Age of Legend, page 11
part #4 of Legends of the First Empire Series
They waylaid my ambush!
Tesh ran back to where Edgar and Pliny fought. As he did, he caught sight of a bright flash, a blade moving through a shaft of sunlight. Looking, or thinking, would have been fatal. Instead, Tesh instinctively stabbed out to his right with one blade while raising his second in defense. Both weapons encountered something, and he heard a high-pitched squeal. Tesh didn’t bother to look. When fighting elves, time was measured not in seconds or even fractions of them, but in moments of incalculable brevity. Wasted movement or glances equaled death.
Trusting that he’d killed whoever had attacked, Tesh inserted himself into the fight between Edgar and Pliny and the two elves who had jumped them from behind.
Slower than Tesh, and lacking his muscle-memory instincts, Edgar was still the next-best Rhune warrior in the army. He’d already been good before Tesh started giving him pointers, and those skills showed as he killed his opponent with a well-placed slash.
Atkins came in third on Tesh’s list of best fighters, with the late, great Grevious taking fourth. Pliny and Brigham had talent but lacked training. If they survived, Tesh would give them more than what Eres had. He’d teach them the secrets he’d stolen from the Galantians. He made this decision even as he killed the fourth elf, who nearly took Pliny’s head off.
The noise of the fight, and that high, elvish squeal, drew more enemies to their position.
“Form a circle!” Tesh shouted, and without hesitation they put their backs to one another.
The elves came out of the forest like bees from a rapped hive. Their decision proved to be disastrous. With Tesh’s men in a circle, their eyes watching all directions, the enemy couldn’t hide. They broke upon the Rhune blades like waves upon granite.
This is it, Tesh thought. This is how we’ll win. In past months, he’d focused on only training himself, but now he realized the massive advantage of a team. A single Tesh was dangerous, but a squadron of them would be invincible.
An arrow hit him in the back of the head, ringing his helmet. Another glanced off his shoulder plate. Tesh didn’t have time to do anything about those and kept fighting as more elves charged. He killed another, and another, and his successes drew unwanted attention.
The ground turned to muck under his feet.
He felt it gather at his ankles, trapping him, restricting his movement. Sheathing his swords, Tesh grabbed a tree branch. The muck wasn’t magical, just ordinary dirt infused with regular water, but the two had been mixed using the Art and churned by his own movements. Pulling on the limb, Tesh crawled to solid ground. Then it, too, began to liquefy. Everywhere his feet landed turned slick and soft. Tesh leaped to a log, which quickly became an island within a lake of goo.
Then the log burst into flame. He gasped as the fire ran up his body. Totally engulfed, Tesh could barely see because of the orange tongues licking up his face. In terror, he almost jumped off, but he took half a second to look for a clear spot to land. In that brief pause, he realized something—no heat, no pain.
Magic fire. Not real. They’re just trying to scare me. Don’t want me on the log.
A moment later, the fire went out, and the mud stopped liquefying.
“Help!” Atkins shouted, and Tesh found him knee-deep in the muck. He helped pull his friend free.
“What happened to the Miralyith?” Tesh asked.
“Brig got him.” Atkins pointed to where the young Killian stood over the body of a robed elf.
An arrow hit Tesh in the shin but glanced off his greave. Looking up, he found the archer nested in a nearby tree. Pliny saw him, too, and threw his spear, just missing his target. Still, he’d been close enough to make the elf give up his perch and retreat.
“We need to bring bows,” Tesh said. “If we had them, the Fhrey would be in real trouble.”
“Be good to use this stuff, too.” Atkins pulled on the shirt of a dead elf that was dyed in various shades of green and brown. “Hard to see them when they’re dressed like this.”
Tesh nodded, then looked around. No one was fighting. Edgar and Pliny were checking on Trent, who was prone and motionless. Pliny was bleeding from a head wound. The blood ran into his left eye, making him knuckle-wipe it.
“Don’t you dare take off that helmet,” Edgar said, vocalizing exactly what Tesh was thinking.
