What does Dorja know of curtsies, compliments, and bows?

She, who was born under the blackening stars, and raised to push the plough?

She, who was taught the blade, and the proper grip to handle?

She, who only knew darkness, and her purpose to keep the Candle?

The universe knew her cries, the sound of her blade, her savage screams,

Let her enemies be warned, lest they forget…

…she was a warrior before she was ever a queen.

– 85th stanza of “Saints of the Blade and the Unsworn,” a poem by Emil An Foyta-pehn, Royal Court’s Wordsmith of Rygeleth-7, date unknown [CHRONICLED HEREIN BY: Blademaster-Provost Yelnar Mossk]

Turtle had all the things splayed out exactly as Dorja told her. After assuring her that the swordsman would not be a problem, Dorja popped the cylindrical top on the firemaker and the flames sputtered, giving them a heat source while they worked. Dorja was an expert at assembling her tent, she’d done it too many times on too many different worlds not to be proficient. Turtle helped, all the while coughing. Once done, Dorja took the firemaker into the tent and invited Turtle inside. “You can have the blankets,” Dorja told her.

“What about you?” Turtle said, snuggling underneath them.

“Dorja will be fine, child. She is used to the cold stone floors.”

Turtle coughed again. It was a nasty cough.

“Is Turtle sick?”

Turtle nodded. “My throat hurts sometimes.”

“How often?”

“Comes and goes.”

Dorja rummaged through her bag and brought out the canteen of water. She kept it next to the firemaker so the ice would melt. She took the small survival kit from one of her pockets and plucked one of the nanite-infused pills, and dropped it into the water. It soon dissolved. “Here, drink.” She handed over some bread and rations, too, which the girl set upon ravenously, then gave her two pills containing broad-spectrum antibiotics. “How long has Turtle been here in the mountain?”

“I don’t know time,” she said around a mouthful of bread. “I mean, not very well.”

Dorja winced. “Turtle says she came here from space? From Orten?”

Turtle nodded, and coughed. “And other places.”

“Where are Turtle’s parents?”

“Dead. Raiders killed them. They came to our farm and killed my parents and my brother, then took me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They said they had…‘clients?’ There were other children. In cages like me, all kept in the cargo deck. There was a nice boy named Aleki. We talked through our bars at night, and tossed a bone back and forth as a game. He was nice. He told jokes. He liked Odi & Zaphyri, same as me.”

“Who are they? Friends of yours?”

“No. Um…cartoons? Animation?”

Dorja nodded. “When did you last see him, Turtle?”

“When they brought me down to this planet. I don’t even know what world this is.” She broke into another coughing fit for almost a full minute. “They brought me down in a starship during clear weather, and dropped me on top of the mountain. It was cold. I thought I would freeze to death.” Turtle looked around at nothing in particular. “Then the monster came for me, and the bad man with the sword. The monster told him to take me and put me in the cage. I saw other kids come and go. Senjelica was one of them. I heard the swordsman say, ‘She’s old enough.’ Then he took Senjelica up to the mountain. He made me go with him, he tied my hands and feet to Senjelica’s, so that she couldn’t run. She was bigger and faster than me and I think he was afraid she would try to run away. Senjelica was tough, she always fought back. But the bad man was smart.”

Turtle coughed again, and drank more of the nanite water.

“Then what happened?” Dorja asked, in rapt attention.

“The spaceship came back down. I thought they were coming back for me, but they only took Senjelica.”

Dorja nodded. She looked at the empty bowl in front of Turtle. “Does Turtle want more?”

Turtle coughed, nodding meekly. “Yes, please.”

Dorja handed her another ration. The girl accepted with tiny, bony fingers. “You still haven’t told Dorja your name.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You must remember your name, child.”

“I don’t. They took it from me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dorja. “How is that possible?”

“I…don’t remember? They took me to a moon?” She said it all uncertainly, eyes squinting, as if she was straining to drudge up the memory. “There were men with black robes and masks there. They had lots of bracelets and necklaces. Everyone was afraid of them. I remember the men with robes…they talked to me and then…my name went away. My parents’ names, too. And my brother’s.” Turtle suddenly looked up at her brightly, “I still remember their faces, though!”

Dorja almost wanted to weep at the girl’s innocence. The smallest thing, such as recalling her family’s faces, was a victory to her.

But Dorja did not understand any of Turtle’s story. Part of it sounded like more black science, which she despised. But it also sounded like it might be a cult. Cults were something else she hated, for they plagued many a world, took advantage of people’s lack of faith, their despair over the inevitability of the Doom, and turned that into a means to control others, to marshal them into rabid packs or land-seeking armies.

Dorja had encountered cults on many worlds. Cults such as those on Imaroth and Hyrax and Jorrvasskr, priests and priestesses who worshipped either one god or many. The worshippers of Megonogon the Ipfang believed utter surrender of their flesh would allow their souls to be eaten by their god, eventually making him strong enough to defeat the Brood. The worshippers of Deshk-Em-Tala, the Dreamking, asserted that all reality was merely one level of His existence, and that death allowed them to transcend to the next Tier, to sit alongside the Dreamking. Frequently, these cults practiced debauchery and sacrifice. Dorja had yet to meet a cultist she could trust.

