Phoenix Rising

by Alec Peterson

  Sir Corellan was a good man, Ceyrabeth mused…well, actually, he was too suave for his own good and too pretty to know it, not to mention thick as stone when it came to cues of subtlety. But he was mostly good-natured and relatively kind, even to mages...but Evric didn’t know that. She watched as her fellow knight sat beside the boy, telling him some overblown story about a dragon he once fought (if one word in ten were true, she would eat her helm), completely oblivious to the fact that Evric was shrinking from him as though he had the Plague. Sir Keiran with his gentle, cheerful demeanor the boy could handle- Sir Corellan was a loud, overwhelming unknown.

  She was accustomed to watching for signs of magic, so she noticed when Evric’s hair started to stand up with excess static. She decided an intervention was a good idea for all involved. “Alright, Sir Dragon Slayer,” She said, sauntering casually toward them. “Quit filling the poor boy’s head with lies and go look to your armor. I saw a rust spot earlier.”

  Corellan jolted to his feet with a strangled noise in his throat before beelining to the tent they were using as a temporary armory. Ceyrabeth smiled at Evric as the cry of “Argh! Gods damned bogs…!” reached their ears.

  She shook her head wryly, “What a peacock…” Evric finally cracked a smile, and the smell of ozone dissipated. “You don’t have to be scared of him,” she assured the lad. “In fact, I can show you how you don’t have to be scared of anyone ever again.”

  “Really?” Evric’s blue eyes lit like sunshine on an ocean surface, his voice almost crackling with eagerness.

  “Sure.” She drew her sword from her scabbard and offered it to him hilt first. “First though, why don’t you go take a few swings at that practice dummy?”

  Evric dubiously accepted the blade. He hesitated for a moment before he lit into the dummy like a berserker, hacking and slashing with reckless abandon, clutching the sword with both hands. He was missing more often than not, but it was when Ceyrabeth realized that he was swinging with his eyes closed that she intervened, “Woah there, dragonslayer.” She said. Her dark eyes were dancing as she gently caught his wrist. “You’ve got the wrong sword for two-handed fighting. Besides, fighting like that slows you down and we have to play to your strengths. I’ll bet you’re really fast.”

  Evric scuffed his toe in the dirt. “Not that fast…”

  “Oh yeah? I saw you almost dodge those guards the first day we came in. You came awfully close to getting past them. Besides, there’s not much to warriors like us…” She poked him lightly in the belly, then again in the side until he was squirming and fighting giggles. “…so we’re harder to hit. Not like that oversized rock-hands Reaper Maul or Sir Toliver the Sunken.”

  Both men were nearby, as Ceyrabeth well knew. Good natured, if somewhat explicit from Maul’s side, protests reached her ears from both injured parties. She cheerfully ignored them. “Fighting for us is like dancing. You’ve seen dancing before, right?”

  Evric nodded hesitantly. Ceyrabeth raised her blade and bowed to him before beginning to hum a popular Daymorian tune. She went through a simple, fluid series of basic sword exercises, all the while timing her thrusts and parries to the flow of the music. “Like that.” She handed the sword back and seeing he was still hesitant, she stepped behind him. Ceyrabeth wrapped her right hand around his as it gripped the hilt, tapped his feet into position with her own. With a ‘one-two-three’ they were off, Ceyrabeth leading him into steps that wouldn’t seem out of place in the Palace ballroom- except for the deadly blade in their hands.

  Evric relaxed when he started listening to the music and started to get a feel for the way Ceyrabeth was moving. Toward the end, she released him and with a quick forward thrust that would be the envy of any swordsman, Evric skewered the practice dummy straight through the throat. “I did it!” He exclaimed, delighted.

  “That you did.” Ceyrabeth smiled at him. “With some serious practice, no one will be able to touch you without your permission again.”

  Evric didn’t have the words to thank her, but it was alright. She let him process his newfound strength and teasingly bumped shoulders with Sir Quinlan, who had been watching. He had taught her in much the same way, when she was just a scrap of a girl with big wide eyes and trust for no one.

  “He’d have done better if your blade wasn’t as heavy as he is.” He said with a grin.

  “He’ll gain his muscle.”

