by Guy Estes
They had been with each other for perhaps six months when they attended a summer celebration among the students. It was outside of town, away from the wood and stone buildings, out where they wouldn’t disturb anyone. Cormac’s weakness was his inability to refuse a challenge. They had been there for some time when the boys called his drinking ability into question. Predictably, he ended up quaffing whatever they poured into his goblet, with Aleena trying to stop him all the while. She smelled ill intent on the air that night.
“I have been challenged, milady,” Cormac slurred, “and I must answer the challenge.”
Aleena tried using his vulnerability to good effect and issued her own challenge.
“Then answer mine. I challenge you to drink no more tonight. Let us retire to the long grass, where I shall challenge you to conquer my fortress.”
“First things first, milady. One challenge at a time. It is a question of honor.”
Gods, she thought, he must be deeper into his cups than I thought.
From then on Aleena had been unable to sway him. After a couple of hours of
constant drinking, the boys expressed doubt as to Cormac’s equestrian abilities. They challenged him to a race to clear his good name. Cormac mounted up without hesitation, Aleena worrying and biting her nails the whole time. Why couldn’t he see the obvious? Why couldn’t he see he was being played like a harp? Why did people allow their actions to be dictated by idiots?
Why didn’t I knock him senseless and carry him off when I had the chance?
The word was given and the two contestants took off, Cormac swaying and wobbling in the saddle. Aleena resolved to take him home after the race. She cared not what embarrassment it caused him. He had been well and truly embarrassed this night, even though he was too drunk to yet realize it. The others would never let him forget this night. They would tease him without mercy or reprieve. Aleena looked at the falling twilight with greater worry. It would have been difficult to see even under the best of circumstances, but for the hopelessly inebriated Cormac it was impossible. Everyone saw him fall from his horse as they galloped past the trees, but only Aleena rushed forward to see what had happened. Consequently, she was the first to reach him and see that something was horribly, irrevocably wrong. Cormac’s throat bore evil bruises. His head lay at an unnatural angle and his eyes were glazed and staring.
“Dear Tamura, no!” Aleena cried. She fell to her knees beside him, vainly trying to rouse him while knowing it was too late. A tree limb had taken Cormac across the throat as he galloped by and swept him from the saddle. His neck was broken. Aleena tried to cradle his head in her lap but stopped when she felt the bones of his neck grating upon themselves and heard them popping. Aleena shrieked her grief and loss as only a lover could, searing her throat and choking out her sorrow while rocking the corpse. The others had gathered behind her, silent. She stood and turned on them.
“Who in the seven hells is responsible for this?” she bellowed, her shrieks having rendered her voice hoarse and rough, like the bark of a sea lion. “Where are the spineless cowards that wanted to shame him? You did not dare face him but through trickery. Do you dare face me?”
None did. Though she practiced restraint, they had never seen her so twisted with rage. The crowd began to back away from her, fearful of what an enraged Aleena might do.
“Dirke! I heard you challenge him! Where are you, you slimy bastard?”
The crowd parted and revealed Dirke, standing well away from Aleena, his eyes wide.
“Aleena!”
Madigan arrived and stood before her. One of her simpering followers had an idea of where the night was going and fetched the sorcerer.
“Stand aside, Madigan,” she roared as she started forward.
“Aleena, don’t do this.”
“Madigan, stand aside!”
She grabbed Madigan’s robes and shoved him aside and started towards Dirke, who bolted into the gathering night. Aleena suddenly felt herself stopped in mid stride, though nothing touched her. Madigan had called upon his magic to hold her back until he could get her under complete control. Magic was an act of will and, to some degree, could be countered by will, even if that will held no magical ability. When her blood was up, Aleena’s willpower rivaled the power that turned worlds and lit suns. Her hands and feet were plowing furrows in the ground as she clawed her way towards her fleeing enemy. Despite his considerable talent with magic, Aleena was slowly pulling away from Madigan. He tried a sleep spell, but her mind was so inflamed with rage it had no effect at all.
He had but one idea left, and he turned to it only because the alternative was to let Aleena become a murderess. He wrapped his telekinetic power around her neck and began to gently squeeze. Slowly, the blood flow to her head was reduced until she swooned. As soon as she did Madigan ordered some of the others to bind her tightly. As they did he allowed enough blood to reach her brain so it would not be injured, but not enough to restore full consciousness. When she was bound and awake, Aleena hit Madigan with a glare that would have melted a castle wall.
“Untie me,” she growled.
“I’ll not let you become an outlaw, Aleena.”
“You cannot keep me bound forever. You must release me some time, and when you do, I hunt.”
“Perhaps. But not tonight.”
Madigan picked her up and carried her home, placing her in bed and explaining to Ivarr and Ilian what had happened. By the next morning, Aleena’s rage had gone from full eruption to smoldering lava – it was still there, its potency simmering and bubbling, but it had calmed enough to enable rational discourse. In addition to her parents, Madigan and Headmistress Rita were in her room. She lay on her bed, still bound. Murder still gleamed in her eyes as she looked up at them.
