by Ryan Kirk
They had each spoken at length regarding the procedure to conduct the vote. The question that had been most on people’s minds had been whether or not to make the votes public. A private vote would prevent bias, but Tenchi had argued for a public vote. He argued that this decision wasn’t one to be made privately, but in front of all.
They had talked as a council and in small groups around the island, and the final decision was that the vote would be public, a show of hands. They would do it at a glance, and if the vote seemed close, they would argue some more.
All of Ryuu’s work came down to this moment. Tenchi looked throughout the crowd and called the vote. “All who wish that the blades return to the kingdom, please raise their hands.”
For a moment, no one stirred. No one wanted to be the first to voice their opinion, to vote for a course of action they couldn’t return from. The time for talk had passed. Ryuu’s breath caught in his throat. Perhaps all of it had been for nothing.
But then a single hand rose above the crowd. Ryuu tried to see who it was, but their face was lost among a sea of people. One by one, hands started to rise, and soon hands were going up throughout the crowd. It was more hands than Ryuu had ever seen in one place, but as he looked around, he wasn’t sure it was enough. It wasn’t a decisive vote.
Tenchi waited patiently, the silence in the amphitheater deafening. When it looked like no further hands were going to rise, he glanced back at Ryuu. Ryuu took a mental image of the hands in the air and nodded. He couldn’t tell for sure, but it appeared as though they didn’t have a decisive majority.
His fears were realized when Tenchi called for the votes to remain on the island. This time, there was no delay. Hands began to rise throughout the crowd, and Ryuu felt his stomach and his hopes drop. There were just as many hands in the air as before. From just a glance, Ryuu couldn’t tell which side had more votes.
Tenchi looked at Ryuu with a frown on his face. Of all the possible outcomes, this was the one they had feared the most. They had wanted a decisive mandate from the people, but the people were almost evenly split. Tenchi motioned for the people to put their hands down and turned to Ryuu, his voice low. “Our people are split.”
Ryuu was at a loss. “Do we ask for more debate?”
Tenchi shook his head. “It would be insulting. You know as well as I they have had plenty of time to think about their vote. Further arguing only makes us look weak.”
Ryuu’s mind was spinning. All this time he had felt as though he were driven by a larger purpose. For the past few moons, he thought he had found it. He would be the one to lead the nightblades back to the kingdom. But with a single vote that dream had been crushed. He didn’t know what to do next.
Behind them, he heard a rustle of robes. He turned around to see Shika standing up. Ryuu raised his eyes in hope as he looked at her. When she stood she drew all eyes to her. She was a natural born leader, a skill Ryuu had never possessed. When she stood up, all the murmurs and conversation stopped, and she had the full attention of everyone present.
Her voice was soft, but it carried. “There is another option, one that hasn’t occurred to others. We talk as though our return needs to be either everything or nothing, but perhaps neither option is what we should be looking at. You all know I want to return to the kingdom, but even I don’t think it should all be done at once.”
“I propose we send an expedition to the kingdom. You’ve heard Ryuu’s arguments. The people face a danger they cannot stop. Rei was also right. At one time, we were the protectors of the kingdom, and we should be once again. But that doesn’t mean we all go. Instead, let’s send an expedition of volunteers to aid the kingdom in their fight. Perhaps we will be welcomed, perhaps not, but we can take the first step towards our return while maintaining a safe population here.”
She paused, but not long enough to allow anyone to interrupt her. “I know there are those who fear revealing our very existence to the people who have sworn to hunt us down, but it is foolish for us to think our secrets are safe for much longer. Ryuu’s battles have been seen by many, and the leaders of the lands already know we exist. It is time for us to take the first step out of the shadows.”
Tenchi glanced at Ryuu, and he shrugged. He hadn’t expected anything from Shika tonight. She had gone with him, often, to rally support, but he hadn’t expected her to speak this evening.
Tenchi gave the assembly time to converse. When he stood, it quieted down. “We have another vote before us. As with the earlier votes, it must be decisive, or none of us up here will feel comfortable taking action. The question in front of us is this: Do we send an expedition to the Kingdom, comprised entirely of volunteers?”
He gave them a few moments to decide, but then Tenchi called for the vote. Ryuu forced himself to breathe evenly as he watched the hands go up for a third time. But this time there were more. Many more. Tenchi didn’t wait for Ryuu’s confirmation. He then called for the vote against, and it looked as though fewer than a hundred voted against it.
Tenchi turned to Ryuu, and for a moment, it looked as though the old man was going to collapse. Ryuu understood the enormity of what had just happened, but it didn’t strike him physically the way it did Tenchi. Still, the master of the island stood up straight when he addressed the audience.
“It has been decided. We will mount an expedition to the kingdom to save it from the Azarians.”
29
Nameless fingered his sword as he looked down at the monastery below him. Before he took another step, he needed to get his anger under control. For three days he had raged at himself, but it would do him no good when it came time to draw his blade.
He had heard rumors of the audacity of the monks. He understood they believed they could withstand the Azarian invasion by hiding behind their walls and bringing the people in, and their plan might have worked. Nameless didn’t think his people would have cared about what the monks did so long as they stayed out of the way. But hiding behind walls hadn’t been enough. They had to prove their strength, so they sent out these foolish raiding parties.
