A Paladin's Journey Ch. 09

He was on his knees, now, blinking in surprise at the woman. He was having trouble thinking straight. He was losing blood, he was sure. He felt wet all over. As his vision narrowed, he saw the body of a woman nearby, a spiked mace in her outstretched hand, her shirt red and wet with blood. Lying next to her was a young man, dark hair matted to his head with blood, staring at the sky.

Smythe tried to scream, but his throat was swollen. Only a strangled croak came out. The woman bent down and put her face close to his. "So much for the mighty Arohim," she sneered as her blade entered his body a third time.

He barely felt the steel slide between his ribs as everything went black.

***ARAN***

Aran floated in a void of emptiness. There was no light, no sound, no air. He had no body, here, but still he knew who he was. Thinking he was close to the Plane of Aros, he concentrated, trying to focus his will to shape something from the void, but nothing happened.

If this wasn't the Plane, then where was he?

"ANARION," a voice boomed in the nothingness. "I DID NOT BESTOW YOUR GIFT TO HAVE YOU DESTROY YOURSELF WITH IT."

Aran didn't have a heart in this place, but if he did, he was sure it would have stopped dead. Could this be Aros communicating with him directly? The voice was... immense. And the way it used that title, 'Anarion,' ladened it with more meaning than he'd ever heard before.

Aran aimed his thoughts back at the voice. "I wanted to avoid more death. I've seen enough for ten lifetimes."

"AND YOU HAVE SAVED SOME LIVES, ANARION, AT LEAST ON THIS DAY, BUT AT WHAT COST? HOW CAN YOU DEFEND AGAINST THE DARK IF YOU EXPEND YOURSELF SO?"

"I cannot sit by and do nothing when I have the power to stop it!" Aran thought back stubbornly.

"THEN USE MY GIFT AS YOU SEE FIT," the voice thundered. "BUT KNOW THAT IT COMES AT A PRICE. THE WORLD NEEDS YOU STRONG, ANARION. THERE ARE MILLIONS OF SOULS AT RISK, AND YOU DRIVE YOURSELF TO THE PRECIPICE FOR MERELY HUNDREDS."

"What would you have me do?" Aran bellowed back. "Turn a blind eye? Send others in my stead? I am no coward!"

"YOU DO NOT COMPREHEND YOUR ROLE, ANARION. YOU WERE CHOSEN TO UNDO THE FOLLY OF YOUR FOREBEAR, YET YOU THINK ONLY OF THE MOMENT BEFORE YOU, AND NO FURTHER. YOU MUST LEARN WISDOM!"

Aran remained silent, considering the words of whom he was sure was Aros Himself. Had he just been arguing with a God? He should be terrified before such a cosmic force, but instead, hot anger flared. "You gave me this task! And this power!" Frustration that he had buried for so long came roaring to the surface. "And I never once complained, I only wanted to make things right! My blood carries the stain of a thousand years of darkness, and I wake every day hoping that seed does not infect my heart!"

Aran had never been this angry in his life. He wanted to lash out, to rage at Aros, even if it got him obliterated from existence. "The people I love are afraid of me!" He spat. "And my heart cracks every time I think of the women who have chained their hearts to mine." The sensation of hot tears springing into his eyes came upon him, despite having no physical presence here.

He realised suddenly that he had taken form, at some point. He was in his body, shaking his fist at the darkness, and the wetness on his cheeks was real.

There was a long silence, and Aran waited, battling the despair inside his heart. The images of the fear in Smythe's eyes, the concern in Elaina's, the cautionary words from Amina, the looks Kedron sometimes gave him when he thought Aran wasn't looking.

All this tumbled through his mind, cutting at him like razors. The look on Sorla's face, on Jeira's and Rayna's and Bella's and Liaren's and Induin's, knowing that their fate was tied to his, no matter what. They loved him now, but would they love him when all was said and done?

Aran fell to his knees, crumbling under the weight of his responsibility, and the pain, until he thought something inside him might snap.

"ARE THEY AFRAID OF YOU, ANARION?" Aros finally responded. "OR AFRAID FOR YOU?"

Those words penetrated Aran's mind like a spear of light, shattering the images and memories flickering in his head, leaving everything still in its wake.

For a long time, there was nothing, and then he saw it.

The truth lay bare before him, and Aran knew he'd been wrong. Smythe had not been afraid of Aran's power, he'd been worried for his friend. His former student.

