War and the Wind

by Tyler Krings

  “May I come in?” It was Jon.

  She shrugged before she realized he could not see it. “Yes.”

  The door opened and he approached. She marveled briefly as his feet made no sound on the wooden floor. He carried with him a bowl and some bandages. He stopped a meter from the bed, waiting as she looked at him expectantly.

  “May I?” He gestured to her hands.

  “May you…what?”

  “This is a salve. It will heal your hands by morning.”

  She eyed it suspiciously.

  “It will sting,” he added, “but it will feel better in only moments.”

  Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. She held out her hands as Jon kneeled in front of her. Ah, this is more like it. Worship. She laughed at her joke and stopped quickly when she realized she had done so aloud. She returned his bemused expression with a shrug.

  He dipped his fingers into the bowl, grabbing a liberal amount of paste before gently taking her hand and applying it to her blisters. The burn was mildly satisfying, in that it took her attention away from the pain. He did the same with her other hand. When he judged her hands appropriately salved, he deftly wrapped them in bandages.

  “That will do, I think,” he said. He gathered his supplies and gracefully rose.

  “And what do I owe you?” she said with a smirk.

  He smiled back. “It’s a gift.”

  She eyed him curiously. All right, fine. He’s handsome. For a human. “Are we to do the same tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Some.”

  She nodded and lay back down. “You may leave now.”

  He stared for half a moment. “Thanks.” He left and closed the door behind him. She watched him go. Handsome indeed. But he worships no one, I think. Save Noah, perhaps. She closed her eyes and welcomed sleep when it found her as the little light in the lantern continued to burn.

  She awoke as the first light of dawn touched her eyelids. Sleep had been blissfully uneventful, and though her back still groaned, she could feel the aches and pains fading. Until she stood up. Her legs cramped and threatened to crumble beneath her as worn muscles collapsed under unexpected strain. She fell back on the bed in a huff. This is not enjoyable. She ran a hand through her hair and stifled a moan when she touched nothing but scalp.

  The sound of a door opening and closing below drew her attention to the window. She turned, winced as her back cracked, and gazed down as Noah exited the house. He called in indeterminable words to the boy who was walking from the forest wearing naught but trousers and carrying a sheathed sword, one of the same swords she had seen by the fireplace the day before. The two men stopped briefly and exchanged words before moving in different directions. Noah walked out of sight as the younger man veered toward the house. He can’t possibly be Natheran. That is too large a coincidence. It irked her a little to see heavenly steel in the hands of a mere man. Such is not his birthright. She was ashamed even as the thought occurred to her. After all, what right did she have to defend that from which she now fled? But…what if it is his birthright? Does the line of Arthen still live?

  The front door opened and closed again, sending little murmurs through the wooden beams beneath her feet. She pulled on her clothes as quickly as her limited body was able; tying her pants around her waist as best seemed appropriate and squeezing her feet into the constraining shoes. She made the cautious trek down the stairs, an effort that was more akin to a limp, just as Jon was placing the sword back in its stand near the fireplace. She watched his movements, sure that he was somehow aware of her. Graceful and quick, not an action wasted. In an almost revered fashion, he stroked the hilt and tapped the pommel before turning and meeting her eyes. It was something she had seen before. During the Revolution.

  “Where did you come by those swords?” she asked suddenly.

  His eyes drifted away for a moment, finding a memory or perhaps just something to say, “Took it off a dead man,” he smiled. “He had no more use for it.” Despite her dwindling abilities, she sensed this for truth. And that unnerved her.

  She descended the rest of the stairs and followed him into the kitchen, which smelled heavily of a robust aroma that she could not identify. At closer vantage, she found him sheathed in sweat, the muscles in his back crossed with innumerable scars. Jon turned to the porridge gently bubbling on the stovetop and ladled them both a bowl. He set the bowls on the table before he went to the water basin and splashed his face and forearms. Her fingers idly played with the handle of the spoon as she watched and waited for him to finish. He poured a dark fluid from a second pot into two cups and set one in front of her.

  “You should not have been there. In that forest,” she said, watching him for any telling sign that he was lying.

  Jon shrugged. “Cream?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  He nodded and sat across from her. “Well, just try it and see if it’s to your liking.” He gathered a spoon and began to eat. She eyed the dark substance, the source of the aroma, and lifted the cup slowly to her lips.

  “Careful,” he began but it was too late. The heat immediately burned the roof of her mouth, and the flavor so filled her senses that she spewed all she had tasted into Jon’s face.

  He blinked before he wiped the substance from his eyes. “It’s hot.”

  Her hands were at her mouth, half in surprise and half hoping to somehow assuage the pain. “What in the bowels of creation was that?!”

  “Coffee.” Jon stood and returned to the wash basin. As he splashed his face, he pointed to something behind her. “There’s cream on the counter. Perhaps you should pour yourself a dollop. Or maybe just have some water.”

  She made her way to the counter, her tongue trying desperately to fix something it could not on the roof her of mouth. She grabbed the cup with pale colored cream.

  “What were you two even doing there?” she asked.

  “Where?”

  “The forest!”

