The Lightless Tree

by J. A. Comley

  The hunt numbered twenty-four, easily split between them. This would be an interesting dance, with Mukori joining them.

  As the Calm spread through her body, her swords became extensions to her arms and all her senses focused on the coming dance. The shimbak slowed and then stopped, taking stock of their new situation. They sent out small waves of magic that tingled in her blood, a warning that they were preparing to attack. Their ambush had been perfect, the large group subdued by their song, but the three warriors standing ready changed things. Shimbak were opportunists by nature, but such a large meal was too good to pass up. They finally concluded that three defenders were not enough to deter them.

  The dance began slowly, the shimbak darting in, tails stabbing, then out again, testing their prey's reflexes and defences. The nearest shimbak to Valana snarled silently at her and lunged. She snarled back and bunched her muscles in anticipation, deflecting its tails with one sword and slicing its chest with the other.

  She flowed through the forms in which she had trained her whole life, gracefully leaping and diving, stabbing and slashing. Her heart beat out a rhythm in the silence of the sirah weed as the shimbak thrashed and went down, their emerald blood soaking into the dead soil. To one side, Okano fought the shimbak as he had the cargons, all smooth movements and hard thrusts, his great sword crashing down with enough force to cleave the beasts in two. She glanced to the other side, allowing her curiosity to break through the Calm for a moment to watch Mukori. He was neither as fast nor as graceful as his two Nightstalker partners, but his technique was flawless, and his attacks never missed their mark, blades flashing silver in the moonlight. Even so, the shimbak used their ability to sense active magic to their advantage and four more broke off from Valana and Okano to fight him, realising him to be the weakest of the three.

  A faint tremor of magic echoed in her blood then fell silent, and she wondered for a second what the shimbak had tried to do to Mukori.

  Valana turned her entire focus back to the dance and neatly decapitated a shimbak as it launched itself at her throat, jaws wide, its tails already deprived of their stingers.

  She looked up as Mukori stumbled back a step, his five-on-one battle too much. She managed to catch Okano's eye and nodded, launching herself away from her post and to Mukori's side. Okano quickly filled the gap, his position made easier as three more followed Valana.

  Mukori spared her a rueful smile and then deflected another attack.

  She moved with him, back and forth, in and out of the attacking shimbak, taking off stingers when a killing blow could not be landed. She smiled. While he was no Okano, he moved with the same certainty that always shone in his eyes. He knew no fear and would not falter.

  He turned his blade, easily deflecting the remaining stinger of the shimbak attacking him. Valana looked up at him as her own shimbak dodged back to avoid her blade and shouted a warning she knew he could not hear.

  Another shimbak had feinted, dodging past Okano and launching itself straight for Mukori. He turned to face it, but not fast enough. She moved to go to him and only narrowly avoided being gutted by the shimbak she was fighting. Even as his dagger sunk into its eye socket, its raking claws came down across his neck and chest. Blood blossomed across his ripped shirt, yet he showed no submission to the pain. Valana realised that his Nightstalker mother must have taught him to achieve the Killing Calm, a skill not usually taught to ordinary warriors becausee their lack of magic made it almost impossible to achieve. His muscles bunched and tensed, and he took down the last remaining shimbak near them, his sword arm steady even as his shirt turned crimson in the moonlight. Valana thrust her own sword through her shimbak's heart and darted to Mukori's side.

  The remaining shimbak all raced towards Mukori, lured by the scent of fresh blood. Okano followed and tensed as six more shimbak rose from their positions in the shadows of the broken earth.

  Valana cursed and glanced sideways at Mukori, trying to ascertain his ability to fight. Flecks of gold glimmered in his eyes and he gave her a half-smile and a nod, readying his blades. When the shimbak attacked, the two of them moved together, Valana slowing her movements to match his. They took down two shimbak before she saw his eyes tighten and their focus waver. Magic echoed and fell silent. She cursed again, earning a few shallow cuts as she blocked both her attacker and Mukori's. His blood loss and pain were beginning to shatter his Calm. She looked to Okano and saw the same worry in his eyes. Mukori's wounds were clearly deep. They had to end this fight soon.

  Okano let out a mighty bellow, though Valana only knew this by the way the five remaining shimbak flinched back, mouths wide as they yapped in shock. Taking advantage of their distraction, Valana spun and darted into their midst, Okano mirroring her actions. It was a perfectly synchronised dance of death, as if they had always fought side-by-side. But there was no elation, now, as there had been with the cargons. Valana was all too aware of Mukori's eyes on her and of his strength failing him even as he sent his blade through a shimbak that had skirted past the Nightstalkers.

  The last two shimbak took off into the night. Okano cursed and gave chase, unwilling to have them sneak up again later. Valana turned and raced back to Mukori, dropping her swords and catching him as his trembling legs finally lost their strength. She tore the cap from her head and then his own as she gently laid him flat. With steady hands, she took hold of his shirt and ripped it open. Three crimson gashes marred the marble white of his torso. Two were deep but not life threatening. The last was high enough to have cut through part of his neck. He would bleed out very soon without a Makhi's healing magic.

