by K. F. Breene
The trees called from the not-so-distant wood. They sang through her Gift and seeped into her blood. The soft breeze cooled her hot face. She felt the hard dirt beneath her feet, lifting her up—offering its services to help her on this day. The knives in her hand felt like a friend’s touch. The target waited twenty paces away.
Shanti focused on the sparkling green eyes of the enemy in front of her. She bent her knees a little more. The knife shifted a fraction in her grip. The battlefield and the goal realigned in her mind’s eye. She winked.
“That’s better.” Rohnan smirked. “Let fun begin.”
Shanti stepped forward in a gush of strength and precision. She slashed with her right hand before punching with her left. Rohnan leaned back and swirled around her. She spun, threw a knife, hit the edge of the target, and ducked under a swinging foot. She punched upwards and connected with his inner thigh.
Rohnan winced and staggered. For their mock battle, his leg would now be useless.
Shanti threw her own kick, knew it would miss, but then lunged, punching him in the gut with the hilt of the knife, and then ripping to the side. She spun again and threw the next knife. It hit off-center.
A heavy weight tackled her from behind. She twisted, but couldn’t break the iron grip. She hit the ground full force. Her cheek bounced off the dirt. Pain radiated through her face.
Two fast punches hit her ribs and gut. It didn’t matter, though. As she stood, panting, she acknowledged the truth, “We’d both be dead. I failed.”
Rohnan stood in front of her. Sweat darkened his shirt and dirt marred his face.
And then without warning, she punched him. She’d always been a sore loser—it was one of her more aggravating quirks.
His head jolted back, but as she hadn’t put much into it, he only took one step back. After a beat, his head tilted forward. A smile scratched at his lips. His brilliant green eyes started to sparkle. “Added experience hasn’t made you grow up.”
“Using your Gift when I’m not is cheating,” she said in sullen defense. She couldn’t help the answering smile, though. She knew what was coming.
And then it did.
Rohnan charged. Arms moving so fast she could barely keep track, he threw a punch at her face. She flinched to one side, just before his body barreled into her. He took her to the ground a second time, knowing she wasn’t as good a fighter on the ground. He didn’t know about her scuffles with Sanders, and she’d had a lot of practice since she last tumbled with Rohnan. And she’d had a dirty cheat as a teacher.
She yanked Rohnan’s hair as his punch landed in her rib. With the heel of her hand, she pushed his chin up and yanked his hair again, wrenching his head to the side. He grunted and raised his hands to ward off the assault. She twisted her upper body to get him off-center, having him scrambling over her to keep his position. She jammed a fist into his kidney, then his ribs, then under his armpit, aiming for sensitive areas. He pushed her down, getting his face too close to her. She head butted, smacking her forehead off his mouth. His lip split and he grunted again.
She strained and twisted before bucking, throwing his body off her. She was up a moment later, kicking him in the middle. He grabbed her foot, but she fell on him with a knee, landing right in the center of the back.
“Aw—yield! I yield!” he yelled in their home language.
Shanti climbed off and wiped the drool from her chin, then realized it was blood from her previous wound. She took her sleeve and dabbed while Rohnan arduously picked himself up off the ground. Dirt coated his front and his once-perfectly shaped lips were swelling and cracked with blood.
“When you learn how ground fight?” Rohnan asked with a smile. He winced and dabbed at his split lip.
“Watch Sanders fight sometime. He cheats.” Shanti couldn’t help a triumphant smile.
“You more brutal, I think. Fight style, I mean. Coarse.”
“Nah.” Shanti walked toward the target to retrieve her knives. “I changed my style to offset yours. Cayan does that. I had to get savvy in this place—they have some unique and good fighters.”
As Shanti turned with her knives, she realized that the usual bustle of the practice yard was completely absent. Rohnan must’ve noticed it too, because he looked out over the still grounds as he slowly sheathed his knives.
