by Matt Russell
A chorus of roars erupted from the caves. Gretis perceived a swell of motion within accompanied by power. What was happening? What had Kota done? At least a dozen shamalak came rushing out of the cave nearest her. Three of them had swords, five of them had taken spears from the cave floor, and the rest simply had claws extended, and... every single one of them had an animus blazing inside! They rushed at the cluster of demons before Gretis in a frenzy, stabbing and hacking and slashing with wild preternatural speed.
"STOP!" the Nathret shrieked as five of his brethren fell to the mob. The attack had been too unexpected and come on too quickly even for preternatural demons. A second wave of animus-driven shamalak emerged from the caves on the heels of the first. They did not emit the kind of energy that Kota did—in fact, most of them were well below Gretis in power—but there were dozens upon dozens of them all rushing forward in a mad bloodlust. Gretis cast another look back at Kota. He continued to grip her, eyes shut, his breathing deep and hard. He was the vortex of all this spiritual power.
Arrows flew at the nathret from behind. He whirled around and whipped them away with a quick wave of his hand, but as he did, three shamalak children, no more than twelve at the oldest, leaped on him. One sank its claws into his shoulders and bit the side of his neck. Another drove a spear into his left thigh, while a third simply clawed wildly at his ribs.
"GYAHH!!" the demon sorcerer screamed. "How DARE you!" He shut his eyes and began to hiss out a spell.
Kota's grip loosened on Gretis's shoulder, as if granting her leave to act. She pulled free and dashed at the nathret. He opened his pale eyes suddenly, finishing his conjuration, and an explosion of emerald magic burst from his form in every direction. The shamalak children were flung away. His power hit Gretis as well—an expanding wall of concussive force—but the animus within her met it and tore through. She came out the other side she slashed into the horrid man’s stomach so deep she felt the blade knick his spine. The sorcerer let out a gurgling squeal, and his eyes went deathly wide. Gretis glared at him for a brief instant, and then she swung her blade a second time. His head came away with surprising ease.
The shamalak children, having already recovered from the telekinetic blast, grinned up at her, frenzied growls escaping through their teeth. They seemed to understand she was an ally, or perhaps... one of their pack.
Still more shamalak rushed from the caves. There was an army! Men, women, and children took up spears and rushed the few remaining demons strewn about the battlefield, moving with preternatural speed. Gretis watched one tiger-faced demon bat away three of the pointed ends only to be impaled by five more.
She turned back to Kota. He was gone. Gretis whirled, her eyes instinctively falling on the Archdemon. She just managed to see Kota knock away a swing of the leader’s tremendous sword as twenty or so shamalak came snarling in. Most leaped at the titanic monster from behind, hacking and stabbing at the back of his legs, while others clawed their way up his body and began to bite and slash at the sinew of his neck. The Archdemon shrieked in agony and fell to one knee. Kota sprang forward—the arrow still sticking out of his shoulder—and swung his blade. The Archdemon’s head ripped off onto the grass, and Gretis breathed a great sigh of relief.
Kota fell back down to his knees, gasping. His eyes lost all of their luminescence immediately, and he began to wheeze. Gretis sprinted to him, her mind already shifting from role of warrior to healer. “Don’t try to move!” she shouted.
"Holy Gods this hurts!" He reached up for the arrow in his chest.
“NO!” Gretis snapped, slapping his hand. He glared up at her, and the irritation in his eyes—rather than dying agony—came as a wonderful relief. “I’ll get the arrow out of you,” she said in a softer voice, and as she spoke her animus detected something—a diminishing of power from all around. The shamalak around her were returning to themselves, the primal spirits within them vanishing back into the spirit world. Some of them were staring at their own blood-soaked claws in wonder, while others murmured whispers of confusion to one another. They were not Sansrit Masters. What Kota had done was incredible, but it seemed it could only be sustained for a few precious moments.
"There are other injuries," Kota rasped. "See to them before me."
