Blood of War

by Remi Michaud

  When the light faded, Jurel fell to his knees onto a soft field the color of emeralds. He breathed the sent of fresh grass and jasmine and honeysuckle. He swept his eyes over a million dew drops that twinkled like pearls under the bright light.

  Beside him, Metana gasped. “Jurel? What is this place?” she whispered reverently.

  He glanced at her and smiled, feeling no small amount of bemusement. It had worked. “It's my place,” he said.

  “I don't understand.”

  “I don't either. Not really. That's what my father calls it. My place. I'm not...” He groped for the words that would express his ideas but none came. “I met my sister and one of my brothers here too,” he said as if somehow that explained everything.

  She rose to her feet and spun slowly, wonderingly, a soft smile parting her lips. “It's beautiful,” she breathed. She spun faster, raised her arms, palms up and giggled like a child. “Jurel, it's so beautiful here.” She tilted her head back, closed her eyes.

  He stood watching her, smiling himself, and something came to him, an idea that was so perfect, so true he knew it had to be.

  “I have something to show you,” he said.

  He closed his eyes, and he envisioned his field, his place, in his mind's eye. He saw the grass, saw the sparkling dew. For good measure he added the trees that ringed his place, the trees that were barely more than a dark line in the distance. When he was satisfied with the image he had created, he added to it, embellished it. Flowers, red, gold, blue, purple. Thousands of them. Some lilac bushes in full bloom, their boughs looking like pinkish soap suds dripping from the branches. Under the lilacs, he saw a bench made of delicate ivory, fancifully curved so that it looked like a flower itself, padded with something soft. He did not know what to call the padding, but it was soft, like kitten fur.

  There was another gasp beside him, this one much more profound. He opened his eyes and to his amazement—though he realized he should not have been surprised; it was his place after all—he saw that what he had envisioned had come to be. Flowers covered the field in great swipes of color, lilacs dripped sudsy boughs, and the ivory bench was there too, nearly glowing it was so white, and with an overstuffed pad of the deepest purple he could imagine. He breathed deeply and the scent of it all, the sheer sweetness of it, nearly caused him to swoon.

  He turned his head when he heard a rustle of fabric, and drew in his breath sharply when Metana's knees buckled. She dropped to the ground and it must have hurt because her entire body jolted from the landing but she did not notice. Her eyes, wide and stunningly, beautifully blue, were fixed on the scene in front of her. Her mouth hung open and her hands splayed numbly in the grass and flowers at her sides.

  He knelt beside her, took her hand in his. “Are you all right? Tana?”

  There was no response except slowly, as slowly as in a dream, her head turned toward him, her eyes wide as saucers. Great tears were brimming though, as yet, they did not fall. She gazed into his eyes; shock and wonder gazed upon concern and yes even a small amount of guilt.

  “It's...” she said. “It's...”

  She got no further. Her lips worked, trying to form the words that would describe it but she did not have the words—what words could describe this? What words could convey the soul-deep wonder she felt? As slowly as her head had turned, so too did her hands raise, until they rested gently against the sides of his face.

  I need a shave, he thought and bit back a laugh.

  “It's...” she said.

  Then she pulled him closer, pulled his lips down onto hers.

  And though she could not find the words to describe the beauty of what he had done, there amid the flowers and the lilacs, she was able to show him.

  * * *

  Gaven strode into the camp, materializing from the forest and the night. He strode to where Kurin stood staring into the shadows of the trees and Kurin needed no more answer than to see the agitation in the young man.

  “You can't find them either?” Kurin asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “No. It's like they've just disappeared.” His hands waved wildly. He looked more like a down-on-his-luck merchant bickering the price of his last inventory with someone who was in a much better position than like a soldier.

  “I saw them head toward that small clearing over there.”

  “So did I but they're not there now.”

  More soldiers came into camp. More looks of disappointment.

  “They can't have gone far. Keep looking. Expand the search circle.”

