Soul Seeking

by R. Michael Card

  Thank the gods.

  “Well done,” she said even though he couldn’t hear her. She grimaced at the exertion and pain she could hear in her voice. She wasn’t supposed to show pain. She was the near-indestructible Caerwyn Afgenni, General of the Afgen armies and daughter of Prince Ahslam Afgenni, Governor of Rahan Province and seventh in line for the Afgen throne. Even if that life was behind her now, lost to her, those old titles still meant something to her.

  Jais was breathing hard and looked over at her. A moment later he was back next to her. “You… You look…” there was an odd… something in how he looked at her then. It vanished in a heartbeat. “You look like you got smacked by a kroll.”

  She grinned but didn’t laugh, that would hurt too much.

  “I might need a little help getting back up—”

  She was cut off by a ululating roar from not far away. The two of them froze. They knew that sound. The other kroll was near. From the crashing through the forest, which was getting louder, it wasn’t just near, it was charging toward them.

  6

  “Jais—” was all she got out before it broke through the forest not far away. It didn’t hesitate, bearing down on them.

  Jais turned and threw the spear. It was a good throw, took the thing full in the face, but the kroll didn’t slow.

  Jais had no time but she saw him spare a glance at her. It was well timed too as she had drawn out her short sword from where it hung on her left hip, and as their eyes met she tossed it to him.

  His reflexes were as sharp as hers. He caught the hilt then spun and plunged it into the stomach of the kroll as it rammed into him. The young warrior had come in low, in a crouch, and rose up suddenly with a feral cry, using the momentum of the kroll against it. The beast was tossed up and over him. In that single instant, she saw Jais’ immense strength, those compact muscles on his stocky frame bunched and bulged as he lifted the beast off the ground. But the kroll had gotten in an attack as well, bashing Jais with a mangled club-fist. The end result of the encounter was the kroll rolling off in one direction and Jais another. Luckily Jais was knocked toward her.

  “Davlas!” she called, and the spear appeared in her hand even as the kroll landed on its back. She looked down at Jais who was grimacing with pain.

  “That hurt,” he said, but he was already getting up. Apparently it hadn’t hurt that much. Yet he was moving awkwardly, hobbling a little and favoring his right leg.

  She had to get up, get back in the fight. She’d fought through worse injuries than this… hadn’t she? She would certainly like to think she had. Yet every movement set new parts of her body on fire. Despite her wounds, and carefully working around the worst of it, she managed to roll to her good side, then lever herself up to a kneeling position. She was sweating hard from the agony and the humid night air by the time she’d done that much. She hissed through gritted teeth and rose. Her legs were okay, only battered and scraped from the fly through the branches. Yet as she tried to walk, pain shot up her right side, sparking through her shoulder and down her arm. She winced and ground her teeth.

  “What are you doing?” Jais hissed. “You’re in no condition to fight!”

  “Maybe not,” she said handing him the spear. The kroll was already on its feet again and would be at them in a moment. “But I’m not going to lay there doing nothing either.” Mostly she couldn’t let him die and was willing to risk a great amount of anguish or injury — anything short of death — to ensure that.

  He nodded, taking the spear. Then he turned to the kroll.

  This one was as different from the one they had just defeated as two could get. Where the other had had a narrow waist, this one had a great bulging belly which overhung his hips in front. The legs seemed too thin and narrow to support it, but were still thicker than Jais’ and the young man had legs like none Caerwyn had ever seen before. The upper portion of the kroll was odd with a shriveled chest, but great balls of shoulders, then narrow upper arms and huge forearms. One of its hands was clubbed and deformed the other seemed to work just fine as it plucked the short sword from its stomach. The head seemed shrunken as well as it needed to be to fit between those two mountainous shoulders.

  It roared at them and came on again.

