An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “What hair? It looks like a rat made a nest in it.”

  “Only because I’ve been running around, trying to save your life. Manners wouldn’t hurt, you know.”

  “Have you been talking to Rosha?”

  Enosh cleared his throat and sat up. They looked at him, as if realizing he was just there, and slowly walked towards him. He felt like an intruder in his own home.

  “We heard the commotion with Bannal,” Sume said. “When we got there, it was too late—both of you were overboard. I couldn’t do anything. When we reached the shore, I came down this way, thinking you might swim for land, and I was right.” She swallowed. “He told us about the both of you being Yn Garr’s grandsons. Is it true?”

  “Probably,” Enosh said. He glanced at Kefier. “Explains why his eyes look like that.”

  “The Baidhan blood?”

  “No. A touch of agan, for someone who is otherwise completely disconnected from it. The man’s been keeping himself alive all these years with it—his very essence would reek of it.” Enosh glanced at the horizon. “Did Bannal succeed in turning them against us?”

  “Not even close. The Boarshind soldiers who were in the ship with us were angry. They wanted to kill Bannal. I asked them not to—they’ll just cause a rift between both parties. I assured them you’re both probably still alive and that I’ll find you. Bannal went up to join Sapphire’s group.” She poked his shoulder. “You probably need some dry clothes, first.”

  “Dry clothes and shoes, yes. And then we save the world.” Enosh said it sardonically. She patted his arm.

  “It’s just pathetic,” Enosh murmured.

  “It is.” The new voice froze them in their tracks. Arn emerged from the darkness.

  “Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face,” Enosh said. “We’ve got you outnumbered three to one.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Arn remained smiling. “Three to one?” he asked. “You mean the two of you, who look so exhausted you probably won’t be able to lift a stick against me, or that woman, who couldn’t fight me off the last time to save her brother-in-law? You’ve forgotten I don’t walk alone, either.” He snapped his fingers. Faran trotted beside him, yellow eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

  Sume stepped forward. “You have to learn to get to the point, Arn.”

  “But doing this is half the fun,” Arn said.

  “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

  “Making you laugh isn’t my intention.” Arn turned to Kefier and Enosh. “So. The two brothers, reunited once more. And look, you even took a swim together. It’ll warm the master’s heart.” He tapped the hilt of his sword. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what it means that I’m here. Who’s playing with the creature? Who’s going to prepare it for this ill-timed assault once I run back and tell my master all about this?”

  “He won’t have to find out, if you’re dead,” Kefier said, pulling out his sword.

  Arn glanced at him. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Actually, I do. Very much so.”

  Arn laughed. “Always so serious, Kefier Tar’elian.” He turned to Enosh. “What about you? You’re the funny one. I’m sure you have something to say about all of this.”

  “I find my sense of humour temporarily suspended in light of my intense dislike for you,” Enosh said.

  “He’ll find out you’re attacking soon enough, with or without me,” Arn said. “As soon as your little army gets within sight of the palace walls, he’ll know. And then what will happen to Rosha? Oh, little Rosha, the light of your lives. Not even two parents, but three, and that’s not including how smitten Yn Garr and Jarche have been with her over the years.”

  Enosh snorted. “You’re a little too old to be jealous of a child, Arn.”

  “Only, wait. That’s right. The master doesn’t really care about her at all now, does he? No. After all, he didn’t think twice about using her as a pawn over these years. And now—now that he knows there’s a chance of getting Vayna back…”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Kefier snapped.

  Arn glanced at him. “We have you to thank, I think. If you had not hired this woman’s nephew, he would’ve never learned the possibility of calling a dead soul through the agan and forcing it into a living thing.”

  “Dai wasn’t forced. What happened to him was an accident,” Sume said.

  Arn spread out his hands. “We were going to attack Drusgaya, and then pull back to Lon Basden. A threat. Nothing more. Instead, all of this—a chance to recreate what happened to your nephew, to call his precious Vayna from across the veil of time with Rosha as the vessel.”

