by Jane Merkley
A small silver cloud sputtered over Huilian’s shoulder like a candle desiring light. Gildeon willed its attention to him and the small cloud drifted over. Asking it to follow, Gildeon dashed away to the direction he had just come.
Byrone had relocated to the area about the hulking mass that had emerged from the carriage Altarn destroyed. The mass was seven times larger than a man and there was no doubt that something other worldly hovered about it.
Maybe there was some truth to what that boy was saying.
Byrone waited impatiently by. Finally, the boy came riding through the middle of the field toward him. Byrone watched, still deep in mistrust to see if the boy was really what he said he was.
The boy came in sight of the hulking mass and reined the horse to a stop. And then, just as suddenly, Byrone watched in outrage as the boy darted back the way he had just come.
“You liar!” Byrone shouted after him. Byrone turned his horse about to chase the boy down and kill him. But Byrone resisted, knowing the fault was his own for trusting the claims of child.
Byrone looked back to Huilian who was charging right after a small mass of fighting shredders. Byrone heeled his horse and the beautiful beast dashed after the hulking mass of metal. Byrone shouted to get his attention, but he did not sway from his course.
Faster still, Byrone encouraged his horse. The horse rode right up behind the towering mass. Byrone sheathed his sword. Sliding both feet under him in the saddle, he leapt out.
He latched onto Huilian’s back. The armored bulk paused. Byrone found footing in the plate armor and quickly ascended to the monster’s shoulders. He looked frantically for any openings, but the armor was sealed as tightly as a tea kettle. Huilian’s eyes, then.
Huilian stopped entirely and began swinging arms above his head to dislodge Byrone. Byrone ducked and drew a knife. Reaching around Huilian’s head, Byrone stabbed the knife through the narrow eye slit. But nothing impacted the knife. With the vigor of which Byrone thrust, he lost hold of the knife and it disappeared inside the helm. He listened in strange confusion as the knife rattled all the way down the inside of the armor.
Huilian threw his right shoulder toward the ground. Byrone lost his footing and fell the ten feet, barely able to stay upright as he landed. He hit the ground and lurched forward to spread the momentum of the impact. He gained his feet again and faced the monster, wondering frantically how to stop this atrocity. It had no flesh of which to bleed. Just an essence borrowing a form of which could be seen by mortal eyes. But he had to try.
He had Huilian’s full attention now. The angel turned on him, lifting the mace above his head. Byrone sprung between Huilian’s legs as the mace smashed into the ground behind him.
Byrone escaped out from behind the angel. He was rolling to his feet when he looked up in time to see the biting glance of the mace roaring at him again. Byrone rebounded and threw his body as far away as he could. Mid turn, the mace made impact on his right hip. The force of the blow sent Byrone spinning five feet away before he hit the dirt in a pain soaked haze of darkness. A teeth clenched scream escaped him as pain bloomed from the area of impact at his hip and right leg. Liquid warmth gushed inside his crushed armor. He tried to move to an upright position but the shock of the trauma made his limbs numb. He dove deep down… deep down… to sum together everything he had to stand and die fighting. He managed to push his upper body up on his hands, but blood was rushing too quickly away from him. Blackness crawled across his vision, and he collapsed.
Altarn turned just in time to watch a wink of silver armor sail briefly through the air before it landed. She didn’t know it was Byrone until she heard his jaw-clenched scream. The sound echoed in her bones, sliced through the thickest clash of swords, was a sword in itself, driving deep into the heart with an edge poisoned with terror-drenched failure.
On instinct, Altarn ran to him. Byrone’s assailant was standing above his still body, lifting the mace. She pulled another gem out of her braided crown and hurled it at Huilian. It shattered behind him at his feet. Dirt burst out of the earth and Huilian stumbled and fell backward where he ceased to move. For how long, she did not know. She rushed to Byrone who was face down and unconscious. His right hip and thigh were a shattered mess of blood and armor.
She stopped short and recoiled, her stomach churning with sickness at the sight. Her soldier instincts to come to another soldier’s rescue fled her and she suddenly found herself standing before the man who had a promise to take Blindvar and Luthsinia and make himself King of Endendre, the same king her people had killed to be free from. Blood was bursting out of the openings in his armor. He would bleed out and die very soon. It had been her prayer the previous night, to have him die in battle to stop a tyrant before he could begin. The answer to stopping him was right here… walking away.
“BYRONE!”
Altarn looked up. Torren was rushing toward her as if hell were behind him, his sword slashing madly at anything close enough to stop him. A group of three enemies blocked him and Torren was forced to stop, but that did not stop the reach of the mad desperation in his eyes.
Altarn looked back on the man who had drugged her, kidnapped, and imprisoned her for his own selfish needs. Words of his demeaning letters played before her eyes as if she had memorized them all. She felt the splash of mud as he kicked it over her, the strike of his fist again as he punched her.
