by Lexy Wolfe
Her eyes went wide, clenching her swords tighter, but remaining frozen as she stared at Almek fixedly. As if she needed to see him to remember her oath. "Now put your swords away, my desert flower. You will breed me an army, and then we will finish where those Forentan bastards screwed up." Fighting instinct, Storm obeyed, the blades returned to their sheaths. "With the seed of this body planted in yours, my brothers and sisters will be unstoppable!"
Mureln looked up sharply at those words and whispered in horror. "Darkborn!" He looked over at Ash, hearing the mage groan. "Come on, Andar. Wake up!" he hissed.
Sumalen laughed at the bard as the raiders dragged the subdued and tied prisoners to a place outside of the shelter, tossing them there like sacks. "So much for the power of Fortress. I will take much pleasure in making your deaths a long, long time in coming."
Grabbing Storm by the arm, Sumalen dragged her to the pavilion. The sound of the woman being struck hard enough to be thrown to the ground repeatedly panicked the others.
"He's going to kill her!" Taylin whispered, terrified.
"To the hells with the Desanti bitch," Amelana exclaimed. "They are going to kill us!" One of the raiders rewarded Amelana's panic by cuffing the woman in the head and coldly snarling, "Shut up, bitch. I'll have you and the Sevmanan woman after the master is done with you both."
"Storm," Ash said desperately when she fell, their shoulders touching briefly through the heavy canvas. He tried to focus, but his head swam from the blow to his head. He frantically struggled against the bindings on his wrists when he heard Sumalen throw her to the ground again. "No! Storm!"
"Easy, Mage." Emil put a hand on the mage's shoulder. Blood oozed from the mercenary's efforts to free his hands. He kept his voice pitched low as he watched the oblivious guards. "I'll cut ye loose, but don't let on too soon we're free or those bastards'll kill us all now. Storm's tough. She'll be fine." Carefully, the mercenary watched the raiders as he sawed at the deceptively thin ropes. "What in th' hells are these made from?" he grumbled.
The sounds inside the shelter changed subtly, and a gurgling sound followed by a heavy thump spoke of death. They all looked up to see Storm standing at the entrance, an unholy look in one eye, the other swollen mostly shut. Blood smeared her arms, fingers curled like claws. She looked at a pulsing lump of flesh in her hand, then flung it away.
With purpose, she pulled the twin single-edged blades Sumalen had been too arrogant to take from her. She spoke a few words in the Swordanzen tongue. Radisen reacted with shock. He started to argue and the words failed him when he met her eyes. His subdued acquiescence satisfied her.
She turned her gaze onto the raiders, cuts slowly closing, swelling subsiding, bruises fading. Suddenly, she moved as if she were fully rested and uninjured, advancing on the raiders who were rooting through the supplies. Five fell before the raiders could mobilize.
The thunder of a stampede drew the attention of the prisoners and distracted the raiders as both the travelers' and raiders' drizzen swarmed the encampment, led by the drizar. "Get the others on the drizzen, bard." Radisen grabbed his own sword and bodily blocked one of the raiders trying to strike a final blow on the Guardian. With a roaring battle cry not unlike Storm's, he fought with the same moves as the Githalin Swordanzen's, if not as swift or precise. Emaris and Emil joined him, the three men giving the others time to mount and flee.
"What about Storm?" Emil asked as the last of Almek's group fled. The raiders, diminished by a third already, had already dismissed the prisoners, determined to take down the Swordanzen.
"Just go." Radisen grabbed the reins of his own drizzen, looking over his shoulder at Storm, her drizar fighting at her side, stomping and goring with impunity. "Go! Lord Almek needs us more than she does!" The two mercenaries spurred their animals into a dead run. The Desanti man hung back to make sure none of the raiders followed, watching Storm's deadly dance. "Farewell, Storm il'Thandar," he murmured sadly before turning away.
Radisen finally caught up to the rest of the group, the new and old drizzen milling nervously nearby the half shelter of tall rocks. "Where is Storm?" Almek asked, waving Taylin away irritably from healing the gash on his temple.
The Desanti man was grim. "If she is not dead yet, she will be soon." The others reacted in alarm.