“I know what you desire, Aleena,” Madigan started, “but you know we cannot allow it.”
“They murdered Cormac and they go free?”
“The guilds are investigating, and if Cormac was indeed murdered, they will deal with his murderer. It is for the law to handle, Aleena, not you.”
The hatred in Aleena’s eyes was submerged in tears as she began to weep.
“They plied him with drink until he got killed!”
“Did they hold a knife to his throat and make him drink?” Rita gently asked. “Did they tie him down and force it down his gullet?”
Aleena was forced to shake her head as her sobbing grew more intense.
“Cormac was a fine young man,” Ivarr gently said, “but he made a mistake. Those other boys played a role, to be sure, but the final decision of whether to drink was Cormac’s. He made the wrong decision.”
Aleena sobbed harder as the truth impaled her heart. She hated it, but she could not deny it, which was why she hated it. It calmed her temper enough that they could untie her. The following day was Cormac’s funeral. Aleena wept uncontrollably throughout the whole ceremony. Afterwards, she went to his parents and fell on her knees before them.
“I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I should have gotten him out of there! I should have dragged him away or beaten him senseless! Anything to get him out of there! Please forgive me!”
She buried her face into the grass as huge sobs racked her body. Cormac’s parents stood there, watching her as they, too, wept. Then Cormac’s mother got down on her knees and pulled Aleena’s face from the ground
“Aleena,” the weeping mother said, “there is nothing to forgive. None of this was your fault. Do not add guilt to your grief. This was not your fault.”
Sharleah’s craft guilds decided legal matters in the town. They ruled Cormac’s fate death by misadventure but that the boys who plied him with drink were contributory to his death. They had to quit school and take on jobs until they had earned enough money to pay Cormac’s parents recompense.
Though it was not openly spoken, and Aleena was wholly ignorant of this, the guild members also wanted to ensure those boys would not be left in her
unrestrained presence. Though she had calmed down, they could not be sure she wouldn’t seek vengeance later on. Those who had not been directly involved with Cormac’s death, like Valkira, still kept their distance. They remembered how Aleena looked that night. Some swore she had sprouted fangs and claws.
CHAPTER 4
“To introduce into the philosophy of War itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.” – Carl von Clausewitz
"There is no man at arms who can use courtesy or kindness to face his enemy.” – Fiori dei Liberi, Italian fight master, 1410
“Be sure, as death is, that your play comes not from courtesy, against he who wants to shame you.” – Filippo Vadi, Italian fight master, 1480s
The situation was rapidly deteriorating. Jac’s tavern was teeming with a raucous crowd of slave traders. Jac had been reluctant to accept their patronage but, he reasoned, if he did not take them then Sharleah’s only other innkeeper surely would. Still, every time their coins dropped into his palm he had an urge to wash his hands. He could not help but wonder what miseries some poor wretch was suffering in order for these slavers to pay him. Slavery had been abolished in the Artisan League about two centuries ago. Slave traders could pass through the league and spend their coin, but they could neither buy nor sell slaves.
As the night wore on and one cask was emptied after another, the rowdy herd of men grew increasingly brash. Their talks of business became louder and more jovial. Then their talk of selling strangers became talk of selling Jac’s staff. The slavers openly discussed the potential price they could get for each barmaid, weighing her pros and cons, and they spoke in the trade language rather than their native tongue, so everyone understood them. Even now they were eyeballing his barmaids just a bit too closely for comfort. Jac provided employment for several local girls and one, Aleena Kurrin, was more than just an employee. She was the daughter of a lifelong friend and a veritable niece. She was a quiet girl made more so by the death of her first love a few months ago.
So young to have suffered such a wound, he thought.
Even as Jac thought of her he spotted her in the crowd, expertly avoiding adventuresome hands. The two short swords she wore made agility a bit more difficult but, smelling impending doom in the stuffy tavern, she wouldn’t have set them aside for anything. She normally left them in a back room while on duty, keeping them for self-defense on the way to and from work, but she’d gotten a very bad feeling in her stomach when the slavers had come in. Being armed made her fell a little better. Jac had let her keep them on her while performing her duties, for he’d gotten the same feeling of dread she had. A few of the other barmaids carried small knives like bodice daggers, but they hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to use them.
Aleena was the exception. She was Chosen, and her major gift was that of the warrior. Several times she’d been called upon to oust recalcitrant patrons, though she had yet to call upon her swords. Her gift had never been put to the ultimate test, and she naturally wondered how she would fare. Would she have the stomach to hack someone else apart? Could she face the shock of the aftermath? These questions constantly plagued Aleena. The crowning touch to her dilemma was the fact that her questions could only be answered by killing someone in battle. Despite the nature of her gift, she had no desire to harm anyone.
