A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 65
For a time there was silence. The pressure between the three left Celivia barely able to breathe, but finally it broke as Kreue cursed. He shifted both weapons to one hand and reached to his waist with the other. A crack rang across the battlefield, then he disappeared in a rush of air.
It took time for Celivia to understand because it was so simple: a Zeitai had abandoned the battlefield with a voidlink, just like any other warrior might retreat. Beside her, Celivia heard Ghalia growl out a curse.
In the remaining silence, the Fool and the errant reluctantly bowed to one another, then walked in opposite directions. Behind them, the battle raged on and a shining light broke over the field.
~ ~ ~
Though Laeri was supposed to stay back when Melal called for them to charge, she was somehow running along with the others, caught up in the rush of it. She had held back for so long, not watching the battle in order to prepare to save those who were injured. Yet now she found herself racing alongside the Hero as they struck into the chaos.
Why was she here? Laeri faltered and nearly ran back, but she told herself that she could be brave. She needed to be, for Melal's sake.
Just as she started to run after him, an enormous hand caught her shoulder. Laeri cried out as she was physically dragged backward, away from the charge she desperately needed to join. The sight of Melal dwindling further and further away pained her so much that she only realized who had grabbed her when he growled out an order.
"Hold back! Back, dammit! This is suicide!" Chief Bufogu screamed his orders to the Bloodskins, over and over. Some of them listened and held back, but how could they? Melal had called on them to join the battle, so how could they simply stand back and do nothing?
Far ahead, she saw Melal and his warriors hit the side of the chaotic lines. Deathspawn flinched from them, already shocked by the battle and unable to face rested warriors. Laeri's heart leapt as she saw them cut down the enemy, and she even saw that he had not been abandoned by all the Bloodskins. Gatoda whirled at his side, his axe flashing gloriously as he fought better than ever before.
Then a blade hacked deep into his arm and he screamed and there was nothing glorious at all and Laeri heard herself let out a cry that was consumed by everything else.
Laeri struggled, but one of the Bloodskins was pulling her back. All of those who had held back were forcing the others to join them. She desperately wanted to help the Hero, still watching his shining blade rise and fall. Couldn't they see that the Hero needed their help?
Beside her, Bufogu smiled grimly. Laeri realized with horror that he understood and he wanted this. This awful, awful man had slaughtered all those poor civilians and now he left the Hero to die, and she could do nothing.
Yet in the distance, Melal's sword only shone brighter. Unlike the terrible confusion of the past, Laeri realized that the hope in her heart had not faltered. She watched in awe as Melal and the chosen warriors around him simply continued fighting, refusing to accept that anyone could stand against them. Gatoda and many others fell, yet in the end they stood victorious, Deathspawn fleeing in all directions.
"Damn." Bufogu gestured roughly to his men. "Then we support the flank and help kill the stragglers. Just because..."
His words trailed off and Laeri realized that there was a Bloodskin woman standing nearby. No, not a Bloodskin, because she felt like a warrior. When she smiled, her teeth had been stained a terrible shade of blue. Fear joined the hope in Laeri's heart.
Two Bloodskins swung at the Stormpeak warrior, but she stepped past them. Her hands were a blur and Laeri didn't understand what she did, yet both men fell backward, their skin torn to shreds. The woman grinned more broadly and took another step forward.
Bufogu struck with terrible speed, his movement knocking Laeri to the ground. When she struggled up, she saw both warriors covered in blood. Though Bufogu's axe appeared to have partially severed the woman's arm, Laeri could only see his back and didn't understand how he could be covered in so much blood.
Patule rushed to join them, striking at the Stormpeak and finally driving her away, cradling her arm. Chief Bufogu remained in place, apparently frozen in the moment of victory.
Until he collapsed backward. Laeri gasped as she saw that the entire front side of his body had been torn open in countless places, in some locations merely his skin torn away and in others gashes dug deep into his body. The wounds seemed to horrify even the Bloodskins, who stumbled without a leader. Patule could have led them, but he ran further, driving away other enemies.
