A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 11
When one of the Catai went down, one arm nearly severed, Celivia reconsidered stepping in. But at that moment Zeriin slid into the battle, stabbing a knife into the Redbranch leader's arm.
The human swung at him, yet Zeriin dropped down without slowing, sliding directly between his opponent's feet. Somehow in the process he left two knives in his opponent's legs.
Though the leader of the raiders displayed stamina that would put many Catai to shame, it didn't matter. Zeriin had already hopped up on the other side of him and put two more knives in his back. Somehow the Redbranch leader managed to keep fighting, even landing several blows on his opponent. Zeriin was clearly fast enough to fight him at his best, much less when weakened and injured.
As the last human fell, the watching soldiers and warriors started up a cheer. All eyes were on Zeriin, yet Celivia found that she wasn't even slightly jealous. She didn't even care much about her plan. Instead, all she felt was a simple relief that the chaos of the battle was over and that she was alive.
"The Redbranches are no more!" One of the Catai jumped up onto the first wagon and roared out the words. "We've destroyed their forces, but we need to tear them out, root and stem. It is time for Captain Zeriin's second command: we march to their village and eliminate these raiders once and for all!"
His words prompted another cheer from all the survivors. This was the first Celivia had heard of a second step to the plan and she wasn't clear on what it would entail. Still, she would assume that it was an improvement to her plan, perhaps eliminating weaker Redbranches who might try to train for revenge. What mattered was that both mansthein and humans in the Sotunn Mountains would be permanently free of the threat.
If the Redbranches were one of the weakest of the clans, however, she understood that the human raiders formed a real threat. Unusually, they seemed capable of fielding a large number of sein-trained warriors. But there would be time to consider all of that later. For the moment, she was still happy that her plan had come through.
Only some time later did she remember to think of her band, which she supposed made her a poor band leader. She discovered them at the edge of the forces that remained, sporting a few injuries but all intact. The amount of time it had taken her to remember them didn't seem to matter: they pumped their fists in the air when they saw her, and cheered when she saluted with a fist to her chest.
"The plan would have been a good one regardless of if it had worked." Zeriin appeared behind her, ghostly quiet. "But since most care only for results, you should be glad the attack was such a great success. I think that you and your band will soon be transferred to Wahleen."
She nodded in response, as if she could truly absorb such a change so easily. North to Wahleen, where warriors far more powerful than her played games of influence. Where a Zeitai had stepped out of the Legend to rule over the fate of mansthein.
- End of Part 1 -
Interlude
Every time Marikia closed her eyes, she saw it again. His body falling to the street, surrounded by agonizing light...
She had known then that watching Annemo die would cut itself into her mind forever, but she had been surprised by what haunted her most. Not the blade driving through his heart, his face going slack as he died, or his body hitting the ground. Each of those lay within her like shards of glass, but they didn't break her over and over again.
It was the sight of her husband's knives falling to the ground and his flames going out. The sein that she had known so intimately, disappearing from the world forever.
And the one who had been responsible...
A painful bite drew Marikia back to the present and her eyes wrenched themselves open. She realized that she had begun to drift off while breastfeeding Antio. She felt a surge of guilt to have neglected him, but she was just so exhausted. It had been more than enough work for two, and now she was alone.
Marikia stroked her son's head gently and mumbled the words of his favorite lullaby. Annemo's favorite lullaby. She could remember so clearly how often he had sung it to Kiriati, guiding her to sleep when Marikia couldn't bear to rise again. Those had been some of the only nights that she slept peacefully instead of succumbing to exhaustion.
Eventually Antio managed to latch on and begin to suckle again. Though she felt a warmth flow through her as he nestled against her chest, the exhaustion of reality followed. His little teeth were so cute, yet so sharp. Marikia was stronger than she had been with her first child, so her nipples no longer cracked painfully, but his tongue still felt like sandpaper against sand.
For a moment she embraced the pain and closed her eyes peacefully. And saw the flames die again.
On that fateful day, she had been so nauseous that she hadn't joined the call to battle. At the time, she hadn't realized that she had been pregnant after so many attempts. She had tracked the days back and realized that it had been the advice of the kind Seinan man who had visited them that finally convinced her to change the herbs she had been taking.
Because of that, her husband had left her with a final fragment of his life. A boy, just as they had wanted for their second child. She hadn't been emotional during her first pregnancy, but during her second, she held her growing stomach many times and wept.
When Antio finished feeding, his eyes began to drift closed. Marikia let her song slowly fade away as she took him to the nest of blankets at the edge of the bed. He fussed again, little fists balling, but she rearranged the blankets around him perfectly, crooning until he fell asleep.
It had always been worth it in those moments, but as her son fell asleep, Marikia remembered that there would be other moments. As much joy as she had found in motherhood, it reminded her of the traditions of Fein Karnak that would have her be nothing but a mother. At times, with so much of her self drained into motherhood, she experienced a dissatisfaction and guilt that she struggled to explain. With her children clinging to her all day, she felt as though her body was no longer truly hers. As if she would never be a sexual woman again, only a mother.