Aleena was somewhat worried about herself for having such questions at all. What sort of mind thinks of these sorts of things? What kind of soul actually loses sleep over it? She finally concluded that it was only natural that someone gifted in the warrior arts would wonder how she would perform in actual battle. She further decided that the very fact that she worried about herself demonstrated her sanity. A true lunatic would never question the oddities of her own thoughts.
“Don’t look now,” she told Jac as she returned a tray full of empty tankards to the bar, “but I think we shall have a riot on our hands very shortly.”
“Yes,” Jac replied. “I know, but it’s too late to ask them to leave.”
Jac’s grey hair was clipped almost into oblivion, so when his brow furrowed in worry one could see his entire scalp doing so. He possessed a very cultured, mellow voice that usually won him the honor of master of ceremonies at any of the local gatherings.
“I think,” he continued, “that our only course of action is to wait until they drink themselves to sleep and hope nothing happens until then.”
“Do you think it will be so easy?”
“No.”
Aleena returned to her duties. She’d been working for several hours, now, and her feet were making their displeasure known. No sooner had she noticed the complaints of her feet than the place was pierced by a girl’s scream amidst the drunken cheers of the slavers. Staff and patrons alike stopped what they were doing and beheld two of the larger men holding one of the barmaids off the floor as another pawed the front of her bodice. Jac had several clubs and bows kept under the bar for just such an emergency. He did not wish to launch arrows into the crowded tavern so he grabbed a hardwood club that had brass studs on its thicker end. Aleena was already plowing through the throng to go to her hapless colleague’s aid.
“Put her down,” Aleena ordered. “Put her down and get out!”
“Look here, men,” a slaver cried. “Another doe comes to the stags!”
Aleena slapped away invading hands. Then her consternation ignited into righteous fury as she heard the sound of tearing cloth and looked up to see the now bare-chested barmaid, whose name was Constance, sobbing for mercy. Aleena’s hands found their sword grips and the weapons sang free from their sheaths.
“Unhand that girl! Now!”
Aleena’s command, indomitable as a tigress’ roar, brought the room to complete silence. The lead slave trader somehow managed to stare down his nose at her, even though they were the same height. His brown feral eyes were crowned with dark, bushy brows, and his dark hair was pulled up into a ponytail upon his crown.
After several moments of failing to freeze her blood with his menacing gaze, he said, “You dare challenge us, girl? Put those away before you hurt yourself.”
“Put her down,” Aleena responded in a more civilized tone. “You can eat, drink, and make merry as much as you desire. All we ask is that you leave the women alone.”
“You insolent little bitch! We will take what we please and sell it for a good price! Does Sharleah have nothing better to challenge us with?”
“She is more than enough to take you on, you mangy animals!” the weeping Constance spat.
“Is she, now?” the leader said while stroking his chin. “I suppose there is but one way to solve this riddle.”
He was reaching for his sword when Jac’s voice intruded.
“Slaver, if you so much as touch a thread on that girl’s garment you will have every man here after your head. Is one insolent wench worth it? Is that all you require to feel threatened?”
Aleena ignored the insult. She knew that Jac was trying his best to head off bloodshed. She silently thanked him for it and wished him luck, but Aleena had the queasy intuition that she was about to get the answers to her oft asked questions. Her curiosity about how she’d do in battle had suddenly fled in the opposite direction. Now she desperately wished to remain ignorant about it. Her bowels cramped with dread, and she resisted the urge to bend over.
“When anyone draws two swords on me I feel threatened, no matter their age or sex. And yes, she is definitely worth it, especially if I can get her unharmed. Blondes sell well in the south.”
Aleena felt as if she’d been stabbed in the stomach as her suspicions were confirmed.
Is it worth it? she wondered. The welfare of Constance and every other woman in here is at stake. Dear Tamura, I don’t want to kill, but what other option is there?
The lead slaver drew his sword and brought it down to cleave Aleena’s skull. Aleena did what she was fashioned to do. For the first time in her life she completely unleashed her gift. She used the fl
ats of both of her blades to shove his descending blade off to her left while moving her body to her right. Then, in an action as natural and inevitable as gravity, she swept her right blade across to take his head. It was far worse than anything even her imagination could conjure.
Time and motion seemed to slow as her blade flashed towards his exposed neck. Aleena watched her blade enter his neck as easily as entering water. She felt the meat part under the blade’s stinging touch and saw the blood burst forth. Her steel encountered momentary resistance when it hit his spinal column, but it passed through and emerged from the back of his neck. The head, with the look of utter shock locked upon its face, toppled from its mount. More blood than Aleena ever thought a human body could contain vomited from the stump, quickly obscuring her view of the stark white vertebrae. Aside from all the blood, the entire process had been frighteningly akin to hewing a sapling in twain.
Aleena turned away from the grisly scene she’d spawned, partly to keep the blood from splashing into her eyes and partly to choke off the guilt that was drowning her. Shock of realization hit her like a slab of granite falling onto a cottage, her face tingling as she was swallowed by vertigo, as if with a sudden fever. Her stomach rolled like a ship in stormy seas.