  Kurin watched Gaven stride away calling orders to the soldiers, and he wondered. Mikal was out there too. Mikal was possibly the best tracker he had ever met for all the man always maintained he was no good at woodscraft. If anyone could find Jurel and Metana, it would be him.

  Nonetheless, he continued to wonder, trying to ignore the slow, oily spinning of his belly. Where were they? What were they doing? What were they thinking? He dumped the remainder of his cup of coffee on the ground. It was not helping his stomach. When he caught up with them, they were going to be very, very, sorry. Never mind that Jurel was a god in his order. Never mind that Jurel's word was technically law, or that there was really nothing Kurin could do to him. He would be sorry!

  * * *

  Metana lay pressed against Jurel's side, her head propped up on his shoulder, and her fingers gently traced the muscles of his still sweaty chest. His arm was pressed against her back and his hand cupped her hip and she smiled. She breathed deeply of the smells: flowers, sweat, and something else, something more carnal. There was the lingering smell of sex of course, tangy and sweet and musky all at once, but there was another: his smell, and somehow it was a wild smell, a smell that hinted at emotions so deep, so visceral, so basic, that she shivered.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Oh nothing. It's just something about you that's all.”

  “Well then, if it's about me, you have to tell me.”

  “It's nothing. Really. Just a—I don't know. You're special. Different.”

  He snorted and she could almost hear him roll his eyes. “Yeah. A lot of people have been telling me that lately.”

  “No, no. Well, yes, I suppose they have. But it's more than that. You have a presence, Jurel. An aura. A—Oh poo, I don't have the words to describe it.”

  He chuckled. “You did well enough a few minutes ago.”

  She raised her head and gaped at him and his smile was roguish, almost a leer. She gasped an outraged laugh, felt her face warm up, and swatted him before nestling back into the crook of his arm.

  “There's more to you than that though,” she said, losing her smile, almost musing to herself as she trailed a lazy finger across a ridge in the muscles on his belly. “There's this sense of power and danger and it's unbelievably intense. But there's also a softness about you. Look at this place of yours. With a thought, you changed a serene field into a breathtaking lea. God of War? Even with all that danger floating around you like a fog, it's hard to believe.”

  “I know. Sometimes I don't believe it myself. Most of the time, if I'm going to be honest. I know I must be. Even if I could discount the things I've done, I can't help but remember what my father and my siblings said to me. It's hard to forget.”

  She thought back to the day when he told her the story of his visit (that was what he called it: his visit) to the temple at Threimes. That was the day he had skipped class to mourn his father, and they had fought like cats and dogs when she found him. She had goaded him to it. She had forced his hand. He had not wanted to discuss it—it was intensely personal, made all the more so by the depth of the wound.

  “My foster father, the man who rescued me, newly orphaned—I watched my parents murdered by Dakariin, by the way but that was years and years ago— from a battle torn city and raised me from childhood was himself murdered before my eyes nearly a year ago in Threimes.”

  He had raged. He had exploded, he had told her w
ith the force and the fury of a volcano. And truth be told, she had been afraid.

  Her first instinct had been to cringe away and apologize, but she had kept quiet. She wanted to know. Needed to know. Something in his tone had warned her, had made her second guess herself. Maybe it was not so important to know. But it was too late. He began to speak.

  As he had told the tale, the rage fell away. What replaced it was in its own way worse. A dead monotone, the voice of a soldier, weary beyond comprehension, who was reporting the account of a terrible atrocity, and she grew cold, and colder still. Goose pimples had raised all along her arms and legs, spreading until her hair nearly stood on end. He was devoid of all expression, completely empty, as he stared at his hands and continued.

