Beyond Ragnarok

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Matrinka cried unabashedly, assigning a name to every Béarnide and reciting a prayer over each body before allowing Ra-khir to haul it away. Soon, Darris secured the horses and joined them in silence, at first consoling Matrinka but soon crushed beneath his own burden of sorrow. Kevral found the first of the Renshai distant from the others, at a corner of the clearing in a sentry position. Three arrow shafts jutted from his chest. On closer examination, she found a fourth in his back, broken beneath his weight as he fell.

  A coward’s death. Kevral finally succumbed to the tears she had controlled throughout her search, allowing them to flow now that her companions could not see her. With the lapse came comfort as well as shame. She considered herself hard and strong, like Colbey. Though not devoid of the weaker emotions, she could control them, beat them into a deep submission that did not interfere with her mastery of herself and her skills. Yet, too, she felt a secret solace she would not admit, even to herself. The warm tears cleansed a wound discovery of the body and the ghastly means of a friend’s death had cut to her core.

  Afraid to leave Matrinka too long, Kevral halted the stream of tears, though grief still demanded outlet. She dried her eyes on her sleeve, fighting back need, and hoped she had not cried long enough to leave visible signs. Her temporarily smothered pain remained easily sparked, and she prepared herself for a struggle to keep from humiliating herself in front of the others. They relied on her for fortitude. But the Renshai maneuvers had their basis in quickness and agility rather than strength, and she would need assistance to move the Renshai’s corpse among the others. This one needed no pyre. Valhalla could not have him.

  Kevral located her companions. Tae paced the edges of the clearing, alert for enemies. Darris was assisting Matrinka, clutching her shuddering body against him. Their closeness struck something primal, and a wistfulness she never knew she possessed passed through her briefly. She wondered how it would feel to share so much with a man, to know him nearly as well as herself, to give and receive love, and to assuage needs she did not even know she had. Yet she did not envy Matrinka and Darris. They could never truly appreciate their bond, each calling the other only friend. And when they finally acknowledged and realized their love, law and propriety would forbid their marriage. Or would it? Kevral wondered what effect Matrinka’s disinheritance would have on their relationship, then put that contemplation aside for the moment. She had more important matters to attend.

  Unwilling to disturb the couple, Kevral looked for Ra-khir, though she would have preferred anyone else’s assistance. Finding him crouched over one of the corpses, she sighed and headed toward him. For now, they could set aside their differences for the good of the party and their mission. About that, at least, Tae had been right.

  Ra-khir looked up as Kevral approached. Tears softened the green eyes and added a gentle, human quality to features otherwise too handsome to seem real. When he recognized Kevral, his expression hardened slightly, but the obvious sorrow defied hiding. He did not apologize for his frailty, though he did draw himself up to face the teasing he had every reason to expect.

  But Kevral was in no mood to taunt. Clearly, the man near Ra-khir’s feet was one of the four Erythanian Knights who had helped guard the envoy. For the first time, Kevral found a common link, felt bonded in a warrior brotherhood that had not previously allowed the knight-in-training admittance. Blaming too much time with Matrinka for her next action, Kevral placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The muscle felt firm and round beneath her touch, the covering linen supple in her grip. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Ra-khir’s eyes narrowed uncertainly, squeezing free another pair of tears. Then, apparently realizing the words were heartfelt, he could not help adding, “His life was wasted. There was no honor in this death.”

  His thoughts mirrored Kevral’s. “The wisule cowards killed them sleeping.” She spoke the worst insults she knew, the word “coward” and comparison to a timid rodent who would abandon its young rather than fight an intruder half its size. “And at least one from a distance with arrows.” She spat, and the clearing blurred around her. Only then did she realize she had begun to cry again as well.

  Ra-khir apparently recognized the tearful catch in Kevral’s voice and rose to face her. He reached for her instinctively, taking a hesitant shuffle-step toward her.

