“And the king would not scoff at the idea that kurakvin had attacked my family, if I could even gain his audience?”
Kallosarin was silent for a moment. “You have a point,” he admitted. “Perhaps the best you could do is to kill one and take its head to Madarre. That will be proof that nobody can deny, and will almost certainly gain you an audience with the king.”
Mirickar shook his head. “I know not how many days it would take me to ride to Madarre, and I have no horse. On foot, it might as well take forever to reach the southern reaches of the kingdom. I will kill as many as I can, even if, as you say, it is merely a scratch to them. And if I can find you again, I will tell you just how many I slew.”
Kallosarin sighed softly. “It is a nice thought, Mirickar, but you cannot find me if your head is on a kurakvin pike. And you will not want to find me if, instead, you find that there are no kurakvin to kill, and your family was attacked by someone else.”
Mirickar shook his head. “I will not take your lack of faith in me to heart.”
“But you will take my training to heart.”
“Of course.”
“And you will take to heart my urging to find others to fight with you, to not waste your life seeking battle alone?”
Mirickar hesitated. “I will.”
“Then let us eat heartily tonight, so that you will have energy for tomorrow, and so that I can sleep despite my misgivings about your quest.”
The two said little more during their meal, which Kallosarin supplemented to make it the largest they had shared together. When they were done and it was time for bed, the older man made Mirickar promise that he would not slip away in the morning, so that they could say a proper farewell.
“It is time,” Mirickar whispered almost silently to himself when he was in bed. “Time for vengeance.”
Chapter Seven
“Wait here a moment,” Kallosarin said the next morning as they stood outside the door of his cottage. Mirickar was eager to depart but he nodded in agreement. The older man disappeared into the cottage for a moment and then promptly returning bearing a long, wrapped bundle. “This has served me well,” he said, handing the bundle to Mirickar. “I’m sure it is bored here in the forest. If there truly are kurakvin in the land, it will enjoy the taste of their blood.”
Mirickar knew from the weight of the bundle and from Kallosarin’s words what he held. “Are… are you sure?” he asked as he unwrapped the large sword. It was the same ornate blade that Mirickar remembered from his first encounter with the other man.
“Of course,” Kallosarin said with a little laugh. “It is not my only blade, but it is a good one. Remember all I have told you, and wield it well.”
“I shall,” Mirickar said softly as he slid the blade free from its scabbard. He was no master of arms, but he could tell that the quality of the sword was well beyond any he had handled before. He sheathed it again and met Kallosarin’s gaze. “I shall slay kurakvin to avenge my family and to honor your teachings and this great gift. Thank you, General Kallosarin.”
The older man smiled. “It is good that we part ways on better terms than we met. Farewell and fight well, young Mirickar.”
Mirickar bowed to Kallosarin and turned away. It was not until that moment that he realized he would miss the older man’s gruff instruction, but he strode away boldly lest he show any hint of weakness. Over their breakfast that morning he had decided on his route, and he made his way quickly through the forest.
His decision to seek signs of the kurakvin near his family farm and track them from there, coupled with Kallosarin’s guidance on the fastest route, quickly took him away from where he had lost Sraikura. His training had not given him much time to think about her during the day, but at times he dreamt of her and would wake filled with sadness. Now that he was heading back toward his family home, he almost felt that he was abandoning her. He pressed on, promising himself that some of the kurakvin he would kill would be slain to avenge her and her adoptive family.
Traveling alone and with purpose, he was able to cover much more ground in a day than he had with Sraikura. Still, he was not able to reach the farm before night descended on the forest. When the failing light warned him that he would not be able to travel much longer, he sought a protected place to spend the night.
He found a massive tree that had been uprooted in a long-past windstorm. After a slight hesitation, he nestled himself into the tangle of roots at its base. It wasn’t perfect, but he felt it was the best he could do. He nibbled on a bit of dried meat that Kallosarin had given him and tried to make himself comfortable for the night under a small, thin, brown blanket that the old man had also provided.
Discomfort seemed to stretch out the night. When the morning light finally brought an end to the darkness, Mirickar stood, stretched, and set out once more, again chewing on a bit of meat to give himself energy for the day. He kept up a quick pace, hoping to reach the farm in the early afternoon, but he also remained wary of threats in the forest.
Mirickar took a short break when he guessed that it was midday, although the treetops over his head and the clouds above them prevented him from seeing the sun. He had barely resumed his trek when he heard metal clanging against metal in the distance.
“Battle?” he asked himself softly as he stopped to listen.
More metallic clanging echoed through the trees. It helped him determine the direction of it, but it did not seem to be the sound of combat. Curious, he began moving in the direction of the noise, while also keeping himself aware of his location and the direction he originally intended to travel. He slowed his pace and moved with more caution when it seemed he was approaching the source of the noise, which increasingly sounded like people working rather than fighting.
A nearby shout made Mirickar abruptly stop and crouch. His heart beat faster as he listened to an answering yell. He could not understand the words, but the voices sounded like kurakvin. Whether it was or not, it didn’t seem that the shouts were about him. He quietly drew his sword and moved toward the trunk of a large tree, hoping that he had not been seen.
