Chapter 195: Changing the Ways

By the time Viv returned to the ravaged village, the kark were well on their way to finishing the cleanup. There were more survivors than she expected though those who had made it were shadows, haunted by what they’d seen. Most of them were children, teenagers, some mothers with their children. All of the men capable of fighting had died in front of the village buying precious time for their people to run.

 

“They will be absorbed by other clans. We are down to seventeen. Once, the Red Tribe counted fifty-four clans,” Marruk said from her position of command near the pyre.

 

“You’ve lost more than half of your population?” Viv asked, horrified.

 

“Lost half of the population. A very neat way to describe families killed to the last person. Children left on the plains to be eaten. All of this.”

 

She waved towards the survivors saying goodbye to the fallen, or performing the last rites. Once it was done, the body was deposited on the pyre next to the others.

 

“Some ancestors will fade with no surviving offspring. Such a tragedy. Their wisdom and the fruits of their efforts will be lost forever! And this pyre, carrying so many. Will they be lost on their way, with so many others rising to the sky together with them? We cannot even afford to do things properly…”

 

Viv looked at a crying mother. This one couldn’t let go.

 

“People shouldn’t have to cremate their children.”

 

“So it is. Let us attend to the pyre now.”

 

It was well into the night before they finished collecting all the bodies. Arthur very kindly went after anything that tried to lurk closer, attracted by the scent of blood and death. Viv stood nearby when Warchief Matar arrived at the head of his regiment of pakar riders, late but not terribly so. There wasn’t much for them to do besides mill around, but at least they got to attend the goodbyes.

 

It was a grim affair, Viv thought. She’d been to plenty of funerals by now and the mood had always been subdued, but New Harrak was finding itself in a situation where most losses had come as a side effect of victories. Her people had sacrificed their lives for something. Sometimes not much but… something. This wasn’t like that. The slaughter was just another one in a long list of senseless losses those people had been experiencing for years. They were just… tired. It was visible in the way some of them lost themselves to the flame rather than drink and mourning.

 

Viv left and did what she had to do, because no one else would do it. She approached the pile of dead raiders left where it was, and prayed before they could turn into revenants. The steppes didn’t need more revenants.

 

“Neriad, Enttiku, those people were scum, but let them find peace anyway. If there is an afterlife, may they be a force for good rather than what they were here.”

 

She sent a massive amount of mana to both divinities. A soft golden light covered the corpse pile for a brief moment, and she could have sworn someone patted her head.

 

Viv knew that if she were victorious, the kark would end up within spear range of Pure League civilians who saw them as nothing more than animals to be culled.

 

She hoped that when the time came, she would have the courage to do what was right and stop the slaughter, because after today, the temptation to let go was growing stronger.

 

She could just go out with Arthur and… it would be easy. It would be so easy. Ride across Lutenese lands, blighting the soil and torching every person in uniform she came across. Their elites would never catch up with her. She would slaughter them, spreading their remains over a gray, dead country until they begged for her to stop being the calamity they liked to pretend she was. They would never see it coming because she was holding back, holding back and being nice instead of fully embracing the black elemental aspect of her. Just a band of death at the border with the kark. A border. A warning. A scar that would never heal. Starving masses would drag princes from their brittle thrones… And they would all know it was her.

 

Arthur landed by her side.

 

Are we going?

 

“No. We are leaving with the kark. They need to learn how to stand for themselves. I won’t always be here.”

 

If you say so.

 

***

 

One might say that to display majesty, a little bit of practicality had to be sacrificed. That person had never visited the Prince’s Hall in Luten. The golden sunlight of a late summer shone through the skylight over marble desks and engraved lecterns designed to allow the prince’s council to work in a pleasant setting. Looking at the prince, however, it was clear he wasn’t having a pleasant time.

 

“I call this extraordinary session in order.”

