by Paul Yoder
The torrent of fire ceased suddenly, Lashik crying out in surprise, stepping uneasily back away from the divinely keen blade.
Nomad, showing no emotion still, even after his successful, devastating blow, lifted his blade again, coming in at Lashik with another lunge.
Recovering quick enough to sidestep Nomad’s tired attack, Lashik hissed, grabbing the hilt of his gilded spike-like rondel dagger, yanking it out of its scabbard viciously before plunging it down into the back of Nomad, the tip plunging deep in through the protective chainmail Nomad wore. The point sunk in through Nomad’s shoulder before coming to a halt, and Lashik, feeling the full depth of the spike within his adversary’s torso, grinned, tattered lips half smiling loosely over his bare teeth.
A darkness quickly formed around the blade, the wound pouring out foul smoke as Lashik twisted the blade inside Nomad, ripping muscle and scraping through bone as he dug further.
Nomad’s chant quietly relinquished, head collapsing to the floor, limp. Whatever consciousness the man had held to, departed, leaving only the rank smell of burning flesh in the air.
Lashik threw the hilt aside as the blade began to melt into a black, smoking ooze.
44
Requiem Knell
“Reza!”
Jerking awake once again from unconsciousness, Reza almost immediately blacked out once more from the heavy damage her body had taken from the explosion and collapse.
The voice called out again, louder this time.
“Reza! Get up!”
Not sure who was calling her name, she squinted, looking around her for a moment as she attempted to discern who was speaking.
“Isis?” she slurred.
“Yes, and you need to get up! Lashik now goes unopposed. Your friends are down. He will kill you all if you don’t get up and fight!” Isis yelled, her voice wavering every now and then as if her connection to the realm still remained very tenuous.
Reza lazily blinked again, trying to focus on the standing figure across the room. She was halfway to him, and she assumed she had arrived there last time she had started towards Nomad, blacking out along the way, but even twenty feet seemed an unreasonable distance to demand of her body in its current state.
Putting a hand underneath her, pushing up, she planted a foot on the floor, the exertion causing her to let out a belabored grunt, trying not to breathe too deeply to avoid the sharp bite of her aching ribs.
“Up, up!” Isis cried.
Forcing her broken body to obey, Reza pressed through the pain that assaulted her so sharply just from the action of standing.
Reza was up on her feet. A pressure in her head was causing her vision to blur, patches of blackness spreading over what she could see. She was distantly aware of Isis’ voice shouting orders at her, but Isis was fading, Reza no longer being able to make out what her spirit companion was saying.
She noticed that Lashik was watching her, his lips moving, but he thankfully was not making advances towards her.
She took a step forward, crunching along her side clearly audible where broken bone rubbed broken bone, which caused her legs to buckle. Pitching forward, she managed to catch herself from falling, knowing she would not be able to get back up again if she went down now. She was operating on the edge of consciousness, and she knew that the faintest blow would likely do her in.
For a moment, she heard Lashik’s vile voice, causing her to look sideways to see him in her periphery, her vision now blotching out everything directly in front of her.
She could see a dark-purple aura wash over him, and she presumed that he had just constructed the protective hexweave shield he had been enchanted with in their previous encounter.
She rested a trembling hand on the handle of her seax, sliding it slowly out of its sheath before trudging forward once more.
She knew with Lashik’s shield up that her weapon would do her no good. Even without his shield, she doubted she had much in her more than a single thrust before collapsing, but she also knew Isis to be right. She saw none of her comrades standing now. She was their last line against Lashik having them, body and soul, permanently. She knew she had to press forward, even if there was no hope in her cause.
She could hear Isis talking again, though her mind was having a difficult time making sense of her words. Amber golden mist floated from the ring and into her periphery and was blowing over Lashik’s aura, slowly breaking it down until it was banished completely.
Lashik looked slightly concerned at first, but his demeanor quickly turned to smug amusement, cackling as Reza shambled ever closer to him as she readied herself for her all-in attack.
She stared blindly forward, facing the cackling corpse, grimacing through the constant pressure and pain in her head.
Just as she readied herself to lunge, she noticed Lashik’s laughing cut short, a rustle at the doorway causing her to turn her view once more to try and see around her blind spot.
Cavok burst into the room, his booming warcry understandably causing Lashik to take a step back from the man.
Though Reza could barely make him out, she could see through her vision’s haze that he was badly wounded, blood streaming from broken arrow shafts and gashes all along his side, arms, and back.
Despite his grizzly appearance, he heaved with fury, and Reza knew that it was a blind rage which must had born him all the way up that flight of stairs in spite of so many ignored injuries.
The man’s blood-slick hand clutched his greatsword, letting loose a pain-filled roar, focusing all his rage solely on Lashik.
Reza could hear Lashik’s insidious voice start up again, and she knew he had begun casting another spell, but Cavok brought his sword up and chopped through Lashik’s shoulder, cleaving straight through to the floor, cutting off Lashik’s left arm and a large hunk of rotten torso which sickeningly flopped to the floor.
