom did not deserve it. Somewhere in the chain of survivors, a fork had formed in their paths. One path carried those who believed the only way forward was to reform civility—to be genteel. Ceafield was filled with everyone else.
In keeping with their overall philosophy of survival by any means, their justice system was equally brutal. Not many choices were frowned upon in Ceafield. Even fewer outcomes were punished. The few things that were worthy of punishment earned you a brand. The brand was administered by the person who had been wronged, or their representative. Ceafield’s management could not be counted as a governing body, but they had some resources available, including a few branding irons that had been collected on various scavenging missions. The person wronged who administered the brand was free to use their own brands, or any heated object, if they chose. The process used varied since each brander was given latitude to innovate on the process. Some chose to employ intentionally sadistic methods, such as pouring flammable liquids on the person receiving punishment before putting the brand to them in whatever location they chose. The face was a common branding site, as the perpetrator could not hide that they had done something atrocious enough to bring the wrath of Ceafield down on them.
Shara seemed amused at dinner at his uncomfortable attempts to talk to her around Taeri. She had sat forward, leaning into her arms as she placed them on her knees, “Taeri, before this, it had been a while since I saw you. Since, when? Hafi’s second retirement party?”
The Illara smiled broadly, missing a few teeth in the wide grin he flashed at her. James admired her ability to give him some small amount of context to his unasked questions about Taeri and why Hafi put up with his mother’s murderer.
Taeri responded, “Yes, yes. That was the one that stuck the longest. About six months before your mother convinced him that all of the Pact survivors would die horribly if he didn’t come take over the army?”
Shara nodded. “Being wrong in that specific prediction four out of five times is pretty good.” She had a big smile on her face while she spoke of her mother. Ayna Shae raised the alarm, and the armies, every few years in response to some threat only she seemed aware of. Unfortunately, this time, she had been right. James had wondered if maybe she had been right every time, but had managed to stop the full-scale wars before it started. Would anyone ever know? Shara just saw the peace held and didn’t seem to care if her mother had been right or wrong. James cared about how many times Ayna Shae had been right—how many victories she had achieved. Was she really as good at keeping Prin safe as everyone thought?
Taeri shifted behind his tree, snapping a twig beneath him and pulling James out of his reflections. It occurred to him that they had sent this Illara for one reason — only one reason made sense, outside his proficiency at murdering women. He would aid the team hitting the camps to detect and counteract the Xenai source users. All Inari were born with the ability to sense others, source users or Terran, but it atrophied down to nearl
y nothing in the Inari that did not use the ability or train in source. Taeri’s ability would be close to what James had known as a child. James wondered if Taeri could feel Shara from where they were, if he knew if she was alive, or more specifically, where she was. He crouched and moved toward Taeri, who kneeled as James approached and put his head next to James’ own.
James gestured toward the treeline. “Can you sense her?”
Taeri nodded. “Still there. If I try to sense more than that, I could risk exposing her to any nearby Xenai.”
James was disappointed, but nodded his acceptance. He made his way back to his position while trying to conjure up an image of the Shae home being nearly destroyed by the small blond girl as a new comforting distraction from the waiting. He pictured their large brick home. It had been at least three times the size of his own family home in Century, and that was just a single level of the building. Another floor above contained, presumably, the bedrooms. That was the tradition. Century had plenty of multi-story buildings, including many homes. However, out of necessity, the buildings had been divided up into multi-tenant homes. Each family got a room and shared the kitchen and personal facilities.
Century residents valued autonomy, so each building had been modified over time, because James had been born. Windows became the points of ingress and egress, rather than doors. Some windows dropped straight onto ladders that allowed the home’s residents to climb in and out of the building. Some windows opened up onto rooftops, which led to scaffolding, ladders or ‘temporary’ stairs that had now stood for a good 75 years. The doors inside the buildings became walls. The residents were more than happy to climb out and circle around the building to re-enter at the communal kitchen or restrooms when the other choice before them had been living with five or more other families.
As a child, visiting residents with his father, he had been dizzy at the size of the buildings. Some of them rose up ten floors, although most of the larger ones like that were so run down they were dangerous to live in. During one visit to a split house, he had had to go to the bathroom.
“Climb out the window, Go to the right, past four windows, the bathroom is the fifth window with the red curtains.” The old man who lived there had told him.
He dutifully scrambled out the window. He clung to the metal pipes that had been screwed onto the outside of the house. Below him, planks had been mounted, two right next to each other, creating a walkway that felt small to James, even as a six-year-old child. He had scooted down the side of the building to the fifth window, did his business, and then climbed back, just as he had been told. As they were leaving, he glanced back at the house. The red- curtained window was easily visible from the ground. The four window distance between it and the old man’s room took up less than half the length of the house.
The Shae home was roughly the same size as that house had been, but only the Shaes lived there. It was giant to him, and Shara had accidentally destroyed an entire side of it. James worked to wrap his mind around the comforting, and terrifying, thought. He couldn’t help but wonder what he would see when Shara meant to harm something.
He glanced over at Taeri again. The darkness hid the white skin and the brand that marked the side of his face. By the end of the day, he’d see a great many more burned faces… and worse things.
* * *
Shara had led the teams back after scouting and covered their approach to the first Xenai vantage point. She masked them under the world around them. Taeri assured him that they would feel like mere rocks and trees to the Xenai. She made a signal, and under her command, James and the men moved forward as the wind picked up. Gentle and subtle. After she had planted them where she wanted them, she motioned for James to follow. She turned, he followed, leaving the men behind where they would hide under the breeze until they saw the signal to attack from Shara.
