Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  The blade descended.

  WAKE UP.

  Mykel saw the blade in just enough time to twist out of the way. The dagger shredded the felt fur the librarian had rested a breath before. Ifirit became aroused, its golden-boned steel haloed in flame. The interloper took a step back in fear. “No...impossible! How did you...?”

  A Weirwynd. A refreshing breather from all the other beings he had faced lately. “Who are you?” Minute glances to either side revealed both Lazarus and Shayna sound asleep in their cloaks. “What have you done to them?”

  The villain looked as surprised as the librarian. “The Song is meant to strip the souls of its victims.” His fingers flicked to a leathern jerkin in a sign of warding. “Why does it not affect you?”

  Ifirit. Mykel knew naught how. Somehow the weapon protected him. Magic to match magic. “Release them!” The other’s chuckles only enflamed the librarian’s anger. “Damn your hide! Release them!”

  The assassin spread his arm forth in a mockery of a curtsey. The silver orbs Mykel had glanced before suddenly became alive with the images of Lazarus and Shayna. “Their essences. They’re trapped.”

  The gaze Mykel gave the assassin could have melted steel. “Free them.”

  “Or what, boy? You’ll kill me? Whatever fortune spared you won’t work twice.”

  Mykel saw the killer’s act before it even began. A simple slash sent both the flute, and the hands that gripped it, tumbling to the dirt. Immediately the assassin’s bravado collapsed into rage and disbelief. “You brat!” Something pulsed gold at the killer’s neck, a lightning bolt suspended by a chain of cloud-like links. A shiisaa. Threads of electricity jumped from the bolt to crackle down the veins and ensnare the stumps of his lost hand. Ikadzu. Vassal of Tesla. The lightning cauterized the stumps. “You think that was my only power? I have magicks you cannot begin to comprehend!”

  Shit. Too late Mykel saw the small, golden teeth. A scream burst from the slayer’s mouth. It was the scream of every animal amplified into one bone-chilling screech. Pebbles danced upon the dirt. Trees that had stood for hundreds of years were tore in twain, leaving behind piles of kindling. Within moments Mykel could feel blood drip from his nose. It was only a matter of minutes before the ears ruptured.

  For a moment, Mykel thought he was possessed by a poltergeist. His body moved without his will to drive it. He watched as his body leapt from tree trunk to tree trunk; first here, then there, then finally coming down in a corkscrew. Three inches from the ground Ifirit sang with glee, and the ikadzu assassin found himself less a jaw. Abruptly the spell ceased. Mykel watched him as he scattered backwards, eyes bulging with terror as his limbs flailed at all sides, searching for anything that might stall his inevitable death.

  Kill him.

  Mykel shivered. The words were his words; the voice, his voice. Were it not for the poison dripping from the statement the librarian was not able to tell truth from fiction.

  Kill him.

  Mykel strained as his feet carried him closer to the assassin. No! I won’t.

  You must kill him.

  No. He strained, and there was an inch of slackness, a release. It took all of Mykel’s will to put himself back in his own body, and then just barely. Sweat coated him as though he’d spent a week in a desert; his panting, as though he’d run halfway across the world. I almost killed him. The victory should have been enough, but a victory upon an unseen enemy hollowed the joy.

  A hand clamped upon his shoulder, causing the librarian to leap damn straight from his skin. The sharp rasp of a laugh pulled Mykel’s face into a snarl, but a short-lived one. Good. The spell’s lifted. Shayna smiled at him, and, surprisingly enough, Mykel found himself smiling back.

  Lazarus studied the unconscious man. “Hm. I didn’t think to see his kind again.” The Khatari sighed, rolling his shoulders in preparation. “What matters now is that we make sure he does not follow us.” The snapping of metal sounded, and suddenly twin tri-blade khatars sprouted from the old man’s sleeves. Mykel followed suit. As one the blades fell –

  – and suddenly halted in mid-strike. Before the assassin’s body was Shayna, who had flung herself in harm’s way, arms outstretched in a spread-eagled position. “Wait, stop!”