Nameless had stopped the clan from being completely slaughtered, but too many had died. The clan was already small, and this blow might be just the event that undid them. Nameless had tried to help with the healing, but his hands were meant to shed blood, not to stop it.
What he couldn’t figure is why the monks had attacked with him there. If they were gifted, there was no way they didn’t feel his power. And still they had attacked, rushing headlong to their own deaths. There were only two possible explanations. Either their pride was so great they ignored what their gifts told them, or they weren’t gifted in the first place. Either way, they were weak, and he couldn’t abide the knowledge they had killed part of the clan he had sworn to serve.
He had tracked the trail of the monks easily, leading him to the monastery below.
He laughed at their excuse for protection. The walls were tall, but they were rough and easy to climb. A small town of tents had sprung up outside the monastery, and Nameless imagined the tents were filled with the people running away from the invasion. They would discover they had run to the wrong place.
There was no hesitation in his mind. The monks were weak, and they needed to be shown the error of their ways. It never occurred to him to pursue a different path.
Nameless summoned the energy around him and felt his being infused with strength. Were he wise, he would have waited for nightfall, but the message would be clearer in the light of day.
As soon as he started wandering towards the monastery the peal of a bell could be heard. The tents started to empty as people ran desperately for the main gate. Nameless didn’t bother to hurry. He could smell the fear coming off of them, the weakness. One bold monk ran for him, trying to give the people more time to get behind the gate. The monk was armed with only a staff. He swung, but Nameless stepped closer, allowing the blow to bounce off his shoulder. With impossible quickness, he grabbed the monk’s neck and
squeezed. He felt the monk’s throat crush beneath his fingers, and he dropped the lifeless body to the ground.
A pair of archers attempted to fire on him, but he could tell they were untrained. When they had coordinated the invasion with the monasteries, Nameless had learned something of the monks. Most of them trained primarily in the staff, a weapon which could be lethal or not. They believed it suited them as defenders. Few trained in the sword or the bow, weapons meant only to kill. Nameless planned on demonstrating the weakness of their philosophy. Strength without the will to kill was meaningless.
He drew his short blade to knock aside one well-aimed arrow. Then he was inside the tent city, and he ducked out of the sight of the archers. He didn’t fear them, but he didn’t want to worry about them either. He found an untended fire and started blazing a path through the tents, putting everything he found to the torch. When he was confident everything would catch, he turned his attention to the monastery itself.
He first looked to the gate. It would have been nice if it had remained open, but it was shut and barred, and there was no way he could take the gate by himself. The walls were twice his height, but their construction was poor. Nameless grinned viciously to himself. He chose his place and sheathed his sword.
There was no use in a sneak attack. If the monks had the gift, they would know roughly where he was all the time. He ran at the wall, his first step against it propelling him upwards. He grabbed the first hold he’d seen from the ground and pulled himself up, helping propel himself with his legs. His fingers reached the top of the wall and found purchase, and in a moment, he had scrambled to the top.
A monk was on top of him almost immediately. Even with his speed he didn’t have time to draw his sword. But there was no need. The monk was charging, and it was an easy matter to grab the end of the monk’s staff and redirect him off the wall towards the crowd huddled below.
Nameless watched with pleasure as the monk fell and crushed several others beneath him. At the Battle of the Three Sisters, the commander of the fort had possessed the good sense to evacuate the fort when the demon-kind got inside. These monks weren’t as clever. With a glance around, Nameless drew his blade and dropped into the crowd.
He didn’t even think about what happened next. He didn’t need to. His opponents weren’t even opponents. He felt nothing more for them than he’d feel about cattle. His sword moved of its own accord, and he didn’t even hear the screams of the people he cut. He was in another place.
The gate which had once been the symbol of their protection was now the symbol of their entrapment. Nameless advanced towards the gate, blocking any from lifting the bar. His work was methodical and perfect. One cut per person, his stance steady even as blood pooled on the grass beneath him.
The monks were no challenge. They were nothing compared to him. One even dared to lift a sword against him. That monk earned himself several cuts and was granted a final gift of seeing his entrails slowly leaking from his stomach.
When Nameless was done there was only one monk left. Nameless gave him what little credit was due to him. Despite everything, he stood his ground. Nameless looked for something to wipe his blade on, but everything was covered in blood. Frowning, he walked towards the final monk. The monk swung his staff, but Nameless caught it in a one-handed grip. He easily yanked it out of the monk’s hands and tossed it away. Such a useless weapon. He took a step closer to the monk and used the monk’s robes to clean his blade. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do for now.
The monk smelled, and when Nameless looked down, he saw the monk had lost control over his body. It was disgusting.
“Tell them all what happened here.” He thought about elaborating, but there wasn’t any point. His blade had done all the talking it needed to.
Nameless turned and left the monk alive. He left through the front gate, perfectly calm for the first time in many moons.
30
Akira was beginning to forget that he had once lived a life that didn’t involve riding in the saddle every day. He was forgetting what it felt like to sleep in the same place more than one night at a time. That other life was a fond memory now, his body well-used to the rigors of daily riding. He and his horse were one, gliding over his land with ease.
