Blades Falling Softly, page 14
part #1 of The Brightest Shadow Series
As soon as they had realized what they saw, both of them had started to run, but Anyinn knew that they would be too slow. When Feinouya tried to reach for Laghy, Gowanisa grabbed her leg and sank her teeth into it. Feinouya reacted with a vicious kick that sent her skidding over the ground, shielding her stomach. Immediately the clan head struck again, and Gowanisa barely managed to defend herself, the impact giving off a painful crack.
One of the other warriors pushed Laghy onto his back and lifted a spear overhead. Anyinn saw tears burning in the warrior's eyes and realized that he had likely just lost someone as well. It occurred to her as a dim, irrelevant fact that Feinouya's son had also been in the negotiation hall. That should have meant something to her, but it passed through her mind with little trace.
This time, she would not be too slow. She had already lost Noreinu and couldn't allow Canumon to feel that same pain. Anyinn rushed forward, denying the distance between them and crossing the distance in a glorious flash.
Her blade swept through the attacker cleanly, as if he didn't exist. Anyinn stared at the blood arcing from her sword with grim fascination, realizing the beauty of it.
"What are you doing?" Feinouya turned away from Gowanisa, staring at her in horror. "You... you're supposed to be the Hero! This is revenge for everything they took from u-"
Anyinn's blade found its way into her throat. The clan head stared at it in shock, having never believed that her savior would turn on her, but Anyinn was already losing interest. She would protect her friends, no matter who stood in her path. When the warriors around her stepped into her vision, she simply cut them down until there were none left.
They began to flee, as they should, but as Anyinn turned she saw more Deathspawn. The creatures were creeping around Gowanisa, no doubt intending to attack her. Anyinn struck first, defending Gowanisa from the woman lurking behind her. More people screamed around her and she heard them for only a moment before she put such thoughts out of mind. Their cries were making Gowanisa afraid, but she could remove them soon enough.
Canumon stood in her path and Anyinn frowned that he would turn against her. She struck out with a blinding slash... and somehow he deflected the sword. The abrupt failure made Anyinn stumble, hesitating for the first time since that beautiful arc of blood.
Though he attacked her and her soul screamed to cut him down, her body reacted automatically to the familiar movements. She realized that it was the sequence of techniques that had passed between them so many times and let herself fall into the response. As she did, she began to notice the terror on the faces of everyone around her.
Clearly, she had gone too far, though she struggled to remember why through the glorious light in her memory. Canumon would help her, that was her only hope. She knew him so well, every step and every strike, he would lead her back to the truth. If she followed the path they had forged together, she would find her way home.
Surging Leviathan. Waterfall Cascading Upward. Punishing Willow. And then her Tranquil Blade tore through his chest in a thrust of righteous light.
Canumon
As the pain forced its way through the shock, Canumon realized that he had failed. For a few steps, he had seen the old Anyinn again, not the Hero with flashing eyes striding out of Legend. When her sein cut into his heart, he saw the horror on her face. It made no difference to the mortal wound in his chest, but it mattered to him.
While he fell to the ground, Canumon took a deep breath and gathered all of the sein remaining within him. It was intended to be a final technique of desperation, allowing a warrior to fight beyond the limits of their body, but he had no intention of fighting. There had been enough violence that day.
From below, he saw Anyinn's empty hand shudder in horror and her sword dropping from the other. She fell beside him, trying to catch his body, but for once she was too slow. Instead she let out the scream of anguish that he had expected ever since she'd seen her husband's body.
Before he could rise, she manifested another blade of shimmering sein and drove it into her own chest. But this time, it didn't tear through her flesh, merely piercing her soul. She took a long, painful breath and then closed her eyes. After wiping them once, they remained dry.
With slow, methodical movements, Anyinn picked up her steel sword and raised it to her throat.
Canumon grasped her wrists with the last of his strength and forced the sword back down. Her dead eyes stared at him, briefly flickering with a futile little hope, but then her gaze shifted to his wound and the flow of his sein. She knew that he had already lost too much blood and that his body was sustained only by his last breaths of power. Despite all the ferocity she had displayed, her arms were weak as a child's.
"I know you're still there, Anyinn." Blood stained his lips as he spoke. "Don't let it end like this."
"Hasn't it ended?" Her hollow statement hurt worse than the blow to his chest, but he forced himself on.
"For me, but not for everyone else. Not for you."
"No, it's too late for me. And this is me." She raised her hands to her face, yet he couldn't tell if she was staring at them, or him, or something beyond both. "I thought it was some external spirit, but it isn't. This, part of this, has been within me all along."
"Why should that matter?" His words finally reached her and he saw her eyes - human eyes - finally meet his. "We haven't lost everything. We still have family left... if we let them die, then we truly will have lost ourselves. Anyinn, please..."
The next breath rasped painfully in his throat and he dropped. This time she caught him, guiding him onto his back. He strained to look past her, finding Gowanisa staring at them in shock and Laghy crying on the ground. For once, his wails were a blessed sound, because for all his sobs, he was still alive. Soon enough, Gowanisa drew him to her breast and his cries fell silent. Anyinn wiped her eyes again and retreated, so he reached a hand out to his wife.
