by Tiger Gray
"What's your name?"
"Roger," he stammered, glancing at Randolph in his place behind Ashrinn, "Sir," he added when Randolph made no move to rescue him.
Ashrinn didn't look back. He knew this was something of a test. "Roger what?" he demanded, looking the boy in the eye.
"Roger Brewer, sir," the kid said, his voice taking on a new vigor. Roger stood up straight, though the way his hair flopped in his face spoiled the effect some.
Ashrinn passed the sword to Randolph and drew the combat blade he always carried from under his coat. He held it out for Roger to take before he could think too hard about his actions.
The knife in Kiriana's white fingers, its point forcing his head back, the kiss he could still feel.
"Go on."
Roger didn't move.
"Go on. You think you're so flash, then take a shot."
"What?"
"You heard me. This is 2007, Brewer. Paladin sword or not, if you think its earthly counterpart is going to serve you on the streets you are sadly mistaken. You're supposed to be a force of order in the magical community and you're playing around like extras in a bad medieval farce. Now do it." Ashrinn felt a certain smug pride as he squared his stance. The part of him that wanted to scream at the idea of being threatened with a knife hadn't been suppressed, but it wasn't winning, either.
Roger planted his feet and looked Ashrinn over. Ashrinn noticed the moon-faced girl watching them, forehead pinched in concentration. Good. She wanted to learn.
Roger came at him, all flailing limbs. Ashrinn sidestepped and landed a heavy blow on the boy's head with his bare hand. Roger swore and stumbled. The way he blushed and avoided looking at the larger girl told Ashrinn the boy wanted to impress her, and resented being humiliated like this.
"No. Wrong." He reached out and re-positioned the knife in Roger's hand. He softened his voice some this time. He wanted Roger's good will in the end. "Try again."
Roger stepped back. Ashrinn could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to analyze where he had gone wrong the last time. This time the attack was more focused, fewer flying elbows. Ashrinn avoided harm without effort, but it did tell him something important: they could be taught. At least, this one could.
"Better."
Roger handed the knife back when Ashrinn gestured that he should return it. Ashrinn sheathed the weapon once more, using the movement to cover both the adrenaline rush and the validation he'd gotten from that little stunt. He hadn't even flinched. Randolph came up beside him.
"This is Ashrinn Pinecroft," Randolph informed them. "He is a new paladin. Despite his recent awakening, he's going to train you in combat. I take it he'll have thoughts about other changes we can make around here, as well."
The rawboned girl crossed her arms and her face took on a stormy aspect, the moon behind a cloud. Her warm-eyed companion looked relieved.
Ashrinn took the broadsword from Randolph and gave it back to Roger. "Sorry for the abrupt introduction, but some lessons work best with a demonstration."
Roger didn't look happy about what had just happened, but he stayed silent and listened.
"You two," Ashrinn said, shifting his attention to the girls. "Your names." He spoke in a tone that brooked no nonsense without being combative. He was not interested in getting them to obey through fear.
"Natalie Stark, sir." The pale girl unbent enough to give him a single curt nod.
"Bonnie Carter," the redhead straightened and did her best to stare him down.
Ashrinn turned to Randolph. "Are these the only new paladins you've found recently?"
"Other than you, yes."
"How many, aside from these?"
"Four on the Council, twenty trained men and women throughout Washington State."
"My god, that's all?" Ashrinn turned back to the three students. Randolph was right. They were going to have to get humans to support them, more humans than he saw here, or they were screwed.
"We have the aid of other magicals as well. But as far as paladins, yes. I pray more will find their way here in the coming months."
Ashrinn hoped so, but he would act as though they would receive no such help.
"You three," he said, "what kind of threats do we deal with, as paladins?"
"Vampires!" Roger said.
"Rogue wizards," Natalie interjected.
"Crazy shifters," Bonnie offered.
"And more, I'd venture," Ashrinn said, though inside he was reeling from the list, "Any time a supernatural steps out of line, you're supposed to straighten them out, aren't you?"
A chorus of "yes sir" followed. He turned to Randolph. "They need guns, and knives. Some kind of communication system. That will be a start."
"I'll see what I can do," Randolph said. By the look on his face he didn't relish resorting to firearms. "Begin with them as you will, Ashrinn. Then you and I will travel the astral together. In that I am still your superior."
Ashrinn accepted the barb half-hidden in the words without comment. He spoke to the trainees instead, unwilling to say something that might shame his leader further. It was one thing to admit to needing help. It was another to actually take it. "Do you three have any hand to hand training?"
"I took martial arts when I was a kid," Roger said. "I uh. I bet that doesn't count, does it?"
"Don't worry so much, Brewer. It's something to build on." Ashrinn floundered. Where the hell to even begin with this mess?
Randolph bent his head against the drizzle and turned to leave. The man was hurting. Ashrinn thought that perhaps Randolph deserved to be a bit put out. Ashrinn wanted to squirm, uncomfortable. He hadn't meant to make Randolph feel inferior. Randolph had done a lot to create the Order of the White Eagle, and it must sting to come to the end of his resources in the face of a threat as serious as contaminated drinking water and potential war.
