by Billy Wong
"Gary, you listened to her," Brian admonished his comrade. "You broke your oath."
"I had to," the injured man said as he crawled towards them on the ground. Unable to believe they hadn't moved to help him, Rose ran to his side. His wound wasn't likely to kill him unless it got badly infected, but the muscle had been deeply torn, and that leg would be of little use for some time.
"You dumb sheep," she spat. "Look at him, and me, look at what wounds we took fighting on your behalf. You condemn us for that, and you're the stupidest creatures in the world. Not even animals wish to die."
"Thank you for helping us," Brian said. "But in doing so, you prove you don't belong among our ranks."
"No, please," Gary begged, "don't say that. I was only trying to help, and so was she! They attacked us, how can we not fight?"
Ethan looked from one bleeding warrior to the other. "Fine, come back with us. You did what was right."
"But they broke the oath!" Brian cried.
"A man made the oath, Brian. And so men can adjust it, as well. Look at them bleed. We owe them our lives."
"So we do."
Rose bound Gary's leg with a tight wrap, retrieved her weapons from the bodies of his assailants, and helped him inside a wagon. Only then did she really notice how bloody her clothes had become, and said to Ethan, "I look pretty bad, don't I?"
"I'm sorry for being so harsh on you. You're all right, warrior of light."
She smiled. "Are we still one, then?"
"You're not a Whitestone anymore, you said it yourself. But I suppose a Whitestone can't only love another of his kind. And I love you, Rose. I never stopped; I missed you so much when you were away."
"That's all I need to hear. You'll keep being your pacifist self, and I'll be your protector. How's that?"
"You're a good person, and I adore your company. That won't change just because you fight."
"I'm glad. I'd almost given up on us." She paused. "What about Gary, though? He really believes in your cause, he just couldn't watch you die. Will you let him off, just this time?"
Ethan fell silent as he thought about it, and Rose quickly grew annoyed. What was there to think about about? Thankfully, he finally said, "All right."
"Thank you. You know I'm going to have to leave you next time we hear of more raider attacks, to fight."
"As long as you come back."
"I promise. Help me get this axe out of my back? It's kind of hard to reach."
He kissed her and laughed. "No problem, Rose."
#
With heavy hearts, they buried their dead and went on to the plague-stricken village of Hase. Getting more and more worried about the possibility of the illness spreading to herself and her companions, Rose said to Ethan as the town's smoke came into sight, "Do we have to go in there?"
He looked at her. "Why are you so afraid?"
"I don't want to get sick and die."
"You court death in battle all the time, and I don't see you shying away from that."
"It's different. I can't see disease, can't fight."
Ethan's look grew thoughtful. "People always say the dying sometimes miraculously fight off their sickness through the will to live. So in a way, maybe you can fight."
It sounded nice, but Rose didn't find it too comforting when she thought about it. In battle, she could at least see what it was she faced. "How do such terrible ravages start, anyway? We don't see them all the time."
"I don't know how they start, but I know how they spread. Things bring them from other places. It can be rats, birds, cows..."
"People?"
"Yeah, people too." He caught Rose's thoughtful frown. "You think the raiders brought it, don't you?"
She hadn't even been thinking that, but now that he mentioned it... "Maybe." And if so, Pierce's mission might be even more successful than he anticipated. The more Kaylanders the diseased raiders came in contact with, the more damage would be done to the kingdom's populace. It could be devastating. "But if it was, why don't they get sick?"
Ethan seemed surprised by her ignorance. "Adaptation. What's deadly to a person whose body isn't prepared for it, might be of no consequence to someone who is."
"Wait, what kind of disease is this plague?"
"From what I heard, a victim first begins to feel feverish, and grow boils on his legs and genitals. Then they spread, and the fever grows with it. And at last, you die."
It sounded familiar. Hadn't Alicia said that Pierce was dying of a skin disease? "How long does it usually take, for someone so afflicted to die?"