Once, she had stolen a few moments with Annemo and proven herself wrong. Now that he was gone forever, the thought sat dull in her mind. As her body healed, she ached for him.
Marikia caressed the side of her son's head one more time, then left him lying peacefully asleep.
She dropped to the floor of their room and let her weight settle on her hands, then lowered herself to the ground. It was only simple strength conditioning, yet she needed it. Her body felt stronger after the pregnancy, but that strength held a natural clumsiness, not the blade she had forged through her training. But as the vestigial pouches at her sides faded, she could feel her other self returning.
It was growing too easy. She pushed herself upright to balance on her hands, then let herself down until her face nearly touched the floor. Though it would not have been possible without her sein, it responded naturally to the balanced movement. As she pressed herself up again, she realized that she was leaking, but ignored it.
Before their first child, she had been concerned about everything she had heard about children changing her sein. She had discovered that they had been more right than she'd imagined, but that she had been wrong to be afraid. So much of herself had changed in the wash of new emotions and experiences and she had reemerged stronger.
Yet the love and grief she felt now were too gentle. They might strengthen her, but they could not serve as a weapon. For that, she turned to hatred and intentionally took herself back to that vision of dying flames.
When she wasn't filled with sorrow, her soul overflowed with nothing but hatred for those who had taken her husband. The Hero, yes, but he had been an unthinking monster. Annemo would never have been killed if not for the girl.
The girl. Weakening him, removing his knives, distracting him from the threat. The Hero might have been the blade, but the Rhen girl had been the hand holding it. From her helpless vantage point, Marikia had been unable to see the human's face, but she had done nothing as Annemo died. Though Marikia had longed to kill her then, the streets had become a nightmare and she had retreated to protect Kiriati.
Hatred reaching its peak, Marikia sprang back to her feet and grabbed her dueling glaive. She began to trace through her old exercises, making her blade soundless through the air so as not to wake the baby. So much hatred overflowed from her that at times she was shocked that it didn't leak out when she was feeding her son and make him cry.
As if in response, he began to wail only half-way through her exercises. Marikia sighed as she set down her glaive and returned to him, trying to sing him back to sleep. She had thought that after one child, she would have mastered this as she had sein arts, yet the two children had been completely different. Kiriati had wailed like a banshee and struggled with her blankets, but when she finally fell asleep, she would remain that way for precious hours. Antio drifted off easily enough but awoke for no reason at all.
Just as he finally fell asleep, Marikia heard small footsteps outside her door. She managed to throw off her weariness before Kiriati ran into the room. That day she wore a crown of the golden grasses of the Expanse and carried a bean stalk scepter.
"Oma! Oma I-"
"Ssh, Antio is sleeping." Marikia gently put a finger to her lips, but fortunately her son remained asleep. She guided her daughter from the room and closed the door as quietly as possible. Then she bent down and encouraged Kiriati to tell her everything.
As the girl eagerly explained about her day, Marikia could not help but smile sadly. Despite the horror of the battle, the Chorhan Expanse had become more peaceful. Perhaps it was the disappearance of one of the human kings, the death of Aryabaus, or the new negotiations with the Rhen. She tried to tell herself that Annemo's sacrifice had been part of earning that peace, but it rang as a lie even in her own mind.
Whatever the reason, it was now safe for her daughter to travel between their home and the school alone, without fear of humans butchering her. She had shown great promise in her studies and even early signs of understanding her own sein, though Marikia wasn't sure if she wanted their daughter following in their footsteps.
"Can we visit Daddy?" Without warning, Kiriati stopped talking about her day and drove the question into her heart. Somehow Marikia smiled again.
"Of course we can." She took her daughter's hand and led her down the hall to the shrine.
She had been gentle, but she had hidden none of the truth from Kiriati. Given the life the girl faced, and the even more horrible possibility that she would one day lose her mother, the girl needed to harden her teeth. In her childlike way she had understood, but she clung to tradition with a fervor that Marikia never felt.
Yet as she reached the simple shrine, she did feel something stir in her. Even if she knew that the Zeitai were only men who had transcended strength, there was something comforting about the ritual of it. Her daughter picked up the crude wooden statue of Zeitai Teirsan and murmured to it, messages for him to take to their father's spirit. She said that it was because he had a kind face and Marikia chose not to tell her that these statues likely bore no resemblance to the real people.
Allegedly Teirsan was one of the fairest and kindest Zeitai, but her eyes wandered higher, to the Dark Lord behind them. If he existed, he never oppressed anyone, or bickered in council meetings, or amassed wealth. Some were bitter about his absence, but she had always been comforted by the idea of someone standing above all other conflicts.
Above everything, one could be pure. In her case, pure wrath. Marikia closed her eyes and begged for the strength she needed to take revenge.
A small hand touched her arm. "Daddy is worried about you." Kiriati looked up at her with large eyes and Marikia could barely smile back at her.
"Is he now?"
"Yes. He thinks you're too tired and need to sleep." The girl nodded very seriously. "I know that baby Antio keeps crying but can't we think of a way to make him sleep? I can take care of him, really I can."