All the men stood erect and motionless, staring in her and Rohnan’s direction with rounded eyes and gaping mouths. Swords and knives hung loose at their sides, almost forgotten. Burson, alone, had a huge smile.
“Um.” Shanti looked at the men standing in the line next to them. “Someone else’s turn? We cut in front…”
A tall, thin man holding a knife slowly shook his head.
Shanti couldn’t help a twisted smile as she shrugged. “Well Rohnan, looks like it’s your turn.”
* * *
“Well, it’s official—she’s crazy and so is that twin of hers,” Sanders said, his arms folded over his chest.
Cayan and Sanders stood at the edge of the practice field watching Shanti charge Rohnan with two knives. The goal was simply to get as many knives into the target as possible while also trying to thwart the attack. It was a level of multitasking in battle that his people weren’t practicing. It mimicked fighting against overwhelming odds, something Shanti’s people had always anticipated.
Sanders said, “Why would you even need to throw a knife when you’ve got an enemy trying to gut you. If you’re going to throw a knife, throw it at the guy in front of you. Or girl, in that nut-job’s case.”
“You’ve seen her work—she kills the enemy in front of her, but her eye is always on the larger picture. If someone is trying to get by, or is about to kill one of your men, you’d want to stick a knife in their neck while you fought the man in front.” Cayan shifted and crossed his own arms. “This is a level of skill we don’t have. That we haven’t trained for. These two have seen the enemy in combat and have prepared for the worst all their lives, yet they still lost most of their people. Even with the level of skill I see in front of me, they all died. We are in way over our heads.”
“They only had a few against a large army, though,” Sanders countered. He shifted his weight, spat, and dropped one hand to the hilt of his sword. “And took on way more than their number. The sheer size of an army will win over individual skill. Besides, they were defending a forest village, or some other tiny place. They just let the enemy tromp in.”
“They had traps laid—no one just tromped in.” Cayan watched as Shanti finally reached Rohnan and flipped him over her shoulder. He landed flat on his back. The jolt must’ve chased the air from his lungs, but he didn’t stop, or even pause. He swept with his foot, trying to catch Shanti’s legs. She jumped the kick before a knife appeared in her fist with a flourish. She stabbed down, but Rohnan had already moved. He caught her forearm and wrenched, forcing her hand loose. The knife skittered away. Some of the nearby men in the gathering crowd cheered.
“They are so intense when they fight,” Cayan marveled. “They look like enemies trying to kill each other, not siblings reunited after the worst happened.”
Sanders grunted as two of the Commanders walked up with stern expressions. Sterling, tall, broad and great with a bow, clasped his hands behind his back as he looked on. “I don’t think we’re prepared enough.”
Daniels, an aging man with a strategic mind the like of which Cayan had never met the equal, focused intently on the pair fighting. “I couldn’t help but overhear you and Commander Sanders speaking, sir. I would like to point out that even with our allies united peacefully and purposely, we will still be grossly outnumbered by our enemy. This dictator—the Being Supreme he calls himself—”
“What a ridiculous name,” Sanders barked.
“He’s trying to align himself with the divine. It is genius when you think of it. Common people fear a higher power. The name itself inspires fear as do the atrocities done in his name. He conquers cities before he ever asserts his presence. This
Xandre has already conquered half the land. Many of those conquered are already at the poverty level, that is true. Even if he made them fight, they would just be fodder for the front line—easily killed and hardly missed. His general battalion is diseased of mind and body, according to Krekonna—brutal and disgusting. Barely human. They would pose little trouble for a civilized army with proper organization.”
“Desperate men are unpredictable,” Sterling said.
“Yes.” Daniels pursed his lips. “Still, those… men, we shall say, are used to maintaining a presence in the conquered territories. They are doing unspeakable things—burning houses with families in it and the like.”
“Is there a point to this, Daniels?” Sanders glanced around Cayan to glare at Daniels. “You’re ruining my mood. And it wasn’t great to begin with.”
