Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4)

by Emanuel, Ako

  At seven her head exploded with pain and she doubled over with a barely held sob, holding her temples and gritting her teeth. She continued, supporting herself on the knee of her good leg.

  At two she was hopping on the one good foot alone, the world spinning with fiery pain behind her eyes.

  At the last promised step her foot touched soft grass. She had completed her second walking of the Way. But she did not stop. She took two more steps before her body and the will holding her gave out.

  Jeliya was unconscious before she hit the ground. She did not hear the thunderous cheer the populace gave for her achievement in the face of obvious infirmity. She did not feel the strong, gentle hands lift her or hear the chanting of her title-presumptive, Av’Daun.

  The last thing she heard was the silver voice, whispering, “You did it. You did it my love. You did it.”

  the light turned...

  Jeliya awoke in the blessed cool of the pavilion, the members of the High Family around her. They all sat facing outward, outwardly attentive to the warru demonstrations of prowess being presented to the crowds, but surreptitiously hidingher from view.

  Each sound was knife-edged, each word lined with needles. she moaned ceaselessly with the fierce beat of the headache right behind her eyes, unable to halt the tortured ululation of her pain.

  “She really shouldn’t continue,” the razor-bladed words were from D’rad’ni. “She hasn’t had food for a turn, and the walk nearly destroyed her. How is she supposed to fight?”

  “She must, if she is to prove herself worthy. She must put herself in the Goddesses’ hands.” Her mother’s gently concerned words sliced into the sharp throbbing of her consciousness.

  D’rad’ni pressed a moist cloth to Jeliya’s lips, then to her eyes. It reminded her of the silver voice of peppermint water and cool sage. It took the edge off of sound, the bite out of brightness. She was able to quiet her moaning with the memory.

  “You will live, High Heir,” the ol’bey woman said, and there was more than a hint of pride in her voice. She raised Jeliya’s head and offered her water. The Heir drank slowly, the rehydration almost as painful as the dehydration had been. She could feel the moisture return to her nasal tissues and her eyes, and the hellish headache began to subside. She stifled a sneeze and drank more, vaguely surprised that D’rad’ni did not stop her or warn her about drinking too much water just after such a major exertion. Her limbs still felt like deadened weight.

  “Drink all you can hold,” D’rad’ni answered her unasked question. “Had it been allowed I would have let you drink before you walked the path of Av. This water has had arro-root and tokba steeped in it, for your eyes and head pain. You were not allowed it before, but you are too traumatized in body for me to hold too closely to tradition. Ah, your mother has gone out to do battle. You have some time to rest. You should do so while you can.”

  Jeliya gratefully closed her eyes, and she fell into a light doze, only to jerk awake at a touch from the ol’bey woman.

  “If you have any hidden reserves of strength, Princess,” D’rad’ni murmured under the rising cheers of the crowds, “now would be the time to find them. Your mother is about to best Otaga, and you will be required to face her seven second best warru soon.”

  Jeliya heard her through eyes closed to searing pain, which had returned. Her own body held nothing left, so she turned to the only other place from which strength might come - the Jur’Av’chi. And she found that from the Jur’Av’chi, Gavaron’s tireless will came to her, waiting like a still pool, depthless as his eyes. It was the same will that had allowed him to run for turns to get her away from her pursuers; the same strength that had served her on the Blessed Path. She drew upon that silent, silver pool of strength once more, throwing off the pain, the weakness, even the swelling in her ankle. It filled her, taking away the debilitation and replacing it with silvered steel. She opened her eyes and heard the murmurings of the masses as her mother came back to the pavilion, the wonderings if she would be able to do combat with the obvious weakness of her condition.

  The murmuring died and turned to gasps as she rose to the kiss of silver and walked slowly out of the pavilion, as if a Goddess reborn from the fires of agony. She stepped into the circle so recently vacated by her mother, still wearing little save her beauty. Silence descended, awed silence. She had been as one near death a few san’chrons before. Now she stood tall and proud, even if there was a gray tinge to her creamy brown skin. Gray that held a hint of silver. They waited, withheld breath, as she looked to the waiting warru. As one against many, it was her choice how to meet her opponents. Except for the last. The best. That one she had to defeat in single combat.