  In the time it took for him to speak, Kefier had made his way up to him. He struck Arn with a blow that sent the thin man stumbling backwards. The griffon shrieked. Before Arn could get up, Kefier dragged him to his feet. “You’re a fucked-up little dog, and when I’m done with you…”

  “Harassing me won’t save your girl,” Arn said, blood oozing from a cut on his lip.

  “Kefier—” Sume said.

  Kefier’s face tightened. “He was the one who allowed Farg’s Fang to fuse with Jaeth’s Eye, almost killing Rosha. She can’t control it well, not now. She almost died at Fort Oras and it’s all his fault!”

  “Weren’t you listening? Rosha’s value lies in something else. That, you don’t have to worry about.”

  “Give me a good reason not to hurl him over the cliff.”

  “I…can’t think of one,” Enosh said. “Do it. It would be amusing.”

  Arn laughed.

  “I’m starting to think you don’t understand how bad this is for you,” Kefier said.

  “I could say the same thing,” Arn replied. “Do that, and Faran will kill at least two of you, perhaps injure the third. And then what happens to Rosha? Poor, loved little Rosha? Her little disembodied soul will float, confused, around the agan stream, while a dead girl walks and talks in her place. Unless…”

  “I don’t have to kill you right now. I can break parts of you to make you talk,” Kefier said.

  “I can bring one of you to her,” Arn said.

  Kefier laughed. “You think we’ll fall for that one?”

  “Faran can only carry two people.”

  “You must think we’re idiots,” Enosh said.

  Arn smiled. “It’s your choice.”

  “Why the hell would you even do that, anyway? You’ve already established that you hate all of us. Why help us at all?”

  “You think I want another of his real children showing up from beyond the grave?” Arn asked. “He thinks I’m Aldeti, reborn.” He looked at Enosh. “He thought you were Myar, until the real Myar showed up in Dai’s body.”

  “You’re insane,” Kefier said.

  “And yet I’m the only one who can help you. Come with me, and I’ll take you to Rosha. I’ll even lend you Faran so you can take her away from all of this. Leave me to deal with the master.”

  Sume placed her hand on Kefier’s elbow. He glanced at her, reading the look on her face. “No,” he said.

  “It’s not your choice,” she replied. “She’s my daughter. I have to save her.”

  “Don’t believe this fool. I doubt he even knows where she is,” Enosh said. “It’s clearly a trap.”

  “I have to try,” Sume replied. “He’s right. We’re walking blind into all of this. Do we even know how we’re supposed to start looking for Rosha if we even make it as far as the palace? He’s giving us a chance to do this cleanly.”

  “Then let me go,” Kefier said. “If he double-crosses us, he’ll regret it.”

  “You’re needed,” she said in a low voice. She turned to Enosh. “Both of you. I’m not. Finding Rosha was supposed to be my only responsibility.”

  “Please don’t ask me to let you do this,” Kefier breathed.

  Sume looked into Kefier’s eyes, a spark of fear igniting in the bottom of her belly. If she died, she would never be able to hold his
gaze like this again. “This goes beyond us,” she murmured. “What we want to do. What we have to do.”

  “If you don’t come back…”

  “I will.”

  “Hurt her,” Kefier hissed, turning to Arn, “and I’ll make you beg for death.” He pushed him away. Arn wiped his shirt.

  “Let’s go,” Arn said, whistling to Faran.

  “Take care of yourself,” Enosh broke in. Sume caught the look of dismay on his face. She turned to mount the griffon and tried to drown her feelings into oblivion.

  The griffon made a long sweep around the three remaining towers of the palace. It was almost dawn, now, and under the red-grey light, Sume could see the destruction of the fourth from the sky. There was a single piece of it left, like a broken fang reaching for the sky, surrounded by rubble.