Gretis swept the field of battle with her eyes. A few shamalak had sustained cuts and bruises, but somehow... it seemed that not a single one of them lay dead. Their attack had been so unanticipated and so quick and decisive that even their injuries seemed minimal. She turned back to Kota. "No one is gushing blood, and your people are remarkably resilient to infection. You have a gods-damned arrow through your chest. I will see to you first."
Kota cocked his head up at her, a scowl on his black-soaked face, but Gretis only smiled at him. He was alive! It had seemed certain just a few moments before that her wonderful pupil would die a brutal death. Her throat caught, and a pair of tears formed in her eyes. When Kota saw this, his face lost all of its severity, and he pressed his lips together.
"You saved everyone," she whispered. "How did you do it—open all those doorways?"
Kota shrugged then winced at the pain it caused him. "I have no idea," he rasped. "I didn't even know what I was doing. My animus... parts of it I'd never felt before came alive in the presence of the Archdemon."
Gretis gazed at the arrow tip protruding from the back of Kota's shoulder. If he were a normal mortal, he would be leaking a great deal of blood, but there was not even a trickle. The gash in his leg was similarly vacant of fluid. That was fascinating. His wounds had been inflicted by demons, and the terrible psychic residue of attacks from things so evil interfered with an animus's ability to heal flesh, but Kota had the most powerful animus in the world. If it could do this much, then perhaps, with deep meditation, it might also be able to restore his damaged tissue.
“You did well, young warrior,” Gretis whispered.
Kota gazed at members of his tribe, many of whom were staring at him with looks of wonder in their silver eyes. "This could have been a massacre," he said in a somber voice, staring with a contemplative look. "An Onkai search party should arrive here within a week or so to find their... fallen brothers. I'm going to ask them to help me protect and hide my tribe."
"How would they do that?" Gretis asked, frowning.
"I want to take all of the Nakawa back to Temple Town with us."
"Ah," Gretis murmured, imagining how the townspeople would react to an entire tribe of shamalak amongst them. There would be panic and anger. It had taken the simple folk years to grow used to Kota, and he had been a kind, humble boy who spoke Tethric passably well and was quick to assimilate to human culture. An entire tribe of bronze-skinned, silver-eyed people who only spoke an incomprehensible tongue and did not worship the gods... that might be a very different matter. "How will you convince Otho to accept this?"
"Well for one, I'll show him the Archdemon I killed," Kota said, gesturing with his still good arm to the tremendous corpse on the ground and its accompanying head. "Hopefully that will convince him that I'm worth something to the order as an ally—enough to pay a bit of a price."
"You wish to reveal yourself then?" Gretis said, raising an eyebrow. "Otho would no longer be able to keep your secret. He would have to explain to the order and the town folk why they must welcome a strange people."
"My anonymity is far less important than their lives," Kota said. "If the tribe isn't protected, this will happen again... to get to me. I cannot stay here and watch over them indefinitely." He sighed. "As you like to remind me, I have a destiny. This is a reasonable bargain for Otho if I can kill powerful Demon Lords for him."
"You have a point," Gretis said.
Kota grunted and rose to his feet. "We should meet with the Starborn as well and tell them what has happened here. I think Cassian might see me—if he still remembers me at this point."
"Yes," Gretis whispered, and her mind returned as it had many times before to the pieces of the
prophecy she had not revealed to Kota—the parts that almost certainly pertained to Cassian Asango, The Destroyer. She could not conceal this dark secret from her apprentice much longer. Perhaps she had waited too long already...
Kota blinked, then looked sharply at her as if he had just remembered something. "Is the nathret dead?"
"Yes, quite dead.”
"Good," he whispered. He reached up and rubbed his right temple with his fingers. "What was he talking to you about this morning anyhow? Who is... Iona?"
Gretis’s stomach tensed at the name, remembering suddenly that the holy child had been stolen away. Kota gazed at her, expecting an answer, and she longed to give him one. Livia's letter had been carefully worded, but it seemed to imply Nemesai involvement—an obstacle far too great for nearly anyone to overcome, but not for Kota. It would be so easy to convince him to help, noble young man that he was. But... the Norn's warning about Iona lingered in her mind: You may do nothing to help her. If you try, you will only bring disaster.