A great clatter of falling metal filled the forest, and a chorus of angry voices followed immediately after. Feeling more certain that he had not been seen and that those making the noise had ample distraction, Mirickar peeked around the trunk. Seeing no threats, he moved stealthily to another tree in the direction of the noise. Still there was no apparent reaction to his presence, and he moved again, and again, his heart racing at the prospect of what he hoped was an impending fight.
“What do you think they’ve done this time?” an angry voice yelled to Mirickar’s left, alarming him with how close it sounded.
“Mind your own business,” a voice to his right answered. “They’ve got their job and they’ll suffer for their usual bungling of it, just as you’ll suffer if you bungle yours.”
“Can’t bungle a job when there’s nothing to do,” the first voice answered. “There’s nothing in this forest to watch out for. Just animals, none of the human scum.”
Mirickar’s grip on his sword tightened. His last thin doubts about the voices were swept away. Neither humans nor kinari would refer to “human scum.” He was certain he was near kurakvin, but none of the scenarios Kallosarin had presented were even remotely akin to the situation he found himself in. He thought back to more fundamental things Kallosarin had said and tried to think what the older man would tell him to do.
“If you’re right, so what?” the second voice answered the first. “We get an easy day of duty. But if you’re wrong, you’ll live just long enough to regret it!”
“Bah,” the first voice spat. “I’m not afraid of humans!”
“Who said anything about humans? I’ll gut you myself if you let one of them slip through.”
“Bah again!”
As Mirickar listened, he realized that Kallosarin would probably advise to retreat if he could safely do so. The situation was not under his control and he lacked too m
uch information. He couldn’t tell exactly where the kurakvin were, how many were at hand, what they were armed with, or other important details. Kallosarin had repeatedly stressed the importance of having as much information as possible, which in turn would give maximum control over the outcome of any conflict.
He also knew that the older man would want him to seek allies before moving against the kurakvin. It was clear he had found a group of them, not just the two he was hearing, and having more men at his side would push the odds in his favor. It was one thing to remember Kallosarin’s teachings, and another entirely to obey them.
Mirickar felt that stumbling upon kurakvin before he even got out of the forest was a sign that he was doing the right thing by trying to hunt them down. If he merely retreated to gather information from a distance, or seek other fighters, then he might lose the chance to shed kurakvin blood.
Approaching footsteps seemed to make the decision for him. Mirickar shrank back against the tree trunk and held his sword up close to his chest but ready to move. When the kurakvin appeared, it was close enough that a man standing between them could have reached out and touched it and Mirickar at the same time.
“Scum is it?” Mirickar snarled as he lunged at the kurakvin.
The kurakvin barely had time to register surprise at his sudden appearance before he drove his sword through its unprotected neck. He spun to look for the other kurakvin, expecting to need to defend against an imminent attack, but he quickly saw it would not be so easy. The other kurakvin, several paces away, was bringing a horn up to its lips.
“No!” he barked as he raced toward the kurakvin, but he was too far away. A solid blast on the horn echoed through the forest before Mirickar could close the distance.
“Stupid boy,” the kurakvin said as it dropped the horn and began to raise its sword.
It was too late. Mirickar had already closed the distance, and he slew the kurakvin before it could defend itself.
“That is for my parents,” Mirickar panted, “and that is just the beginning.”
A quick look around reassured him that there were no other kurakvin in view. He knew that would change soon, so he darted over to a large tree and stood on the side away from the metallic noises, where he hoped he would not be seen by those who came to answer the horn. His gaze fell on the blood dripping off of his blade, but his thoughts were on his next move. Having no idea what he was up against, a hasty retreat seemed the wisest option, but he didn’t want to do it. He knew that taking too long to decide would be another way the decision would be made.
“I will honor your gift, Kallosarin, by saving it for a better battle,” he finally breathed after a heavy sigh.
Looking for the clearest route, Mirickar darted away from the large trunk. He could already hear shouts behind him accompanied by the sound of kurakvin crashing through underbrush. He had only taken a few steps when an arrow flew past him, narrowly missing the left side of his face. Knowing he was sighted, he raced forward and tried to move erratically among the trees to throw off the aim of the kurakvin.
Something hard and blunt hit the back of Mirickar’s head. Pain lanced through his head and he stumbled. Immediately more arrows whistled through the trees, and two found their marks, one in his right leg and one in his shoulder. Jeers and shouts erupted behind him.
“Not like this!” he told himself through clenched teeth as he struggled to move forward.
The pain of the arrows ignited panic in Mirickar. For the first time, he believed that he was about to die. He pushed himself forward. moving as fast as he could and still trying to make himself a difficult target. Now it was less thoughtful and more by instinct. The sounds of the pursuing kurakvin seemed to be getting closer. Another hard, blunt object struck him hard in the back, increasing his pain, but this time he did not stumble.
“Look at the little boy run!” a kurakvin’s mocking voice sounded too close behind him. “Won’t turn and fight like a man, but we’ll kill him all the same!”
