Women of War (32 page)

Michael's image vanished in a burst of white static.

Itosu switched off the screen. Remembering the feverish heat of her lover's final touch upon her cheek, she felt a chill pass through her and shivered, knowing that she would never be warm again.

It was as good an epitaph as any. In a few days when she returned to Station Ymanja she would have it engraved upon her sword.

SAURI
LAANA
First Castelon of the elite Castelon guard, crouched low in the grass, peering intently through the mist shrouding the edge of the Escraen River. Smoky fog curled through the marshy growth clogging the waterway half-circling her vantage point and climbed through the hills to lay siege against the immense granite cliffs of the Kambarna. Cliffs lined with the rare silver used in the Kambarna soul-binding ceremony—the rite that fused a past spirit to the soul of a living partner.

The First Castelon's gaze fixed on a patch of gray at the base of the towering obelisk marking the domain's southwestern border. Ignoring the rain now slackening after an earlier drizzle, she crept closer.

::You're sure he's here?::
Her bonded partner, Laana
Kendrisha,
a former First Castelon of the Kambarna, whispered in Sauri's mind.

::I trained him here—where else would he go?::
Her own mind voice trembled.

Fingering the silver medallion embedded in the sensitive skin above her breast that marked her link with Laana
Kendrisha,
Sauri agonized over the need to murder the young protégé she had taught and cared for: Idrian, now Idrian
Kasash,
whose binding had linked him with a traitor, forcing him to flee from the death blow aimed at his newly bonded spirit.

::But the Spirit War happened two hundred years ago—Idrian was innocent until he was soul-bound to Kasash
Danitai!::

::Kasash would begin it all again!::
The former First Castelon drove images through Sauri's head. Men and women curled up in deathless anguish, rigid in shock with naught but a single, coin-sized wound on their chests. Youngsters screaming in agonizing sickness as soul-bindings went horridly wrong and spirits hurried into death cast their panic-stricken memories into innocent minds.

Even in the warm, humid heat of midspring a shiver jangled Sauri's nerves at the vision. Her bow hand quivered.

Before Kasash
Danitai
's time, the soul-bond had been a blessing, all young people in the Kambarna undergoing the sacred rite linking them with spirits of those who had lived before. For hundreds of years, the soul-bond had acted as a circle, allowing those of the Kambarna to live two lives: one as a living member linked to a spirit, and one as a spirit tied to a living partner. The soul-bond had offered a deep connection with those who could mentor and guide the domain into continued prosperity.

Until the Spirit War, when Kasash had killed thousands of Kambarna by tearing the soul-silver medallions from their skin. The complete loss of their medallions had brought instant, gut wrenching death to Kasash
Danitai
's victims. Now, the spirits of those killed during the war had returned, casting a shattering insanity on their living partners that threatened the very future of the Kambarna. For none could live bound to an insane spirit, and twenty thousand such spirits had begun making their return. The only promise the youths of the Kambarna had was the guarantee that should their bindings fail, they would be granted death through the cleansing rites, rites able to separate and heal the spirit of a living person before it was released to await the second life. Kasash
Danitai
's original victims were granted their only mercy—a swift final end.

The current First Castelon shifted her bow to one hand, wiping the other across her eyes to clear away the wetness that was more than mist and rain. For twenty years she had served the Kambarna, reveling in her bonding and taking her place in the Castelons with pure enjoyment. Sauri exemplified the skills of the elite guard: she enjoyed the tests of endurance and arms, and had made her mark in tests of combat and strategy. Her skill with the ash bow, trademark of the Castelons, was legendary throughout the domain. For almost fifteen years, the security of the Kambarna had been in her charge, and never had she faltered.

::I can't kill Idrian!::
She told Laana
Kendrisha
, the spirit who shared her every thought and desire.
::I hunted these woods with him. I taught him the skills of passage and quietude. I can't do it!::
Sauri managed two steps through the muddy sludge of the marsh before the voice in her head immobilized her.

::You are First among the Castelons, as I was. This task is ours.::
Her bonded partner replayed the ghastly images of death, and Sauri fell to her knees in the mud, reeling with shock.

::Should all generations bear this suffering?::
Laana
Kendrisha
demanded.
::Let Idrian
Kasash
live and the Kambarna will never be healed.::

“But he's just a boy!” Sauri shouted as she attempted to rise, stumbling under the weight of her gear. “He's—”

::His death has been preordained for two hundred years. The murderer cannot live to begin a second Spirit War—it is for the good of the Kambarna! You must kill this boy—this Idrian
Kasash
. As First Castelon it is your duty!::

What life for those without the binding?
Sauri tried to imagine losing Laana
Kendrisha
but such emptiness and despair were too terrifying to envision. Leveraging herself up with the stave of her bow, Sauri regained her balance. Her turbulent thoughts centred on the tragedy of Idrian's soul-bound partner.

Once, Kasash
Danitai
had been a Castelon—assigned to protect the outermost cliffs of the Kambarna. He had been part of the force that had kept the enemy Zarristas off the southwestern cliffs, saving the domain's soul-silver mines. A talented warrior, Kasash
Danitai
had been destined for greatness. Only the misdirected fall of a knife cut had shredded his mind by denting, not cracking, his medallion. Yet his wounding had severed him from the spirit of his bound partner, casting Danitai
Emryn
into final death, and setting in motion a war more devastating than any the Zarristas could contemplate—a war whose prime actions now acquired the terrible ability to poison the present.

Was the rampage of death then Kasash's fault? The shattering of mind that led him to cross over to the enemy Zarristas to teach them the devastating weakness of his birth-born people?