Many cultists practiced black science, a complex weave of magicks, technology and chi that Dorja did not understand. Neither her mother nor Master Jerrod had focused much of her lessons on the sciences.

“Can you tell Dorja how to find these raiders?” she asked Turtle. “Is there something Turtle can think of that would help Dorja find the other children?”

Turtle shrugged and shook her head. She hugged her knees close to her chest. Dorja looked at the girl’s filthy hands and fearful eyes. Again, she was reminded of her cat, Morten, but Dorja was also reminded of someone else. Herself. She recalled right after her mother died and she had gone into the care of the Master, when she had felt so alone, vacant, and empty. She had spent seven nights in the Master’s care, then ran away. She wandered the streets of Niman, a city riddled with plague and cultists and riots and close to collapse. While hiding from roving gangs that had already beaten her once and stolen her clothes, she’d caught a glimpse of herself in a store window. Dorja had not recognized the skinny creature staring back at her. She had felt weak then, completely powerless, friendless, and loveless. Another year of scavenging, and everywhere she went, shame followed. She avoided windows and mirrors. She endured the mockery and the attacks of others. That was to be her whole life, she was sure of it.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Then the Master found her again and showed her the discipline of the blade. And for a time, Dorja knew companionship again, and the Master helped her to relight the dimming flame of the candle inside. And after the Master died, Dorja was alone once more. She had experienced love exactly twice, first from her mother, and then from the Master. She was certain she could not experience it again. Only her candle could keep her warm, buried deep and safe, just as her mother had instructed her, just as the Master had reinforced.

Dorja looked over at Turtle. The fearful little creature was like porcelain. Tip her over and she would break. She could be made into stronger stuff. The thought occurred to Dorja before she knew it was coming. She survived this long, and that takes grit. What else might she become? “Get some sleep,” she said. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

Turtle did as she was told, and bundled under her blankets. Dorja watched her until she started snoring. When Dorja started to lay down, Turtle stirred, and her left foot kicked out from the sheets. Dorja pulled the sheet over the little foot to keep it warm. She paused, looking at the foot. There was a marking there, a burn scar, healed over. It was just above the ankle, in the shape of a three-headed serpent.

They branded her.

Dorja studied the brand a moment longer, wondering if it might be a helpful clue, then covered Turtle’s foot and meditated for a while, trying to clear her head of intrusive fear and doubt about the climb down tomorrow. She took deep breaths, and winced, noticing her ribs were hurting. She didn’t dare remove her armor, but if she did, she knew she would see a badly bruised chest and side. She had taken two hard beatings today, many parts of her ached. Only now was dealing with the conflicting, post-battle emotions.

It could have been her today. It could have been Dorja dead in that cave, and Turtle would still be in Vash’tik’s clutches.

She shivered, took a deep breath, and winced again. She had to drown out the pain, focus on her breath.

Her thoughts also kept wandering back to the black cube she had found in the swordsman’s personal effects. She took the black, obsidian-looking cube out of her pouch, thumbed the switch, and Turtle was startled awake when the dark-hooded holographic man appeared in their tent, saying, “What do you wish to know of the Ten Exalted Fists?”

“Who is that?” Turtle gasped fearfully.

“No one,” Dorja said, hastily switching off the hologram. “Go back to sleep.”

Slowly, warily, Turtle eased herself back down into her blankets, covering her eyes.

Dorja turned the cube over in her left weeping hand, examining it, then put it back in her pouch. She laid down and shut her eyes. The flames crackled over the firemaker. Outside in the cave, the wind howled fiercely. In her dreams, Dorja replayed her battles with Vash’tik and the swordsman, looking for any sign of weakness.

* * *

They only needed to climb about halfway down the Amon’tha. If they could make it even that far, Dorja could summon Veringulf.

Turtle was clinging to Dorja’s back. She was covered in a blanket, arms around Dorja’s neck and legs hooked securely in her weeping arms. Dorja’s glaive swung pendulously below her by its strap, the wind batting it about, sometimes violently.

Climbing down was always way harder than climbing up because you couldn’t see the footholds below you. Much of the wall looked the same, mostly coated in ice and snow, so there was no way to recall exactly which paths she had taken. Many times, Dorja had to make Turtle put one of her legs around her waist, to free up a weeping hand to help with climbing.

Turtle whimpered. Dorja had told her to keep her eyes shut, but children will be children, and the girl had chanced a glance down. Down into the unknowable white depths, down into snowy clouds swirling all around them.

Down.

To make sure Turtle did not slip, Dorja had used her own belt to loop the girl’s waist around hers. The Amon’tha was cruel, and she knew it would throw more avalanches at her before they left its cliffs. And she wasn’t wrong. Turtle screamed when the frigid snow fell all around her. They climbed down a section of wall that Dorja was sure she had not climbed on the way up, for the ice had broken away and exposed a greenish ore clinging to the rock. Strange, she thought. She touched it. Some of it broke off in her hand and she studied it. Alexandrite. Usually only ever made in a laboratory.

