by Laury Falter
Eran’s head snapped violently to the side when Jacob’s fist landed on his cheek, but it returned to a forward-position. From there, the glint in Eran’s eyes was clearly visible to me. It hadn’t faded, and instead had taken on a hardened, menacing edge.
From my peripheral vision, I saw Jacob dancing on the tips of his toes, springing out of excitement for his well-placed shot and in an effort to keep himself out of his opponent’s reach.
But his bouncing did little to deflect the onslaught that followed.
Daniel saw it coming and muttered anxiously under his breath, “Jacob, it would be best if you fled now.”
But Jacob didn’t have time to react.
Eran’s body spun around, his appendages exploding from his back and swooping up and over his head to angle himself above Jacob. From there, he had a height advantage and he used it, and the gravity he’d mentioned earlier, to drive Jacob to the ground.
Jacob’s body slammed into the soft mud, indenting over an inch deep in a filmy brown pool, his appendages disjointed and askew beneath him.
Eran’s hand remained clamped around Jacob’s throat a few seconds, long enough to prove who was superior, as Jacob struggled beneath it. From Eran’s profile, I saw solid grit in his features with his jaw flexed and lips pinched in disapproval at Jacob. Then he sprang to his feet and extended a hand to help Jacob up.
Jacob glared at it and slapped it aside, choosing to stand on his own. As he did, Eran addressed the group.
“Surprise is the best tactic against your oppon-”
Jacob sent another fist into Eran’s jaw.
This time, Eran didn’t hesitate.
In a shocking display of power, Eran seized Jacob’s shoulders, swung him up, and released him across the clearing. Jacob’s body soared through the trees slamming into the first one tall enough to stop his momentum. The sounds of cracking wood and groaning immediately followed.
Jacob’s expression was justifiably confused as he blinked rapidly to gain an understanding of his new position and where his opponent might be. He did this while struggling to salvage his footing, and composure.
But Eran was quicker.
He flew faster than anyone I’d ever seen, his body and appendages a blur as he traversed the small training area and advanced into the jungle. When he landed on Jacob, his body didn’t jostle or flinch. He was ready for the blow. Jacob was not. Jacob’s head jerked backward, stopped only by the trunk of the tree.
In the distance, Eran’s voice was muffled but clear enough to be understood.
“Have you had enough?” he demanded.
Jacob’s answer was to drive a knee into Eran’s gut.
Although Eran’s body jerked, he didn’t release a grunt or a moan. He was too busy taking hold of Jacob’s shoulders again.
Eran’s arms rotated to the side, sending Jacob’s flailing body into a tree. This one was within arm’s reach, as were the rest now that they were in the thickly wooded and shadowy part of the jungle, but the force was enough to pitch Jacob’s limbs awkwardly back behind him.
“Now,” Eran seethed, “have you had enough?”
Jacob roared and maneuvered himself out of Eran’s grasp. A second later, he sent an elbow across Eran’s face. Again, Eran’s head flew to the side, and he retaliated.
Eran swung Jacob into another tree with enough power to send dead leaves down around them. But this time he didn’t stop. Eran swung him back in the other direction, into another tree. And again, Eran pivoted him into yet another tree.
As we watched Eran slam Jacob into tree after tree, rotating him from left to right and back again. Jacob fought back as best he could, attempting to grab hold of Eran, to surpass his swift reflexes, but he couldn’t meet his fighting caliber and in the end Eran took pity on him.
Both panting, and with Jacob’s head wobbling like a top on his neck, Eran held him against the last tree trunk.
“Now?” Eran asked through gasps, though his were not nearly as heavy as Jacob’s.
Unable to catch his breath, Jacob only nodded.
From our side of the clearing a deep, rumbling chuckle began. I glanced back to find a massive man from Eran’s group of observers enjoying the display.
“And that, me lads,” he said, “is how a legend does it…”
When I returned my focus to Eran it was just in time to witness the muscles quiver down both sides of his back as he released Jacob. They were not bulging or overworked but defined and able. My eyes continued down the length of his back side, seeking out shadows carved by the strength of him beneath his clothes. And again I had to remind myself to breath.
A flutter from behind told me that someone was moving up to my left side. However, I didn’t find myself capable of drawing my eyes away from Eran to see who it was. Only when she spoke did I know who had come forward.
“What did you do to this place?” Hermina asked in a tense whisper. “Jacob shouldn’t be…shouldn’t be…” She lifted a hand in his direction. “Stunned to powerlessness.”
“It’s not the place,” Daniel clarified. I couldn’t help but notice the admiration in his tone and it made me proud. “Magdalene did make the training grounds as close as possible to an environment in which the messengers will ultimately fight for their lives, but it’s not the place that did that to Jacob.”
“Then what was it?” Hermina demanded.
Daniel replied plainly, in the manner of a seasoned fighter. “It was Eran.”
They strode back to us in the clearing then, Eran’s head high, Jacob’s head low and tucked between hunched shoulders.
When Eran spoke it was to all of us.
“Fight only when it is the best and only option. If a fight is unavoidable, learn your stance, deliver your hits accurately and fast, aim for weak spots, keep moving, don’t be afraid to use your surroundings, take in your surroundings, become aware of it and learn to take a hit,” he said. “As Jacob’s done.”