"We..." Laeri was surprised to hear her own voice, but perhaps some of the Hero's light still flickered in her after all. "The battle is over, so the time for healing has begun. Pick up Chief Bufogu and anyone else who is still alive so we can treat them at a safe distance."
Where were all these words coming from? Beyond that, why were the men of the Bloodskin clan actually listening to her? Something warm pulsed within her, leaving Laeri's mind floating about it like a thin outer cloak.
She no longer felt herself, and she was happy.
~ ~ ~
Despite the chaos of the battle, Slaten had yet to exhaust himself. He had always held back, ready for a warrior to throw himself against. Again and again, he found himself only engaging his opponents briefly instead of fighting to the death. Though he had tried to spend his strength saving his allies, somehow he had stumbled out of the battle almost entirely uninjured, only having lost one of his swords in the confusion.
It seemed so miraculous that he looked for Melal, but the Hero's group had separated from the Steelbones near the beginning. Now he was separated from them as well, disoriented on the battlefield. He knew that he should have been able to navigate by looking to Mount Tmil, yet his mind and body refused to speak to one another.
The fact that he still lived felt deeply unfair. He had fought cautiously and never joined any of the suicidal charges into the fray, yet that hadn't mattered for so many others. Warriors stronger than him had been killed in the clash between the masters that had become the heart of the battle.
In his numbness, Slaten nearly stumbled into the Catai.
As he stared blankly at the hulking figure, he realized that it was a woman. It seemed a curious little fact that his mind refused to let go, even though it didn't matter. She towered over him like any other Catai and her axe could kill him just the same.
"You don't look like the raiders." The Catai shrugged her axe off her shoulder and grasped it in both hands. "Well, I bet you'll die the same way."
Slaten drew his sword, her threat instantly cutting away everything else. There was no violence, no glory, no loss, only the cold truth of what he faced.
As the axe swiped at him, Slaten took a step back and deflected it, buying time. The impact sent made him taste blood so strongly that he smelled and felt it in his mouth. This Catai was powerful, and even if the battle had worn her, a prolonged fight was hopeless. His only hope was to spend as much of himself as he could in a few heartbeats and end the battle early.
Two more times the axe cut out at him and he continued giving way. The Catai gritted her monstrous teeth, visibly growing frustrated. He could use that. Her combat instincts were excellent, but she was impatient and likely used to overpowering her opponents.
When the axe came forward again, Slaten feigned that he would continue retreating. Just as he saw the Catai's muscles respond, Slaten instead stepped in, everything falling into his practiced pattern. In a single smooth movement, he released a burst of sein from each of his hands as they left his blade and flipped it into position for a hammer stroke.
In swift succession, the Catai was struck with two bursts of sein, then his pommel hit her stomach with everything he had left.
Her axe fell to the ground and she staggered backward, clutching her stomach. He had done exactly what he had intended, yet it wasn't enough. If his blow had knocked her down, he might have finished it, but the pain he had inflicted wasn't sufficient to disable her.
"Fuck... fuck, that hurts." The Catai straightened, one hand still on her stomach. "So many warriors strike me, and damned masters destroy entire companies, and I get injured by a scrawny swordsman."
Recognizing his own thoughts in her, Slaten almost smiled. But then the Catai lunged in, striking his arms before he could bring his sword into position and wrapping her enormous hand around his neck. He knew he should struggle, but he'd pushed so much of himself into that stroke, he only felt the pressure as she began to squeeze...
"Ghali, wait!"
At first he didn't believe what he could be hearing, yet the pressure on his neck vanished. He stumbled and barely stayed on his feet. When he managed to focus, his eyes struggled to believe that it was actually Celivia. She wasn't looking at him, instead turning toward the Catai.
"I told you," Celivia said, "this is one of the ones I wanted to save."