"I'm not sure. But most people go in a few weeks at the most, some even in days."
From what Alicia had said, it sounded like Pierce had been infected far longer than that. He must have been an extremely strong man, to hang on so long. Though it was strange that he would be dying in the first place, if his body was adapted to withstand the disease. "Do you know of Pierce, of the Vlin?"
"I've heard things. Why?"
"Is he a native to that land, or a foreigner?"
Ethan looked curiously at her. "Why does that matter? He leads them all the same." She explained, and he said, "I've heard he's of mixed descent. Yes, that would explain why he might not have inherited an immunity to the plague—or only a partial one. But he'd never admit he was any part foreigner, I don't think."
It explained a lot. If he truly thought himself a pureblooded Vlin, the plague's effect on him wouldn't make sense to him. Perhaps he would take it to be his god's way of communicating with him, possibly punishing him for some perceived deficiency. "Maybe he'll do us a favor, and just drop dead."
"He could. He's been sick."
"Yeah, well, if not... we'll just have to hurry him on his way."
#
When they reached Hase, Rose was pleasantly surprised to see the Whitestones taking decent precautions against getting sick, namely by dropping off the supplies at the entrance to town. Hopefully, the plague wasn't borne on the air. Following their mission, they returned to Geben to await word of another attack, Rose's purpose now clearly distinct from that of the Whitestones with whom she still stayed. She was going to fight. But the news that finally arrived was not what she had in mind.
"The raiders are coming! The raiders are coming here!" a sentry yelled one day.
"What?" Rose demanded. "How many are they?"
"A whole lot!"
Rose soon found out that a veritable army of Vlin had been spotted heading towards Geben, about ten thousand men from the rough estimate they had. Raiders? More like a horde. It must have been Pierce. Geben only had about two hundred fighting men stationed inside, and while they did have the advantage of being in a fort, it was surely a losing fight.
Retreat would eventually be the only option, though the defenders meant to make some trouble before they fled, and they sent their refugees who would not fight away to avoid being caught in the battle. The Whitestones stayed behind, presumably to give the defenders whatever aid.
Ethan approached Rose hours before the raiders' expected arrival. To her shock, he asked, "Do you think we should fight?"
She didn't know how to answer that question. While she had tried so hard to convince him it could be right to fight, for him to now ask her if he personally should do it made her feel very uncomfortable. She, too, had been hard on him, and she didn't think she had any right to tell him how he should live his life. But he was asking for her advice.
"I think you should whatever you can do, to make things right."
It was nicely vague, but Ethan said, "You've changed my life. There can be no greater honor for me, than to fight at your side."
This didn't feel right. "What about your friends? Won't they think it wrong?"
"They'd do it, too. You've taught me what it truly takes to do what's right, even if it's distasteful in your eyes. We won't hold back anymore."
Now it really didn't feel right. "But your code of peace is what the Whitestones are! If you don't have that, you won't
be the same."
"Yes, we'll be different. We'll have grown, and changed."
But what she had been impressed by, what she had fallen in love with, was his steadfast resolve not to fight. And that, really, was what was wrong here. "But fighting's my way—not yours."
"There's so many of them. Won't you need all the help you can get?"
"I'd say yes, but we're going to lose anyway. You don't need to make an unnecessary sacrifice."
"Rose, what are you afraid of? You always say fighting's acceptable, for the right reasons. Don't you think this is an adequate reason?"
"You wouldn't even fight to save your lives, and that's what I hated. But you can leave now. You can run away. You don't have to fight."
"You don't want me to lose my purity, is that it?"
That, and his life. "Even though I've always tried to do what's right, after killing hundreds of men I can't help but think of myself as a monster sometimes. I don't want you to follow down that dark path."
Ethan touched her face. "But you're not dark at all. You're the light—my light."
"Still? Even after you saw me fight?"
