The Coastal Kingdoms of Olvion: Book Two of The Chronicles of Olvion (9 page)

The two Greys still standing wielded the club and the axe, and they were too close now.  Taggart knew he would not be able to avoid both of their attacks so he went for the one with the axe.  The Grey who was armed with the wooden club was able to land a strong blow to Taggart’s ribcage, and the impact drove the air from his lungs.  The axe man swung too quickly, and missed his only chance to do major damage. Taggart kicked out and caught him in the solar plexus. Now it was the Grey’s turn to lose his breath, and Taggart followed up with a killing chop to the back of his head. 

The club swung at Taggart again.  He was too close to avoid it, so he decided to just take it on the meaty part of his shoulder.  It hurt, but it opened up his opponent for a savage upward stab, under the ribcage and into the heart.  The grey brute looked up at him with an expression of shock and surprise.  Then he died.

Taggart spun quickly around searching for the Grey that he had earlier thrown from his feet.  Eight feet away that creature was on both knees on the leaf-covered forest floor.  His head was hung at an unnatural angle, and arterial blood sprayed out from his carotid onto the ground.  There were deep gashes to his arm and torso.  The dying grey beast was looking at Toria with a shocked and furious expression.  Then the light went out of his eyes, and he fell over backwards.

Standing before him Toria had her knees slightly bent and her body in a fighting stance.  Her knives were dripping blood onto the forest floor.

Afterward, Taggart dragged the bodies off of the path and into the trees.  It was the best he could do under the circumstances.  The predators of the field would do their work.  Toria was over by the stream.  She was washing the blood from her hands and arms.  She repeated this several times.

When Taggart was done with his grisly task, he joined her at the brook.  He had blood splashed on his face, hands, arms, and down the front of his shirt.  He stripped off the garment and dipped it into the water several times.  He caught Toria watching the red tinted water as it flowed downstream and out of their sight.  Taggart recovered his pack and took out the second sleeveless tunic that Mattus’ wife had tailored for his large frame.  He pulled on the garment and fastened his belt around it. 

Toria was still sitting silently.  Her chin quivered slightly, but her hands were still.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked.

Her gaze went over to the area where he had dragged the bodies then she looked back at him.  “No, I don’t
want
to talk about it, but I feel like I should.  Could we do it after we are away from here?”

Taggart was watching her eyes and her extremities.  Great stress affected people in many ways, but he had found it to be most obvious in one’s limbs or eyes.  If the legs and arms were shivering or the eyes were unfocused, his combat experience had taught him that shock was setting in.  So far she was not displaying any such symptoms.

Taggart had read the opinions of psychologists and psychiatrists regarding the effects of battle stress. The thing that struck him was that they only spoke in theories.  Sure, they had interviewed and treated combat soldiers for source material, but he always kept in mind that there was killing, and then there was
killing
.

Placing your rifle’s sights on the chest of a human being that was standing two hundred and fifty feet away and squeezing the trigger was a difficult thing to do.  If the soldier was using a scope that was powerful enough to allow him to see his enemy’s face, the effect was less pleasant still.  Taggart, who had spent six months engaged in the worst type of combat, now knew the difference between those scenarios and hacking off an opponent’s arm, or slicing open his abdomen in the midst of a true fight to the death.  He knew that a wound to another’s viscera emitted a putrid stink that no warrior ever forgot.  He knew the feeling of watching an opponent’s eyes glaze over as one stood there covered in his blood. 

These were not easy things for a grown man to handle.  Now, as he and this girl who was barely on the edge of adulthood walked away from the scene of a horrific occurrence, he was very concerned.  He allowed her to take all of the time she needed to process what had happened.  Finally after a mile or so she began speaking while looking straight ahead.

