A Paladin's War Ch. 05

© Antidarius 2020

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A PALADIN'S WAR

CHAPTER FIVE

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5.1: Trials of the Spirit

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Aran stumbled through the Emerin Forest one shambling step after the next. His body was on fire in a hundred places, the flames flaring anew with each step. There was no vala to lend him strength, and no melda inside him to offer him comfort that he was not alone. He was alone. As alone as he'd ever been. I will not let them go, he told himself stubbornly as his foot caught on the thick root of a fig. Only his hand hitting the ground first stopped him falling face first into the mulched forest floor. Forcing himself upright with gritted teeth, he continued on. I will get them back. He knew what he had to do, now. To save himself and everyone else.

The forest was quiet. His bare feet sounded too loud as they crunched through the dead leaves and twigs carpeting the ground, his breath blaring in his ears. The Emerin was always a symphony of crickets and birds and animals, but now it was silent, as if the whole wood had taken a deep breath and was holding it.

He stopped suddenly, blinking through grainy eyes that wanted to close forever, but he forced them to focus. Just ahead, in the space between two tall pines on the other side of a small stream, Jeira stood facing him, naked and beautiful, her pale face expressionless beneath her raven hair. "Is it really you?" He croaked, not wanting to believe it, but hoping it to be true.

She nodded and smiled, though there was a sadness in her dark eyes. "It is me. At least, it is the me you need to See."

He frowned at that and shook his head slightly. Had he heard her correctly? What did that mean? "Are you well?" He couldn't remember exactly, but visions of her being harmed flashed into his mind. He dispelled them before they grew too painful.

"I am," she replied. "Do you want me?"

He blinked. What kind of question was that? "Of course, I want you!" He told her as he took a step forward, toward the stream. He would have to cross it to get to her, but that couldn't be too hard, even in his condition; it was barely two paces across. Jeira said nothing in reply. She just stood there, watching him with those big, sad eyes. Why was she so sad?

"I have been a burden on you," she told him as his feet met the cold water of the stream. He gasped in shock at its iciness. Water in the Emerin should not be this cold, even in the dead of winter. "Yet you have carried me readily ever since that first day." He took another step, gritting his teeth at the chill that soaked into his legs, into his very bones. Warmth drained from him as if the water was pulling it out, sucking it into the stream. Another step.

"You s-s-saved me," he stammered, his teeth chattering. Fire and fury, he was cold! "I w-w-would n-not h-have made it without y-y-you." His lips were numb, making it hard to speak.

"You should give me up," she said as a tear escaped her eye to run down her cheek. "You could do more without me. Without all of us." Drawing a shuddering breath, Aran shook his head stubbornly. Why was she saying this? He was up to his waist, now, and the two paces of water suddenly looked like twenty. His legs weren't obeying properly, and his feet were dragging limply on the rocky bottom. "I am a weakness in you, a target for your enemies. A distraction for your mind."

"N-No," he managed. "I w-w-will not." Another step took him deeper than he thought the stream would go. The water brushed his chin as he gasped and flailed. The current was much stronger than it appeared, threatening to drag him away. Blackness seeped in at the corners of his vision as he struggled. He needed something to hold on to, inside himself as much as a lifeline to pull him out of the water. What did Jeira hope by telling him this? He had had this conversation with her before. As far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. How many times did he have to tell her he wanted her, needed her, loved her?

Something hot flared in his chest and he clung to it desperately. It was anger, he realised with surprise. Letting it fill him, he forced his body to work, pulling himself across the stream with his arms and legs with agonising slowness. After an age, he put his hands on the earthy bank of the other side. Jeira was there in a flash, hauling him out to stand on his feet.

He met her eyes as he stood there shivering. "No more!" He shouted at her. He knew his eyes were blazing, but he didn't care. She recoiled a little in surprise but did not look afraid. "No more. I want you. And I don't want to hear another bloody word about it." He was kissing her, then, as thoroughly as he knew how. As their lips met, a familiar light bloomed inside him and he felt Jeira in his heart as well as in his arms. The melda had returned, and along with it, some of his vala. New strength flowed into his muscles as warm light pulsed in his veins. He wanted to crow with the sheer ecstasy of it, yet it paled in comparison to the woman he held. "I love you," he told her fiercely when the kiss ended. "And I will never let you go willingly."