James and Shara moved carefully through the brush and trees until they could circle back and cross the ravine and move up to their first attack point. After this, they would have a second point further west on this side of the ravine to attack before joining back up with the others on the opposite side. The two of them moved up to the edge of the trees until they could see the Xenai ahead of them, overlooking the battle that had already started below.
James felt the change in the breeze. The Xenai source user was near the edge of the cliff. He was flanked by three soldiers. Shara and James crouched in the trees, just out of view. The force of movement rose in the air, nuzzling James forward before it whipped around and pulled him back. He was on the far edge of the effect. He watched as the Xenai source user and his three escorts were caught in the full strength of the spell Shara was controlling. The air caught them with full strength, tightening around them, and all four of them flew off the cliff. The source user jerked his head and looked straight at Shara, suddenly aware of her presence. James watched the Xenai try to grab a hold of something—anything—with source, his hands frantically twirling in a way similar to Shara’s. He saw its face shift. It was impossible to see the features, but he knew the emotions that emanated from it: victory and joy.
Being near Shara while she was using such powerful source awakened the old senses he had as a child. He could feel the emotions and a shadow of the thoughts of the beings around him. From Shara, he felt victory and joy as well. Her emotions were mixed with a dark shade of elation. He knew this darkness. He had known it since his mother’s murder.
The Xenai’s emotions shifted again, back to surprise. James felt the Xenai’s feelings move as the direction of the wind abruptly changed. The four creatures came hurtling back toward the edge of the cliff. All four slammed against the rocky cliff side and went limp. He lost his Intuitive sense of them and knew that all four were dead, just as he had felt his mother’s death so many years before.
His heart pounded with excitement, his own dark thrill bubbling to the surface to match Shara’s. The body of the Xenai source user was carried back to the landing, while Shara let the other three bodies fall the hundred meters down to the pass, where the Xenai ground forces were already fighting the Pact. She ferried the source user on the wind until it floated in front of her and James. Its limbs responded to the force Shara controlled by swaying in small circles. The grotesque pendulum matched the swaying James felt his own clothing trying to do around him. Such small concentric circles of wind surrounded the two of them and the corpse as Shara raised the body another meter up, almost above them. She twisted her hands, like wringing out a rag. The Xenai’s neck twisted. Shara jerked her hands apart and the head popped off its shoulders. She made a throwing motion with each hand, letting her right hand thrust farther forward. James laughed as the body and head lurched toward the cliff edge again, leaving a spray of blood behind them as they hurtled through the air. The body cleared the edge then fell, but the head kept going toward the first encampment where the rest of their team was waiting.
The team had their signal. Shara was already moving for the second encampment on their side of the ravine. James followed.
* * *
The second encampment was already reinforced by the time they got there. It had doubled in size from when Shara had scouted it out and the number of Xenai had matched the first. They had expected reinforcements, but James was unsure how the two of them alone would take on eight Xenai who were now prepared to not be blown off a cliff.
Deep purple wisps of smoke wrapped around each Xenai from the knees down. The purple lines seemed to grow into the ground like roots — roots that could walk. As the Xenai moved, the wisps picked themselves up and crawled forward, like spider legs made of thick smoke. The legs rushed rapidly every time the Xenai moved. The speed and rush then halt of the smoke-legs contrasted against the fluid steps the Xenai moved with.
One source user faced off the cliff side about a dozen meters away from their spot in the tree line. It was aiding the battle below, just as their decapitated friend had done before they took it by surprise. The other stood in the cente
r point of the encampment, eyes closed. It was conjuring the smoke wisps that kept them grounded to the overlook.
Shara didn’t hesitate after taking in the scenario. “I—the smoke things are similar to the Blight crystal—I might be able to work with this. Unsheathe,” she whispered to James as her hands rose from her sides.
James pulled his sword from its sheath and dropped into a battle stance a few feet to the side of Shara. He placed the shield in front of his torso, holding his sword to the side, ready to be swung forward to rend anything that approached them into pieces.
The red rocks under the Xenai crumbled. Cracks spread quickly across the entire cliff edge, up to the tree line a few feet in front of Shara and James. The rocks crumbled inward and fell. The edge moved inward with each segment that crumbled. The Xenai all ran—their strange spider wisps vaulting forward around their legs, escorting their assigned Xenai.
Six Xenai soldiers moved toward them at breakneck speed, but the smoke wisps around the source users froze. The two casters were knocked off their feet by the momentum of their bodies, tumbling them over their pinned feet. They clawed at the ground in front of them as the rocks behind them continued to crumble and fall onto their army below. The source user that had been in the center reached toward his feet and tried to physically pull the wisps off of his legs.
James realized Shara had fully taken over the spell that the Xenai had cast, making it her own. James had never seen that before. Hell, he didn’t even know it was possible. The rocks and casters plummeted to the floor of the pass below them. Shara had a firm grip on something, holding the air in front of her face in a tight grip. He figured she was holding the shadowy purple tendrils of the falling Xenai casters until they hit the ground. A crash below them rose in a final exclamation through the air and she relaxed her hand, turning her head to look at the charging soldiers who were now free of their tethers as well.
Song of Sundering Page 24