Into Forbidden Lands

Tarmel’s horse leapt forward to match Argolan’s steed and Illiom had to pull back on the reins to prevent Black Lightning from racing after them.

The Shakim did not hesitate. They pursued the Shieldarm and her Riders but quickly veered away, splitting off into two separate groups that fanned out on either side of the main charge.

The opposing forces collided at the bottom of the gully with a clash of steel - less than three hundred spans from where the Chosen stood.

Tarmel’s horse danced right through the melee to emerge on the far side, unscathed. A few riderless horses were already galloping away from the battle and the Shakim fell upon the remaining soldiers like a legion of demons.

Blades flashed and armour gleamed, catching the brightness of the rising sun. Moments later the fight was almost over. Only three soldiers had survived the encounter and were fast fleeing the battlefield. One did not get far. A pursuing Shakim unhorsed him.

“Do not kill him!” Argolan shouted, even as the tribal plunged a blade into the man’s heart.

Azulya echoed Argolan’s plea, thus sparing the lives of the two remaining soldiers who were quickly rounded up by the warriors. The battle now over, the tribals retrieved the scattered horses while the Chosen and Riders headed for the village.

When they reached the common, Illiom was appalled to find a small child sobbing while clinging to its dead mother. Three other bodies lay sprawled nearby – those of a man, an older woman and a dog.

Illiom dismounted and ran to the child. The girl did not resist when Illiom picked her up, but when the Chosen tried to bear her away from her mother’s corpse the child thrashed in her arms, screaming hysterically.

Gradually the frightened villagers began to emerge from where they had been hiding. One young woman rushed up to claim the distraught child in Illiom’s arms.

“Thank you,” she whispered, as tears rolled down her pretty face.

Azulya moved to comfort an old woman, but when the villager saw her she recoiled with a frightened scream.

“You should stop scaring people like that, Azulya,” Scald said, coming up beside her.

He turned to the old woman. “I know her appearance is a little daunting, but I assure you that she is safe. I vouch for her.”

Nearby, Malco raised an eyebrow.

“You do not look very reassuring yourself, Scald. Shall I vouch for you?”

Elan pushed past both with a disgusted expression.

“Pay these fools no heed, they do not know when jests are called for and when they are not. You are safe with us.” She looked around to include the other villagers. “You are all safe now, we wish you no harm. And our blue friend here means you no ill will. You have nothing to fear from her.”

A man approached, clutching his frayed hat nervously, and took up the task of liaising with the rescuers.

“They came yesterday, just before dusk,” he stated. “It has not even been a year since their last attack.”

As he spoke, Illiom noticed that more villagers were now congregating in the common.

“They never come regularly,” muttered a woman in her middle years. “They do it so that no one can know when to expect them.”

“Not that it matters,” piped in the young woman who had claimed the child. “They come when they come, and if we do not give them what they want they kill, rape, and burn our homes until we yield to their demands.”

“There has been betrayal amongst us, as some here have bargained for their own lives or the lives of their children.”

The man spat in disgust.

“That is how they do things. They are worse than the Illian Gar.”

“Do not speak that name!” warned the older woman, stridently. “It calls them!”

Azulya turned to the man.

“We have heard some stories from others,” she said, gesturing towards the east. “Where do these soldiers come from?”

“Mereas,” Scald interjected.

Noticing the fearful way the villagers were regarding her, Azulya strove to reassure them.

“Please do not let my appearance frighten you. I am different from you because I come from far away, but I am not a monster or a demon. My people call me a healer.”

The word was picked up and repeated, and soon the Kroeni was regarded with cautious respect.

Scald drew their attention.

“You said that the Meresians raid each year. How is it that you still have any children left?”

“They come every year, but not always for our children. They mostly come to collect taxes, and to bully us. Sometimes they will make sport with our women, especially the younger ones, if these are unlucky enough to be around when they arrive. If we resist, they do not hesitate to kill.”

“They always take too much,” an old man complained, “and leave us to go hungry when winter comes.”

The Shakim had returned, bearing the two captured soldiers.

“Are there any soldiers unaccounted for?” Argolan wanted to know.

The Blade relayed her question.

“No, you have them all,” an older man answered. “For now.”

Azulya spun towards him.

“Are you anticipating more?”

The man nodded.

“I mean no disrespect. We are grateful for your intervention. You have prevented these heartless scum from taking the little we have, but now? There will be a reprisal, you know – there always is. We have heard of uprisings in the past, the ruins of those villages now dot the land. The Meresians will find out what happened here and then we will all be killed. Our village will be razed to the ground, our children enslaved.”

