A Paladin's War Ch. 05

The two women shared a glance and then turned back to him. "That beam," Rayna began, pointing at the timber across his shoulders. "Represents the burden we place on you. We are heavy, and our pains burn you."

The beam slipped a bit, and he grimaced as he hefted it back into balance. She was right, in a way; each melda was like having another life tucked inside you, another set of hopes and dreams and fears and flaws. Most people had enough trouble managing their own, yet a meldin added significant complexity to one's existence. Even at the height of the Order, most arohim only took one or two meldin, yet Aran already had eight.

You went out creating melda without considering the implications, like a fool. And yet, he did not care. He smiled up at them. "If you wish to free me of this burden, you will have to watch me die." Another stone crashed into the beam, bringing him to his knees one step below the women. With the weight across his neck, he couldn't look up to their faces.

He didn't want to believe it, but perhaps they were intending to let him die, let the world die. The choice was theirs, now. He had made his. The beam suddenly began to lift up, and he turned his head to Rayna and Bella each taking an end, hefting the foot-square, four-pace timber as if it were made of feathers. They tossed it carelessly aside and bent to help him up.

"You would have died for us," Rayna said, as if stating the evening would be a cool one. She held his arm tightly despite the lack of emotion in her voice.

"Yes," he replied simply.

"We would do the same," Bella told him, her eyes full of the feeling that was absent in her tone. Why were they talking like that? The others had been similar.

"We may all get that chance," he said sadly. "There is no guarantee of success."

"Then we die together," the women said in unison as they stepped in to kiss him, Rayna first, then Bella. Again, he felt life flow back into his body, his strength returning along with more of his vala. Again, the women faded to mist as the others had, leaving him to limp hurriedly from the hall before the entire thing collapsed on top of him. He stumbled from the entrance and down the stairs into the square as the roof groaned and caved in, sending clouds of dust and smoke and embers showering all around, sticking to the sweat on his skin.

Coughing, he looked around, but the burning town looked as it had before. "I suppose I should move on," he said to himself wearily. Despite the renewed vala pulsing in him, he felt tired to his bones. His feet and fingers still tingled uncomfortably from the icy stream in the forest, and his back still hurt where the spider had stung him - every now and then hot pain would flash through him before ebbing - and now he ached in the neck and shoulders, the skin raw and blistered from the burning beam. Pushing the pain aside, he started for the other side of the square. I'm coming for you, Sorla.

***

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5.2: Alda'ra

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A hundred drums beaten by as many hands thundered in the night as Kyra stood at the south edge of a circle of hard-packed earth fifty paces across. Torches on the ends of long wooden poles blazed around the perimeter of the circle, throwing light over the onlookers ringing this area, which Kyra had heard called the 'engir'dem.' Dark faces looked on, many of them decorated with lines and patterns and symbols in white paint. Voices sung in a tribal harmony, rising and falling with the rhythmic pounding of the drums.

"Camra du!"

"Camra du!"

"Camra du!"

At the opposite end of the circle from where Kyra stood was what she could only call a dais on big wooden wheels. Adorned by tall torches at each corner, the large square platform held a fur-covered throne carved from a wood Kyra didn't recognise, though it was probably made from the strange trees all over the island with no branches and all their fronds at the top. The woman atop the throne was what held her eyes, though.

One of the largest human women Kyra had ever seen in both height and breadth, she was as dark of colour as the rest of her people yet much more impressive. Thick locks of black hair threaded with many-coloured beads fell from her head to drape shoulders as bare as the rest of her; she wore not a stitch as she sat straight-backed and proud, chin high and intimidating bosom thrust forward as she surveyed the people around the circle. She wore paint, too; elegant patterns that flowed around her fit body in undulating waves, but her face was painted totally white, the only one like it Kyra had seen.

To each side of the woman's throne a muscular man stood, each bald and as dark as everyone else Kyra could see. They were as bare as their mistress save for an identical white pattern painted on their chests. They waited patiently beside her, hands clasped at the smalls of their backs. More men were gathered behind the throne, standing obediently in the same manner, all bearing the same pattern.