“Father has trained me for as long as I can remember.  Every morning before chores and every evening after our meal, he would insist on my brothers and me practicing with our weapons.  I was always jealous that they used swords and spears while Father insisted that I perfect the art of Tooth and Claw.  Of course, when Father was away, I added sword practice to my exercises.”  She turned her head to look up at her companion.  “Did Father tell you that I could best both of my brothers with our wooden practice swords?”

Taggart shook his head.  “No, but I would be lying if I said I was surprised.”  He had expected that comment to bring a smile to her face.  It didn’t.  There was a twitch to her mouth, though.

“I found out when I was little that raw strength was not the only way to get things done.  Jost is much larger and stronger than me, but if I use speed and the shifting of my body weight, I can strike every bit as hard as he can.  In my entire life I have never met anyone who could even come close to being as fast as I am.  Twice I have even broken his wooden sword in practice.”  This time she did smile.  It was brief, and small, but it was a smile nonetheless.  Taggart took it as a good sign.  “Anyway, my point is, all of my life I have felt that, somehow, I have been preparing myself for something.  I don’t know what it is, but I can never escape the feeling that it will come.”  She stretched her arms back over her head as she walked.  Taggart thought he noticed a loosening of her movements.  Yes, she was definitely calming down.  Under the circumstances he was impressed.

“You may not believe me but, when those monsters attacked us, I wasn’t afraid. It felt like I was finally doing what I was always intended for.  When you threw that one Grey to the dirt he jumped back up and was about to stab you from behind.”

Taggart felt an icicle form in his guts.  He had not even been aware of the danger that the other Grey had posed.

“I saw what was happening, and knew I had to do something.  I sank my claw into his sword arm and used the tooth to slice his exposed side from shoulder to waist.  When he turned and attacked me he was actually
roaring
in anger.  He came right at me with his sword.”  She took a moment, probably replaying the incident in her mind.  She looked up at him again.  “Tag, I wasn’t afraid.  I kept attacking the shoulder of his sword arm with the claw a few times until he had a hard time keeping it raised.  Then I feinted with the claw and opened his throat with the tooth. 

“He fell down and glared at me.  He wasn’t afraid of dying.  He just seemed furious that I had been able to do it to him.  Me, a girl…well, a woman.  Why wasn’t I afraid Tag?”

The big man’s brows bunched as he pondered her question.  He never considered himself a man of answers, but he had seen and done things that most people would never encounter.  He was a man of two worlds after all.

“Toria, first of all I thank you for today.  If not for your actions I would be dead or severely wounded.  As to your question, I think it can be summed up in one word; fearlessness.  I have seen brave people, and I have seen cowardly people.  There are plenty of both.  Then there are just a few of the type that, for want of a better word, I call
fearless
.  They are very rare.  The new King Ruguer is such a person.  I have seen him perform acts of courage that you would have to observe to believe.  His bride, Queen Meena, is another.  So is my woman, Dwan.  I would not be surprised if you turn out to be another such person, Toria.  You certainly have more than your share of courage. 

“Bear in mind that courage, no matter how strong, is useless without judgement and wisdom.  A bold warrior who throws his or her life away on a foolish act of recklessness is of no help to those who need that bravery.  You are a young person, and you lack what the people in my old world called life experience.  Observe those whom you respect, people like your father, your mother and others you meet.  Study them, their victories and their failures.  Learn how to avoid the mistakes they make and how to replicate their successes.  You already have a natural intelligence.  Just keep adding experience to it as you grow.”

The girl walked along silently for a while, considering his words.  Taggart noticed that the temperature was climbing.  He was already looking for another stream.

Toria got his attention again by placing an arm on his shoulder.  “And what about my feeling that I have been preparing for something big?  Bigger than a life as a farmer’s wife?  I know we are only supposed to be on this journey together for three days, but, could this be it?  Is something else ahead for us or does it all cook down to my just being prepared to survive our attack today?”

She raised good points.  “The only honest answer to that is ‘I don’t know’.”