  Jais returned the roar and charged as well. She wouldn’t have recommended a head on attack with a kroll, but then… he had survived a head on clash with the thing just a moment before. Jais leapt, surprisingly high, and came down jamming Davlas between one of those great shoulders and the kroll’s head, the spear sunk in deep. The thing cried out, and it bashed Jais out of the air. This wasn’t an off-balance hit as the last one had been, and Jais too cried out as he was sent flying into a rather unforgiving tree. There was a nasty crack that came as the young man hit, then another when he hit the ground.

  He didn’t move.

  “Jais! No!” She couldn’t run to him, she could barely walk.

  And her cry had alerted the kroll to her presence. The thing was stunned. It paused, perhaps regaining some strength, but it was clear she’d be its next target.

  “Blast,” she cursed. “Davlas!” She called the spear back to her. Sure… she could take this thing.

  She was actually fairly certain she was about to die, but well, she did always imagine her end would come in battle. What did it matter if she died now anyway if Jais — the man she needed to fulfill her dream of having a child — was dead as well. She hoped he wasn’t, but wouldn’t have time to check. If she didn’t kill this kroll, it would finish them both off quick enough.

  “Come and get it you ugly bastard.” She pushed off from the tree she’d been leaning against and took a step toward the thing.

  A ragged war-cry caused both her and the kroll to turn.

  Barami raced into the clearing and with a great, two-handed swing of his hand-and-a-half sword lopped off one of the kroll’s shriveled upper arms.

  It roared and reared back, which gave Barami — an experienced warrior — the time and opening he needed to cut one of the beast’s relatively skinny legs from under it. To be fair the long blade didn’t quite sever the limb, but it did enough damage to make the kroll fall back. From there the fight was fairly determined. Barami was fresh and too quick for the injured beast. Two more hacks to keep flailing limbs away from him, and he sank his blade deep into the kroll’s chest. He repeated the motion a couple more times even though the beast had stopped moving. It paid to be certain these things were dead.

  Not caring if more might arrive, Caerwyn collapsed to her knees, using her spear to keep from falling over completely.

  “Caer!” She heard Barami’s voice. There was concern there.

  “Check on Jais first,” she said nodding her head in the boy’s direction. She heard Barami moving around, then grunting. From across the clearing he called over. “He’ll live. Tough hide on this one.”

  Caerwyn nodded to herself. She couldn’t bear the thought that she’d brought this barely trained young man to a fight which had ended him… and her hope of a child. Secure in the knowledge Jais would survive, she slumped to the ground and let the darkness, which had been hovering at the edge of her senses, take her. Her last thought was a practical one. Barami was a competent healer, he’d take care of them.

  Jais was aware of things before he was fully conscious. It was an odd state of semi-consciousness where he floated in a soothing darkness, but could hear things around him. A crackling fire, the sweep of wind in the trees, and morning birds calling out to each other.

  “…didn’t know better I’d think the second one of those things was coming to help the first from everything you’re telling me.” The voice was thick and deep with an accent he couldn’t place at first. It wasn’t a voice he knew well, but he seemed to think he’d come to know it recently.

  A woman’s voice answered. At first he thought it might be his aunt, but no, this was sharper, with an edge like a knife to it, crisp and cut. “Krolls shouldn’t act this way. They don’t care
about each other like that. They’ll band together to take down a city or large food source, but after that it’s every kroll for itself. They don’t fight to protect each other. At least I’ve never known one to.” There was something behind this female voice, a bit of anger or perhaps pain, as if it hurt to talk.

  “It seems your new young father-to-be has a strange problem. Are we going to be staying long enough to help?” This – from the male again – didn’t make much sense.

  “Perhaps we might,” said the woman.

  A grunt answered the woman.

  Then pain lanced through Jais, and his eyes fluttered open as full consciousness and awareness came to him. It was light out, but not the blazing brightness of full day. Just after dawn perhaps. Above him leaves attached to a hatch work of branches, twitched and swayed in a light breeze with the sky above a deep azure blue.

  He groaned.

  That caused the man, Barami as Jais knew him to be now, to laugh. “Stay still, brakka.”