"The Banra is our leader," Enji whispered in Kyra's ear. Kyra turned her face slightly to see the dark woman standing very close. "She will be overseeing your trial personally."

The chants fell silent as the Banra's dark-eyed gaze swept around the ring. "Is that normal?" Kyra asked in a hushed voice.

Enji shook her head. "No. I did hear that the Banra has taken special interest in you, friend." What that could mean, Kyra had no clue, but the Banra's eyes had indeed come to rest on her. The only one on the island with fair skin, she had gotten many strange looks, this day. Some of the Aroyin had even come up to her and poked her with a finger, or brushed fingers through her hair as if to see if she was real. She had not minded, really; she was in their lands, after all.

The Banra opened her mouth and the drums and chanting ceased as if severed with a sword. "Bardunna, esh nar engir'dem sei?" She said in a powerful, commanding voice. Kyra didn't understand the words, but Enji translated.

"She's asking you who you are to have come to the circle of truth."

"I am Kyra Lightwing," Kyra replied, raising her voice to be heard at the other end of the circle. "I have come here not by choice but driven by a storm." One of the men beside the throne bent to whisper in the Banra's ear. She said something back to him, and he addressed Kyra directly in the common tongue.

"You and your companions have entered sacred land," he said in a deep, clear voice. "According to our laws, you are to be executed unless one of you can withstand the engir'dem."

"You must say you accept the challenge," Enji said quickly. "Or your friends will be killed."

"I accept!" Kyra called. Excited murmurs rippled through the crowd, and she heard Berten mutter a curse under his breath from somewhere behind her. He was being watched closely by two Aroyin warriors, and judging by the cluster of sensations in her mind that were him, he couldn't decide whether to be scared or enjoy himself looking at all the bare flesh around him. Aroyin women did not appear to favour wearing anything above the waist, and sometimes nothing below the waist, either.

"Then the trial will commence!" The man intoned as the drums started up once again, soon followed by the low, ominous chanting. Enji came around in front of Kyra with a small wooden bowl in hand. Hurriedly, she scooped white paint from the bowl with her fingers and began to draw patterns on Kyra's skin. Her touch sent cool tingles across Kyra's body as the fingers glided this way and that.

"This will help them see you as less an outsider," Enji explained in a low voice. A few Aroyin were sending hard stares at them, while others cocked their heads thoughtfully. "You are strange, to us," Enji continued as she drew two straight lines down Kyra's chest, directly over her nipples. What the significance of that could be was lost on Kyra. "They sense there is something different about you. Perhaps it is enough. Perhaps." Finished with Kyra's front, she did the back, tracing undulating lines from her ankles all the way up to her shoulders. Finally, Enji applied a few marks to her face. "I believe in you, arohim," she said, stepping back and giving Kyra a light shove.

Kyra walked forward, wondering what these trials could possibly throw at her. She was not worried, exactly; the vala gave her more than an ample advantage over most foes, provided she did not run out of energy. As it was, she thought she might be able to fight for two or three hours if necessary, as long as they came at her one or two at a time.

The first attack came before she was all the way to the centre of the circle. A well-muscled woman came screaming out of the crowd from her left, spear raised in one hand as if to throw. Kyra spun smoothly and met her charge, slipping easily under the spear thrust and seizing the haft with both hands before pivoting, sending the woman flying over her head to crash into the dirt. Now armed with a spear, Kyra twirled it a few times to feel the weight before taking a ready stance, spear slanted downward before her, tip to ground.

A surprised murmur ran through the onlookers, but the Aroyin woman was already back on her feet and coming forward. The next part was easy. Kyra drubbed her a couple of times with the butt before kicking her aside. Not hard enough to seriously injure, but enough to send her sliding to the edge of the circle, She wanted the next attacker to think twice about entering.

Her idea worked, but not in the way she wanted. Deciding she was too good for one opponent, three came at her this time, a woman and two men, all with sharp spears. Kyra set herself and slid forward, spinning the spear like a quarterstaff, faster and faster until it hummed as loud as the drums. This entire ordeal would be much easier if she had any skill with aligning - no one would want to fight her if aligned with her - but it would draw too much of her power to do even two or three to any effect, and that would not be enough.