"All right," he said, drawing the gun he always carried from its shoulder holster, "This is a Colt .45. Customized, but you get the idea."
"Do I get one of those?" Bonnie asked.
"You all get one of these."
"The Morrigan's children don't use weapons like that," Natalie said, turning her nose up.
"As of right now, you do. Listen, Natalie, if you're going to be effective you can't cart around a sword or a spear all the time."
She watched as he snapped the clip into place, though he was sure to empty the bullets first. "It's an effective weapon," she muttered, "and it's a sleg."
He ignored her. "First rule. Always assume your firearm has bullets in it."
He scanned them. They all looked so earnest, the way only untested recruits with dreams of making a difference could look. Even Natalie, despite her attempts at a haughty exterior. "Second, don't point it at anything you aren't prepared to shoot."
"Do we get to --- "
"No," Ashrinn cut Roger off before he could even get the question out. "This place isn't set up as a shooting range. Stray bullets are nothing to take lightly. You should all know how to operate this thing without looking before you get to fire it, anyway."
He spent the next hour or two putting them through basic physical exercises. Bonnie especially had natural gifts. A layer of thick muscle hid under that softness. She laughed and joked, but she was quick to obey when he had to tell her to quiet down. Natalie struggled, but she wouldn't admit to that struggle; Ashrinn felt a surge of empathy more than once, watching her trying to be tough in the face of bad odds. When she faltered, Roger encouraged her. Once or twice Ashrinn caught him slowing down so she could keep up without feeling too embarrassed, but not enough that he was truly compromising his own progress. Ashrinn reflected on how blessed he was to discover a group of recruits that already had some camaraderie between them.
That feeling of camaraderie won wars. In the Unit each man had been willing to die for the next. People gave up their last rations, shared clothing when proper gear was already scarce, dragged the wounded to safety. If he could support that here, instill
it in those who didn't yet feel it, then the Order had a chance.
"Maybe we've got a chance now." Roger said.
Ashrinn and Roger stood by, watching Natalie and Bonnie spar. He looked at Roger and raised an eyebrow, wondering if Roger had some kind of mind reading power.
"Against the Cult of the Suffering God," Roger elaborated, but before he could go further the girls came towards them.
"The Suffering God," Natalie said, catching the thread of their conversation, "I still don't know if I believe it."
"Believe it, Stark," Bonnie said, the hair escaping from her dark red braid frizzing into a crooked halo, "Lord del Sar wouldn't lie to us."
Ashrinn cleared his throat. "Forgive my intrusion," he said, self-conscious of how his speech became formal when he felt nervous, "but what are you on about?"
"Well, I don't know much," Bonnie said, dragging the back of her hand across her brow, "but there's always rumors."
Roger snorted. "I don't see much happening," he pointed out, "they've got us doing sweet fuck all out here. Uh. Up until you arrived, sir. I've been a paladin trainee for a year and I haven't seen action once."
Natalie toyed with a button on the cuff of her jacket sleeve, her brows furrowed and her eyes troubled. "The Crone is a goddess of death, among other things, but suffering? I don't know if I trust any group based on the notion of suffering."
"What do these people believe, exactly?" Ashrinn asked, the first alarm bell clanging in the back of his mind.
"The rumors say that they believe in an archetype," Natalie said, "A figure that embodies all the tales of Jesus, Odin, Osiris... all the gods who had to suffer and die to receive knowledge. But that it is more like the Bible's leviathan than like a god. Or maybe it's something deeper than that. Older."
"You better believe they're bent on making sure we all suffer, too," Roger said, "Fanatics won't allow a group like us to exist unchallenged."
Ashrinn made a note to pin Randolph down about all of this as soon as he could. This was a damn sight more than a handful of nutters making the odd person fall ill.
"Whether it's true or not, it's your training you ought to focus on. If they're truly our enemy, you'll need it. And if not them, it will be something else. That's how it works when you're a soldier, and that's what you all are."
The cooks shouting for them to come eat came as a welcome respite after news like that, and Roger and Bonnie found the energy to race each other there. Natalie hung back with him as he limped along.
"You're hurt."
Her gaze flashed to his knee, then up to his face. He pretended not to see her attempts at contact. "It's an old wound."
She didn't need to know how recently he'd been discharged.
"Did you get that in battle?"
"I did."
They came over the swell of the hill, bright with dew.
"The Morrigan blesses you, Pinecroft. Ashrinn," she said, as though testing the limits of his formality, "I am glad you are here. You know how we all receive different blessings?"
"No." He was a little flustered. So much to learn about his new self, yet. She didn't mock him for coming to teach them when his own knowledge was imperfect. Instead she wrapped her long arms around her body, holding her jacket close to her.
"I hear the voices of birds," she told him, and for some reason he couldn't define his breath caught, "creatures of the Morrigan. They whisper in my dreams and sing to me when I am awake. I ask them to carry messages for us and they listen, because they know this Order is also blessed."
They stopped just before coming within earshot of the farmhouse. Before he could process the fact that the Order relied on messenger birds, she said, "the Morrigan will take many souls before this is over." Her red mouth became a sharp, serious horizon, like a line drawing of a person instead of someone made of flesh. "I see the shadow of wings over you. I will follow you."