They walked on until they reached the planned stopping point for the night.  It wasn’t yet dusk, but they were both ready to stop.  They took a short detour off of the path they’d been following and came to a large ranch.  Taggart had heard of it.  It was one of the dozens of facilities where the charon, the Olvioni term for horse, are raised and trained for the warrior cavalry.  The horses/charon that Taggart found in his adopted world were almost exact copies of their Earth cousins, the only noticeable difference being that these local animals were thinner boned owing to the reduced gravity.  The cavalry units of the four human kingdoms had been the ultimate weapon in the Great War against the Grey Ones.  Their value could not be overstated. 

Greys had never been successful at capturing, training and using the animals for military purposes or any other purpose for that matter.  Every charon that they captured refused to eat or take water and soon died.  It was a mystery that almost led one to believe in a supernatural manipulation of this world.

Being cognizant of the importance of this advantage, the kingdoms financed and ran several facilities for the purposes of ensuring an adequate and unending supply of the animals.  The ranch that they were now approaching had been one of the largest before the war.  When the Greys carried out their surprise attacks on the outlying farms and villages in the run-up to the war, the people who manned this ranch had been butchered.  Now that the invaders had been defeated, the facility had been reopened.  Like Chadd’s farm, it was one of the places at which Mattus’ family had stayed while on their journey to the farm they now occupied.

Toria started getting excited as soon as she could see the ranch appear at the top of a rise.  She babbled excitedly to Taggart for a few minutes before losing her patience and taking off for the facility at a run.  After walking for two days straight Taggart was content to finish the distance at a comfortable stroll.

In a scene reminiscent of the previous day’s happenings, Taggart saw Toria being surrounded by other young people and a few adults.  Two armed warriors wearing the colors of Olvion approached him.  They had already allowed access to Toria so he was not surprised that they were smiling.  They walked up to him, and each offered the warrior’s greeting of a mutual gripping of wrists.

“I know my actions must seem unprofessional to you, Good Warrior,” said one, “But there can be no doubt as to who you are.  I saw you several times in Olvion during the Great War.”

There was a familiarity to the man that was not immediately clear to Taggart.  He thanked him and followed as they both led him up to the ranch.  They spoke as they walked.  The first man he had spoken to was named Geraar.  He was a tall (for an Olvioni) fireplug of a lad who had an easy smile and an athletic appearance.  There was a thin scar on his left cheek that ran down to his neck.  It appeared that he had narrowly avoided having his jugular sliced in battle.  He was handsome in a rough manner and wore his hair a bit short even for a warrior.  Taggart tried his best to place him in his memory but was not successful.  He knew he would not be able to rest until he figured it out.

The other warrior was Isahn.  He was older but appeared to be intimidated by Taggart, either because of his reputation or his size.  Taggart was used to the reaction.  Isahn was more like the typical Olvioni with a slender muscularity as compared to Geraar’s thicker limbs.

When the trio reached the crowd of young people near the entrance to the ranch Toria waved and started shouting the names of the other people.  They ranged in age from twelve to approximately twenty.  Two of the gathered youths were male who were close to her in age.  Every time she would look away they made good use of their eyes.

The civilian in charge of the ranch was a retired Warrior named Kree.  Taggart was later to learn that he had brought his entire extended family out here immediately after the Great War.  He had brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and everything in between helping to run the place.  Kree’s family had always been active in the care and training of charon, so the change was a good fit for them after Kree’s retirement.

Also at the ranch were eight active Warriors of Olvion.  The importance of the charon in the defense of the kingdom dictated a military presence here.  There were two sentries on duty at any time, guarding against raids by the Greys and also the occasional urso.  An urso was a particularly nasty predator which had the appearance of the offspring of a bear and a hyena.

Taggart was treated to a tour of the ranch.  Toria was really interested but could not tear herself away from the other young people.  The ranch was huge and encompassed stalls, barns, riding and training arenas and many large green pastures.  He never asked but estimated there were close to three hundred animals being cared for and trained.