“What? You think I’m an idiot?” Pliny replied. “I just can’t see out of this eye.”
“So use the other,” Atkins told him. “Imagine it’s all you have, or it just might turn out that way.”
“Great, I’ve got sweat in that one. And I’m already pretending to be deaf. Do I have to be blind, too?”
Brigham ran back and rejoined their circle. The kid’s face was flushed red with excitement.
“Thanks,” Tesh told him. “That brideeth was gonna kill me.”
“Yeah, he didn’t seem to like you very much.” Brigham smiled. That expression said everything. They were all grinning. We’re alive—not just still alive, but more alive than ever.
This wasn’t their first battle, but the previous ones had been fought on the plain. Out there with the chariots, it was easier. Tesh hadn’t felt seriously threatened until they entered the forest. Here, the enemy decided to make their stand. This was their first real fight.
Tesh felt hyperalert. He could spot the turn of every leaf and saw colors more vibrantly. He noticed the movement of light and the dust motes that seemed to hover in the angled shafts. I’m on a higher plane right now. His fights with Sebek had been learning exercises, and they came with a safety net. The combat in the High Spear Valley had been too easy to elicit this kind of rush, but here in the dense forest where Death held hands with the living, Tesh felt something had changed. By necessity he had stepped into another reality, a world with different rules. And it wasn’t just him; he saw the same look of realization in each of those silly grins.
We are gods.
Tesh counted the dead. “Twelve to one; not bad,” he reported.
“Day’s still young,” Edgar replied.
Worried to the point of nausea, Brin stood at Padera’s side in the healing tent while the dead and wounded rolled in by the hundreds.
“Hold him down, girl!” Padera shouted as the soldier on the table began to writhe.
Gifford arrived just in time to pin the man’s shoulders down. Although the potter’s back was twisted and one of his legs nearly useless, his arms were powerful. The patient stilled as Padera went to work. The soldier’s arm was dangling at the elbow by a few strands of muscle, and the wound was blackened with filth. Padera had to cut it clean above the joint, so she set the teeth of her saw to his skin. Most patients had passed out by this point, but not this one. He screamed so loudly that Brin started to cry. She felt foolish, weak, and stupid, but it was more than just the scream that got to her. Everything was a contributing factor: gallons of blood, the smells of urine and burnt flesh, and the weeping of once strong men. But more than just these foreign sights, the lack of familiar things contributed to her tears: missing arms, hands, and eyes. In some cases, the whole of a face was gone, as if a raow had gotten loose in the camp. More than anything, though, her tears sprang from the absolute knowledge that she would soon discover Tesh among the dead or dying. She was certain she’d need to hold him down as Padera cut off an arm or filled his empty eye sockets with clay.
Padera finished with the saw, and the man stopped screaming—he’d either gone unconscious or died. Brin couldn’t tell anymore. The nightmare she was caught in felt random and senseless. Some lived, others died, and there seemed to be no telling which way the fates would decide. One man had looked fine. He’d walked into the healing tent on his own and calmly sat down, waiting his turn. When a lull came, Brin waved to him, but he didn’t move. She went over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” she had asked him.
He didn’t answer.
“Have him hauled out to the pile,” Padera told her.
“What?”
“He’s dead.”
Padera was right, but Brin had trouble believing it.
That’s what had started sending Brin over the edge. Until then, she’d been doing well. After that, the blood, burning flesh, and lost limbs got to her in ways they hadn’t before. Her shield had cracked, and she felt every blow from then on.
“Get some air,” Padera told her. “And get your head back on. I need you.”
Brin nodded and slipped through the flap.
Outside, the wounded were lined up across the field in absurdly neat rows. On the other side of the healing tents, the dead were heaped in piles where flies swarmed in a hideous, dark cloud. Their combined hum made so much noise they could have been cicadas.
The Battle of the Harwood had been a disaster—their first full-scale defeat. Nyphron had ordered the retreat at midday, and the dead and wounded continued to pour out long after sunset. Soldiers told tales of ghosts in the wood, invisible Fhrey. Most never saw their enemy. The days of easy victories were clearly over.