  It was towards this fallen tower that the griffon landed. Sume didn’t know how Arn controlled the beast—he made no motions or gestures, unlike someone in horseback might. The griffon had a saddle that gave them something to hold on to, but it lacked reins or anything that physically tethered it to Arn.

  She remembered how it had somehow known she was thinking of killing Arn, back in that stable in Jin-Sayeng. Jarche had mentioned a connection of agan between the beast and Arn. A certain attunement. And he had raised the thing from an egg. She had heard that such creatures bonded to the first thing they see upon hatching.

  She felt the hidden sword on her waist.

  Arn jumped off. Sume scrambled in after him. “Lead me to Rosha,” she said.

  Arn walked to the end of a broken platform.

  “Arn, please,” she continued, following him. He stopped.

  “Clearly a trap, they said,” he murmured. “Yet you came, anyway.”

  There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Arn turned to her. “It’s amazing that you would willingly put yourself in danger, after being warned otherwise, because of a speck of a chance at saving your daughter. Clearly a trap.” His face was contorted.

  She came up to him. “What were you trying to prove, Arn?”

  “That even such morally superior assholes will think twice when presented with such a ridiculous trade,” Arn said. “That all people are human, and no one could be so selfless, even if it came to their own children. A mewling brat—one you didn’t even want—crawls its way out of your loins and here you are, willing to throw your entire life away for it. What makes that girl so special to all of you?”

  “Nothing that will ease your pain, Arn,” Sume said. “I'm sorry.”

  He sneered at her. “Don't pretend like you understand me.”

  “That woman you killed in Cairntown...she wasn't your mother.”

  Arn’s eyes widened. “What would you know?”

  “Jarche told me. You're not Laidari. Your parents were from Dageis and they paid someone to take you to safety. Only they were betrayed, Arn. The man threw you in the wilderness. A griffon saved you and took you to Kiel. That's how the Laidari found you. You're not what you think—”

  He charged her, striking her with a blow across the face. Sume bit back against the sharp pain. “You shouldn't have taken the bait,” he hissed. “I would've killed you faster, put you out of your misery. You would have all died together. Then, when I tell Rosha...”

  “What would that do beyond making you feel better?”

  Arn laughed. The hollow sound rang through Sume's ears. He pulled his sword out and she had the sense that nothing she say would reach him. She remembered the look in his eyes when he was killing the woman he thought was his mother and realized that he wasn't even seeing her, not really. He was fighting a battle inside of him and he was losing.

  She drew Oji's sword and went for the griffon.

  The creature had been standing a few paces away, a reminder of Arn's preference for the dramatic. He had wanted to kill her himself. In his mind, she had posed no threat to him. Seeing that she had her own blade seemed to catch him by surprise. It was too late. She struck once, catching the griffon from the neck and down its chest. It shrieked.

  Arn collapsed, his own strangled cry bursting from his chest.

  She didn't wait to see what he would do. Pulling away from the smell of blood, she ran.

  Interlude

  The sound of fighting erupts with the morning sun.

  Sapphire follows Bannal through the high walls of the palace garden. The ka-eng prisoner is walking between them, head down. Mahe and Daro are at the far end, swords drawn.

  “If you let me go now,” Jarche says, “it will be a lot easier for you.”

  “How so?” Sapphire asks. Her voice is unable to come out as anything but bored.

  Jarche looks at her closely. “I will try to speak with him.”

  “Try being the key word.”

  “Hurting me will only infuriate him more. You cannot imagine what that man is capable of if that happens. I cannot, and I have been with him for over a century.”

  “He's already infuriated,” Sapphire murmurs.

  Jarche's blue eyes blink back at her. “Then let me calm him down. There is still a chance to get him to withdraw. He will not attack again—he does not have that kind of resources.”

  “If it were up to me, perhaps...” She glances at Bannal, walking far ahead. The man is as straight as an arrow. She wonders, sometimes, how he can do that—how he can live with himself after all the things he has done.