He gave a final look at his sparring partner, who barely met his eyes. They nodded to each other, and I knew what was being exchanged…respectful appreciation between the battle-scarred. Eran continued across the clearing to join his colleagues, who hadn’t moved from their spots on the outskirts since arriving. Without a word to each other or the rest of us, they extended their appendages and took flight.
As Eran’s feet left the ground, he found me in the crowd and gave me one final burning look. There was something in his eyes now, not pride at having subdued Jacob or to impress upon me the importance of the lesson he’d just demonstrated. All that seemed to have been forgotten. No, what I saw was intense curiosity. And just before he broke our gaze to adjust his sight on the route they were taking, I was certain that he felt the same way I did…that he wished he understood what had just happened between us.
As the rest of us watched in awed silence, I couldn’t help but notice that, in a way similar to the messengers on their arrival, Eran’s group departed with the same close-knit familiarity.
“Who are they?” I asked, my head still tilted back.
“Part of a legion,” Daniel replied.
Despite my seclusion, I’d heard of legions. There were several of them, each with a primary purpose. “Which one?”
“The one that oversees castigated entities.”
“Those who have wronged humankind?”
“Yes, the Fallen Ones,” confirmed Daniel.
I’d heard of them, too. In passing.
“And Eran’s a part of that legion?”
“No,” Daniel said with a subdued chuckle. “Not a part of, the leader of. He’s their colonel.”
“Colonel?” I said, finally lowering my head.
Eran had been out of sight for a while, but this was the first time I’d felt enough conviction to look away.
“You really have no idea who he is, do you?” Daniel was astonished.
“No.”
He didn’t reply for what felt like a very long time. “Eran has been credited with k
eeping the most dangerous entities from committing further atrocious acts while they are sentenced to an eternity on earth.”
“You mean his legion has,” I corrected him.
“No, I mean Eran. There is a reason why he is renowned. When the most vicious of the Fallen Ones are too much for others in the legion to handle, they request Eran, which is to say that he pursues and restrains those who all others cannot handle.”
“That takes skill,” Jacob muttered, stretching a kink from his neck.
Daniel chuckled at the understatement. “Some of which you just witnessed…personally,” he added.
I didn’t share Daniel’s humor, being too preoccupied by who I’d just met, and how his attention had been so finely tuned to me. “Do you think he’ll be back?”
“Eran?” Daniel said. “It’s possible. I’ve heard every action he makes is deliberate…calculated. He was here with a reason today. If he returns, he’ll have a reason then too.”
Jacob groaned, evidently not anticipating Eran’s return. “Next time you can spar with him.”
Daniel chuckled. “I’d think our time would be better spent training the messengers, which is something we should probably return to…,” he hinted.
Jacob nodded, rubbing the side of his neck where I remember a vine had hit him. Daniel pitied his friend through a quiet, suppressed laugh, wrapping a friendly arm across Jacob’s shoulders and walking him toward the waiting group. But my attention drifted back to the sky where Eran had disappeared.
The anticipation of seeing him again proved too much and my insides were ignited in a way I’d never felt before. That searing pleasure worked its way through my belly, and as much as I wanted to dwell in that sensation, I had to force myself to ignore it. There was work to be done and that feeling was a distraction.
Resigned to concentrate on my task at hand, I joined the messengers shortly after, but not before peering back for one more lingering glance at the sky.
CHAPTER TWO: EVALUATION
MY QUESTION AS TO WHETHER ERAN would return again was answered at the next training session.
We had just started the topic on fighting stances, which Jacob was particularly enthusiastic about considering he needed to remedy the poor performance he’d given as an instructor the session before. Of all those who noticed the trimmed, muscular body and substantial appendages appearing in the distance, I would have to say he was the least thrilled.
As on the ground, Eran moved deliberately through the air, pumping only when necessary to keep him aloft, moving with a speed I couldn’t rationalize.
Without attempting to draw attention to himself, he again took a place at the border of the clearing, although this time he did it alone.
It didn’t matter. He had the entire training grounds murmuring as he settled back against a tree.
Jacob clapped his hands to gain our interest. “Over here,” he called out. “The training is over here. With me. Focus on me.”
When the training resumed, Eran watched us from afar, arms crossed, an unsympathetic expression planted on his attentive face. Yet his distance and reserved demeanor did nothing to lessen his impact.
His actions were mesmeric, the simplest shift to his posture, the turn of his head, the sound of what seemed to be a restrained chuckle, led the messengers to the point where they were concentrating more on him than on Daniel or Jacob. The training became punctuated with loud hand claps by Jacob or a hasty transition from one topic to another by Daniel. This helped, but Eran’s presence was unquestionably demanding, and pulling us back to our training proved to be a unique challenge.
At times, as Eran observed us, a beguiling sideways grin would form across his lips and his eyes took on a mischievous gleam, a smirk which surfaced when one of us got the upper hand or outperformed another.
He was rooting us on, silently, his confident virility standing passively by as we learned what he already knew.