The looks he'd seen on the faces of the others were not those of one watching a dangerous predator. They were looks of awe, and loyalty, respect. How had Aran perceived them so wrongly?

For the first time since he'd taken up this mantle, he actually allowed himself to let go. Yes, he was responsible for taking care of everyone, but it was their choice to follow him. Aran needed to respect that, and stop trying to turn them away. He needed to let them love him in their own way.

Laughter burst forth unbidden as a mountain of weight lifted from him, the unnecessary burdens he'd been carrying blowing away like dust.

'My friends love me,' he said to himself as fresh tears flowed. These were different tears, though. They were from gratitude, not pain. 'And they want to support me. And I must let them.'

"YOU WILL DO WELL, ANARION." Aros boomed. "GO NOW AND DO WHAT MUST BE DONE. WE WILL NOT SPEAK AGAIN."

*

His eyes came open, and he looked around the small room. He knew this place. Sitting up, he touched his head. Vague memories of pain lingered, but melted away as soon as they came, as if it were old pain, from a lifetime ago.

Loud noises came from outside, dulled by the thick stone walls, but he barely heard them. His whole body vibrated, tingled. He felt power flowing into him from an infinite, cosmic source. What was this?

Memories came back to him, of people, places, experiences. Friends, family, women he loved, their faces flashing before his eyes.

Storms, earthquakes, monsters...

Purpose.

His name was Aran. He remembered now. This was the Chapel where he'd been trained. Where he'd first met...

ELAINA!!

The world crashed home on him, his senses finding every minute detail of his surroundings. Fighting on the Chapel grounds. Heralds coming over the wall. Smythe, Elaina, Kedron, all down, their hearts beating faintly... So faintly.

Aran moved without thought. Oroth was in his hand. Two steps and he was through the window, sending shards of glass to the training ground below. His boots hit the earth and he moved again. Three flashing strides covered fifty yards, and then he was among the fighting.

He could sense it all. Maybe a hundred Elves left standing. Induin and Liaren, their hearts full of courage as they fought for him. At least two hundred Heralds remained.

Smythe, laying on his back on the grass, his shirt soaked with his own blood. Lightbringer lay next to him, and around him, dozens of dead lay scattered about. He had fought like a true Arohim. A woman stood near him, looking down at his corpse and smiling, though there was no emotion in her cold eyes. Looking up, she met Aran's eyes and the smile deepened. A dripping knife blade was clutched in her fist. She began to walk toward him.

Aran would deal with her in a moment.

There was Kedron, near Smythe, his eyes open wide and staring at the sky, his breath coming in short, laboured gasps. An arrow jutted from his chest, and his hands were clutching the shaft.

Elaina, next to Kedron, her hand outflung where it had tried to grasp Shatter, just out of reach of her fingertips. Her beautiful face was cut, blood fanning down her cheek. Her white shirt was a glistening, wet crimson, soaked from the wounds Aran could feel as if they were his own. Her vala was flickering like a guttering candle flame.

No. The Arohim would not lose this day.

Aran turned his face to the sky and roared, sending his vala shooting outward in two hundred spears of light, each one finding a soul and driving itself into the blackness. He sent spears toward his fellow Arohim, too, though for a different purpose. He channeled some of his vala into them, giving them the strength to fight their wounds until they could be mended.

His power felt limitless, but no longer did it feel wild and tempestuous. Now, it felt balanced, ordered. Right.

The battlefield went deathly still. There was complete silence but for the moans of the wounded. Two hundred Heralds dropped their weapons at once, and then chaos exploded among them. Dozens of them ran for the wall, screaming, clawing their way back over the vine-covered stone, trampling their own if they were too slow. Dozens more simply fell to the ground, whimpering, sobbing or staring silently at nothing.

Aran surveyed the field. The Elves were pulling back, dragging their wounded and dead away from the suddenly mad Heralds. Aran felt their grief at the loss of so many brothers and sisters. The Arohim owed a very large debt to the Eryn'elda for their support today.

Two of his vala-spears had missed their targets. One was the woman who was still coming at him, her face still locked in that menacing smile. The other was a man behind the wall, standing near a cart that had a big cage strapped to it. That was him, Berrigan Stallen. Aran had sensed him earlier.

The woman with the knife leaped forward with shocking suddenness, more than Aran would have expected from a Human, and the knife slashed at his throat. She was difficult to predict, as if his vala bent around her rather than included her in its radius, but he could follow her movements well enough.

