A Warrior's Legacy (19 page)

“Ziya?”

She looked up at me and I saw the moisture
in the corners of her eyes, “I’m sorry!” I said at a complete lack
for better words to say to comfort her.

She held back for a moment, but then she
caved in and encircled my middle with her arms hugging me tightly.
I tried to return the hug, but it was a little awkward because she
was so short.

Eventually I pulled her back, “All right now
dry up those tears. This is no way for my second in command to
act.” I said the words kiddingly and she stopped crying and tried
to smile.

“Yes Sir!”

“That’s better. Now Ziya on the way here I
stumbled on a secluded mountain valley in the shape of an L. Do you
know where I speak of?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I want you to gather your girls and be
there in one week so that we can have some time drilling and
practicing before we head out for Kartasa, where we will slip into
the city and join the ranks of the defenders.”

“I will do it!”

And she was on her way, but I stopped
her.

“Ziya see if you can get some extra girls to
come along as well as some older women, from the sounds of it a few
extra shouldn’t be missed.”

She grinned big and then she was gone.

I made my way back to Relentless, who stood
alone with his ears laid back. He looked to be in a testy mood. No
doubt some of the warriors gathered around had tried to touch him
or his master’s stuff and Relentless wasn’t the kind of horse to
tolerate that.

No he was the kind of horse that willingly
took bribes from glowing eyed self-described demoness’s in the
middle of the night, I thought darkly to myself.

“Come on boy let’s get out of here. I think
we got the better deal this place has to offer anyway.” I said
looking dismissively at the envious looking warriors gathered
around, who were no doubt all thinking that they would look better
than me on top of the big black stallion.

I let them have a taste of dust as I slung
up into the saddle and let Relentless go. As I made my way past the
last tent I wondered how many of the gathered warriors would be
coming after me tonight to attempt to kill me for my horse and
stuff.

Probably several if not all of them, but it
didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to give them a chance to catch
up to me with their flea bait horses anyway. I let Relentless fly
towards the mountains eating away at the stretched out desert as I
was eager to get away from these dead plains and back into the
presence of my alluring nighttime visitor.

I reached my hand down and felt the contents
of my pocket and brought out a big red apple and smiled. I’d
snatched it up the second time I’d been in front of the king. I had
been planning on giving it to a kid, but now I think I knew what I
would do with it.

The fire in front of me was small
intentionally so. It barely illuminated the night. All was still
except for the evening chirp of insects. Despite my best efforts I
was depressed.

I leaned back against a deadfall tree and
morosely considered the situation. I had hoped to come away from
the north with twenty thousand hardened warriors at my back with
which I could smash into the enemy’s rear and take them by
surprise.

Now…… now I had several thousand girls that
had done little more than hunt for deer.

There was no way that I could attack the
enemy from the rear with such a small untrained force.

Creator what am I going to do?

There seemed to be only one thing that could
be done. After giving the girls a week’s worth of training or so we
would move south and slip into the besieged city and wait for
whatever our fate might be with the rest of the Eastern
Kingdom.

I had been turning the stolen apple over and
over in my left hand, which was propped up by my left knee as I
reclined back against the dead tree. I threw the apple out into the
darkness beyond the little fire. I saw the faint movement of a hand
and the apple was snatched out of the air.

There was stillness for a moment and then
part of the darkness moved and I saw the familiar glowing eyes
watching me. I’d surprised her I could tell. She moved closer to
the fire and I watched her come.

“How did you know I was there?” She asked in
a softly perturbed tone of voice.

“Had a feeling you were there. My feeling
was off by about a foot and a half though. You have to teach me how
you move around so quietly.”

She moved closer and sat down.

Almost as if to herself she said, “The skill
comes easily if your life depends on it each day.”

“And I thought it was just some of your
demoness powers on display.” I said wondering if she would see the
humor in my statement.

I wasn’t disappointed. I saw the faint glint
of her sharp teeth, when she smiled slightly. We both knew that she
was no demon, as to what she was though that was still a mystery to
me. I could see her hand where it gripped the apple that she had
snatched out of the air. The hand itself seemed normal and feminine
enough looking, but her fingernails!

They had to be at least an inch past her
finger tips and they looked as sharp as an eagle’s talons. She
caught me glancing at them speculatively and she smiled wickedly
flexing her fingers and sinking her talons into the apple’s
skin.

I smiled back at her, which seemed to
surprise her once again. She sure was a wild thing!

She began to eat the apple taking crisp
clean bites out of it with her teeth that were as imposing as her
nails were, perhaps even more so.

I just leaned back and smiled at her as she
tried to intimidate me by eating the whole apple in front of me her
teeth flashing in the light of the small fire.

The apple gone she tossed the core away with
a flick of the wrist and then for dramatic effect she licked the
taloned nail of one finger free of apple juice watching me all the
while. I just continued to smile at her intimidation tactics. She
looked away and seemed to sigh slightly right before she stood up
to go.

“Leaving so soon? We have all night yet to
have enlightening conversation.”

She looked at me enigmatically for a moment,
“The road is long and the news you carry bad. You need your
rest.”

I gazed at her surprised by her knowledge of
what was going on.

“How do you know that? Are your kind in
league with the North?”

Her eyes seemed to close off from me and she
spoke disdainfully to me, “You ask too many questions!” And then
she turned to go with a swish of her black silky cape.

“Wait a moment!”

She stopped and looked back her gaze a
questioning icy glow.

“I got you a present.”

Her eyes widened in surprise and then
narrowed suspiciously, “A gift?”

I held up the little bottle of perfume and
then with great show I pulled the plug out. Taking the plug I shook
a drop of the perfume off into the fire. The immediate area around
the fire was suffused with the sultry essence of the perfume.