 

He sighed. The past ten years had cost him a lot of his youthful exuberance. Now, with experience came regrets, and a lack of smiles. Many of the councilors watched him walk in his regal robes with wary eyes, fearing what fresh ignominy might have been cast upon their head. He pulled on his beard — never a good sign — and the men and women around flinched at this old nervous tick. It didn’t befit a prince to show weakness, any weakness.

 

“I have just received a scroll from the border fortress. Prime minister, would you kindly share its content with us.”

 

The old minister unfolded the scroll with a frown. His lips moved as he glanced over the words written in a script he was not entirely familiar with.

 

“The Harrakan empire has declared war on us,” he gasped.

 

There were a few whispers, one laugh, that one quickly silenced, and quite a few confused looks. More beards got pulled.

 

“What is the meaning of this?” a woman asked.

 

“They claim an attack on their embassy… two years ago? One of our senior officers defected to them and our men tried to reclaim her,” the minister replied.

 

“Instead of sending an assassin?”

 

“So it would appear.”

 

Consternated growls erupted from the back benches. Someone was going to lose their head over this.

 

“Our agents reveal no movement of troops, or at least none within the past two weeks,” the spymaster added.

 

“That missive was delivered in person by their sovereign!” the prince hissed.

 

“However,” the spymaster pointed out, “the empress herself left alongside senior mages and all of her pet kark.”

 

The person who’d laughed huffed.

 

“What will she do with those animals? Teach them to do tricks?”

 

Few members still bought the idea that the kark were inferior weaklings who would break at the first cavalry charge, their lands ripe for the taking. Not after losing several family members to the futile push west.

 

“Three hundred armed kark are a concern. Three hundred steel-clad kark with imperial training? That is very concerning. Not to mention the woman herself,” a general grumbled.

 

“Elaborate,” the prince said.

 

The old man gave him an assessing look. It used to be that questioning Lutenese superiority could land one in jail for treasonous speech, though the prince had mellowed over the years. In this regard, at least. He decided to hazard it.

 

“She killed Elunath in a mage duel. The city still bears the scars of the event. Oh, she also escaped Helock’s keep in a rather explosive breakout.”

 

“Surely there was some poetic exaggeration involved?”

 

“I assure you, there was nothing poetic about those events. I have talked to witnesses. Two elemental mages fighting? That was like… like gods incarnating to dish it out. A mountain walking, yet falling to a corruption that nothing could shield against… Have I mentioned that the Helock’s arena was cordoned off for two months because she poisoned it?”

 

“So she is a great mage. We have ways to deal with those.”

 

“Only one way, in fact. Sending a mage contingent against her would be suicide.”

 

“The dark blades it is then.”

 

“You’d better send your best, because they will only have one chance.”

 

Several councilmen disagreed. The prince returned his gaze to the declaration of war. It was a partial one.

 

It meant that she wouldn’t just fly to his palace and drop a strategic spell from the back of her pet dragon, because there was little that could stop her from doing so. Even a full mage flight might not suffice.

 

Somebody ought to stop her before it was too late.

 

Maybe the King of Baran would be open to talks.

 

***

 

The return was much slower since the landship reduced its speed to match that of the pakar riders. The healers had suggested that the survivors ought not be separated, and there wasn’t enough room for all of them on the ship, so most now the steel construct rode over the plains like a fat tank.

 

“I think I want to call it the Beacon,” Frosthawk said.

 

“The ship?” Viv replied.

 

“Yes. It is the first of its kind, the messenger of our old glory restored for all to see. It represents the ancient and the new fused in harmony. And it also represents hope.”

 

“A bit ambitious, isn’t it?”

 

“I think we need to be.”

***

 

The arrival of the clan survivors was met with dismay and relief in equal measure: dismay that yet another clan had been destroyed, relief that there were survivors. Most of them were immediately absorbed in surrounding groups while others were sent on their way to distant clans, those that were not here at the falls, having only sent their warriors. The lack of discussions on what to do told Viv this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

 

To her surprise, one of the fallen clan’s oldest women walked to her alongside a gaggle of surviving children. Marruk translated while Viv stood there awkwardly.

 

“She wants to know if it is true that you carry a metal shield with the symbols of everyone you have ever helped.”

