Awake the Cullers (History of Ondar) (4 page)

Fighting and killing. That was his existence
, now. The dirt at his feet flew in the flurry of battle. His heightened senses and screaming pain made every moment surreal. As the third man lay dead, the fourth on his way to join the fight, Evan noted, not without a hint of satisfaction, how easy it was becoming for him to kill. These men, brutes though they were, each fell to his hammer.

Standing over his latest kill, Evan looked around for his next opponent. No one moved. At the center of the arena stood the halfling girl.
Her hair was blue now. Or was it purple? Evan’s grip on his hammer tightened. He wanted to crush her small skull and watch that playful grin die on her face. He ran toward her, but she stood, casually picking something from her fingernails. He swung his weapon, but she jumped, briefly touching off the end of his moving hammer and somersaulting over his head. He turned, but she slid between his feet and kicked him in the back. Evan growled and tried, unsuccessfully to land a blow. She was fast and small, much more so than his second opponent. And she was barely trying to fight. Her weapons were not drawn. She didn’t even use her hands to hit him. Other than the occasional kick, she didn’t touch him at all.

“What’s the matter?” she quipped. “Can’t beat an unarmed girl?”

“
I think he’s had enough for today,
” the announcer woman said. There were a few disgruntled moans throughout the crowd, but no one argued. The girl relaxed her pose, turning to face the woman, and Evan saw his shot. Running full speed the few feet between them, he swung hard. The woman in the top hat pulled out a small baton from her coat and shook it down into a long staff, catching him square in the chest and sweeping his legs out from under him. Putting one foot on his chest and pushing on the nerve in his wrist so he let go of the hammer, the woman leaned down and looked him in the eyes. “
I said, that’s enough.
” He opened his lips, but she put a finger to them and shook her head.
“Shhh, not a whisper.
”

Evan would have argued, but the combination of her hit to his chest, lying still on the ground and too much blood loss
, finally took its toil, and he slipped off to blissful unconsciousness.

Kern loaded another body on to the pyre and headed back to search more houses. At least, what was left of the houses. This was how the entire morning had gone. There were too many bodies to bury, so they built a pyre. That left them each with the grisly task of carrying the dead. Lynnalin helped where she could, but they could all see the toil it had on her. The last house she explored was a bad one. None of them were ready to see so much death. Even coming from Suriax, where death was common and murder accepted, this was different. These bodies were brutalized. Some were missing limbs or even heads. Many were far too young. Even Suriaxians had a soft spot for children. Whoever these raiders were, they didn’t care who they hurt.

Taking out a canteen and handing it to Lynnalin, Kern leaned on a wall and took a few much needed breaths. She took the water gratefully and sighed. “You okay, Lynn?” She nodded. “You know, no one would think less of you if you need to take a break, go for a walk or something.”

Lynnalin looked at the growing mound of bodies in the pile and handed him back the canteen. “Thanks, I might do that . . . for a few minutes,” she hastened to add. Kern nodded his understanding. “Maybe after this . . .” she started, but stopped, turning her head to the side. “Did you hear something?”

Kern struggled to listen but couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. “Like what?”

“It was some kind of creaking, and I thought I heard a moan.” Lynnalin tilted her head to the side as she searched, following the sounds only she seemed able to hear. With both arms, she pulled at the rubble of the door frame, trying to clear a path inside. Kern hurried to help her before she could bring down the house on her head. Practically glowing with excitement, she was oblivious to her own danger. As they moved through the house she moved with increasing certainty. Just when Kern was about to turn around and get the others, convinced she had finally lost her mind, he heard it, too. It was faint, but he though he heard movement below their feet, under the floor. Falling to her knees, Lynnalin threw off rugs and broken furniture, hastily searching for the door she knew she would find. “There!” she pointed to a large armoire on its side. Together, they moved it aside and revealed the trap door in the floor below it. Lynnalin pulled open the latch before Kern could recommend caution.

At first, all they saw was darkness. Steps led down into the gloomy under carriages of the home. All was silent. “Hello,” Lynnalin called. “Is anyone down there?”