  “What are you doing, girl?” Lazarus demanded, his augur eyes ablaze with anger. “Get out of the way! This is not the time for jests!”

  “I know, but we cannot murder this man! Not in cold blood!”

  “Shayna, if we do not do this...he will come after us again.”

  And then all the affection vanished from the Companion’s eyes. “I know, but –” She faltered in mid-word, swayed, then collapsed as if she were boneless. Lazarus caught her. Her body sheltered the act of her incapacity, and now fallen, the full scope of her fall was revealed. The assassin was shaking with laughter, the pearl-handled knife in his right hand, wet with blood, traced with thin purple veins. Poison.

  A great rage broke through Mykel’s reason, and he moved without thought. Ifirit plunged into the man’s spine, pinning him to the ground, blood slowly spreading in a circle under him. Mykel shook with the power of the gauntlet’s hunger. “What happened to her?” It was an effort to make the words still in his voice. “What...what did this bastard do?”

  Lazarus said nothing; he merely turned her over. There, on the right heel, was a crooked line of violet, staining the white linen. “The bastard. Do you know the cure?”

  “I know it. The ingredients can be obtained in Illiam.”

  “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go!”

  “Hold, apprentice!” The iron in Lazarus’ voice rooted the librarian to the ground. “Illiam is far away to the east, away from Iga Aithru. Do you wish to be at Sutyr’s whim?”

  “I don’t care about that.” Mykel said, back facing the old man. “I can’t let her die.” Mykel glanced at his master, and his eyes were ripe with need. “I can’t.”

  “Very well, then.” Lazarus cradled Shayna’s still form, carried her to his horse. From within his cloak the old man produced strips of rawhide, which he used to bind the Companion to the horse’s saddle. “Come, young one. We haven’t much time.” With that the duo galloped not to north, but to the east, disappearing amidst the waning horizon.

  I should have saved her. It was nonsense and Mykel knew it. Only a fool believed he could save everyone. Still, the nagging doubt took root in his mind, and he, so deep into the depression, could not see the wrong in it. I should have saved her.

  They stopped more often than before, treating Shayna’s condition, trading dirty poultices for clean ones, mixing herbs to provide a balm to combat the poison in her veins. It was not much, and it definitely fell short of the real treatment she needed, but it would have to do.

  Sometimes Shayna would wake with fever, shaking with hallucinations that twisted and distorted her mind. Eventually Lazarus had no choice but to tighten the restraints. Almost every waking moment was a chance to slit her wrists, or claw her eyes out. Only sleep was a balm, and the drugs that carried her to that balm were becoming less and less effective.

  Mykel spent the days continuing his training with the old man. Being unable to save Shayna drove him to pursue more skills so that the mistake would not be repeated. He trained; saw to Shayna’s well-being, trained again, ate, trained. Life quickly became a series of conditions jointed together by one’s perception. Time, pain, cause and effect, all those and more passed by. There was only him, and the steel that challenged him. Food was a distraction. Sleep was a distraction. There was only him and his steel.

  Lazarus did seem to understand the librarian’s motive, but his warnings were in vain. The old man...he just didn’t know how painful it was to fail a cherished one.
He knew not the burning nausea of failure and disgust. Mykel trained to the brink of exhaustion, and then further. I won’t fail again.

  The Companion’s suffering grew worse. At the first she would thrash about the makeshift stretcher, moaning sounds that had not meaning or shape. Then, as time passed, the moans grew quieter and quieter, then ceased altogether. Soon she slipped into a coma that ministering and medicinal herbs could not cure. She had less of a week, if she was lucky.

  “Damn it!” Lazarus growled through his teeth. “None of my potions seem to affect her! Damn it all!”

  Strange that Lazarus should be the one mastered by his temper. It only made Mykel nauseous. “Are you sure there isn’t a nearer town?”