A sudden thought came to her. If I can get close enough to the Banra, though... Finding herself surrounded, she crouched and leaped upward, sailing into the air and flipping over to land behind one of the men. Faster than he could turn, she clubbed his knee to bring him to a kneel, and then his head, taking him out of the fight. The other two came on warily, watching her. They were good, but they weren't arohim. Nor had they been handling weapons for eight hundred years.

Deliberately, she fought with her back to the Banra, every so often stepping closer to the wheeled platform, but not enough to alert her to Kyra's intentions. If she did it too quickly, they might think she intended to kill the woman, but that would not be necessary, Kyra hoped. She disposed of the other man, leaving just the woman, and the crowd began to cheer excitedly. For Kyra or the other woman, she could not tell.

It was a simple enough matter to dispatch her, a tall, hard warrior that could have been Enji's cousin they looked so similar. Bare-breasted but with the grass skirt around her waist, she displayed a deft skill with her spear, but provided no challenge to Kyra. Two men hurried in to drag the unconscious woman from the circle before the next fight began.

Four warriors came next, two men and two women, hard-faced and hard-eyed. Kyra assessed her power; she felt fresh, so far. For an arohim, this amount of exertion was not considered difficult, but she would not be able to do this all night. She would have to pick her moment carefully, perhaps when they thought she was weakening.

Her decision was made for her, however, when a piercing scream ripped through the night from somewhere close by, followed by wild, ululating cries. Shouts rose around the circle, and everywhere Kyra looked, Aroyin snatched up weapons and began to run, arranging themselves into small groups as if guided by a collective mind. The Banra was on her feet, a tasselled spear in her hand as she shouted orders over the din, pointing east. The big Aroyin leaped down from the rolling platform and began to lope along with her warriors, disappearing into the night.

The circle was quickly filled with running bodies, and the four Aroyin facing Kyra turned and joined the charge. Kyra looked around in confusion, wondering what was happening, but Enji was suddenly in front of her, brown eyes wide. "We are being attacked!" She said urgently. "One of the other tribes! I must go to fight! Protect your friends!" At that, she sprinted away, leaving Kyra standing there being buffeted by passing Aroyin.

In an instant, she opened her vala to locate Berten, Lissi and Tessa. Berten was closest, still at the other end of the circle. She was at him in three strides, no longer caring about hiding her power. He was standing there looking as confused as she had been a moment ago. "Can you walk?" she asked quickly, checking him over. His wounds had improved dramatically since the melding, all but the worst bruises and cuts healed, now. He nodded. "Good. I am going to Lissi and Tessa. Hide somewhere and I will find you." He opened his mouth to protest, but she overrode him. "You will only slow me down." She shoved the spear into his hands. "Go!"

Cursing, the Gorn'elda lumbered off toward the village. Kyra didn't wait to see if he obeyed. Flashing through the night, she blew into a hut in the middle of the village, smashing the door down with a shoulder. The thin wood splintered apart like it was made of twigs. Inside, Lissi and Tessa stood there, faces grim and hands raised ready to fight. Kyra beamed as her eyes fell on them, particularly Lissi; she felt as if she hadn't seen the Andrakin for months. As naked as she herself was, the two women looked fine apart from a few scrapes and such, most likely from the shipwreck.

Kyra grunted as Lissi cannoned into her, hugging her until she thought her ribs might break, vala or no. Tessa - her half-Giant height putting her fiery hair up near the roof - grinned broadly and said how good it was to see Kyra.

"We need to go," Kyra said as she gently pried Lissi away. She wanted nothing more than to hold her for an age, but now was not the time. "The village is under attack."

"We heard," Tessa said in her deep but feminine voice. "What should we do?"

"You two are going to stay here," Kyra told them firmly. "I am going to defend the village, and the two of you. No one will enter this hut unless it is through me." She gave them both a level look that said if they argued she would tie them up, but they offered no protest. Lissi kissed her briefly, but firmly.