"Yes, still. It doesn't matter that I watched you kill. Seeing you now, even though we're talking about killing, I can't see you as anything but a great person. There's nothing to you but light."
Did he really think that? She supposed he did. It was what love did to a person, same as how she saw him. But there was one more thing. "You don't know how to fight."
"I suppose we don't, do we?" He smiled. "A lot of the refugees who volunteered to stay and help don't, either."
"You're trying too hard, Ethan. I don't need you to change so much for me. We can love each other, and still be different."
"Then I won't fight." Rose breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then, he added, "If only every one of your allies were like you, we wouldn't even have to think to lose."
Maybe not. But that wasn't how things were, and they'd just have to deal with it.
#
The Vlin horde stopped before Geben's gates, and a massive brute of a man with long brown braids and well-tanned skin rode up to its head. "Weaklings!" he cried. "Prepare for the honor of riding my blade!" He waved a gigantic sword over his head, and Rose stared. It seemed light as a feather in his hand, though it was as large as her own blade. No, she realized. It was bigger.
Wanting him to recognize her when he met his doom at the end of her sword, Rose shouted, "Brag while you can, beast! You'll be too busy holding in your guts to do it by the time I'm finished with you!"
He must have heard her, but simply ignored her and signaled for archers. As she ducked behind the wall, a man next to her said, "You crazy girl, are you trying to get yourself killed?"
Was he that powerful? "Who is he?"
She stood between enemy volleys to shoot down with the powerful longbow she had acquired from a raider she'd previously killed, then ducked back down. "He's Pierce," the soldier told her then, "ruler of the Vlin tribe. I can't believe he's here!"
Damn, so that was what the man looked like. Why was he here? She realized that he didn't look sick at all. He looked really powerful. But perhaps today would be the last he saw anyway. "He doesn't look so tough. Maybe he'll find his end on my blade."
"I hope so, girl. But you'd best not seek him out on purpose. I'd rather you live."
The fight continued, and after a while of pelleting the fort with his archers and catapults Pierce decided to launch a full offensive. He sent forward siege towers, men with scaling ladders, and a battering ram, assaulting the entire front of the fort at the same time. Rose killed men one by one as they emerged from the nearest tower, then ran to the next, slaying her foes with ease. Soon enough, she knew, they would see her for the threat she was and make things harder on her. But it didn't even get that far, as the last man to emerge from the tower presented a familiar sight.
He had the same small beard as before, scruffy with a bit of gray, and held that nasty warhammer she'd seen but never faced. The big man from Nienne, who'd driven her right through the manor floor. So was he a Vlin, too? From his strength alone, she knew it'd be a tough fight. He smiled when he recognized her.
"Look at what we have here. You took it all from me—my friends, my home... my master! Now you'll die at my hand."
"Me die already? Not a chance."
One of her allies bravely charged her opponent from the side, and he casually pivoted his hammer that way, making the soldier's head disappear in a red cloud. "Good try, for a fool."
Rose slashed at him, and their weapons slammed together. She was almost able to match his strength, but his hammer was heavier than her sword, and she took an involuntary step to the side. "You're good," he mused. "Most wouldn't be able to use their hands after that."
He wasn't kidding. Even hers stung a bit! "What do you eat?!"
"Beef!" he said with a laugh as he swept the hammer at her head with one arm. She ducked and slashed at his leg. With surprising speed, he blocked using the handle of his maul. His free hand grabbed hold of her hair, but she sliced upwards at his chin. He pushed her away, ruining her aim, and smirked. "Not enough, little girl."
She cut at his head, then his thigh, then his side, and he parried every blow with ease. But then she drove her shield into his chest, and he stumbled back a step. With a roar of rage he struck repeatedly at her, and she backpedaled to the inner edge of the wall. The heavy maul left a hole in the wooden stair on a downward swing, and before he could retrieve it Rose kicked him in the face. He didn't drop the weapon, so she slashed at his throat, forcing him to jump back and release its haft. It slid into the hole it'd made and fell out of reach.
