Sword Destiny (24 page)

Raven shrugged and nodded. “I remember.”

“His name was Lorin. He was my brother.”

Raven thought back. “I remember the sword duel. I do not recall the name. It was not a very difficult kill.”

“This time it will be different.” Zela drew her sword and waited.

Raven stared at her and laughed. “If this is a challenge, then I do not have to bother. Only a man deserves death by the blade. I do not kill women.”

“Then stand still and die,” Zela snapped, and with a flash of her sword, she scored a swift, shallow cut across his cheek.

Raven sprang back and for a second his expression was one of amazement. After a full morning of killing, he had become momentarily bored with the whole gory business and after the events of the past thirty minutes he had assumed it was all over. Now this insane Alphan woman had drawn blood from him, the first time he had ever been touched by a blade. His mouth hardened, the look of weary boredom vanished and his sword flashed up.

Zela attacked and again the ringing of steel upon steel pealed out in the ferocious symphony of battle. Raven defended and turned the attack and then there was nothing to choose between them as they circled and fought back and forth. The two blades whirled in a dazzling display of speed and skills that had never before been witnessed on either of the two planets. Those who watched widened the fighting circle and stared in awe and wonder at this sudden and terrible dance of death. After almost two months of continuous warfare, and seemingly endless gladiatorial combats, they had never seen anything like this. The blades were blurs of light, the moves of the participants too fast to follow. They spun and weaved with all the power, symmetry and brilliance of two gods, the Blue God and the Golden God, in awesome magnificence.

Kananda and Maryam arrived together, pushing through the watching circle and stopping side by side as they recognized the two contestants. For a few moments they too were both bewitched by the thrilling exhibition of swordplay, but Maryam clutched fervently at her brother's arm.

“Kananda, this is Raven, my husband. You must stop this.”

Kananda stared at her. In his mind, Raven was the man who had kidnapped his little sister and dragged her away by force to face nameless and unthinkable shame and horror. He could not believe what he was hearing. He said hoarsely, “Zela is the woman I love. I cannot stop it.”

“He fought for Karakhor,” Maryam begged with tears in her eyes.

“I still cannot stop it,” Kananda said helplessly.

They stared at each other in a sudden anguish of torn loyalties as they each realized the awful truth, that they each truly loved one of these sworn and deadly enemies.

Then slowly Maryam straightened her shoulders and pulled away from him. Her pride would not let her plead any further, not even to her brother, and she was confident that Raven would eventually triumph. “Then he will slay her,” she said simply. “He has fought more sword battles than you can even imagine and he has never been defeated.”

They stood side by side, no longer touching, and watched. Devan and the other princes came to join the circle of spectators and they too stood spellbound. Previous battles between champions had always been trials of strength, bursts of hot temper or struggles of desperation and defiance. Rarely were they such demonstrations of pure speed and dexterity. Between these two combatants, swordplay was an art form, a refined ballet of supple muscles, lightning reactions of eye and mind, and the quicksilver of darting blades.

Maryam's confidence slowly began to waver and her torment increased as she realized that Zela was at least the equal of Raven.

Zela had spent much of her life preparing for this moment and she had always known that her determination and her sword skills had to be honed to the same brilliant sharpness as her blade. Now her commitment showed and she was relatively fresh.

Raven had fought all through the long, bloody morning and his sword arm was weary. Maryam began to fret that perhaps Raven could lose after all. He was tired and there was blood on his blue cheek from that first cut, which Maryam now saw as a bad omen.

Kananda, too, began to fear for Zela. He could see that Raven had complete mastery of his blade and that he was a practiced swordsman who could not be rattled or panicked even though he was fatigued. Zela had mastery of her sword and had killed with it, but she did not have that complete, cold killing nature which favoured her opponent. The hot zeal of her passion was fading as Raven refused to give her an opening.

Kananda and Maryam were both becoming more uncertain. Zela and Raven were so perfectly matched that there was only two ways for this to finish. One of them had to make a fatal mistake, which seemed highly unlikely. The other was that one of them had to be the victim of a cruel piece of luck, a twist of fate or misfortune, which meant that the decision was in the hands of the gods.

