by Loren Elias
CHAPTER 7
“She doesn’t look like a Clavras to me, Grenal. Where are her wings?” The man stood there a moment watching her, tilting a head of straight black hair to one side, then the other. A long forest cloak hung loosely across firm arms. He was a small man, if her father be the comparison, but he stood before her as a man of great strength even if his height seemed lacking.
Still wearing that green dress seemingly dipped in a river of blood, Ren’ai met his curious stare with eyes equally intent. Who were these people who would just invade her camp like this? Sit down at the fire she had built and act like they were old friends?
From the side a man poked her with a stick, testing, perhaps, whether she be apparition or flesh and blood.
She shrieked at him, readying her strike.
“There. There. Clavras.” The voice of the dark-haired man calmed her. “Grenal is my most trusted protector. We call him ‘First Guard.’ He means you no harm.”
“I’m not a Clavras.” She raised the sword higher, daring their advance.
“My, My. Not a Clavras then. You certainly had Ruric’s men believing it so. That Lieutenant of theirs ranting in the tavern of the last town we passed about some evil spirit attacking their camp and he being the only survivor.”
The rolling wind whispered cool through the thickness of painted branches, across the moonlit hillside, in and among the scattering leaves, yet fire again rose upon her cheeks. “You know, Charles? Where is he? I’ve unfinished business with him. I’ll take out the lot o’ you if you don’t tell me where he is.”
The man with the straight black hair lowered his chin in thought. “Needless slaughter, I’m afraid. He’s not one of us and couldn’t tell you if we wanted to. Probably about doing whatever it is that soldiers do.”
Ren’ai had an idea about what soldiers did. It gave her all the more reason to dispatch him.
The dark-haired man bore the look of wonder upon dry lips. “Did you really kill three of King Ruric’s men while they slept?”
“They wasn’t sleeping ‘til after.”
A grin stretched the man’s youthful yet weathered face. “That’s what I thought.”
“What do you want from us?” Fear ravaged her mind though she fought with an obstinate face not to show it. Fear that the battle would start anew and the horror would continue for Big Sister.
“We’re here to join you.”
Ren'ai released a bewildered look, tipping her head to the side, dropping one brow and curling one side of her mouth up to meet it. She did not know what to make of that answer. Her features softened to a calm yet firm expression. “We need no company.”
“But it appears we could use yours.”
“Master.” Grenal, with scruffy grey-specked hair, protested. “She’s a child.”
“A child?” Ren’ai at last released her rage at Grenal who raised a broadsword to counter. With the strength of her blow unanticipated, the protector took a step back.
Grenal held her blade there for a moment. Amazement streaked gruff features. Muscles tensed as he prepared an advance.
A calming hand rose to him, begging his patience.
The protector’s eyes stayed fixed on the girl before him, just reaching his mid-chest in height. The blades remained locked.
The kind man with the dark straight hair glanced over his shoulder to his four traveling companions sitting around the fire. One began to rise to his feet, before the kind man extended a hand to him, calming his fears. He turned back to her.
Ire rose in her brow.
“Before you strike us down, I suppose we should introduce ourselves, being that the first tenet of Pin Hi is ‘know your enemy.’ This is Grenal.” The kind man extended a hand to his shoulder, the knots in his muscles apparent and his anticipation of battle great.
Ren’ai held her blade firmly upon his.
“And this is Ivar.” A man who looked to have never seen the light of day rose from his place by the fire, a bo in hand. And Nakali." A woman rose beside him with skin dark like cavernous depths, a shimmering skirt flowing to her ankles, a mighty gilded bow in her grasp with a gold flecked arrow notched and ready. “Kerr, here is Ivar's brother and this is Lieten” Another man stood, one with a scraggly blonde beard. The one he called Lieten, on the other hand, did not rise, rather he threw her a sideward glance beneath a weighted brow that in that moment, despite her bearing weight hard upon the one the kind man had called Grenal, made her feel insignificantly small.
“And, I, Madam, am Healer Jabari.”
A quick breath caught in her chest. “The E’epan?” Ren’ai curled a lip. Could she believe him?
“Yes.” He lifted a hand to her forehead. She could feel warm light upon her.
Ren’ai knew now who this was. The Healer. She knew who those around him had to be. The fiercest warriors in all of Aletheia stood around her, known for their skill and relentless focus on the protection of their master, the E’epan, Jabari. These would be only a few, maybe his most trusted. It was said he had no need to travel with more than five. They could dispatch a force ten times their size and should the force be greater, three would stay, fight to the death to hold the enemy at bay and two would get the master back to the safety of the Jagged, a safe place only for them, safe for those who knew how to survive living among the monsters and perils that dwelt there.
This was the training grounds for the most formidable men and women in Nine Worlds and their job, to protect one man, a very important man. Not a King who ruled, but a Healer.
At least those were the stories the bards imparted in between their songs of praise for the King. She had listened to them on occasion as her father took her into town to display his wares. Had the mood come upon her differently she might have hummed one of the unforgettable tunes. Such a mood did not strike her. Uncertainty caressed sweat-drenched features. She had never thought to meet a man important enough to have his name on the lips of a bard.
Ren’ai dropped to shaking knees, lowering a reverent head. Such a man could strike her dead with a glance and here she stood, throwing her words around like building blocks she had played with as a small child. “I’m Ren’ai, Master.” She could not even be sure she wanted this man to know her name, but she feared that had she not told him he could wriggle it out with some method of magic or another.
“Ren? Ren'o? You are his daughters? The craftsman Ren'o?"
Ren'ai dared not raise her head. "Yes." She had heard the accusations thrown. She knew what they said her father had done, but she could not deny it.
