No Man's Land

by C D Beaudin

  I knew that already!

  “Well then, it won’t come as a surprise when I ask something of you.”

  What do you want?

  He hears the Dark Lord’s chuckle, “All in good time, Lieutenant. All in good time.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  WhathaveIdonewhathaveIdone?

  Aradon isn’t one to panic. He never has been. But right now, panic, dread, and searing regret fill his body. He gambled his kingdom on a duel, and it’s possible he’ll decide his life isn’t worth the fight. And that it doesn’t mean enough anymore. He’d given up completely six months ago, then decided to fight again a few days ago, gave up again, and now he’s here—ready to kill the man who destroyed an already ruined regiment. His panic grows more urgent when he hears footsteps walk into the prison below the Master’s Hall. He isn’t sure if his body numbs or the panic subsides as he sees Sidah in the doorway, his long, black curly hair braided, and thick beard framing the yellowish-white of his teeth.

  “Dinnertime.”

  “Am I a pig you fatten before slaughter?” Aradon jabs. They’ve fed him five meals today. He refused the last four.

  “Just trying to slow you down for the big challenge tomorrow.”

  “I’m not eating then.”

  “You have to. You haven’t eaten since the sun rose this morning and you need your strength to fight Eomare. He isn’t as easy a kill as you think he is, Aradon,” Sidah says as he opens the door, putting the plate of meat, potatoes, and vegetables on the floor.

  “Who said I thought he was an easy kill?”

  “We have a wager going. Two, actually. The first one is whether you’re just arrogant or completely terrified.” Sidah studies him. “I see I’ve won some money. The other is whether or not you’ll even win. I think you will.”

  “I’m touched by your faith.” Aradon slumps onto the bed, plate in hand, the urge to end the hunger in his stomach greater than the need to nurse whatever’s left of his pride.

  “Not faith. Fact. You’re the best. The best there ever was, and the best there ever will be,” he says it as if defeated. Sidah was never one to be taken in by the Creed and the capes, or the brands and big black and red dragon symbols. He’s practical in his life and killing. He says it how it is and knows how it is.

  “There will be one better than me.”

  “Arrogance.”

  “Not arrogance. Fact.” He smirks and is only slightly surprised when Sidah does the same. It was never easy for him, joining the Red Warriors. He was young and dark-skinned. Most of them didn’t care, but there were a few—namely ignorant cadets—who had a problem with his color. But Sidah put a stop to that right away. Permanently. Those cadets were never seen again. He quickly became the Red Warrior he is today.

  Sidah the Eliminator.

  “What happened to you, Aradon?”

  “What didn’t happen to me…” Aradon huffs. “I began to realize I wasn’t killing for the Creed.”

  “No. You never killed for it. You killed for your kingdom, then for the sheer pleasure of it. So what changed?”

  “I remember the first time I felt guilt, doubt. I was on a mission, a wealthy Eronian had gotten a whore pregnant and wanted the girl and the baby gone.” Aradon looks down. “So he hired me. I was a name in Resodan at the time, a man who would kill anyone, anytime, for no money at all.”

  He looks up at Sidah. “He wasn’t happy when I charged him a sack of silver, but I burned through it quickly. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had paid me or not. I got the job done, and when I looked over the mangled body, I could…” He shakes his head, unable to form the words. “That was when the seed was planted, and Lily was when it grew.”

  “Mekah’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you saw her again?”

  Aradon quirks an eyebrow.

  “The boys talk. Rumor is, she forgave you.”

  “She did.”

  He huffs. “Can’t imagine what that’s like.”

  Aradon shakes his head. “I’m sorry, then.”

  Sidah shifts uncomfortably. “Enjoy your meal.” He turns to leave, but something stops him. Turning back, there’s a change in his eyes. “You were on your way to being Master, Aradon.”

  “I never wanted to be Master. I just wanted my kingdom.”

  “It’s a noble wish but you could have been so much more than another heir trying to reclaim a lost kingdom.”

