A Warrior's Legacy (14 page)

“Look up!” She said shrieking it out
softly.

I glanced up resignedly, my soul growing
burdened within me at what I saw. The massive branches of the
forest giants were packed with the brutish creatures ready to jump
down upon us and devour us. Hundreds of eyes flickered overtop the
entire column.

I wanted to stop, but I was pushed on by the
column that was under orders not to stop for any reason. I heard a
shriek as someone else saw what I had and then the gloom of our
situation dawned upon the whole column and it almost came to a
frightful stop.

I had to do something or all would be lost,
but what? The creatures had seemed mesmerized partially by our
swift moving column and the blinking lights of our torches.

Light!

I could do light! I wheeled Relentless away
from the head of the column and raced back down the long line of
baulking riders bellowing at the top of my lungs, “Keep going!
Don’t stop! Don’t you dare stop!”

Like the good warriors they were their
bodies’ actions obeyed the voice of their master of war, even
though their minds dwelt on the terror that was grinning madly from
slobbering lips down upon them from above.

My hand reached for my sword at my waist and
I pulled it free. At the contact of the handle against my palm and
fingers the familiar blue veins of light began to trace up and down
the blade, as the pommel stone glowed red. I had been careful not
to show my sword about ever since landing on Assoria, but now
seemed like a good time for its unveiling.

“In the beginning the Creator said, ‘Let
there be light and there was light’!”

At my words the sword began to pulse
vibrantly with color and at the conclusion of them it burst into a
glowing blue flame of color too bright to directly look at.

Waves of color radiated off of the blade. I
held the sword aloft and rode Relentless toward the center of the
old growth forest repeating every Bible verse I knew of, not really
caring what. Waves of colored smoke rolled off the sword like steam
from off the surface of a warm pond on a cold morning in the
autumn.

The glow of the sword completely illuminated
the old growth and the brutish creatures above could be seen
cowering and trying to shield their slack-jawed dumb looking faces
away from the unmatched flaming intensity of the sword I held
high.

The column of warriors raced by me at
breakneck speed out of the grove and into the patchy forest beyond
the old growth. I must even to them have been a hellish looking
sight to behold.

A liquid like river of reddish purple light
radiated out from the red pommel stone to travel down my arm to the
rest of my body, where it veined out into a thousand highlighting
lines over all of me and then down onto Relentless.

Relentless seemed to revel in his new found
color. Shaking his mane about roughly he sent sprays of the color
into the air, even as he stamped his hooves authoritatively upon
the ground leaving sparks of color. He was a warhorse and anything
that made him more intimidating he loved. He was as passionate as
his grand sire before him.

Finally the end of the column raced by and
out of the old growth section of the forest. Relentless reared back
on his haunches and pawed at the canopy of the forest and the
heavens beyond, as if daring the hungry horde to come down and face
him.

I’d rather not be here when they did though
and I brought him under command. After giving the scream of a
stallion’s challenge Relentless brought his legs crashing back down
to the forest floor and took off. Red sprays of light shot out from
his hooves at impact with the ground. The entire forest seemed to
shake and I groaned inwardly at how this was going to overly
inflate the horse’s already overblown ego.

Relentless and I lunged after the
disappearing column as I was eager to be gone from this place. It
took a while to catch up, because the column was moving so fast,
but it began to slow as we drew clear of the forest and moved out
into the open grassland.

I rode up beside the column, headed for the
front. All the torches had been extinguished and my sword and
appearance were all back to normal, as my sword only softly glowed
in my hand now. As I had begun to pass the rear of the column I’d
heard the soldiers say something directed at me in their native
language that sounded like, “Aire ey se tean cotera sho” I wondered
at what it meant.

At length I reached the head of the column,
the native chant following me the whole way there. I even heard
Sazen say it softly under her breath, as I pulled up alongside of
her at the head of the column, as we slowed our horses to a walk
through the tall grass.

