Blood of War

by Remi Michaud

  He did not see the mischievous smile that tugged at the corner of Kurin's mouth or the gleeful glint in his eye as he strode purposefully from the arbor. If he had, he would have really worried.

  Chapter 6

  After a few days with nothing to do, he grew bored and restless. He had imagined Kurin would hastily rectify the situation; he had awakened early the day after his conversation with Kurin in the arbor, certain that his new tutor would soon arrive. But several days had passed and there was still no one to teach Jurel. Either no one wanted to be burdened with a stubborn, short tempered young god, or Kurin was making him suffer for his previous impertinences—the suspense was killing him.

  He took to exploring more, but quickly realized that there was not much else for him to see; he had haunted these corridors for months. He stopped his wanderings but not before noticing a schism among the denizens: half of those he passed bowed and groveled, while the other half barely deigned to notice him as they sailed by. Andrus, it would appear, had been busy.

  He decided to seek out Gaven, but Gaven was a lieutenant under Mikal's command. He had a great many duties to see to. It was difficult for his friend to find spare time and even when Gaven did have some time to himself, it was never more than just enough to sit down to a quick meal and share a few hasty words before Gaven was again pulled away.

  About a week after sending Andrus away, Jurel stood in his room staring aimlessly out the window. The gloomy overcast seemed to wash away substance from the land leaving a vista of muted dreariness.

  Too rainy to venture outside, Jurel decided to visit the library. He made his way through the labyrinthine corridors of the Abbey, not paying attention to the tapestries and paintings that lined the walls, the statues that looked out upon passers-by from their niches, barely paying attention to his steps so that he had to backtrack on occasion when he ended up somewhere other than the library—at which point he would curse softly under his breath; the third time he had lost his way, he had muttered a particularly nasty oath and an acolyte, who had been in the process of prostrating himself jumped as though stung by a very large wasp. For such a long, narrow building, he thought, there were an awful lot of corridors.

  When he finally did arrive, he stood at the door with a sinking heart. Bathed in gray light from the windows set high on the walls, with islands of gold from the candles liberally dispersed at the tables and from the torches hissing merrily in their sconces, the library was not the oasis of peace and quiet he sought, but was instead teeming with brothers and sisters populating the research tables bent over books and manuscripts, quills scribbling furiously, or wandering the long lines of shelves like window shoppers. Acolytes rushed into and out of the long stacks bearing armfuls of tomes and scrolls at the behest of their respective masters. A hum filled the air from the dozens of quiet conversations, the crinkling of parchment, the scritching of quills.

  Dust and must, the scent of old knowledge, colored the air and made his eyes water. He sneezed. Instantly, all motion ground to a halt, changed into a tableau of startled expressions, wide eyes staring at him. He suppressed the image of a deer staring down the shaft of an arrow. With a tremulous smile, he raised a hand and wiggled his fingers.

  “Hullo.”

  As though that one word was a brusque command, everyone, every single person, either rose from their seats or came out of the stacks, and rushed for the door, bowing hastily at him on their way by, each one holding their robes close, very careful to not touch him. He watched a single page flutter to the floor in the now empty library as the door shut behind him with a firm click of the latch. Resentfully, he wondered if he was so distasteful to them, as though maybe he had the plague or something. Really, did they all have to rush from his presence like rats abandoning a sinking ship?

  With a sigh, he shrugged. At least it was quiet.

  He wandered the rows, staring vacantly at the shelves, vaguely amazed that so many books existed. He was not certain what it was he searched for, or if, in fact, he searched for anything at all, instead preferring the quietude to think.

  And think he did. The time he had spent here in the Abbey had begun to grate on him. When he had first arrived with Kurin, Mikal, and Gaven, he had been welcomed as a hero. There had been a grand feast and a ball afterward and he had been the guest of honor. He had felt no small amount of discomfort at all the attention but he was well treated and besides being nervous under so much attention, he had rather enjoyed himself.

