Oathtaker

by Patricia Reding

  I’ve got it, Dixon, Mara said, after peeking around the boulder behind which the two of them hid.

  She pulled a poison-tipped arrow from her quiver, stood, quickly took aim, and then released her shot. Moving easily in her standard Oathtakers’ garb, a half dozen knives hung from sheaths about her waist and boots, and resting in its holder at the back of her neck, ready to be used with the flick of her wrist, she carried Spira, her Oathtaker’s blade, a magic weapon that would never miss its mark.

  Dixon crouched down. His back to Mara, he turned her way, caught her eye momentarily, and then winked. She was the love of his life, and he of hers. It was only due to a unique magic exception that the two had been able to commit to one another even though Mara had a living charge—or charges, as it happened—the twins, Reigna and Eden, the current ranking members of the Select.

  “Charmer,” she whispered, grinning.

  Got you! Ha!

  She spun around to find Velia, who smiled with satisfaction as she sprang out from her place of concealment. Seconds later, her latest target grunted and then fell to the earth.

  Good work, Velia, Basha complimented her cohort.

  Mara offered a silent prayer of gratitude for her friends. Over time, she’d discovered that each of the other Oathtakers and Select who’d sworn a life oath to protect her charges, enjoyed as did she, continued youth from the moment he pledged his vow. None knew if he’d ever age again. Indeed, they preferred not to know, as they surmised that they’d learn the answer to their question only after the death of one, or of both, of the twins. Even so, the phenomenon meant that each remained every bit as strong and vital as he’d been on the day he’d first given his oath. Better yet, as time progressed, each became fortified with the wisdom that came with age, experience, and a continuously improving understanding and appreciation of the Good One’s principles.

  She glanced briefly at her longtime friends, Basha and Velia, then at the two additional Oathtakers who rounded out her troop. She’d chosen Kayson to accompany her on her mission, since his attendant magic included, as did her own, the power to heal. She’d also selected Raman, whose temperament she particularly enjoyed. Since nothing brought the man’s spirits down, he wore a nearly constant smile.

  She peeked around the edge of the boulder. Waves of heat hung in the air, making things in the distance appear distorted. For a moment, she recollected a long ago similarly sweltering day—the day she’d been called to the side of Rowena, the former ranking member of the first family of the Select as she labored to birth her twins.

  She inched closer to Dixon.

  Turning to her, he raised five fingers to designate the number remaining.

  “Ready?” Velia whispered as she sidled nearer.

  When Mara stepped back to make room for her, Dixon restrained her, as from there the ground quickly dropped off.

  Looking down at the treacherous area below, littered with sharp rocks that fell away at a steep slant, Mara nodded her understanding. Then she gestured for the group to divide their attentions. She and Dixon would direct theirs to the left, while Basha, Velia, Kayson, and Raman, would remain focused to the right.

  After retrieving a clear magic crystal from her pocket, she peeked out again.

  Just then, the enemy, apparently also recognizing the Oathtakers’ vulnerable position, advanced in a rush.

  “They’re coming!” she cried.

  Dixon sprang out from the left, with a knife in each hand.

  Kayson, similarly armed, ran out from the right. Basha followed at his heels, holding a bow with an arrow nocked. Behind her came Velia, sporting her Oathtaker’s blade, Justise, at the ready. Finally, Raman headed out, wielding a sword.

  Mara jumped up. She pulled her arm back, preparing to throw her crystal. She needed to toss it sufficiently far that it wouldn’t harm her cohorts when it landed and then exploded.

  At precisely that moment, one of the enemy forces, hidden in a tree, shot an arrow that rushed in at Mara from high on her left side. She tossed her crystal a mere heartbeat in time before the trespasser’s arrow pierced her shoulder.

  Startled, she stepped back, catching her foot on the edge of the drop off. Then, in the space of a single breath, she experienced the shock of finding no earth beneath her.