“What does that chant mean Sazen?”

She looked over at me and said softly,
“Loosely translated it means, ‘Lead on fearless warrior we will
follow’, but in our language it means much more. A better way of
saying it would be, ‘We give you our lives our hopes our dreams.
Care for them as you will for we trust you to lead us through the
battle fray to an honorable end, whether it be in death or in
life.”

I was quiet for a while and then all I could
manage in response to that was, “I’m far from being fearless and
having all the answers Sazen!”

She glanced over at me and smiled. She was
an attractive woman, even for all the battle scars that adorned her
face, “Doesn’t matter they think that you are worthy of the
saying.” She said indicating the warriors behind us.

“I’ll try to live up to that, but that’s a
lot to expect from anyone.”I said.

“I expect you’ll succeed very well.” Sazen
said softly.

We crested a knoll and there it was sprawled
out before us, Boratasa. It had to be about nine o’clock, but the
city was still in full swing. The column had come to a halt behind
me waiting patiently for further orders. The company commanders
rode up.

“Keep the soldiers behind this knoll.
Everyone is to see to the feeding and watering of their horse. Give
them the provisions of grain we brought along with us and let them
eat as much as they want and then everyone is to get as much sleep
as they can. We move out in five hours.”

The commanders dispersed back to their
companies as I continued to gaze out over the tall grass at the
city glowing in the night. Memories from the past filled my mind
with their imagery as I gazed at the city. I remembered the first
city I had taken and burnt to the ground, when I was barely 16
years old. I had been so scared then. Was I scared now?

Not scared of the action, but yes I was
still scared. Scared of the failure of disappointing these warriors
and their people. Scared of leading them to their needless deaths
above all else. Had this mission been a worthwhile risk? Time would
tell.

The dew was heavy on the grass and the
morning fog was thick. We glided through it like stalking tigers
not a lit torch among us, as we drew closer and closer to the high
outer wall near the southern gate. No sounds came from within the
city and all was quiet.

Too quiet seemingly for such a city, surely
there were at least night sentries. Unbelievably we filed through
the wide open gate into the gate yard beyond. Craning around in my
saddle I stared at the high walls and towers.

I could see no one!

Was it going to really be that easy or was
this some form of an elaborate trap? Was the gate going to come
slamming down at any moment for us to find ourselves surrounded by
the enemy?

Holon came running up to me sword in hand
his face looking as incredulous as mine must’ve looked, “There all
dead Zevin! All of them in the gatehouse and I can’t see a live
sentry along the walls in both directions!”

“Dead! How?”

“They looked like they had been stabbed as
they were eating!”

Who would have done such a thing? And why
would they have done it the very night of our attack? If they were
indeed helping us how had they known we were coming?

The entire column was fanned out all along
the inside of the wall and I wasn’t quite sure now what to do. I
hadn’t expected anything like this!

It was as if the Creator had given the city
over into our hands without even a fight. But who had killed the
sentries?

The answer came then slowly in the form of
cloaked figures slowly moving out of the cover of buildings and
alleyways. They moved quietly through the mist that blanketed the
street to congregate before our horses. More and more of the
cloaked figures appeared. There were hundreds of them; no there
were thousands of them!

I heard the bow strings of the archers
behind me stretch and the grating squeak of swords leaving their
sheaths and I held up my hand for them to stop. This was no
gathering horde of the enemy. It was a group made up entirely of
women!

Girls, teenagers, young women, middle-aged
women, and even older women. What was going on here?

Holding my sword at the ready I moved
Relentless forward toward the silent congregation. I drew up in
front of them waiting, as if expecting an answer for their
unexplained appearance and help this night. I didn’t have to wait
long.

A young pretty girl stepped forward and
said, “Please Sir!”

But hesitated to say more as a hopeless look
filled her eyes that said she wanted to believe that there was
hope, but doubted it would ever happen for her.