  “Still…” Quinlan replied. “He should have his own blade.”

  “If it was in my power, I’d get him one. But I’m fairly certain that my request for weaponry wouldn’t be well received.”

  Hours later, with darkness just starting to fall, Ceyrabeth entered her tent. She had just pulled a brush through her hair when she saw something glimmer on her bedroll. It was the silver hued hilt of a blade. She carefully drew the blade from the serviceable leather sheath, remembering Sir Toliver who had pulled his blade too quickly and gotten a face full of rashweed powder, but she needn’t have worried.

  The blade was clean, sharp, and just the right length and balance for a boy who hadn’t quite come into his full strength yet. Shien Shiel…the name came unbidden to Ceyrabeth’s memory. She wound the thin green ribbon attached to the hilt around her finger. “So you were listening…” She whispered into the dusk as a smile inexplicably played across her lips. “Good to know, Captain.”

  "You going short blade now?"

  "Keiran Ehingen!" Ceyrabeth yelped and almost dropped the blade on her foot. "Now look what you made me do! How long have you been there?"

  He rose from the single chair at the tiny table in the far corner of the tent with a grin written large across his dusky features. "Long enough to tell that you're losing your touch."

  "Yes, apparently being a test subject for dark magic does something to you. Whoever knew?"

  He sobered at the ice in her tone, "Beth..."

  "No." Ceyrabeth shook her head adamantly. "Whatever it is, I don’t want to know. No." She stared at the ground when he tried to catch her eye, turned her back on him when he moved his face into her line of vision. Keiran stood next to her, shoulder to shoulder, turning her around in a slow circle as he moved and she tried to avoid him.

  "Beth, I'm getting knighted tomorrow. Captain Sul's knighting me."

  "Lovely. Go bother him."

  "Be my second."

  "No." Ceyrabeth wrinkled her nose. Help him to get ready to be knighted by that...crownsbane? The armoring ceremony itself took at least an hour, not to mention the meditation before, and the actual knighting....at least half a day in the company of demons and uncouth idiots? Never. "Go away."

  "Please Beth? You promised."

  "Back when you were a Witchhammer!"

  "Neither one of us are Hammers anymore. Be my second." He stepped into her path again, moved when she moved. "Be my second. Please."

  "No."

  "Be my second."

  "No!"

  "Be my second!"

  Ceyrabeth slammed down hard with her heel on his foot, shoved him when he jerked back. Keiran's feet got tangled in the scabbard of Evric's new sword and he went down on his rear with a crash. Ceyrabeth whirled around, fists clenched, ready to unleash another vehement denial...when she saw his face, locked in its' rictus of comical surprise, and laughed instead.

  "You gigantic idiot! Fine! Yes, I'll be your second if you get out of my tent without another word."

  Keiran's face lit up as he scrambled to his feet. With a bow and a whistle he was gone. Ceyrabeth stared after him, unsure of whether to laugh or cry, until she blew out her candle with a sigh and stretched out on her bedroll. She would need all the rest she could get.

  .: * :.

  "You're sure about this?" Ceyrabeth held the shoulders of Keiran's surcoat as he finished buckling his vambraces over his tanned wrists.

  "Positive. Captain Sul...I know he's odd..."

  "Odd?" Ceyrabeth barked a laugh. "Kei, he used the blood of an abomination to regrow my ears and then sprinkl
ed powdered iron on me."

  "Yes, but...you heard him talk last night. You can't tell me that it didn't speak to you."

  Ceyrabeth had no answer. The truth was that Sul's words had lanced through her, like the first time she had read the Book of Kings and realized the truth of the Order, what a shadow of its former glory that it was. And then came Sul, speaking as the knights of old had, and she...

  "You could come too. Pledge your life to a better cause. You know the Hammers just threw you away."

  "It doesn't matter, Kei. I'm done with causes." She told him. He raised an eyebrow at her but didn't comment.

  Ceyrabeth lifted his coat and he slipped it on over his gleaming new armor. He looked the very picture of what a soldier should be. Ceyrabeth hugged him to hide the growing lump in her throat, then slapped him in the face. "Ow!"