  “Nomarah isn’t lost. It isn’t waiting to be found. Nomarah merely waits for someone worthy enough to pull it out of the darkness and into not what it once was, but what it now could be. I don’t want to rebuild Idies’ kingdom. I want to create a better country for better people.”

  “Better people? Thieves and murderers? Red Warriors? You consider them—us—to be better people?”

  “Do you consider me to be a king? I was raised in the country, surrounded by trees, unable to go beyond them because of what the world could do to me if they found out who I was. I lived encased in that fear but still felt the joy of living. My parents didn’t abandon me, my mother died of sickness, and my father…” Aradon swallows.

  “Last I saw, he was still alive. Tell me, Sidah. Do I have the makings of a king? Does blood make me royal or the purpose I have to bring together the lost and wayward? I want Nomarah to be better than Idies’ legacy. I will honor it while I better it. I may not have a crown, a throne. I don’t have any believable claim to the throne except for a small silver pin that I could have stolen at a market. But while I may be a country boy, a monster that stalks in the night… I am king, and I will create a kingdom that’s worth something.”

  Sidah studies him, arms crossed tightly over his chest, but his shoulders are relaxed.

  He grew up in Nomarah. The country treated his family and him with violence and prejudice. A Trad, they stick out like a sore thumb. There aren’t many dark-skinned folks in the Five Kingdoms, and those that are, are seen as Trads, and that means one thing: cannibals. But Sidah had explained the whole eating-people ritual. Aradon understands it…sort of…but it’s still disgusting. While he was in Terandore, he may have known the reason behind it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be what sustained a goddess.

  “How do you propose in doing that, Aradon? How will you create a kingdom that’s worth something if you aren’t?”

  Aradon takes the insult with a grain of salt. He lies down on the bed, head resting over his folded arms. “Hopefully with an army of Red Warriors behind me.” He sighs, looking up at Sidah. “Shut the door on your way out.”

  Without another word, Sidah does as Aradon instructs, leaving him to his last hours of silence before he fights the leader of the most skilled army still alive. Chance of death but still enjoyable.

  Bittersweet.

  In her dreams, fear was omnipresent.

  The dark mountains of Kuzakai loomed over Revera, her shaking, hungry, aching body dancing waywardly in their shadows, legs weak, feet bleeding over the rocks and arms numb. She fought to stay upright, fought to stay in control of her emotions. She couldn’t let them take over. If she broke down, she would never get up again. She’d die in this cursed place, among the demons that could devour her soul at any moment.

  A screech sent her into a sprint, a run that continued to tear up her feet, stumbling along the rocky ground. The gray sky above shadowed her vision, turning into night. It wasn’t as dark as the sky in Kahzacore, but dark enough that night would be impenetrable, no stars or moonlight to guide her steps.

  Revera screamed as something knocked her off her feet. Screams filled her ears, blood-curdling, heart-stopping screams that sent her fear from her soul and pouring over her body. She scrambled to her feet, running, the sting of the air against her skin confusing as there was no wind. Her lungs were pained, filled with whatever poison hung in the thin air she breathed. Shadows flew past her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Lightning cracked across the sky as thunder pounded against it. Her foot c
aught against something sharp and she tumbled to the side, falling over the edge of the narrow pathway and into the rocky shadows of the caverns below the Black Mountains.

  Revera turns over in her sleep, feeling her heart pounding but unable to wake up from the nightmare. The lightning flashes in her mind, the sound of the screams. She feels the sweat form on her skin, the fear tangible around her, a dark cloud above her sleeping head. She wants to wake up. To scream for someone to rush in and comfort her. But she’s paralyzed, unable to move or awaken. She’s locked inside herself, inside her memories that she wants to forget but never will, until the sweet release that is death.

  As she falls deeper into the nightmare, she fell deeper into the cavern. The darkness was truly pure, enveloping her completely as she fell farther and farther into the depths. Her hands scrambled for something to hold onto, as if a small ledge grasped by her fingers could stop this end. Dalorin. She didn’t want to become a Dalorin. When her hands found purchase, the sheer swiftness of her fall nearly tore her arms from her shoulders as she grabbed onto a ledge, a pained yell leaving her lips. Looking down, she couldn’t see, but could tell that the walls of the cavern shrunk closer together below. Looking back up, only a jagged piece of gray sky was visible, but just barely.