“Take us with you.” Finished an older woman
on behalf of the younger woman.

Other voices spoke up softly pleadingly from
the crowd.

“Please!”

“Take us from this place!”

“We’ve delivered the city to you!”

“We’ve placed oil on all the buildings and
along the street fronts!”

“Don’t leave us in this place!”

I held up a hand silencing the voices. I
looked out over them for a moment.

“Can anyone give me one good reason why I
should risk the lives of my warriors to take you home with us?”

There was a long pause and I saw a lot of
silent tears falling, each one of them making me feel like a
heartless villain inside. The pretty girl who had spoken up first
stepped forward toward me and knelt awkwardly down in the dirt of
the street before Relentless.

Her face was wet with tears, “These women
and I want to be taken from this place for many reasons, but I will
speak only for myself even though I know my desires are the desires
of many of us, if not all of us. It has been foretold by the
priestess of the East that strangers would come from the far lands
across the sea and that they would bring the words of the one true
God with them. It is come true even as she has said. I want to know
this God and leave the shame and disgrace of this place that my
people have become the authors of. I want to know the love and
respect of a good man and have the knowledge that my children will
be safe and able to grow up happy and not know what I have known. I
want to be a part of something good and be removed from the evil
lusts of my father’s people. I want to live and have honor. I hope
all these things will come to pass if you take us with you, but if
I cannot go then I will at least die in honor and not allow anymore
of my soul to be taken away from me or abused!”

She pulled a dagger out and held it poised
to pierce her heart in both hands, as she looked up at me out of
pleading eyes. I looked from her to the crowd of faces around and
saw all the same expressions of that clung to hope, mirrored there
as well.

This was probably not going to end well, but
what else could I do. It just seemed like the right thing to do,
even though it looked for sure like doing so was going to cause it
to end badly for not only these women, but also my warriors and
myself. I turned in the saddle and glanced at Talin. I inclined my
head to the kneeling girl and he nodded pulling his horse out of
the line as others followed his lead.

He leaned down out of the saddle and pulled
the girl up behind him gently, as if she weighed nothing. Her cloak
fell partly open and I could see that she was very pregnant.

I was doing the right thing, I had to be
surely. I just hoped it didn’t get us all killed.

The crowd of gathered women lessened as more
and more of them were taken up behind riders. There were more
children than I had thought there were in amongst the crowd of
women, both girls and boys.

I saw a familiar looking woman standing
still not moving along with the other women toward the waiting
riders. I made my way through the crowd of women and reined up
beside the woman. It was the old blind woman that we had met here
just a few days before.

Her cloudy unseeing eyes looked up at me,
“It is a noble thing that you are doing Zevin. A deed fit for a
member of the Ta’lont household.”

How did this woman know so much?

“What good is doing a noble thing if it ends
up getting us all killed?” I asked bitterly.

“No one ever said that the right path was
necessarily the easiest path in life to take, Zevin. Quite the
opposite actually often proves true.”

“Where do you get all your information from?
It was you who told these women we would be here tonight wasn’t it?
Who do you serve?”I asked both angry at being left in the dark and
eager to know the answer to my question.

The old woman smiled serenely, “Relax young
warrior I have not betrayed you and as to whom I serve that is a
mystery for you to unravel isn’t it? What I have told you is what I
have been given to say by one who gave her life so that her land
and her people could one day go free, so that all Assoria can be
free.”

I looked away frustrated.

Sounding like a petulant child in my own
ears I asked, “How am I going to get these women and children back
safely? I won’t have the diversion of panicked people I need to
slip back through the forest and there is no way I can attempt to
reenter the forest without that diversion, not to mention that over
half of the horses of my army are weighed down carrying double
burdens that prohibits us moving swiftly in any direction. Access
to the plain is barred by two forts and every Western soldier is
going to be out looking for us with a colossal grudge! Tell me
since you know so much about what’s going on what would you suggest
I do?”