The Lightless Tree

by J. A. Comley

  Valana shut her eyes briefly, then opened them, looking at the Chief again. “Harima is right about all those things. But more pointless bloodshed is not the answer. War will beget war until there are no tribes left. Please, I beg you, send a representative to Hipotarali. Chief Hapira of the Cyrali is still rumoured to be there. We need to unify. We need our Conclave to intervene. Hapira's peace initiatives have had great success within the city itself. I'm sure she can get the Conclave to see reason if the Tribes back her.”

  The old Chief merely shook her head. “Hapira is no Chief. She abdicated her position to go to Hipotarali. And for what? I've heard the same rumours as you. They're calling her the Voice of Peace,” she huffed a short laugh, “but she has forgotten her own people. The Hitori and Torik raid the Cyrali lands too, and she does nothing. Her pretty speeches have not opened the Conclave's Gates. It has been over eighty years since she abdicated. No, Valana. Talking is of no use any more. The Tribes cannot unify after so much bloodshed.”

  “Not if we just keep repeating the cycle!” Valana interrupted, frustration breaking through.

  “The Hitori are marching for the Ever-Spring, Valana.” Though her voice was stretched thin with age, it was no less commanding for it. “Stopping them before they reach our village is essential to the protection of the young and old who cannot fight.”

  “And their allies? Or have you forgotten that the Hitori are not marching alone?” Valana managed to grate out. “The Jensolir fear them too much not to follow and the Torik see an opportunity to get revenge on the Dralog for all their raids in the beginning.”

  “We have allies, too. The Dralog stand with us and the Cyrali have promised aid.”

  “Aid which is not here. And may not arrive in time!” Valana resisted the urge to pace. “Can't you see that we can't just keep killing each other? Hapira is right. The Conclave must end this. They cannot be ignorant to the fact that their Makhi's calls are going unanswered, nor how many of their people have fallen. They—”

  “Enough of your insolence, Protector. I have issued my command. We will fight the rabble coming for our home.” She looked Valana up and down once more. “You, Protector of the Kazori, shall remain here, guarding the Ever-Spring and those who cannot fight. All the others will be marching with me. We have enough warriors to achieve victory.”

  Valana opened her mouth then snapped it shut again and stalked from the house. Her emotions were raging and she knew it was unwise to push the Chief further. She reached a deserted stretch of land at the edge of the village and began to wield her swords, flashing through the forms, trying to release some of her pent up anger and frustration at the needless cycle of death.

  We have enough warriors? Who is she trying to fool? Without the Cyrali, we are evenly matched at best.

  “Feeling better yet?”

  Valana froze mid-lunge. Her blood-sister, Terana, grinned back, a shield held up to deflect Valana's strike if she had failed to stop short. Then her smile faltered and her light-purple eyes became sombre.

  “It was foolish of you to speak that way. Now, you will not be with us.” Terana said, glancing back at the house where her wife and the Chief stood talking.

  Valana followed her gaze, then looked away when Harima looked up, her face grimly triumphant.

  “I think your wife would disagree.”

  “That is only because you show her up every time there's a battle.”

  Valana shook her head, ignoring her blood-sister's attempt at humour. “Terana—”

  “I know,” Terana said, pulling her older blood-sister into a hug. “Just look after Karicha and Nulto for me, okay?”

  Valana nodded and, seeing the genuine worry in Terana's eyes, forced herself to sound unconcerned. “Of course. We'll be the Nightstalkers at the watch, ready to welcome our troops back home.”

  Terana smiled, nodded, and went back to Harima.

  Valana watched her leave, a painful pressure over her heart. Unlike her, Terana had been born without their parents' true Nightstalker abilities. Instead, her daughter had received lesser capabilities. Still more able than most, but no match for a pure-blood.

  Hoping that Chief Nizara and Harima would swallow their pride when they took stock of the fact that no Cyrali were here to lend aid, Valana sheathed her blades and went in search of her blood-niece. Since the death of the girl's Mentor, she had taken on her training.

