Beyond the Hell Cliffs (43 page)

“What business is that of mine?” Thorin asked.  “The weaklings inside the Citadel bent their knee to those from the Sun-kissed lands just as you bend yours and now they die for it.  It is all they deserve for living as they did.”

“The common people are ignorant of the Treaty and you know that!” Raegith exclaimed.  “Even if they knew of it, what could they do?  They have become dependent upon the security of the Citadel and the gifts of the north and now they are without both.  Ignore them, Chief, and you will soon find yourself alone in this entire land.  You’re already looking to Freya’s tribe to add fresh stock to your people.  How long can your tribe last when there are no mates for your young men?”

“And you think you can save all of the Greimere? 
You; an enemy to all of the people in these lands?  If there is blame to be cast upon this dire situation, it should be cast upon you.”

“I won’t disagree with you, Elder, but blame by itself will do nothing for these people,” Raegith said.  “You could execute me right now; torture me for all the strife wrought upon these lands and it would do nothing but give a few of you temporary satisfaction. 

“I will save Greimere, Chief, and you will either aid me and be a savior to Urufen everywhere, or I will find someone else who can help me and your tribe will wither on the mountain.”

Thorin did not speak.  His thoughts were hidden behind a stern expression and a rigid posture. 

“I cannot bribe you, Chief,” Raegith continued.  “I won’t promise you captured technology or slaves or anything else that you would accept.  You have all survived so long by living in the harshest environment in the Greimere, because it makes you strong.  But now that strength is needed; those who are not as strong as you need your strength, Elder.  If you could make the others as strong as you are now, would you do it?”

Thorin turned to Fenra.  “Is this why you’re with him, city-pup?  These fierce words move you?”

Fenra nodded.  “I would have died a dishonorable death if not for him, Elder.”

“Can you turn for me, Fenra of the Citadel?” Thorin asked.  “Do you even know how?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Elder.”

In an instant Thorin exploded in fur and dropped to the ground.  It was just a flash, as if his body had pulled in the air around him and transformed it into mass and
then Thorin the man was gone.  In his place was a white beast of muscle and teeth; a wolf-like creature the size of an ox.  It stepped about the now cramped chamber on massive, panther-like paws with claws like hooked daggers that clattered on the ground loudly.

Everyone stepped back as the Chief circled once and then sat down on his haunches.  In another flash, the air around him expanded and then rapidly shrunk.  In the blink of an eye, Thorin was back in his original form, fully clothed and sitting upon the floor with his arms rested upon his knees.

“Just as I had thought, the Turning is lost upon all but my tribe,” he said.  “I am not surprised.  Learning it is physically and mentally excruciating and takes patience.  It is probably a waste of time to those living in the civilized world.”

“When can I start?” Fenra asked, looking over at Raegith.

“What is it you think that the Junrei’sha can give you, Grass-hair?” Thorin asked.

“I cannot Turn like the Urufen,” Raegith said.  “I cannot shrug off damage like the Rathgar or walk in the shadows like the Lokai.  Among my own kind I am irregular.  I cannot commune with nature as my mother’s people can nor am I comfortable in the armor of my father’s people.  My tongue is the sharpest weapon I can use, but my teacher in the Path saw something in me.  She told me to find her in the south, among the Junrei’sha
.  That’s where I will find what I need to save the Greimere.”

“It is an incredibly difficult task, reaching the Junrei’sha,” Thorin said.  “The Path, I am convinced, is just a trail of bones and corpses of
fools who have tried to reach the Junrei’sha.  I myself have tried twice, in my prime, to reach them.  I saw no temples or civilizations… only a thousand different ways death can claim a man.”

“So you do know a way to find them,” Raegith said.

Thorin laughed, longer and louder than Raegith expected.  The others looked around, all as surprised as he was.

“That’s what you have to say after all that I just told you?” Thorin bellowed.  “You will not be deterred, will you Raegith the Grass-haired? 
Very well.  I have tried my hardest to save your life, but you won’t have any of it.  I will tell you how to reach the Junrei’sha and your own death.”

Thorin stood and walked toward the exit of the chamber.  The others followed him as he led the group through the cave.  The Chief took a torch from the wall and led them downward, into the mountain.  They walked on, traveling past all of the villagers and into the unlit passages.  Thorin sniffed the air as they went, finding his way through
the labyrinth and taking them onward for much longer than they expected.  They walked for what seemed like hours until the passage started to lighten.

Suddenly they were out on a ledge and the wind nearly toppled all but Thorin.  There was a howling that sounded like a thousand night beasts screaming right in their ears.  Below, the ledge dropped off just as the Hell Cliffs did, and nearly as far before the first decent landing was spotted.  The slope was only slightly less steep past the landing and it dropped below the clouds and out of sight.  Through the dense, atmospheric puffs below, glimpses of
brown and yellow land could be seen.

“If my memory is still good, I believe it took me three days to reach the bottom,” Thorin said.  “Picking the correct path down is important.  Several times I would get within a few lengths of a landing before realizing there was nothing to grab on to below me.  Having to retrace your route back up the mountain after almost killing yourself going down that path was enough to make me want to just let go and let the bitch take me.  I would try to give you a map, but the Alfhildr changes its face with every winter.”

“But you made it down?” Raegith asked.

“I did, both times.  The first time I spent a week in the jungle below, getting lost, before a water serpent sunk his poison in my leg.  The second time I made it through the jungle to find another mountain, even steeper than the Alfhildr, blocking my path.  I had not seen bones in over a day.  I’m sure it was the edge of the world and that I had gone farther than any other.”

“You went by yourself?” Helkree asked.