But clinging to the coat tails of those thoughts as they passed by came one of Byrone and Torren splashing each other in the stream, of every face of all the servants he had taken homeless off the streets to make sure they had money to feed their families. Of his selflessness to give her own homeless people refuge in his state, providing tents and permission to hunt his land for food. Of his paying for her shoes and clothes, of his rich laugh when she knew him in Luthsinia, of the clothier who all but worshiped Byrone’s name because he helped put the flames out of his burning shop. Of the belldew flower necklace he wore on the demands of his mother who had hopes he would give it to someone who would bear him children. Of Torren who was becoming careless to reach him.
Selfish. A fanged monster of guilt dug his teeth into her heart as she watched him at her feet. What right do you have to decide that this man should die for your hate when thousands of people love him? Selfish.
He’s going to make himself king. I’m saving Endendre from a tyrant.
Really? Then why haven’t you walked away yet?
Because despite all the wrong he had done and had promised to do to her, she still, even in good conscience, could not take the very man away from a people of whom he has done so much good.
Altarn dropped her shorns to the dirt and knelt next to Byrone. She removed his helmet, breastplate, and any armor that she could get to. Blood burst out of his breastplate where it had pooled. A numb haze stilled her shaking hands. She took a deep breath and lifted Byrone’s chest into her lap. Working her shoulder under him while pulling him over her shoulders, she grunted, and came up to one knee, leaving a pathway of his blood across her. She groaned under his weight as she dragged her other foot under her. Slowly, painfully, she stood.
Adrenaline flooded her veins and she did not feel the scream from her back; was only mildly aware her knees threatened to buckle. She staggered as she took one numb step forward, and another, and another, and another…
His blood rushed across her cheek, down her neck, along her chest. His death rattle let her know he was still alive.
She looked about for a horse. The medical tents were still a good three miles away and up a hill. She was bearing the weight, but she couldn’t make that distance on foot. And he would certainly die before then.
A few more steps revealed to her a horse whose reins were stuck underneath the dead grappler at its feet. She reached it and, with great effort, moved Byrone off her shoulders and across its back. Altarn jumped into the saddle behind him. Ignoring the sharp pain in her back and knees, she kicked the horse into a run.
Jar
yd laid Lorn’s body on the ground outside the carriage. He covered her body to conserve what warmth was left with his cloak and scanned the field but saw nothing.
He was losing time. He had only about four minutes to bring her back to life before an oxygen deprived brain left her dead forever.
He held her to him and cried into her hair. “Lorn, I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
She was so cold.
Then a small silver cloud appeared over the top of the hill. Jaryd was momentarily confused, but he barely caught sight of Gildeon mingling back into the fighting mass.
Hope and joy collided and he set Lorn on her back and began compressing her chest in a steady rhythm to restart her heart, praying that it was not too late and that it would work.
He looked up at the cloud above him but it did nothing. Then it started to rise toward the sky.
“NO!” Jaryd compressed Lorn’s chest with greater purpose. “Save her! Bring her back!” His heart broke. He would not stop… would not stop... until he was absolutely wretched that he had failed.
A flash of silver appeared directly in front of Jaryd and then it was gone. He paused, and Lorn’s eyes flew open. Sobs broke out of Jaryd in relief. He grabbed her hungrily, selfishly, and cried into her. On his knees his relief burst out of him in tears, holding her tightly to find she was holding him just as tightly back. It took him a moment to realize her hair was no longer black… but yellow?
He created space between them to look at her. Her eyes were not black but brown, and her pale cheeks were rose tinted. She was absolutely… free.
“Jaryd?” Her first word being his name filled him with selfish joy. “I feel… strange inside, like I’ve been dead for a long time but am alive again.” Her voice chimed and was so innocent and young. “But I don’t remember my name.”
Jaryd pulled her in close, feeling warmth radiating from her, incomprehensible joy drowning him.
“Lyah. Your name is Lyah.” With great effort, he pushed her away again to look her dead in the eye. “And I want to help you find a life for yourself, to help you learn what joy and love are, to give you what you were robbed of.”
She smiled so big it made her eyes squint. “You’d really do that for me?”
He almost answered, but he brought her in close and kissed her instead. He was not disappointed with the vigor in which she returned it.
The explosion dazed Huilian for a short time which surprised him. He thought he was above mortal means of pain. He rolled to his feet and found a sixteen year old boy standing placidly before him. But a sixteen year old body could not hide Gildeon from those who knew him.
Huilian laughed, but it was a sound full of hesitation. “Are we to do battle again, Gildeon?”
“Again? You fled from the first one, and I have already won the second.”
Huilian laughed again, though with less strength. “Did you determine your winnings?”
“Eternity did. You are not a god, Huilian. You think you should be. You’ve gathered worshipers who will kill in your name but wanting will not give you what you’ve tried to slander. You had a chance at godhood, but you wanted it before you were ready and for the wrong reasons.”
Huilian’s hand flexed on the handle of his mace.
“The fact that you have resorted to mortal means of power,” Gildeon pointed to his mace, “proves to yourself that you are nothing more than a fallen angel. If you resort to mortal means of power then you can be succumbed by mortal means of power.”
Huilian howled in rage, scattering men and horses even farther away from him. He lifted his mace above his head and slammed it down on top of the boy. Gildeon lifted a hand and met the impact. The mace shattered into a thousand sharp pieces that turned into a daggered rain shower as they fell.
