“You learned an important lesson last night,” Melus said.
“What’s that?” Tif asked as they crept through the underbrush. She knew she wasn’t saying the words respectfully enough but couldn’t muster the energy to act otherwise. A dark mood had settled on her from the moment she had awoken, and the feeling had had yet to lessen.
He looked over a wide fern frond at her. “Your Tears ris will make you experience emotions more fully. It is only one seal, but the effect is…well, the fish doesn’t need to be told it’s wet as they say.”
Tif paused in her tracks. How had she forgotten? Udaru had said as much to the Archon, but she hadn’t been thinking about her Tears ris at all when talking with Plumya. She dropped her head in frustration and continued to trudge forward. More like ‘blew up’ on Plumya. The fairy hadn’t been back since zipping away last night, and they hadn’t seen any sign of Teerog.
“Don’t feel badly,” Melus said from ahead. “My first evening with a full seal, I was up all night with a bottle of plum wine, weeping over my poetry. My work has merit, but not that much. Particularly not those early attempts.”
“Really?” Tif said.
“Oh yes. After hearing the sonneteer Qilmus recite his rather boldly titled, Bleakness, at the Spawning Festival last spring, I knew I must incorporate the same melancholy in my own work while balancing it against…” he trailed off, noting her confused expression. “Ahem,” he said, doing a light cough into his hand. “Yes, really. It will take time to acclimate to your greater sensitivities.”
That made Tif feel better for a good five steps, until she remembered that they would soon be walking in on a war and didn’t have a plan as to how to stop it. They had approached from the sky for the better part of the day, but once they had seen Lercel from afar, Melus had brought them to the ground. Her qiha was concerned about the many human troops with bows Death had a tendency to employ, especially since neither of them had any defensive seals. Unlike her friends, they could both die quite easily.
Strangely, the thought prompted her to put on her zumai, the fingerless gloves feeling tight against her skin. The leather and metal wouldn’t protect her, not beyond her knuckles at any rate, but she somehow felt more prepared having them on.
When Melus noticed them, he said, “I didn’t know fighters in Lercel used such a thing. What is the point?”
“They don’t,” she answered but didn’t elaborate. Now didn’t quite seem like the best time to explain about her time spent with Death.
“Hmm,” he said, pushing a plant out of his way by partially opening his umbrella. “It won’t help with Tears either. The amplification only works on your body, or ris if you have it.”
“Will it hurt?” she asked, dodging the same leafy green plant as it snapped back into position once Melus was past it.
“I suppose not…” he said, but he didn’t sound particularly thrilled by the idea.
So, she kept them on as they made their way through more low foliage and trees, heading toward the southeast of Lercel to hopefully avoid any reinforcements of Death’s that might boil up from the south or southwest. They were mindful to stay only a foot apart from each other so, if they encountered any trouble, Melus could grab her and whisk them away. His ris was nearly gone from the journey here but he still had enough for a few more jumps he said.
“We should try the Death seal now,” Tif said after a while.
Melus showed none of the same enthusiasm he had claimed to have about the pairing before, and Tif thought that it might have something to do with him being the only one she could try it on. The forest was quiet, with little in the way of wild animals as targets, and it was hardly a mystery as to why they had left. In the not so far off distance, they could hear shouts and screams--thin from this range but still there--of those who fought. There were also sometimes ground tremors from the massive four-armed spidra Aspects that had followed the Death troops. The constructs were a good eighty feel tall, and so they had been easy to spot in the air when she and Melus had still been traveling that way. They had been their guides, in fact, well before they spotted Lercel’s outer wall.
Tif could still see them now through occasional breaks in the treetops, but she purposefully did not look. It had been hours since she’d last made water, and she didn’t want her body to forget itself in a panic. Besides, the Aspects wouldn’t fight. Tif, and Pep for that matter, were sure they had just been drawn to the area because of the number of Death troops present or the amount of death such an attack would bring--or might have already. She recoiled from that added thought the moment it appeared in her mind, not wanting to explore such a possibility. Everyone would be alright because they had to be, simple as that.
“Qiha?” she asked. “Can we please now?”
“Explain to me again the properties of the Death seal you possess,” he answered without looking her way.
She’d done as much on their flight over, right after he had instructed her on the use of a partial Tears charge. Trying to speak at length while porting had been a challenge to her, and apparently not very effective if he wished her to repeat everything. But if that’s what he needed to hear in order to agree, that’s what she’d do.