  "That’s for desertion," She informed him. Then she planted a kiss on the cheek she had slapped. "That's for being a good and decent man. And because I'm grateful it'll be Captain Sul dealing with your antics from now on, and not me."

  "It's time." Atiya stuck her horned head in and announced. Keiran nodded, straightened his shoulders and strode confidently out the door. Ceyrabeth counted ten, and then followed into the command tent.

  Her first thought was that there wasn't going to be a knighting, simply because there soon wouldn't be a captain to do it. Sul's skin was chalky, soaked with sweat in the firelight. He seemed to have lost weight even in the short time they had been there. His high cheekbones looked almost skeletal with the gaunt hollows of his cheeks beneath. But still...Ceyrabeth had to admit, he was in full mastery of the moment. Every person in the room waited for his words, his motions. Keiran went to one knee before the man who, even ill, commanded attention.

  Sul rose slowly but surely to his feet, "Keiran Ehingen. Tell those present what your intentions are."

  "My intent is to swear fealty to the Phoenix Legion, Sir."

  "Just so." Sul nodded and stretched his hand over Keiran's head. "Offer virtue without audience, without purpose, and without compensation. Remain true when all others hide behind lies. Remain courageous when all others falter from fear. Remain loyal when all others betray from greed and envy. Live well and true when others live in dread and doubt. Be the best of all that you are and inspire others to do same. And when you die, die as you have lived: With quality and with honor. Do you solemnly swear this oath?"

  "I swear it."

  Sul reached into the small silver bowl that Atiya had in her huge hands, "Then be reborn-" He started to cough again, hard wet sounds that sounded like something breaking inside. His fists curled into tight white knuckles; his legs locked, keeping him standing as the painful spasms wracked his body. When it was over, the captain turned his head to the side and spat, blood splashing onto the ground as he turned his attention back to Keiran.

  "Then...be...reborn," Sul said between wheezing breaths as he sprinkled ash over Keiran's hair and shoulders. "from your own ashes into the Phoenix Legion. Are you prepared to receive your first command?"

  "I am, my lor-my captain."

  "Rise."

  Sul's tone contained something far more powerful than whatever ravaged his body and Ceyrabeth realized that that was Keiran’s first command. To rise up, to go and do, to follow his oath by whatever means necessary. She gasped as though doused with ice water. For just a moment, she had seen the world Sul was working toward, reborn from its tortured state into something better, braver. Her mind took her back to the moment she had sworn her first oath...

  “Beth!” The man with the long white hair beckoned to her excitedly. The little girl threw herself at him and he hoisted her easily up to his shoulder. From there she was able to grab the low- lying tree branch and perch on it lightly as a bird.

  “Oh, aren’t they beautiful?” She breathed. Imperial Steel armor reflected the sun in dazzling bursts, before glinting richly on the gold embroidery on each aubergine surcoat. The horses tossed their heads proudly, seemingly oblivious to the heavy weight on their backs. No broken-down plow horses, these; they were magnificent, fiery-eyed animals that would be the first into battle and the last out.

  “Witchhammers are trouble,” A neighbor man said worriedly. “If they’re here, someone’ll get hurt sure as fate.”

  "I thought that Witchhammers were supposed to protect us?”

  "And so they do, kitkin.” Her father shot a quieting look at the neighbor that Beth completely missed because she was too busy trying to identify whether the cloth in the soldier’s coats was samite or velvet. She had seen both in her father’s shop but in very small quantities- both were expensive and therefore in low demand among the denizens of Spinner’s End.

  "I’m going to be a Witchhammer, then! I want to protect people.”

  Young Beth’s firmly spoken words brought a ripple of laughter. “You’re raising a dreamer, eh, Vallorin?” Called a voice from the crowd.

  “Yeah, and I have the Duchesse Meirin in my cellar.” Laughed another. A shadow fell over Vallorin’s mobile face and he reached up to lift Beth down.

  They were well away from the road before she spoke again, “Did I say something wrong, papa?”