"You abandoned her?" Mureln asked incredulously.
Radisen snarled at Mureln. "I had no choice! She demanded it. She dances the Final Dance. Once begun, it will only end with her death. I will not dishonor her sacrifice with my death." He closed his eyes in grief. "She told me to take her place with you, Lord Almek."
Ash just blinked at Radisen as if not comprehending his words, a raw sense of fear in the pit of his stomach. "I was charged to protect Master Almek's students." Kicking his mount hard, the drizzen shrilled as it lunged into a dead run back to the Vi'disa deathlands.
"Mage! Stop!" Radisen called desperately. "Come back! Do not dishonor her sacrifice with your death!"
Chapter 35
ASH whispered words of magic to force the animal to keep going despite its exhaustion. Finally, he could sense its heart burst as it stumbled and fell. The mage tumbled off with the practice of years of horse riding, rolling to his feet. Disoriented, he searched for Storm, and when he finally located her, he could not help but stare.
Bleeding from dozens of cuts, Storm moved with the same fluidity as her occasional solitary practices. The desperate raiders had long since abandoned their arrogant superiority about a woman's ability to fight, desperate to survive. The drizar kept several penned in. The knowledge that there would be no escape from the Swordanzen unless she was dead before they died kept the men from fleeing into the desert. Fighting was their only chance to survive
But even when they would manage to get past the deadly flashing blades that cut the air with an eerie hum, they could not break the pattern of Storm's dance. Strikes that should have felled her or at least made her falter closed to thin lines. Shrieking defiantly, the drizar stomped those raiders that moved even a little after they fell.
Shaking off his momentary paralysis, Ash ran to Storm. He froze as the red and silver blade arced towards his throat, shifting slightly to slide by, leaving him unhurt. She spun away from him. The mage turned to stand back to back with her. He cast a spell that blasted a hole in one of the attacker's chests, giving the others pause before advancing on the mage.
"Fool." Her trade common was thick with her Desanti accent. "Almek needs you. You must live!"
"So must you," Ash returned sharply. Focusing through the pain in his head, he extended his power into the ground itself. Rock came alive, fingers of granite jutting up, closing around the remaining raiders, and crushed them to death.
The abrupt silence was deafening. Recovering from a moment of paralysis, Ash turned to Storm, intending to try to start binding her wounds. "Put your swords down. It is over."
Storm's copper complexion had turned a sickly grey. She stared wide eyed at the display of the mage's power. "I-I never knew... how... powerful..." Without warning, the swords fell from her hands with a clatter as convultions seized the Swordanzen woman, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Ash caught her reflexively, eyes wide in shock when it felt as though his heart skipped a beat. He eased her to the ground, cradling her head in his lap to keep her from cracking her skull on the unforgiving ground as she thrashed uncontrollably. "Storm! Storm, it is over! Storm!" He started raising his hand to attack a missed raider at the sound of thundering drizzen feet and saw it was Radisen. Dismissing the Desanti man, Ash turned his attention back to the dying woman. "Storm!" he called helplessly.
Radisen slid off his drizzen and knelt on one knee by the two. He placed a hand on Storm's brow as the convulsions weakened as she did. "There is nothing to be done." The Desanti nearly begged the mage. "Do not let her die in shame." He offered his own knife to the Forentan. "Make it quick!"
"No!" Laying his hand along her cheek, Ash said intensely, "I will not lose
you, too! Not like Dessa."
The power Ash called on glowed with a painful blue-white intensity, his voice a continuous rasping murmur, willing Storm alive. Radisen watched in awe at a battle more intense than the one just ended, unable to look away.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, but finally the convulsions eased and stopped. The mage sagged forward weakly. Radisen put an uncertain hand on the Forentan's shoulder, helping him sit up. Ash was sickly white, breathing heavily as he finally opened his eyes, looking down at Storm.
The Desanti man inhaled sharply as he felt Storm's pulse at her throat. "She lives!" Radisen whispered in deep reverence. "You saved a Swordanzen from the Final Dance!" Lowering his eyes, his respect was untarnished. "Lord Ash, you have performed a miracle!" He reached for bandages to quickly start binding Storm's wounds.