Brin walked to the edge of the camp and looked toward the distant forest, which formed a thick blue line on the horizon. Empty wagons rolled north, and another line of full ones traveled toward them, ragged soldiers walking alongside. Covered in blood, they stumbled and staggered.
The moon was rising, its yellow face already above the horizon. The day was over. The battle had been lost, and still she found no sign of Tesh.
The fresh air helped to clear her head, and Brin returned to Padera, who stood in a pool of blood, surrounded by a pile of arms and legs that were stacked like cordwood. Brin took over the searing of bloody stumps using a flat-iron paddle. Most of her patients were unconscious, but Gifford had to hold down a few for her. All of those screamed and begged her not to do it.
“That’s it for now,” Padera finally declared several hours later. The staff of healers, mostly pallid, exhausted women, dragged themselves out into the cool night air.
Brin tossed aside her bloodstained apron and walked across the camp. She got halfway to the little stream that ran behind it before realizing she had no idea where she was going. She looked up and was almost surprised to see stars. The world felt as if it had changed too much for such normal things to still exist.
Tesh is dead, she told herself. They haven’t brought his body back, probably can’t find it. She knew that Tesh would have rushed forward, driven ahead of the line, and gone too deep. She imagined him lying alone in the forest, his dead eyes still open, staring up but unable to see the stars.
Brin stood in the dry grass feeling empty and exhausted. Those are the same stars I used to look at when I lived in my parents’ little home that was filled with soft wool and the paintings I made on the walls. The same stars I used to see when roaming the hills around Dahl Rhen with my dog, Darby. The same stars I looked at just last week with Tesh. He pointed at that one—that bright one—and said it was his favorite.
Brin had never known anyone with a favorite star before, but she’d never known anyone like Tesh. He had his training, she had her writing, but they always found time for each other—usually at night under a sparkling sky.
“Brin?” The sound of his voice nearly killed her.
Turning and seeing Tesh standing there, she cried out. Tesh looked concerned until she tackled him.
“By Mari! Where have you been?”
“Well, there was this war—”
“Everyone else has been back for hours! Are you all right?”
“Tired. Hungry.”
“But . . .” She examined him with eyes and hands. Dirt mixed with blood stuck to his face. His hair was matted with sweat, and his armor looked nearly black with mud. “You’re not hurt?”
Tesh shook his head.
“Is everyone else . . . Edgar and Atkins and Brigham, are they . . .”
“We lost Trent,” he said, nodding grimly. “But everyone else is fine. Well, Pliny has a little cut on his forehead, but it’s nothing.”
Brin didn’t know what to say. She had expected him to be dead, or at least coming back to her with pieces missing. But his eyes were light and a little smile had formed on his lips. Tesh didn’t seem to have come from the same place as everyone else.
“Let’s get you some food,” she said, leading him to the last set of cook fires where pots still bubbled.
“You ought to be proud of that one, lassie,” a man whom Brin didn’t know said as he pointed at Tesh. He did so with his left hand, his right wrapped in bandages. “We lost today’s battle, but he won his—he, and his little band, saved dozens of us.”
“Eres was certainly no help,” added a man with his head wrapped all the way around and down over one eye. “Ordering us back into a line made easy targets of those who listened.”
“Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Davy,” the first man said.
“Eres is dead?” Brin asked.
All the battered men gathered around the bubbling pot scraped their bowls and nodded.
“One of the last to die, I think,” Davy said. He gestured to the others around the fire. “He was back near the rear, close to the forest eaves.”
“A Fhrey musta come up from behind,” the fellow with a wrapped right arm said. “Probably hated Eres for turning traitor agin ’im.”
“Makes sense,” Davy agreed. “But I thought Fhrey can’t kill Fhrey. So whoever took Eres out must have really hated him. Maybe there had been a history between them. I mean, he was the only one whose head had been cut off.”