  "No!” Vallorin took a deep breath, moderated his tone and crouched, taking Beth by the arms. “No, dearest girl. Never let anyone tell you what you can and cannot be. If you truly want to protect people, you do it. Just because they don’t have the strength or the drive or the sight to do it, it should not stop you. You earn your shining armor and your warhorse and your honor, and never lose sight of what it is that you want. You’ll be afraid, and you’ll have pain and sadness on the road, but don’t ever stop. Eh?”

  She nodded. Her father was doing it again; sometimes he had a bit of the seer about him, as Brother Arturo from the Church always said. When he got so intense, the only thing to do was agree. She had seen it a few times, always directed at others. This time though, his words sent strange warmth through her chest, made her scalp tingle and her cheeks heat. She wanted to run and scream and cry and laugh and dance and she didn’t understand any of it. Then Vallorin smiled, and the effect broke.

  “Calm down, my girl!” He tilted her chin, smiling wider at the sight of the sable eyes that were an exact copy of his own. “You’re all eyes.”

  “Am not.” She vehemently denied. The other children teased her for them, called her ‘Horse-Eye’ and other harmless, yet rankling insults that children seem to be so good at.

  "Will you promise me then, my Beth? Promise you'll remember?"

  "I will, papa. I swear it."

  "I swear it," Ceyrabeth whispered as the past deposited her back into the present. She dashed towards the Captain, stumbling along the way. Osen lifted its head to scowl at her, no doubt concerned about her sudden intentions. Sul quieted the creature as she practically tossed herself on one knee at Sul's feet, her eyes wide and far away. "I swear fealty to the Phoenix Legion."

  "Something has changed," mused Sul over the ripples of surprise issuing from the audience, "When you first stated your intentions to stay, you made it quite clear it was to act as a self-appointed safeguard against the Legion and against myself, in the name of protecting the world." His expression shifted, "This is not someone with an agenda upon her knees before we assembled today. I look into you and see only fervor. Something has changed. What is it?"

  "I remember," Ceyrabeth replied simply. "My father...he was a seer and a druid, but my mother...she was a warrior. I remember singing the hymns of Mother War set to a different tune, lest we be discovered and executed for treason. I remember her telling stories of the Companions, of the kings of old, the world that was and could be. I always wondered why, why the silence and the sneaking? I hated it, as she did. My father compelled me to earn my honor, my faith and my strength. But how could I when the breath was being strangled out of me, out of all of us?"

  She paused, glanced at Keiran. Suddenly the thought came that she was stealing his moment, his time in the spotlight
and she stood, intending to apologize and run, but he grabbed her wrist. His eyes had taken on a strange intensity, as though he could not tear his gaze from her.

  "Talk, for gods' sake, Beth. Talk. Answer the Captain's question."

  She turned her attention back to Sul. "When I was left alone, I saw the Witchhammers, saw their power and knew what they were before and I heard the call. I mutilated myself and knelt before a god I loathed to be a voice in the midst of people who had it in them to be so much better than they were,” She felt she was rambling but she pressed on. It didn't matter if it made complete sense because it was the first time, she felt completely genuine

  “Instead they ruined me. I was crippled, shackled to a slavish, selfish pile of dogma that protected only themselves and their lust for power. I bowed to my gods, prayed my prayers and worked in silence, choked on it for ten years of my life, working myself to bone to see good men like Sir Quinlan, Sister Marina, Sir Robert Averis..." Her voice cracked at the last, but she shook her head and plowed on, "Be laughed at and shunted aside and worse. And you...you may be warped, tainted, and the Green knows whatever else...but you gave me back my voice. No, you commanded that I speak truth and now...”

  Her eyes bored into his face, studying the thoughtful expression it wore, “You will drag your people to hell and back, of that I have no doubt. You also have heard a call and you won't leave a mile untrodden until your purpose is ended. And it won't be a short one, no, it'll be your lifetime, and mine and probably everyone elses’ here until it is done. No one stands under as much agony as you do for a short, easy destiny. I cannot be silent again, but I would not waste my life screaming at those who will not hear, all on my own. I’m so tired of working alone, but I cannot ask anyone to follow me. But this ragtag group of lost ones follow you already, as I will and shall until I can speak no longer or you become as the Church is now- foul and corrupt and faithless, trampling your people for power. Use my strength, Captain, and I promise I will never allow you to forget why you march. This I swear."