  The worst mixture of emotions had battled within her: horror, terror, and a nearly overwhelming pity. She had known even then that her first impressions of him had been wildly incorrect, though she had kept her anger burning out of sheer stubbornness. He was a good man, a kind man, gentle as a lamb, and to hear what had happened to him, to hear what he had done after, nearly broke her. By the time he had finished, he was weeping and so was she. Another emotion broke through the darkness in her mind like the sun breaks through a hole in a storm cloud: a bright shaft of warmth. She had wanted to reach out to him, to hold him and comfort him in her arms. Love? That was what she had thought. Later, she had told herself she had been foolish. It could not have been love. It was just pity at hearing the depths of this young man's suffering.

  But the oddest thing was that by the time he finished his story, there was no more sun in the sky. Black roiling clouds had rolled in, thunder boomed in the distance, and somehow the Abbey was no longer humming with happy life, but instead weeping with them.

  Hard to forget indeed.

  “But that's not you. Not completely. It's a part of you. A part you have to accept as a blind man accepts the lack of his sight. That's all.”

  He snorted softly. “Easier said than done.”

  She got his point: it was nothing so simple as a loss of a sense that he was dealing with. No, nothing so simple as that. Losing a sense was life-altering, painful. This...well, Metana did not have the words. It was a condition she was growing used to; she had ever had something to say, much to the chagrin of many to whom she spoke, but he seemed able to tie up her tongue with nothing more than his presence.

  “Then we will work at it together,” she said decisively. And then, more hesitantly, “If you will have me.”

  Jurel Histane, God of War, laughed and it was a happy laugh, an innocent laugh. “I would like nothing more,” he said and squeezed her lightly to him.

  She nuzzled his chest, and breathed deeply again of his scent, of his danger and wonder, and she felt a heat spread from her belly downward. She kissed him gently, teasing him lightly with one hand, heard his breath hitch. The heat spread as she rose from her place and straddled him, and carefully, she guided him into her. As she began to move her hips slowly, rocking back and forth, she leaned down and pressed her lips to his, her breasts brushing against his chest. She felt his hands cup her buttocks and a moan escaped her lips at the delicious feelings that enveloped her.

  And as her movements grew more urgent, as her hips rocked faster and faster, and they breathlessly called each others' names, as they approached that moment where there was bursting light and sweet scalding heat, and that unmitigated joining of two into one, the last thought she had, before all thought tattered and fled her on a tidal wave of ecstasy, was that she had been wrong all those weeks ago. It had not been pity. How had she not seen it before?

  “Oh my god,” she cried.

  Oh my love.

  * * *

  Kurin sat, watching the fire, listening to the men and women thrashing through the forest. Half the camp was empty, out in the woods searching, the other half stood watch. They had been searching for hours. It was well past midnight, and the air had grown chilly. Not cool as though it was early autumn instead of deep summer, but cold as though the land itself worried for its missing occupants.

  He was spent from his own searches. Scrying, though not quite as difficult as Sending, was no easy task. He had sent his consciousness over the land for a hundred miles in every direction, over and over again, searching the same places a dozen times each and there was not a trace of them. Not even among those people-stars in that place between worlds where Sending and Scrying was made possible. Even though he had given up his efforts, he knew the rest of the priests were performing their own searches.

  Torches floated past in the woods, ethereal glimmers of light in the distance that winked in and out of existence as the bearers trooped through the trees searching, calling. He sat watching, and kneaded his hands together, as his emotions swung like a pendulum from terrified worry to inconsolable rage.

  Wait until I get my hands on them. Oh they will never pull this stunt again!

  Oh gods, where are they? I hope they're safe.

  Because if they are, I'll kill them!

  He rose, paced the camp from end to end for what had to be the twentieth time, ignoring the ache in his left hip, trying to ignore the acidic roiling of his very empty stomach.

  Every once in a while, Gaven strode in, bedraggled and with bits of the forest clinging to him, demanding to know if there was any news. The last time he did that, Kurin had nearly snapped his head off, “If there was news, don't you think I would tell you? Do you think I'd be pacing like this?” The young man had not deserved that, but the words had come unbidden and Kurin would not take them back. Gaven had turned with a hurt look and hurried back into the woods.