"Maybe you can." Marikia pulled her daughter to her fiercely and held her close. She squeezed her until the little girl struggled and then released her. In a flash, the girl was cheerful again, skipping back into the house to find one of her toys.
Her mother lingered, reaching behind the statues of the Zeitai to the symbol of the Dark Mother. Some claimed that she had once been a Zeitai, while others believed she was something more. Most Feinans declared her as a female heresy, while to Seinans she was the patron of all women.
Marikia didn't know what the truth was and she didn't care. What mattered to her was not the gentle Dark Mother statue she held, but her other aspect. The first smiled lovingly, but she clearly remembered the other statue deep in the pits, that mouth split open in a bloody grin that promised vengeance. More than any of the others, she honored the Red Mother.
Once Marikia had found her focus, she set the statue back down. She could already hear her son crying again, but once he was asleep, she would return to training. Tired as she was, she would force herself on until she had finished breastfeeding her son and found a safe place for both their children.
Then those dying flames in her memory would kindle into bloody fire.
Part 2
Savage Nobility
Chapter 8
-
"This is not the survey you requested. By the time you read this, copies of this survey will have already been distributed across the Maenhu. Wahleen, Espal, and Portant in equal measure. This detailed information on the raiding clans across the Sotunn Mountains is only possible through the cooperation of scholars across the Maenhu, despite being explicitly forbidden from such. For that reason, we collectively sign this survey with another name."
- Scholars of the Blue Mask
-
It took them longer than Slaten had expected to reach the Bloodskin village, but allegedly it lay past the next valley. The distance itself was not so far, as he estimated it, and the raiders knew how to traverse the mountains easily. Instead of taking a direct path, they made frequent stops to hunt and they detoured to strike another caravan.
Having seen how they behaved, he suspected that they simply ranged over their territory in the hopes of taking advantage of travelers, instead of targeting specific groups. If they ran into a human caravan, they would no doubt attack it just as viciously. In that case, Slaten would hope that Melal would be able to prevent a slaughter, because he knew he couldn't.
At last, their wandering had nearly reached its end. As they had traveled east, the forested mountains had given way to rocky peaks. It seemed to Slaten that trees struggled to grow the higher they climbed. There were still some hardy breeds that clung to the rocks, and the Bloodskins said they had plenty of wood near their village, but higher...
Stopping atop a local peak, Slaten stared out over the mountains, quiet with awe. Seeing the world stretch out before him was familiar on the Chorhan Expanse, but if the horizon here was smaller, there was a greater sense of depth. Looking over the valley, the mountains extended far in either direction. Beyond them, he could see yet higher peaks crowned with ice, extending until the mist claimed them.
"Stop dawdling, Slaten!" Melal appeared beside him with a broad grin. "We're almost there!"
"Almost to their village." Though Slaten hadn't spoken to Melal often during the journey, he realized that they were mostly alone and that they needed to take this chance. "I have been asking about the lay of the land, and they say that Mount Tmil lies much further east. Look at the mountains we can see from here... I don't think we can climb those easily."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that." Melal folded his arms and stared out past the snowy peaks. "The Sage lives atop a fearsome mountain, surrounded by hostile raider clans. Even if we could sneak past them, that is not the way of the Legend. I was thinking that it would be a waste to leave so many mighty warriors behind."
"Wait, do you mean...?"
"The Bloodskins should fight on the side of humanity in the great battle yet to come. They may not all believe in me yet, but I know they speak of the Legend. Given time, they will all see the truth, and I will forge them into a new army to wield against the Deathspawn."
Almost exactly what Slaten had feared. Yet now, in a moment when words might matter, he struggled to find any. "Are you sure we should delay speaking to the Sage? What if the path he lays out is urgent, or requires us to leave the mountains immediately?"
"This isn't the time for your doubts, Slaten. I can feel that this is the right path. Follow me and trust in the Legend." With that, Melal clapped him on the shoulder and turned away. The Bloodskins had caught up to their position, so there was no more time for discussion in any case. Nothing remained but the final walk to the village.
Animated by thoughts of home, the Bloodskins were unusually boisterous, and they left Slaten completely alone. That suited him well. Though he seemed to have some measure of respect from them, they regarded him awkwardly for reasons he hadn't entirely understood. Better to listen quietly and learn about what they most wanted from home.
The answer was brief: food and women. Slaten tried to keep listening, but there wasn't much substance to their conversation aside from local references that meant nothing to him.
Slaten didn't realize they were close until other Bloodskin warriors came over a ridge. They met in a flurry of violent greetings, the other raiders simply ignoring the lowlanders as they slammed into their comrades. That set off another round of loud conversation, some of it so thickly accented that Slaten had trouble understanding their Coran.
When the newly assembled group went over the same rise, they finally found the Bloodskin village. It squatted rudimentary and crude against the majesty of the mountains. Most of the buildings were formed with rough mud bricks that would have been shameful in a Coran village, with layers of thatch stuck on haphazardly. Slaten tried to avoid judgment and noted that the buildings did look very warm, including heavy doors with the edges lined with some sort of fur.