Ash barely heard Radisen's words, eyes only for Storm as he put a shaking hand along her cheek. He watched as the injuries that been repressed blossomed like grotesque flowers. "I heard stories," he whispered to himself. "Of mages who pushed themselves so far, they died from the effort." Swallowing against the lump in his throat as he watched Storm's eye swell shut again. "I thought it was a sign of weakness. Until now." Shaking his head, he stated, "Do not praise me, Radisen." Ash's whispery voice was heavy with shame. "She... may yet die."
"But she may live," the dark-skinned man countered, taking Storm in his arms and helping Ash to stand. "Take my drizzen, Lord Ash. She will bear you willingly." The Forentan man could only nod slightly, dragging himself onto the skittish beast's back.
Dimly, Ash looked over as the drizar fell in beside him, Radisen carrying Storm's inert form as he walked between the animals. "Why do you not ride Storm's drizar?"
"A Swordanzen's drizzen is a lifelong companion. The ties that bind them to each other are soul to soul. Without her conscious permission, I'd end up like him." They walked passed a dead man, his entrails spread out in a grotesque fan.
Ash nodded, focusing on just keeping his seat on the scaly beast. "I see." He closed his eyes against the feel of the Swordanzen's wounded, agonized spirit he had entrapped, raging like a wild animal throwing itself against the bars of its cage.
Chapter 36
THE rest of the travelers took shelter in a shallow, cave-like depression in the large spur of windblown rock. The sun had sunk below the horizon by the time the three finally caught up to them. Emaris and Emil ran to the Desanti man who was ready to collapse, having walked the entire way on foot. Emaris took Storm gently while Emil wordlessly lent the Desanti his shoulder.
Taylin went to Storm immediately. She placed her hands on the woman's forehead then gasped, stumbling back and looking at Ash in horror. "What have you done?" The mage could only look away in shame, too exhausted to conceal his emotions entirely.
Everyone looked up in surprise as Radisen lurched towards Ash defensively. Emil had to move quickly to get his shoulder back under the Desanti man as he staggered between the healer and mage. "Lord Ash saved a Swordanzen from the Final Dance. No Swordanzen has ever survived the Final Dance. You should honor him, not revile him!"
Mureln looked sharply at Ash when he heard the mage whisper harshly, "There is no honor in what I have done."
Before the bard could go to Ash, Amelana appeared at his side, fawning and fretting over him. Terrence was no less worried about his master, but his quiet strength was obviously more welcome than Amelana’s hysteria, the master mage leaning on his apprentice as he brushed Amelana away.
Almek knelt by Storm and touched her brow, grimacing a bit. "Taylin, do what you can for her body. Anything else..." He shook his head. "Only time will tell." He looked to the bard. "Watch over them, Mureln. I will return with the others to cleanse the place and collect what supplies we can. Without our Swordanzen," Almek looked to Radisen and said firmly, "either of our Swordanzen, we will not survive without supplies."
"Lord Almek." On the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, Radisen was torn between honor and shame. "I am... not Swordanzen. I was never granted my Name by the Totani." He confessed, "I did not pass my final trial."
"In my eyes, you reflect the strength and honor of a true Warrior. Rest now, Radisen. You will be needed." Grim, humbled, the Desanti man lowered his eyes and nodded once.
Terrence took his outer robe off and folded it, offering it to Radisen. The Desanti and Forentan looked at each other for several moments before Radisen nodded once, accepting the offered robe, and lay with the folded garment under his head.
"I am not leaving Ash!" Amelana stubbornly knelt by the mage who sat holding his head that ached from more than physical injury or exhaustion. "He needs me!"
Almek glared at the girl. "You can serve your master more by assisting me than hovering over him here. I need your mage skills to ensure those who attacked us are properly taken care of." Amelana frowned thoughtfully as she got to her feet. Almek came over to put a hand on her elbow, steering her away. "We will not be long in returning," he assured her.
Terrence rolled his eyes as he fell in with Emil and Emaris, the two mercenaries putting a hand on the young Forentan's back briefly.
"Ye sure that thing ain't hurtin' ye, lad?" Emil worriedly eyed the crystal at the apprentice's throat as he held Terrence's drizzen for him.
