The Tellanon

20. The battle of the Ridge

Once, when Emyra was seven, she had gotten lost in the College. She had tried to find her way around the halls outside the main hall, which formed a confusing network of passages, small halls of books and rooms filled with comfortable-looking chairs. There had been no one there to tell her where to go, and nothing else to show the way, nothing but her own memory. One should never trust the memory of one who will believe that there are mermaids in the dirty river Sreme, for it is one of those memories that will eventually lead one into the forbidden part of the College. The Students' section of the College was strictly forbidden, but in the maze of books, a girl of only seven who was not even officially allowed in, could easily wander into the cellars. Underground, there was a maze as well, but not as clean or informative as that above ground. Worse, there were slaves. Stretched-out men and women, working day and night, feeding starving children at their equally unhealthy-looking breasts. The people had stared at her, not with hope or even curiosity, but with dull-eyed dread. Emyra could most specifically recall the face of a bald woman. Her cheeks were hollow, and there was a bruise over her face, where someone might have hit her, the burning red in sharp contrast with the sickly grey of the rest of her skin. Most extraordinary had been the eyes, though. They were beautiful, or would have been, if they had seen sunlight in the past decennia. Emyra recognized  a kind of blue, but the eyes were sunken so deep into the woman's skull, that the blue was almost black, and the black seemed to disappear in its own misery. Emyra remembered running away, turning around so violently she almost slipped and fell in the puddles of fluid that lay all over. The memory had never let her go.

The scene of battle on the ridge was equally traumatizing. Emyra sat crouching in the opening for a couple of minutes, staring at the battles.  Every now and then, an arrow would whistle past, and she would cringe,  but there was nothing to truly be afraid of. No one paid her any attention, as she tried to make herself get up. It was hard to stop herself from hiding in the crypt she knew was only a stair away, but she had made a promise to Castor, and she was not a coward. She wouldn’t be.  Despite the murdering and the screams, she would get out there. Her mind was set, but her body couldn’t follow yet, as if an instinct of survival was keeping her safely out of harm’s way, despite the decisions her brain made. She took a few deep breaths of the cold, stinking air and half-drew her sword. She stopped drawing it when she thought back to the one fighting lesson her brother had ever given her.  He had told her always to pray to the gods before a battle, because if you died, they would have to put you in one of the heavens or one of the hells. Emyra ignored it. The gods didn’t care for her anyway, especially not if she died in a place as godless as the Mountains of Shadow. She stood up, shaking on her legs, and immediately the sounds and smells became more clear, forcing themselves upon her like the rest of the scene. She was no longer being ignored. A man dressed completely in red, the colour Castor had taught her to recognize as that of Vydarr tried to thrust his blade through her leg. She dodged it, and brought up the tip of her boot against his hand. He dropped his blade, as Emyra had known he would. It was a little trick Serin had taught her. She had practiced it so often she didn’t have to think about anymore, but when she started to think about it, she was frightened. The man cradled his hand, and tried to get to his sword, which Emyra had kicked behind her. She stared down, and realised the point of her sword was hovering not a centimetre from the man’s throat. She ran away from him, too scared to finish off what she had begun, to do what Serin and Berren had told her was the only way you could win a fight. She couldn’t kill someone. Not again. The image of the man she had killed in the forest, the man who had stolen Alea, would not let her go. She could still see the gash in his stomach, with blood pouring out like a waterfall. So she kept running. She didn’t come far. The ridge was slippery, and the wind too strong. She paused, and was almost immediately attacked by a big man with an axe.  She cringed, grasping her sword so fiercely her knuckles turned white, and waited for the man. He had a long, red beard with metal rings around it, which clanged loudly against his armour. Like Emyra, he did not wear a lot of armour, only a breastplate and a helmet, but the rest was covered in decorative pieces of metal, and very thick hair, so that he looked like a huge armoured bear. When he reached Emyra, he brought the axe down with enough force that it would have split her right in half if she hadn’t stepped away. Her breathing was oddly calm, her face looking like it was calculating. The man swung the axe again , and she stepped aside, closer to the man. She swung her sword. It was lighter than the Anderin sword she had always trained with, but still heavy. The edge hit the man’s side hard, and even with the precious little strength Emyra possessed, it cut the skin and bit deep. The man roared, and fell to the ground clutching his side. With what must have been his last strength, he wrenched a knife out of his belt and threw it at Emyra. She was so close the blade could not possibly miss her. It hurtled through the air, right in the direction of her heart, but Emyra sidestepped. The blade barely cut her arm. That was not the problem for Emyra. She was not bothered by the knife, though it was going to hurt into the hells later, nor by the fact that she was here, when she could have been home, nor even by the fighting. She was  bothered by the blood on her hands. She looked at the man. He lay in the snow, still clutching his wound. His eyes were dead, but not the way Serin’s eyes often were. They were dead not with nothingness, but more with the lack of something. Serin’s eyes were dead in the sense of emotionless, where the man’s eyes still held the pain he had felt while dying. They still stared at her, accusing, but without anything that could accuse. Emyra started crying. Great sobs of fear racked her body, but fear was only partially the reason. Guilt, yes. She felt guilty for the death of this man, not because it wasn’t necessary, but because she had played god. She fell to her knees and closed her eyes, still shaking. She felt her hand creeping behind her back and grabbing one of the strands of hair. She felt better. She stood up.