The smile she gave him made all the pain, the cold and the heartache worth it. "I love you too," she said softly. "And I am glad." Her head came to rest against his chest. "You have much left to do," she mumbled as she squeezed him.

Aran frowned down at the top of her head. "What do you mean?"

She lifted her face up to him. "The others. They all need to know, too."

"Know what?" He asked, confused.

"That you love them as much as I. If you want them, you must go to them, else they may be lost."

Aran's heart lurched. It had been hard enough to consider losing Jeira, but all the others, too? Rayna, Bella, Sorla, Induin, Liaren, Evoni... Elaina. "No. I will not lose them."

Jeira smiled again. Gods, but she was beautiful. "Then go." She pushed against his chest gently but firmly. "Bring us all together again." Her words faded as she did, her slender form becoming misty before evaporating before his eyes, leaving him holding nothing but air. The light inside him that was her remained, though. He flexed his hands before his face, testing their new strength.

Very well, he thought grimly. I will do this. What horrors awaited him, he knew not, but he was not going to let pieces of his heart go so easily. An uneasy feeling crept upon him; he suspected that perhaps crossing that stream to get to Jeira was the easiest of the trials ahead.

Picking a direction - away from the stream behind him - he began to walk.

*

The endless Emerin stretched on before him, shadowy and deep, his path occasionally cut by a stream or brook, always narrow and never wide enough to be called a river. That was the way of this wood threaded by channels that ran off from the monster that was the Emerindrelle in the west. Moving was somewhat easier now that he had some of his vala back, and some of the lesser cuts and bruises on his body had closed up, and while the worse ones persisted, they were less painful than before.

He continued on, in which direction he could not say, for the sun never changed its angle, but gradually the forest began to grow darker, as if night was falling. Webs began to appear in the trees, just a few at first, scattered, but then more numerous and larger, often stretching across the spaces between trees in intricate patterns. There were shapes in those larger webs, big enough to be bodies. Upon closer inspection, he realised that's exactly what they were. Tightly wrapped from neck to feet, the webbed prisoners' faces were bare, and ghostly eyes watched him as he passed. Some of them, he recognised. Some, he didn't. He pressed on.

"I fought the Heralds at your so-called Chapel," one man sneered. One of his eyes was gone, an empty gouge in his deathly-pale face. "For what?"

"I took a sword for one of your Paladin friends," an Elf woman said from where she hung upside down from an oak branch. Her melodious voice was hard, her moonstone eyes harder. A gash ran from her lip to her ear, leaving the side of her face open, her white teeth exposed through the hole in her cheek.

Another voice called out at him, and another, and then more, until the forest was a chorus of jeers and taunts from those who had fallen fighting for his cause. Some were from the skirmish with the Heralds, others were Heralds that Aran had killed himself. There were certainly plenty of the latter. Each voice stabbed at his heart, but he pressed on, bracing himself against the onslaught. "I'm sorry!" He shouted back at them, trying not to look at their faces. "I did not ask for this task, but it must be done!" They did not seem to hear him, or if they did, they ignored him.

A sudden space in the webs showed him two beautiful Elves, slender and pale, standing together on a small rise surrounded by fat white cocoons. Induin and Liaren took his breath away now as much as they ever had, and the sight of them cut through his anguish like a knife. Hurrying toward them - they were no more than thirty paces away - he never saw the spider slide silently down from the trees behind him. There was a sharp sting in the middle of his back, and then pain like he'd never felt. The scream died in his throat as it corded and he collapsed to the ground writhing in fits of agony. He couldn't breathe, his heart was racing, every muscle cramping at once. His vala appeared to be no help against the poison.

"You saved me once," Induin was saying from nearby. She sounded distant, so far away, yet he knew she was almost within arms reach. "But you cannot always be there to do so. If I die, you will be gravely hurt, and the world needs you whole."