  “I told you Illiam has the resources needed –”

  “The resources needed! Not “the only resources available.” She can be treated elsewhere, can’t she?” Silence. “Damn it old man! We can’t wait for Illiam! She’ll be dead before we can get halfway there, and you know that! Please. Please.”

  Lazarus paused for a moment. “There is one not a few miles away. Ore Tin. They are hardy folk, not trusting to anyone outside the village. They might very well kill us than help us.” He raised his drilling eyes to the librarian. “They may have adequate supplies. May have. They might not have it at all. Can you accept that?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Mykel said. “None of it matters.”

  With a regretful sigh Lazarus whistled both horses to his side. Lazarus mounted the red, and Mykel, tying the Companion to the saddle, mounted the black. Lazarus set the path, and Mykel, after checking Shayna was secure in the saddle, kicked the horse to a trot to reach him.

  To Mykel the travel blurred; sun-up and sun-down, dawn and twilight. They followed the crook of the Azure, though they could not use it. The trail was close to where the river emptied into the sea. With no distilling equipment, the water was useless. The water-skins were rationed, but never once did the pair think about refilling. Time. There was never enough of it.

  The town of Ore Tin was a typical fisherman’s town. A shroud hung in the air with the sharp taste of seawater clinging to the mist. Roads of wooden planks snaked about the coast, leading to small huts for the most part; others led to larger, more refined houses. Beyond those, packed in a tight cluster as if to ward off the other houses, there were structures that were more kin to manors than hovels.

  The docks glittered with the shining pond of ice that was their livelihood. In the days of succeeding seasons, the roiling black waves of the Chiron Sea filtered into the town through a dam of stone and mortar. This supplied fishermen with the exotic foods that kept the town in high demand for noblemen’s exquisite tastes. As such the winter was the hardest time for the little town, where fish was not as abundant; which was why it mostly depended on the Church’s generosity.

  The horses galloped forward, bursting past the village guard and ending in the center square, white frothing their noses. Men dressed in leather jerkins were waiting for them, armed with pitchforks and butcher knives. Rustling of heavy foot-falls revealed even more men gathering behind them. Mykel tried not to let laughter break him. Fishermen. We’re being threatened by fishermen.

  “We are here to see your herbalist,” Lazarus said in a loud, clear voice. No one responded, save for the slitting of narrow eyes. They really do hate outsiders. No matter. He was willing to go through all of them if he had to. Especially if such a confrontation was speeding towards them.

  From out of nowhere flew a rock. Lazarus shifted his hand in mid-speech and caught the projectile in mid-air. For a moment, it looked like the rock would be sent back to its thrower, but Lazarus only tossed the rock in one hand as he resumed, almost with no interruption of flow, his decree. “All we want is your physician. After he treats our friend, we will go.” None moved an inch, but there a disturbance in the back, a ripple of movement as people stepped off in one side for the arrival of another village-born.

  It was a girl, a thin, reedy one, with blonde hair that hung inches past her ears, though set up with kohl and other hair-items that allowed traces of black to thread her golden hair. Dressed in a thick white tunic, cradling small boxes in her arms, she stood as stiff as a princess whose subjects had just kneeled before her presence. “Whoreson dogs,” she muttered. “Not a lick of you has any sense.” At her presence, the knot of men faded away, back to their straw huts or, sitting squat a few dozen feet away, stone houses.

  “What are you doing?” asked Mykel in a tighter fervor than he didn’t mean. There, amidst the cases within her crooked arms, was a glass box filled with blackness. Some might say the darkness was a potion of some sort, some liquid meant to cure a dozen known viruses, but liquid did not squirm like a living thing. Leeches. A hate grew for this woman, one barely restrained. The black devils had an association with him, one darker than their shells.