"Then it is true. We heard whispers in the village but we hoped them only that. Ren'o has crossed the River." A strange sadness held his voice as he spoke of her father, a man he could not possibly know.
Ren'ai lifted her head to catch sight of a somber shadows sweeping his face. "Yes." Tears welled in squinting eyes. She had promised that she would not cry.
"Stand. This Clavras bows to no one. Join us, Nai, daughter of Ren. Train with us. Help us provide some solace to the many that have been left for dead at Ruric’s command.”
“He sent them to kill my Papa.”
“I know.”
“His men did this to Niv.” She turned to Big Sister, standing by the tree watching them blankly. “Can you heal her?”
The Healer stepped past the girl by the tree and pulled up Ren’iv’s chin. She did not fight him. “They hurt you, didn’t they?” He touched a hand to her lip and brow, closing her wounds. He touched her cheek and neck. A caring hand moved across and the bruising disappeared. He slid gentle hands down her arms, taking to himself the black and the blue. He lifted her wrists, raw scarring flesh and took the marks away. He touched her belly and warm light filled the night.
Ren’ai could feel the glow on her face, for a moment blocking the chill of the wind. It brought her joy. A feeling that she had not felt in many days, the feeling of chopping with her father, building something new, working with her hands to a job’s completion. Her joy abandoned
her in a crashing moment.
“I can’t heal her.”
“What do you mean? She is of the living; you can heal her.” Grenal's features held no less puzzlement that Ren'ai. Feeling her sorrow, he coaxed a comforting hand to her shoulder more than carefully.
She did not fight it. The enemy did not stand before her.
“I have healed her body.” Master Jabari searched her eyes, hoping for a glimmer of recognition, a sign of feeling, of knowing. Her eyes saw him but her mind could not. “But your sister is not here.”
“Where is she?” She knew that men of magic had understanding far beyond her own, but this made no sense. Ren’iv stood next to her. She knew her own sister.
The Healer left Ren’iv to stand there, eyes casting glances out toward sputtering fire. He tossed an arm around the younger sister’s shoulders, pulling her tight to him. “Sometimes, when something awful is happening to us, our mind escapes our body so our body can live and endure. Most of the time, the mind returns when the ordeal is done, but for Ren’iv, it didn’t come back. ”
“But it will, right. She’ll be Niv again. Right?”
“Come, Ren’ai, sit with us by the fire.” At Master Jabari’s urging Nakali moved down the log seat. Kerr fell off the edge and found a new seat on the ground. “Ivar and Kerr, here are brothers.”
The two men with scraggly blonde hair perked when they heard their names. “That’s right.” Ivar reached out to knock Kerr on the head.
Master Jabari gave them a look Ren’ai hoped never to be directed at her.
The two melted back into place.
Ren’ai dared not speak.
“Both their families slaughtered by the Tyrant Ruric.” Master Jabari continued. “Nakali.”
She gave a simple nod before swooshing one of two plump braids back behind her shoulder.
“She is from the island. Her town totally destroyed and her people enslaved because Ruric did not like he price they charged for g’nafruit.” Master Jabari turned to the woman with them.
She spoke. “The Haerfesting is quite tedious. It only grows in the top most parts of the g’na tree, far, far off the forest floor, very dangerous and many have died in the pursuit. We might have left the temptation be, but Ruric discovered the delight of its sweetness and at first offered us a price. But the price was too low and we said we simply could not do it for that price.” Nakali clenched her bow as she spoke. “So he swept in with his armies, killed my people and left just a hand full of us to Haerfest his fruit.”
The Healer Jabari cut her short, satisfied with her telling. “Nakali escaped.” As an ember popped out of the fire, Jabari pulled his cloak away. “Lieten was a merchant. Had built up a small fortune from the buying and selling of well made goods.”
Ren’ai smiled with the thought of well made goods then images of seeing her father’s face on the forest path struck the expression quickly from her.
“Traveled into the countryside and purchased goods at a low but fair price. Wheeled them into Capital City where necessity demanded them and sold them for profit. But there were men who despised Lieten’s success. They set about on a campaign and in the end Ruric decreed that to sell something for more than you paid for it be called swindle. And Lieten became a criminal. Lost his shop. His Bride to be. Everything. Got away with only the clothes on his back when they burned everything to the ground.”
“You are saying that you have all lost something under the reign of Ruric?”
Master Jabari held a somber expression. “Yes.”
Ren’ai suddenly felt hope that she would see her family avenged. These people could help her do that. They had lost as much as she. “So you people fight then. Fight against a King who would order such things done?”
“We have another calling.”
Ren’ai’s hope suddenly faded away.
“I’m a Healer as my father before me back to that time on the mount when the last god called forth the E’epans to be Teachers and Protectors.”
“Doesn’t look like yir doin’ much protectin’”
“Oh, it is not the place of an E’epan to depose a king. We can only be there to heal the wounds left behind.”
“Then why the small army?”
The dark skinned woman spoke. “Even a Healer needs protection. Kill the Healer and you take a thousand men with him.”
“But what’s the point? You might as well be walking after Ruric, wiping his behind.” Ren’ai had never been one to not speak her mind.
“There is great point.” Confidence defined the Healer’s voice. “The people must rise up.”
“I don’t care if the whole of Nine Worlds opposes me. I will avenge my family. See Ruric and that Lieutenant brought to justice.” Ren’ai held her fists to her hips, daring him to tell her differently.
Jabari did not dare release a smile. “A lofty goal.” Jabari chose his words. “And not one unachievable be that your life’s quest. But Revenge. It seems a thing to right a wrong, but destroys the avenger no less than the focus of her wrath. It is a path I would advise you not to follow.”