"How was I supposed to connect that description so long ago to this random human?" The Catai grimaced and clutched her stomach again. "Fuck, I'm going to be pissing blood unless we get a healer down here. You pick strange humans, Celi."
"I suppose so." Celivia finally turned to him, an odd smile on her face before it faded. Despite everything, Slaten found himself relieved to see her as well. Not merely because she had saved his life, but because he had feared they would never again stand across from each other as they had in Keep Aryabaus.
But this time, he was the one outnumbered. In addition to the Catai, Slaten saw that a group of battered mansthein soldiers followed Celivia. He recognized none of them except the short woman, who seemed to be wearing nothing but a tattered robe and two bloody cleavers. Her bloodshot eyes and empty stare suggested that the battle had been even more horrifying for her than the rest of them.
"I'm glad to see you again, Slaten. But this time, I suggest that you surrender."
"That seems quite reasonable," Slaten said, and collapsed.
~ ~ ~
Mount Tmil loomed in the distance, just as far away as before even though the day had taken her across the bloody field. Tani stared at it bitterly as she moved between the corpses, searching for survivors. She had confirmed that Mohuno had survived the last chaotic rush and ordered him to stay with Laeri and the others.
Cantyan remained with the other errants, keeping her away with the force of his bitterness. He had watched most of Melal's men die in battle and saw only the glory of it. For a moment she wondered if she had been selfish, if she had saved him only because she did not want to see him die. The decision was as irrevocable as every time she'd chosen to kill.
They had retreated to a safe distance and the mansthein army had also drawn back to lick its wounds. Yet both forces remained within a day of one another, held back only by the memory of the bloody carnage. Fragments of raider clans wandered through the hills, some looking for targets and some simply seinshocked. It had been a horrifying battle, even after all those she had seen, and she did not want the horror to be worsened by any simple accidents.
And so she left the others to defend and searched. Slaten had been torn from them when the masters began to do battle and the entire field had shifted in a moment. He had been uninjured then and Tani desperately hoped that he was alive, but she had yet to find him.
Instead she came upon Melal, staring skyward with his sword held loosely in one hand. It shone brightly, untouched by the blood. Around him lay bodies of raiders, mansthein, and errants. The Hero smiled.
"We have nearly won the war, Tani. The Zeitai has retreated and only part of the Deathspawn army remains."
"Do you intend to fight them?" Her voice sounded wrong to her own ears. Melal slowly shook his head.
"I wish to wipe them all from our world, but I recognize that some of our allies are weak. But you are not, Tani. You have survived another battle as my companion. This time, you must join me as we climb Mount Tmil and speak to the Sage. Our place in the Legend will soon be revealed."
"Slaten is still out there." Tani forced her eyes away from Melal's gaze and turned her back on him. "I need to find him."
"Do not fear. If he is meant to join us, he will survive. It is the same with Veron. Whether they live or die, the Legend will proceed all the same."
Tani stopped listening and focused on her search.
Chapter 49
-
"No matter what the Wooden Judges say, Catai should be treated as Steeljudges. They are not human, so why should they have human ranks? It is the differences between specialist Paths made more dramatic. Absurd as it might seem, we have records of Peak Ironlords defeating Catai and of Greater Steeljudges being defeated by them. Ranks beyond that, such as the mansthein Zeitai, are beyond this errant's ability to judge."
- Wahleenese treatise on mansthein ranks
-
With the battle over, so much rested on Laeri's shoulders that she wanted to cry, yet her eyes refused. She simply shuffled from person to person, doing what she could to heal them. Fortunately Nolise had survived and helped her, and Natala had sent some of the women they had trained to assist as well.
Her task was not as horrible as she had feared only because the battle itself had taken all the horror. Normally after such chaotic fighting, there should have been countless wounded, so many that Laeri would need to begin the most terrible of calculations: the greatest number she could save with the least sein, abandoning others to die. But the fighting had left more dead than wounded, as if they had spent their very lives in the battle.