Aran tried to speak, but all he could do was gasp for air. His feet were leaving deep furrows in the earth as his heels scraped the ground.

"What will become of you if death befalls us?" Liaren asked, her voice emotionless. "You should let us go. If you do, the pain will end."

The pain would end... No! I will not! With a supreme effort of will, he flopped over onto his belly, though the involuntary contortions of his muscles continued. Somehow, he raised his head enough to fix the twins with a hot glare. His eyes were misted with tears, but he could see them well enough. Did they think the melda was something to just throw away? Yes, if they died it would shatter him, but they were a part of him now and that was all there was to it. The world could bloody well burn for all he cared. He was supposed to save the world, but he knew if he didn't have Induin and Liaren, he would fail. Inch by inch, he pulled himself upright, forcing his muscles to move the way he wanted them to. He fell on the rise as he reached it and somehow began to ascend in a lurching, sporadic crawl. Halfway up, two pairs of hands seized his arms and hauled him to his feet, holding him upright, for he had not the strength to stand on his own.

"You have chosen to stay with us," Liaren said where she stood on his left.

"We accept your offer, Aran Sunblade," Induin said from his right. In the back of his mind, Aran wondered why they sounded so formal. Was this really Induin and Liaren? Or were they just impressions reflected in this dream? "We love you."

Liaren kissed him first, bringing his head around with her fingers, then he was turned to Induin. The pain melted at the first touch of lips to his mouth, and his vala surged as more of his strength returned. Able to move again, he put an arm around two slim waists and pulled them in close, relishing the feel of them in his arms again.

"I missed you," he told them, shifting his gaze between two identical faces, one with emerald eyes, one with sapphire. He felt their spirits entwined with his again, a most welcome feeling.

"And we you," they replied in unison with twin smiles. He wanted to stay here forever, holding them, kissing them, loving them, but he knew what would come next.

"You must go," Induin told him gently. "You have much more to do."

He nodded reluctantly. "I know." He felt sad as they faded to mist, their brilliant eyes the last part to disappear from sight. With a sigh, he turned and started down from the rise. The dead were silent as he passed through them this time, as if they'd finally found rest. He would remember their voices for a long time, though, picture their faces when he closed his eyes. He owed them that much. There is a war coming, he told himself firmly. Many more will die before the end. I only hope I can make that number as small as possible. The pain from the poison had gone, but the spot where he'd been stung still hurt, as if it hadn't healed. Pushing it to the back of his mind, he walked on.

*

Soon after leaving the spot where he'd found Induin and Liaren, the forest quickly thinned and became rolling grasslands as he entered the Sorral Plain. It wasn't the real plain, he knew, but it was a close approximation, though devoid of life as far as he could tell. The clear blue sky above held a bright golden sun, but no hawks or eagles or buzzards wheeled up there, searching for prey and carrion among the grass. There were always birds in the sky above the plain in the real world. He wondered if this place was like amathani, but every time he tried to alter something, nothing happened.

After a time he hit a road he recognised, wide and hard-packed from centuries of wagons and carts and horses. The Ironshire Road led out of the Emerin Forest, winding north across the plain until it reached the town that was its namesake. Some time between starting on the road and walking an hour, day changed to night, the cornflour blue sky growing dark, an indigo blanket scattered with a million points of light. Aran smiled as he looked up at it. How many nights had he lay there in a field staring up at that sky?

He smelled the smoke well before he reached Ironshire, too thick to be the smoke from chimneys, even if every hearth in the town was blazing. Dreading what he was about to see, he began to run, pushing his body for extra speed with his vala. An orange glow over the horizon forewarned him of what lay ahead, and when he finally crested a small rise in the road, his heart clenched. Ironshire was ablaze, the entire town enveloped by flames, from the thick, twenty-foot high stone wall without to the smallest of the tile-roofed houses within. A choking blanket of smoke hung in the air, making him cough as he drew his arm up, tucking his nose into the crook of his elbow.