"She is—" Gretis hesitated, feeling a flutter in her heart.
"KOTA!" a deep, feminine voice cried from the left.
They both turned to see Kota's mother marching through the crowd. She was utterly covered in black blood. The old shamalak woman seemed to have wiped a great deal from her face, but smears remained around her mouth. She had attacked with claws and teeth, like the most feral of the tribe.
"How bad are your wounds?" the woman shouted in her native tongue, her voice fierce.
"I will live, mother," Kota shouted back.
The woman dashed to her son. There were still bits of flesh caught in her claws as she knelt down. “You have an arrow through your body!”
“It is fine,” Kota whispered. “My spirit will heal me.”
His mother stared at the wound a moment longer, and then gazed around at the tribesmen that surrounded them. “What… happened to us?” she asked in a distant voice.
“The Grandfather Spirit,” Kota said back in a soft whisper, the shamalak words rolling off his tongue with reverence. “He helped me save the tribe.”
“Nataka,” his mother said, blinking, “he is in you?”
“There is… much I want to tell you, mother,” Kota wheezed.
The woman peered at him and then her silver eyes moved to Gretis. "You're not going to leave that arrow in him, are you?” There almost seemed to be accusation in her voice. “I had heard you were something of a healer."
"Of course not," Gretis answered, more than a little relieved at the change of subject.
"What an ugly wound," the woman grunted, and then she cast another look around. "I want to help. Tell me what to do.”
"Alright then," Gretis said, her mind aligning to the task at hand. "I stowed most of my supplies in the center-most of the caves. Please have someone bring them to me. Assign someone else to start a fire and boil water. I'll need light, so either start a fire or bring me torches. Have the wounded sit together in a group and do your best to arrange them from most injured to least."
Kota's mother drew in a sharp breath, then nodded and turned back to her people and began to call out orders like a military commander. Her husband—Kota's father—was helping an elder to his feet. He watched his wife out of the corner of his eye with an expression of pride, and perhaps amusement. Gretis noticed Kota was watching her with the same look, and she felt her heart lighten just a little. There was anxiety around every corner, but this was a good moment. Kota had done the impossible, and he had done it out of love for his family and his people. Did that not prove that there was hope left in the world? Did it not prove that the forces of good were worth believing in?
Chapter 30:
His Most Hated Enemy
Cassian gazed at his reflection in the gleaming hand-mirror the palace servants had left on his side table. He was sitting on the edge of his bed with his pants draped to his waist, the upper half of his body uncovered. The morning light was just beginning to flow in through his open window, illuminating his features unevenly so that parts of his face were in shadow. He stared into his own eyes. They were hard, fierce eyes—a little too devoid of... something. He had not gazed at his reflection the whole time he had been in military command, and finally doing so made him feel reflective. There was a pervading sadness that ached from deep inside. What was it? What in particular of the countless regrets he had stuffed away was now tugging at his heart? Cassian had long since made the decision to bear all the pain his journey cost him. There were moments though, once in a great while, when he wondered if the price had been too great.
Dimitris...
Cassian turned as he felt Soulic begin to stir from the antechamber just outside his door. The obnoxious bastard would come in in a moment. Cassian stood and pulled his tunic over his chest just as Soulic muttered through the door: "Has thy most regal, arrogant self deigned to awaken yet?"
Cassian felt the faintest traces of a smile play across his face as he answered: "He has." Soulic was proving to be a fine squire for many reasons. Cassian had long suffered irritation at how his servants endlessly praised him and scraped for his approval, but no such problem existed here. "Did the attendants bring tea?"
The door shot open, and Soulic entered, a tired look on his face. "Yes," he grunted, tilting his head from side to side and eliciting several loud pops from his neck. The man ambled over, carrying a steaming ceramic teapot and a cup on top of a tray in his hands. "I had a few sips and I'm still alive, so if they poisoned it, they're using something slow."
"Flirting with suicide, are you?" Cassian yawned.