  I need to...she closed her eyes, needing to clear her mind. I need to climb. She looked up, reaching for another ledge. When her fingers found it, she pulled herself up, but barely as her arms gave out as soon as she sat on the narrow edge. It was maybe a foot in width, two in length. Sticking herself against the rocky wall, she planted herself into the stone, making sure nothing could move her. Her chest rose and fell with her unsteady, hard breathing. Stress. Fear. Anger. The overwhelming anger.

  How could her mother do this to her? She didn’t do anything. But remembering back on the promise she made Aiocille, the promise stating that she wouldn’t stop until everything her parents loved was destroyed, and if her race and the world burned in the process, well…collateral damage. She never thought herself a monster until that moment.

  But now, as Revera clutches her blankets in white fear, she knows in that dark, deep, cold cavern…that was when the monster was created. If her parents were going to think her a monster, if the world saw her as a demon, then why should she fight what they want her to be so badly? Their fear and insolence created the Revera she is today.

  In that cavern, she wasn’t attacked by a Dalorin, but she lost her soul in the way that counted. She lost her love, her benevolence. She was never a pushover. Or a light in the darkness. But she never thought she’d become that darkness.

  The anger had boiled inside her, and she’d let it out in a harsh scream, pounding her fists against the stone. She’d sat like that, agony inside her, let out by her lips, the scream upon scream upon scream, for hours, and perhaps days. She isn’t actually sure. But she continued on, a Dalorin in the dark, a soulless creature with nothing left and nothing to fight for. But in the depths of darkness, she found something to fight for. Her family would pay with the blood of her race. The whole damned world would pay.

  Her voice has been rasped ever since that night, she’d ruined it, and cut the strings that tethered her to the ground. She transcended. Fought and won.

  And now, she’s fighting again, and she’s going to win. No matter what happens, after all she’s been through…she’d better win, or she’ll destroy the world again. Tenfold.

  Revera remembers every bloodied, painful, skin-piercing moment of climbing her way to freedom, desperately trying not to fall. But with every edge she grabbed onto, every slip and close call, the monster inside was also climbing, fighting to surface.

  But in that bitter, silent darkness, she found a clarity. Light is flawed, the mistakes and sins of those under the sun cannot hide. The light shows the pain caused and the pain received.

  It doesn’t lie. Lying is impossible in the light. But when one succeeds to lie, the light reveals it. Light is guilty. It doesn’t know peace. But in the darkness, the evils hide. People are blind to reality and lies, and thus are at naïve peace. But that peace is better than none at all.

  This clarity she found. It gave her a purpose. She would destroy the lies, the pain, and the suffering. By destroying the light and bringing about darkness, it was the only way for peace to truly come onto Ardon and its people. Purpose. She found a direction in the dark. And in the blackness, she found the light.

  And she didn’t like it.

  Her muscles unlock and she’s free from the prison, sitting up, letting her breath out as she desperately huffs for more. Revera pants, hair damp against her skin, clinging to her like the memories. She once said her nightmares were because of the Eye of Aiocille, that the orb was poisoning her, not allowing her to sleep because she wasn’t worthy of using it. But she can’t credit this to the orb. Her parents. Her mother. The satisfaction when she watched them die will only be beat when she wins this war. It could end in two ways, and while in one she may not accomplish what she’s set out to, she won’t lose in either of them.

  Marduth is quiet. The Sanarx below prepare for the upcoming battle, a loud, distant clanking, but there is still quiet. She breathes in, wanting fresh air but is sent into a coughing fit from the smoky air. It has gotten better, since she first arrived in Kahzacore. But it’s still poisonous. She’s surprised Brega lasted.

  Walking out of her room, she grabs a goblet, pouring dark wine and taking a much needed sip. The drink eases her mind, drifting off into a drunk oblivion where nothing exists, and nothing matters.