Daniels cleared his throat. As a man from a highly cultivated, wealthy, influential family, he wasn’t entirely comfortable dealing with someone like Sanders, whose father was a miner, and his grandfather a leatherworker. But because Cayan’s army stripped away social titles and heritage, and promoted on merit alone, they found themselves constantly struggling to get along.
“They are a force we need to eradicate to clear the conquered lands, but they are many,” Daniels went on. “However, the two warriors in front of us haven’t trained all their lives to fight a group of diseased troops. I doubt they would’ve lost such high numbers if they had. No, they trained to defeat Xandre’s elite group. The higher level of his army.”
“I met one of them—two actually. Yeah, they were trained.” Sanders glanced at Cayan, indicating the conversation they’d had shortly after Sanders had returned last night. “I cut the guy’s arm off, and still he tried to fight.”
“He bled out,” Cayan said in a low voice. “The Duke’s man couldn’t keep him alive. He can’t give us any information.”
A throat cleared to their side. As one unit, they all turned, expecting a soldier who was about to be sent back into the practice yard with a long list of punishments for interrupting his superiors. Instead, it was the older man that had arrived with Shanti. He stood a few paces away with a smile playing across his lips and glittering eyes, as if he was enjoying a joke with himself.
“Yes?” Daniels asked with a haughty tone.
The man edged closer. “You were discussing an army you know little about. I thought I might help fill in the blanks.” The man gave a lighthearted chuckle. Cayan reached out to his mind, but found it as blank as it had been previously.
“You know how his officers work?” Daniels asked in the same tone.
The man edged closer still. “I have studied them a great deal, as have Shanti and Rohnan. They are a cultured group of people, as is Xandre. All are highly intelligent and excel within an organized structure—not unlike those here. They are much fewer than the growing horde, but they still number more than you. Even lower-tier officers will present a problem for your men, and there are many of them compared to your own. When you join with other armies, Xandre will simply fill his ranks with the horde. That will thin you down in battle, and Xandre will finish cutting you down. These officers are spread out. They are not always reputable but they are not as hated or as feared. This means the army of the rebels has not yet reached as far east as I would’ve liked. But I am certain that the coming of the Wanderer will bring people flocking. And then there will be the battle of the Chosen. The changes will spread like wildfire when the Shadow is once again released upon the land. To get to this battle, to travel east, you will need a crew of your best and brightest. You will need your most cunning, your most skilled. You will be outnumbered always, and are now hunted by one of their best.”
Another cheer went up from the practice yard, but Cayan barely heard it. All his attention was on this older, smiling man. “How do you know all this?”
“The Wanderer—I’ve heard whispers of this.” Daniels squinted in thought for a brief moment. “Krekonna brought it up, I believe. I then asked some of my contacts in other cities—my family has extensive connections, of course.” Sanders rolled his eyes. Daniels didn’t notice. “This is something of an old wives tale, this Wanderer. It speaks of a woman wandering the land, gathering the oppressed and grieving. Something like that.”
“Like the Old Woman and the Wand?” Sterling asked. “My mother used to tell me that story.”
“It is more than a myth, I assure you.” The old man’s gaze changed slowly, from glittering absence of thought to poignant. “The Wanderer is the subject of intense study. There are those of us who are the keepers of the Wanderer doctrines, just as there are those who are keepers of the Chosen doctrines. And they are just two parts of four, but we are not there yet. All in due time.”
He paused for a moment looking deep into Cayan’s eyes. “We must teach you to crawl before you fly. You need to learn to control your extensive power. You are stronger than Shanti, I think, which was not foretold. I can feel untapped reserves in you. Rohnan will be able to unlock them. It is all coming together.”
“Who is this hunter you speak of?” Cayan asked, stepping forward.
Burson smiled again. “Ah, yes that is more pressing. He is a Superior Officer in Xandre’s army, and he seeks both Shanti and myself. I’m sure Rohnan would be a boon as well. Should he find out about you? The opportunity for a Superior Officer with a full dose of the Gift? You cannot produce Gifted heirs, no, but your value will almost be that of Shanti.”