  Tumbling backward, she fell down . . . down . . . down . . .

  The crystal that Mara threw, blew up, killing three of the remaining trespassers. Then Dixon and the other Oathtakers defeated the last of the intruders.

  Dixon turned back. “Where’s Mara?” he asked.

  “She probably traveled magically to come in at the enemy from its other side,” Basha said.

  The Oathtakers waited for a time, but when Mara didn’t reappear, spread out to scout the area.

  Minutes later, Dixon found scuffmarks at the edge of the precipice behind the boulder. He looked down to find her below, unmoving, just as Basha approached his side.

  “Move. Move!” he ordered.

  “Oh, dear Ehyeh!” Basha exclaimed, her eyes following his gaze.

  He brushed past her, then started down the drop-off. A rock loosened beneath his step. Pebbles scattered before him. Not wanting to cause an avalanche of rock, he focused more carefully.

  She has to be all right—she just has to be.

  His foot slipped. He readjusted his weight, found new purchase with his next step, and then continued. The minutes seemed interminably long.

  Finally, just a few feet from where Mara rested, he jumped to the ground and rushed to her side.

  “Is she all right?” Velia cried from above.

  Ignoring her query, he fought to still the rising panic that bubbled up in his stomach.

  He removed brush from over her, careful not to touch the arrow that protruded from her shoulder. He didn’t remove it, reasoning that so long as it remained imbedded, she wouldn’t bleed severely.

  He checked her pulse. She lives!

  Leaning in closer, he whispered, “Mara. Mara, are you all right?” Gently, he turned her face toward himself. He felt blood from a gash decorating the side of her head, warm and sticky against his skin.

  “Is she all right?” Velia called out again, her voice worry-laden.

  He looked up and, swallowing hard, nodded.

  He contemplated how he’d return to the others. He couldn’t carry her back up the rocky wall, but the ground below leveled off before meandering toward the nearby river.

  “I’ll take her that way,” he said, gesturing to his right.

  He put one arm behind Mara’s neck, the other beneath her knees, and then gently lifted her. Her weight was nothing compared to the heaviness of his worry and guilt. He scolded himself for having let her join him in such a precarious place, for not having protected her.

  “Mara,” he whispered, “are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  She remained silent, unmoving.

  He fought his way through the rock and brush that lead to the river. When he arrived at its edge, Basha made her way toward him. Shaking with worry, he pulled Mara closer, then kissed her forehead.

  Basha moved Mara’s hair to the side to reveal the cut on her head. “Put her down, Dixon. Kayson can heal her.”

  Tears misted his eyes. “The cut is not the worst of it,” he said. “It bleeds, but not all that badly. For that matter, her shoulder wound doesn’t seem the primary concern. I’m afraid she’s suffered a concussion. She hasn’t responded to anything. I think we should just hurry back to the compound and then see to healing her there. You know Mara,” he added, then swallowed hard, holding his emotions in check, “if she regains consciousness now, she’ll insist on making her own way back home.”

  Basha watched her fellow Oathtaker closely. Having believed some years past that she’d lost her charge, Therese, when she fell from a cliff during an assassination attempt, she wordlessly conveyed her understanding and sympathy.

  Kayson and Raman drew near.

  “How is she?” Kayson asked.<
br />
  Basha glanced his way, then turned back to Dixon. “Why don’t you at least let Kayson remove the arrow and stem the bleeding?”

  Nodding, Dixon dropped to his knees. He placed Mara on the ground.

  Velia stepped up to his side. “Is she all right?”

  “The gash on her head is . . . Well, I’ve seen worse,” Dixon said, through gritted teeth. “Kayson’s going to remove the arrow now, and then I’ll carry her back to the compound. He can see to her other injuries there.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out,” Raman offered. Contrary to his usual demeanor, he was not smiling.