  A gentle breeze drifted along the ground, stirring up the scent of death and drawing Valana back to the battlefield, where hundreds lay dead because of foolishness and pride. Valana took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of blood, but also the lingering smells of the people these corpses once were. The smell of grainy bread, flowers, umera wool and soot, of lives and loved ones.

  It is time, said the voice in her mind that always spoke in the tone of her old Mentor, Kima.

  Drawing on all her training and inner strength, Valana finally let her eyes fall to the ground and actually see the bodies lying at her feet. She knew many of them, even those not of her Tribe. She had competed with some at the Champion's Fields, defending her title as Moon Lake Victor. That was many years ago now, but the memories were no less sweet. At nineteen, she had been Unbound and therefore could no longer compete in the tournament, her title of Victor unbroken. Instead she had been crowned the Champion of Moon Lake, the first since the great Felantha herself.

  Softly, she began to sing a song, asking the winds to gather all the souls to them so that those whose bodies now lay at her feet could soar the winds and be free forever. She tried not to let her rage at the Dralog Tribe distract her. She had seen them turning on her fellows while she raced for the field. Whatever their reasons for betraying the Kazori, they were mostly dead now, too.

  Taking a deep breath every few paces, Valana followed the scent of hurik fruit and baby to the one she sought above all others.

  A cry of anguish escaped Valana's throat, tearing out of her in horror as she knelt in the pool of blood beside her blood-sister's head. Her cry seemed too small for the vastness of the carnage or the pain in her heart. It was a single cry, too lonely for this sea of corpses.

  She patted her sister's dark red hair gently, smoothing it off her face and trying hard not to look too closely at the deep gash in her cheek. Terana's eyes were already closed, her face almost peaceful. Without taking her eyes from her sister's face, Valana reached out a bloodied hand and pulled free the spear that had stolen Terana's life. Blue feathers tied to the shaft and soaked in her family's blood sagged in the wind and trailed against her hand. A Hitori spear. Valana threw it from her, fighting down the burning rage that would not bring Terana back.

  Valana shut her eyes, still patting her younger blood-sister's hair, trying to fight the suffocating grief. She tried to fill her mind with purpose. No, she would not seek vengeance. Not against the Hitori, who started this, nor the Cyrali, who had broken their word to send aid, nor even the Dralog who had pretended friendship before betraying the Kazori. Vengeance was how this pointless cycle of death had begun and it would not end unless someone chose to break it.

  She opened her eyes and took in her blood-sister's face once more. She knew Terana would understand her choice not to take revenge. She had never liked fighting, avoided it at all costs when they were growing up, much to the consternation of her pure-blood Nightstalker parents. All Aurelians were raised as warriors, but Nightstalkers most of all. Terana had only come here to support her wife, Harima, and because the Chief had ordered all those able to fight.

  The Kazori were a proud tribe, always boasting excellent warriors and one of only three tribes left with a line of pure-blood Nightstalkers. They were the tribe who could take, but never did. Who could rule, but always served. They had been a people of peace. Now they were decimated.

  “Rest now, Terana, Daughter of the Kazori. May your soul fly free with the winds, my blood-sister, may peace be yours forever.” Her voice, raspy with grief and snarling, broke at the end.

  A swif
t wind blew past her, stronger than before, as if eager to claim Terana's soul and take her with it on its endless journey.

  Valana shook her head mechanically, trying to rouse her mind to a new purpose, one that would give her the strength to get up and turn her back on the people she should have protected.

  The Hitori had made a play for the Ever-Spring. Chief Nizara had declared they would be stopped. The tribe had stood with her. Now Valana would stand alone.

  The last warrior of the Kazori, Valana thought, a few tears escaping her. Her thoughts turned to the others she should find. Harima and Chief Nizara. Then I must return to the village.

  She sighed. Somewhere between this battlefield and the Ever-Spring, she would have to find the strength and words to tell all those children that she had failed, that their mothers and fathers were never coming home. She took a deep breath and began to rise.