Cayan’s mind raced, remembering Shanti’s warning from the night before. “He’s one of the elite, you said. One of their best?”
“Yes. We will need to move on soon. He is not one to shy away from a chance to gain entry into Xandre’s inner circle. The perks are said to be endless.”
“If we move on, what’s to stop this officer from moving in?” Sanders asked.
Burson smiled again. “Numbers, to begin with. He doesn’t have enough to move in, as you say. He needs Shanti and myself, above all. We are the prize. He will do whatever is in his power to secure us—staying behind as we move on would hinder his goal. He was sent to guard me. If he fails, he will be killed or punished severely. If it is revealed he had Shanti in his grasp and let her get away… well, his death will be horrible. He will not risk anything by taking over a city that is not yet scheduled to be conquered. Xandre is an exacting man—everything is planned down to the last detail. No, our hunter will follow his prey, which is why Shanti said we must leave quickly. She was not lying. Danger will follow her to death unless she cuts out the root.”
“Never a quiet life where she’s concerned,” Sanders muttered.
“You asked how I know all of this,” Burson went on, “and I will tell you. I know this because I have studied, I have traveled, and I have been held captive. You can really learn a system when you are caught within it. You can understand a people when you live amongst them. I have spent my life that way.”
The man ticked the sky with his finger. “We will need a small number. Shanti’s five young men should go, her adopted brother, and me. She makes a unit of eight. I will be hers until the Chosen comes forth. Cayan—excuse me. How rude.” The man giggled, a startling contrast to that cutting stare. “The Captain will also have eight, including himself. Any larger and we will be noticed and taken down if we try to get to the lands in the east. Any smaller and I fear we may not make it. No, eight each is the correct number, and Shanti’s men must be traded for youth.”
“How can we hope to confront the army of the other Chosen with so few?” Cayan asked as Lieutenant Lucius, a man Cayan’s age with dark hair, walked into their discussion.
“That is why the smaller number.” Burson’s hard brown gaze surveyed Lucius before finding Cayan again. “We will sneak into the Shadow Lands. They are protecting their Inkna-Chosen, hoping to claim the Shadow. There will be various stations set up between here and our destination. The Superior Officer will make use of those—we will never be safe. Not ever. They will try to cut us do
wn before we reach the sea. But if we sneak, we can get into the lands, and the battle of the Chosen will commence. Once on the island, the prospective Chosen and her entourage cannot be killed. Not in plain sight, anyway. The hopeful will go through the trials. Whoever emerges is the Chosen.”
“Not killed in plain sight… How do we keep her safe?” Sanders glanced at Shanti as she walked toward the archery area with Rohnan.
“Ah. To that question, I don’t have the answer. All I know is there can be no obvious battles. I hope you have a poison master, who is also excellent at making antidotes, because he or she will be needed. I would suggest looking to the women of this city…”
Sterling gave Cayan a hasty glance before looking out over the practice yard. Daniels tapped his chin in thought. Sanders said, “Why would you look at the women?”
“We’ll talk about that later, Sanders,” Cayan said in a low voice.
“Secrets within secrets. What a treat this journey has become.” Burson wandered away. Sanders stared after him as the color drained from his face.
“Best keep suspicions to yourself until you and the Captain have a chance to talk in private, Commander,” Sterling said in a quiet voice. He gave a quick glance behind him. “It’s best not to go voicing women’s business—it can end badly.”
“Yes, it can. I’m better off for the knowledge, but wish I could unlearn some things,” Lucius said. He gulped. His gaze trained on Shanti as she nocked her bow. He said, “She’s back.”
Cayan nodded as he watched the practicing pair. He ignored the sick realization Sanders must’ve been having, if the sudden spiked fear that radiated off him was any judge. “And here come her Honor Guard.”
“And I hear she has her Chance back,” Lucius said quietly. Cayan could feel his uncertainty.