Dorja did not know much about the deeper sciences, but she knew geology. Her mother had believed in the healing power of certain stones. Gemstones in particular had fascinated her. Dorja had read extensively on gemstones, and decided she didn’t believe in their natural healing power whatsoever. That was all superstition. But she would know Alexandrite anywhere, for it changed color from bluish green in daylight to purplish red under incandescent light. Dorja didn’t know if she believed much in signs, but seeing her mother’s favorite gemstone here, coming free of the ice like that…It’s as if she is present, giving her daughter her approval.

Dorja broke a piece of it away, pocketed it, and continued down.

Whenever they came to level rock, Dorja took the opportunity to rest. They both needed it. Dorja’s hands were growing numb from the strain—Turtle didn’t weigh even half as much as Dorja herself, but her extra burden made the climbing twice as precarious. They warmed themselves around the firemaker and ate and drank. To keep their water from freezing, Dorja kept the canteen tucked in the blanket with Turtle.

“We just need to get below these winds,” Dorja told her, snuggling up to share her warmth. “Then I can summon Veringulf.”

“Who’s that?”

“Veringulf is not a who, it is a what.”

* * *

At thirty feet long from thrusters to prow, Veringulf was barely larger than an orbital pinnace. Whereas most starship hulls were painted white, to refract heat while in space, Veringulf was black with streaks of gold. Dorja did not know which shipyards had built the vessel or when, but it must be ancient at this point. The hull plates were engraved with runes that glowed dimly red, runes that were from a language unknown to her. The ship was barely operational when she found it on Ebon Liot-5, an airless planet far from Herenov, where many spacers dumped their cores, dumped bodies, dumped bots, and dumped dead or dying ships. Veringulf had been but one of a hundred thousand starships that dappled the surface of Ebon-5, catered to by the uncountable servitor-bots that also got dumped there, left to wander forever and conduct menial tasks that their programming demanded.

Dorja tapped a few keys on her wristpad, and the ship hovered closer to the rocky ledge where they stood.

Veringulf’s engines and directional vanes were dodgy at best, especially in high winds like these, therefore unreliable this high. Just one of the reasons Dorja had not taken it up—both the castellan and Kirek had made it clear that not even fit ships went up to the Amon’tha’s peak.

Veringulf growled furiously, fighting against gravity and chaotic winds. Turtle clapped her hands around her ears. “Don’t worry,” Dorja yelled over the screeching thrusters and thrumming engines. “It is much quieter once inside. The ship is well insulated.”

“No!”

“Come, Turtle. We will be safer once—”

“No! I’m not going! Not in that!”

Turtle crouched on the ground and hid her face.

It took Dorja a moment to realize what was happening. Then it hit her. The girl was taken by others in a ship. She was likely passed from one ship to another on her way here. She saw Senjelica taken away in a ship. She said her whole family were farmers…all she knows of starships is that they hurt people, or take them away to bad places.

Dorja remembered how she once was afraid of the dark. Sometimes, she still was. Ever since the darkness that came for her mother, and left Dorja alone.

She knelt beside Turtle and ventured a weeping hand to touch the girl’s shoulder. “Turtle, you have been so brave. Dorja only asks you to be brave one more time. This ship is a safe ship. It is Dorja’s ship. She has already sworn that Lady Turtle is her master, and should Turtle ask it, Dorja would cut out her own tongue before she hurt Turtle. Turtle must understand this. There is little love left in this universe, but Dorja has it. She has it here,” she said, touching her chest. “In her candle. And now…now Dorja shares that candle with you.” It still surprised Dorja that she was willing to share her candle so readily, but the child had to come with her now, or else she would die.

“You promise?” Turtle said. “You promise you won’t hurt me?”

Dorja took out one of her knives and handed it over to Turtle, pommel first. “I share my candle, so I must share my blades. If Dorja hurts you, you have every right to defend yourself.”

Turtle reached out tentatively. The knife might as well have been a sword in that tiny hand. Dorja might have wept at the sight, had the winds not stolen her tears.

Dorja tapped a key on her wristpad, hidden just inside her left glove. The airlock on the side of Veringulf opened wide and it slowly hovered closer to the ledge. She looked back at Turtle. Held out her hand. “What do you say? Be brave one more time?” Again, the words leapt from her lips. They were her mother’s words. The woman had died when Dorja was twelve, and she had now lived longer without her mother than she had ever lived with her, but the woman’s words still bubbled up from the past, crossing the chasm of time and space, and passing through Dorja’s lips at the most surprising times.

What do you say, my little Dorja? Be brave one more time? Her mother’s words. Her mother’s last words.

Turtle looked at the knife in her hand. Then looked at Veringulf. Then looked up at Dorja.

She took Dorja’s hand.

image [https://i.imgur.com/f6fHUfp.jpeg]