Warning: some violence to follow
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” - Voltaire
Lord Caith gives a whistle that echoes into the night when we arrive at the base of the cliff. My breath hitches as dark shapes emerge from the night.
This time I do not squeal-greet my beloved Desert. In contrast to what Lord Caith might say, I am not the village idiot. I gladly mount her before we start to gallop into the night with the dry dust from the land tickling my nostrils. “Where in Ardamland are we?” I've settled with trusting him - no-one would brave that cliff voluntarily if they had another option.
“You were held captive in the northernmost corner - in the town of Drako.”
Even though I am the princess and the whole country belongs to my family, I have not travelled much at all. Save for Raven's Peak, Ligeia and Inwir City, and the stretches between them, the rest are foreign soil to me. However, I have had lesson upon lesson in geography - had I been an artist, I would have been able to paint the map with closed eyes.
ArBrae Forest- where the elves live - is in the southwestern corner, bordered by the ocean. Lake Alachna, with all her branches, is more towards the inland - in the central part of the forest. I've always thought it curious that that corner of Ligtland looked like a wolf, with the three islands as feet, and Lake Alachna as the head.
The skados live in the south - to the east of ArBrae. Their small villages are scattered in the impassable, dangerous marshes. If you move along that coast, away from ArBrae and the marshes of Skado-o, you will enter Catel Alesam territory. Catel Alesam - the home of the Council - is the mightiest city in all of Ligtland. It was built on an active volcano, close to the ocean, where woods and marshes collided; a symbiosis of all the elements and natural forces that define the Council. I have heard that the surrounding earth is rich in gemstones - that you could walk on the outskirts of the city and pick up diamonds.
Ardam stretches to the north, into the unknown, and to the east where the terrain changes into the fire desert of the dwarves. Mount Vesut is the most eastern part of Ligtland, where yet again, land meets ocean.
Ardam itself is as diverse as Ligtland, with kingdoms woven together by my father's will. Berch and New Berch is toward Alesam's side - with abundant harvests and forest of game. Ligeia, my father's pride, is in the centre of Ardam - a manufactured city of riches, jewels and glass.
Civilisation ends at Raven's Peak, with only scattered villages and the mountains stretching to the north, separating a desert of harsh stone from Darkeland in the west. “But Drako and those mountains are weeks away from Raven’s Peak,” I say after recalling my mental map of Ardam.
“How many days did your journey there last?” There is an odd lack of surprise in his voice, with only a mild curiosity replacing it.
“Only about two days, but I’m not sure. I was drugged, but it still does not make sense.”
“They must have travelled through something - which confirms my suspicion that the Darkelanders are behind your abduction.”
“Travelled through something?” I ask confused.
“Yes, it is a skill that some have acquired.”
“Like the Council that can move from one place to the next in a matter of seconds?”
“Exactly like that.”
The wind, neither hot nor cold, running through my hair distracts me from pursuing the conversation. Lord Caith has rescued me, but riding Desert frees me. I lean closer to her neck. We haven’t galloped long enough for her to start sweating, but she smells like home. My fingers get tangled in her neglected mane. The first thing I will do when I get back to Raven’s Peak, is to take proper care of Desert and give her some love and pampering; perhaps even a farm worth of carrots.
For the next three hours we gallop and trot intermittently - a bubbling stream always close by. At moments my vision blurs, but it corrects after wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. The moon disappears intermittently - leaving me partially dependent on Caith steering his horse, tugging mine forward. We slow down a few times to allow the horses to drink water from the stream we are following.
“Lord Caith, I think I hear the echo of hooves.” The pursuing thunder started off faint, like a rumour. At first I wasn't sure if it was merely my fickle imagination, but it has grown louder and louder until the sound on our heels was unmistakable.
“I know, I have heard it for some time now. They are not a threat yet, but they will catch up to us before daybreak,” he replies calmly. "Please only call me Caith. Who will stone you for dropping the title? The rocks?”
“Don't joke about that! That cliff had a hit out on me.” I wait before voicing my concern. “What will we do when they catch up with us?”
“We will fight them. There is a pass between steep hills up ahead. If we could reach it before them, the advantage would be ours.”
“Does this stream flow through the pass as well?”
“Yes.”
We travel for another thirty minutes before the horses started to slow down to a halt. I can see two sheer cliffs looming up before me - meaning that the darkness in front of me has two darker and indistinguishable spots ahead of me. The stream flows between the cliffs where it glints and disappears into the distance. The first light of the day crawls up the horizon and the different shades of black change to different shades of gray.
“You cannot fight in that ruined dress, and you need weapons.” Caith hands me a neat stack of grey clothing and boots he took out of his saddlebag after we stopped. “We still have a some time before they will be here. I suggest you freshen up. The shoes and clothes will change according to your desire.” After leading the horses through the pass to the small clearing awaiting us, he ties them to a tree. Turning his back to me, he unpacks an armoury of weapons.
I make sure that I am out of Caith's view at the entrance of the pass before I splash the cool water from the stream on my face and then redress. True to his promise, the material shifts and changes the moment I put them on - pants hugging my skin and the shirt fitting loosely and reaching my mid-thigh, with sleeves covering my arms snugly until just below my elbows. Lastly, I slip on the sturdy shoes.