  “I would dance the An War’don’mi,” she said into the hush, her voice exhibiting the faintest silver ring. There were murmurs of approval. This was the best strategic move she could make, for this was the dance of a single warru surrounded by six others, dancing with spear and sword. It allowed her to battle six at once, rather than each individually. Jeliya would be the center dancer, fending off the fluid attacks of the other six. When done with staves and wooden swords it was merely beautiful, a complex ritual of attack/defense/counterattack, that was used partly to train and partly to entertain. But with real spears and the gently curving dom’ma sword that was as long as a woman’s torso and razor sharp, then the dance became deadly. For the six outer dancers could use any of a variety of combination attacks to strike at the center, or even weave their own attacks into the dance. And the one at the center, who had better be adept at the dance, would not know where which attack would come from or when.

  A young warru, Ak’ya, who was chosen as the first of the second-best of the High Queen’s warru in the trials the turn before, brought forth her dom’ma and spear, and the raiment of the War’don’mi. Jeliya took the sword and bowed before the pavilion that held her Family. She presented the dom’ma to Luyon, showing as a sign of trust that he would see when she should need it most and toss it to her within the rhythm of the dance.

  Otaga came forward to help her prepare. She took up a long thong from the vestments in the hands of Ak’ya and bound Jeliya’s guinne, which were faintly silver at the ends, into a thick, solid braid. Two others wrapped her wrists and the palms of her hands in silk-fine leather. A bustiere of coarse silk was wrapped around her top half. The Warru First then bent down to lace the special soft-soled sandals onto the High Heir’s feet. Jeliya smiled and turned to receive her spear from Ak’ya.

  “Choose,” she said to Ak’ya, honoring the age-old ritual that surpassed memory. “Name those from among your sisters and brothers to join me in the War’don’mi. Let them stand forth, and match me, skill for skill.”

  Ak’ya stepped forward, her young face lighting up, her eyes bright, honored to be given the right to name the five others who had passed the trials with her. The seventh had already been designated and was waiting.

  She named San’disha, a tall, regal woman who was of a height with Rilantu and Staventu, and who could not be beaten when it came to spear fighting, not even by Otaga herself. I’cho, a short warru woman who was death itself with the long sword. Ihannu, a tall, silent warru man who was a champion stick-fighter. Daj’ju, a muscular warru man renowned for his strength and endurance. Dadenyi, whose lightning fast reflexes had earned him the name Dadenyi do Av’io, the blink of Av. And Ihrasal, the warru who had stood by Pentuk when she had been given command of the egwae, and who was said to be death incarnate with the paired short staves.

  “All fine warru,” Jeliya said, saluting to each. They took their places and bowed in honor to each other and to the center. They made benedictions to the four compass points which held the four ‘ritas, and knelt to touch their foreheads to the ground in honor of the Ancestors. And they stood and lifted their arms, saying rites in praise of the Goddesses and the Supreme One. The multitudes followed suit, then sat as the tan’kai players began to strike single beats on their drums. Other warru joined in with th
eir spears on shields. They intoned a low chant, in the ancient Alonan tongue,

  “Una lai lai,

  Una lai lai

  Is’si’ona ka wai!

  Una lai lai!

  Is’si bau’u ka ya!

  Is’si’ona ka wai!

  Is’Solu a ka ya!

  Una lai lai!”

  It was an almost-song that throbbed, working its way into the body’s rhythms, heightening the senses, toning and conditioning the muscles to move within the patterns of the dance. The Six began to slowly move clockwise around Jeliya, stepping with each beat; and she moved opposite to them, counter-clockwise, her spear raised high. She let the silver rhythm take possession of her, let it guide her breathing and infiltrate her blood. It moved her body and her soul, drawing her into the silver pulse of the dance. And when it had integrated her into itself, it gave her the cue she sought and she sent up the cry, translating the words,

  “One stands here!”

  “One stands here!” the drummers and warru answered in chorus, the drums taking up the rhythm of the syllables.

  “I stand here!”