  Kayson knelt at Mara’s side. He examined her wounds. The arrow hadn’t gone quite through her back. After snapping off the fletching end, he turned her on her side. Then, while Dixon and Basha held her still, he forced the point through. Once done, he slipped out the remaining shaft.

  Blood poured.

  Placing his hands over the wound, Kayson peered into it with his attendant magic and then sent forth a healing stream.

  A long minute passed in silence as Mara’s bleeding slowed. Then, after what seemed an eternity to Dixon, it stopped altogether.

  He glanced at each of his friends in turn, his heart in his eyes, his hands shaking.

  “Dixon, she’s going to be fine,” Velia said, stroking his arm.

  “Let me see to the wound on her head,” Kayson offered.

  “No, it’s not bleeding now,” Dixon said. “Let’s get going.” He took Mara back into his arms.

  “Careful,” Basha cautioned, “her shoulder wound could easily re-open.”

  “Why don’t you let us help carry her at least, Dixon? We could make a stretcher,” Velia suggested.

  He pulled his beloved closer. “No, I’ve got her.”

  “But, Dixon, we’re quite a distance from the compound center.”

  “I’ve got her,” he repeated, his voice soft but emphatic. He would not release his hold.

  “All right then,” Basha said, “we’re through here. Let’s go.”

  Just then, an arrow came flying in. The leaves of the trees overhead rustled as the projectile flew past the Oathtakers.

  “Down!” Kayson cried.

  They dropped to the ground. Dixon gently covered Mara’s body with his own.

  Another arrow came forth, this time just missing Velia.

  Basha looked up. “There!” she shouted, pointing.

  A man, grinning, stood at the top of the crag.

  Her jaw set. Then, as the intruder reached for another arrow, so too did she. She moved so quickly that hers reached the intruder’s chest before he could loose his own.

  The man swayed, then tumbled down.

  “Leave him,” Dixon ordered as he got to his feet and marched off.

  With the river to his right, Velia rushed up to his left. Kayson and Raman took the lead, and Basha, the rear.

  Then they all, but for Dixon, continually scanned the area for possible additional attacks. He, fully intent on his mission, kept his eyes fixed firmly forward.

  Although Kayson and Raman repeatedly asked Dixon if they could carry Mara for a time, he refused any offer of assistance. Rather, each time they approached him, he tightened his hold. All the while, she remained as silent as death in his arms.

  Hours later, the group arrived back at the central compound. When they finally made it to the innermost area, Basha’s charge, Therese, with a handful of guards following, ran out to meet them.

  “I can help,” offered one of the newcomers.

  Dixon shook his head “no.” His arms suffered from the weight he’d carried for so long, but he refused any assistance.

  “Dixon! Dixon!” a woman shouted.

  He looked up.

  Lucy rushed toward him. Her light blue eyes, usually dancing with mischief, portrayed only seriousness now, as they darted from one member of the incoming group, to another.

  “Is she all right?” she cried.

  Basha grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “She’ll be fine,” she said. “She took an arrow in her shoulder and fell, and it seems she’s suffered a concussion.”

  Lucy tapped on Kayson’s shoulder from behind. “Why didn’t you see to her injuries immediately?”

  “Because,” Dixon interrupted, his voice hard, “we didn’t want her insisting on making her own way back.”

  “You were right, Dixon, of course.”

  Lucy first established the camp when Rowena still carried Reigna and Eden. Over the years, the compound residents developed it into a place that met nearly all the needs of the numerous Select, along with their Oathtakers, who resided there. In addition, the camp was home to Oathtakers who were trained, but didn’t currently have charges of their own. Most of the residents had sworn life oaths to protect Reigna and Eden.

  The compound afforded the community with their own sanctuary for prayer, separate family living quarters, a common meeting area, a library and place for study, an infirmary, and training grounds. Largely self sufficient, living off the land, hunting the surrounding forest and fishing from the nearby river, the camp residents also kept gardens, tended orchards, and grew their own herbs for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

  Dixon strode past several buildings and gardens, down the center thoroughfare.