  The sound was almost lost in the distant rumbles of Elder Mountain. Valana's ears twitched, flicking in all directions trying to pinpoint the sound she knew she had heard.

  There.

  Soft footfalls were approaching from the south-west. She rose silently and rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles that had grown tense holding back tears. She shut her eyes and concentrated on the footsteps even as she readied her swords. Five people.

  No, six.

  Her eyes flew open, flashing in the faint sunlight that flittered through the magic around Ezira's home in the sky, causing Aurelia’s days to be very dim and their nights much brighter, except on a new moon, when the planet became almost pitch-black at night.

  A Nightstalker.

  Valana felt certain that only another Nightstalker could cross this dry rocky terrain so silently. There had been three Nightstalkers in this battle apart from her, all lesser Nightstalkers of diluted bloodlines. Most of her kind had been killed in the first of the wars that had broken out between the tribes after the Demilain laid waste to Trianon. There were few pure-bloods left to continue her proud lineage.

  She could feel exhaustion trying to claim her. She had lain awake the previous day and had spent this past night on guard with Karicha and then fighting on this blood-soaked sand. She quickly bent and scooped up her sister's hurik pouch. Inside, there were eight huriks, five squashed beyond use. Popping one of the remaining whole ones into her mouth, Valana chewed the little orange ball and swallowed, letting the little fruit wash away the weariness that plagued her body.

  With her eyes still locked on the area where her ears told her the owners of the footsteps would appear, Valana began to empty her mind. Her fight was not yet over. If these were some Hitori hounds come to see if their little raid had been successful, they would realise that one Kazori warrior still breathed.

  Six, only one Nightstalker. She felt her mind let go of the small aches and pains across her body. She willed it to empty of the deeper pains at the loss of her blood-sister, of most of her people. Angling her body to receive the approaching party, she waited. She could run, but what would be the point. She would still have to protect the Ever-Spring, and that would be easier without any children or elders to get hurt. Perhaps by tonight she would be flying on the winds beside Terana.

  No, I will not fail the rest of my people, too.

  With that last, she felt a deep, sudden calm spread out from her mind and flow through her body. Nothing else mattered but the flow of blood through her body, the tensing and releasing of her muscles, the weight of the dual swords where they became natural extensions of her arms. Her breath and heartbeat fell into a gentle rhythm. With one quick slash, she cut through the strap holding her shield in place. She left it discarded at her feet. Shields were no use against Nightstalkers and she preferred not to be weighed down by it.

  Black-cloaked figures began to take shape, materializing out of the twilight and ash. They walked in a lose V. Their scent spoke of the sands of the Great Expanse and, oddly, of Hipotarali, the only city on Aurelia, but in the void of the Killing Calm, Valana took no notice. Where they were from did not matter. All that mattered was that they had obviously come for her, using their own Nightstalker to centre in on her position on the vast field of death. One of the shadows, to the left of the one on point, hesitated.

  Valana turned a feral smile on the other Nightstalker as he noticed her readiness to strike and whispered a warning to his leader. She knew he could see her clearly. He would be able to hear the steady rhythm of her heart and breath and know what it meant. He kept his face averted so that even her keen eyes couldn't make out his features in the deep shadows beneath his cowl, although something about the silhouette hinted that he wore mask.

  Ignoring the warning, the cloaked figure on point stepped forward.

  “Peace, Nightstalker Valana, Protector of the Kazori. We mean you no harm.”

  He spoke in a cultured voice of calm reassurance, as if they stood somewhere more peaceful than this plain of corpses.

  “That seems to be the way of the world since the Breaking,” Valana replied, never taking her eyes from the Nightstalker beside the speaker. “Everyone claims they come in peace, that they mean no one any harm, but in their wake the dead lie forgotten, ever increasing in number.” She twitched her wrist slightly, gesturing with the point of her sword at the dead around her.

  The speaker laughed, clearly delighted by her response. The noise was so incongruent with their surroundings and her words that Valana turned her attention to him. Madmen were often more dangerous than warriors, even the gifted Nightstalkers.