She moved to him swiftly, lacing her claws through his. He could feel that several bones in her arms had broken, yet she still reached up to cradle the side of his face. Hot tears joined the blood covering his chest.
"Gowanisa... I forgive her, do you understand? This... this was always beyond us. We had... had..."
"I understand, you fool." She wiped her eyes roughly. "You were always a better person than I was."
"We fought as well as we could... not well enough, but we fought. You and Laghy have to live, or..."
His wife dropped her head against his shoulder and wept. Canumon could no longer feel his arms, yet saw one of them slowly rise at his command and touch her back. His entire body felt warm and cold at the same time, more peaceful than he expected as the last of his sein faded away.
"I never regretted being with you. Not for... not one heartbeat..."
Her hand clutched his as if she would never let go, but she needed to. Even his dying mind realized that more warriors remained on both sides, and the next slaughter might be the last. So Canumon let his hand grow slack, closed his eyes, and stilled his breathing. Gowanisa wept over him for a while longer, then forced herself away.
Once he heard their footsteps, Canumon opened his eyes one final time. His heart had stopped beating and he was nothing but a few whispers of sein in a corpse, but he could watch them. This time his eyes remained open as he saw his wife, his son, and his last friend disappear into the mists together.
Anyinn
Though Anyinn swung with the sword she had used for over a decade, it was no longer her familiar blade. Instead of a length of steel, it was a ray of light, the incarnation of terrible justice. All who stood before her were cut down, everything they might have believed simply denied by her strikes.
It was no rampage, she was making the world right. She swung with the old certainty that in her wisdom she knew better, and that the world should conform to what she knew to be true. Where she and Canumon had struggled to redefine the conflict, now she could change those stories and ignore the violence her targets had to offer. Only glances toward Gowanisa kept her in check, remembering how her wisdom had been wrong, but those memories dimmed with each moment as she tore a path back to the place that had once been home.
But it was no longer her home. That house had been occupied by a woman named Anyinn who no longer existed. When she had struck herself with the Tranquil Blade, the memory had glowed with new purpose that left no trace of her memory. A glorious sun burned down over the tree and transformed the lake into a blinding mirror in which she could see nothing.
Only a single purpose blazed inside her: the remnants of their families had to live. Beside her, Gowanisa kept pace despite her injuries and the look in her eyes. Laghy still sobbed whenever she looked in his direction, but his mother only stared back with bleak determination. Feeling her husband die in her arms had left her deadened beyond the terror that Anyinn wreaked on the world.
They left behind the growing violence and finally arrived at the small house. Her mind had expected a blood-covered battleground, yet it lay perversely untouched, as if there had been no deaths at all.
"Mother?" Heraenyas peeked from the door, staring at them with wide eyes. "Everyone else said something terrible had happened and left me. But you said to stay here, so I-"
Anyinn cut her off with an embrace at full speed, startling the girl. When she pulled back, she saw fear in her daughter's eyes, though not toward her. She wished that she would wipe it away, yet knew that such things were no longer within her power. Now she had only a single terrible certainty to give, nothing that a mother should have been able to offer.
"Mother? Why are you crying?"
"There's been a battle." The words fell dully from her lips and she had to close her eyes against her daughter's questing gaze. "I'm sorry, but your father is dead. Canumon died so that we could escape. You need to leave with Gowanisa now, or..."
"No!" Heraenyas leapt forward, clinging to her. "He's dead? I can't go! How? Can I stay with you? Please, I can't..."
"Heraenyas, you have to listen to me. Gowanisa's arms are injured, so she needs your help to take care of Laghy. You need to leave quickly, do you understand? People might come after you, and I need to stop them."
"And then you'll come after us, right?"
She had told herself that she wouldn't lie to her daughter. "Yes."
Gowanisa had dropped to the ground to let Laghy crawl on his own while she massaged her broken arm. When Anyinn turned toward her, the mansthein woman returned her flat gaze and slowly rose. They stepped away from the children, staring at one another in silence until Gowanisa finally spoke.
"You're really going to trust me with your daughter's life? I wouldn't."
"I'm not sure I know myself, but I think I still know you, Gowanisa." Anyinn wanted to smile and found nothing but terrible confidence welling up inside her. "I would say I'm sorry, but nothing I say can possibly..."
"Damn right. He might have forgiven you, but I won't."
They were interrupted by a sudden laugh, and both turned to find Laghy giggling. All Heraenyas had done was pull out a wooden toy, yet it delighted him endlessly. The girl still had tears in the corners of her eyes, and the boy would cry again, but for now, they were happy.
"She doesn't know how young she is," Anyinn said slowly. "What I've done to her, leaving like this... it isn't right. Perhaps I could have been a better mother, but it's too late now. When she's ready, you need to talk to her. To make sure this doesn't consume her."
Gowanisa heaved a deep breath. "You're really putting that on me?"
"It's all I have left."
For a time Gowanisa simply stared at her, red eyes glowing, and then she gave a strange smile. Despite all she had learned about mansthein smiles, Anyinn had no idea what it meant.