Upon hearing Azulya’s translation, Argolan frowned.

“How can they know what has happened here if none have escaped and if we rid the land of all evidence of a struggle? Why should they suspect you? I mean, how can a bunch of untrained villagers dispatch a score of soldiers?”

Azulya translated, and then added her own comment.

“She speaks the truth. You are in a good position to deflect suspicion. I know this does not resolve your predicament in the long run, but you must not lose faith. Whatever happens, were you able to anticipate this morning’s outcome? Of course not!”

The old man’s eyes shone as Azulya spoke. He shook his head slowly.

“No, you are right. We have lost hope.”

As they talked, a few more stragglers approached from the surrounding shrubs. Eventually there were more than forty people gathered in the common.

Some of the villagers had sustained some minor wounds, but unfortunately one of the tribals had been killed in the battle.

Grifor had received an injury to her right shoulder and it would be some time before she would be able to effectively wield a sword. Mist had a cut to his thigh, but he insisted that it was not serious.

The Riders and Shakim were so blood-splattered that it was difficult to tell them apart.

When Tarmel dismounted, Illiom was shocked to see him limping.

“Are you hurt?” she asked anxiously.

He shrugged, smiling, and shook his head dismissively.

“Not from a blade. One of the horses slammed into me back there and my leg is a little bruised.”

A high-pitched wail tore through the air.

Illiom spun around to see a young woman lunge towards the prisoners. She wielded a knife and her target was clearly the older of the two.

The man, his hands bound, did his best to squirm away and so avoided being stabbed in the chest, but the woman’s blade still found its mark. Screaming in pain, he knocked her down, kicking her as she lay helpless in the dirt.

With a roar, Malco propelled himself at him, wrestling him to the ground while his companion, just a young lad, watched in terror. Azulya ran to the stricken woman’s side and held her as she sobbed.

Malco grunted.

“I have a mind to finish this bastard off,” he said, tightening his stranglehold on the prisoner.

“No, Malco,” Argolan warned. “Find a place where we can hold the two, somewhere the villagers cannot get to them. I want them alive.”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Vermin coward!” a woman hissed through clenched teeth as she knelt beside the young woman. She glanced venomously at the soldier before turning to Azulya.

“He took Mirva into the stables last night. He and one of the dead ones forced themselves upon her. If she had not tried to kill him, I would have!”

She looked at Argolan defiantly.

Malco translated her words and Argolan nodded in sympathy.

“I understand how you feel, but the prisoners must not be harmed. We may yet learn things from them that will benefit us. Her revenge will have to wait.”

But, when Malco repeated the Shieldarm’s words, the wounded soldier laughed.

“You have something to say? Or would you like me to remove your tongue?” Malco spat as he tightened his grip around the man’s neck. But the soldier’s laughter continued, even as he struggled against the Blade’s stranglehold.

“Malco!” Argolan shouted, and the Blade responded by releasing the prisoner. The man fell to his knees, gasping but still laughing.

“Do you think you can threaten us?” he snarled. “Do you think you can hurt us? Anything that you do will be like nothing, compared to what the Illian Gar will do to us if we return empty-handed, so go ahead, kill us! Do you think I care? Anything is better than going back to that. Kill us right now, because you will not get a single word out of us.”

Illiom looked at his young companion and saw quite clearly that the man was wrong. The boy looked so frightened that she was surprised he did not offer to tell them everything, there and then.

“We will see about that,” Argolan said when Scald translated. “Now get them out of my sight.”

It was clear that the party would have to stop in Wendfell – the hamlet’s name – for the sake of the injured.

The Riders and Shakim got to work and created a great wooden pyre, then dragged the bodies of the slain soldiers over and stripped them of weapons and armour before piling the corpses onto it.

The fire burned all through the night and continued to smoulder for most of the next day. In the afternoon, a welcome wind blew in from the west, bearing away the stench of burnt flesh.

That evening the people of Wendfell prepared food for all and, afterwards, Argolan had the Riders bring over the weapons they had collected from the slain.

“Who among you knows how to fight?” she asked when the weapons were laid out. Malco translated.

No one stepped forward.

“I would like for nothing better than to learn,” shouted a man with a black beard.

Argolan nodded.

“Then best that you hide these. If the soldiers come and find you armed, they will slaughter you. Keep these weapons hidden somewhere, in a place where you can quickly collect them if things turn bad.”

“Morda’s cavern,” an older man suggested.

“You should also hide the horses.”

Argolan paced as she spoke.