She went inside. For a long moment, Ashrinn stood alone in the chill wind, looking in on the golden interior of the farmhouse.
CHAPTER SIX
The cold nighttime had a way of unsettling even the battle hardened. Ashrinn did his best to stand at attention as he waited in the training ground's practice ring. It hadn't been very long since he'd chastised Brewer and his friends on this very spot. The full body ache he lived with all the time now was like the warning growl of a territorial animal, though he dared not let it show.
Randolph stood a short distance away, as though it hadn't even occurred to him that he was wearing a good suit to tramp through the frigid wet.
"Cold?"
"I am used to a desert, sir. With all due respect." Nights had been beastly cold in the sandbox, but they hadn't been wet like this.
"You don't need to 'sir' me," Randolph said as though he were insulted, "I didn't go to all the trouble of bringing you here only to reject your help because of ego."
Ashrinn grimaced, at the words and in general misery. If his body were some kind of cacophonous chorus, then the horn section in his left knee was giving the performance of a lifetime. Randolph pulled what looked to be a pocket watch from his breast pocket, but Ashrinn's nascent other sight told him there was more to it.
"What is that?"
"A focal object. You'll find that a lot of human magicals --- or those who started out human --- like to use focal objects. The human mind is noisy. We need something to remind us of how to breathe and be quiet."
Randolph flipped the tooled silver case open with the edge of his broad thumb. Ashrinn peered at the inside. Not a clock at all, but a mirror. He almost didn't recognize his own face, the ashen undertone to his dark skin, the furrowed brows, aquiline features made thin and sharper still by weariness. Being home full time cost him in a way that showed on his flesh.
"You may be able to center yourself without the aid of a thing like this," Randolph continued, "I've grown attached to my little conceit, though." The laugh lines around Randolph's eyes crinkled and Ashrinn felt a surge of affection; he hadn't been close to his father's side of the family, save for his late grandfather, Ashford. Every time Randolph smiled, Ashrinn had no difficulty superimposing his grandfather's caring expression over his new leader's.
"So, do we leave our meat behind? Is it an out-of-body experience, or is it like leaving one room for another?"
"Either. Each way has advantages and disadvantages. We're going to fully cross this time. We might control this land, but I still don't want to leave our bodies standing around with no guard."
"Makes sense to me." He felt the same anxiety he had felt just before surgery, or on the nights before crossing into enemy territory. The threat of the unknown, and the physical and mental resources necessary to deal with that fear and plan in spite of it.
"This time, I will pull you with me. Really, the act of crossing is a simple act of will." Randolph said "You're a cook, aren't you?"
"Yes. Mother taught me."
"Then you know it is the simple foods that often bedevil the chef the most."
"That one is across cultures, I take it?"
"In Italian dishes, often only two, three ingredients, so they must be absolutely perfect. It is like that with acts of will. It is a simple thing to wish something, to want it to happen. But think of all that can infiltrate the mind, all the insecurities, distractions."
He had no trouble calling those forth.
"Now," Randolph said, "separate yourself from those voices."
Ashrinn closed his eyes without really deciding to. It was too much like being hypnotized to resist the impulse, despite Randolph's insistence on a focal object. Separate himself? Did he have a part of himself that was still and quiet, cool to the touch? He flailed mentally, grasping at nothing. He started as Randolph jabbed fingertips into his ribs; he hadn't even realized the other man had crossed the space between them.
"Here. Use your other senses."
Yes. He could see it now, or See it, a golden haze trying to coalesce into a solid ball of energy just below his
breast bone. He reached out to shape it.
"Take my hand."
He reached out blindly for Randolph. He might as well have been blind, since the amorphous Other had taken over his mundane senses. As he moved he opened himself magically, just enough to clasp spiritual hands as well as tangible.
The sense of being pulled, followed by something not unlike drowning --- he panicked and nearly wrenched free of Randolph's grip, but the other man's will had him bound in place --- and he came through into the astral gasping for air.
He knew, after a moment, that he knelt on something solid. So, the spirit world at least had a recognizable, physical form, and so did he. He waited, hoping for some visual information, but there was nothing. Panic again, the urge to dry heave.
"Do you often," Randolph asked, his voice so full of power it was almost unrecognizable, "imagine yourself with veiled eyes?"
The blackness lifted and he saw Randolph standing over him, having brushed the shadow from his face. The terrible crushing pressure refused to leave him. He groaned and ran his hands over his face, trying to reassure himself that he had crossed over whole.
It took him a moment to realize that those hands were withered and grey.
Randolph grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Decide," Randolph said. "Your will dictates how you appear."
Randolph stepped away and Ashrinn swallowed his emotions, if for no other reason than he didn't want to show weakness in front of this man. He turned his horror in on itself, let it fuel his desperate hope that he might appear as his normal self when he looked at his hands the second time.
Mentally, he went through the motions of putting on his uniform and armor. The ritual calmed him, and he realized that he could feel the weight of each piece as he willed it into place. He stood.
"Do I...?"
"Normal," Randolph told him, though by his voice the man was quite shaken indeed, "mostly."