No on answered, but they could hear breathing and shuffling, followed by a quiet, “Shhh!”

“Lioceretien,” Lynnalin said, creating a dim ball of light that fell slowly from her hands to float down into the darkness. Children sat huddled, held by women who stared, frightened, yet defiant. “There’s dozens of them,” she whispered, as the light moved around to illuminate all the faces.

Kern thought to lead them out, but the smell of burning flesh caught his nose and he looked again to all the young faces. “Keep them in the house,” he cautioned. “I’ll be right back. He made his way quickly to the pile of bodies, beginning to smoke from small fires burning around the outer edges. “We found survivors,” he called. Zanden and the others immediately stopped their work. “Children,” he added, nodding pointedly to the pile of dead. Catching his meaning, Casther grabbed some blankets and quickly smothered the fires.

“Grab some clean blankets and follow us,” Zanden instructed Casther and Rand. “Lead the way,” he motioned to Kern. One at a time they took the children, wrapping them in blankets and shielding their faces, and carried them quickly to their camp outside the village. Once at camp, Lynnalin distracted the children with some simple prestidigitation spells. With lights dancing over the camp and children laughing for the first time in
days, everyone settled in to get a good night’s sleep. The rest of the work could wait until tomorrow.

*   *   *

Evan let the hammer fly, crushing in his opponent’s skull and watching the body fall, limp. He looked around for the next person to kill. This was how his days went, now. They would throw him into the arena, hungry and tired. He would fight for his life, killing whoever they sent against him. He’d fight until they told him to stop. Then he would eat, rest, and begin again. He didn’t even know how much time had passed.

He moved the hammer from hand to hand and adjusted his stance. They let him keep the hammer from his first arena kill. Funny, he always thought he would go for a sword, but the
hammer fit his hands like it belonged there. He saw the next man enter and paused. He was not like the others. This man was no fighter. He was a scared, bruised and weak man, probably from some village they raided. What was this? He wanted a fighter to kill. He enjoyed killing these monsters. It felt like he did a service to the world by ending their lives. All the chaos they brought, and he had the power to end them. It was freeing, exciting and he was getting good at it. What good was there in killing this helpless man? So pathetic, he probably hadn’t even killed a single raider. Evan raised his hammer, and the man cringed. He didn’t even move to grab a weapon or defend himself. Evan sneered. What good was there in letting such a useless man live? There was none. This man would die today a coward, for no reason or purpose. His life was for no purpose. The man sobbed, hands covering his face. Evan swung the hammer and ended the man without a moment’s hesitation. Head caved in, hands crushed by the blow, the man fell to the ground. Evan felt nothing. That man, now a broken pile of bones and blood, was nothing to him. They all would die. How or when did not matter. He would die, too, probably with a sword in the gut or with his own skull crushed in. Evan looked down at the unbroken bones and felt the urge to break them all to pieces. Swinging his hammer, he hit anywhere that looked solid, hearing the satisfying crunch and snap of bones detaching and falling apart. He stomped on the flesh until it mixed with the dirt. Huffing, heart pounding, he heard a sound behind him and swung the hammer. The halfling girl did a backbend to avoid his strike and came up on her hands, catching his arm in her strong legs. She twisted and flipped him to his back, coming around to sit on his chest. The sun glinted off orange highlights in her bright blue hair.

In the distance he heard men cheering and hollering as they headed off to raid another village. Random groups of men went off almost daily to loot and kill whoever happened to be nearby. There was no order to it. Men left and returned on their own, as they felt the need to kill something. Meanwhile, the majority moved with the camp, traveling gradually north. Evan heard their cheers and longed to join them. He was tired of the camp. He wanted new people to kill.

The woman in the top hat walked up to them. The girl looked up from her perch on his chest. “I’d say he is ready.” She bounded off him and dusted off her pants.

“
Not quiet yet
,” the woman answered. Still, she did not move her lips. “
But soon
.” He felt a thrill run down his spine. Soon.