  “No mere warrior, but an intellectual!” the man said, sliding his cowl back a little. He removed the silver mask that had covered half his face, beaming at her. He took two steps forward, ignoring again the warning of the Nightstalker, who followed a pace behind, head bowed.

  Valana subtly changed her position under the guise of taking in his dark purple hair, cut short in the way only citizens of Hipotarali did. The longer hair on top flopped into his turquoise eyes. She could almost get him now. One swift jump from standing and her blade would be through his throat.

  Just two more steps. She tensed her muscles to spring.

  The man's eyes were still riveted on her face, looking for all the world like he had just found a rare treasure.

  “I am Mukori, formerly of the Cyrali.”

  He took another step towards her, nodding politely and touching two fingers to his heart in greeting. The excitement in his eyes dwindled a little, as they looked her over once more, and became speculative.

  “You're an Outcast?” Valana asked, feeling her muscles quiver in anticipation. The other Nightstalker was now two paces behind this ‘Mukori’. Too far for any Lesser Nightstalker to be able to save him. If she could keep him talking, perhaps he'd take that final, fatal step.

  He didn't answer her question, merely cocking his head to one side as if debating a problem. Valana watched him with more attention, aware on some level of a keen mind at work behind his bright eyes. His mouth turned up in a wry smile. When he spoke again, his voice was a soft whisper with none of its previous excitement.

  “You are distracted.” He sounded almost disappointed somehow. “I need your full attention.” He held her gaze and took a deliberate step forwards.

  Before his foot had landed in its new position, Valana was gone, launching herself through the air with the speed and agility born of her undiluted Nightstalker lineage. All the tension in her muscles released in one explosive force, her sword angled just right. The others in his party wouldn't know what happened until it was over. To their eyes, she would simply have vanished and reappeared on their leader's corpse. But even as she tightened the muscles in her arm, ready to drive the blade home, she saw the Nightstalker's head snap up, his silver eyes glittering through the eye holes of a mask that hid half his face.

  Shit.

  The clang of metal crashing into metal cut through the ashen air like an explosion, leaving Valana's ears ringing. Her sword slid off the other Nightstalker's greatsword with a hi
gh-pitched squeal and she danced back a couple of steps.

  Valana hissed, pointed canines gleaming. She knew the Conclave had some pure-blood Nightstalkers in their employ, but that would make one of these people an Eldest, and none here bore the wide pectoral collar signifying that position. Besides, the small glimpses of his face that she could see bore no tattoos.

  The rest of the party drew a sudden, startled breath. To them, both Nightstalkers had vanished and reappeared, swords clashing a mere foot from their leader's face. The leader, on the other hand, seemed completely unperturbed by this behaviour and, with a smug smile, slid behind his Protector.

  Valana had no time to consider the meaning of the smile, and, within the Killing Calm, no inclination, either. All that mattered, now, was the pure-blood Nightstalker in front of her, matching her steps, always keeping himself between her and the group he protected. She focused on his eyes, an exact copy of hers. He, too, was an exceptionally gifted Nightstalker.

  At least this battle will be interesting.

  “We do not want to fight you, Nightstalker of the Kazori,” he said, still moving with her, his posture defensive.

  Something in the cadence of his speech tugged at a memory, but it slid by the void unnoticed. His hood had slipped a little, a braid of dark green hair now visible. Valana's eyes were drawn immediately to the three blue feathers tied in his hair. Hatred reared in her for the actions of his people. Perhaps she would get the opportunity to extract a blood debt, after all. Although, it wouldn't count if he was an Outcast. Outcasts belonged to no tribe, had no family or honour.

  “Are you an Outcast, too, Nightstalker?” Valana asked, darting in, testing his defences.

  He deflected her attacks and pushed her back, widening the gap between them and his little group.

  He fought with skill and had clearly been well trained. Mostly. Valana resisted a smile. In his efforts to keep her from the group, he had placed himself in a vulnerable position. A deep chasm ran across the ground near him. If she could get him with his back to that, his moves would be limited and the victory would be hers.