 

“Oh yes, of course, should I get it?”

 

“She would like to see it.”

 

Weird request, but Viv grabbed her old shield from her cabin. It was battered and mishappen, with each partial layer obscuring the one before, and since people used different alloys, the symbols were in different colors too. Honestly, whatever could go through her magical shield would never, ever be stopped by that thin layer of metal but there was just a psychological benefit to holding steel between the enemy and her. She’d felt the same way about her body armor.

 

The old woman passed a hand over the pitted, irregular surface. She nodded, then reached into a pocket for a coin.

 

It was an iron coin bearing a line.

 

“The symbol of the Spear Shaft clan,” Marruk whispered. “It is a great honor.”

 

The old woman admonished Marruk for a while. The poor girl had to translate the abuse as well.

 

“She called me an idiot and that her clan was done for. I think she’s… doing this thing you said, when some people handle pain differently. She says that if you carry the symbol on your shield then it will be as if the Spear Shaft clan was never dead.”

 

“Tell her I accept. I’ll have Frosthawk’s people attach it immediately.”

 

“She asks if you will carry it in battle as well.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“She asks if you can bash someone’s skull in.”

 

“No, this is my shield. Magic is my weapon.”

 

“It will have to do.”

 

***

 

It didn’t take long for the council to deliberate on the Trial of Wisdom, barely half an hour of screaming that seemed to leave them confused and annoyed. Marruk and her father Matar were called to the stone in front of the assembled warriors a moment later. The female warrior who usually did Viv’s translation found her with a nervous smile, right on time for the delivery.

 

“The Council has decided that Marruk triumphed over the trial of wisdom. She saved our people before the pakar could arrive thanks to her great metal beast. She is our new Warchief.”

 

The acknowledgement was lukewarm, to say the least. Some of the younger warriors cheered but most of the old geezers nodded, or looked away. No one overtly defied tradition, at least, not now, but it wasn’t probably the rousing endorsement Marruk could hope for. As for the woman herself, she strode to the stone.

 

Nobody stopped her.

 

Little by little, the crowd quieted while her leadership spread over the assembled kark like a warm cover. Viv could taste the kark’s leadership skill in her soul and it was very, very different from her own. Viv’s leadership was overwhelming, buoyed by her many achievements and her tendency to ruthlessly kill any opposition. Marruk was completely different. She was solid, but more than that, she was comforting and resilient. She had been through a lot of shit since first leaving the steppes, but she’d gotten back on her feet swinging every time. It had taken her a ton of effort and a bit of luck to collect all of her iron and to grow into the confident woman she was now, and it showed in the way the people she touched settled. Her soldiers closed ranks with pride while others straightened. Marruk wasn’t just here to bring steel. She would stand amongst her warriors and hold the line whether it was against a cavalry charge, a gut spiller, or a siege tarantula. She was the Pillar of the Kark, and she was here to stay.

 

“I can tell some of you are not happy, and I think I know why. I left to find help while my father stayed. Year after year, he fought for our people while I was away. All the iron and all the allies I have now, they are because he was there to protect our people. That is why I had time. Now I come back with a bountiful reaping while he was bleeding for our home, and I dare take his place, for he has no food to offer.”

 

The old ones nodded. The younger warriors looked introspective. All of them gathered closer, made curious by her words.

 

“To you I will say first that strength is not just holding a spear. To hold one’s pride is the duty of a warrior, but to sacrifice one’s pride for the good of the clan, of the tribe, that is a warchief’s duty. I found help because we needed help. All the steel you hold on your spears, the allies we have, the metal beast, those are here because I looked for ways to help you,

my people. Because I fought for it tooth and nail against the southern nobles who would cheat us, and because I found people I could trust, even though they are not kark. The steel you hold, that is MY strength… and it is with that strength that we shall push the Pure League out, once and for all.”

 

Some of the kark bellowed while others remained quiet, but Viv could feel their eagerness to see if the steppes could win under its first woman warchief.