SWNOVELS Shadowblade: (A Dance of Fire and Shadow Book 1) – Chapter 5
M, I RECEIVED YOUR message this morning. Do not feel that your sense of being overwhelmed is a weakness.
It is merely the test of will and courage that distinguishes the truly great from those who give up and fail.
I know in my heart you will succeed in your mission, including my final instruction, that you must survive.
Inform me of your progress. J.
.
.
My mother’s instructions were that I should find someone to train this gift of mine but I have no idea where to start––or even what it is I have been given. I try to focus inward, sweeping my awareness down from the crown of my head, through the core of my body to the tips of my toes.
Do I feel any different?
For the first hour of walking through the forest the answer is a definite no, and this brings a confusing mix of relief and anxiety. Relief that the whole encounter served to fulfil my pledge to my dying mother but in the end, the Blade had no deadly gift with sinister consequences to confer after all.
Then comes the anxiety. Without every bit of help I can get I will have no chance against whoever those heavily armed soldiers were.
Or whatever else might await me in a city I have only visited on trading journeys barely a half dozen times.
A few more minutes of heading back to the road. Slowly I become aware of a tingling, a sense of awakening in my limbs. I start to run and after a snort of protest Sahan follows. I feel as if I could run all day like this and never tire. A ripple of exultation runs through me.
Yes! Suddenly a rush of confidence floods my whole being. I will wreak such bloody revenge for my family and friends, such as these invaders have never seen––
Isennia’s voice breaks through this fierce hot wave of anger.
Sometimes it will be difficult to remember who you are.
A cold shiver runs through the exhilarating heat of promised vengeance as I begin to understand how this works. It isn’t that I have never had angry or violent thoughts and feelings before, but blended with this new strength in my body they take on a greater dimension of power and spite. If this kind of change can come so soon, what will it feel like in a few weeks or months? What will I become?
Too late to worry about it now. Focus on what I have to do––and try to hold onto some level of self-control in the process.
I reach the track maybe an hour northwest of the village and turn towards the city. I stop for a moment to check on Sahan’s girth-strap, and in this moment I learn the next lesson about my new abilities.
They are not quite as all-powerful as I first thought. I’m exhausted. I was already fit and swift from my years of hunting in the forest, but I have just been running flat out for over an hour in a way I definitely could not do before. And I’m as shaky and breathless as I would expect from overstretching my reserves like this. Now the need for training becomes apparent. I can push my physical boundaries temporarily, but if I want my ability to grow I’ll have to practice each day and build up my strength in the usual way.
Fine. So be it. I can walk on slowly, recover my breath, then run again. Sahan whickers softly as she falls into step behind me. It takes a while before the shaking eases and I rethink my self-training plan again. While things are dangerous I can’t afford to push so hard and get as weak and helpless as I did just then. I would only have to meet a gang of bandits and my journey to the city would be over before I’m halfway there.
Is it my sentan awareness or my new ability that warns me of something wrong up ahead? Something is drawing my mind to thoughts of danger. Or maybe the smell of death and the vulture wheeling above the forest are things I should have noticed before if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with new sensations and their possibilities. I pull Sahan into the tree shadows and move forward cautiously. There is no sound, but that doesn’t mean this place is safe.
I inch slowly towards the light where the sun fills the broad road-gap in the trees. There are corpses lying packed in the roadway and scattered across the forest margins. Back in Caerlen the invaders must have carried away any of their own who were killed in the village, but here the bodies have been left where they fell. Too many dead, too much hurry to move on.
The familiar grey and silver livery of our own soldiers is all too visible. Their hacked and broken bodies outnumber the corpses of the black and red clad invaders three to one. As I check the ground for signs, I can see the iron-shod marks of the intruders’ heavy warhorses continuing on towards Corinium.
So the king’s army came to halt the invasion and failed, an hour before reaching my village. What will the city be like when I arrive there? How will I find my way through an occupying army? I stand and stare at the human wreckage before me, knowing that the desolate scene has something to tell me but I can’t figure out what it is.
The tingling sharpness is coming back to my exhausted limbs, making me anxious to get moving again. But now the same sharp edge is invading my mind as well, bringing a kind of demanding clarity that refuses to let me leave until the puzzle is solved.
Then I see it. Maybe only a part of the whole puzzle but it may lead to a more complete solution if I pursue it. Some of the invaders were killed by arrows, yet there are no archers among the dead. A few of the king’s soldiers must have survived. So where are they? Maybe they can tell me what might happen next in this sudden invasion, give me some clues about where to look for my sister.
I search among the trees for the hiding places I would have chosen had I been lying in wait with my bow, but if the archers met their end here there is no sign of it. I return to where I left Sahan grazing a rare patch of undamaged grass near the road.