  Okano was beside her in an instant, his own pointed ears freed from the cap. He took in the wounds and the hopeless look in Valana's eyes.

  “Keep pressure on the wound!” he barked.

  “But, Okano—”

  The speed of his flight kicked up a trail of dust as he raced north, straight for the heart of the Scar. Valana swore. Yes Mukori had Makhi in his employ, one had even been in the party that had taken her mirri pack for their journey to the Torik lands, but Okano would have to push himself to the limit to return with a Makhi in time.

  Swearing again, Valana ripped Mukori's shirt off entirely and bundled it up, pressing the blood-soaked fabric hard against his wound, turning his smirk into a wince.

  Good. Proud, foolish man.

  He shut his eyes, and for a moment Valana feared the worst, but then his heart beat again, a steady rhythm, and she sighed. A soft echo of magic trilled in her blood, and she looked over her shoulder, ears flicking, trying to pinpoint any danger. Nothing.

  Was the land itself giving off the strange echoes she kept feeling?

  She turned back and pressed harder on his wounds. Mukori was watching her, and she kept her eyes on his wounds, looking up every now and then, hoping to see the dust trail that was Okano returning. The rest of the group still slept, as they would for several hours, but none had been stung, none would die.

  He followed her gaze. “If anything comes, you protect them, do you understand? Them, not me.”

  She held his serious eyes and realised that she had been wrong. He had not kept fighting because his pride would not let him fall back and admit defeat. He had kept fighting to defend his followers, to defend those who could not defend themselves.

  “It was an honour to fight beside you, tonight. You fight like Felantha herself. My mother would have approved.”

  Valana met his eyes, watching the golden flecks reflect the moonlight even as it washed his face a flawless white. She managed a smile, trying hard to ignore the pain lining his voice.

  “High praise, coming from one of her descendants.”

  She smiled again as his eyebrows rose.

  “You fight well, too, especially for someone who reeks of Hipotarali's silk sheets and perfumed dandies.”

  He huffed a laugh and then coughed. Valana brushed away the hair that had flopped over his face, praying silently that the winds would not come and
carry him away, too. He closed his eyes, a small smile on his mouth.

  “It was an honour to fight beside you, too.”

  Demilain have mercy. Now is not the time to decide that he might be a worthy lover, after all.

  “So, you know of my lineage,” he said, opening his eyes again.

  Valana nodded, then bit her lip. Now may be the only natural opening she would get to ask the question that had so distracted her that she hadn't heard the approach of the shimbak. She had no desire to argue with a dying man, but if he survived, she needed an answer to be able to trust him as he wanted.

  “You have in your employ a Nightstalker that was condemned by the Conclave and Outcast from her own tribe for murder, yet you told me that you did not have any true Outcasts as followers.”

  Mukori's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “It would seem that Okano has told you much that was not his to tell.”

  Valana looked to the still-empty horizon.

  “Did he lie?” She knew he hadn't. While Okano might be a harder, less carefree man than the one she had known, he still wore his honour like a cloak. He would have refused to answer rather than lie.

  “No.”

  She turned her eyes back to his. “Why Zetira, Mukori? You cannot believe that she does not deserve her Outcast brand.”

  “Do you not believe in second chances, Valana?”

  She stifled a groan but couldn't help her pleading glance to the heavens. Why was it that whenever she really wanted an answer to a question, Mukori always asked her another question instead?

  A wry smile curled his lips. “A habit I inherited from my father I'm afraid. He would always answer with a question if he wanted me to think harder, to narrow down my query to the very heart of it.”

  Valana took a deep breath, ignoring the flash of irritation that he always seemed able to read her mind. “The heart of it? People don't befriend rabid shimbak. She is the reason all Nightstalkers are Bound when entering Hipotarali. Only those linked to the Conclave may be Unbound. She is the reason hundreds of Nightstalkers were hunted, why poison recognition has become one of the most important skills for young Nightstalkers. Thanks to her, there is an entire group of people who think we are cursed and would like nothing better than to see us all dead. She is the reason that we are feared across Trianon. But none of that matters to you, does it? Do you believe then that the Conclave was wrong to think her unstable? To order her Silenced?”

  Mukori had listened to her tirade with his eyes holding his usual calm certainty, but they were tight at the edges, and she wished that she had waited. The man was losing his life-blood into the sands, and here she was condemning him for a choice he made years ago.

  “Don't apologise,” he forestalled her, again managing somehow to almost read her thoughts despite his injuries. “I can understand why it is important to you. I understand the impact her actions had and so does she. Yet she cannot undo the past, she cannot take back her actions any more than you can.”

  Valana winced and looked away. He raised his hand and placed it over hers where she kept pressure on his wound.

  “I do not care overly much about the past, Valana,” he said, gently squeezing her hand. “I care only about who people are in this moment and the future they are trying to make. The Zetira I know is dedicated to our cause. She has never, in all her time with me, given me a single reason to doubt her intentions. She has never harmed or placed any of my followers in danger, nor has she ever deviated from my commands. I will admit, many do think of her as an unconventional choice, but I have had no reason to rethink my initial decision.”