Silently they both began to pray.

The misfortune was Raven's. The field on which they fought was a charnel house soaked in blood. Most of the churned and red-stained earth gave good footing, but here and there were small patches of grass that had not been cut up by chariot wheels or trampled away. As Raven circled, he inadvertently stepped on one of those blood-streaked tufts. His heel slipped and skidded and he stumbled backwards.

Zela saw her opportunity and risked all on a swift lunge. Raven twisted as he fell but failed to effectively block or parry. The point of Zela's blade penetrated deep under his right shoulder, crippling his sword arm. Zela drew back and restored her balance as her blade swept up. Her face was a picture of unnatural, savage delight and she swung the downward stroke.

“No!”

Raven was helpless. Blood poured from the wound underneath his arm and he could no longer lift his blade. But another sword met the blow as Maryam leapt between them.

Zela staggered back as Maryam surged forward. For a moment she could only defend, to block and parry the fresh fury of Maryam's sudden attack. Then her supremacy with the blade took control again and she forced Maryam to retreat in turn. They exchanged a wild flurry of blows before a neat twist from Zela's iron wrist sent Maryam's sword spinning from her hand.

For a heartbeat of time they glared hot-eyed at each other, their breasts heaving as they sucked in air. Maryam crouched back, protecting Raven's body with her own, drawing her knife from her waistbelt as she clawed her long black hair out of her eyes. Zela hesitated, her sword still ready.

Kananda rushed in to seize Zela by her sword arm.

“He slew my brother,” Zela sobbed in fury.

“Would you kill my sister?” Kananda cried in equal anguish.

For a moment they struggled together. Then Zela stared into the blood-soaked mask that was his face, uttered another choking sob of despair and sagged limp in his arms.

Kananda pulled her back. “He is the last Gheddan. The only one left of his race. You and Kyle and Laurya are all that is left of Alpha. Have we all learned nothing?”

Zela had no words to answer, but finally she threw down her sword. She shook herself free of his faltering grip and walked blindly away.

Kananda looked helplessly at Maryam, who still knelt protectively over the wounded Raven. The fallen sword lord had transferred his blade to his left hand and had succeeded in raising himself to one knee. He was losing blood fast and with it his strength had drained away. He expected no mercy and waited without expression for the sword death he had always expected, for he knew that this time he was beaten.

Kananda turned and ran after the women he loved.

 

 

 

High above on the astral plane, Kaseem still hovered and watched. The chains of the old body that had contained him for so long were severed and this time there could be no return, but he spared the empty husk barely a glance. He searched and saw that the boy he had sent as a runner to stop the
Juahar
had arrived in time. Then he had watched anxiously as Kyle and his two Hindu friends had returned to their chariot and continued their interrupted walk into the city. There, Gujar had sought out Sahani in the courtyard of Indra's temple.

Kaseem had spoken a soft prayer of thanks. He had taught the young priest all he knew of the healing arts and herbal remedies. Sahani had a healer's soul and a gentle instinct. Laurya could not be in better hands. After a short conference, Sahani climbed into the back of the chariot and they continued to the house of Gandhar where Gujar called his female servants to carry Laurya inside and find her a bed. He and Kasim then waited outside by the tinkling fountains of the central courtyard with Kyle, while the priest and the ladies of Gujar's house tended to their patient.

Kaseem found himself feeling a strong bond of sympathy for Kyle. They shared the same love and now there was no longer any jealousy or resentment for the young Alphan in his heart. All that had evaporated when he had realized that all of the four young people below were in the path of Tuluq's chariots. In this life it was ordained that Laurya was to be Kyle's wife and the Alphan loved and cherished her as much as Kharga who was now Kaseem.

He waited and waited, and then knew that Laurya was still alive, and that it was not yet her time to die. He wished that he could tell Kyle what he instinctively understood, but there was no direct link between the astral and the earthly worlds. Kaseem closed his eyes to the physical world below and allowed his spirit to be drawn slowly up through the higher astral planes to the everlasting light, where there was only spiritual eternity, spiritual unity and spiritual peace.