Just as I take her reins and turn once more to head for the city, I hear a sound. A half-smothered gasp for air, not even enough strength for it to be a groan. Someone here is alive. I search among the bodies, following the sound of faint, painful breathing.
Then I see a bloody hand twitch. The rest of him is buried under a pile of invader corpses and I have to focus every ounce of my new strength to concentrate an hour of effort into the few minutes it takes to pull away the heavy bodies that cover him. His grey and silver surcoat is torn and soaked in blood. Impossible to tell how much is his and how much from the pile of dead adversaries lying sprawled around him.
I kneel beside him and offer him water from my flask. He drinks, then pushes the flask away, his eyes struggling to focus on my face. I look anxiously around, wondering what I should do. It is surely not safe to abandon someone here… but this half-dead captain is tall and muscular and badly wounded and even with my newly-acquired strength I have no way of carrying him. I would not even be able to get him onto Sahan’s back. Part of me wants very much to just leave him here to get on with dying in peace and quiet so I can get on with my plan to reach the city.
His eyes finally manage to focus and we stare at each other for a few moments until I remember my healer’s vows.
Never refuse help to anyone sick or injured.
I wonder a little guiltily if I ever managed to forget that part of my mother’s training before. Or is this a new pragmatism born of the Blade’s deadly gift?
In which case I have to make sure the gift doesn’t swallow me whole until I forget I even have a sister. I have to fight it, and that means staying to help. The wounded captain tries to sit up and I support his back while he draws another few breaths. Painfully, he reaches for the twin swords lying next to him but he needs my help to sheath the blades in the harness at his back. I can tell he won’t have the strength to stand, let alone walk.
But he holds still, then whistles. Once, twice, and then I feel the soft quivering in the ground that tells of a horse approaching. I look up as the black stallion moves easily from the trees and makes towards us. Another whistle and he watches the huge beast slowly lowering to the bloody dust beside him.
He turns towards me with a new light of determination in his eyes that I find both terrifying and reassuring. If there are more like him trying to protect the people of this country, perhaps we have a chance. He finally finds his voice.
“Thank you. Marin al Valaran owes you a blood debt.”
He reaches for the stallion’s mane and I help him scramble onto its back. He holds steady as it rises to its feet, then looks down at me.
“Keep away from the roads. Find somewhere safe to hide. I––”
His voice catches as pain runs visibly through him and he gasps for breath. I evaluate the effort he is having to make just to stay upright.
“You won’t get far alone. My name is Ariel. Sylvani healer from Caerlen. I can take you somewhere safe until you can walk again.”
And maybe you’ll give me the information I need to find my sister.
He thinks about it for a moment, glancing in the direction of the city, clearly with restless thoughts similar to my own. Then he sways in the saddle and almost falls. I catch his eye.
“See what I mean? The horse might get as far as Corinium, but you’re not going to. Not today.”
He nods slowly, a reluctant signal of acceptance. I lead Sahan into the forest and he follows.
WE REACH THE CHARCOAL-burner’s hut in less than half an hour. It has meant heading back toward the village but the difference will be negligible if I get the chance to make decent speed on the road to the city tomorrow. And the hut is far enough from the highway to be safe from the unwanted attention of anyone else coming from the coast and heading to the capital.
My patient tries to dismount but his efforts are more of a partly-controlled fall and I barely manage to stop his head hitting the ground. He leans heavily on my shoulder for the few paces to get inside and collapses onto the rough wooden bed with a groan. He watches while I pull an armful of sweet hay from the store in one corner and push it underneath him in lieu of a mattress.
“Is this your home?” He seems to have found his voice again as he scans the crudely-hewn planks that form the walls of the hut.
I give him more water from my flask. “No, but I have been here a few times. This place deep in the trees and well hidden.”
A pang of loss runs through me for a painful moment as I remember how Gendel and I would walk here together sometimes to collect charcoal for his forge. I don’t mention to Marin that I know the place is uninhabited because I saw the charcoal burner lying dead in the village. He had been spending a few days with his sister to get treatment for a deep cut in his foot. I suppose the soldiers killed him because he was limping.
I light the clay stove, put water on to boil, lay out my tinctures and needles and survey my patient. I have never been presented with a mess quite like this to deal with. There is so much blood on him I’m finding it hard to know where to start.
“Any idea which one is the worst?”
He pauses for a moment, then cautiously moves his hand to his right side.
“This one I think.”
I get the bloodstained harness and surcoat off but the mailshirt and leather jerkin underneath are more of a struggle and the effort starts the bleeding afresh. I try to keep my face impassive as I clean the wound, my mother’s training taking over now my hands can slip into accustomed movements.
Keep your patient’s mind engaged in the delicate balance between pessimism and false hope. Make a convincing case for their recovery and the body will follow the mind.
Not always easy and I know there are several more wounds to deal with when this one is done. I can try distracting him from watching too closely with questions I want answered.