  Kevral froze, suddenly knowing he was about to embrace her as Darris did Matrinka. A thrill shivered through her, exactly the opposite of what she expected. To her surprise, her mind welcomed his presence; and she could not pry her gaze from his straight, exquisite features, honed body, and gentle eyes.

  But Ra-khir caught himself before he took another step, awkwardly pretending he had had no intention of consoling. He pulled his arms close to his body and rubbed his hands together nervously.

  Kevral knew his wariness stemmed from her reaction to his attempt to assist her dismount on their first night of travel. Momentarily, she cursed the trained hardness that made her not just self-reliant, but unnecessarily cold. Then she dismissed the whole as foolish. She despised this man and all he stood for. She could only credit her unrecognized desire to the stress of the situation. Yet even after the rationalization, she could not escape the guilty wish that he would hold her.

  “Cowards,” Ra-khir repeated after too long a lapse. “Afraid to face real warriors, so they murder without fair challenge.” He clung to the overlap between knight’s chivalry and Renshai honor.

  “Cowards,” Kevral said, the moment and the tears gone but not forgotten. She glanced at her companions and found Tae talking with Darris and Matrinka. She hoped the Easterner had not witnessed the recent events on her side of the clearing. She would kill him before suffering his ridicule on this matter. She was having enough trouble sorting her own feelings.

  Kevral heard quiet movement through the brush. Instantly alert, she worried for Matrinka, charging across the clearing without wasting breath to shout a warning. She had covered only half the distance when the twang of a bow shot charged her with desperation. Still blind to the enemy, she flung herself at Matrinka, hurling the princess to the ground. Startled, Matrinka shrieked. In a better position to pinpoint abnormal sounds and also trained to guard, Darris reacted more specifically. He drew and cut, stepping in front of Tae and directly into the path of the arrow. Gasping, the bard’s heir plummeted. Tae disappeared into the brush.

  More arrows followed the first in a wild rain. Kevral cut one from the air. Another stabbed pain through her shoulder with a suddenness that nearly dropped her. Then, dizziness receded behind a burning, red chaos of battle rage. “Modi!” she screamed, vitalized by her own pain-call. She charged the bowmen like a rabid beast, sword slashing through the first before he recognized the danger. She did not bother to count enemies; her mind rejected logic and specifics. Only two things mattered: killing enemies and protecting Matrinka. Thought for all else disappeared beneath the fires of battle wrath.

  The seconds it took to drop bows and draw swords cost two more their lives. Kevral pulled her second weapon free without slowing her attack with the first. One of the two she now faced collapsed before her blow fell. Her left-hand sword cleaved the air where he had stood. Directly behind, a man appeared, and she redirected her strike for him. He retreated with a startled cry. Kevral turned her attention to the others, her mind belatedly recognizing Tae.

  Kevral’s wild strokes ached through her injured shoulder. She concentrated on putting her all into her other blade. Even as the right-hand sword spilled an enemy’s entrails, the concept of Tae as a “friend” finally penetrated the savage frenzy that fogged her mind to anything but killing. Only then, she realized another aided her fight. He battled near enough so they could benefit from one another’s tactics yet at a distance that kept him from hindering her strokes . . . or accidentally succumbing to them. Unused to strategy, she struck down enemies without pattern, surely hampering her companion’s defense even as he worked around her to avoid doing the same.


  The shoulder wound sapped Kevral’s strength, and the pain throbbed even through a mind otherwise wholly concerned with battle. “Modi!” she said again, desperately tapping flagging reserves. Another man fell to her assault, then someone slipped through her back’s defenses and touched her spine.

  Kevral whirled, slicing at the intruder in the same motion. Tae ducked beneath the sweep, scuttling beyond reach of the Renshai’s sword. “Whoa, Kevral, stop! It’s over.”