He knew that he had passed through another earthly learning experience. All physical life spans were only brief and in due course of time Laurya would come to join him.

Chapter Twelve

Weeks passed. The mass funerals and all the individual funerals for the fallen lords and kings and champions were all completed. The prayers were recited, the lamentations sung, the tears wept, the sacrifices made. The broken spears and lances, the wrecked chariots and the vast log rafts cleared from the Mahanadi were all used to build the funeral pyres, but at last the sweet smoke palls diminished and dispersed. The sky above the plain became blue and clear again. Eventually the grass grew once more on the trampled earth, at first in small pale patches, but then an all over carpet, richer, sweeter and greener than it had ever grown before. Bright green shoots sprang up among the hewn tree stumps on the edge of the forest, and the darker green of vines and other foliage began to strangle and conceal the black steel of the crashed Tri-thruster.

Work began to rebuild the bridge and the walls. The Mahanadi flowed clear and sweet, and boats appeared again, hauling upstream from the cities by the sea with cargoes of food, oil and wine. Envoys from Kanju and Bahdra came bearing gifts and recompense and seeking new bonds of unity.

Under the watchful care of the priest Sahani, Raven's wound slowly healed. The herbal salves that were applied daily prevented infection and helped the edges of the wound to knit together, leaving scar tissue and a stiffened shoulder. The sometimes foul-tasting potions Sahani concocted, together with careful nutrition, all helped to rebuild the Sword Lord's strength.

The day came when Raven was at last able to ride out of the city with Maryam beside him and a dozen others who had chosen to accompany them into a self-imposed exile. One was Gujar, the others were almost equally divided between soldiers of Maryam's personal palace guard and warriors of the House of Gandhar who had elected to follow their young Lord.

Kananda and Kasim rode with them for the first hour, following the bank of the river past the city and then heading due south. They rode in heavy silence until at last Kananda decided that the evil moment could not be put off any longer. He called a halt, and then embraced his sister and said their farewells.

Kasim and Gujar also embraced and wished each other good fortune.

Kananda gripped Gujar by the hand. He did not understand why the Lord of Gandhar had chosen this course of action and only knew that he was loathe to lose both a trusted sword and a loyal friend. It was almost as difficult as saying goodbye to Maryam.

“Why?” he asked again, the perplexity still showing in his eyes.

“On the last day of battle, the blue lord saved my life.” Gujar gave the same answer as before. “And the Princess Maryam needs more than one true sword for protection.” He would not add that he could not live in the same city as the Prince Rajar. Now that peace had returned and Kananda ruled Karakhor, Gujar could not rock that unsteady equilibrium by accusing and challenging the new king's brother. The only answer was that he must leave and this was his perfect opportunity. He had extracted a promise from Kasim that in his absence Kasim would watch the new king's back and be alert for any new treachery from Rajar.

Kananda turned at last to Raven and after a moment's hesitation again held out his hand. Raven accepted the handclasp. “Where will you go?” Kananda asked.

Raven shrugged. “From space we saw other parts of this planet that might be the beginnings of small civilizations. There is a fertile crescent to the west that looked inhabited. Or even further west, across the great ocean, the tight-waisted continent there showed a few small stone mountains that might have been built by men. Or to the south, there was another continent at the planet's pole. Any direction will do. Perhaps somewhere I can carve a new Sword Empire.”

Kananda was doubtful. “I too have seen our planet from space. There is much empty land, great deserts and untamed forests, and the waters are vast. There will be many dangers.”

Raven smiled briefly. “Everything that ever was has been built by a man and his sword. Nothing changes. We will ride out and see what our future holds.”

Kananda nodded. “May the gods go with you.”

“There are no gods.” Raven was still defiant. “Only the sword.”

They parted. Raven rode away without looking back. Maryam waved a last farewell before she spurred her horse to ride at his side. Gujar and the others made their parting salutes and followed.