“We need to spend some time here, so my Riders will try and teach those of you inclined to wield a sword. It will not make you warriors, but the unexpectedness of it may give you an edge. Surprise is a powerful thing that can turn the tables.”

“There is one other course of action that you may wish to consider,” Azulya picked up. “You now have a score more horses than you had yesterday. You could pack all that you can and leave this place for good. We came across another group, far to the east, who did just that a long time ago. Their life is not easy, but they do not suffer any incursions from the Meresians. Their stores and their children are safe. The lands there are harsher, but anything is better than living in constant fear. Surely leaving this place is better than having your children torn from your arms and your daughters raped before your eyes.”

Illiom could not help but hear the snippets of conversation that followed. She turned to Tarmel.

“They are debating what to do,” she whispered. “Some want to stay and defend their town, and others - especially the women - want to leave immediately.”

He nodded.

“It is a hard choice. They may need some time to weigh the advantages and disadvantages, but I think they should go. If the soldiers come back, they will not stand a chance, regardless of weapons.”

“I feel sadness for them,” Illiom said. “I wish there was something more we could do to help.”

After breakfast the next morning, Argolan walked over with Malco.

“Time to question our prisoners,” she said to Tarmel, and turned towards the barn where they were held.

“I want to come too,” Azulya insisted.

Argolan eyed the Chosen with a degree of suspicion. The Kroeni had taken it upon herself only yesterday to tend to the shoulder of the wounded Meresian. As it turned out, this had not been a popular decision and she had met with plenty of disapproval, especially from the villagers who were inclined to let the man rot.

“I already have Malco to translate,” Argolan countered, “so you do not need to come.”

“Nevertheless, I am coming.”

Argolan studied the Kroeni’s face.

“You are a Chosen, Azulya. I do not recommend…”

“Malco is also a Chosen,” Azulya countered.

Argolan turned to face her.

“So he is. But he is also a Blade of the Black Ward. Chosen, you may not have the stomach for what might happen in there.”

Illiom thought it telling that the Shieldarm addressed Azulya by her title; for some time now everyone in the party had been addressing each other informally.

But Azulya’s smile was as uncompromising as a loaded crossbow, and tense with determination.

“I wish to be there because, as you have just reminded me, I am a Chosen, and everything that unfolds within this party of ours is my concern.”

Argolan looked down at her feet for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Do you recall the day, back in Kuon, when we talked about my role in this expedition of ours?” she asked, and continued without waiting for a response. “The day we agreed that all decisions regarding the safety of the Chosen would fall on me? Well, this is such a time.”

“Then it is high time that we revoke that decision,” Azulya insisted. “We are no longer in Albradan, and all our relationships have changed. What we agreed upon back then no longer applies, and I for one need to know if our Shieldarm and our Riders resort to torture to gain the information they want.”

Azulya glowered defiantly and Argolan glared back.

In the end the Shieldarm conceded.

“Very well. I cannot prevent you from attending, but you had better come right away. I will not wait for you.”

“I am coming too,” Illiom said.

Argolan nodded indifferently and strode away.

The first thing Illiom noticed when she entered the barn was the smell. There were the usual smells of straw and hay and animal droppings, but beneath those was the sour-sweet tang of decay.

Azulya attended immediately to the wounded prisoner. She touched his forehead and then lifted the man’s eyelid with her thumb. She opened his dressing and shook her head.

“I dressed his wound yesterday in kurkuma and honey, but blood rot must have already set in. He has passed out and I do not believe he will reawaken.”

“Good news for the girl, Mirva,” Malco said, and spat in the hay.

The other prisoner stared at them with wild eyes.

That was the other odour that Illiom could smell: fear. The boy reeked of it. He looked even younger than he had just two days earlier.

“I swear I didn’t want to be here!” he stammered, finding his voice at last. “I didn’t have no choice in any of it. I didn’t rape or kill anyone. I ain’t done nothing wrong, I swear. You must believe me … they … they made me come, they made me...”

“Sure,” Malco nodded, sounding sympathetic. “That is the way it goes for many of us. At first you think that by becoming a soldier you become a man, someone tough and strong. Who did you want to impress? Your father? Your mother? Friends? Oh wait, was it a girl? Oh yes, that is the usual reason.”

As he spoke, Malco slowly drew his knife from its sheath.

“But then – after you enlist – you find out that being a soldier is not about strength or bravery, but simply about following orders. Nothing more and nothing less, regardless of whether they are to your liking or not, just or unjust.”

Malco’s voice had been rising, but now it softened again.