No. Kasash
Danitai
had led a tragic life, not one of evil tyranny.

At the last, Kasash
Danitai
's body had been given a quick first passage: a silver tipped arrow through the heart at the hands of his own First Castelon, Laana
Kendrisha
. Now, Sauri's bonded demanded the second death—the permanent death of Kasash's spirit. But Sauri
Laana
's former First Castelon partner's historic quarry had not returned to take root in a killer, a deceitful child, or a liar. Instead, Kasash now lived again as the soul-bound spirit of her own young protégé.

A swishing rustle across the marsh reclaimed Sauri's attention. Returning her gaze to the granite monolith, she pulled a silver-tipped arrow from the quiver laced to her back. Soul-silver: the one substance that could guarantee a quick death, one without causing the dashing of spirit sudden death often wrought. Sometimes it was necessary; the Kambarna had its share of evildoers and soul sick. Better to kill the body without causing madness when the spirit returned. With a lucid host, often the second death came quickly, during the first moments of struggle between spirit and living soul. A host driven mad during the binding could not be controlled.

Nocking the arrow, she edged back toward the willow, using its cascade of waving branches as a shield from her prey. Laana's prey. At least by dying on her arrow, Idrian would be sheltered from the madness violent death caused. His spirit would return to the world fresh, while Kasash's spirit would die its final death.

Mud slicked boots came into view first; the tall leather boots of a Castelon but in the unadorned black of a non-sworn member. Her own by contrast were imprinted with the circle seal of the unit and threaded with silver etched lacing. The boots' wearer crept through the marshland with the faultless steps of a specter, leaving his trail undisturbed as she had taught him.

Seven days. A week in which Idrian of the Kambarna had turned sixteen years of age and made his momentous journey deep into the heart of the domain to receive the rite of soul-binding.

Why him?
Sauri cried silently, even as the rest of her protégé came into her sight.

His best clothing, a knee-length jerkin and pants of sun-bleached wool with an undertunic of gray, was mired in dirt—dyed muddied brown from three days as a fugitive. An oversized leather harness wrapped his waist, holding two sheaths: short sword and dagger. His amber brown hair had been tied back, yet lanky wisps had escaped to edge his face—a face no longer the innocent youth's she remembered. Lines of tiredness ribbed his eyes in tracks that aged him several years, and a haunted, fuzzed look glazed his brilliant lapis lazuli-flecked eyes. A bruise wound its way down his right cheekbone—the result of a desperate attempt to halt his escape.

Following his soul-binding, Idrian had opened dazed yet lucid eyes and finished the ritual automatically, speaking his new name: Idrian
Kasash.
Years without his bonded had allowed Kasash to evade the insanity of his victims, thus allowing for the successful bonding. While all in the Kambarna had expected the one bound to Kasash
Danitai
to wake in incoherent, screaming panic, allowing for the safe completion of the cleansing rites, reaction had been swift. Kasash
Danitai
's spirit could not live. Sauri was still amazed at Idrian's ability to win free of the Castelons guarding the bonding chambers. The loss of his raw talent tore her heart-strings.

Wavering on the edge of pity, Laana
Kendrisha
's voice prickled Sauri's thoughts into kill fever.
::End it!::
The spirit demanded, her fury blasting Sauri's nerves.

Instinctively, Sauri
Laana
drew the arrow fully, bow creaking with tension.

Sauri released, tensing against the distinctive crunch of arrow through flesh, when sharpened silver would tear a blaze through Idrian
Kasash
's body, annealing it in death.

The spark of metal on rock met her ears as the arrow shattered against the granite, sending shards of wood flying. Idrian
Kasash
yelped as slivers dug through his skin, slamming him into a panicked run.

::You missed!::
A shamed relief filled Sauri at the cursing of her bonded partner.
::Get him. Now! He can't get away!::

“Wait!” Sauri commanded aloud, grounding the silent threats and curses of Laana
Kendrisha
in a feat of motionless self-control.

Idrian
Kasash
halted a dozen feet from Sauri's position. “First Castelon?” With a finely trained awareness that knotted the First Castelon's stomach, Idrian turned toward her hiding place. “Why did it have to be you?”

::He must die. He'd murder the world!::
Laana's arguments continued unceasingly, and Sauri's hand tightened on the hilt of her short sword before she paused. She peeled her hand away from the grip, finger by finger.

“Who else? Laana
Kendrisha
would force me to the deed.” With a harsh drawn breath against internal attack, the First Castelon took a step toward her protégé. “I see you haven't lost your ability to go unmarked.”

The First Castelon recognized the moment when Idrian's eyes hazed over with gray, the indelible sign of one speaking with his bonded spirit. Her protégé's head jerked back and forth as if he were fighting an inner demon.
Which he is,
Sauri realized. Never had she seen such potent denial in someone with a new soul-binding. Her own breath held in her chest as she willed him to succeed.

::He's better off dead.::
This time Laana
Kendrisha
's barbs aimed to persuade—to touch on sympathies to bring about the death of her bitter renegade.

::Not yet.::
Sauri noticed how Idrian's hands tightened at his sides, knuckles tense and white. She had taught him well. Maybe he could overcome the binding of Kasash
Danitai
's spirit.

“You still found me.” Idrian managed a weak smile, and Sauri choked off her cry. It was hard to imagine Idrian bonded with the one who had started the Spirit War. Yet even his posture was different. His back was rigid, poised for an ambush. Every few seconds his eyes clouded while he conversed with the one who shared his soul.

“I knew where to look.” This time Sauri managed the words easily, Laana's contentment flooding her veins as she took a few steps closer to their prey.