"Slavery can drive a man to such things," Soulic muttered as he set the tray down on Cassian's side table. "Shall I pour you a cup, my lord?" The touch of venom in his voice was measured, amounting to sarcasm rather than open hostility. The Sansrit warrior's animus had somehow protected his mind from the full scope of Cassian's psychic control, leaving him enough free will to speak his mind however he pleased.
"No," Cassian said, rising and stepping to the side table. He reached down and poured himself a cup of tea and brought it to his lips. If there were poison or sedatives in the concoction, as there had been in many drinks and meals Cassian had been served over the years, he could counter the effects with healing spells long enough to analyze the foreign alchemical compounds and then break them down. The tea was still hot and had a bitter taste to it, and after several sips, Cassian felt his mind sharpen. "You came in late last night. Who were you this time?"
"An old lady," Soulic sighed. He had knelt down on the stone floor and commenced to polish his boots with a brush. It was a bit unorthodox to do such a thing in the presence of a high-ranking lord of course, but Cassian did not mind. If nothing else, his murderous new companion kept himself impeccably clean and well dressed, which was a subtle communication of high standards to the rest of the imperial court. "I overheard new rumors about you. The Nemesai have put forth claims that you worship demons in this tower, and that you and I are lovers."
Cassian laughed aloud. "At least they are conducting themselves with a modicum of class."
"I actually overheard several conversations on the second point," Soulic said with an eye roll. "Each one involved a question about why you still aren't married or even engaged." He cocked his head at Cassian. "I am a bit curious myself why you have not chosen a bride. Surely you could have your pick of nigh any maiden in the empire."
Cassian gazed down and said in a quiet voice: "I can bear their rumors." He did not care to explain his feelings to Soulic, but the thought of marriage to anyone other than Thalice sickened him. His bond to her ran deeper than perhaps any human could understand. Still, his people would expect him to marry eventually. Offers of betrothal from the most powerful families in the empire had been coming in for years. Was it time?
He turned to Soulic. "Anything else to report?" There was a touch of hesitation, and Cassian sensed a psychic struggle in his servant's mind. Soulic was tryi
ng to hide something. Cassian sharpened his voice and said: “Answer me.”
The Sansrit warrior stiffened, drawing in a sharp breath through his nose before hissing: "I may have... stumbled upon a handful of Nemesai slapping around a woman accused of prostitution in the street.” He grimaced. “They utilized their normal vocabulary of whore and slut and proclaimed they were going to stone her to death. I… may have picked up a stone myself and..." he drew in a second deep breath and then muttered: "I kept the beating mostly to their arms and legs. They're still alive."
Cassian rolled his eyes, wondering if he needed to focus harder on restricting the man’s free will. "Did anyone see?"
"Possibly," Soulic said with a shrug. "I changed images a few times before I came back though—in discrete hiding places of course."
Cassian shut his eyes and forced himself to say in an even voice: "Did you attack them as the old woman?"
"Yeah," Soulic chuckled. "Shocked the hell out of them."
"Almost everyone in the empire knows I have an Elokien," Cassian said with a sigh of irritation. "Perhaps you can imagine that a decrepit old woman strong enough to overpower a pair of tattooed Nemesai, who happens to have appeared shortly after I arrive in the capital, might bring a bit of suspicion my way?"
Soulic raised his right eyebrow. "Would you have me let them assault that poor girl? You did not see them—the way they were grinning as they beat her." His expression flashed to something dangerous as he added: "The religious condemnations were nonsense. It was an excuse to put their hands on a pretty girl and scare the hell out of her. Probably made them feel powerful."
"You are quite possibly correct," Cassian said, forming his fingers into a steeple in front of his chest. "On one hand, I am happy to see any Nemesai denied their self-righteous bullying. On the other though," Cassian raised his right hand and reached an invisible tendril of magic through the air. He felt for the metallic shape that dangled within Soulic's silken shirt and gave it a sharp, precise yank. The Elokien burst through the buttons and cloth and flew directly into Cassian's palm. He closed his fingers around it and said: "Beating men half to death—even cruel men—is a crude and unintelligent answer to the problems in this empire, and I will not have you running around making these decisions as you see fit."