Mirickar stopped abruptly just as another arrow whistled past him. He had no desire to turn and fight, but even in his panic he could see that he could go no further. At his feet the ground dropped steeply away into a sharp and deep ravine. A river could be heard at the bottom, and on the far side the ground leapt upward again to the level he was on. From only a short distance away the ravine was nearly invisible.
More mocking laughter sounded behind him. Mirickar started to turn, but more pain lanced through his head as it was hit again by something hard. His vision grew dim and he lurched to one side. Another arrow sliced across his chest. Off balance, he toppled over the edge.
Mirickar was alert enough at first to hear the mix of kurakvin voices above him. Some mocked his fall, while others sounded enraged that he had not been stopped from going over the edge. He sensed that his body was tumbling down the steep slope, but everything became a blur. By the time his battered body reached the rocks at the edge of the rushing river at the bottom, his mind had slipped into darkness and he was aware of nothing.
Chapter Eight
It only took a moment for Mirickar to go from sensing nothing to being wracked by pain throughout his body. His teeth clenched and he let out a low, barely human groan. At first he could not think about where he was or how he got there. His only awareness was pain.
After a time that he could not possibly measure, his mind cleared enough to realize a sense of surprise at being alive at all. The interminable flat landscape of agony throughout his body resolved into a more detailed map. As he vaguely accumulated an inventory of it, he knew that some things did not hurt so much after all, but other things hurt beyond words.
As his thoughts cleared more, he became aware of being bitterly cold, and he also grasped a dim recollection that he had faced an enemy who had killed him. Not killed him, he realized, but he had felt a certainty that he would die. Yet there he was, wherever it was, in pain but alive.
“Kurakvin,” he finally groaned aloud without planning to say anything at all.
There was no answer, yet the sound of his own voice awakened his hearing so that he became aware of another noise. It took several moments for him to comprehend that it was the sound of running water, like a small but busy stream. Dreading what he might see but finally alert enough to want to understand his surroundings, Mirickar slowly opened his eyes.
“Am I blind?” he whispered.
Faint and distant blurs of light disrupting the blanket of darkness over him answered his question no sooner than it escaped his lips. He was not blind, but it was dark around him. It was night. And some of the pain in his body came from the surface on which he lay, for it was hard and uneven.
Fresh pain lanced through his neck and head when he attempted to turn his face toward the sound of the running water. He gasped at the sudden eruption of pain, but he stopped moving and tried to calm his breathing. He briefly wondered if he might simply lay there until he died. He could not focus on that thought, though, any more than any other thought that reached through the misery that was so entrenched in his body.
“Father,” he finally spoke, his voice faint, when the freshest and sharpest pain had receded. His personal mission of revenge against the kurakvin had regained access to his mind. “I do not wish to fail you again. If… if your spirit is with me, guide me. I know not what to do.”
As he waited for some kind of answer or sign, Mirickar faded into unconsciousness again. When his senses returned and he awoke, the pain and darkness were just as present as before, but now the cold he had noticed before was making itself known above all. He realized he was shivering and that the motion was aggravating various points of pain.
“Must move. Must… fire.”
It was difficult enough to say. Doing it seemed impossible. Knowing the pain that attended moving his head, he slowly tried moving other parts of his body. He needed to know what worked yet he feared that nothing would. He was relieved to find that his legs moved, although his left leg did so oddly an
d with much pain, leading him to think it was broken.
Both arms moved. His hands felt stiff, but they could flex and grasp. He knew, though, that they could not have held a sword upright to defend from an attack. As he tested his body’s ability to move, the slight movements seemed to drain what tiny energy he had, and he stopped when the weariness overcame him.
“Fire… must…”
When the shivering resumed and he could not calm his body, he knew he had to try again to move and protect himself from the coldness of the night. Keeping his neck as rigid as he could, Mirickar tried to raise himself up on one elbow. He only managed it briefly before the pain and fatigue overwhelmed him and he collapsed again, unable to avoid the burst of intense pain brought on by the faster movement.
“I… cannot… die here… like this,” Mirickar grunted out in anger, yet his rage was diluted with fatigue and the strength of his voice faded. “Cannot die… Must heal… Find… fighters… healer…”
The dark forest was silent around him save for the rushing of water. No attack came, nor did anything present itself to take heed of Mirickar’s wish to not die from his injuries and the cold. Slowly his shivering stopped, and he began to feel warm, though there was no source of heat and nothing to hold in what was escaping his body.
His mind wandered down dark alleys. Confusion blended with fear. Sounds that only he could hear troubled his blurred thoughts. The presence of the forest surged and receded in his mind, though nothing approached. Just when the sensation of warmth grew so great that he felt the urge to shed his clothes, a new sound reached him. This time he was certain it was real and not coming from inside his head. It was the sound of soft footsteps on gravel. And what followed that confused him even more.
“Ah… dear. Alas, what a find,” the soft voice of an old women came from the direction of the rushing water. “I might wonder how he died, but the signs are all over his body. Perhaps a better question is why? What brought this poor boy to such a horrible end?”
The Vengeance of Mirickar Page 5