  Kevral blinked, gaze sweeping the clearing. Six strangers lay, still and limp, on the forest floor. Ra-khir stood among the bodies, sword dripping, crouched and alert. Matrinka knelt over Darris who remained where he had fallen, as motionless as the corpses scattered just beyond the clearing. Tae stayed in front of Kevral, his attention locked on her hands and awaiting her next move. Kevral saw no more enemies. She relaxed slightly, and excitement ebbed in an instant, followed by a howling rush of pain. She cleaned, inspected, and sheathed her swords, though the agony in her shoulder demanded tending and movement sent waves of dizziness shuddering through her.

  Obviously the one who had fought at Kevral’s side, Ra-khir cleaned his own sword, less meticulously than Kevral, and returned it to its sheath. Making one last visual sweep for enemies, he rushed to check on Matrinka and Darris.

  Tae remained directly in Kevral’s path. “You in our world again?”

  “I’m fine,” Kevral managed, keeping her injured shoulder immobile. Movement might throw her over the edge into uncontrollable pain.

  “Why don’t I believe that?” Tae stepped closer cautiously, catching Kevral’s right upper arm, then answering his own question. “Could it be the gritted teeth? Or the way you tried to kill me twice?”

  “Sorry,” Kevral gasped, the apology woefully inadequate. She rationalized with a quotation, “Never get in the way of a fighting Renshai.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Tae steered Kevral toward Matrinka. “And we’ll chat about this later.” He shook his head. “What good is saving us from enemies if you kill us along with them?”

  It took more concentration than Kevral wanted to devote to talking, but she felt obligated to answer the allegation. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Tae snorted but did not argue.

  At the edge of the clearing, Ra-khir took Kevral’s elbow, and Tae released her to his care. The thief headed back to the enemy bodies, presumably to ascertain their deaths as well as search for information about their origin and intentions.

  “Is Darris all right?” Kevral managed, braced for the worst.

  “He’s alive, but he’s hurt bad.” Ra-khir inclined his head to the bard’s heir and the wet-eyed healer who worked over him in silence. Matrinka had removed the blood-soaked shirt. Darris’ chest rose and fell rhythmically, in short, shallow breaths. A hole marred the flesh to the right of the midline, and most of a filthy arrow lay at his side. As Kevral watched, Matrinka poured water over the injury, scrubbed at it, added a salve, and started bandaging.

  Kevral’s legs grew weak as her body responded to an injury her mind had forced it to ignore too long. She slumped against Ra-khir. He tensed, obviously surprised by her sudden lapse, then lowered her gently to the ground. Kevral sat, cross-legged, and awaited her turn. Ra-khir hovered like an anxious father.

  Matrinka finished bandaging, covered Darris with blankets, then finally turned to the others. Only then, she wept openly, racked with a grief that need had placed on hold. Kevral could not help comparing the healer’s sorrow to her own pain. Each of them had become single-mindedly devoted to a job that could not wait, ignoring personal need until the task had been completed. That hers involved killing and Matrinka’s healing did not diminish the analogy. It only added irony.

  Understanding Matrinka’s need, Ra-khir wrapped her in his arms and held her through the moments when grief overwhelmed understanding. She sobbed into his muscular chest, his height making him more conducive to consoling than Darris, who stood barely taller than she did.

  Kevral lowered her head, suffering a pang that felt strangely like jealousy. As such made no sense, she dismissed it as an effect of the injury. Uncomfortable in the position of low-angle spectator, Kevral glanced toward Tae where he worked among the bodies. But the tall grasses stole all detail from her, and she had little choice except to wait for Matrinka’s ministrations. Renshai learned healing arts as part of their training, since nothing appalled them more than death by illness or infection after the battle. Yet she did not feel steady enough to attempt her own care at this time. Should she try and pass out, she might cause more damage than she staunched.

  At length, Matrinka’s undirected sobs turned into explanation. “The arrow broke. The point’s still in his lung, and I can’t get it. He’ll need a more practiced healer, someone who knows surgery.”

  Ra-khir studied Matrinka’s head, still holding her. “Then that’s what he’ll get.” He swiveled his neck toward the battleground. “Tae!”

  The Easterner shouted back. “What do you need?”

  “What’s the nearest large town?”

  Tae did not hesitate. “Pudar’s only a few day’s travel north.”

