CHAPTER 21
Ren’ai barely stayed to her feet as she stumbled across a body lying face down in fallen leaves. An arrow with flakes of gold palmed across the shaft protruded from his back. Regaining her footing if not her dignity, she aimed for the nearest attacker. Laying her axe into his shoulder at an angle, and pulling it free. Twisting around to catch a man in the belly who had been quickly advancing behind her, she slung him to the ground like spider’s web to the forest floor. “Didn’t leave many for us.” Ren’ai called out to the two guards who had stood alone for some time, their brows wet with exhaustion but their strength no more lacking than those freshly drawn into battle.
A gold flecked arrow whisked past her head, entering the throat of a man behind her as he had raised his blade to her. Ren’ai stepped to the side, allowing the blade to fall to the ground with wielder behind it.
Ren’ai’s hand went up in thanks, before she refocused her energy on a man taunting Jabari with short strikes. Master Jabari, no stranger to battle, took hard steps back while countering with his short sword and likely a sharp tongue if Ren’ai knew him at all.
Metal clanged. Ren’ai pulled her axe up between them, into his gut, throwing him back.
The river rushed below them, echoing every metallic contact, every groan of pain, every yell of advance. Backing a man up to the ledge, she swung a light blow at his cheek forcing him back until he tumbled down. No splash, only a crack as he hit the rocks below.
She turned to see a man just behind her, certainly intending the crack of her back upon the rocks in turn. Ren’ai flexed to bring up the weight of her weapon. He downed it, before swiping at her a strong blow. She stepped back. Heels meeting open air. Toes within thin boots gripping at crumbling ground as water rushed behind her.
No one within blade's reach to assist her, she wondered if she might not have a better chance in taking a backward leap, but she simply did not know what might dwell there or precisely how far. Only darkness and echoes met her senses. Her heart thumped at her chest a frightful throbbing in her head. Moist palms gripped the axe handle, not a hill or valley of the grain escaping her perception. A useless weapon she grasped in that moment. She knew lifting the blade would shift her weight into a certain tumble.
Then she heard a whistle. Thinking only of Nakali’s sure aim, she set her sight about for a golden arrow streaking through the branches to her rescue, but found Nakali, with empty quiver had joined the battle, her taste for spray upon her face great. When Nakali entered the battle, she could only watch. Unlike Ren’ai’s vengeful blows, Nakali spun about in a dangerous dance. Ren’ai always imagined she should have her own minstrel strumming away with her every move, striking the strings violently when Nakali made contact. Her strikes were quick and precise. They had to be, wielding two golden daggers against advancing swords. Kicking the flat of a man’s blade to remove the obstacle, in one smooth movement she circled round to slit his throat.
Ren’ai had never actually seen her in real battle before. Amazement streaked Ren’ai’s face as blood strung across her Teacher’s gown as tiger stripes.
When Ren’ai saw an attacker reach around Nakali’s knife to grab her wrist and jerk the finely proportioned woman forward as if in play, the First Guard knew that he had made a highly regrettable mistake. Dropping her weapon, the gold clad archer twisted his grip and snaked her own slender fingers around his wrist as in one swift movement, she pulled him forward and swung his arm out and around. His body could only follow as he did full spin in the air, landing on his belly. Nakali whipped around to the side of him and laid a hip into his elbow and knee to his shoulder. Three cracks met Ren’ai’s ear as one before his scream gurgled to silence by a blade across the throat like the lingering strum of a fiddler’s final cord.
Ren’ai refocused on the man before her as his head arched to the heavens and his sword went out to the side. Had Ren’ai some traction she might have kicked his chest, but in such a position she certainly would have given herself the final push to her death.
She grabbed him, using his body as leverage, to give herself footing. Noticing thin shards of ice lodged in his back, she realized what the whistling had been. She pulled around him as he fell forward into the riverbed below. She raised a thankful palm toward Jabari, but realized he had no time to see it. He had problems of his own, a man hard upon him with heavy strikes, his short blades only a defense against the man’s aggression. Ren’ai stepped past a fallen foe, then another and another as her pace quickened. Raising her axe up over her head and left shoulder, she called upon her strength. Spray rose upon her as she laid the blade into the aggressor’s back pulling his body back to see Jabari wiping his brow.
He smiled with teeth white against a red specked chin.
“I think we’re done here.” Nakali sheathed her daggers, one upon each arm. Blood oozed out from the casings as each came to rest. “Did they say what they wanted?” She directed the question toward the two male guards, one lying on the ground calling in deep breaths.
The other, with hands on his knees, looked up to answer. “Same thing they always say. Someone told them we were about and Ruric sent soldiers to find and capture the Healer.” He spoke between labored breaths. “There are likely other troops about. We had best keep a look out tonight. And make our way back toward the Jagged at first light. Who cares about bilberries?”
“We’ll do no such thing.” Master Jabari looked across the sixty or so dead and dying. A wisp of remorse across his face as if he fought with himself not to heal them. “I promised the people of Glyndwr I’d show them how to make calendula and arnica ointments before Renatus' chill. This is the last chance we’ll have to do it.
“Master, I must protest. It is not safe here.” Nakali straightened her skirt before untying and retying the ribbon holding hair from her face.
“Nonsense. I might as well be dead if I’m neither healing nor teaching.”
Nakali’s voice persisted. “Master.”
“Nakali, you stay here, make sure every last one of them is dead then meet us up at the camp for first watch.”
“Yes, Master.” She turned her head from him.
It had been but four Haerfests since that night when the Healer called Ren’ai to join him. As far as she could remember life began in the training rooms of the Jagged. Nothing existed before protecting the Healer.
Only Big Sister, Ren’iv, held her to the time before, those dead eyes looking but seeing nothing, a remnant of proof of the injustice done to her family. For not the briefest moment that did she cease thinking about righting that wrong. No waking hour that she did not consider how she would make Ruric stand before her judgment and no amount of training in the arena with Lieten, meditating with Nakali, no wise words from the Healer could alter that path many Haerfests before chosen. Not even days with the Healer’s wife spent reading the old stories of her people could help her understand why justice should not be served, but that did not mean that they would not continue to try.
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