Huilian dropped what was left of the mace and sagged to his knees.
“You knew it. You’ve always known it. You were wise in scattering your soul, because you knew the earth could not absorb you unless you were whole. For the very reason you have stormed the mortal world to force mortals to worship you is the very reason you were denied godhood. We cannot force the hand of mortals. It saddens me when they refuse the blessings I offer freely, but that is the choice they must make, for how would they know the difference between right and wrong if we chose for them?”
Huilian was motionless; his massive body in a humble stupor before the seemingly small frame of a sixteen year old boy.
“You have corrupted your chance. Only the pure of heart can dwell in Velmashyn. You have destined yourself to be absorbed back into the earth from which we first came. But you will keep your mind, somewhat. If you learn something from this then not all is lost. Maybe after the centuries and earth have purified you, you might still be able to become again what you are now. You might still become a god. But not until you’ve gone through the cycle again.”
There was a long silence that stretched between them, almost as if Huilian was coming to accept the truth that was laid open before him. But with a startling roar, Huilian came to his feet and lunged his entire hulk at Gildeon. Gildeon closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Huilian rammed his metallic mass into Gildeon. The sixteen year old frame buckled under the impact and went limp and lifeless. Huilian began to laugh darkly at the corpse in his massive hand, unaware of the soul he had released upon killing the body. But he stopped suddenly as a shadow of glory fell over him. He didn’t even have to look. Gildeon’s soul towered over him like a giant.
“He starts the cycle again.” Gildeon’s voice did not boom, but was rather an essence absorbed through the flesh so there was not one part of the body that did not know.
Huilian didn’t understand what he meant. But slowly, a gentle pull was guiding him downward, leeching him from his armor. He wasn’t sure how this was being accomplished, because his armor was sealed, and the soul can only be absorbed if it is in direct contact with the earth. But he had not noticed the devastating mesh of metal at his feet that had been blown apart by the explosion until now.
He ceased to move. The earth heard the god’s voice and was obeying, taking Huilian’s soul back into the place where all souls begin. He didn’t even bother crying out in defeat as the last of his soul was sucked up into the earth, leaving behind a mortal made mass of metallic deceit.
And then Gildeon was gone.
Over the field, up the hill, and across the way, the medical tents were already buzzing with the wounded.
“Byrone is hurt!” Altarn shouted. “Lord Byrone is hurt!”
Her shouts finally reached and men rushed toward her. She stopped the panting horse and the men pulled Byrone off, holding his still form between them as they carefully – as carefully as they could in their haste – rushed him into the tent.
Now that he was gone from her, Altarn’s regret slammed into her, and she dismounted and shuffled inside the tent, wondering if she had saved him for his people only to condemn her own.
She was handed a wet towel as a healer passed, and she wondered hazily what it was for until she remembered the blood running all down her chest.
Healers began to cut away Byrone’s clothes, but Altarn was far too numb with anguish at this rescue to worry about petty things like nakedness. Blood splashed onto the dirt as they cut away the pants. They exposed his mashed hip and thigh and Altarn turned away, forcing sickness back down.
There was nothing left of his hip and upper thigh but a devastating mess of pulverized meat and bits of bone. She was certain he was dead, if not from the loss of blood then from the pain, but his chest was still stuttering in dangerously staggered breaths.
Her arm was suddenly grabbed by someone, but Altarn still retained enough good sense to look before she struck, even though her battle nerves were still dancing on edge. It was a healer in his black outfit, black to hide the blood that his duties would acquire. He proceeded to guide her onto a nearby cot.
“Let go!” Altarn barked, ready to pummel him anyway.
H
e sat her down, and she immediately stood again and lifted a fist. Three male hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her onto her back. She proceeded to kick wildly until someone sat on her legs. A cloth wadded into a ball was shoved between her teeth as she tried to scream. She heard desperate voices above her but she couldn’t hear what they were saying through her black panic.
Intense pressure pinned her right shoulder to the cot that was nothing more than a fortified screen of metal mesh. A liquid splashed on her right arm and all of hell’s demons screamed out of the bone-deep laceration she did not know was there. She did scream, but the wad made it muffled at best. She tried to sit up but the male healers kept her down as they poured the liquid into her wound again.
Black pain darkened her vision. The lingering burn of the liquid cleanser masked another pain of a needle as they proceeded to sew the wound closed. As she realized this, all her panic burned away and left her exhausted.
Seeing her relax, they removed the wad.
“You could have warned me, first,” she grumbled wearily, spitting once to rid the taste of dirt and previous users.
A male healer of about thirty years with blond hair and a matching goatee stared at her. “We did. Five times.”
Altarn was willing to believe them. Battle nerves had not left her yet, which is why her instincts to fight consumed her, which made her realize what kind of state of mind the battle had left in her, and if she would suffer the effects for long.
The healer cut the string and Altarn walked briskly out of the tent, angry at the healers for unfounded reasons. Not only did they pour liquid fire into her wound, but they were also trying to save Byrone. She came out of the tent and paused as she viewed the scene before her. Ruids and Blindvarns were making their way up the hill in a slow, jagged wave.