  Valana raised her eyes to his again, pausing briefly to listen to his heart and breath. Both were still strong and the eyes looking into hers were clear. “I see. But—” Perhaps she should stop now, until Okano returned and Mukori was not nearing the point where even a Makhi would not be able to Heal him. Truth be told, she was amazed he wasn't at that point already.

  “Go on.”

  She saw it, then, in his eyes. He wanted to keep talking. It kept his mind distracted from what his body was no doubt screaming.

  “But can you be sure that whatever it was that drove her to murder and treason will not return? What if it takes her over again?”

  “A valid query.” Mukori sounded pleased. “One I have answered many, many times over the years. There are three things that you need to know. One, Zetira's mind is unstable. The Conclave were not wrong. Her mind was broken by a Makhi who was in league with her Mentor.”

  “That is why she killed her Mentor?”

  “Yes. She discovered the Makhi's notes, how he had been manipulating her mind, breaking it, remaking it, how he had taken her powers from her for brief periods. But it was too late.”

  Valana only nodded, trying to reconcile Zetira the blood-thirsty maniac with Zetira the victim of a mental assault.

  “Two, some of the more gifted Makhi among my followers and I have found reliable methods to keep her calm. To help her maintain control over her powers. It is the best we could do after it became clear that the damage was irreversible.”

  Valana drew in a sharp breath. “But she was Bound. She shouldn't have access to her powers at all.”

  Mukori pulled a face. “The Makhi who tampered with her mind bargained her Unbinding for his life.”

  Valana pulled the same face. So the coward not only broke her mind but then freed her powers, allowing her assault on the Conclave to be as successful as it was.

  “Thirdly, Zetira is not permitted to leave our home.”

  Valana gave him a dubious look, letting her other senses keep tabs on his body and on any hint of Okano's return.

  Mukori managed a weak chuckle. “The Lightless Tree has a nullifying effect on magic. Within it, no magic is accessible.”

  Valana raised her eyebrows. “And she agreed to that?”

  “It was actually her idea. I was more than happy to accept. Not because I believed her to be lying about her goals for the future, but because I knew it would ease the minds of my other followers.”

  Valana sat there in silence listening to his heart and feeling the pressure of his hand against her. Okano trusted Mukori. Everything Mukori had just told her painted Zetira as a victim. She couldn't change her past, and if Mukori and his Makhi managed to keep her stable, then she was safe.

  What if one day they can't?

  Valana swallowed the question as a thin trickle of blood continued to seep past her fingers. The answer didn't matter now. If Valana decided she had a reason to raise it later, after she had actually met Zetira, then she would.

  “Yes,” she said looking back into Mukori's eyes.

  He raised a questioning eyebrow, and she swallowed a smug smile at finally having caught him unprepared.

  “I do believe in second chances.”

  After all, if Okano had not been there to stop her, Valana would have killed Mukori herself, and all his efforts for peace and order would have died with him.

  Mukori smiled and an intense emotion Valana couldn’t identify began to glow in his eyes. She returned his smile, still keeping an eye on the horizon. She shifted her weight, trying to adjust the pressure she was applying, and felt him shudder and her body brush against his.

  “Are you cold?” she asked, taking stock of his heart and breathing. Both spiked and then subsided into a more regular rhythm again.

  Damn it, Okano, where are you?

  “Cold? How could I be cold with you pressed against me like that?”

  Her eyes flashed to his at the husky tone of his voice. He held her gaze, intent on reading any trace of emotion she may show, while she, in turn, read the steady fire that burned in his. He trailed his fingers lightly up her arm, leaving a tingling sensation behind. The other hand brushed up her thigh, reached her waist and pulled her closer.

  A startled laugh escaped her.

  How can he think of such things now, as his blood seeps past my hands?

  “The idea of being with me is humoro
us, now? I suppose that is a step up from offensive.”

  Valana felt herself shiver as his fingers trailed up over her shoulder and began to move along her collar bone.

  “I stand by what I said. Meaningless trysts are not something I do. Even worse if they were between a leader and his underlings.”

  It was his turn to laugh. “And as I said before, a tryst is not what I want. Meaningless is not a word I would use for anything about you.” His hand slid along her throat, and his thumb traced her mouth. “Look at me, Valana. Weeks ago you told me that we did not know each other. Do you think we know each other now?”

  “We know each other better,” she allowed, feeling her blood race as their eyes met. She still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but she was nearing the point of not caring.

  “I think we see the world the same way. Our goals for the future are aligned. I want you, not for a single moment, but for that future,” he said, his fingers going back to her collar bone and then slowly dipping below it in short, feather-light strokes that grew longer with every pass.

  Before Valana could find her voice, and before his fingers could grow bold enough to reach the gentle swell of her breast, she caught a glimpse of dust on the horizon and heard a strange thumping sound accompanied by wheezes and grunts.