“The first thing it does is let you feel where your target is. You can sense them, like knowing where the sun is without looking or the direction the wind is blowing.”
“You can feel it on your skin?” Melus said. “I thought the Death ris made your body numb?”
Tif paused beside a small stream, which burbled softly somewhere beneath the undergrowth. “Not on top of my skin, no,” she said, thinking about how best to explain it. “It’s like a knot in your chest, pulling you toward whatever you’ve marked.”
“Can you tell distance as well as direction?” he asked. He’d stopped with her and was looking at her now.
She nodded.
“And has it ever been wrong? Led you astray?”
She shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”
“And it does more than that?” Melus huffed. He did so without much fervor, not because of a lack of emotion she suspected but because the closer they got to Lercel, the more likely it was that someone would notice them. The Death forces Atriat commanded probably didn’t have enough troops to scout the area they were in, but it was better to be safe, or so Melus had said before landing. “Go on with the rest then.”
She almost felt bad telling him but went through the remainder of what she knew, from the marks ability to let the user sense where someone else might move next, to deeper delving and how it could reveal health, where someone had been, and even what ris they had possessed. As far as she knew, there might be more, but halfway through her description, Melus had deflated, sinking down next to the murmuring stream.
“I don’t know what the Aspects were thinking, I really don’t,” he said for what had to be the fourth time now.
“Qiha?” she said, kneeling down so they were on the same level. Seeing him like this made her worried for him--and her too if he suddenly decided to leave. “Are you okay?”
“No wonder they are such unerringly good shots,” he said, more to himself than her. “We never stood a chance, did we, with our ris made for running? Of course we had to flee whenever they came.”
“The mark can be broken if you get far enough away,” she said, trying to make him feel better. “Udaru broke mine once simply by porting behind me.” And Plumya had broken hers using her life ris blade. Tif was glad they had done that at least before the fairy had left.
“A small weakness,” he said with a sigh, “and inconsequential, really, when you take into account how many more ris users they have than any other tribe. If you stay to fight them, their mark will eventually stick. I’m surprised we’ve managed to hold them off for this long.”
“But we have,” Tif said, “and Lercel will again, I’m sure of it.”
Melus didn’t respond, his forehead in one hand while his other hand kept his excess robes bunched in a fist so they didn’t touch the roots and creepers on the ground.
Tif wasn’t sure what else to say, so, after another moment of unresponsiveness from her qiha, she stepped over the narrow stream, forging farther into the woods. She was worried that he wouldn’t follow, and about how she’d manage without him, but she was more concerned by what Death might be doing to her home. When Tif had gone more than a dozen steps and still wasn’t hearing him behind her, she looked around and felt a swell of relief at seeing him there--he must have done a tiny port to reach her or was somehow managing to walk with greater stealth than before.
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“You have not lost me yet,” he told her. “Go on,” he added, shooing her forward with a long-sleeved hand.
Reenergized, she went back to pressing through the brush, wanting to run but mindful of the noise it would make and the importance of them staying an arm’s reach away from each other. They still didn’t have a plan, but perhaps they could determine how to proceed once they had more information. That’s how she’d managed her best das wins, like against Sur-Rak, reading her opponent and adjusting her own strategy accordingly.
The sounds of battle ahead were growing louder as they forged onward. The knights of Lercel didn’t fight with weapons like Death, so there was no ring of metal on the air. There were however reverberating thumps as ris collided with flesh, and all sorts of cries, from roars of anger to screams of pain. In fact, the sounds had grown louder than Tif would have expected, considering that the forest ended well before Lercel proper. Through the trees, she soon spotted why: there was fighting ahead, perhaps a hundred feet distant, among the same sorts of trunks and bushes the two of them were creeping through. She ducked down right away, Melus’s hand falling on her shoulder at nearly the same instant. He didn’t immediately port them away, but she could hear him breathing faster as they both tried to make out details. The combatants ebbed and flowed around each other, and with the tall trees, it was hard to see everything. However, some of the trunks were slim, and the dark leathers favored by the human Death troops stood out among the brown and green woods clearly.
Tif gasped before clapping a hand over her mouth when she saw none other than Mek-Car-Rin, the eastern patrol division leader. Tid didn’t know what the arcknight was doing over here on the western side, but she’d recognize the young keshe with her bar of golden ris across her eyes anywhere.
