by A. R. Knight
“Only with my own choice,” I replied.
“Then perhaps you do not understand. Mali is not simply a master, or a person we obey. She is with all of us. Inside us. When we triumph, she celebrates with us. When we fail, she mourns our loss.”
“Does she control you?” What Cheo was talking about sounded more and more like a group of bound spirits serving out Mali’s whims.
“She expresses her wishes, and we do what we can to make them real.” Cheo never stopped moving forward, always kept his eyes on the next piece of jungle to move out of the way. “You ask these questions as though you disapprove, yet you came here, yes?”
“We need Mali’s help, but I’m not a fan of binding unless it’s necessary.”
“I have seen what happens to those who lose Mali’s gift. This binding that you mention. They wander, lost, and disappear never to return.” Cheo didn’t sound all too disappointed by the prospect, though. In fact, I’d have argued the Left Hand leader looked losing Mali’s gift as a blessing.
Cheo seemed to realize his own tone betrayed him, and he gave a heavy sigh. “If I am weary of the bow and the arrow, the spear and the sword, it is because Mali’s service is not easy.”
“You could lose, right?” I said. “Throw yourself into the Right Hand’s attack?”
“Mali compels me to fight as best I can. Such an act would go against her wishes. Therefore, I await the day a Right-Hander bests me in combat. May it come soon.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. A spirit with a lingering death wish they could not fulfill. Riven never ceased its surprises.
The hike felt long, but without exhaustion or a day’s passage to tell the time, it was impossible to know. Only when Cheo held up a hand did we discover that we were close.
“Beyond the next glade,” Cheo said. “We will find their village. They will not be expecting us, so if we move quickly, then victory should be ours.”
“How do you know they’re not expecting us?” I said.
“Because they have completed their collection. We have not,” Cheo said. “They no longer scour the jungle for new ones to add to their numbers, which means they are preparing to attack us. Which means we have one moment to capture the surprise.”
Cheo unslung a crude bow from over his back, held an arrow in his left hand. His eyes adopted a focused glint that I’d seen in my fellow guides ahead of a battle; that iron focus, a steeled reserve against whatever ruthlessness was to follow.
“Guess it’s time,” I said to Selena, but she’d already drawn out her cleaver and knife. I followed Cheo’s lead and brought out the crossbow. Slotted in the blue bolts and cranked one into ready position. Did I want to use any of the six bolts I had in a random fight with jungle spirits? Not particularly, but I didn’t want to die either.
And if victory meant an audience with Mali, then there was no point in holding back.
Now we crept. Kept ourselves low as we shifted through the brush. Cheo and I on either side and Selena between us, just behind. The positions gave Cheo and I clear firing lines while leaving Selena free to step up and engage anyone rushing us. Standard tactics for engaging spirits. As for whether they’d work against the Right Hand, who knew?
The clearing looked identical to the Left Hand’s village. The same number of huts in roughly the same places. A central pole standing tall, though the runes were different. As were the spirits crowding around it. The many spirits circling the pole. Far more than the Left Hand.
“Cheo, we’re too outnumbered,” I said. “They must have double ours, maybe more.”
“Surprise, my friend,” Cheo said. “Is the great equalizer.”
Cheo stood, nocked an arrow. The Right-Handers continued to chant - I picked out Mali’s name amid unfamiliar words - and glanced around the perimeter to see the other Left-Handers settling into positions. Picking their shots. I supposed I’d better find mine.
Looking down the crossbow, I squinted my right eye and took aim. Like the Left Hand, the Right Hand had spirits of all backgrounds, ages, races. Mali’s devotees didn’t discriminate.
I found a frightening man, one bearing a series of jagged scars around his face, body, and arms, and leveled my shot. He’d likely died in an accident, sudden and vicious. Crossed to Riven without realizing, without having a chance to change his soul to suit himself.
Now, I’d wipe what was left of him just as quickly. My finger tightened on the trigger, and I squinted. Dead on.
Cheo fired.