  He reached the end of the camp and stared into the dark, distractedly chewing a fingernail. There was nothing to see there. Just dark. Satiny, opaque dark. He turned and slowly made his way back to his fire, thinking all the while, “What will we do? He is our only hope. We need him. What will we do?”

  Some part of him knew the selfishness of those thoughts. It was the same part of him that worried whether Jurel and Metana were all right, were not lying in a shallow grave somewhere. He told that part to hush up. Of course, he worried about their safety, but Jurel was more important than that. Metana too if his suspicions about her were correct. But no. Too early to think about that. It was enough to deal with one issue at a time.

  At the moment, the issue was, where in the gods's great bloody creation were they?

  As though his silent question had been heard, he heard a rustle in the trees behind him, heard a quiet giggle, and spun at the sound.

  They emerged from the trees as brazen as could be, smiling. Jurel's arm was around Metana's shoulders and she snuggled close to him, gazing up at him with an expression Kurin could not identify. Maybe he could have under different circumstances but his thoughts had shut off, ground to a halt. Jurel's expression was not much better. Kurin stood there, stunned, his mouth working like a landed fish. It was a rare thing that he was caught speechless. If someone had asked him how many times in his lifetime he had been so thunderstruck that he could not find his voice, he probably could have counted them on one hand. Even if he was missing fingers.

  Jurel glanced up and saw him standing there. He smiled. “Hello, Kurin.”

  He smiled!

  Kurin began trembling, clamped his mouth shut, bunched his fists at his side and stared. Somewhere inside his head a treacherous part of him chuckled ruefully. Come on, old man. Find something to say.

  “Hello,” he croaked.

  Oh very good, that voice muttered.

  “How are you?” Jurel looked around the camp and some of that vapid gaze, that fuzzy delirium, went away, to be replaced by at least a semblance of his intelligence. “Where is everybody?”

  Later, Kurin would describe what happened as when a kettle sits too long over a fire and begins that shrill whistling, that universally understood alarm that says, I'm done. Right now. But it was not quite like that. It was more like a pot full of water with its lid welded on that sit
s too long over a fire. Pow! Right now.

  The good news was that no one had to be sent to gather up the searchers. Kurin took care of that. As a matter of fact, approximately four words into his...discussion...eyes started to peep out of the gloom, and quietly—though rampaging bulls probably would not have been heard anyway—soldiers began to drift in well away from the irate old priest. Most cast curious, or at worst slightly exasperated glances at Jurel and Metana, and went about their business.

  To their credit, Jurel and Metana (after the initial shock wore off) looked well and properly chastised. Jurel ruefully stared at his feet, one of which toed the ground bashfully, and Metana looked wide-eyed at Kurin, soft blooms of color on her cheeks and her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly.

  He paused only long enough at intervals to drag great ragged lungfuls of breath and, after what seemed no more than two or three heartbeats to him, but probably felt like a lifetime and more to Jurel and Metana, his arms fell from their wild gestures to his sides and he panted erratically like he had just sprinted across the eastern mountain range. And finally, in a tone of voice that was more moderate—in the way that an arrow in the guts is more moderate than a sword in the throat—he asked, “What were you two thinking?”

  “I'm sorry,” Jurel mumbled like a boy caught stealing a pie. “I didn't think-”

  “Well obviously!” Kurin snapped. “While you two were off exploring the gods only know where, we've been sick with worry.”

  Metana guffawed.

  Kurin's eyes snapped to her and in a voice dripping with venom asked, “And what, pray tell, is so funny, young lady?”

  She lowered her gaze and whispered something that Kurin could not hear. Jurel laughed! Feeling his anger bubbling up again, Kurin took a deep breath. “I did not quite hear that.”

  “She said we were indeed exploring,” Jurel said and Kurin saw the slight smirk that Jurel could not quite hide.