I watched her large pupils dilate for a
second and her eyes glowed brighter as she turned around more fully
to face me.

Oh she wanted the perfume I had no doubt of
that, but how far would she be willing to go for it. I decided to
press the limit with my midnight temptress.

“It comes with stipulations though.”

“Stipulations?” Her gaze was now openly
suspicious.

“Yes you have to do three things.”

Her expressive eyebrows rose
theatrically.

“First you have to walk over here. Then you
have to tell me your name and then you get to take the bottle out
of my hand.”

I held the bottle up clasped in my left
hand, which had held the apple earlier. She looked at the bottle
and then at me.

“I could just kill you and take it.” She
said matter-of-factly.

“True, you could but what would be the fun
of that and besides, who would you have to talk to in the middle of
the night then?”

She confirmed my logic was sound when she
moved toward me slowly. Her wary approach reminded me of the
wariness of a wild animal sensing a trap.

“It’s okay you can trust me.” I said
softly.

She drew back for a moment and practically
hissed at me, “I trust no one!”

“Then perhaps you should start. Everyone
needs someone they can trust.”

Contemptuously she spit out, “And do you
have someone you trust?”

“Why yes I do my brother for one and the
warriors I fight beside.”

She remained silent, but kept moving towards
me until she stood directly in front of me. Her hand reached out
and tugged on the bottle, but I didn’t let go of it. One sharp
fingernail pressed down on my hand and after a moment’s resistance
punctured it causing blood to escape. She looked at me
threateningly her intentions clear.

“Trust goes hand-in-hand with another worthy
attribute, which is honor. Without honor it’s hard to trust.” I
said softly.

Our eyes were locked together, but hers were
the first to drop away, which seemed to bother her greatly. She
gave a tug on the bottle, but my grip on it didn’t budge. She
withdrew her taloned fingernail and mumbled something
unintelligible.

“I can’t hear you.” I said firmly.

She tossed her head back, which sent her
lightly glowing hair cascading out from the hood she had worn on
her head and glared sullenly at me and said in a higher audibled
tone, “My name is Raya’nasa!”

I repeated the name liking the sound of it
as it came off my lips.

“A well fared and pretty name for a
beautiful woman such as yourself. Thank you Raya’nasa. You may
collect your prize.”

I let go of the bottle and she quickly
stepped back with it, looking around as if to make sure she wasn’t
in the process of being ambushed.

Assuring herself of her surroundings she
glanced back at me, “Good night Raya’nasa.”

That said I slumped down against the trunk
and closed my eyes.

I heard her say, “You’re a fool!”

I smiled not opening my eyes and said, “That
may be Raya’nasa, but at least I’ll die a happy one.”

Then there was silence and I peeked out of
my eyelids and saw that she was gone. I shook my head, as she was
right. I was a fool to try to tame such a wild creature as she
was.

It could have been ten minutes or a half
hour I wasn’t sure which, as I had been lost in my thoughts, when I
heard the faintest of sounds.

My hand went towards my sword, but stopped
when I heard her soft voice, “It’s only me. Raya.”

I moved my hand away from my sword
completely puzzled as to why she’d come back. If she’d come back to
kill me why announce herself?

I couldn’t see anything as the fire had gone
out, but her voice had been close. And then of all surprises I felt
her hands touch the one she had punctured with her taloned finger.
I let her lift my hand and pull it towards her.

I felt her fingers wipe something wet across
the puncture she had made. Her fingers were gentle as she cleaned
it and then she pushed something spongy against it and then I felt
her wrapping my hand with cloth. She tied it off and before she
could disappear I brought one of her hands to my mouth and I kissed
the back of it softly.

“Thank you again Raya’nasa.”

“Raya.” She said softly and pulled her hand
free as she rose to her feet and was gone.

I lay there quietly feeling the neatly done
bandage on my hand in the dark. Maybe I wasn’t such a fool after
all to try to tame such a wild natured girl.

I opened my eyes alertly the next morning
and I wasn’t overly surprised to see an apple sitting beside me on
the ground or to hear Relentless still munching on his late-night
snack in the background.

One thing was for sure neither I nor
Relentless were likely to go without a healthy breakfast while in
these mountains. After breakfast I rode off towards the secluded
valley in the mountains that I had discovered on my way north.

The morning was hot and the sun felt good
after the chill of the night air of the mountains. There were
narrow openings into what I believed were other valleys to either
side of the main trail that I followed.

It was a good place for an ambush and I
wanted to make sure that I knew the lay of the land so that there
weren’t any surprises when Ziya got here with her girls. I was
about to pull Relentless down one of the narrow valley openings,
when I heard what sounded like a distress noise emanating up a
narrow opening on the opposite side of the main trail.

I pulled Relentless back around and waited
listening intently. There it was again!

Something was definitely in distress. I drew
my bow from behind my back and held it at the ready as I eased
Relentless down through the narrow valley opening.

It began to open up some, but it continued
on downhill and forested slopes rose sharply up on either side. The
grassy bottom of the valley began to turn swampy and the going got
trickier to navigate through. Open bogs and marshy ponds popped up
everywhere.

It was not a very nice place. I had been
following a set of horse tracks in the upturned mud. Why had the
unknown rider come to such a place?

Why not skirt the swampy valley bottom and
go along the edges of the forested slopes to either side?

We almost slipped down into a boggy marsh
and I made the decision that I was turning around, when I heard the
sound of distress much closer. It was a horse, probably the horse
of the unknown rider. It had probably slipped into a bog like we
had just nearly done and was now stuck.

The sound had come from just around the bend
and I let Relentless go onward. The scene of distress quickly
revealed itself. The horse’s rider wasn’t a he it was a she and in
particular it was my midnight temptress.