  As time wore on, as spring had given way to summer, the denizens of the Abbey distanced themselves from him. Or, more precisely, raised him ever higher above them. Between his continuing failure and having no idea what it was they expected of him, he quickly became shamed by the pedestal they had put him on.

  And of course, rumors of his lack of ability raced like wildfire through the Abbey so that every time someone bowed to him—which happened less and less—in the moment before their heads lowered, he saw the cloud of uncertainty draw like a veil over their eyes. It did nothing for his own confidence; who was more aware than he of the difficulties he was having? Who better than he knew what was at stake?

  He slid a finger idly along the spines of the books, feeling the smooth almost oiliness of some, and the ancient grittiness of others, feeling the bump and ridge of embossed script, gilding made fragile by countless years flaking at his passing touch. A season had passed since his arrival here and he still felt lost, he still felt apart, that he did not belong.

  He was not sure why he should have felt otherwise when he thought about it. His life was in tatters, his father—fathers—dead, his mother a hazy memory, his home so far out of reach that it may as well not even exist. The brothers and sisters of the Abbey treated him, by turns, with awe as their leader, a God, and a crippled man deserving nothing more than pity and strict education. And why not? In a strange way, he was a cripple. He could wield his sword well enough, he could pierce a fleeing pheasant in the eye at a hundred paces with an arrow. But where was the torrent of power that had inundated him at the temple in Threimes earlier that year? He could feel it just outside his reach when he strove for it. Sometimes, he thought he could just touch it, brush his fingertips against it before it receded like a drowning man whose fingers breach the surface.

  God of War? God of nothing, more like, God of cripples. For here he was, having discovered his identity, a prisoner in these walls. Someone listening to his thoughts may have scoffed then, shaken his head derisively. A prisoner? Here? The listener would have said, and rightly so, that he was a respected, honored guest, that he could leave whenever he so chose, and no one would try to stop him—well not much.

  Jurel would argue that he was not a prisoner of the Salosian Order. He was a prisoner of himself, of his past, and of his failings. Stepping outside the walls that penned him would get him killed inside the month. He was not sure of many things, but of that, he had no doubt.

  His finger twitched suddenly, as though he had felt a static spark. He focused and could not help the sneer that curled his lips. His finger rested on a black leather cover, so black it drank the light. Above his nail, ragged from nervous chewing, letters the color of blood were embossed. It was a title he knew and though he had seen a book like this almost daily since setting out with Kurin last winter, he had never read it.

  He recalled the first time he had tried. He and Kurin and Mikal had been on a cold road, fleeing from Soldiers of God, fleeing to the Abbey, though at the time, Kurin would not tell Jurel where they were going, and Jurel, still having no clue of who or what he was—what he was supposed to be, he amended—had had more questions than Kurin was willing to answer. Finally, in a pique of frustration, Kurin had told Jurel to read this very book: ANCIENT PROPHECIES: GOD OF WAR. He had said it would help. Grudgingly, hesitantly, Jurel had opened that book and had been surprised when a bolt of energy had singed his fingers.

  “Why didn't you warn me it would do that?” Jurel had asked, outraged.

  Ku
rin had simply stared at him wide-eyed, oblivious and he had sworn to himself he would never try to open it again.

  Why not, he thought. Crippled, homeless, alone; why not an oath breaker too?

  The book slid free with a faint hiss and fell into his hand with a weight that seemed at odds with its relatively diminutive size. He stared at it, felt its unaccountable heft, felt again the dread, and the taunting call of the thing, as though the world receded from him, as it had the first time, until all that was left was him and the book.

  As if he was in a trance, he walked slowly to the nearest table and sat, never taking his eyes from the blood red letters on the front cover. For a time—a moment, a minute, ten—he simply stared at it, not noticing the occasional moment when the library door cracked open to let a set of eyes peak furtively in, only to widen in surprise when they found him, and dart back out of sight as the door closed gently.