Chapter 14
The arrow flew silent. My only clue came from the slight twang as the bowstring snapped. Cheo’s aim was true, and the arrow re-appeared wedged in between the shoulder blades of a spirit on the outside of the circle. A man that yelled in wounded surprise, a yell that cut off abruptly as pale blue fire erupted from the arrow’s point.
I hesitated. Blue fire? These spirits had arrows capable of wrangling? How?
Battle cries jerked me back to the present. Left-Handers calling from the trees as they peppered the Right-Handers with arrows. The Right-Handers scattering and calling for arms. Both sides wished Mali’s vengeance upon the other. Both sides damned their foes in the name of the same goddess.
“Are you going to use that thing?” Selena said as Cheo loosed another arrow.
“Waiting for the right moment,” I said, covering. Took aim with the crossbow. My scarred man had vanished into the swirling crowd, so I picked a target at random. A frenzied guy whose lanky arms waved, directing traffic. Pointing out Left-Handers in the trees and jungle. I pulled the trigger.
My blue bolt lanced out, pierced the spirit’s chest, and wreathed him in the same blue fire as the Left-Hander’s arrows. He stopped his arm waving and, a moment later, wandered off towards the jungle. A long, long walk to the Cycle from here, but the spirit would get there.
The first counters started from the Right-Handers. Arrows of their own shooting out from hut windows, or from spirits crouching behind stacks of wood, piles of brush. Our ambush had taken a good fifth of them, I estimated, based on the number of idling and wandering spirits staying in the middle of the clearing. That still left us outnumbered.
“We can’t afford to let them get settled,” I called to Cheo.
“Agreed!” Cheo replied, and then he cupped his hands and gave a ululating cry. “Charge with me, friends!”
“And now it gets interesting,” Selena said as we took our first steps out from the brush.
“Stay close,” I replied. “If those arrows hit us, we can’t save each other. Can’t use a binding to recover.”
“You mean we might die again?” Selena laughed as we ran towards the village. “Carver, all that would give me is peace!”
I raised the crossbow as we charged, cranked the next blue bolt into position. Directly ahead of us stood a pair of huts, Right-Handers starting to pour out of the main doors. Hard to aim with every footfall pushing the crossbow up and down. Thankfully, a point-blank shot wasn’t hard to find.
A hulking spirit shoved his way out of the hut on the right, and I blasted the man’s monstrous chest with my shot, sending him falling back into the hut with blue fire burning along his body. A tattooed woman took his place, raising a pair of knives and starting towards me.
I threw the crossbow hard, striking her in the face. Keeping her in the hut’s doorway, the only thing limiting the number of spirits coming at me. As she recoiled, I grabbed the great sword with both of my hands, planted my right foot into the dirt, and, leaning forward, drew the weapon in a long front slash. The sword sliced through the hut’s walls, cut through the spirit’s pitiful knives, and diced her in fire.
The doorway collapsed, the roof sagging as my cut undermined the hut’s integrity. Instead of one, now three more spirits stood in front of me in the wide opening. Two with crude axes and a third holding a bow, arrow knocked and ready to fire. I braced for the shot.
A knife flew by my right shoulder, embedding itself in the bow-wielding spirit, causing th
e man to stumble back. Selena followed it, sidestepping an ax-man’s swing to chase down her knife, grab the weapon with her left hand and twist the hilt. Blue fire raced down the blade, sending the bowman to blissful peace.
The first ax-man came at me, crying out in a language I didn’t know and bringing his short-hafted weapon in an overhand strike towards my head. A suicide play - the spirit left himself wide open, ready to give up a hit in order to deliver a crushing blow. Instead, I pushed off with my right foot, went to the left of the wild swing and sliced with my sword as the spirit went past. My swipe caught the spirit in the back and sent the ax-man sprawling, burning blue lighting him up.
In front of me, Selena matched her ax-man blow for blow, clangs ringing out as the cleaver caught the ax-man’s strikes again and again. The ax-man feinted a right-handed cut, which Selena moved to counter, and struck out with his left hand. Punching at Selena’s face.