  “One stands here!”

  “There stand the honored Six!”

  “One stands here!”

  “Honor stands with this One!”

  “Honor holds this Six!”

  “In Solu’s honor do we fight!”

  “One stands here!”

  She whirled with a roll of the drums, the rhythm growing into the full dance of the War’don’mi. The Six dropped to crouches, still moving in a circle, stalking her like encroaching predators. She studied their movements as she still moved counter to them.

  They’re all skilled fighters, but they’ve probably not danced the War’don’mi in quite this combination before, she thought. That works to my advantage They probably won’t be able to coordinate their attacks. She was almost confident that she could take them, provided her strength held out - after all, she had danced with the finest, and that included her father.

  They began with the traditional star formation thrust, dancers on opposing points attacking, weaving out a six-pointed star. She countered each with precision, then moved immediately to counter the next traditional move, the Six each making a low sweep at her legs in staggered procession, followed by an upward thrust with the butt of the spears toward her abdomen. She pivoted out of the way of each instead of meeting them, dancing back and relying on her silver agility to avoid the flashing spears. She closed briefly with each, then sent an unexpected counter-thrust at Dadenyi, changing the whole symmetry of the dance, putting the movements on the upbeat. As the center she controlled the rhythm of the dance. Most left the rhythm as it was, but rhythm, too, could be a weapon, and she had been taught by a master to manipulate the rhythm. It might put the others off their stride, and might make them less inclined to spring surprise attacks on her.

  Jeliya whirled her spear as they fell back, now freed by her move to break with the traditional movements and attack as they would. Her body flowed in time to the silver drums, the rhythm controlling her now, weakness forgotten. Then the attacks came, randomly and seemingly from every quarter. She blocked an overhead strike from Ihrasal, spun away, into another attack by Dadenyi, a furious flurry of sword slashes that could not be defended against for long. She studied the system of throbbing movements, letting the silver heart-beat of the drums show her the cracks in the pattern. On an off-beat she reversed her spear and thrust it at Dadenyi’s face, the razor tip barely touching the warru’s surprised nose before Jeliya slid away to face another opponent. The next was a sweep at her head followed by a whirling attack that swept out a deadly figure eight before her eyes. The wielder was San’disha, and she advanced, the spear a flashing gyration that seemed to dance from one hand to the other, never stopping the dizzyingly fast twirling. She came at the Heir that way, the spear part shield and part weapon, seeming a solid thing. Jeliya matched her, spin for spin, the spears a blur in a higher order of the dance, two blows traded for every half-beat. Finally the Heir broke away from her attack and turned away, back into the main dance. I’cho dallied with the Princess with her sword, more playing with her than really attacking, testing her mettle. The warru feinted left and right, but did not follow through on any of them while Jeliya was open and vulnerable. Her eyes were filled with merriment and mischief and she finally drew back, to let Ihannu put the Heir through her paces and test her reflexes. Daj’ja closed with her only briefly, and Ihrasal not at all, except of that initial attack. She, instead, hung back, watching. Jeliya kept an eye on her with her peripheral vision, waiting for the attack that did not come.