The young man nodded. "Dzee is keeping its promise and sleeping." He admitted, "It does feel like it sleeps with one eye open, so to speak. It lets me know things it thinks I need to know." He sighed as he looked around the desolate landscape, putting a comforting hand on the jewel in his throat.
As Almek and half the group departed, Mureln sat on a low rock around the small fire pit. He played his mandolin quietly while Taylin worked on Storm, Radisen and Ash. The music first aided giving her strength to finish her work, then soothed her when she was finished. After she finally fell into a sound sleep, Mureln looked over at Ash as the mage pushed himself to his feet and staggered over to sit by Storm. He rested his hand on her bare, tattooed shoulder, propping the other on his raised knee. He rested his head on his forearm, but it was obvious he was not asleep.
"You should rest, too," Mureln told Ash quietly.
"I do not deserve rest." Ash's agonized voice broke with the turmoil of emotion. "I have committed an unforgivable atrocity." Closing his eyes, he looked away in shame. "In one act, I became the exact kind of man I hated my entire life. The man I swore I would never become. I used my power to take another human's free will away from her."
Mureln frowned, studying Ash. "Atrocity? You saved a life from being carelessly thrown aside."
"It was not careless," Ash murmured with his head still bowed. "I realized that only after I bound her soul. She made the decision very purposefully. It was her means to fulfill her oath to Master Almek to protect his students and be able to avenge the murder of her birth tribe." He raised his eyes to regard the bard, so filled with despair, Mureln was taken aback. "To finally be able to rest, free of the pain of loss, of failure, of being alone. And I took that decision away from her. Forced her to continue suffering."
The bard studied the mage intently, frowning. "She is still fighting you," he stated as he suddenly understood. "She wants to die that much?"
"She does. But... I can’t let her go," Ash admitted. "I don’t know why. She is just a Desanti. But I can’t release her. I won’t let her go. She must live. She must!" Mureln was shocked, never having seen such an open intensity of emotion in the Forentan mage about anyone or anything. That the wall of impassivity was cracked by a Desanti amazed Mureln. "But how can I ask her to live? I know her pain. I have lived with it for so long. I thought that no others could possibly know it. But she knows. How can I ask her to continue to bear the suffering she had quietly endured for so long? The suffering I dismissed in the name of serving Almek?"
"The same way you ask it of yourself, Illaini Magus." Mureln's simple statement drew Ash’s full attention. "You dismissed her suffering because you could not imagine anyone knowing the pain that
you do." He looked toward Storm, waving a hand towards her. "Now you burden yourself not only with your own suffering, but hers as well." Putting a hand on Ash’s shoulder, Mureln said intently, "You tied her to you to hold her here. You are the only one she can hear right now. You are the only one who can ease some of her pain, and your own, by sharing it. You are not alone, and neither is she. Show her this."
Ash closed his eyes after staring at Mureln for a time, sighing heavily, nodding. As the bard respectfully put himself at a distance to give the two some shred of privacy, the mage regarded the unconscious woman, lightly touching her cheek with the back of his fingers.
"Storm," he said for her ears alone. Words crowded themselves in his mind, long winded prose or threats or cajoling, but they all rang hollow and meaningless. "I am... sorry I must ask you to delay the rest you so very much deserve. But know..."
He swallowed hard. "Know that your family’s murderer is dead. And the other deaths... they will not be in vain. They led to discovering... there is a greater danger to all of our peoples. You are needed, Swordanzen. By your oaths to Lord Almek and to your own people, you need to live."
Without warning, blinding pain shot through the mage’s head. He felt as if someone stabbed him in the head with a knife as the tie between him and Storm shattered. He clutched his head, gritting his teeth as he struggled to find her again. He felt a familiar grip on his wrist, though not as crushing as the other times she had grabbed him. As his vision cleared, he found himself looking into Storm’s eyes.
Her eyes, so filled with grief, fury, shame, and emotions he could not name, made Ash feel ill. "I cannot forgive you." He could nearly feel how tender her recently healed throat was through her voice. Not expecting gratitude or forgiveness, her following words shook him even more. "But I understand why."
Chapter 37