There were more words after that, and many preparations, but that was the end. Anyinn helped them gather whatever could be of any use in the house and sent them off on a path that would take them far from the Taynol Valley, hopefully to safety. The desire to go with them and slaughter anyone who might harm them smoldered inside her, but she knew that was the one choice she could no longer make.
Eventually they departed, Gowanisa leading Heraenyas, who held Laghy in her hands. As they dwindled in the distance, Heraenyas turned back and waved to her, as if they would see one another again soon. Anyinn wanted to give her a final farewell and instead merely waved back.
Then she was finally alone, as she should have been ever since she'd tasted the golden fire. She carefully cut off part of her robe and fixed it on the pole atop the house, the blue signaling a grave. After staring at it fluttering in the wind for a time, she dropped into the yard behind the house and said her last farewell.
The daughter she might have had was remembered now only by a single stone, unmarked except for her name. She had never taken a breath, all that she might have been coming to an early end, just as her relationship with Canumon's family had been choked by the purpose still coursing through her. But she had lived, and they had lived, and that emotion had meaning even if they were all forgotten.
Anyinn dropped her sword on the floor of the empty house, an utterly empty gesture: she knew that she would pick it up again soon. But for now, the pain eroded all the glorious purpose within her and she wandered through her old home as a ghost.
Memories faded through her mind, a painful warmth. Not just her grown children, but the four of them talking around the fire, Heraenyas and Laghy playing in front of the fire. She realized that she was making her way to her bedroom, where all her papers still lay scattered on the desk. Her manuscript was completely useless now, since she would be hated if she was remembered at all. The woman who had ended the Tayn clan... the only thing worse would be the savior of the clan.
Yet though she had nothing to give, Anyinn found herself sitting down. Her thoughts echoed with the terrible light in that fatal blow and how it had felt to drive her sein into herself. Trying to put the horrors of that day into words was a futile task, but in this one small thing, she could take back a tiny fragment of insight. She picked up her quill and began to write.
Postscript
The manuscript ends not with any information about the bloodiest day of those events, but with an apparent return to the simple technique descriptions of the beginning. It is possible that the events are encoded in some way, because the sein instructors I showed the manuscript said that the technique described in the final pages is incomprehensible.
The lack of closure again works against any illicit purpose a false document might desire - such techniques may have been in vogue in years past, but they hold little appeal to popular audiences. If it was intended to deceive, the deception must be aimed toward scholars attempting to discern the truth of the Legend. Given how this war is increasingly fought with the quill instead of any blade, this possibility cannot be discounted. I only hope that revealing this manuscript strikes at least a small blow for our Hero and in support of the one true Legend.
My attempts to track down the allegedly surviving members of either family have resulted in failure, though it is possible that they died in the subsequent chaos. My contact in the enemy military says that there is no record of the supposed operation in the valley or of any of the Deathspawn involved rejoining their legions.
Investigating the Taynol Valley itself proved difficult, as locals refused to enter, citing superstitious reasons. When I hired an outside agent, they claimed to find two unmarked graves at the site. Strangely, the manuscript offers us no explanation for this, so both the site and the document will perhaps remain a mystery.
The Hero
The Hero walked to the top of the mountain slowly, bearing the Deathspawn corpse in her arms. She knew that she needed to carry it, though it was easier not to think about why. At least no one else stood in her path, though the base of the mountain had been scattered with corpses.
Before her, she finally saw her destination: a tent formed from darkness itself.
"Come out, Dark Lord! I'm here to slay you!" The Hero laughed bitterly and set down the body. "I've killed a dear friend. That makes me a great Hero, doesn't it?"
A light within her had expected a glorious battle against her final foe, while a lingering piece of herself had wondered if the tent was entirely abandoned. She felt nothing within it and the dark canvas barely even moved in the wind. Perhaps they had all been driven to madness by an empty tent atop a mountain.
Finally he emerged, a monstrous Deathspawn who straightened to over twice her height. The darkness of his body made the tent look like mere gray, his maw of knives burned with infernal flames, and his eyes glowed like the father of all Deathspawn. Smiling to herself, the Hero put her hands on her hips.
"So you do exist. Are we going to fight now?"
"Fights occur between people, and we are no longer that." His voice was surprisingly soft for such a large being, resonant but not as deep as she had expected. When she looked into those pure crimson eyes, she saw not hatred, but an ancient weariness that engulfed her own. "Now we are but symbols."
"The two of us are the same, aren't we?" She stared up at him, understanding for the first time. "I've already lost so much of myself to this... role. How long have you been the Dark Lord?"
"A very long time." He moved ponderously, walking past her to sit down at the edge of a cliff. When she only stared, he patted the ground beside him. "Come and sit."
"But we are going to try to kill each other, aren't we?"
"Yes."
"And you'll win, won't you?"
His eyes met hers somberly and he hesitated, as if considering whether or not to lie. When he spoke, she remained uncertain of his decision. "Most likely. The time is not yet right for the Legend to take this course, so it will betray you one last time."