  The square quickly emptied; not that the girl noticed. “Hm?” Falling to one knee the young girl began to sort out her boxes on the ground, but the fervor in Mykel’s voice turned aside her ministering. “Oh, I’m just organizing my herbs. That’s what in these boxes, you see –” All the librarian could see was squirming black. Harshly he told himself that Shayna’s condition needed not such delays as paltry as a young boy’s fear.

  “Do you have a residence?” Lazarus asked politely. “We’d rather not meet your kinfolk again.”

  “Bunch of ignorant jackals,” said the girl, pausing to spit in their general direction. “They don’t know the world past their fishing poles.” To the Khatari she said, “A residence? Yes, of course. Pardon me for rambling on. Follow me.” The girl led them to a small straw hut that would stretch to the bursting point with a single person inside it. After pegging their horses, the pair followed the young herbalist and balked.

  The hut’s lean appearance was a trick of the eyes, for the room they now gathered in was a strange blend of shop and a mystic’s dwelling. Racks upon racks lined the walls. Some were empty, and others were filled with strange liquids. It gave the appearance of a wizard’s home, nothing more. Nowhere were the skulls of virgins or the hearts of maimed men, no hairs of strangled mother or the thick ropes of intestines from a rapist’s frame. Herbs, green, leafy herbs took the place of such vile things. The only thing black about this place was the short row of canned leeches. Again Mykel reminded himself of the predicament, and again the flash of anger subsided. For now.

  “Here,” said the girl, pointing to a slab at the far end of the hut. “Put her gently on the stone there.”

  With the utmost slowness Mykel lifted Shayna up and over the slab. She looked so pale; the poison was almost done with its work. “Can you save her?”

  “Of course I can,” said the girl. Fiddling with her boxes the girl took a stern look at the Companion. A strange grin began to curve her mouth. “Whoever gave her the potions to slow the sickness is a master herbalist. I would not have thought of such a combination.”

  Mykel almost swore he saw Lazarus swell in pride.

  Taking a handful of herbs, the physician withdrew a stone bowl from squatting shelves and, taking a small club and candles from aside, thrust the candles to the duo. “Light these near her. Their smell will buy us a little more time.” With that she turned back to the herbs, grinding them vigorously with the club.

  “Damn,” Mykel wheezed. The stench of the candles reminded him of offal stinking in a desert heat. But Shayna’s body was suddenly tingling with newfound life, expelling the whiteness that clouded her pallor. If the stench could do that, it was worth tolerating.

  Minutes passed slowly, while the girl worried over the Companion with herbs, incense and pomanders, and ground juices of mixed herbs, and stuff that took the appearance of sludge. With each ministration the color returned, bit by bit, to Shayna’
s face. Mykel fought from having his hands clench each other. If she dies...Mykel dared not dwell on the conclusion.

  A touch ghosted on his shoulder, and Mykel met his master’s gaze, dry brown eyes glimmering with a far-away memory of panic. Mykel breathed a sigh. It was good, knowing he was matched with his mentor. Then he saw the girl lift herself from the table, breath exploding from her in a curse of frustration. “What is it?” Mykel asked. Shayna was almost healed; her skin was toned in color but otherwise nothing had changed. “What’s wrong? Why are you stopping?”

  “Lad, don’t attack her.”

  “Shut up!” Again, Lazarus gripped his shoulder, and Mykel wrenched away from the contact. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

  The girl seemed to shrink at every explosive word but at the last she drew herself up, steeling herself. “I have cured everything save for the sleep she lies in. It is like poppy-milk; it numbs the body so that the treated will...die peacefully.”

  “Die?” Mykel echoed the word as though it had never passed his lips. “You can do something about it.”

  “If I had the right herbs, yes,” answered the willowy girl. “As it is I am lacking the last ingredient.”

  Mykel forced himself to be calm, and even then, the best reply he could manage was through his teeth. “Where. Is. This. Herb?”

  “Lad –”

  “Where is it?”

  The girl shook like a wayward wheat stalk. “At Gemesh Mountain, southwest of here. It’s called the Pripet. It grows at the top of the mountain.”