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She was exhausted, and the day’s light would not fade in time to make any difference in her attempts to evade these hunters. Before dusk’s arrival she knew that blades would clash, shattering the silence of the frozen forest.
It would be an ignominious end, filled with bitter frustration and fraught with pathos. A proper scene, highlighting the sheer indecency of civil war. Soldiers I fought alongside – now we close with murder in our eyes, weapons unsheathed.
Where, in all this, was the life I wanted? The victory of peace whispered so many promises. Kagamandra, we should have fled. Together, into the west, the lands of the Azathanai, or even the Dog-Runners. We should have damned the legacy of peace – you with your promised wife you did not love, me with a future empty of passion. Peace should have won us more. It should have won us a softening of all that was harsh and hard within us, an easing of the ferocity we all saw as necessary weapons in war.
Instead, too many of us turned fierce eyes upon these plain trappings, these quiet chambers. Too many of us still gripped bared iron, even as we walked into realms of peace, filled with the hope of living peaceful lives.
We were contemptuous of such lives, such living. It was beneath us warriors, us harbingers of blood and death. We could see in their eyes – in the eyes of loved ones, estranged friends, husbands and wives – that they knew nothing. Nothing of what truly mattered, what truly counted. They were shallow, ignorant of depravity’s depths. We saw them as fools, and then, as our souls hardened in our self-made isolation, we saw them as victims, no different from enemies upon the field of battle.
To us, they were blind to the ongoing war – the one we still fought, the one that left our souls wounded, bleeding, and then scarred. The one that cried out to us, demanding a lashing out, an eruption of violence. If only to break this brittle illusion of peace, which we knew to distrust.
But I dreamed of being among them, away from the killing and the terror. I dreamed of peace in every instant of war in which I lived.
Why, then, could I not find it? Why did it all seem so weak, so thin, so hopelessly shallow? So … false?
The trackers moving parallel to her had begun converging, while those in her wake had drawn close enough for her to hear their thudding footfalls. Desperate, Sharenas looked for somewhere to make her stand – the bole of an old tree, the root-wall of a toppled giant – but there was nothing like that nearby. She was among young dogwoods, elm thickets and young birch. No fire had rushed through any of this, and the leaf-mould was thick beneath the melting snow.
The soldier on her left voiced a strangled cry. Snapping a glance in that direction, she searched for the man, but could no longer see him.
At that instant, the two behind her rushed forward, even as the third scout swung in to flank her.
Mouth dry, sword-grip feeling greasy in her gloved hand, Sharenas spun round to face her attackers.
Both were women, and known to her, but now hatred twisted their features, and the blood was bright in their eyes.
There was no conversation, no pause in their attack.
Blades lashed out. She caught one, deflecting it, while sidestepping to evade the other. At that moment, the third hunter reached her, lunging with his sword.
The tip pierced the rounded flesh of her right hip, slicing it open to the bone. As the cut muscles and tendons parted, she felt them roll up beneath her skin, and her right leg simply gave way beneath her.
A blade struck her helm, dislodging it. Stunned, Sharenas fell on to her side. A savage blow against her sword knocked the weapon from her hand.
Disbelieving, she looked up into the face of one of the women, who now stood above her, bringing her sword around to push through Sharenas’s throat.
The woman paused, confusion clouding her face.
An arrow’s iron point was protruding from her neck. Blood was rushing down from the ragged tear its passage had made. The life in the woman’s eyes retreated, and then she dropped to her knees atop Sharenas.
Pushing the sagging body off, Sharenas dug in the heel of her one working leg and attempted to scrabble back. The other woman, she saw, was lying a few paces away, her midriff opened wide and its bundle of intestines tumbled out, steaming. Above her body crouched a grey-skinned girl. She held in her red hands long narrow knives, both slick with gore. Twisting round, Sharenas saw the third scout, lying face-down with the shafts of two arrows jutting from his back.
The girl advanced on Sharenas. ‘Plenty hunting you,’ she said. ‘Too many for just a deserter. No matter. You wear the wrong uniform.’
Another voice spoke. ‘No, Lahanis. Leave her.’
The girl scowled. ‘Why?’
‘She is bleeding out anyway, and the cut is too deep to mend. She is already dead. We gave you one.’
‘One is not enough.’
‘Come, we have cleared this part of the forest, but there are others. They will camp. Light fires. We have a night of killing ahead of us, Lahanis, enough to ease your thirst.’
The scene was dulling before Sharenas’s eyes, a grey too flat to be the arrival of dusk. She had one hand pressed against the gash in her hip, and the blood was pumping from the wound in hot waves. Her right leg was lifeless, a weight pinning her to the cold ground. The ache in her skull, and in the muscles and tendons on the left side of her neck, left her gasping, each breath frighteningly shallow.
She heard them move off after recovering their arrows and stripping the bodies.
Some time passed, but it was difficult to know how much. The dimness surrounding her felt disconnected from the sun’s vague departure. It was closer, crawling towards her from all sides, as if promising a warm embrace.