“It is the only way to go,” Thorin said.  “This side of the mountain only allows a single passage.  The paths down are too narrow and the rock and snow is too loose to try with two climbers.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because it’s going to have to support my ass along with Raegith’s,” Helkree said.

“Let’s go back,” Raegith said.  “I need to rest first before I try this.”

The group went back through the cave and up into the civilized section.  Thorin charged Bardr with seeing to their needs and putting them up for the night and once they were fed, Raegith met up with Brimgor.

Over the afternoon, they caught up on things over a few mugs of a thick, stout lager the Urufen made up in the mountain.  Brimgor had sought out the Tyrra clan in order to cleanse his spirit on the mountain.  He had purged himself of the drugs in his system over a brutal, month-long fast in the wastelands of the northern Greimere and then
made his way into the east on foot.  Brimgor listened to Raegith’s tales of glory inside the Pit and how he built a following among the other inmates.  Raegith also told of the plans that he had made with the Empress and of how she died.

“Noble women,” Brimgor huffed, taking a pull from his mug.  “They’ll fuck your world up, Grass-hair, that’s for sure.  I had one, once.  Even as Agillean, I did not have the right, though.  I had the right to nothing but death on the battlefield and now you tell me that there was never a true battle to begin with.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this, friend,” Raegith said.

“It doesn’t matter now.  There will be blood very soon and I will be ready for it.”

“I need to ask a favor of you, Brimgor,” Raegith said.  “I’m going to be leaving into the south, to find the Junrei’sha.”

“That’s what I hear.  If it’s strength you need, then I’ll train you, Grass-hair.  What can the Junrei’sha teach you
that’s better than the greatest Agillean ever?”

“I can’t fight like a Rathgar, Brimgor
.  Plus, there is more to it.  Noriko could do magic; a very odd, primal sort of magic.  That’s what I need to learn.”

“So what favor do you need?”

“I’m going to be gone, probably for a long time… years even,” Raegith said.  “When I return, there is going to be revolution here in the Greimere.  I’m leading us up out of this shithole and Helkree is going to be right by my side, but she cannot go with me to the Junrei’sha.  I want you to train her while I’m gone.”

Brimgor snorted beer through his nose.  “Are you crazy?  Helkree of Edge, the most homicidal lunatic this place has ever seen… trained by an Agillean?  I thought you wanted to save the Empire, not burn it to the ground.  Besides, I cannot train a female.”

“Since when have you ever abided the laws of the Empire?  Now that it’s gone, you’re going to start?  That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?  Maybe you’re afraid she’ll be a better killer than you?”

“Women belong in the bedroom, not the battlefield, Raegith,” Brimgor said.  “Men do the fighting, everywhere you go.”

“Well, we no longer have the option to abide by that idea anymore, Brimgor.  The females are going to fight and if you want this war to last more than a day, you’ll do what you must to make sure they can stay alive on the field.”

“This is so beneath me!
” Brimgor whined.  “What happens when I teach her and she uses the knowledge to rape all the men in this land, including me?  What a disgrace I’ll be then.”

“Yeah, that’s going to keep me up at night, too.  You don’t have to teach her everything, just in case… that happens.”

“This is complete bullshit, Raegith!”

Helkree was seething in anger, pulling her clothes on and casting about for her parka.  She could not believe he was commanding her to stay there in the Urufen village while he went off into the most deadly area of the entire world.

He had come in from drinking with Brimgor and with Fenra touring the village with Freya, she was looking forward to having him to herself for a few hours.  It took a lot to keep up the pretense of only being his bodyguard.  She felt so strongly about him, about keeping him safe, that it made her feel weaker and she kept a certain amount of emotional distance from him.  He knew that she would never leave him and that was enough for her most of the time, but there was always that need to be closer to him. 
She could not find the words for how she felt about him and she would not know what to say to him if she could.  When her emotions got the better of her, she simply fucked him. 

After climbing the mountain and being there in the cave, about to embark on another life-threatening quest with him, those confusing feelings were boiling over inside of her and she was ready to jump him as soon as he came in the door.  Then, within minutes, he was shattering everything.

“I have to go by myself, Helkree.  The mountain won’t support both of us climbing at the same time.  Besides, you don’t even believe in the Path and you don’t like the Junrei’sha.”

“You don’t believe in it either!  You just want to find out how that Junie bitch managed to go months without eating or hold her breath for thirty minutes.  Those are just tricks, Raegith.  They don’t mean shit in battle.”

“If they’re just tricks, then I’ll leave and come right back,” Raegith said.  “I need the power that they can give me, Helkree.  The Empire needs the power that they can give me.”

“You don’t need it!  You don’t need to fight at all, Raegith, that’s what I’m here for!  You don’t need power or followers or even a home; you just need…”

Helkree stopped.  She wanted to say “me” so badly, but something in her blocked it from coming out.  Her soul was just too hard and tough to allow her mouth to finish the sentence.  She had never needed anyone in her entire life, even her own mother, and deep down she knew that was no longer the case.  She wanted to say the words because she needed him to need her, but if she admitted that, then she was also admitting that she needed him.

“I just need what…?” Raegith asked, drawing close to her.  He smirked at her. 
“You?”

Anger; that was an emotion she was used to. 

Helkree slammed her fist into Raegith’s infuriating face and knocked him to the ground.  He instinctively rolled off his back and into a fighting crouch, looking at her incredulously.

“You need to go fuck yourself,” She growled.

She grabbed her coat and stormed out the door, slamming it shut behind her.  She felt like destroying everything and everyone in her path as she marched through the open cave until she found one of the Urufen that brought them in, the girl Hildr.  After threatening to beat her face in, Helkree was told how to find Brimgor.

Helkree barged
into his room without knocking, shut the door and dropped her parka in front of the drunk and bewildered Agillean.