But why? Why had he come? Why had he returned? What was his purpose here? These were the questions others were whispering, but my bewilderment was slightly different. This was because I caught him staring at me without reason, either as I finished practicing a technique or stood silently by and listened to our trainers. Eran’s eyes would catch mine and while I would vacillate on whether to look away, he held his gaze. And therefore, so did I. The excitement that rose in me during those times was enough to keep me transfixed on him until Jacob snapped his fingers at me.
This was the pattern that began to form. We would align for practice, Eran would arrive and study us throughout, Daniel and Jacob would fail in their attempts to regain our attention on them.
This lasted seven sessions.
Then Daniel approached Eran, who again fixed his eyes on me. This time, however, they took on a melancholic tone. They didn’t waver as Daniel approached him, as if Eran already knew the topic about to be discussed and what the outcome would be, and that sad understanding was being released through his gaze.
In an apparently rehearsed speech, Daniel began to explain something that took a great amount of courage, judging by the way he stood and the flapping of his arms throughout his explanation. Eran nodded a few times as Daniel spoke to him, but he didn’t deviate from his focus on me until Daniel appeared to end his speech. Eran’s beguiling lips shifted then into that now-familiar smirk. He nodded once, firmly, and slapped Daniel amiably on the shoulder. He then spoke a single declarative word.
”Understood.”
At that, his appendages appeared behind him and, thrusting once downward, lifted him into the sky.
“What did you say to him?” Hermina asked, for the rest of us.
“That his attendance was a distraction.”
“So, he’s not coming back?” asked another woman, one who preferred the body of an eighty-year-old. She tucked back a strand of white hair as she waited for an answer.
It was evident by the sound of her voice that this aged depiction of her didn’t diminish her fondness for Eran in the least.
In fact, no one’s affection had waned. They were bees and he was the honeycomb.
“Not while we are training,” Daniel replied. “So if your intent is to see Eran again, we’d better get back to it.”
Jacob clapped his hands, yet again, and began to gather us into a circle. The messengers gave a fleeting glance where Eran had gone, but he had disappeared now. My gaze lasted a little longer, a single notion running through my head.
He’d done something that didn’t make sense… He’d left without any reference to me. He had been transfixed on me nearly the entire duration of our training sessions and yet, as he departed, he’d done it without even a momentary look in my direction. This made no sense. It contradicted his behavior, which had been consistent from the beginning, right up to the point when he left.
I thought maybe I was over-rationalizing it. Maybe he hadn’t really spent that much time staring at me… Maybe he had been doing it because he caught me looking at him… Maybe I’d only imagined the personal silent exchanges between us. Maybe that excitement burning in my stomach at the thought of him was nothing more than what they called nerves.
Either way, he was gone. And I hadn’t seen him before the training began, so the likelihood that we’d cross paths again was improbable. So why did this realization fill me with deep sadness? Why couldn’t I shake the indelible imprint he’d left on me?
But Eran did come back, the very next training session, with an entire legion following closely behind.
CHAPTER THREE: GUARDIANS
THEY FORMED A THIN LINE ACROSS the sky, their appendages moving in almost perfect unison, appearing as a strip of pure white streaked across a deep blue canvas.
I saw them first, that now familiar exhilaration awakening in my stomach and causing me to look up. He was in front, directly in the middle, leading the charge.
Hermina saw them next, the image so commanding that she dropped her fists to her sides and took a hit to the face. She sighed, but im
mediately forgot it in exchange for taking in the sight that was headed for us.
By the time Eran’s stunning body was visible not a single person was moving in the clearing. Our breathing had stopped at once and we held the air in our lungs as we silently contemplated reasons for his return. Only when the mud gave way to Eran’s feet did we release it.
There was no fear of an assault – not here, not in this place – but there was the weight of confused curiosity bearing down on us. This type of an entrance was unprecedented. It left Jacob’s original one, which he had been so proud of, shriveled in comparison.
I expected Eran to scan the group, in search of whatever he’d come for, but he didn’t. He’d found who he needed from the air and moved directly to them.
“Jacob, Daniel,” he said with a nod to each. “A judgment has been made.”
Our trainers gave each other a bewildered glance and met Eran at the edge of the clearing. The rest of us bristled.
Judgments were not made lightly and by virtue of who made them – everyone in the afterlife who did not have a stake in the outcome – they were accepted as law. Therefore, those of us in the clearing, all of whom had something to win or lose, had been excluded from being foretold or participating in the judgment that had been decided on.
I had a feeling I would not easily accept this particular judgment and had to remind myself before even hearing it that it was made for the good of those involved. In other words, don’t get mad at the messenger, who in this case was Eran.
Bowing forward to address only our trainers, Eran kept his voice low so that whatever message he delivered would only be heard by the two of them. This frustrated, and insulted, me.
I took a step forward, intending to join them.
Eran’s eyes flashed at me, noting my movement, before he appeared to finish in a rush.
This surprised me. Here was a brute, strong in mental acuity and physical control, who managed an entire legion of powerful entities now seemingly concerned with my behavior. For some reason, quiet, little me had left the big, bad warrior off balance. While I wasn’t able to join their discussion, knowing this gave me some slight satisfaction.