His hand caught her by the wrist, stopping her thrust dead. He looked into her big, blue eyes, and saw what she was, what she had done to become so. Her body was a shell, a vessel, for a much greater and darker force, one that thrived on death and chaos. A memory floated into Aran's mind of an ancient power, as old as Aros. The memory was not Aran's. It came to him from the vala, and carried the weight of immense time.

So, this was the energy driving the Heralds. An old foe, lurking in the shadows all this time.

"I see you, Maharad," he said softly, gathering his vala. The woman's eyes widened, and her smiled slipped from her face. Aran made more than one spear this time. He sent dozens of them into the black void occupying what used to be her soul, and she screamed as the light penetrated the darkness, ripping it asunder.

Unable to support itself without the dark energy, her body collapsed lifelessly, hanging by the wrist Aran was still holding. He lowered her to the ground gently, silently offering a prayer for the woman that had once occupied the body.

He took one step forward and leaped into the air, landing thirty feet away on the top of the wall. He looked down at Stallen, who was standing confidently next to the cage, his blade resting on Imella's throat through the steel bars.

Imella lay on the wooden boards of the cart bed, unmoving. Aran could feel a heartbeat, but it was weak. Of course, Kedron's wounds would feel as real to her, this close to him.

"So, you are him," Stallen sneered, his dark eyes glittering with hate. "I was wondering when you would appear."

Again, Aran could sense the dark force of Maharad, though not like the woman. She had been a direct vessel, where Berrigan had been touched, influenced, but was still himself. There was not much difference, from what Aran could see.

"Your men are beaten, Stallen," Aran told him, stepping down from the wall. Oroth sizzled in his fist. "I would ask you to surrender, but we both know you will not."

"I do not bow to the Arohim!" Berrigan spat. "I hunt them, and I kill them!"

"Your son is dying," Aran said quietly. "The longer this takes, the less time I have to help him."

"Let him die," Berrigan replied coldly. "He was never my son, anyhow. Not with that filthy power in him."

Aran stepped forward, and the Herald's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

"One more step, Arohim, and she's dead."

Aran tapped the well of power flowing through him before he moved faster than thought, crossing the distance to Berrigan in a fraction of a heartbeat and whisking him away from the cage to pin him against the Chapel wall with an elbow. Stallen's sword clattered to the ground somewhere nearby. Aran's other arm held Oroth steady at the man's throat.

"I have considered every option, Herald," he said quietly. "I would release you, but you would only come back to threaten us again. I could capture you, but your heart will not be turned, I can feel how strongly you are tied to your beliefs. I would kill you, but I have seen enough death, today, despite the fact you deserve it."

"Do it, Arohim," Berrigan taunted. "Or have you not the balls?"

Aran suddenly knew what to do. "I give you a gift, Berrigan Stallen. May you see the world in a new light." Aran opened himself to more of his endless vala and aligned with Berrigan. The alignment did not take, of course, as Berrigan's heart was so twisted, but Aran searched, combing the darkness until he found what he sought.

A seed, the tiniest, infinitesimal speck of humanity remaining, the only aspect yet uncorrupted by Maharad. Aran shoved his vala at that seed until it began to grow and crack the shadow surrounding it.

Berrigan gasped as the light took hold. The darkness did not break completely, but there were now narrow, shining fissures crawling across the void.

Aran released him, and Berrigan sank to his knees, eyes bulging. "What... have... you... done?" He wheezed, as if struggling to breathe.

Aran said nothing for long moments, giving the gift time to sink in. "I have raised the veil from your eyes, Herald. You have hurt many in your blind ambition for domination and control. Now the pain you have caused will be in your heart."

"No!" Berrigan screamed, his eyes wide as if seeing something truly terrible, which Aran supposed he was. Tears ran down his face, and drool fell from slack lips. Aran couldn't tell for sure, but he though Berrigan might be reliving his past actions, but this time with compassion, able to feel the pain he had inflicted on others.

Aran felt pity, but did not interfere. The man had brought this on himself. Could he be redeemed, though? It was doubtful, but everyone deserved a chance, did they not? Even this man.

Terrified eyes fell on Imella in the cage, and Berrigan whimpered, sobbing uncontrollably.

Aran could see her back, and it was a mess of flayed skin. He felt sick when he sensed it. Leaving Berrigan to his internal horrors, Aran sheathed Oroth and went to the cage, where he tore the iron door free, the hinges bending and snapping easily before his strength.

