A Reaffirming of Resolve

Ol-Lozen gazed up at the sapphire sky, enraptured by the maze of golden pathways through bodies that hadn’t quite caught up with the fact they’d been cleaved in twain. His sword appeared dipped in liquid wealth, as if he’d developed a rich man’s obsession in projection of it, and still dripped fat drops, stained the vines gold. He himself no longer bled. The green tears made in his flesh had been unmade, skin now smooth as a newborn’s, existing only as afterimages on the edge of memory.

Of rage, the same was true. He had been inflamed, once – he knew this: rage’s tail end tickled his throat, and the chasm of his chest purred – but only an ember remained now, burning itself down to naught. If an ember existed, then logically a fire had also.

“KILL THEM, DEMON. KILL THEM ALL.”

Her command still rang fresh in his mind, yet of carrying it out he had no memory.

The Orkan stumbled in a circle, taking in the undeniable evidence of slaughter. All around him circled a single, contiguous path from one Incursion to the next, dividing each at a certain point, continuing on through thousands in the vicinity and thousands more he could not perceive, so thick were the clouds with split bodies and gore. In the eye of the hurricane he stood unharmed, and unremembering. He believed he should have felt pride; instead, Ol-Lozen felt only fatigue.

The satchel containing supplies for blade maintenance had flown from the wagon during the crash. He found it lying in a dry crumpled bush without leaf or flower, sodden dark and pungent. One bottle of mineral oil Daigay had located for him was still whole. The other three had shattered either when the satchel landed, or perhaps during the crash, their contents lost, yet some of the liquid had seeped into the cleaning rag saving him a step. An angled boulder made comfortable by vines served decently as a seat.

For a time Ol-Lozen worked in silence to clean the blade of Incursion blood, lathering it with quality drink once he’d set aside one newly yellow rag and pulled a fresh one. Strange, he mused, the explosive force typically keeps the blade clean. Considering the frozen bodies above were not pulp, one answer among the potential raised its hand above the rest: this usage of battle thrill slowed time to such a degree that chemical reaction hadn’t yet blown the Incursion away. The speed required to outstrip natural law. A shiver climbed from navel to collar.

Trained hands slid what little oil remained up and down the blade’s length. He’d killed them with such ease. It felt dishonorable, the strength he’d been bestowed. The power had cheated him of his blaze of glory, of the experience carving Incursion into chunks of rubbery mass in his last sliver of time alive.

Death had been averted, and the reward was emptiness.

He sighed. Replacing the last bottle after shaking out shards of the broken ones, he repacked the satchel and carried it over the broken wagon. Its bonnet was shredded, its bed cracked and split. Friction had sheared the wood down and left a trail of splinters in its wake. Half of a wheel lay there, another a short distance away, spokes scattered like twigs in the wind. He gingerly placed the satchel near the spilled barrel of apples. The wagon’s yoke had snapped in two, but Ol-Lozen would not let his eyes wander beyond the tongue’s ruined end.

Jackbee was there, Daigay’s body possibly underneath the old steed. He wasn’t ready, and doubted he ever would be. Neither, he believed, would the girl frozen in time. Mouse’s face was a mask of bloody wrath. Whatever fire burned in her now would only extinguish with the fighting ended.

One act remained. Returning to where he had once charged towards imminent death, sword clean, Ol-Lozen sheathed his renewed blade, and the sapphire dream collapsed. When the dust had settled and the explosions ceased, he pulled a protective arm from his eyes and coughed up a lungful of dust. The air brimmed with it. Visibility reduced to a mark above nothing.

“We won,” he grunted. His words were muffled by the dull ringing of damaged eardrums. “We won, girl,” he repeated, turning to the dumbstruck child stop the wagon. “We live another day.” To her, he delivered his best smile.

She leapt from the wagon and ran like a frightened mouse the dog had caught wind of.

He tracked her through the dust by the sound of sobbing, iron and something fouler on the wind worsening the louder her cries grew, knowing the scene he would come upon. Green flashes later made a buoy in the gloom, and he found the two together. Joshua stirred as Ol-Lozen approached, and he gave the Orkan a feeble twitch of his lips.

“I got one too, demon. Did you see?

“Don’t talk,” Mouse begged. Her hands holding the boy together were shining wet, green sparks twirling off her hands like campfire embers to his injuries. The layers of skin were regrowing bit by bit. Of the damage, however, the skin was of least concern. “There’s so much,” she mumbled, “I didn’t… I hadn’t studied this sort of damage yet. I need my book, I need…”

She tossed a scowl at Ol-Lozen, but she turned away immediately, lips pursed. “Entrails of a man are…” She mumbled a gibberish word to no result. “Why does the wound not knit? Heal, damn you!” With more words came few sparks. Small areas were targeted, but none so gaping as the furrows carved by claws.

Slowly, surely, she was turning pallid to match the dying boy. Her body shivered as if cold, and her balance was unsteady. She swayed back and forth, and Ol-Lozen feared she would pass out.

“Which book do you need?”

“I need no help from a demon.” She spat the word. “There is no glory to find here, and you are useless to me beyond that.”

“But perhaps you’ll accept help from a magus?”

A voice drifted in from the gloom; an old, weathered voice. Two silhouettes swelled into being. Ol-Lozen doubted the truth of his eyes as Daigay emerged from the brown fog, Jackbee’s reins in her hand. Her eyes shifted from the boy’s opened stomach to her quaking granddaughter. “You’ll die yourself should you continue, daffodil. Spells of healing exact a heavier toll than most.”

“Then save him instead of talking, grandma.”

“Calm yourself. His injuries are severe but not immediately lethal. I imagine we have several minutes before he is beyond my ability to save.” She held Jackbee’s reins out for Ol-Lozen to take, and crouched down across from Mouse on the boy’s other side. Over his wounds she hemmed and hawed for a moment, taking in the extent of the damage. “I’ve seen far worse.”