  “You mean out there?” He gestured to the door. “I was out for a walk.”

  “No, you idiot! The…” She lowered her voice. “The Natheran forest.”

  They both came back to the table. Jon picked up his spoon and leaned over his porridge, “Oh, that. Pulling swords off dead men. Why do you care?”

  “Because it’s sacred ground.”

  “And you’re caring about that now, are you?”

  “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because no one on high seemed to care when the goddamn forest burnt down, now did they?”

  She opened her mouth to respond and realized she had nothing to say. She leaned back in her chair as the boy continued to eat. She had hurt something in him. Something that had stoked a raw ember of an anger she had yet to witness.

  “It’s not that we didn’t care,” she found herself saying through some instinct to soothe his hurt. “We couldn’t.”

  “Fear to act is not an excuse,” he replied callously. He shoveled the rest of the food into his mouth and stood in a hurry without sparing her a glance. As her stomach fell like a stone and twisted, her anger rose like a tempest. What did this boy know? “How dare you?!” she started. “You do not know me! You do not know my loss, or anything else other than your sacred little farm. It was not fear that drove our lack of action. We were imprisoned!”

  He turned with his eyes carrying a note of surprise. “Our sacred little farm? Don’t think you know us either, goddess. You forget this place shelters you from whatever the hell you’re running from.”

  The door opened, and the old man entered with the dog, Dax, at his heels. He paused and looked between the two of them. He took a careful step toward Jon.

  “Sheathe it,” Noah said. Jon paused in his thorough cleaning of the porridge bowl and visibly took a breath. The old man reached for the bowl of scraps from last night’s supper and laid it down for the dog. “There’s work to be done,” he said to Ana. “Finish your breakfast.”

&
nbsp; She looked from the old man to the bowl of porridge to the cup of cream still cradled in her hands and found that she had no appetite.

  The old man took Dax to some part of the fields she could not see. She and Jon spent the morning shoveling horse shit from the stable onto a wheeled box and taking it to a large vegetable garden a small distance from the house. She plucked and weeded and kneaded shit into the crevices and cracks of the overturned dirt, only to turn it again and make room for more. They harvested from the vines what specimens looked ripe and piled them in a bucket, pausing only to drink water and douse their hands. Eventually they took a break She was eternally grateful.

  She sat with her back to the wheeled shit-box, looking again at her hands and the earthen things that now resided under her fingernails as the boy took out his pipe. She marveled at her current state. This is not what I had in mind when we decided to flee.

  “You know, you’re not a bad farm hand,” Jon said. She looked at him, his clothes as dirty and hers and his hands stained aplenty. She still felt a residual anger toward him, but the earlier heat had dissipated with the labor.

  “It’s a far cry from what I was hoping for,” she replied.

  Jon was quiet as he puffed before he said, “I didn’t know you were imprisoned.”

  She shook her head softly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m trying to apologize.”

  “You’re forgiven.” She looked at him. “Are you truly Natheran?”

  He eyed her whimsically. “You know, if it was worship you were looking for, you need only stroll into town. You might have every man and even the women groveling at your feet.”

  She puffed, annoyed that he had changed the subject. She eyed him sitting there with his damned smug expression. “But not you?”

  “Oh no.” He puffed his pipe. “I’m immune to such charms.”

  After a moment of contemplation, she sidled up next to him. His eyes watched her every movement as she arched her back and bent, ever so slightly, giving a clear view down her shirt. Their eyes met only inches away from each other, the tips of their noses nearly touching. She felt a heat from him that belied the cool day and could nearly hear the pounding in his chest.

  She whispered, “Really?”

  He held her gaze a moment longer, the imagined possibilities clearly finding safe harbor in his mind before he broke contact. He puffed out the large volume of smoke he had been holding in and knocked the pipe against his boot.

  “Well,” he said. “That’s enough of that. See? Clearly immune.” He stood quickly, adjusted his pants, and set out in the garden, looking briefly flustered before deciding on something that needed doing.

  “Hm,” she replied and gathered herself to join him.

  They worked in fascinating silence for a time, herself doing a fine job of watching him closely to see if he would meet her eyes again. She laughed aloud at his side glances, and when she stopped, she found him staring at her with a smile.

  “What?” she asked.

  Jon shook his head. “On second thought, I don’t think you need any womanly charms. Just that laugh will do.”

  She cocked her head. “What does that mean?”

  He struggled for the words. “It’s a nice sound is all.”

  She blushed. She could not stop herself. Her blood was rising, and the heat no longer only belonged to him. Her reaction made it his turn to laugh, though his was more a self-satisfied chuckle, deep and soft. It was not unpleasant, and she caught herself smiling. They shared this for a moment before returning to the toil of the garden.

  What are you doing? asked the Wind.

  Apparently, I’m gardening, she replied.

  I mean with him?

  She threw a glance to the man next to her. Nothing.

  Sure. A playful breeze teased her clothes as Ana rolled her eyes.

  She ignored its undertone. Have you any word of the others?

  None. There are no others. Only you.

  She stopped the act of digging; the spade in her hands would have trembled had it not been stuck in the ground. None?