“You might discover that your real work is just about keeping poor defenceless peasants under control and from taking arms against the two-faced, cowardly scum who rule you! How does that make sense? By the time you realise the truth it is too late. By then it all boils down to survival.”

He wiped his blade on his trouser leg.

“But now you have a choice to walk a different path. Tell us everything you know and you may go free. It is that simple.”

“Malco…” Illiom started.

The Blade did not turn to look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the boy.

“Keep out of this, Illiom.”

His next words were directed at the youth, whose hands were now shaking.

“So, which will it be? Do you have something to tell us?”

The Meresian lad could not get the words out fast enough.

Illiom was only vaguely aware of the boy’s account of a large force, how many they numbered and where they were camped, for her attention was not on him, but on Malco.

The Chosen Blade had been a mystery to her until recently. Now, for the second time, she glimpsed the man concealed behind the mask he wore, the man behind the Blade.

His communication with the prisoner revealed to her the origins of his cynicism and anger. His own disillusionment lay exposed.

She caught up with him as they made their way back to the common.

“That was well done, Malco. You frightened him half to death, but you extracted the information you wanted without hurting him.”

The Blade glanced at her with a touch of amusement.

“Just luck that it was him and not his wounded companion. That one would sooner have died than give us even his name.”

That piqued her curiosity.

“How do you know?”

Malco shrugged.

“He had no soul left. Nothing you can do with someone like that except a quick death.”

“What will Argolan do with the boy now?”

A sharp glance.

“Take him with us, I guess. Cut him loose when we are far enough from here that he can cause no grief.”

Illiom mulled on his words for a while.

“What would you have done if he had not told you what you wanted to know?”

The Blade smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing. I might have raised the menace a notch or two. I rather like him, he reminds me of someone.”

Illiom thought she knew who the boy reminded him of, but by then they had rejoined the others and the opportunity for further conversation was curtailed.

In the days that followed, Malco and the remaining Riders devoted a good deal of time and energy to teaching those villagers eager to learn the rudimentary principles of swordplay.

Even Argolan chipped in with the occasional suggestion or demonstration. Illiom thought it a futile exercise for, as the Shieldarm had pointed out, it would hardly equip them to fight against seasoned soldiers. However, what she did notice as the days passed was the degree of confidence and hope that gradually grew in the eyes of these desperate and disheartened people.

As Azulya had predicted, the wounded prisoner did not regain consciousness, but died a few days later.

Argolan no longer deemed the boy a threat. She kept him bound, but allowed him to eat with the rest, under Malco’s supervision.

In the evenings, everyone gathered around a communal fire and shared food as well as stories, and here the tale of Wendfell gradually unfolded.

The village had been left untouched until some fifty or so years earlier, when the Meresians paid Wendfell their first visit. The village forefathers had deemed themselves fortunate that Wendfell was small and situated far from the Meresian capital. This fact had spared them much of the agony that had befallen many other villages and settlements located closer to the seat of power.

Since that time, however, everything had changed. On their first attack, the soldiers had seized half the children aged between six and sixteen, beating anyone who protested and putting to the sword anyone who resisted or fought back.

The villagers had been lucky enough last year, for they had received forewarning: a hunter had spied the approaching soldiers and had returned to the village at speed to raise the alarm. This gave the people enough time to hide a sizeable portion of their harvest – as well as their daughters – in the nearby caves.

When the soldiers arrived, what they found fell well short of their expectations. However, they were not fools. Accustomed to peasants hiding things from them, they combed the surrounding area. Fortunately, they found nothing.

When they returned empty-handed, the soldiers vented their frustration on the villagers, setting fire to some houses and taking whatever stock they could lay their hands on. They threatened that if their next visit yielded as little, they would destroy the village and take all the people that could walk, into slavery, killing the rest.

This year there had been no forewarning.

The soldiers had ridden in hard, surrounding the village to prevent anyone from escaping. Then they had settled in – slaughtering animals, eating stores, getting drunk, and generally terrorising the villagers. As the night wore on they had dragged some of the women away and these were not seen again until dawn, distraught and marked by violence. It was then that the party of the Chosen had come to the rescue.

“Your arrival can only be explained as an act of the God who wards against the poison of injustice,” remarked one elder. “I hate to think what might have happened had you not come when you did.”

“Our only sadness,” Azulya responded, “is that we did not get here sooner.”

They remained in Wendfell for five days before they contemplated leaving. Grifor was recovering well.