“We have to help them,” Tif said to Melus. She rose from her crouch, beginning to charge her Tears ris as she did. He didn’t argue as they made their way forward again. Perhaps the knights could put her to use, or she could tell them what she knew about Atriat.
They had covered maybe a third of the distance, the fighters too focused on surviving to see or care about a pair of people approaching, when Tif realized that the human Mek-Car-Rin was fighting was Ey, the seeker who had loaned Tif her armor. Mek-Car-Rin leapt over a low swipe of the chain weapon the girl used, putting them closer than keshe usually liked. Then Ey’s head snapped backward so unnaturally fast, Tif could swear she heard the sound of it breaking. Ey’s body disappeared into the underbrush, and Mek-Car-Rin spun to face her next opponent, another seeker, arrogant Tredu and his hooked blades.
“What is it?” Melus whispered behind her, and only then did Tif discover she had stopped moving.
Death troops were the enemy, of course, but for some reason Tif couldn’t stop thinking about their training together. Even if the mark had warned Ey about such an inconsequential movement as Mek-Car-Rin blinking, the girl would never had considered it an attack, and neither would’ve Tif if she hadn’t seen the arcknight’s power during the Challenges. It seemed unreal to Tif that so small a thing could separate one’s life from death. No wonder her qiha wished them to be careful; they were just as vulnerable as the seekers who had no bondees to push their injuries onto.
“So that is where the stench is coming from,” Melus said behind her.
Tif hadn’t smelled anything out of the norm, but Awt had told her on many occasions that her nose was often asleep on the job. She turned to see what Melus was talking about and followed his eyes to find a large body propped against a tree, some ten feet off to the side.
It was Oliak.
Tif hesitated and then made straight for him.
“Tif,” Melus hissed at her, but she didn’t stop. Mek-Car-Rin, with her four seals of Gold, could likely make short work of any number of seekers. Even with the power of the Death mark, it was only one seal, and from what she had seen of the fight so far, the arcknight was not alone.
She reached the big man quickly, and closer now, Tif saw that, despite his eyes being closed and his exposed flesh heavily bruised, he was breathing. She wasn’t sure if she should be glad for that or not, but she crouched down beside him nonetheless. There was blood covering his face, matting his hair to his head and cheeks, and she reached up to move it out of the way.
Suddenly, she was crouched a few feet back from where she had been, too far away to touch Oliak.
“What in the Aspects do you think you’re doing?” Melus said. He stalked around from behind her, staring down imperiously with his umbrella propped on his shoulder. He looked quite furious, and maybe even a touch scared. “He’s one of theirs. Can’t you tell?”
“I know him,” Tif admitted, to which Melus predictably flinched in surprise. “He was…” she tried to choose her words carefully, “like a qiha to me, for a short time.” Melus stiffened, and instantly she knew she had picked the wrong thing.
“Do not taint that sacred title by associating it with one such as him.” Melus even went so far as to spit toward Oliak, such was his obvious distaste. “What could sea slime such as this possibly teach you anyway?”
“More than a coward,” Oliak wheezed in answer, bloodshot eyes opening to survey them.
Tif was glad to see him awake but winced at the barb directed at Melus, so soon after her qiha had despaired about how his peoples’ only option against Death was to flee. Melus, however, didn’t respond, perhaps too shocked to see what looked to be an utterly beaten and bloody man talking. Tif used the opportunity to get closer but not quite as far as before. She didn’t know how the seeker trainer would react to seeing her after all.
Oliak said nothing else, and neither did she, so they stared at each other for a time. The sounds of fighting continued to reach them but it lessened, drifting away some. Tif suspected that Oliak was aware that his students were likely losing, but she thought it would be cruel to bring it up since there was nothing he could do about it and was probably near death himself, judging from how labored his breathing was and how he didn’t try to move. His overlong sword lay on the ground beside him, his hand atop the hilt, but his fingers did not wrap around the grip. Instead, his palm was flat, pressing against the handle of the weapon and it against the ground, helping to keep him upright. Tif considered apologizing for lying to him, but he was from Death. His people had invaded her home when she was a child, killed Awt’s parents, and surely would have killed her if Teerog hadn’t carried her away.
Why then was she bothering to sit with him like this?
Oliak’s eyes dropped down and then back up to hers. “You have your zumai.”