  “So…” Jon said, “what were you expecting?”

  It took her a moment to reconcile his meaning, “Oh, I…was expecting to meet someone. I was not expecting to be human.”

  “You met us. Perhaps we were who you were expecting.” She stared at him and did not reply. Not just you, she thought. Something has gone wrong.

  He asked her another question, “So, you’ve been to Evanna before?”

  “Uh, yes. Many times. Never as I am now.” She carried the conversation as best she could, trying hard to not to reveal her inner anguish. When the boy did not respond, she looked up. He was staring at her but not as he had before.

  “What has happened?” he asked, his tone suddenly dark.

  I am alone. She shook her head and continued to work, “Nothing.”

  That evening, after a supper where she said little, followed by the men having their smoke by the fireplace, where she offered even less, she ascended the stairs to her room and washed herself. She failed to remove many of the stains from the day, but she felt a little better without the dirt being so obvious a blemish. She donned a clean shirt and pants and waited. The men offered no sounds of their own, so she listened for the eventual closing of doors. When she thought she had waited long enough, she crept from her room, every creak and snap of the old timbers making her cringe as she made her way outside. She had to know for herself. She had to fly.

  She padded as quietly as she could across the porch and into the neighboring field. Once far enough away from the house, she cast a last look to see if any lanterns had been lit after she left. When she saw none, she closed her eyes and stood still. Reaching within, as natural as thought and as familiar as breathing, she called to the Wind. It writhed within her, wanting, needing to get out. There was an unfamiliar effort, like stretching a muscle that had not known much use. Her eyes clinched tighter, she pushed passed the feeling and with a surge she willed herself into the air. The force within her burst, scrambling for purchase in an empty, starry sky and all at once there was a hurricane of sound…followed by the hush of silence. She opened her eyes, knowing full well that she had never left the ground. In a perfect circle all around her, the crops had been blown to the ground as if flattened underneath some giant hoof.

  Too heavy, said the Wind. That body’s not meant for flying, I think.

  With an even heavier heart she realized that the godliness within her had diminished further. She did not know how long she stood there waiting for something, anything to happen. Eventually she slowly retraced her steps back to the house, her pace resigned, the walk of the condemned. She reached the porch, climbed a step, turned, and sat. She wept. The tears fell freely, flooding her cheeks and splattering the hard wood beneath her. I am so alone.

  “Galeblade…are you there?” she pled aloud. The answer was the faintest whisper on a distant breeze. Sobs wracked Ana’s heavy, mortal form.

  A warm blanket fell gently across her shoulders, and she nearly choked on her sobs. The old man sat next to her, looked into her eyes, and smiled sadly. With little encouragement, she leaned her head onto his shoulder and continued to weep, while the old man said nothing at all.

  General Ivan Emersin rode the elevator up to the highest level of the Martial Headquarters with the Emperor’s orders tightly gripped in his hand. When the doors opened, he stepped out into the immaculate foyer laden with busts of commander generals of old, rich carpet, and bright skylights. The offices were filled with aides to the Empire’s top military leaders, tables with maps and pieces representing military assets were constantly being moved as orders filtered down. The Expansion had never ceased, but it had slowed to a crawl over the last decade as the bulk of the Empire enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity. Emersin walked the stairs to the commander general’s office and barged through the door without knocking.

  Commander General Ustin Anarsin looked up from his desk—t
he man and woman who had been speaking fell silent and looked up toward Emersin. Both man and woman were of higher rank than Emersin, though to his knowledge neither of them had seen combat. They looked at him now in near disgust at his lack of etiquette. The general ignored them and met the Commander General Anarsin’s eyes.

  One of the admirals balks and makes to stand. “Emersin,” said Sky Admiral Hiest. “What in Lamen are you doing here?”

  “I need the room,” Emersin responded. The man and woman looked at each other and made to reply.

  The commander general interrupted. “Admirals, if you will give us a moment.”

  The admirals left, stunned. They cast bemused and annoyed expressions Emersin’s way as they moved around him. The doors shut and Emersin stalked quickly to the Commander General’s desk. He threw the orders into the other man’s face.

  Ustin Anarsin let the papers fall to the floor before he spoke. “It’s an order from the Emperor.”

  Emersin placed both hands on the desk and leaned in. “We both know it’s not the fucking Emperor.”

  “Keep your goddamn voice down.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “You have to—”

  “There are plenty of others. I’m over sixty fucking years old, and the last time this thing was here, we burnt down a forest filled with women and children!”

  “Ivan, shut up!” The commander general stood. “Women and children and men that gutted our army in the span of a single night. That thing saved our lives. Listen to me carefully. You don’t have a choice. The…Ambassador specifically requested you.”

  “Aye, I’ll bet. Because it likes to play with its food.”

  “Exactly.”

  Emersin’s stilled and became silent. His head fell to his chest as an agitated sigh passed through his teeth.

  Anarsin held out his hands in a calming manner. “Sit, please.”

  Emersin sat heavily in the chair and roughly ran a hand over his short cropped hair.

  Anarsin walked around his desk and took the chair next to him. “It’s not human, Ivan.”