So Laeri simply tried to help everyone without exhausting herself, her task growing easier with each day they retreated. When she finished another patient, she again tried to move toward the main building. It was only a house in a conquered Bloodskin village, but Chief Bufogu lay within it. There was one wounded man who desperately needed her help...
"No further, lowlander." An axe moved into her path, forcing her back. She saw Patule glowering at her and shrank back. "This has nothing to do with you."
"Don't be a fool, Patule." Another Bloodskin emerged from the house, one Laeri thought was named Denugo. "You've seen the chieftain's wounds. They aren't healing fast enough."
"A Bloodskin lives or dies on his own strength. Or do you not respect your chieftain's blood?"
"After everything we saw, can you still say that? The Deathspawn, the errants, the Stormpeaks... they don't respect our blood. Let the girl help him."
Patule frowned again, and Laeri wanted to tell him that he lived only because of her healing. Or would that only make him angrier with her? Was he angry because he knew that? Before she could sort through all her questions, Patule turned to her.
"Could your tricks save Bufogu?"
"I... I can't be sure." Laeri gripped her staff tighter and tried not to flinch as both Bloodskin men loomed over her. "His injuries after the battle were very serious. It would... depend on how deep they went, and how much he has recovered..."
"You see? Even the girl doesn't know if she can help."
Denugo began to argue with him, but Patule glowered at her again and Laeri retreated. Just as it had been yesterday, and the day before that. It hurt her to think that someone was dying when she had sein to spare and might have been able to save him. Yet... it was Chief Bufogu...
Just as Laeri began to falter, she saw Natala walking through the village. Many of the women from scattered tribes gathered around her and she spoke to them. Usually her words encouraged them, but this day Laeri saw many of the women leave unhappy. When Natala approached she had a grim expression as well, but she visibly struggled to smile and rubbed Laeri on the back.
"Are you well, Laeri?"
"I only wish they would let me lend my healing... but what about you?" Laeri clasped the other woman's arm and tried to smile back. "You've been so busy, I thought it was going well. Is something wrong?"
"Oh, did you notice? I had not wanted to burden you..." Natala lowered her gaze, but when Laeri patted her arm encouragingly, she continued on. "The trouble is with the women of all the destroyed tribes. The Bloodskins and the others who survived will divide them like spoils."
Laeri sighed. "I know. It's horrible, isn't it? I tried to speak to Melal, but he only cares about the Sage these days..."
"Some of the errants who fought with Melal intend to go home now. I wanted to see if they would take some of the women with them, and I negotiated an agreement, but the strongest Bloodskin men refuse to allow it." Natala's eyes flashed with an anger that Laeri rarely saw. "Everything is set in place, but it cannot go forward simply because I lack strength."
"That is terrible, but can I help? They certainly won't listen to me."
"Do you think Chief Bufogu would assist us? If I helped you sneak inside to heal him, do you think he would agree to my proposal?"
"Oh! I've been looking for a way inside... but..." Laeri's face fell as she considered the question and remembered the axe cutting into flesh. "No, I don't think Bufogu would allow it. He... isn't the kindest man..."
"Can anything be done, Laeri?" Natala turned to her with a deep concern in her eyes. For a time Laeri despaired, then a thought sent new hope flowing through her.
"Do you know Mohuno?"
"The Steelbone clan leader? What about him?"
"He's much more understanding than Bufogu. Even Tani likes him! I don't think he's as strong as some of the others, but his clan is powerful and growing. They protect people from many different tribes, so maybe he would be willing to help you?"
Natala smiled in relief. "Can you take me to him?"
Laeri beamed back and took the other woman's hand, guiding her through the scattered camp. Strangely, Natala didn't seem to need the guidance, almost as if she knew the way. Still, she smiled back whenever Laeri smiled at her, and soon they had reached the Steelbones encampment. The warriors there didn't treat her like an intruder her the way the Bloodskins did, so Laeri always breathed easier there.
