A Warrior's Legacy (22 page)

“A fine blade Sir, to be sure! Now all that
is to be wondered at is how such a marvelous sword was made from
our own life-giving element a continent away from us. A mystery for
another day to be sure. Come stranger and let us talk
together.”

He turned to the side and indicated the
doorway behind him. His eyes left me and settled on Raya, “As for
you Raya I’m not sure whether you should be disciplined or praised
for your role in all this. You can be sure though that I will deal
with you accordingly!”

Raya’s head dipped down in shame once again
before she turned and disappeared into the crowd. I had been
watching him closely and I saw a tick of pain in the corner of his
eye caused by his harsh words to Raya. He cared for her.

He caught my knowing gaze, “The young have
excuse by their lack of experience, but she has none.”

He turned and entered through the doorway.
Now what did he mean by that?

I stepped inside and received a further
surprise. The interior was even more well lit than that of the
exterior. There were balls of the glowing trinial element on
pedestals throughout the room and while the furnishings were sparse
what there was looked comfortable.

“Please have a seat Zevin.”

“News travels fast down here.” I
commented.

His aged brows crinkled good humouredly as
he said, “You’ll find that it is next to impossible to keep a
secret underground. Tell me is it any better keeping one above
ground?”

I chuckled softly and shook my head, “No I’m
afraid not.”

“Just as I remembered it to be then. Well
I’m sure you are full of questions. Tell me what is it you want to
know first?”

I looked at him for a lack of words to
express the multitude of questions I had, “I don’t know where to
begin. There are so many.”

“Well then let us start from the beginning.
How we came to be here. We are the mingling of two peoples. The
North and the East. Both were brought to this darkened abode by the
West’s treachery and the sorcerer’s thirst for power. Are you
familiar with the recent sad history of Assoria?”

“Somewhat.”

“Tell me what you know.”

I told him the story of it that I had been
told by Zalisha.

He nodded at my ending of the past events.
“An accurate story. Now I shall tell you of what was not known at
the time or since then concerning these people you see here. The
Northern army on its way south through the mountain passes as you
know was ambushed, but it was not destroyed completely. During the
second night of fighting the survivors of the first days attack
found a cave opening. All night long the Northern warriors filed
into the narrow cave opening. Over five thousand warriors who were
wounded elected to stay behind and insure that our escape was not
noticed the next day. They filled the cave opening and removed all
evidence of our passage into the underground labyrinth that lies
beneath all of Assoria. There were one hundred and twenty thousand
of us when we rode south on our quest of unfounded vengeance
against the East. Over ninety thousand of us died in the first day
of fighting. Of those of us who survived only seventeen thousand of
us made it into the cave.”

“You were one of the warriors?” I asked
incredulously.

He smiled softly and nodded wryly, “Another
benefit of underground living or perhaps a curse. I’m not sure
which. I was a warrior in a position of command.”

He paused for a long moment appearing as if
lost in the memories of the past.

“We stumbled around in the dark for days and
we all became hopelessly lost. We had never intended to stay
underground for so long, but try as we might we could not find a
way back to the surface. After two bitter weeks of trying to find a
way back to the surface we made the decision to go deeper into the
caves. After a month there were barely 7000 of us left alive.

Living underground may prolong the span of
one’s years, but it is rare to ever live to experience such
longevity. There are all kinds of dangers to overcome or simply
survive from down here. Cave-ins, poisonous gas eruptions and
hungry monsters. We were about to give up when we found a cavern
similar to this one. It served as a sanctuary of sorts for us and
it gave us time to get our strength back and explore our
surroundings more fully. Years passed by before we finally found a
way back to the surface only to find out to our dismay that we
couldn’t reenter the light of day without becoming blinded. It was
a very bitter discovery. Gone were all our hopes of returning to
our families and our chances of fighting for our now vulnerable
kingdom. We retreated back down to our underground chambers and
continued on with our lonely existence not sure of what our purpose
was. We made a discovery when one of our explorers reported the
sounds of digging at the far end of a remote cave system. We
investigated further and to our dismay we found literally thousands
of slaves at work underground. They were Easterners and they were
literally being worked to death by their overseers a blend of both
Western sentries and the sorcerer’s own men. We made contact with
some of the slaves and from them we learned of what had happened on
the surface since our absence from it. They told us of the North’s
subjugation and then of its vanishing cities. They told us of the
onslaught that had befallen the Eastern cities and the great
disaster that had befallen Lancosa. The slaves had been taken
prisoner from the Eastern cities. As the cities fell their
inhabitants became the slaves in the sorcerer’s mines. The sorcerer
they told us was in search of the blue element trinial that
supports our entire life system down here. I’m not sure how, but
the sorcerer manipulates the energy from the trinial element to
wield it as a weapon. The slaves were being pushed to exhaustion,
because the sorcerer had almost run out of the trinial he needed to
finish destroying the Eastern Kingdom and the trinial had grown
scarce in that area of Lanoria. We organized an escape for the
slaves. The slave handlers were completely taken off guard by our
sudden presence and we were able to smuggle out all the slaves
without even raising the alarm on the surface. We destroyed the
sorcerer’s equipment and there was a great explosion, which caved
in the mining area and the caves and tunnels leading up to it were
completely filled with debris. We have kept watch, but to our
knowledge the sorcerer has never tried to mine for the trinial
again. He either believes there is none left or he doesn’t have the
resources it would take to mine them. We welcomed the Easterners
into our caverns and they became strong as we did and together we
became one people. Before their arrival we had few females left
alive among us and while there weren’t many female slaves there
were enough that our people could continue. We still have a
shortage of women to men. Every young girl has at least ten suitors
trying to claim her hand. It’s not helped any by the fact that
males seem to be favored somehow as the predominant offspring
underground. In spite of that issue we have grown and even thrived
as a people in our harsh underground environments. And now you have
come. The descendent of a great man, with a sword of power to
match. Tell me how it is you think we can be of help to you in your
struggle to overcome the combined strength of the West and the
sorcerer and save the above ground remnants of both the East and
the North?”

