Die for the Flame (38 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

C
larian rode out into the last of the conflict. The Maggan and Drumaggan armies were broken. Large groups of the foe, surrounded by Karran archers, died packed together. There was little, if any, resistance. Some tried to break out and run, only to be caught by mounted troops and cut down. Some sat down where they were and waited for the arrows to come and end their lives. As the night began, and the darkness swept in, torches were lighted to better illuminate the task. Karran soldiers crowded close to the enemy, drawing back arrow after arrow. The cries of the dying and those about to die hit a crescendo as the killing continued. Maggan soldiers stoically gave in to the inevitable.

“Clarian! Come see what we have found!” called a young officer, waving his arm.

Clarian dismounted, handing his reins to an aide, and walked over to a group of soldiers gathered around a kneeling man. Clarian called for a torch. The kneeling man was bareheaded, his clothes mud-covered, but they were violet.

“Who are you?”

“I am Zefran, the Flamekeeper,” croaked the distressed man.

He looked up at Clarian, his eyes filled with fear and the sure knowledge he was about to die.

“He must die,” called a Karran soldier a few paces away, his knife already out.

“Go find Rokkman,” ordered Clarian, holding up his hand to forestall any killing.

In a short while, Rokkman arrived on horseback, his violet robes drenched and streaked with mud, his face pale in the torchlight. Informed on the way over, Rokkman knew who he was looking at. Dismounting, he squatted down to look the old priest in the eye. “You have come a long way out of your forest to die here on the frontier in a land not your own.”

Martan and Rogeman arrived as the word spread about the capture of the enemy Flamekeeper. They clustered around the abject man, their eyes flicking back and forth from Rokkman to Clarian and then back down to the kneeling man. The rain continued unabated, drenching them all, and thunder shot through the clouds to the east. The countless bodies of dead soldiers carpeted the field—dark, black lumps, twisted and broken among the mounds of dead horses. The cries of the trapped Maggan soldiers nearby and the shouts of the Karran tormentors rose to a cruel pitch, making it difficult to think or hear.

Clarian spoke to Rokkman. “After we kill all these Maggan,” he said, his sweeping arm taking in the entire field of battle, “do we march into the Forest of Darkness again and go down into Minteegan and kill all the night people? And then do we march on to the Drumaggan country and erase them, too, Flamekeeper? Tell me, Rokkman. You are the Flamekeeper now.”

Martan leaned forward, his jaw jutting out, his mouth grim. “We must kill this Flamekeeper, Clarian. Or they will come again as they did before and before that. They will always come back and try to take the Flame.” He spat on the ground and wiped a ragged sleeve across his mouth. “You know this to be true, Holy One. We will never be safe from their treachery.”

Zefran’s violet cloak clung to him, his hat gone, his silver hair matted and plastered on his head, his body shivering from cold and fear. He began to cry, his tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks, his luminous eyes gleaming in the torchlight.

More officers and soldiers crowded about the group, their heads turning away from time to time to gaze out at the killing taking place so close. Rokkman rose from his crouch. His face was conflicted, his mouth turned down, and his eyes locked onto Clarian’s in the torchlight, showing confusion.

Clarian was exhausted. His mind could barely function, crowded with endless images of the dead, of Ferman’s last moments, of Neevan crumpled in his arms and perhaps dying now in his house. His heart felt like it would burst, with all the pent-up emotions over all the years and all the dying. Could there ever be an end to all of this?

He drew his curved knife from its sheath at his belt and held the blade out to Rokkman. “Take my knife, Rokkman, if you will, and kill the Flamekeeper.”

Rokkman licked his lips, which parted as if he would speak, but no words came out. He looked hard at the sharp knife extended to him as if he had never seen one before. In the tight group gathered around the defeated Zefran, no one spoke, but all eyes were fixed on Clarian and Rokkman.

“Here! Take it!” growled Clarian, straightening his arm and shoving the knife toward Rokkman over the head of the terrified Zefran. “If the situation were reversed, Zefran would kill you, wouldn’t you, Zefran?”

Zefran, his body shaking as he tried to wipe tears from his eyes with a filthy sleeve, said, “Truly, I cared nothing for the war. But I admit that I wanted to capture the Flame. It was all about the Flame. We have lived a long time without the Flame, and in our hearts we cried for it, to behold it, to possess it.”

“So, you would steal it and kill all our people to get it,” said Rokkman. “Do you think the Flame would serve a people who destroyed another people?”

“I don’t know. We always believed it was ours, stolen from us by you. Would you not go to war to recover it?”

“Yes, I would.”

Coughing hard, Zefran turned his head to watch the killing taking place a thousand paces away. “My son is over there, somewhere. Or already dead,” he said.

“You should not have invaded us,” said Rokkman.

“You showed Neevan the Flame. She said it was a wondrous thing, that it changed her life, that it spoke to her.” The kneeling man began weeping again. “I wanted to see it. My heart burns with love for the Flame. There is a hole in my being because I am denied the Flame. This is true for all my people. But I don’t expect you to understand. Kill me and get it over with.” He looked back again at the continuing killing, wondering whether his son was there in that mass of dying sons.