It was now the twenty-seventh day of Newharvest, the fifth moon of the year. They had hunted, cooked and eaten with the villagers every night and on this particular night, after their meal, the Chosen gathered some distance from the common to discuss their options.

“We must make a move soon,” Scald spoke softly. “We cannot afford to linger here any longer. I know that the Illignment is still more than eight moons away, but I looked at the map earlier and it shows that we still have a great distance to cover.”

“What of the villagers?” Elan asked. “They cannot remain here.”

“That is their decision to make. Maybe our leaving will instigate them into decisive action,” Malco replied. “They know their choices.”

Illiom turned to the Shieldarm.

“Argolan? When can we be ready to go?”

“The day after the morrow.”

“Great!” Sereth said, jumping to his feet. “I cannot wait to be gone from here.”

“And I cannot wait to get to our destination,” Malco said, matching Sereth’s enthusiasm.

They returned to the common to inform the villagers of their decision to find that the latter had also not been idle. They had noticed the gathering and had divined its purpose. One of the elders, a man by the name of Shenna, beckoned them.

“We know that you are keen to be on your way – we understand. You have saved us and we are grateful for that, but the question remains, what are we to do?”

“You must follow the only reasonable course that is open to you,” Sereth answered. “You must gather all that you can, abandon everything else, and flee.”

Shenna nodded heavily.

“Some have fled before, but we do not know what has become of them. They fled into the wilderness. Some south, others east, and maybe they still live or maybe they do not. You say that we should go, but what manner of life can we hope for? Many of us are old and weary. How can we endure a long journey?”

“This is our home!” A voice overrode the elder. A ruddy man who answered to the name of Helfer stepped up. “This is where we belong! Why should we forsake our homes, the fruit of our labour? For what? An uncertain future, scratching a living in the dirt, like chickens?”

“Aye,” took up another. “This is where our ancestors and our parents and their parents were born. This is where they lived and toiled and died, and…”

“Yes, and this is where you too will die - if you do not leave!” Azulya snapped.

Her voice echoed with power and the villagers shrank from her. Having gained their complete attention, she softened her tone.

“But your death will be premature and will come long before you have seen your allotted years in this world. And what is worse is that you will die seeing all that you have toiled for, and strived towards, destroyed.”

She fell silent, holding them with the fire in her eyes.

“Better that you torch your own fields and homes now, and leave nothing for the vermin who will enslave you. Better that you carry your children far away and forge a new life for them, than wait here for your death.”

A silence followed.

Shenna turned to his people.

“The blue one speaks truly, we have all seen it. How many stories have we heard of entire villages being wiped out? We cannot stay, we must leave.”

The old man wept openly as he spoke and his audience hung their heads, avoiding his eyes.

Not so, Helfer.

“No! This time you are wrong. This is different!” he exclaimed, repeatedly slamming a fist into the palm of his hand. “Those other villages, they fought back like fools, with spades and hoes and axes. But look at us, we have weapons now, swords and crossbows and even armour. We can turn Wendfell into a fortress! We will show them that we are not meek, that we can fight. We will show them that they are not the only ones who can kill!”

His eyes bulged in fury.

Malco stood up slowly and faced him.

“Fine, you know what? You stay here and be slaughtered, if that is what you want. Maybe the rest will have the sense to disregard your blindness and leave anyway. I hope they do.”

He turned to address the others.

“Summer is here; this is the best time for such an endeavour. My counsel is this: you have two days in which to prepare. If you have any sense at all, you will leave when we do. Decide what to take and what to leave behind. You have horses, you have weapons. Flee while you still can. Find a place far from here, somewhere safe where you can wait for this darkness to pass.”

Scald nodded, his eyes burning with passion.

“You must know that our purpose is in alignment with yours. When we leave here we will travel into the heart of this darkness where, Iod willing, we may be able to free Âtras of the ill that now plagues her. By the beginning of next year, you will see signs. If they are good, then you will once again be able to live your lives free of fear. But if they are ill…”

“Do not speak of ill, Scald!” Azulya cut in sharply. “It is enough to say that you will know, and then act accordingly. You say you are in our debt? Then pray to your Gods for us, pray that we prevail. As Malco said, we will remain here two more days and then we will leave. The choice is yours, so choose wisely.”

The villagers were silent for a time, seemingly in awe of the Chosen’s passionate plea. Shenna was the first to find his voice.

“We are in your debt. We will pray to our Gods for your success. In the meantime, we will speak on this and will let you know in the morning what we have decided.”

They retired soon after, but Illiom could hear the voices of the villagers raised in argument long after they had bedded down.