I sat for a moment overcome by the story of
these people’s tale of survival. I decided to start from the
beginning. I told him of our people, the visions that my brother
had of the people of Assoria and how they were coming true so far.
I told him of my Creator and how we wanted to share His words with
all the people of Assoria above and below ground.

I told him of our great victory over the
West and the opportunity presented to crush the West once and for
all and then I stopped talking. Not because I want to, but because
I felt that I was supposed to.

The old man had closed his eyes during my
story and now he opened them. “You went north didn’t you to get the
support of the Northern army?”

I nodded and began as if to explain, but he
held his hand up. “Don’t bother I know what you found. It disgraces
me to know how far my old people have sunk to. They are little
better than the Western Kingdom in terms of honor and respect for
human decency. And now you see the opportunity presented by us
underground people to muster the army that you failed to procure in
the north.”

It was the truth as bad as it sounded and I
nodded.

I felt craven inside to ask so much of a
people that had already suffered so much and had managed to become
content in their existence in this underground world.

“Even if we were to help the East in this
great battle the fighting would go on for longer than a night. As
you have seen we are helpless in the light of day, as we will go
blind if we gaze into the brightness of the day too long.”

“What if I could help you with that problem
and another problem you have as well.”

His old glowing eyes flared slightly and his
posture straightened almost imperceptibly, “Explain!”

I told him about the Northern king’s offer
of their younger women as warriors for the fight at Kartasa, which
had basically been a form of population control on the kings
part.

“They’re going to be here within a week.
They could make fine wives for your unmarried men. Additional wives
could be gotten from the Western refugee women and the East when
the fighting is over.”

He gave me a speculative look from twinkling
eyes, “An intriguing offer. One that our young men would no doubt
heartily agree to, but that still does not answer how we can fight
a battle that will last into the daylight hours?”

“I’m not sure I can, but I’d like to try to
fix that for you regardless of whether you help us or not in the
fighting. I’ll need some help gathering the materials needed. Do
you have a forge?”

The old man rose with the speed of a man
much younger than his almost one hundred and fifty years.

“Follow me!”

I followed his quick pace out of the
shelter. People scattered to the left and right to make room for
the fast-moving old man. I scrambled up and over the harsh terrain
after him.

To say that he was pretty spry for his age
would have been to put it lightly. Finally we arrived at a series
of dwellings. There was an actual fire in what I recognized as a
blacksmith shop.

“Here it is will it do.” He asked.

“Yes, with a few adjustments.”

“They will get whatever you may need.” He
said as he promptly sat down on a rock to observe me
apparently.

No pressure.

I addressed my helpers, who stepped forward.
“I need these minerals and crystals.”

I listed them out and explained it to them
until it was clear to them what I needed.

“Can you get them for me?” I asked, but they
were already gone to accomplish the task. I started disassembling
the forge to make a new one and within moments there were extra
hands helping me.

These people didn’t even know what I was
doing, but they trusted their leader that I could see. It took a
couple of hours, but the new forge, which was more contained than
the older one, was completed.

My materials had arrived and were laid out
before me. I nodded my acknowledgment that they had brought the
right stuff back. Gavin’s hobby had always been working with metal
and it had been mine for a while as well, but the last several
years I had taken a different form of hobbying.

Glassmaking.

I loved the colors and the unique creations
that a little work could produce. It was funny how the Creator
could use the little things that one would never think as being
significant to do great things with. At least I hoped so.

I had never actually done what I was
attempting. I turned back to my packed audience. Sweat was rolling
off of me even though the air was cool in the cavern.

“I need a volunteer.”

The mass of my audience shifted forward as
one.

“It involves staring directly into
daylight.” I pointed upward toward the surface for added
weight.

My audience looked suddenly uncertain and
hesitated, but Raya didn’t. She smoothly walked forward to stand in
front of me.

I swallowed slightly and motioned to a woman
holding a bowl I had asked for earlier to come forward. The bowl
had wet clay in it, “Close your eyes and stay completely still.
You’re probably going to lose a few eyelashes, sorry.”

Her face quirked slightly into a smile,
“You’re worried about my eyelashes?”

“Yes.” I responded completely serious and
the smile fell from off her face, when she realized I was
completely serious.

She closed her eyes as I held a glob of clay
up to her eyes. Firmly but gently I pressed the clay into the
hollows of her eye sockets and across the bridge of her nose and
back toward her ears.

You wouldn’t think I would have had a
problem remaining completely objective with so many people in
attendance, but I was! Her soft full lips were slightly open as she
breathed through her mouth so she didn’t move her nose.

Her mouth was begging to be kissed.

‘Remain objective Zevin! Objective!’

I glanced away from her face and saw a
twinkle of humor on a lot of the gathered faces. I couldn’t help
but blush slightly; my infatuation wasn’t that obvious was it, but
apparently it was.

I stayed busy. I finished with the clay and
I led Raya over to an open fire and had her face it.

“Just stay there for a moment and let the
clay dry a little. I allowed a little bit of awkward time to go by
and then I gently peeled the clay mask away from her face. Several
of her eyelashes pulled off with the clay and I mourned the loss of
each one of them. Her eyes opened and I quickly looked away.