  It was with the profound reluctance of a man entering a burning building that he extended a finger and touched the hard edge of the cover. The book called to him, black as night, leering at him, daring at him to raise the cover, to discover what secrets lay in waiting just a turn of a page away. He took a deep breath, and with a convulsive jerk, opened the book. Just as with the copy he had in his own room, the same copy he and Kurin had carted halfway across the kingdom the previous spring, there was a blood red page with golden lettering embossed into the surface repeating the title.

  Again, he let his finger trace the lettering, knowing that he was stalling, but also knowing that he dreaded what he might find lurking in the pages that waited, waited...

  Heaving a sigh, he blew out his breath, puffing his cheeks.

  He turned the page.

  * * *

  The courtyard was dusty, dry and gritty, the rains having cleared up early the previous day and releasing the full force of the late summer sun while he had been engrossed in the pages of the confounded book. No matter what he did, somehow stones managed to find their way into his boots, to lodge themselves between his toes and in the tender spot under the soles of his feet. Sweat glistened on his forehead and ran into his eyes as the white hot medallion that was the sun slashed the sky like a knife. Men and women, shouting encouragement and good-natured insults at him and his opponent, and wagers at each other, lined the inside of the walls finding seats wherever they could: the rim of a splendid stone fountain carved to form two leaping dolphins; a knee high stone wall that ran along the edge of a garden that was withering under the blasting sun; an old corral rail that had not seen use in at least a decade; even each other as they jostled and wrestled for a good vantage.

  Jurel smiled tightly as Gaven circled to his right, trying to get to Jurel's flank. A quick feint, and a few light steps back out of range kept his friend on his guard.

  “Come on now,” Gaven huffed. “Give a guy a break can't you?”

  “What would be the fun in that?” he smirked.

  With a lunge, a feint, and a sweep, he knocked Gaven's practice blade from his hand. Following through, he dropped as he spun and kicked Gaven's legs out from under him. Gaven landed hard on his rear and his eyes widened to the size of saucers as his breath blew out in a great wheeze.

  The spectators cheered and clapped, and coins changed hands as he took a laughing bow. At the back of the crowd, he saw a mane of raven hair. Below the hair, he saw eyes the shade of a summer sea roll. Shaking his head, he turned back to his gasping friend.

  Gripping Gaven's forearm, Jurel grinned and hauled his friend up.

  “You're getting better, Gav.”

  “Then why is it that I'm the only one covered in bruises?”

  Laughing, Jurel wiped the slickness from his forehead with a rag. “Just remember, three weeks ago, I didn't even break a sweat.” He paused, staring pensively as if trying to work something out. “Come to think of it, the weather was cooler three weeks ago.”

  Gaping, Gaven spluttered for a moment before breaking out in a deep laugh. “You're a bastard. Do you know that?”

  Jurel laughed and clapped Gaven on the back. “What do you say we go and grab a bite to eat and a nice cold ale. You still have to finish that story you started. The one about the farmer's daughter and those ruffians that your father arrested.”

  Gaven's eyes brightened. Having finally been given an afternoon off, he was more than happy to indulge. They made their way into the Abbey and to the dining hall where each downed a cold, foaming tankard of ale. After refilling, they sat at one of the few unoccupied tables where Gaven produced a deck of playing cards as he jumped back into his story.

  As they laughed over the outcome—who would have believed that a single maiden could best seven armed bandits with nothing more than a flash of her ample breasts?—an acolyte scurried by and deposited two steaming bowls in front of them. As they ate, and for some time after, they played cards and spoke of nothing of consequence.

  “Bones!” Gaven shouted triumphantly as he laid his winning hand on the table.

  Disgustedly, Jurel tossed his own hand, full of off cards, face down on top of the pile between them.

  “By the gods, Gaven can't you let me win one bloody hand?”

  Chuckling, Gaven raked in the small pile of coins. “By the gods, Jurel, can't you let me land one bloody blow at the practice yard? Besides, you're the god here. You should be asking yourself.”

  Grimacing, Jurel muttered something decidedly ungodlike and Gaven chuckled again.

  The bruised light of the setting sun bathed the dining hall, the small fire in the hearth doing little to dispel the gloom. With meal time over, the dining hall had nearly emptied and there were only a handful of people there.