*   *   *

It was difficult to say how long the fire burned. The sky was gray, the sun hidden behind the smoke and ash. Kern could not tell if it was mid day or later. He sniffed, his nose and throat dry and scratchy. He blew his nose on a handkerchief and came away with black, crusty mucus. Turning the handkerchief inside out, he wrapped it around his face. It only helped a little. His throat cried out for water, but his canteen had been empty a long time. Only drops remained. If any of them had experience with pyres this would be a much easier task. As it was the fire kept going out in spots, requiring them to stoke the smoldering flames, add kindling and shift the bodies to speed up the process. None of them wanted to leave this task half done for someone else to happen upon and witness the terrible truth of what occurred here.

Kern wiped the sweat from his neck. His shirt was sticky and uncomfortable against his skin. They had all long since removed their heavier armor in favor of the freedom of movement and cooler, looser clothing underneath. Kern stretched his back and cracked his neck, freezing mid stretch. A man stood at the edge of the forest. Clad in weapons and armor, he stood watching them. Kern looked around and realized the man was not alone. Dozens of other figures watched from the forest. They were everywhere, surrounding the village on at least three sides.

Seeing Kern’s change in posture and attention, Zanden stopped and looked around, taking in their change in situation. They shared a look and nodded. Kern cleared his throat to get Casther’s attention while Zanden took care of letting Rand know. They did not bother going for their armor. The ambushers would be on them before they had time to don anything. Even though their main weapons were also removed from their persons, each man carried secondary, backup weapons. If it came down to a fight, it would be a good one.

The man Kern saw first raised an arm and motioned to be followed. Three men stepped from their cover of the trees. Together, the men walked toward the pyre. They held their arms at their sides, their swords sheathed, but they were not what one could call unarmed. Protrusions of bone, merged in places with shining spots of metal, snaked around their arms, forming spikes and claws. For two of the men, the spikes continued to their shoulders. The leader had bones growing through his skull to form a natural helmet. Kern knew, even without Casther’s whispered word, who he now faced. “Sublinates.” 

The three men spread out, surveying the bodies and damage to the town. The leader continued forward. “How long? he called back to his men.

“Four or five days,” one man answered, lifting an unburned arm from one of the bodies.

“They are traveling north,” another man answered, examining tracks at the edge of the clearing.

Kern’s heart stuck in his throat. If they went north, that could put them on path to Thomas and Marcy. He thought of that town ravaged and plundered, a hollow shell, devoid of life, death everywhere. The man stopped in front of Kern and Zanden. His gaze shifted between the two men uncertainly. “Which one of you is in charge here?” he asked at last.

They shared a look, Zanden answering. “We are here separately, representing Suriaxian and Alerian interests in these matters.”

The man nodded. “You should return to your homes.”

“And ignore what those monsters did?” Rand asked angrily.

“That is why we are here, to put an end to these activities.”

“With all due respect,” Kern said, removing the handkerchief from his face, “we have a right to defend our people.”

“Do you know what it is you face?” he eyed Kern speculatively. “I know you do,” he said, looking to Casther. “This is not your first encounter. As I recall, you were somewhat outmatched on that occasion.”

Casther stiffened. “That was many years ago.”

“So it was. And yet, you still have not learned to stay out of these matters.”

“Why should we trust you to handle things any better?” Kern asked, bringing the man’s attention back to him. “Your guys enjoy war as much as they do. If we leave you to just go after and kill each other, who keeps our people from becoming random casualties in the process? You couldn’t save this town, or any of the others that preceded it. It seems you are five days late and have a pile of dead farmers and merchants to show for your troubles. Do you even care about the men they slaughtered, about the children who will be haunted with these memories for the rest of their lives?”

“There were survivors?” The surprise was evident in his voice.

“Not for lack of their trying,” Rand snorted. “A group of women and children hid in the basement of a home.”

The Sublinates came back together, exchanging looks and a few whispered words. The leader dismissed them, and the two men rejoined the others in the woods.
Try as he might, Kern still couldn’t make out any details of the other men. Their leader turned back to face Kern.

“Do as you like, but don’t get in our way.” He walked back to the woods without a second glance back.