  “Make sure a unit is sent out to that section,” he said to no one in particular, “and make sure they’re well armed and relieved regularly.”

  “It’s already been done, Dixon,” Velia said.

  “I don’t know how a group that large made it through all of our sentries before we noticed,” he muttered.

  “We’re looking into it now, Dixon,” said Lucy, the unofficial leader at the compound—in her own eyes, if not in the eyes of the others. Looking just older than Mara, with curly hair and rosy cheeks, she was actually centuries old. She’d been Oathtaker to the last two known female sevenths before Rowena. Years later, she worked with Rowena, planning and orchestrating for her coming children—girl children—down to her seventh pregnancy. The two hoped that the child Rowena bore would be the seventh seventh foretold of in prophecy—the one who might help to usher in a new age.

  Reigna was Rowena’s seventh-born child—a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. But to the amazement of all, Rowena also bore Reigna’s identical twin, Eden. Until that day, no Select had ever before born more than a single child at a time. Thus, it was not until after the twins’ birth, that Lucy and the others finally made sense of prophecies that theretofore went beyond their understanding. The scripts told of a seventh seventh and of “she who is, but is not.” Eden, born of a seventh pregnancy, was not a seventh-born child. Her birth fulfilled those prophecies.

  When Dixon reached the infirmary, Basha jumped before him to open the door.

  He stepped inside.

  “Dixon. Dixon!” someone called.

  “Oh Dixon, what happened?” another cried.

  He looked up. Tears welled in his eyes, as Reigna and Eden rushed toward him. The girls, actually young women now, could always soften his brashness.

  His eyes darted from one of the beauties to the other. Whenever he looked at one of them, he felt he saw their mother once again, though whereas Rowena had sported brilliant green eyes, the twins’ eyes were light brown, and whereas Rowena’s hair had been auburn, the girls had lighter tresses that glistened with copper highlights. Aside from those differences, the two had grown into Rowena’s spitting image, with her high cheekbones, and with the same flawless skin—skin that gave them an almost unearthly quality. But while so identical in sight as to be difficult to differentiate from one another, their likenesses ended there. They differed profoundly in personality. Reigna was loud, Eden, quiet; Reigna, a speaker, Eden, a listener; Reigna, a doer, Eden, a thinker; Reigna, an instigator, Eden, a responder. They balanced one another perfectly, and each idolized the other.

  Gently, Dixon laid Mara on a nearby cot. “She’ll be all right. She’l
l be all right,” he said.

  The door opened to more visitors. In walked Nina and Jules, each of whom wore a grim expression.

  “Did you find her?” Nina asked, tears in her eyes.

  Basha neared her. “No, I’m sorry, we found no sign of Carlie.”

  “What could have happened, do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll keep looking. She’s been trained to survive in the wilderness, don’t forget.”

  Nina held Jules’s hand. Together, they approached Dixon.

  “We’re so sorry about Mara,” Nina said to him. A petite woman, with raven hair and coffee colored skin, she wiped the tears from her deep, dark eyes. Having escaped her homeland, Chiran, as a young woman, losing her child along the way, she’d met Mara and Dixon when the twins were just days old. She agreed to join them to help mother the twins, and had been with them since.

  Jules stood at her side. He and his cousin, Samuel, had also joined Mara and Dixon years ago. To Mara’s delight, he and Nina fell in love, and married. Their three children brought great joy to everyone at the compound, along with some recent sadness, as their eldest, Carlie, had been missing now for days.

  Dixon turned their way. “Yes, well, like Basha said, we didn’t find Carlie.”

  “Yes, we know.” Nina swallowed hard. “Will Mara be all right, do you think? Is there anything we can do?”

  “What happened?” Reigna asked, as she and her sister sidled up to Dixon.

  His eyes flickered toward the young women for an instant and then, just as quickly, he averted his gaze.