Dashing toward the wall, he hunched his shoulders against the heat and leaped clear over to land on the cobblestoned street inside. The stones were uncomfortably hot, and he shifted his feet, wishing he had a good pair of boots. The buildings lining the street were all burning, many of them collapsed piles of black timbers and bricks, while others looked to have been lit more recently, still standing though with gouts of fire and smoke belching from the windows.

Taking a deep breath - the fire looked worse further up the street and he wanted to breathe as little as possible - he began to trot toward the town centre. His vala was telling him to go in that direction. He tried to expand it, to sense the area, but it didn't seem to work the same as it normally did, here in this place. He called for Rayna and Bella as he ran - it had to be them he was looking for. This was where he had met them, not long after melding Induin and Liaren. This dream seemed to have a certain order about it, so far. No answers came. If they did, he lost them among the roar of the fires and the crashing of collapsing roofs and falling beams.

In the town square, he stopped, looking around. Every shop lining the square was reduced to piles of smoldering rubble. Only two structures still stood; the big statue in the centre of a wide, round fountain right in the middle of the square, and the town hall opposite where Smythe now stood, though the hall - its two storeys all in grey stone - had gouts of flame bursting from its windows as if it had been burning some time already. Wide stone steps led from the square up to wide, iron-strapped double doors, but as Aran watched, the doors fell off their hinges, crashing to the ground and falling apart. Already knowing that's where he needed to be, Aran dashed across the square and threw himself through the opening.

It was hard to see for the smoke, but through squinted eyes he followed the long walkway that ran down the middle of the hall, lined by rows of wooden benches, many of them burning. Coughing, he started down the aisle to the dais at the far end, where two women waited. They watched him coming, their faces as blank as the others had been, though their eyes seemed to pull at him, wanting him to get to them. Burning beams no longer able to support the weight upon them gave way as he reached the halfway point, plummeting down from above amid chunks of stone and tile and glass. He managed to avoid the biggest pieces, but debris still struck his head and shoulders, and glass sliced his skin where it caught him. Blood trickled into his eye, but he kept on. This was no worse than the poison, or the freezing water. Just another test.

More blocks of stone fell, shattering at his feet and threatening to crush him. He danced around them, but then a fat crossbeam came loose and dropped faster than he would have believed. Without thinking, he drew deeply on his vala and caught it across the backs of his shoulders, the burning wood searing his flesh with a sickening hiss. He screamed at the hot pain but made himself keep moving.

He wanted to drop the beam, but his muscles had locked into place around the thick length of timber like a prisoner shackled to a shoulder brace. He tried to force his arms to drop, but they wouldn't. A part of him was glad for that, despite the pain; he thought that if he got rid of the beam his skin might peel off like wet paper. Trying not to imagine that, he kept on.

They waited for him, Rayna and Bella, unconcerned by the hall collapsing around them. He tried to hurry, but the beam was heavy and he was still being pelted by debris.

"You can let us go and it will end," Rayna said, her hair as brilliant as the flames that threatened to engulf them all.

"If that is what you wish," Bella added. Their flat voices gave no indication of what they themselves wished for. They loved him, didn't they? Did a melda even work without love?

He answered them by moving forward until he was at the first of the dais' three steps. A cube of stone a foot on each side suddenly crashed into the beam, smashing his fingers. Pain lanced from his hand and he bellowed in anger and agony. How much bloody pain must I endure?! He was starting to think pain was all there was for him, but no, he'd been down that road, and it did not end in a good place. There was love, too, and light, and hope and joy. His meldin helped him remember that. That was why he needed them. "I need you," he said hoarsely, his voice strained with effort and raw from smoke. "Without you, I fail."

"Perhaps," Rayna replied as a joist hit the ground not three feet from her. She did not blink or flinch.

"That is uncertain," said Bella. "You cannot possibly know this."

Aran wanted to laugh. Why were they questioning him as if he did not know his own heart? Do you, though? A quiet voice in the back of his mind asked. He felt the worm of doubt wriggling in him and he hesitated. I did not come this far to let them go, he told the voice. To Rayna and Bella, he croaked, "Do you wish to be free of me? Ask it, and I will give it." His heart banded with iron at the thought of losing them, but he waited for their answer in silence.