  Matrinka drew back, sweeping wet strands of hair from her forehead. “Only a few days?”

  Though she spoke much softer, Tae apparently heard. “If we take the road.”

  Ra-khir faced Matrinka again. “Will that do?”

  “It’ll have to.” The tide of Matrinka’s tears slowed. “A town that big’ll definitely have someone who can help us.” She glanced down at Kevral then and winced. “Here, let me help you.”

  “Thanks,” Kevral said with genuine appreciation, having learned to accept help more graciously since cutting her hand in the princess’ room.

  Ra-khir released Matrinka, and the healer began work on her second patient.

  * * *

  By the time darkness fell, Ra-khir and Matrinka fashioned a litter for Darris, Kevral had slept long enough to rest her shoulder, and Tae had sorted through as much of the devastated camp as he believed necessary. Kevral awakened to the first stirring of crickets and nighthawks, jerking to awareness with an abrupt need to ascertain Matrinka’s safety. She found the princess with Ra-khir, gently transporting Darris from ground to stretcher. She saw no other movement in the clearing.

  Where’s Tae? The question popped into her head instantly, accompanied by instinctive suspicion. She sat up. In response to her movement, a shadow glided through the darkness to her side, and Tae was with her.

  He whispered, “Can you move all right?”

  Kevral did not even bother to test. She knew her body, and nothing about it suggested much limitation. Pain, she could handle. “Of course. What do you need?”

  “Remember, I told you one of the envoys had written something in the dirt?”

  “Right.” In the excitement, Kevral had forgotten. “Is it still there?”

  “Yeah. Over here.”

  Kevral rose and followed Tae to a body lying a surprising distance from the remainder of the envoy’s corpses. A trail carved through brush marked where he had, apparently, crawled painfully toward the main pathway. As they drew closer, Kevral recognized Randil, a middle-aged Renshai who had accompanied the envoy. Where the others bore single, fatal wounds, clean deaths in dishonor, Randil’s body had sustained myriad slashes, stabs, and cuts. The tattered tunic and breeks clung to a mass of wounds. No doubt, he had fought valiantly and against many. His right hand remained tightly clenched around his bloody hilt, even in death. A gash across the tendons left his other gaping open. He had scratched letters in the dirt, the alphabet Northern and the language Renshai. It read: “ELFS,” the spelling incorrect but shorter than the proper “elves.” And, beneath it, Randil had added: “LEADER: ZHARLOMAY . . .”

  Kevral blinked in disbelief.

  Tae crowded in. “Can you read it?”

  “Yes,” Kevral said, though she made no move to do so yet. Randil’s proper death, in battle, gave her cause to celebra
te not mourn, but the message in the dirt confounded her.

  Tae waited for her to continue.

  Reluctantly, Kevral obliged.

  Tae listened but still said nothing. Finally, he raised his brows. “Elfs? Like creatures from another world?”

  “Elves,” Kevral confirmed. “Like airy, happy Outworlders.”

  Tae made a thoughtful noise. “So what does it mean?”

  Pain and general irritation at the situation made Kevral curt. “I didn’t write it.”

  Tae shrugged off Kevral’s sarcasm. “Must have been trying to tell us something about his attackers.”

  “Must have been.”

  “Elves?”

  Kevral sighed, hating to attribute anything done by a Renshai as fever-hysteria yet unable to reconcile the writings in the dirt to logical reality. “Doesn’t fit with the elves in any of the stories I’ve ever heard. Even if you assume they’re something more than fantasy.”

  “Ah.”

  Kevral sighed again. “And there’re a billion different descriptions of what they look like.” She studied the body, then shook her head. “Tiny, winged creatures couldn’t inflict wounds like that.”

  “I agree. They look like regular sword cuts.”

  Kevral completed the thought. “And anyone who uses weapons like ours must be built like us. How would you know to call something like us ‘elves’ even if they were elves?”

  Tae had an answer for that. “Maybe they had animal heads. Or three arms.”