“Of course,” she said, lifting her hands to show him even though he’d already noticed the leather gloves. A small, odd, part of her was glad she had put them on before seeing him.
“And you have the coward’s mark,” he said, tilting his head to the side, toward her left arm and the blue ris upon it.
Tif had nearly forgotten about the hum under her skin, telling her in its way that she had enough of a charge to empower her strikes. She flicked a finger of her left hand against a nearby creeper, and when her fingernail connected with the inch thick vine, she focused on the buzz in just that finger, imagining it leaving her body. Even diluted, the ris exploded the green tube to bits, the two now unconnected ends flopping away. The hum had vanished from not only that finger but the two beside it, so she hadn’t quite accomplished the technique in the way her qiha had described, but she was closer than before.
“Do not waste your power on show,” Melus snapped. “Not for him and not with so many other enemies near.”
“Yes, Qiha,” she reflexively said. “Sorry, Qiha.”
Oliak watched the exchange but did not comment. He seemed lower on the tree now than before, as if he was slipping, and Tif thought for sure his life would soon depart. She considered asking him about Atriat, the army’s plans, or anything else that could help them overcome Death’s forces, but she couldn’t imagine him betraying his people even in such a state.
“Is there anything you wish…” she trailed off, unable to say, ‘before you die.’
“Many things,” he wheezed, voice weaker than before, “but none that you can grant.”
The answer was no great shock, but Tif disliked hearing it nonetheless. At the same time, she was feeling the weight of how long she had spent here pressing down on her. She couldn’t stay with him like this; they were vulnerable, and even if the knights were winning some skirmishes, that didn’t mean they had the upper hand against Atriat.
Tif did the only thing she could think of, she bowed her head to him.
“Thank you for what you have given me, Oliak. I will not forget you.”
When she lifted her head, he seemed angry of all things.
“Techniques for the first seal,” he growled, sweat slicking his hair as much as blood now. “Knowledge one such as you shouldn’t possess.”
“Partially,” she admitted, not wanting to lie to someone in their final moments. “But also for being my teacher. You were my first, or at least the first who knew I was there. I really won’t forget you or your lessons.” Tif frowned. “Even though you probably wish I might.” She started to rise, but a line of Death ris appeared at her chest, stopping her. Tif followed the tether back to Oliak and returned to her seat on the ground.
“I have often wished,” he said, taking a labored breath, “that the mark revealed truth.”
“I have not lied to you,” she answered simply, though she could understand why he wouldn’t believe it.
Oliak considered her, and Tif imagined she could sense a thrum through the tether that connected them, but in reality all she felt was numbness spreading across her chest.
“Seekers,” he finally said, a long wheeze extending the word. “Are you aware of what we search for?”
“Innocent people,” Melus interjected, clearly no longer able to stay silent. “Ones you can torture before murdering to turn into your horrid ris.”
Oliak didn’t rise to the bait, his dark eyes remaining fixed on her.
“I don’t,” Tif said. It had been one of the many things she’d wondered during her time spying, but the importance of it hadn’t seemed very great compared to other things.
Oliak tried to lift himself, yet he had no strength left in his thick arms, and he slid farther down instead, his chin forced into his chest. “We seek,” he said, a tremor running through his voice and body, “the future.”
“The future?” Melus scoffed. “One where Death is victorious and nothing remains alive, I am sure. Where your Aspects are so large, the earth cannot support them, and they sunder the land, destroying all that was once beautiful in the world, even themselves. A future of nothing and no one to serve a purpose so void of sense or reason that--”
“Qiha,” Tif interrupted as respectfully as she could. “He is gone.”
“Oh,” Melus said, sounding rather surprised. “So he is.”
Tif had known the moment that the tether between them had dissipated like smoke, but Oliak’s sagging face and the gray ris gradually fading from his skin also gave it away. She checked to make sure that he was still touching his zumai--if not she would move one or both despite their size--but even in death, the seeker had managed to keep his hand upon it.
Tif could think of nothing else to do for him, so she stood all the way up this time, looking back toward where Mek-Car-Rin and the other seekers had been. She didn’t see them anymore, which she’d half expected due to the fading noise before but still struck her as strange considering how close the fighting had been.
She did, however, see someone else in that area, flitting to and fro. Someone she needed to talk to just as badly as an arcknight, if not more so.