Lashik shakily stood for a moment longer before Cavok brought up his sword again, swinging it sideways with a yell while it ripped through the air, spraying oily gore as it slammed into what was left of Lashik.
It passed easily through Lashik’s neck and remaining arm, his head tumbling in the air before landing amidst what remained of his robes.
Lashik’s glowing eyes remained alit for a moment as he looked unbelievably at Reza, but the moment was abruptly ended as Cavok’s heavy boot slammed down on Lashik’s head, crushing whatever life was left clinging to the perverse interior of that dark skull.
Cavok stood heaving, bloodlust still in control over his mental state until Reza called out to him.
“Cavok…” she said, her voice hollow—almost gone.
The small voice was enough to snap his attention over to Reza, his features softening considerably, concern showing as he raced to her, almost stumbling over her as he closed.
Falling into his arms, Reza let her friend hold her up, being too weak to stand any longer.
“Reza—” Cavok started, easily supporting her weight, looking down at her, asking, “How bad off are you? I can’t see.”
Looking down to her ring idly for a moment before looking over to the pile of robes on the floor that were collectively Jadu and Zaren, then over to the lump on the ground that was Nomad, she quickly brought a protective hand down in front of her side as Cavok gripped a little too close to her broken section of ribs, gasping as she and he repositioned.
“My ribs are broken,” she breathed out through clenched teeth, adding, “and I think I took a bad blow to the head. My vision is partially gone.”
Holding her now up higher, stooping over to allow her to sling her arm over his shoulder, he asked directly, “You going to make it?”
Pausing to consider the question for a moment, in too much pain to sort through and assess how dire her bodily injuries were, she said, “Yeah, I’ll make it,” simply to allay Cavok’s concerns over her, not knowing honestly if she was or not, but knowing that the rest of the group on the ground needed
his help much more than she did.
“The others?” Cavok asked, looking past her, his white-filmed eyes searching for her answer.
A drawn-out cough from Zaren’s direction answered them, Zaren shifting about, his boney, heat-blistered skin showing as he worked on sitting up, the hair along his face badly singed.
“What happened—” Zaren asked, smoke puffing from his mouth as he spoke.
“Zaren, check on Jadu,” Reza called before slapping Cavok’s arm, feebly starting to walk them over to Nomad, saying, “Over here, Cavok. Nomad’s on the floor.”
Assisting her over to Nomad, yanking the shaft of an arrow from his muscled back on the way, Reza tugged on his arm as they neared, the two of them kneeling in front of Nomad, his body smelling of seared flesh.
Reza hovered her hand over Nomad’s mouth for a moment, then rested a hand on his stomach, searching for any telltale signs of life from the man. After a moment of stillness, she felt the slightest rise and fall of his stomach as he breathed, his breath faintly feathering her fingers.
“He’s alive,” she said.
Having to look up to inspect his body from the side of her vision, she noticed a black liquid seeping out from under him.
“Flip him over, Cavok,” Reza said.
Cavok groped around until he found Nomad’s body and gently flipped the man over as Reza had requested.
Through a hole in his chainmail, the edges covered in a tar-like substance, Reza could see a stab wound in Nomad’s back above his right shoulder blade. The puncture looked serious, but not deep enough to cause her to consider the wound fatal. What concerned her more though, was the blackness that seeped from the wound.
Putting a hand over the infected hole in Nomad’s back, she hesitated for a moment, listening to Zaren’s mumblings in the background as he attempted to rouse Jadu, considering if she should do what she was deliberating on doing.
Though she had used her innate healing abilities before, multiple times throughout her life in fact, the more difficult skill to master was to use regulated amounts of her energy to heal another. She knew she couldn’t afford to completely heal Nomad’s wound, as she was already in a dire condition as it was.
She had to decide, did she risk an attempt at a heal, mending Nomad’s black wound just enough to make sure he was stabilized, or did she let him fend for himself and hope that his dark injury wasn’t as dire as it looked?
As soon as she posed the question, she knew the answer.
Reza turned to Cavok.
“I’ll take care of Nomad. I think Fin is still buried in rubble over there,” she said, pressing her pointing finger to his arm to allow him to feel the direction she was pointing towards before adding, “Go make sure he’s alright.”
She didn’t wait for his response, turning back to Nomad. Cavok hesitated a moment, grunting and plucking another arrow from his shoulder, dropping the shaft to the floor before starting over towards the rubble pile to search for his old-time friend.
Reza tilted her head, trying to see past her blind spots to make sure she knew where Nomad’s wound was. Looking forward, she hovered her trembling hand over the black spot, considering the thought that she could be experiencing her last moments in this realm as the saren known as Reza Malay.
She looked at the man lying in front of her.
He had clung to her at first, seeming lost, lonely, in need of connecting with someone—anyone.
By fate, they had been thrown together, and she had thought nothing but annoyance of it at first; but, the longer they had traveled together, the more she had begun to realize that he had meant something to her—even enough to risk her life for.