  Gaven shuffled the deck and dealt them, counting quietly under his breath as he did, and when Jurel saw his cards, he barely managed to stifle a groan. Maybe Gaven was stacking the deck.

  Or maybe not. The game was exceedingly difficult to begin with, with a seemingly endless list of rules that boggled the mind. Gaven had analogized the game of Bones to be the card playing equivalent of Kings and Rooks; a clear mind was needed to strategize effectively, and Jurel had anything but a clear mind.

  Narrowing his eyes, Gaven studied his friend over his splay of cards for a moment. “What is it Jurel? You seem distracted.” Then he smirked. “You're playing even worse than usual.”

  Jurel shrugged, turning to look into the flames that hissed quietly in the fireplace. Gaven was his closest friend, his history as a deserted Soldier of God notwithstanding. After forgiving Jurel for his betrayal, brought about by Jurel breaking a vow—tacit though it was—when he had been Gaven's captive that winter, Gaven had become his staunchest ally. He had also come to know Jurel well enough to be able to read the young man's mood like he was an open book.

  Now he leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his sandy hair, riveting Jurel with a piercing look. Jurel had never been able to lie to his friend. Not because he couldn't lie if he felt it necessary but because after that first time, he had not been able to lie convincingly to Gaven. And he had vowed that unless his friend's life hung in the balance, he would not lie to him again.

  So, having made up his mind, Jurel shook his head. “It's the book,” he blew out.

  Eyes widened in surprise, Gaven gaped for a moment. “What, you mean you finally read the bloody thing?”

  “Oh yes,” Jurel replied darkly. “I read it. And a fat lot of good it did too.”

  Drawing a card from the top of the deck, Gaven frowned. “Why?”

  Jurel took a moment before answering, then told him about his trip to the library, how everyone within had bolted at the sight of him—“Damned fools,” he muttered, and Gaven laughed—and how he had happened on the book amongst the racks. The feeling of dread he had felt sitting there staring at the ink black cover still sent a shiver crawling up his spine.

  “A hundred and ten pages.” Jurel pointed accusingly at his own copy sitting beside them on the table, glaring at it as though it had com
mitted a crime against his person. “And do you know what? It's a poem. A blasted long bloody gods damned poem!”

  Thunderstruck, Gaven gaped at him. Then he drew in a deep breath, and he started laughing. He laughed so hard, tears were pinched from the corners of his squinted eyes, and he clutched at his ribs, drawing glances from the others in the hall that ranged from curious to disdainful.

  “I don't see what's so bloody funny,” Jurel huffed, offended. Gaven laughed all the harder.

  Finally, as Jurel continued to glare like a wet cat, Gaven's fit subsided. He wiped his face, hiccuping, and took several deep breaths before he could finally answer.

  “So you avoided reading the book for months because you were afraid of what it might tell you and when you finally get the stones to open it, you find nothing but a poem?”

  “That's what I said.” Rather disgruntled at his friend's levity—and more put out because Gaven had started laughing again—Jurel threw his cards on the pile and stood up.

  “It's not funny, damn you,” he cried but Gaven's hilarity was contagious and Jurel lost the bitter battle to keep his own smile hidden.

  “I'm s—sorry, Jurel, but...I—I-” he broke off, laughing again.

  Really, Jurel thought, this was entirely uncalled for.

  “Do you mind so terribly much, Gav,” Jurel pled.

  Wheezing slightly, Gaven waved his hand apologetically. Swallowing convulsively, he took a deep drink of the ale at his elbow before finally sobering.

  “I'm sorry. It's just funny. You've been petrified of reading a poem. So did you get anything useful out of it?”

  He threw himself back into his chair and raised his hands wide. “Who knows? There was some stuff in there that seems familiar but most of it was just gibberish as far as I could tell. Here,” he said pushing his copy across the table. “Take a look yourself.”

  A heavy silence fell as Gaven opened the book, brow furrowed as he flipped pages, furrowing further as he read. Finally, Gaven looked up, mild consternation on his face.