“Anyone else want more?” Tesh asked. “Or can I finish this?”
Chapter Eight
The Face of Evil
People always believe their problems are the worst and the rest of the world has it easier, but that cannot be true. Someone has to be wrong . . . right? — The Book of Brin
Imaly heard the familiar shuffling as Makareta entered the breakfast nook. The girl wore only an undertunic and was wrapped in a bedsheet that dragged across the floor. After a year, she’d become less emaciated but more destitute. Dark circles wreathed her eyes, and her hair, which had once been a major source of frustration, had grown into an epic disaster of stubborn rebellion. The kerchief no longer made an appearance. And while Imaly had provided a brush, the Miralyith refused to accept that she had hair. This unwillingness to acknowledge reality extended to just about everything. Makareta no longer cared.
The girl shuffled to the table, then stopped and peered skeptically at the teapot. “Is it still hot?”
Imaly rolled her eyes. “The teapot? Ferrol save me from the Miralyith. Just touch it.”
Makareta placed fingers on the pot and quickly jerked them back with a startled cry. “What are you trying to do? Kill me?” She held out her hand. “Look, I’m burned!”
“You are not.”
“It hurts!”
“Stop being so melodramatic.”
The girl continued to pout as she poured a cup of tea, then sat down. She pulled out another chair and put her feet up, crossing them at the ankles. Makareta wore a pair of oversized slippers, the toe portions of which had been sewn to look like the faces of mice.
That’s new, and a little disturbing.
“Are there any more seedcakes?” Makareta asked without bothering to look around.
Imaly slapped both hands on the table and sat up straight, glaring at Makareta.
“What?” the younger Fhrey asked.
“You’re pathetic. You know that, don’t you? If you want something, get it yourself. And don’t try to pretend that you didn’t expect me to fetch you one.”
The wild-haired Miralyith cocked her head back and presented the sort of scowl that only the truly young and spoiled could conjure. “It’s fine. I don’t want one that badly.” Makareta sipped more of her tea. “What storm cloud rained on your sugar pile this morning?”
“You.”
“Me? Well, sorry for . . . what exactly? Living?”
Imaly frowned. “Not you, specifically, although sort of. I was actually referring to the Miralyith as a whole. You’ve made a mess of our society, and I resent being forced to clean up. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. My job—my sacred duty—is to ensure that all tribes are equally represented and that the horn only gets into the hands of someone well suited to lead our people. After that, it’s Ferrol’s judgment that determines who rules, but none of that matters since it has become suicide for any non-Miralyith to blow the horn.”
“So, this is one of those the-younger-generation-is-ruining-the-world tirades, is that it?” Makareta blew across her steaming cup and sighed.
“No, this has nothing to do with your age. It’s about how the Art has warped you—you and all Miralyith. A person needs hardships. Overcoming trials through perseverance, self-reliance, and sacrifice is what you missed out on. Pain, fear, drudgery, boredom—lots of boredom—these are the things that build character. And you need to experience loss and remorse because falling down gives you the opportunity to rise once more. Overcoming challenges turns a self-centered infant into a caring adult. Empathy—the ability to understand and appreciate the feelings of others—is the cornerstone of civilization and the foundation of our relationships. Lack of it . . . well, lack of empathy is as close to a definition of evil that I can come up with.”
“Then you must be quite wicked, Imaly, as I’m not sensing any empathy from you.”
“Because I make you get your own seedcakes?”
“No!” Makareta burst out. “Is that what you think?”
“All right, Mak, why then? I’ve taken you in, given you food and clothes. Please educate me on how I’m lacking empathy for you. I’m listening.”
Makareta didn’t answer right away. She started to cry. “You don’t know anything.” In frustration and anger, she pulled at her hair as she sobbed over the cup.
Imaly got up and gave the girl a hug, rocking with her. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. I know it’s been hard, but everything will be fine.”
“No, it won’t! Nothing will ever be fine again. I’m not an idiot. I know you’re planning on using me, although I’m not sure how. And when you’re done . . .” She cried again.
