The tavern stood crowded with Danarian soldiers. It was uncommon to have
so many of them here so close to the harbor and leagues from their
homeland.
“May I sit here?” the man asked a lone woman soldier.
She wore the spiked leather armor common among the fiercest of Danaria’s
warriors. The man pulled up a chair. From the dimly lit corner she
nodded and motioned for him to sit. Her expression remained placid as
she turned her attention back to the hearth, staring pensively into the
flames.
“So what brings you this far South?” he asked as he sat down. He took a
sip of ale and set the tankard on the small wooden table between them.
“Kersians,” she said. Her gaze turned from the fire and settled on him.
“They pillaged Kalendale and Morasta then burnt them to the ground
before we could stop them.”
The man shook his head, loosened the ties on his black leather jerkin,
and settled deeper into the wooden chair. “Why do they do it?”
The young woman forced a laugh. “Why does anyone kill? For power,
perhaps. Others merely kill for pleasure. They become warriors for the
glory.” Her voice trailed off.
The man took another drink. “And you?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you become a warrior?” he asked.
The question seemed to amuse her. Her gray eyes lit up and a small smile
played on her lips. She pulled her black cloak tighter about her narrow
shoulders to fight the chill night air drifting in through an open
window. A few moments passed before she answered. "Anger,” she started.
"In my anger I spew forth raw, violent energy. If this had happened
years earlier I would have gone to my friend, Kalath, for he could have
helped me. But now Kalath is dead. Sacrificed by the Kersians as an
offering to their no-name god. And for what?" She looked at the man as
if seeking the answer.
He
put both elbows on the table and leaned forward, anxiously waiting for
her to continue.
"So I was left to fend for myself in a world where warfare plagues the
ground beneath the blistering heat of the three fiery orbs that hang in
the sky.” She picked up the cup of spiced tea in front of her and sipped
it.
“You did it out of revenge then?” he asked. “Your friend was killed and
so you vowed to kill them?”
The woman shook her dark head of hair. “In the beginning, perhaps. But
now things have changed. It’s not like it used to be. In my mirror I see
not the warrior but rather a messenger of death. Becoming one with the
elements surrounding my being. And yet no one notices."
Confused, the man asked: “Notices what?”
"They look at me and see a young woman who denies her femininity. A
woman who uses her sword as a man would. A woman who intimidates them.
Look at me and tell me what you see."
The man shrugged his shoulders. He did not know how to respond to such
an odd question. “It’s not common for a woman to be of your rank... .”
“Of course it isn’t. But then what is common these days?” A short span
of silence followed.
“How do you deal with it?” he asked in a somber tone. If anything, he
found the young woman intriguing and wanted to understand her. Wanted to
know how it felt to kill so many.
Her eyes moved back to the orange-gold flames in the hearth. "What can
one expect fighting battle after battle, day after day? Blood. Pools of
blood, death cries, clanking swords ripping into bodies. We have to kill
the Kersians. All of them. We are ordered to kill them: grandfathers and
grandmothers, fathers, mothers, children. All of them. We burn their
villages, lighting the fires with oil from the flasks we carry, letting
the smoke carry our wrath deep into the crimson sky. The battles never
last long in reality."
She added, “For me, however, the battle runs deep. Each and every battle
is a separate
river inside me, waiting to converge. My rage first triggered the
elements of warfare from the well within me upon the battlefield during
the Zapiran Wars. We were failing. I do not remember much of what
happened for the energy threw me into the vortex unexpectedly and when I
awoke the Kersians were gone. Nothing remained but the swords, axes and
other weapons they wielded, strewn across the blood-drenched battlefield
as if dropped from the sky. All I can tell you is what others saw. How
the ground opened up, conceiving a
perpetual pit, and how the Kersians were blindly herded into the chasm
by some unseen force. Then the ground closed, gushing putrid steam from
the bowels of the earth element." She turned back to him then, her face
placid, soft.
He
was astonished by her description, but he listened silently.
She continued, "That's what they say happened. Though I do not know for
sure, there is one thing I do know, my elements are imbalanced.”
“Imbalanced?” he asked.
“Yes, imbalanced,” she replied. “The fire slips through my fingers,
mutable and enraged. The earth is blown away in clouds of dust by the
angry wind and the rivers are impregnated with seeds of aggression. My
rage kicks violently from inside me, wanting freedom to maraud and
plunder the land."
She stood and collected her things then drained the cup of its
contents. The man still had questions. “And what happens when one has
imbalanced elements?” he prodded. He did not want her to go.
The woman stepped around the table and leaned toward him, answering him
in barely a whisper, "Very soon, if I cannot balance my elements, I will
birth a heart cast of the same steel as my sword." With that, the young
woman turned and walked away without so much as a farewell.
He
contemplated her last words as he watched her disappear into the crowd
of soldiers. As the night wore on, the meaning of her message became
clear. The elements of warfare, being neither man nor woman, good nor
evil, did not discriminate. After time, they turned the hearts of
warriors into cold, hard steel.
He knew he would
never see her again, and would never know if she would be consumed by
the elements, if they would make her their own or — at last —set her
free.
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