"What now?" she taunted him.
He met her eyes and smiled. "Next time." Then, he turned and jumped off the fort. She stepped forward to look, and saw him come to his feet below and run away.
Rose turned to the battle still going on, unhappy to see her allies getting overwhelmed all over the wall. She ran to help a pair of soldiers desperately fighting to keep the occupants of two close scaling ladders off the wall, and with a great heave wrenched one ladder sideways so that it tipped over and the climbers fell into their massed allies below. She split the top man on the second ladder in half and several rungs with him, then pulled that structure too off balance to fall to the ground.
"Gods, you're strong!" one of her allies exclaimed.
But strength might not be enough now; the wall was rapidly being overrun, and she wondered why no one had yet ordered the defenders deeper inside. She looked to see the man who had previously been identified as the fort commander slumped over the battlements with a number of arrows in him. Where were his subcommanders? They were probably too busy to think of anything but their own survival...
"Back!" she yelled as she rid Geben of one more enemy ladder.
The defenders retreated into the courtyard of the fort and then through the door which led into its bowels, barring it with a great crossbar to buy themselves some precious time. Noticing her allies' numbers reduced by close to two-thirds since the beginning of the fight, Rose said, "Get us out of here! Is the escape route ready?"
A red-faced man with an officer's plumes answered. "Of course. There's a tunnel that leads out of the basement to the other side of Pidink River."
"Let's go." She passed by where the Whitestones were taking refuge and informed them, "We're getting out of here. This place is a lost cause."
The banging at the door began, and Ethan nodded. Taking whatever they could, everyone followed the officer to the basement passage. Rose hoped nobody following them would find it too soon. They hurried through the long passage, rats scurrying about their feet as they ran, and emerged amid bright sunlight.
"Hello," an ugly, gap-toothed mountain of a man greeted them. He was one of many enemies arranged in a ring around their exit, a small army of Vlin surely diverted from the main force to cut off their escape. Somehow, Pierce had known about this place. Spies, damn him. Probably am
ong the refugees, if Rose and he thought alike.
"What do we do?" Ethan asked at her side.
"Fight." This time, it really was their only choice. And they would certainly die. But instead of attacking, the enemy just stood there around them, fencing them in. Seeing that to attack would only hasten the end, the Kaylanders waited warily in their midst. What was going on? A huge man rode up to tower above them on his great horse, a hungry grin on his face. Pierce.
"Come to personally watch us die?" Rose demanded. Her sword came up. Maybe she could still take him with her.
"Not really. I came here to meet a warrior I'd like to fight. A mighty woman, who I'd heard killed a hundred men on her own in one day. I hope she hasn't already died. I want her blood on my blade."
Surprised, Rose said, "It's me you want. But you ignored me last time."
He stared at her, and his grin widened. "Ah, yes, you. I saw you. But I didn't think you were she—you're so young, and I only thought you to be one of the foolishly brave. Now I see why you'd seek to fight with me. But even your strength is only passing next to mine."
"We'll see. Shut up and fight, dead man."
"And here, I thought you'd want your friends to live a little longer. My mistake." Rose gasped at the words as he charged, bearing down on his great horse. Not fair... Rose heard cheers from her allies, but not so much from her enemy's side. She supposed they felt no need to encourage what was already a sure victory.
Rose jumped aside from his descending blade, but he wheeled his horse around and she could barely avoid its flailing hooves. It reared, and a knee like a boulder struck her head. She fell, but rolled clear before it could stomp her skull into mush. Pierce's sword slashed down again, and when she blocked the impact nearly knocked her off her feet. She ducked the next blow, then dove forward to land near the horse's hindquarters. She turned into a chopping blow that sheared through a massive leg, and the beast fell thrashing in its death throes.
"No defense," she mused.
Pierce jumped to his feet, unharmed by the fall. No one else moved. "That was my favorite horse!"