  “Brakka? Is that me?” Jais said, though it hurt to talk. His entire left side was throbbing and incredibly sore.

  There was a painful sounding grunt of exertion then Caerwyn drifted into view. Her hair was tied back as usual but her face was battered. A bruise was forming over most of the left cheek, and that eye was mostly swollen over.

  “It’s a term of endearment… sort of,” she said settling next to him with another groan. “A brakka is a beast of burden in the south. Think of the tallest, largest horse you’ve ever seen, but with the girth and breadth of the largest ox, then give it hide like rough leather armor and spiky horns over its face and body. They are known for their toughness, durability, stamina… and stubbornness.”

  “Ah.” After a moment he asked, “Do I look worse than you?”

  She gave a bit of a laugh, then grimaced as if regretting the action. She nodded. “Just a little.”

  Jais tried to think back, to recall the fight, but details eluded him. He remembered the first kroll, but of the second there was only flashes, glimpses. “Remind me what happened?”

  “Well aside from being tough and stubborn, you have a significant streak of bravery. You went in against a charging kroll with only a short sword. You’re also stronger than you look, and you don’t look weak. You lifted that monstrosity clear off the ground and threw it several feet. It hit you, sending you flying as well, but you got right back up and went in after it again. The second time it hit a little harder, and you went flying into a tree. I thought for certain you were dead, but no, just knocked around a little. Speaking of which, what hurts? Barami patched you up as best he could, but without your input he couldn’t be sure if there were any internal injuries.”

  There was an odd look in her eyes. She was concerned for him, which made sense, but there was something beyond that. He faintly recalled some strange comments she’d made yesterday about “not wanting him to get hurt” or “keeping him safe”. He couldn’t recall exactly. That didn’t make any sense to him, and for the moment he put it from his mind.

  Instead he took stock of his ills. He hurt all over, head to toe. He tried to identify how he hurt and where specifically. His entire left side was one giant sore spot. He was guessing he would be quite black and blue. He knew the feel of bruises from his brawling days and that’s what this felt like. It was the scope of it that was amazing, from not far under his shoulder all the way down to his thigh and spreading around to his stomach and back. But there weren’t any sharp pains in that area so he assumed nothing was broken. His arms were generally sore, but that felt more like exertion than pain. They were also covered in small sharper pains, cuts and scrapes, but nothing that felt serious. His head similarly felt like it had a plethora of scrapes, but not much more. He did have a raging headache, though, and a sore spot on his left temple. It was the below the waist where the real pain was. Aside from the myriad cuts and scrapes all over his legs, his right thigh had an intense stinging, throbbing area, more than just a cut. He’d never had a broken bone, but he imagined it might feel something like this. That and his left ankle, which was afire with pain. It was a general area, but still strong and sharp.

  “Left side is not bad, bruised, but I don’t think it’s much worse than that. Lots of cuts all over”

  “That would be from the branches you crashed through the second time you were hit.”

  “Ah. Also my right thigh hurts like Holn, and my left ankle is quite painful.” He couldn’t see her at the moment so he rolled his head to the side to gage her reaction.

  She nodded. “Good.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Your ankle is swollen, you probably won’t be able to walk on it for a day or so, but Barami thinks it’s only twisted, sprained, nothing more. Your right leg… well we had to take a sizable branch out of it. That’s probably what you’re feeling. He’s put a poultice on it to stop the bleeding and help the healing, and bandaged it tight.” She shrugged. “You’re alive and not losing too much blood, so you’ll be fine. Most minor cuts won’t be bothering you in a few more hours. The bruising, well I’m sure you know it doesn’t slow us much, the pain will dull quickly, and the color will fade just as fast. Larger wounds like that one in your leg, they’ll take more time, but it and your ankle should be well enough for you to walk in a couple of days.”

  He nodded. It now made sense why his pain and bruises as a kid had never lasted long. He’d often been able to get away with his aunt and uncle never knowing he’d been in a fight at all, unless he’d been hit in the face.