Rokkman looked up at Clarian, the torch flickering, the faces of soldiers pressing around the tight circle. “I heard you found Neevan.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I went to your house and Helan told me. Helan said Neevan might not live.”

“I know,” answered Clarian.

“It doesn’t matter. You have to kill her. She’s a Maggan, and we’re killing all the Maggan.”

Clarian stared at him. “Yes, we are.”

“That is the law of war.”

“It’s the law of priests.”

“You understand nothing!”

“After you kill Zefran. After you kill Zefran with your own hand. Take my knife.”

“She is a Maggan, and all Maggan must die. Neevan must die.”

“First, kill this Flamekeeper.”

“I can send a soldier to kill her.”

“Kill this Holy One, Holy One.”

“But if she lives, where will you go? After we kill all the Maggan.”

Clarian did not answer, but his thoughts turned dark as he contemplated Rokkman’s remarks. If all Maggan were killed, no Maggan, not even Neevan, could remain in the land of Karran. They would have to flee his homeland, perhaps go west to another land. Could peace ever come to this land?

A small pale hand came out of the crowd, reaching up to grasp Clarian’s forearm. He turned his head and looked down at Mishan, her blond hair wet from the rain, the bow and quiver over her shoulder. Her bright-blue eyes seemed to pierce into Rokkman’s eyes and then into Clarian’s. For a moment it seemed that time stopped as this slip of a girl challenged the thinking of the brutal men towering over her. She spoke no words, standing straight beside Clarian, looking up at him with her steady, unwavering gaze, her blue tunic dark with rain.

“Who is she?” someone whispered.

“She is Mishan, one of my scouts,” answered Clarian.

She pulled Clarian’s arm down and with it the deadly knife. He nodded and slowly slipped the knife back into its sheath.

Rokkman wiped the rain off his face with his violet sleeve, his eyes filling with a deep sadness. He glanced out at the killing field, at Clarian, at Mishan, and down at Zefran. He sighed audibly and held out his hand to Zefran. “Get to your feet, Holy One. There has been enough dying today.”

Zefran grasped Rokkman’s hand and was pulled upright, his legs shaky, his eyes first on Rokkman, then on Clarian, fear still showing in his face.

Rokkman looked at Clarian, who stared back at him, both knowing decisions made now bring unforeseen consequences in the future. Rokkman nodded.

Clarian turned to an aide. “Sound the horns. All fighting stops now.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

T
he rain ceased sometime during the night. Clarian rode among his soldiers, giving instructions for the orderly return home of the army, the townsfolk, villagers, herdsmen, and farmers. He directed the now disarmed remnants of the Maggan and Drumaggan armies to form up and prepare to march back to their homes. Many on both sides were so exhausted, they fell to the ground and slept wrapped in blankets or cloaks.

Out beyond the immediate area of the ferry and Clarian’s house, in a vast field, Maggan and Karran soldiers dug graves for the dead; the Maggan to the east and the Karran to the west. With Ferman dead, no Maggan wanted to fight any longer. Rokkman had the Flame cart brought out to the burying grounds. The Flamekeepers, Rokkman, Zefran, and their assistant priests conducted services for the dead, each tending to their respective peoples. The Kobani loaded their dead on wagons for the journey back to the plains.

By the following midday, the clouds remained dark, threatening more bad weather to come. With wagons loaded with water and what little food was available, the Maggan armies under the command of junior Maggan officers began the long trek back to the Forest of Darkness and beyond. There were not enough wagons for all the troops or horses to pull them, so many walked.

Alongside the marching Maggan rumbled the wagons of the displaced Karran people on their way back to the Citadel or to towns or farms across the land. On the long journey back, these two peoples mingled on the road. There were acts of kindness. Townsfolk gave food to the struggling Maggan soldiers. Some placed wounded Maggan soldiers in their wagons. Others picked up exhausted soldiers who had given up and collapsed by the side of the road. By the time the columns of wagons of the armies, both Karran and Maggan, and the townspeople and farmers, neared the Citadel, all the peoples were intermixed.

Clarian met Rokkman outside his cottage. The cart carrying the Sacred Crystal and the wagons belonging to the Flamekeeper with all the sacred texts and materials of the Flame were in line, well guarded by Citadel guards and ready to begin the long way back to the Citadel.

“I will not be coming with you, Rokkman. My work is done,” said Clarian.

“I need you back at the Citadel. There is much to rebuild, much to be accomplished.”

“You have Martan and others who can do the work. I am a man of the frontier. I will stay here.”

“As your Flamekeeper, I could order you to return to the Citadel.”

Clarian did not answer.

Rokkman laughed.

Clarian smiled faintly. “What are you going to do with the Maggan Flamekeeper?”