“Tell me about the battle. Who are the invaders?” Something inside feels angry about what happened to my family and I want to add “And why didn’t you get here faster and fight harder?” However, that doesn’t fit with creating his happy healing state of mind so I leave the words unspoken.
“Rapathian Empire.” He spits it out like a curse. “Their armed conquest slows down sometimes but never really stops. Now the Usurper must be reaching out for more gold or slaves or maybe fertile land––whatever it is, we’ll no doubt learn soon enough.” He sounds resigned, defeated. Maybe I should be a bit more careful with my questioning if I want to spark a bit of positive thinking. Unfortunately I have arrived at the part where I have to swab neat brandy around the gash to clean it and I have yet to meet anyone who finds that experience particularly uplifting.
I show him the brandy flask.
“Ready?”
I can see he knows what it is well enough. No doubt he has been through this a few times before, if his collection of scars is anything to go by. He raises an eyebrow.
“Got enough to spare some for a drink?”
“Hmph. Not likely. You should have sustained a bit less damage if that’s what you were after.”
He doesn’t answer beyond a faint shrug to tell me to get on with it. No more than a sharp intake of breath as the brandy hits the wound and I think I’m more relieved than he is when the pain fades. Without Gendel to hold them down some patients would lash out at this point––something I learned from experience and the occasional black eye.
I start stitching, trying to focus on my work instead of my need to find Alina. It takes almost an hour and my fingers are sore by the end of it.
“Well, the good news is, you have no lasting damage from the cuts I repaired, apart from the amount of blood you’ve already lost. So long as I haven’t missed anything serious you should start to mend after a few days’ rest.”
He shakes his head. “Can’t afford to wait. I have to go.”
I give him what I hope is the severe look of an experienced healer. My mother was very good at it but I never really perfected the technique. Maybe you need a few years behind you to have any chance of pulling it off.
“It won’t work, Marin. The minute you run into an enemy patrol you’ll be too weak to fight and all my careful work will be wasted.”
As soon as I cut the last thread he tries to get up anyway. And fails dismally.
I really must practice the severe thing a bit more.
“There. Now you’ve proved it for yourself.”
He stares bleakly at the soot-encrusted rafters above him for a few moments.
“Point. But there are things that must be done that will not wait.” He turns his head towards me. “The weapons from the battle. They must be hidden before bandits take them and we find ourselves fighting a war on two fronts. If I can’t do it, then you must.”
That is a reasonable idea in principle but an unreasonable amount of heavy carrying for one person. And in current circumstances I can’t see what purpose it would serve.
“Marin, there must be over a thousand men lying dead out there! That is a serious weight of hardware you’re asking me to move. And as far as I can see, you have no soldiers left to fight any kind of a war. Let the bandits arm themselves and annoy their new rulers.”
A flicker of impatience before he gets it under control.
“It doesn’t work like that. The Rapathians have an unpleasant habit of letting bandits do as they please, providing they hand over half the loot to the Empire. Freelance tax collectors. It turns the lives of ordinary people into a living nightmare.”
I sit in silence for a while as the vivid scenes from my village replay, over and over until I can see the same thing being re-enacted across the whole country. It will make no real difference whether the bandits wear military uniforms or not. It was so easy to assume that the rules by which we have lived for so long would stay constant forever.
For as long as I can remember, the king’s soldiers have ridden through Caerlen four times every year, keeping the roads as free of bandits as possible––or at least enough to stop the merchants complaining too loudly. They used the visits to collect taxes and although everyone complained louder than even the merchants about those, it was grudgingly regarded as a fair price for safe travel and trade.
Apart from a few drunken brawls the soldiers were generally well disciplined and paid for their food and lodgings. In our village at least, they stocked up with enough of our quality goods that sometimes we made an overall profit on the visit. Even after tax.
The idea of this arrangement being replaced with regular episodes of what has just passed is inconceivable. In fact, if I had not seen it for myself I would be telling Marin he has become delusional from his injuries. Seems my mission to reach the city is slipping further and further away. I let out a long sigh, feeling I have no choice but to give in.
“I’ll go back and make a start on collecting the weapons this evening.”
He seems to relax a little. “Thank you, Ariel of Caerlen. If all citizens of Samaran can respond to our country’s peril as you have, there is yet hope.”
I look at him for a long moment, as if seeing him for the first time now I’m less distracted by the conflicting demands of finding my sister and my duty as a healer.
His eyes are rich hazel, flecked with gold, holding my gaze with the same compelling determination he showed on the battlefield. There is something provocative and yet reassuring about the way his every word makes me feel, as if my whole body has become more alive, aware, curious. His powerful yet charismatic presence is a mystery in ways I can’t yet put into words, leaving me searching for answers or at least clues as to who he really is.
Maybe I have some deep instinct that he is the key to finding Alina––or am I simply letting myself get distracted by the most handsome man I have ever met?