  Her eyes land on the black throne. Karak doesn’t often sit on it, it’s only there…actually, she doesn’t know why it’s there. Perhaps another cruel joke of Crozacar’s? Kahzacore used to be the Sanarx’s kingdom, Sarith. At least, before they were turned into horrible beasts. Marduth was a garrison, but the land was taken over by the Dark Lord and warped into an evil in Mortal. The throne…Karak rules over a bestial army…

  Revera huffs, nose in the glass. “Terrible joke.” She drinks, turning toward the balcony. Leaning against the rail, she pours some of the wine out, watching it fall below, losing sight of it quickly. Taking another sip, she stares at the Black Mountains that not only border Kahzacore but continue on for many more miles. A break in the dark gray sky beyond Kuzakai should have a spark of joy to it, but it only reminds her of what she lost. However, she’s also gained so much. Purpose, the most important thing someone could have. A reason to live, to keep fighting, even when one doesn’t want to.

  A jolt of pain rushes through her, her blood streaming faster, hotter. It boils, burns. She cries out, falling to the floor. Her skin turns cold, a sheer layer of ice crawling along her limbs, neck, and torso. Her heart is pricked at by invisible spikes, choking out blood.

  She hunches, screaming at the pain. Her hands flame with fire, spreading it along the black marble of the tower. The world goes red-hot, but the outside of her body freezes as she lies in the flames, unable to move. Her breath has stopped, and she fights to suck in more air, but none comes. Her fingers twitch, as if trying to grab onto some invisible ledge that will be her safeguard from the darkness below. But she finds no ledge. And this darkness isn’t below, it’s inside of her. It’s why she’s still alive, and it’s the only reason that she would ever—ever—lose this war.

  From her lips she utters an elven enchantment, a different kind of magic—energy, really—and feels as the flames dissipate, the pain in her chest retreats, and the ice melts. By the end of it, she’s drenched and scorched all the same, but she can breathe and move. She once thought that her magic might be too much for her. But now, she’s starting to realize that it may destroy her.

  She turns inside, heading for another chance at sleep.

  Day breaks, and the sound of the door unlocking alerts the already awake Aradon. Standing, he tries not to be fazed when he sees Saine’s face appear with a set of chains. Neither of them says a word as Saine pulls his arms behind his back, securing him.

&nbs
p; “Not going to be in these chains much longer, Plainsman,” Aradon says as they walk down the hallway, past the nearly empty cells. He hears a few snores. “Better pray to the Spirits you know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, I know what I’m doing, Bowman.” He yanks on the chains, Aradon’s wrists twisting painfully. “I’m going to watch you burn at the stake. What mistake could I make?”

  “When I win this duel, you better run. You lied to me, to Kepp, Adriel… You lied to everyone. You better run far and fast, Saine. Sure, you’re a Besged, but you haven’t the desperation I do.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m vengeful. And we all know firsthand what revenge does to a person.”

  “You must think yourself high if you compare to Revera.”

  “I think myself angry. That I want to kill you. But I have enough respect for the regiment and the Creed to follow the rules.”

  “Did you follow the rules when you got your brand removed?”

  “I got it covered. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there now? Because ‘he who defiles or erases the mark of the dragon will face trial like a common criminal.’ There’s little difference between you and me.”

  Saine grips his collar, tight and angry. “I’d make you take that back, but you’ll get your punishment soon enough. You think just because this is a duel that the Master will let you die honorably? No, Aradon. He’ll keep you alive, then you’ll be tied to the pyre.”

  “It’s Revera who should be tied to a pyre, but the regiment has forgotten that their purpose is to protect, not kill.”

  “At one time there was no difference. But I’m not so proud that I wouldn’t admit that we’ve gotten a bit…off-track.”

  “You call assassinating children off-track?”

  “More or less. I wouldn’t know, haven’t had to yet.”

  “You should hope you never have to.”

  “I’ve learned that hoping is rather futile. You lie to yourself that it will get better, only to be surprised when you stand over your mother’s dead body and think, I did this. I killed her. But if you don’t hope, the shock isn’t as crippling.”