"You've been on a long journey, meldin," he said gently as he hopped up into the cage. "But it's over, for now." The thing was barely four feet tall, not enough for one to be able to stand upright. Placing his hands on the bars above his head, he pushed, breaking the cage free of the cart with the popping of nails coming loose.

Tossing the iron cube aside, he bent to scoop up Imella and leaped from the cart, sailing back over the wall. He placed her down gently beside Kedron and tore a relatively clean cloak from a nearby Herald's body to cover her.

Kedron was not moving, but he was alive, his body using the extra power Aran had given him to keep him breathing. Bending, Aran gently pried Kedron's hands away from the arrow shaft sticking out of his chest. One of his lungs was punctured, and his breath came in short gasps. Kedron had less experience with the vala than Elaina or Smythe, which made him the first priority.

"Forgive me for this, friend," Aran whispered as he tore Kedron's shirt open, clearing the way before pulling the arrow free.

Kedron's eyes popped at the pain. He tried to scream, but only a gurgle escaped his throat before he lost consciousness.

Imella sat bolt upright with a shrill cry of pain, clutching her chest. Eyes wide, her gaze fell on Aran, then followed his arms down to Kedron. "Kedron!" She cried, kneeling over him and touching his face. Her cloak fell away, exposing her, but she paid it no mind. "Kedron? Can you hear me?"

"He can hear you," Aran assured her as he was wadding up cloth to hold against Kedron's wound. "But he is using all his strength to stay with us. It will do him good to know you are here with him. Here." He took her hand and placed it on the rapidly darkening wad of cloth over the arrow-wound.

An Elf appeared as Aran straightened, tall and strong, with several cuts and gashes decorating his own body. "I am Tarien," he said, bowing respectfully. "How may I serve, Anarion?"

At that moment, the Rostiners began spilling from the Chapel and down toward the field. Aran found himself smiling. "Give them whatever they need, hanno," he told the Elf, pointing at the villagers carrying towels and buckets of water and blankets.

With Aran's vala strengthening them, Elaina and Smythe were starting to move feebly. Rushing over, he knelt by Elaina, brushing some bloody hair away from her face. "Easy, now, my love," he murmured.

"Aran?" She croaked, holding her hands against the wound across her belly. "I... was... worried about you."

Were it not so hard to see her like this, Aran would have laughed. A half-step from bleeding to death, and she was worried about him! "I love you," he told her, bending to give her a brief kiss.

Knowing he didn't have much time, he worked quickly, keeping a small part of his awareness on Berrigan, who was still on the other side of the wall. Tearing open Elaina's blood-soaked shirt, he looked around for something to clean her with.

Induin arrived at that moment with a fresh towel and a bowl of water. She knelt beside him as he gratefully took the towel. Liaren took up a place on Elaina's other side, looking down at the injured Paladin worriedly.

Both twins had taken nicks and cuts, but they weren't serious, so Aran said nothing of it. He was just glad they were alright.

"Do not fret," Aran told his twin meldin as he worked. "She will live. We just need to dress these wounds so she can begin healing properly."

"The knife," Elaina mumbled, looking up at him. Her eyes were heavily lidded, as if she were on the cusp of sleep. "The knife... did something... to me."

"It was tainted," Aran explained gently. He could feel it in the grass, not far away, like an adder hiding from sight. Most of its power had been drained from its recent use.

"Tainted? How?" Elaina asked, blinking slowly.

"I'll tell you later, my love," Aran promised, trying not to think about how much blood she'd lost. His appearance on the battlefield had been a close-run thing. His hands were red to the wrists from cleaning her wounds, but it looked like the bleeding was slowing down as her vala accelerated her mending.

Aran maintained the funneling of his vala into Elaina as well as Smythe and Kedron. His skin still felt as if it crackled with power, though he had let it fade a little, not requiring so much of it now.

He sensed movement behind the wall just as he finished with Elaina. "Keep her still for a while," he told Induin and Liaren. "If you can get her some water to drink, that will help."

The Elves nodded, and Aran stood turning to the wall just in time to see Berrigan scramble over it and stumble toward him, his eyes wide enough to show the whites all around, his expression aghast.

He stared around at the fallen, his face white. When his eyes fell on Kedron, he howled like a man possessed. All eyes turned to him, Elves and villagers alike. When several Elves moved toward him, Aran held up a hand, stalling them.

Berrigan stumbled around uncertainly, looking for something on the ground. Finally, he bent and picked up a sword. Those watching tensed visibly, but they needn't have bothered.