My love was too fast. She saw the punch coming, ducked it, and threw her right shoulder into the ax-man’s chest. As he stumbled back, Selena reversed her right arm, sweeping the cleaver out in front and catching the ax-man with his arms wide. A burning blue cut opened in the spirit’s stomach, and he looked at Selena, mouth agape, as all the rage and ruin drained from his eyes.
“Cheo!” Selena yelled as the ax-man fell away. I followed her eyes and saw our Left Hand leader pressed by a quartet of Right Hand spirits. At first I thought Cheo’s end was going to be quick in coming, but our guide to this misbegotten land had no intention of going out quietly. He spun and kicked, blocked and countered, content to keep the swiping axes and knives at bay rather than expose himself for a killing strike.
“Guess we’d better help him,” I said, running back out into the clearing. Beyond Cheo’s dire dance, the rest of the Right Hand village had blown into one of Riven’s surreal pitched battles. Vacant spirits, standing stunned or starting to walk off to the Cycle mingled with the furious fighting between both sides. The Left-Handers, either out of arrows or unable to find good targets in the melee, had left their ambush spots and dove into a Right Hand force gathering into its own.
Strategy’s part in this play had ended. Chaos had taken hold.
Something smashed into me as I ran towards Cheo, picked me up and threw me ten feet across the ground. I hit the grass and rolled, keeping the great sword’s blade flat against the ground. Looked up to see a foot sliding towards me. Felt it strike my head and snap it back.
Spirits in Riven couldn’t suffer serious injury for long. Without organs, bones, or blood, there simply wasn’t much to actually damage. Pain, though, that stayed. Not because of a natural process, or so Nicholas had told me, but because our minds still believed we had breakable bodies. Still believed we could be damaged and destroyed.
So when the kick connected, a banging blossom of thwacking agony wracked my mind and the jungle overhead spun like an over-wound clock. Instinct was the only thing that saved me. I rolled with the strike, lifted the great sword in the way of the attack, and caught my assailant’s club on it.
My enemy’s weapon was a nightmare instrument: a warped wooden shaft with shards of metal sticking out of its end at odd angles. Like the crooked claws of a hideous monster. Each and every one of those glinting pieces shimmered with pale fire waiting to be unleashed. I couldn’t let it touch me.
I shoved up against the club, and against the corded arms that held it. Arms covered with scars. My first target, come back to find his would-be killer. The shove brought me a bit of breathing room as he stepped back to stay upright. I curled forward, planted the sword against the ground to get to my feet. Took my first good look at my foe.
The first thing I noticed was his club, coming right back towards me in a crashing blow I had no time to dodge.
Chapter 15
So I didn’t try. I dropped the great sword and ducked into his swing, hoping to get close enough so that I dodged those metal pieces. I felt the club strike my shoulder and the left part of my neck. The thwack nearly drove me to my knees, but I didn’t feel any stinging pain. No slicing cut. No blue fire. My shoulder, had I still been human, would have been dislocated. My shoulder, because I was dead, merely flashed between aching pain and numbness.
With my right hand I drew my knife and tried to stab the spirit in the stomach, but his left hand grabbed my wrist, holding my knife out wide. He reached back with the club for another strike and I slipped around him, pulling his left arm across his chest as I went underneath his right. Or at least, that’s what I tried to do. As I moved behind him, the spirit dug in his left foot and pulled me back, whipping me down to the ground. Raised the club above his head and brought it smashing towards my face. I stabbed up with the knife, catching the club on the point of my blade. The knife drove into the wood, splitting club and shattering into pieces, the shards sprinkling down around me. The spirit stared at the stump in his hand, a few inches of splintered wood. Until I stood up.
“Quality matters, my friend,” I said, brandishing my polished, forged knife.
The spirit growled at me, his face a menacing mishmash of crumpled bone and skin. His exit from life had been a truly miserable one. He threw the club stump at me and followed it up with a reckless charge, head down and arms outstretched. I ducked under his hands, caught his waist and, bracing my feet, lifted him up and over my shoulder and sent him flying behind me.