The approaching daylight is still too weak for me to see my mirror-image in the stream, but I imagine that I look like an elven warrior princess - a fusion of femininity and fatality. Even though elfin women aren't allowed to join their Second Order, the legends of Nané and Aishé - warrior queens of the Darkwood brothers - have always fascinated me.
Walking back to Caith, I rushedly utter my worries to him. “I have never been in a real fight or battle before; not one where my survival depended on it,” I say anxiously. “In fact, the past few weeks have offered me a lot of things that I have never done. I have never been kidnapped either, or trained with men. I’m guessing you can also say that I have also never been involved in a war, but the war isn’t new. It is old.”
Why do I blab so much? There is nothing to lose if I put in more effort to censor my mouth.
Having similar weapons ready for himself, he hands me a bow with a quiver full of arrows, and a sword in its scabbard. “You will be fine. You have had good training, not the best, but good nonetheless. We will first shoot at them when they are in range, and then we will fight them with our swords.”
“I have seen men die before, in the tents for the injured, but no-one has ever died at my hand,” I tell him honestly. I can’t even keep to a resolution I made a jiffy ago.
“It must not ever be easy to take a life. When it becomes easy, you have to worry about yourself and know that you have started to tread on a dark path - where return is seldom possible. The first time you will kill someone is the worst. Look at him, remember his face, and remember his life. Make his death count.” A dark look passes on his face, and the realisation that he is trained in the art of death dawns on me. A misleadingly innocent smile that doesn't reach his calculating eyes inserts itself on his face. “Now, take your position next to me. When I tell you to start aiming and firing, you continue until I tell you to draw your sword. And then you fight - your life and mine depends on it.”
I nod and move to his left as dark shapes appear on the horizon. I guess that there are about thirty men all dressed in black, approaching at full gallop on their black horses.
“Ready your weapon.” Out of the corner of my eye I see his mouth breaking into a genuine smile - just like the day breaking around us.
I take an arrow and string it in the bow.
“Aim,” Lord Caith says decisively.
I fix the arrow on one of the riders in the front, just to my left. He is too far away from me to see all the distinguishing features of his face.
“Steady,” Caith whispers.
“Fire,” he says after a few seconds of just the hoofbeats echoing in our ears.
I let go of the string. The arrow whizzes towards our pursuers, but does not hit its target - the heart, but it does lodge itself in an equally vital organ: his liver. The man instantly cries out in pain. I lose sight of him as he falls into the dust of his comrades’ wake, his screams muffled amidst the deadly hooves.
He is dead. Dead.
I killed him.
My breath hitches. Shit. My numb fingers fumble with the next arrow.
A steady pressure on my shoulder calls me back from my despair. “Aebbé? Aebbé! We'll work through this later. You have to push it to the furthest corner of your mind for now. Focus now on the next target. I need your help. There are too many of them for me to do this alone. They can't recapture you.”
Gulping, I take a second arrow.
“Focus on the target.” He fires two arrows in quick succession - both deadly shots.
I scan the horison. Five riderless horses; Caith already took down four of them.
This time my aim is more accurate and my arrow hits an oncoming man directly in his heart. After releasing two more arrows, I feel lord Caith tug on my elbow.
“It’s time to withdraw your sword. Good aiming. You only missed once.” He still has the smile on his face, and his sword is ready in his hand.
I slip the bow over my shoulder and withdraw mine. It is heavier than the swords I am used to, but it has a perfect balance and comfortable grip. I swing it in a figure of eight in the air.
“We have to work as a team. I will do most of the killing, but you'll need to protect me.”
Our pursuers are metres from us. After dismounting, they withdraw their weapons and the distance between us slowly shrinks. The narrow space between the cliffs forces them to approach us two-by-two.
Not realising I held my breath, I slowly exhale as Caith strikes the first blow, but it is parried by his opponent. Forced to focus on the man approaching me, I notice every characteristic. He has large, square shoulders. I cannot see his whole face, but I can tell a lot from what I can see. His teeth scream of malnutrition and neglect; his skin wrinkled with poverty. A poor man, making a living as a killer for hire; or perhaps a disgraced and disgruntled soldier with a penchant for revenge.
I thrust my sword into his abdomen and visualise the resistance it meets: skin, fat, muscle, fat, viscera. After turning my sword, I pull it out and kick the man back into his comrades. The smell of the contents of his viscera fills my nostrils. The backward splash of blood as I pull my sword out decorates my clothes and a few stray drops warm my face.
Caith kills the most men, helping me out whenever it seemed that I was in trouble. I am merely a distraction until he can finish them off. I have no doubt that he would have been able to kill all the men himself, but he needed me to fill the space up to prevent them from moving around him.
I make it through the skirmish without any serious wounds. I have some bruises, but my biggest discomfort is my exhaustion and my rising guilt for the seven lives I ended.
A/N: Updates are erratic, but I try to post (at the very least) 1 chapter per week, and if possible 2 or 3 or even more. All updates will be announced on my profile/message board.
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