He and his honor guard were heading east, out of the old Western Kingdom, towards the borders of the Northern Kingdom. The decision to rejoin the remainder of the armies of the kingdom was an easy one. For the first time in a moon, his men rode with a sense of purpose. Comments and questions flew back and forth, and Akira felt as though he was among his honor guard once again. They had come close to breaking.
As they rode, Akira’s mind wandered. The messenger had brought them hope, but now Akira struggled to decide how to use the hope to his advantage. Learning they weren’t alone had been life-changing, but as his mind continued to work through the challenges they faced, he still wasn’t sure what he could do.
His heart wanted to take command of whatever troops were remaining and lead an assault against the Azarians. But that was foolish. He didn’t know where to attack. The Azarians were spread throughout the land, and no single surprise attack would break their occupation. All he would succeed in doing would be making them angry. They would retaliate and more of his people would suffer.
He wasn’t numb to the suffering his people had undergone. Everywhere they went, the stories were the same, and Akira carried them all. Villages burned. People slaughtered like cattle. Women taken as though they were possessions. The Azarians might be outnumbered by citizens of the kingdom, but they held the land tightly. If Akira took any action worth doing, they would just squeeze tighter.
Akira’s real worry was that he was too late. The land and the people had already been scarred. The Azarians were already spread throughout the land. Perhaps there was no going back to the way life used to be. Maybe it would be best to start again in the Northern Kingdom.
His melancholy thoughts were interrupted by a commotion near the rear of the line. He looked back and saw a group of monks trying to reach him. His honor guard had their swords drawn, surprising the monks. Given Akira’s recent experiences, he wasn’t surprised his men had reacted with such force. The monks briefly tried to defend themselves, but one of them spoke in a commanding voice, and the monks laid down their weapons. Akira studied the speaker carefully. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t quite place it.
The men were brought forward, Akira’s honor guard holding spears at the ready should any of them attempt anything. Akira studied them. Four of them looked perfectly unremarkable, but one was dressed in clothing of very high quality. Realization struck Akira suddenly. He was looking at the Chief Abbot of the monasteries.
Akira sat across from the Chief Abbott, wondering what would happen next. The last time he had seen the Abbott had been at his father's funeral, and they had both been much younger then. Akira had always observed the basic formalities when dealing with the monasteries, but he had never really believed in their power. When he was lord, he had as little to do with them as possible. The Abbott was just about the last person he ever expected to see outside the walls of a monastery.
From the way the Abbot was carrying himself, it was clear he had no idea Akira knew of his treachery. Akira was content to let him play the fool. Perhaps he would hang himself on his own words.
Akira's men stationed themselves around the two leaders, but Akira had no real fear of the man he was meeting. The Abbott was a man in love with the finer things in life, and he had none of the lean hardness that denoted a man used to hardship or war.
Akira let the Abbott set the pace of their discussion. He was elated when his unexpected guest got right to the point.
"My king, I was very surprised by the welcome we received when we found you. I know the times are tough, and your men are wary, but I will admit I expected a more generous welcome."
Akira managed to force out a smile. "Well, they have been through a lot. They have seen th
ings no man should have to see."
The Abbott ignored Akira's remarks. "Perhaps, but it hardly seems a valid excuse for the treatment we received."
Akira shook his head. "I don't know. If you had seen some of the things my men had seen, I think you would understand why they are so nervous." He looked around the circle and saw several of his men snickering to themselves.
Akira was surprised when the Abbot continued the line of questioning. A wiser man would have realized something was wrong the moment their arrival was greeted by swords. But the Abbot was too offended to recognize the danger he was in. “I am sure you have seen terrible events. But our opponents are the Azarians. There’s no need to draw steel against the monks! It is behavior unworthy of the king’s honor guard. I am surprised your men have fallen so far.”
Akira had enough. “You would also be suspicious if monks took your king hostage. I hear it’s a fairly common reaction.”
The Chief Abbot’s offended look dropped from his face, and a look of pure surprise replaced it. He tried to recover. "I am sure I don't know what you mean."
Akira interrupted him. "I'm in no mood for games. We know you cooperated with the Azarians, and we know you're trying to establish the monasteries as the new protectors and rulers of the kingdom. So, why don’t you tell me why you’re here, and we can get right to the point."
The Abbott was thinking fast, realizing he had placed himself in a danger he hadn't anticipated. After a few moments, all pretense dropped and he looked at Akira as directly as he was able. There was disgust in his eyes. "I won’t deny the truth. I've come here because our plans have failed. The monasteries need your help."
Akira laughed at the Abbot. "This had better be good."
The Abbot glowered at him, and Akira managed to be respectfully silent while the Abbot told his story. He admitted to passing information along to the Azarians to help them with their invasion, and told Akira that in exchange, the monasteries were to be treated as safe zones for people to remain. The Abbott tried to explain that it was a way to protect people against an imminent invasion, but Akira brushed his explanation aside. There was no doubt about what motivated the monasteries, and it wasn’t benevolence.