Of that I have no doubt. He couldn’t help but notice the lower half of her garb was darkly stained, holes in the fabric poking away from her body, as if something sharp underneath had pierced outwards. Jackbee’s fur was tangled with congealed crimson, though her animal acted if no more than mud clung to him.

“I’ll live?” whispered Joshua.

Daigay nodded. “Your family will be afforded plenty more opportunities to be proud of their hardheaded child, making a difference by grinding himself against the millstone of conflict.”

He coughed a harsh noise that sounded an attempt at laughter. The burnished necklace he wore slipped down his chest through a drop of fouled blood. “Not even if they knew where I’d gone.” 

Daigay submerged her bandaged hand in his entrails, and green light blazed through shorn mesentery. With an uncouth and unfitting sound of chewing meat, his body started to regrow itself, flesh flowing like water back into the spaces once occupied. Daigay wiped her bloodied hand on the boy’s shirt while her magic worked. “Come, girl. Before you keel over we’ll find some food to settle those nerves. Surely something edible had to have survived.”

“What of Joshua?” asked Mouse, watching intently the emerald rush. Healthy colors were already filling up his cheeks, and his labored breathing was given reprieve.

“Let Ol-Lozen carry him,” she replied. “You will carry the boy, won’t you?”

Wary of disturbing the new flesh, firm as it may have looked, Ol-Lozen bent down to the boy and tucked the youthful frame against his chest. One arm went under his knees, the other behind his shoulders. He followed close behind the magi back through the dirt fog, listening to them converse on proper healing methods, when a finger lazily poked at his chin.

“So, Mouse is your master,” the boy murmured. “Why feel a need to keep that tidbit to yourself all this time, hmm? And a magus, too.” His hand slapped back down against his stomach, causing him to wince. “What other secrets do you hide from us?”

“Mouse sure is Mouse, yes.”

“One day. One day I’ll learn what you’re saying.”

Besides apples scattered about the wagon, they managed to locate a majority of their supplies in the trail of boxes and barrels marking the wagon’s crash. The sacks of rice and flour flopped around but sustained no tears. One jar of dried peaches had shattered and was promptly tossed where none would mistakenly drag their feet through glass shards. The barrel of salted pork had cracked and was leaking brine from one end, and would demand consumption soon before the meat started to turn. Pots were dented, cooking fire apparatus bent though not broken, a few knives and forks were missing, and an earthenware mug for drinking had crushed to bits. Between two satchels of Daigay’s personal effects was a small, crouched form Mouse smiled to see, placing the spider on her shoulder while they scoured.

“A small stone with small ripples, this time,” Daigay had called it, though they had no intact wagon to carry what was recovered. “Bring me as many splinters as you can find. Their size matters not. More magic than material will be our wagon, but it will suffice.” she’d said. “And be quick. Before another swarm comes upon us.”

When they’d finished, Ol-Lozen tapped one wheel contrived using half its previous number of spokes. Held up by spit and prayer, he thought, more so the latter.

Her magic bound the pieces, forming a vehicle with too many cracks of light shining through for easy comfort, though it held up to the weight of cargo, Mouse, and Joshua. So long as neither one gave the haphazard contraption they rode in too much thought or peered too closely at the shimmering pieces suspended midair, little concern passed between them. Ol-Lozen watched Joshua caress one of the gaps, his finger deforming against something invisible, yet solid, as if to remind himself this was not some illusion brought on by blood loss or healing.

Satisfied, Daigay mounted Jackbee to scratch between his ears. The clouds of dust had finally begun to settle, and so the party would soon be fully exposed to buzzing eyes overhead, or any curious ones spying on them from afar. “Will you be able to keep pace should I encourage Jackbee to run?”

Ol-Lozen’s gaze rested on the donkey for a moment, shifting to her. “He can run so soon after the crash?”

“He had good rest while we worked, and his memory for scars has always been poor. A good trait in a steed.” Jackbee blinked an eye like a black pit as she fondled his ear.

“I’ll take your word for it. Keeping up will be no issue.”

“Good. They’ll be encouraging us to move faster.”

He looked at her curiously. “They?”

“Our guests.” Her words were casual enough to keep his guard lowered, and not until the forms separated themselves up from the ground did he think to grab at his sword. Daigay’s hand clamped down on his, another finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

Difficult as it was after the Incursion, he let the forms quietly encircle them. Clearly, these were not demons of that particular breed, but their drawn weapons spoke little chance of a peaceful discussion occurring. Swords or longbows were carried; one held a pair of the former, the latter strapped to their back. The arrivals’ attire raised his hairs: layers of roots, leaves, branches, stems and carmine vines covered their bodies and broke up their recognizable human form, dark fabric underneath providing them warmth and a base layer for the foliage to remain adhered. Their hooded faces were obscured either with more fabric or a sort of dark paint that swallowed light, giving their eyes the appearance of floating in shadow. These were human minds, but their camouflage and tactics were of overtly Orkan design. At gasps from the two young ones in the wagon, Daigay held up a hand.

“Lord Larkhan’s stock, I presume, the lot of you.”

Her words gave those accosting them pause. Several exchanged hand gestures. A form of sign language, he figured, unique to this world and hopelessly unintelligible. The one with twin swords walked forward. Each footstep was accompanied by a metallic clinking, muffled by their stealth suit. When the distance between them and Daigay was no more than a foot, the arrival rose, hissing, to tower over her – a head above even Ol-Lozen.

“How do you know this?” Their voice weighed heavy with suspicion, and warned of restraint wound tight like a spring, held by only a thin shim.

Daigay’s smile could turn the dead, open palms coming up in the universal sign for surrender. “A little bird told us.”