She knew she was one to run from her feelings, figuring to sort through them later. She exhaled now, coming to terms with the fact that if Nomad and her did survive, it would be her turn to insist on Nomad’s company on the road ahead, wherever that road took them. A path without him now seemed…a barren one.
Hand hovering over his back, she could almost feel him giving up the ghost, his energy seeping out of the black puncture wound. He was departing as she sat deliberating.
“Turn back from that place, Nomad. Please.”
Steadying her hand a moment before her sacrificial healing, she let the warming glow flow through her to Nomad, lighting the darkness over him, delivering her from consciousness.
45
Window of Rest
“Nomad, look! She’s coming around!” were the first words Reza recalled upon waking from a long, dark sleep.
Groaning, Reza pushed herself up from the bed she was in. Sheets slipping down to her lap, revealing a bare torso only covered with wraps of cloth over wounds still being treated, her first waking image was that of Nomad sitting in the bed next to her averting his eyes from her exposed chest. It was a sight she couldn’t help but smile over, remembering their first encounter going similarly.
Lifting the covers up to cover her chest, she looked around to find Fin by her bedside in what appeared to be a small infirmary, only allowing for two patients.
“There we are, old gal,” Fin said excitedly, clasping Reza’s limp hand.
“The nurse said you’d be waking today! Wow, you two took the longest to come around after what happened in the tower. We had both doctors and clerics from multiple sects in here attempting to heal you, but you two were being stubborn. Nomad only just woke about an hour ago himself.”
“Where’s Cavok and the others?” Reza asked, sitting back in her bed against the headrest, her ribs beginning to ache, details now coming back to her of the battle at the top of Darendul Tower.
“He’s fine. They’re all here. I could go get Jadu and Zaren if you’d like. Cavok would come if I let him know you’re up, but the state he’s in, he really should keep off his feet for a day or more at least. Those arisen thugs must have really done a number on him in his blinded state while he made his way through the streets to get to the tower. He’s cut up pretty bad, even for Cavok.”
“Where are we?” Reza asked, skipping subjects once more, trying to catch up with what had happened during her unconsciousness, placing a hand on her head while suppressing a wince as she began to notice an underlying headache she had, feeling a gauze pad taped atop a shaven section of hair.
“Lots of details to fill you in on later, but first, I think I had better let your doctor know that you’ve come to. I already filled Nomad in on most everything anyways, so you two chat while I go get the doc,” Fin said, standing up, pausing for a moment to add, “Great to have you back with us,” before squeezing her hand once before rushing out of the room.
“I saw you,” Nomad said, taking Reza’s attention from Fin to her chamber mate.
“I saw you in my dreams after I entered oking detoko, after all went dark—you were there with me.”
Staring at Nomad, Reza tried to make sense of his statement, knowing whatever it was he was saying, that it was very important to him, his gaze locked on her, his features undeniably somber.
“What is oking detoko?” she asked.
Nomad, finally blinking, looked down at his bruised and stitched-up hands and arms from the aftermath of the explosion and collapse of the tower’s roof, and considered how to explain the cultural term.
“It’s a state of being one, in my culture, that few return from. In your tongue, it translates to ‘walking dead man.’ It’s a last resort, when the body cannot perform the necessary task, those who know the traditional trance can enter into this—” Nomad paused, struggling for the correct words, “blank state of mind. Pushing the body to walk when it shouldn’t—fight when it should be dead.”
Looking up to Reza, meeting eyes once more, he softly voiced, “I thought we had no other options. I entered the corridors of death—the hallway of ancestors. I was departing this life—when you appeared. You placed a hand on my back and turned me away from the archway of the afterlife. I heard you say, turn back from that place, pleas
e.”
Reza welled up, looking down, then over to the window which let in a light breeze, the sunlight bathing a single flower in the vase on the nightstand next to the windowsill.
She had said those words as she had placed a hand over the black wound that had weakened Nomad so terribly. Her healing had apparently worked, though the details of what had happened after the start of her healing were details she’d likely never know.
What she did know was the simple fact that she was willing to die for the man that currently shared the room with her.
Nomad—the stranger that had only recently come into her life. A drifter from another land. He had made an impression on her quickly. He had showed loyalty to her readily, and he had followed her into places he did not wish to go. He had risked his life multiple times for her, and had asked nothing in return.
Perhaps those qualifiers would merit anyone a place close enough to her usually guarded heart that she would lay down her life for, but she didn’t believe so. He was different—curiously so, in ways she couldn’t quite explain—but uniquely and profoundly an exceptional person in her eyes. One that she doubted she would ever forget or wish to depart from on the road ahead.
He had touched a chord with her on a level she didn’t completely understand, but she knew that their partnership now was bound by more than the need of skill on a dire mission or simply an allowance to the pleas from the rest of the group for him to be able to come along for the journey. He was now a necessity for her. She knew she desired him for a permanent adventuring companion if she could have her way—and she didn’t know what to think of that realized admission of her heart.
“Reza?” a booming voice sounded from the hallway.
Cavok, his eyes no longer milky, stopped at the door with a huge grin on his face. He was hobbling horribly, but he eventually made it over to her bedside.