"Fight hard," the Andrakin said. "We'll be here." Outside, the sounds of intense fighting were growing louder. Shouts, screams and clashing steel and wood approaching like thunder. Kyra raced from the hut and out into the night, assessing the area with her vala. There were hundreds of people fighting out there, but the vala couldn't tell the difference between one tribe and another. Enji's spirit flashed into her awareness, a little brighter than the rest; when you'd aligned with someone, they were easier to sense than others.

The hottest fighting was at the shore of the nearby beach, where Enji was, but whomever was attacking had thought things through; there was pressure on all sides of the village, and Kyra thought the attacking tribe had the advantage of numbers. She went where she was needed most; near the beach on the eastern side of the village. Like a blur, she tore through clusters of fighting until she reached Enji, who was in a band of five, two women and three men, their backs to the centre of a circle and their spears held ready as they faced a closing ring of hooting and taunting warriors.

There were a dozen of them, but Kyra drew on her full ability and moved among them like pale death, crushing throats and chests and heads; there was no time for anything but fast, killing blows.

She turned to Enji when it was done, and the woman was watching her wide-eyed, mouth open, as were the rest of her band. "Aldar'ra," she breathed. The look on her face was almost reverent.

"Aldar'ra," the others said as one, their expressions a mirror of Enji's.

Kyra did not take the time to ask. Voice hard, she demanded Enji tell her how to tell the invaders apart from her own people. Enji shook herself out of her daze and gave her what she needed. Before the last word was out of Enji's mouth, Kyra was off. Her vala couldn't tell her what patterns were painted on the bodies of the invaders, but her eyes could well enough. "Look for this symbol," Enji had said as she held up two fingers to demonstrate a 'V.' Sure enough, as Kyra flashed between huts in the village, it was the women and men displaying that shape that were burning and sacking.

She took no pleasure in killing. In fact, she despised it, and every pair of eyes that went dim under her hands made her want to weep, but she stuffed the sorrow down; she had friends to protect, and her vala was telling her the Aroyin she fought for were good people at their core. In truth, she saw no evil in the invaders, either, but they had started this, and she would finish it.

As she fought, she caught murmurs from the Aroyin, sounding somewhere between frightened and awed. "Aldar'ra. Aldar'ra. Aldar'ra." After she vaulted into the middle of a large cluster of invaders moving up the beach and brought them down in a succession of deadly blows, a cheer began that was quickly taken up by any defenders in earshot.

"Aldar'ra! Aldar'ra! Aldar'ra!"

To Kyra's disbelief, all Aroyin bearing the 'V' turned tail and ran for the water, where their long, narrow boats waited. Defenders surrounded her, hooting and hollering, turning their faces to the stars and wailing wildly in primal joy. The night had been won. Hands touched her tentatively, and those who brushed her skin turned to their brethren and chattered excitedly in their native tongue. Kyra turned on the spot, bewildered.

The gathering crowd fell silent, though, as the Banra approached, and they parted before her, bowing out of the way. Kyra faced the taller woman, looking up into that white painted face. The only sound that could be heard was the crashing of waves on shore behind her, and the fading shouts of the invaders as they pulled their boats out past the breakers.

"It is said," the Banra began, "that in our time of greatest need, the Aldar'ra will come to us and lead us to glory." Her words were slow, careful, as if she was unused to speaking the common tongue. "Her skin will be as the moon," she continued as if reciting something. "And her wrath will be as the sea in a midsummer storm. The unworthy will cower before her, and the worthy will be sheltered in her hand."

Kyra didn't know what to make of all this. Surely these people did not consider her the culmination of some prophecy? Aros, she was no leader of people, nor had she any desire to be their saviour. The Banra snapped an order in her native tongue, and a warrior darted off, pushing through the ring of Aroyin.

Long moments of silence passed, and Kyra was still working out what she should say when the warrior returned with a long, ornate wooden spear, the shaft heavily carved in symbols similar to those that adorned the Aroyin. The silence suddenly became palpable, as if all the Aroyin were holding their breath.