  Then at some ungiven cue they suddenly began at move in unison, abandoning swords, quivering point-first in the grass-bed behind them, to fight with just spears. Jeliya wanted to laugh in surprise, would have, if she had had a silvered breath to spare. She should have known that Otaga would be thorough enough to train every one of her warriors to dance the War’don’mi with every single other; they definitely had danced the War’don’mi together, these Six. They stalked around her now, their movements so smoothly coordinated that they might have moved to one mind. The spears were blurs in their hands, weaving the deadly figure-eights before them. She brandished hers more slowly, weaving a less complex eight with one hand. Then they brought the weapons down and thrust them at her, but at an angle, so that she was in the middle of an ever-decreasing hexagon of scintillating steel. She tried to fend them off, the spear in her hands whirling so fast that it seemed to meet tip to butt, a double-headed spear and a headless staff in her hands. But while she harried those in front, those behind closed in. And every time they moved in, the hexagon got tighter and tighter, closer to trapping her completely. If they succeeded, then they would control the dance, moving her around as they wished, like children playing with a rag doll, and she would fail the trial of weapons. She watched the pattern, again surrendering control to the rhythm, letting it show her the way out, the silver moment to act. And just as they would have girded her in their snare she bent her knees deeply and threw herself into a seemingly wild somersault. The surprised spears clashed together beneath her just at the point where her waist had been, as she tumbled about the axis of her own spear. She landed on the interlaced shafts, her body still coiled and ready; she felt them give beneath her weight, then recoil as the Six resisted. She used the recoil to spring board her back into the air, snapping herself into another, tighter backward somersault, timed to come down when the spears had separated. She landed in the exact spot from which she had leapt, and on the beat. But she did not rest in the moment’s respite the move had earned her - instead she did the unexpected, rushing Ihrasal, pressing her attack and timing it in complex quarters and thirds around the already complex beat. This was the gift imparted to her and her brothers by their departed father in dancing the War’don’mi, this deep, integral understanding of the rhythm and the ability to use it, to weave her movements around its complexity.

  It effectively kept Ihrasal off-stride so that she could not draw the other five into that deadly synchronization again. She gyred away just as unexpectedly, attacking each in turn, one with the silver dance and the chant. She was the dance personified, was the rhythm’s avatar, was the liquid flow of words and the pulsing rise and fall of the drums.

  Then her spear met the ring of silvered steel rather than the thud of wood and she faced I’cho, who held sword in one hand and spear in the other. She fended the Heir off one-handed with her spear and came in low with the sword, moving with such skill that it seemed as if the sword and spear were alive and she the extension of them. And she, too, had a fine understanding for the rhythm of the dance, and also knew how to use it to her advantage. The others pressed in, forcing Jeliya into her offensive. And the dance told her that she could not match the warru, unless Jeliya’s weapons matched hers...

  And as the realization crystallized, the ring of steel against the air seemed to slice through the encroaching eve as if on cu
e, a singing flash of silver ice, a falling silver star. Jeliya swung her spear in a wide circle, scattering her opponents, then reached out blindly to the sound. The dom’ma slid neatly into her hand and she swung it low to redirect its momentum, bringing her own offensive up against I’cho. Now they were more or less evenly matched, for while the warru was superior with the sword, the Heir was slightly better with her spear. Soon I’cho abandoned the spear altogether and defended with sword alone. She was joined by San’disha, who had surrendered her sword. They danced side by side, I’cho to the Heir’s right, against her sword hand, and San’disha to her left, facing spear with spear. She studied their movements with almost a detached air, the rhythm showing her their weakness. They were used to partnering this way, and never would expect an opponent to switch weapon hands, since the right was usually the sword hand and the left the spear hand. But she had been trained to be equally skilled with either weapon in either hand, so she did switch. And they did not, or could not - not and keep the advantage of fighting side by side. This seemed to throw them off just slightly, for though they had trained to fight as a pair, they were not quite as comfortable with this arrangement and thus not quite as effective, for San’disha was closer in than usual and I’cho further out; against another it might not have made a difference, but to Jeliya it was critical, and allowed her to keep her advantage. It was just enough for her to hold her own against them for the required ten measures of the dance. When it was clear that they could not beat her within that time, they withdrew and bowed, exiting the dance.

  The next two to challenge her as a pair were Daj’ju and Dadenyi, Daj’ju with his spear, to the left so that his strength was against Jeliya’s weaker side, and Dadenyi, with his sword, to the right so that his quickness was against Jeliya’s strength. They chose to fight opposite each other, rather than side by side. It was an unfair, uneven match, for they were openly exploiting her weaknesses, but the dance murmured to her silver ways to use their own cleverness against them. Jeliya fell back and switched again, fending the stronger man off with the spear, and slashing through Dadenyi’s attack. And then again, turning her body, meeting each of them with both weapons, switching styles suddenly and without warning. For strength did not really matter with the relatively light sword, and speed did not really matter with the heavier, longer, more cumbersome spear. She held her own, just, for the transition of styles around the beat at inopportune moments kept each from bringing his full talents to bear. And then ten measures were up.