  Though even a couple of days off his feet felt like an eternity.

  A thought came to him. “If you can get me to my aunt Sarelle, she’s a healer.”

  Caerwyn nodded slowly. “That’s right, you mentioned that yesterday. We’ll see what we can do. Moving you will be tricky for at least a little while. If I was at full capacity I might be able to carry you, even with your rather… dense musculature, but I’ve got a broken rib, and Barami had enough trouble just getting you to a semi-flat place to lie down, and he’s no weakling.”

  After a moment she added, “But perhaps Barami or I could go and get your aunt and bring her back here. I don’t know how happy she’d be with us for pulling you into this mess—”

  “I came of my own will. It’s not your fault.”

  She grimaced. “No, but training you was.”

  He shrugged at that. It only hurt a little to do so. “I survived, didn’t I?”

  She smiled. “I think that was less because of my training and more from your natural toughness.” Caerwyn seemed lost in thought for a moment, an odd look on her face, pursed lips and distant eyes that gazed at him but didn’t see him. “That girl who came to your house to ask for help… are you…? Is she…?” Uncertainty didn’t suit Caerwyn. Seeing her stumble over her words was like watching a sure-footed stallion trip over its own feet.

  Jais wasn’t quite sure what Caerwyn was asking. He responded with, “I like her… and I think she likes me.” Though as he recalled back to her invitation to the revels he might amend that a little. It seemed fairly clear that Alnia was rather intent on him. Perhaps she felt more than just a ‘liking’ toward him. Did he himself feel more? His heart twisted a little. Yes he did, but there was fear and doubt. He knew he was different now, and the question remained… what would Alnia think when she found out? There had been a time, so very recently when he’d thought he was normal, thought he might want to marry Alnia and have children, a family, a normal life.

  But he wasn’t normal. He knew that now.

  Perhaps that was why his aunt had always tried to keep him away from the revels or getting to close to anyone in the town. She knew what they were, and she too had been scared.

  Jais sighed. “I honestly don’t know what’s happening with Alnia or anything else right now. Everything seems so… confusing and uncertain.”

  Caerwyn looked away from him then. “I did that.”

  Jais thought about it. “Well, in part, maybe,
but actually I think things had been heading that way for me for a while. My aunt… she’d never said anything about what I was, but I think she was getting to the point where she was going to have to tell me. I can’t say for certain, but given the things I was doing, it seems likely I’d have been told one way or the other soon enough. I just don’t know what this all means; drahksani and powers, being… different.”

  Caerwyn sighed then, and her tone was a little thick with emotion, a little haunted when she spoke next. “It means your life will change forever. It means people will despise you. They may not want to, not really, but they’ve been taught that our kind are evil for so long that eventually they’ll all turn against you.” She still wasn’t looking at him, but her gaze seemed even more lost than usual. When she finished speaking, her jaw set tightly and she swallowed hard. She looked like she was trying not to cry. He couldn’t imagine her ever crying, but something about what she was saying was affecting her deeply. It seemed obvious that people had turned against her at some point, presumably when it had come out that she was a drahksan. “I’m sorry Jais.”

  Now didn’t seem like the time to ask her more about whatever was bothering her. So he simply said, “Barami is still with you.”

  She nodded and after a moment of deep breaths the emotion within her seemed to have passed. “Yes,” she said finally. “You’re right. There are a few good souls out there who will always see you for who you are and not… what you are.” She looked at him then. “I truly hope your girl is one of those.” She tried to smile, but it was forced. Jais could see that she didn’t really think it would happen.

  He looked away then, rolling his head back to gaze at the forest canopy. He hoped Alnia wouldn’t turn on him when he told her what he was. He knew he would tell her, he’d have to at some point. He couldn’t keep something like that from her if they were going to be together. He wanted to believe she wouldn’t despise him… but honestly he didn’t know.