Deathsworn Vol. II

13 - The Bleeding

It was with sand in his boots and the Great Blue running out like an ominous grey eternity that Bard reflected, not for the first time, there was no enemy so formidable, no creature so fierce, no evil so torturous, as one's own mind. They awaited the Congana, mere men of flesh and bone and blood, cast and figured by the same divine hands that had made they themselves, and yet Bard's consciousness was a morass of malevolent fabrications, those intent on stirring him until his knees begged to buckle.

He had been on Ooama but four days, and yet, as he stood once more upon the beach, he could have sworn on the Elders it had been tenfold longer. For two days he had been scheming, planning, building and dictating; mentally toiling while trying to conserve his physical strength for a battle. His concerns had several faces, none of them comely, and the Ooamanee themselves were wont to ignore his commands and explore their own devices if not in the presence of Tall Toyne. Bard knew the process of readying for Shar Agma's force had taken a toll on him, his exhaustion hung about his neck like a chain of bronze links. A man will jade over time just as a jerkin, his uncle had once said, but his tears and his rips, his stains and his degradations, aren't nearly so easy to see. Bard only wondered if there would come a day whereupon he could look to a morrow and be assured of watching the sun rise in peace. He would weather it all for that, he told himself. For that ... and for Orel.

"They come." Kana stiffened like a hare beside him, her eyes locked on the horizon.

"Where?" Bard attempted a squint, but soon abandoned the effort when his left eye began to blur. "I don't see anything."

"No, but I do," Kana replied, pointing north-west, out to sea, level with the outcrop that marked the end of the beach.

Bard followed her finger and waited, the sun's rays marshalling an army of candles, ten-thousand strong, as they twinkled on the waves. Then, minutes later, the horizon was interrupted by smudges. They were barely real at first; insignificant silhouettes that could be removed from existence by a thumbnail. Within moments they were growing in size though, and before long separated into a row of dark blotches, moving at speed and evolving with each passing second. Elders, her eyes could be better than Bodkin's, Bard thought.

"Can we go back to the others now?" Pan asked from behind.

Bard shook his head. "Not yet. They need to see us. They need to see me. Especially if Shar Agma's there ... Weasel, here, now."

Weasel appeared to Bard's left, face flushed and breathing still ragged after his run from the valley to the beach. Bodkin had sent him with word that the Magwana's assault had begun, while it was Weasel's opinion, based on what Nigwiggi was able to relay through hand gestures, that the Congana were attempting the climb at Umitti's slope as well. He's co-ordinated it well, Shar Agma, I'll allow him that much.

"Get back to Bodkin, tell him they're almost at the beach. Stop in the village on the way and make sure the Chowonee are ready." Weasel repeated the words back to himself, twice over, and then took off.

"They'll be ready," Pan said, "Pot knows what will happen if this goes south."

"Yes, but difficult as it is to believe, it's not Pot I'm worried about."

Pan tittered. "They've got spunk, Bard, and spunk goes a long way."

Bard let the remark drift out over the Great Blue, his own considerations taking the helm. Pot and Taaj had returned late the day previous at the head of thirty Chowonee warriors. Their eccentricity was startling, and they were more dissimilar to the Ooamanee than Bard would have thought possible given the proximity of their islands. Where the Ooamanee were typically lean and rangy, opting to clothe themselves in loin cloths and pattern their chests in red dye, their Chowonee brethren were short of leg and squat of build. They wore dresses crafted of bulrushes and swamp reeds, whilst the crowns of their heads had been mutilated to form scar tissue that ran in ridges from their eyebrows to the tips of their spines.