As he hit the ground I turned and drew my lash. The spirit planted his hands and shoved himself back up, just in time for my lash to wrap around his neck. The metal end pierced the scarred man’s skin and I twisted the hilt, sending the blue fire along the length of the cord and wrapping the spirit in its pale glow, ending his pain.
I withdrew lash and turned around, hoping Cheo still lived. Saw that Selena had come to his rescue. The two of them were finishing off the Right Hand spirits. Cutting and slicing and tearing with wild abandon. Behind them the pitched melee died down. Cheo’s surprise play had worked. Without a chance to get themselves formed up, the Right-Handers had been trapped inside huts, or scattered across the clearing where teams of Left-Handers divided and skewered their foes. Despite the numbers, the Right-Handers had no leadership, had no organization, and were picked apart.
Selena and I joined in the cleanup efforts, taking care of the scattered resistance and making sure no other threats remained. Eventually, when the jungle returned to its normal quiet, the two score Left-Handers that had survived the battle joined us in the middle of the clearing. Clusters of vacant-eyed spirits stared at us, while others wandered out under the Cycle’s siren call.
“Then it is done,” Cheo said to the group. “The Left Hand is victorious. Our enemies vanquished. Now, our peace can finally reign.”
I glanced at Selena. “What peace do you think he’s talking about?”
Selena shrugged. “You don’t think they can live in their village?”
“Did you see it when we were there? Did you see this one? The only things they were doing were getting ready for war. Recruiting more spirits. They don’t have a peace time function.”
“Maybe now they get to find one,” Selena said.
Cheo continued extolling their victory. He claimed the battle in the name of Mali. Claimed her grace caused the Left Hand’s triumph. The rest of the Left-Handers echoed each of the statements with wild shouting. The sort of delirious victory I’d seen on occasion with guides when we closed a breach. When we took down a ghoul. Even so, the ecstasy on these spirit faces as Cheo pronounced them the favored ones had me shivering. I’d seen loyalty like that before. I’d seen the spirits in Barth’s tower, the guides that followed Piotr. That sort of fervent obedience only ended in terror.
After Cheo’s speech ended, the crowd dispersed. The Left-Handers wandered the clearing and found what weapons they wanted to take. Collected arrows and spears and axes. Then they disappeared back into the jungle to walk back to their home village. Cheo kept us behind, until only the three of us stood in the clearing. He held out his ha
nd and shook each of ours.
“It’s been a long time since I fought alongside a pair of your caliber,” Cheo said. “Thank you.”
“Glad we could help,” I said. “This is what you wanted?”
“The Left Hand won. The Right Hand lost. I achieved Mali’s goal,” Cheo said, but the pronouncements sounded oddly hollow. “Now, I imagine you would like to see the goddess herself?”
“That is why we’re here,” I said.
“Then I will take you to her, as promised.”
Chapter 16
We struck out from the village a few minutes later, not heading back east towards the Left Hand’s town but instead striking north. Deeper into the canyons whose walls seemed to grow ever higher and the jungle ever more dense. Even though the trees and ferns were the same, there were more of them. They pressed tighter around us until the thought of leaving the path and leaping to the branches as the Left-Handers had done, looked an impossibility. Instead we moved single file, the thick trunks closing in on either side. All signs of the blue sky above faded away as leafy canopies closed off light. Rays filtered down through tiny gaps, spotlights illuminating our steps. As though we were shifting between night and day.
“Quite the atmosphere,” I said.
“Mali made beautiful things, once,” Cheo replied.
“Once?” Selena brushed a low-hanging vine from her face.
“She hasn’t left her temple for a long time,” Cheo answered. “I suspect she has lost interest in us, in her people.”
“How long have you been here?” I said.
“You know that is an impossible question.” Cheo led us across a bridge, made from tree branches strung together with vines, over a shallow crevasse whose smooth bottom suggested it once ran with water. “But I feel as though it has been many, many years.”
“I ask because you understand English. You understand our words. Yet, I don’t think you came from America. Or England.”