“I am taking him with me to the Citadel as my guest. I introduced him to the Flame early yesterday before dawn. It was an unusual experience. And I have sent a letter to the Flamekeeper of Madasharan. They have more crystals, I am told. I have asked that Zefran and I be permitted to travel to Madasharan to discuss this. It is time to restore harmony to what has been a great chasm between our peoples.”

They stood together in front of the white cottage, the cold wind brushing back the tall grasses, horses stomping and whinnying, men shouting. A great group of soldiers was gathered at the ferry—the Madasharan army, waiting to cross back over to its own country. Clarian could see Rostan giving orders as wagons were pushed onto one of the ferry craft, the other already empty and on its way back from the other side. Zefran waited by the Flame cart.

“Where is the young girl, the scout?” asked Rokkman.

“Mishan? I don’t know.

“Who is she, then?”

Clarian did not answer.

“You really were the ‘Chosen One,’ said Rokkman, smiling. “The Oracle spoke true. You brought us through the dark days and saved our people. But I have one question for you. Did you ever feel like the ‘Chosen One?’”

“No. I am just a ferryman living on the frontier.”

“Well, Clarian, Selu, ferryman—farewell.”

“Goodbye, Rokkman, Holy One.”

Rokkman smiled and turned toward the departing wagons.

Later that day, Jolsani and Kajmin said good-bye to Clarian and with the Kobani forces rode south into the Kobani plains. Clarian promised to visit soon with his mother.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

H
elan stood up and stretched her back from bending over in the garden. She turned and looked at the foundation Clarian and Rostan were laying in for Clarian’s new cottage to the north of the old one. Like the home his father built, this one would also stand high on the embankment overlooking the river below with a view to the dry lands and the Crystal Mountains to the west. Ranna, picking vegetables and placing them in a basket, took her turn to stand and stretch.

“We shouldn’t be watching them,” she chuckled.

“No, I guess not. She’s better now. She may start walking before long.”

“I wonder if he knows?”

Neevan lay on a cot covered with a green blanket next to the foundation work, a makeshift awning over her head to block out the strong rays of the morning sun. The bell rang from across the river, and Rostan hurried off to ferry a waiting traveler. Wiping sweat from his head and neck, Clarian came over to take a break and sit next to Neevan. His shirt was plastered against his chest.

She looked thin, but her eyes sparkled with life, and Ranna had brushed out her blue-black hair until it shone. Her head and shoulders were propped up so she could observe the work.

“Want me to carry you in so you can sleep?”

“Not just yet. I want to watch you work and look at the mountains for a while longer.” She touched his wet hair and smiled. “Don’t forget you promised me windows so I can look out at the Crystal Mountains.”

“I won’t forget. Rostan and I will have the cottage completed soon. I’ll have to go get some timber from up north for the roof.”

“I wish I could go with you, but I can’t ride yet.”

“As soon as you feel up to it, I could take you in a wagon up to the spring pool.”

“I’d love that.”

He followed her gaze as she looked out past him across the dry lands to the Crystal Mountains, its blue ice fields shining in the day’s sunlight.

“In the spring, I’ll take you to the Crystal Mountains, as I promised.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny about that?”

She laughed again and drew his head down to kiss him. “We may have to postpone the trip for a while,” she said, smiling.

“Why is that?”

“In the spring, our child will be born.”

“What?” He was stunned. “But you’ve been laid up, wounded!”

“From the spring pool.”

“Oh.” He looked down at her stomach. His head reeled, and gladness flushed through him as he thought about her news. A big smile flooded his face as he held her hand. Feeling her eyes on him, those beautiful luminous eyes, he saw a tear and leaned over and kissed it away. “When I thought I had lost you…” he paused looking for words.

“It was meant to be. Our love was written by the Flame,” she whispered.

He thought about that. “Yes. I know.”

She stroked the side of his face. “I think I’m tired now. Carry me in, please. And maybe soon we could take a wagon up to the spring pool. I’d like that.”

A warm desert breeze started up, gliding in from the dry lands across the river. He carried her across the courtyard, her arm around his neck, and her lips against his cheek. The two yellow dogs danced about them, chasing a fluttering butterfly.

Rostan escorted a traveler toward the cottage as Ranna and Helan hurried from the garden to fix food, and then, whistling a happy tune, he walked briskly back across the road to his new cottage, which he and Clarian had built, where his new bride awaited him with his noonday meal.

Clarian carefully turned sideways, Neevan in his arms, to ease her through the door into the cottage. She laughed at something he said, her voice lilting in the soft air.

The great river rushed by in turquoise splendor, beating against giant, round stones upstream, creating a constant roar. The ferryboats bobbed in their moorings against the landing. The tall, silver-green grasses snapped back and forth, changing color as the wind changed direction. Behind the barn, the horses, including a new, young filly, and the cow grazed in the pasture. Little yellow birds darted about seeking insects next to the barn. Towering up from the horizon in the far west, the distant mighty ice spires of the Crystal Mountains sparkled like precious sapphires.