  “You will listen to him? He tossed Kefier and Enosh off his ship.”

  “I'm sure they survived. They're hard to kill.” She tightens her jaw, saying this. Two lives lost, if she is mistaken. It doesn't matter. A lot of blood has already been shed and the morning is far from over. “Did Yn Garr know?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You should have told us. We could've used that against him. I wish Bannal was born with more sense in his head. Perhaps his mother is to blame. There must be a reason why our father was not content with her.” Sapphire glances at Jarche. “Why did he hide it, all these years? It does not seem to be a thing to hide.”

  “He was...ashamed.”

  “That they were Gorenten?”

  Jarche shakes her head. “No. That they existed at all.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “It was a treachery to him. A taint on the memory of his slain family. That he could actually be happy, even after all of that. He didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “Happy,” Sapphire says, turning the word over in her head.

  “Soshain was...a streak of light in a world gone dark for far too long,” Jarche says. “He was with her from the moment she was born and up until the day Meirosh Tar'elian stole her heart, twenty-one years later. Gorrhen, his eldest son, died when he was eighteen, and he missed out on a lot of his childhood because of who he was, in those days.” Jarche smiles. “He doted on Soshain, and she loved him, in return. For those years, he barely left Baidh.”

  “Did she have any idea what he was?”

  Jarche shakes her head. “Those were quiet years.”

  Sapphire looks around. There is a streak of smoke in the distance. “I find it hard to believe that all of this can come from such…trivial things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Agartes Allaicras. And then, beyond that. Naijwa, creating that beast out of anger for Dageis, reaching throughout time to let it loose against the Empire, after all. The man who loved her, attempting, in vain, to undo what she had done.” Sapphire frowns. “I find myself at a loss to explain—to understand—any of this. That our lives were turned upside-down because another thought theirs was too difficult to bear.”

  “You do not know love, Sapphire?”

  She pushes her spectacles up her nose. “Not that way,” she says. “Not with a madness that threatens to burn.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jarche says.

  Sapphire frowns, disliking the tone. Her eyes stride back to Bannal, tall, proud. Osog rog-Bannal’s true heir, born within a
marriage to a woman from a powerful family, entitled, no blemish on his blood. He killed their sister because she was in the way. He called it a mistake.

  Sapphire gestures at Jarche. She pulls out a dagger and with one strike, cuts off her bonds. She taps at the bracelet around Jarche’s left wrist and removes it from her.

  Jarche looks up in surprise.

  “Without Enosh and Kefier, we have no one to go up to distract him,” Sapphire murmurs. “Do what you have to.”

  “I understand,” Jarche says. She points up. “When you face Naijwa’s beast,” she adds, “and it comes down that you have no choice but to destroy it…know this: the prince of Jin-Sayeng has already dealt it a blow. A sword, in its back, tucked into its scales. It can deflect almost anything you throw at it, but the sword has created a wound that festers from within. Reach for it and you’ll be able to create a connection with the creature. There, do with it what you will.”

  “A dangerous task,” Sapphire tells her. “Anyone who attempts such a thing would be obliterated in an instant.”

  Jarche smiles. “Like I said. If it comes down to it.” She glances behind her and steps to the side. Sapphire blinks. She is gone before she realizes it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The palace gates were wide open by the time Enosh strode in. There were bodies on the ground—mostly Baidhan and Boarshind mercenaries, from the look of them, though he caught a glimpse of a Hafed soldier here and there.

  “Seems like Sapphire’s group is making their way up to the third tower,” Kefier said, walking up to him. “It’s on the way to the gardens.”

  “Do we know what Yn Garr is doing at this time?”

  “No,” Kefier said.

  “If Arn removed Rosha from him, he should’ve reacted by now.”

  “I don’t want to think about it, Enosh,” Kefier said. “We have to trust in Sume.”

  “Her judgment…”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re right. She did pick you.”

  “Can we stop with that?”