Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) (26 page)

Step. She was done in. The path had defeated her.
She felt her foot move and when she put her foot down, cramps streaked up her
legs and across her back. She managed not to cry out as she went down...

...demon
trushi pecked at her eyes, clawing, pecking...

...and
then the hands of ice soothed her and the voice of peppermint cooled her
throat...

“...Well,
you’re not dead,” the silver voice said, “at least not yet, anyway.” The voice
paused, then continued, “You have to try, ky’pen’dati. Twenty steps. You can do
twenty. Come, I’ll help you...”

...Something tugged at her, urging her up. With a
soft moan of protest she moved with the force, pushing up onto her elbows,
letting the helping presence take most of the burden. The silver voice kissed her
legs and calves, taking the pain away, or at least blocking it. She gained her
knees and managed to go forward using her hands, one step, two, dragging her
body behind.

“No,
you must rise, ky’pen’dati. You must walk the remaining steps. Your people sympathize
for you. Now make them admire you. Show them the strength upon which they may
rely.”

Jeliya whimpered silently but struggled to her feet
and stepped on the sound of the clapping, which had not ceased. Now she
did
count the steps remaining, trusting the voice. Seventeen. Step. Sixteen.

At twelve she went to one knee, her ankle totally
swollen and too tender to even touch. She swallowed a cry of pain and
hop-touched along, trying to put as little weight on that foot as possible.

At seven her head exploded with pain and she doubled
over with a barely held sob, holding her temples and gritting her teeth. She
continued, supporting herself on the knee of her good leg.

At two she was hopping on the one good foot alone,
the world spinning with fiery pain behind her eyes.

At the last promised step her foot touched soft
grass. She had completed her second walking of the Way. But she did not stop.
She took two more steps before her body and the will holding her gave out.

Jeliya was unconscious before she hit the ground.
She did not hear the thunderous cheer the populace gave for her achievement in
the face of obvious infirmity. She did not feel the strong, gentle hands lift
her or hear the chanting of her title-presumptive, Av’Daun.

The last thing she heard was the silver voice,
whispering,
“You did it. You did it my love. You did it.”

the light
turned...

Jeliya awoke in the blessed cool of the pavilion,
the members of the High Family around her. They all sat facing outward, outwardly
attentive to the warru demonstrations of prowess being presented to the crowds,
but surreptitiously hidingher from view.

Each sound was knife-edged, each word lined with
needles. she moaned ceaselessly with the fierce beat of the headache right
behind her eyes, unable to halt the tortured ululation of her pain.

“She really shouldn’t continue,” the razor-bladed
words were from D’rad’ni. “She hasn’t had food for a turn, and the walk nearly
destroyed her. How is she supposed to fight?”

“She must, if she is to prove herself worthy. She
must put herself in the Goddesses’ hands.” Her mother’s gently concerned words
sliced into the sharp throbbing of her consciousness.

D’rad’ni pressed a moist cloth to Jeliya’s lips,
then to her eyes. It reminded her of the silver voice of peppermint water and
cool sage. It took the edge off of sound, the bite out of brightness. She was
able to quiet her moaning with the memory.

“You will live, High Heir,” the ol’bey woman said,
and there was more than a hint of pride in her voice. She raised Jeliya’s head
and offered her water. The Heir drank slowly, the rehydration almost as painful
as the dehydration had been. She could feel the moisture return to her nasal
tissues and her eyes, and the hellish headache began to subside. She stifled a
sneeze and drank more, vaguely surprised that D’rad’ni did not stop her or warn
her about drinking too much water just after such a major exertion. Her limbs
still felt like deadened weight.

“Drink all you can hold,” D’rad’ni answered her
unasked question. “Had it been allowed I would have let you drink before you
walked the path of Av. This water has had arro-root and tokba steeped in it,
for your eyes and head pain. You were not allowed it before, but you are too
traumatized in body for me to hold too closely to tradition. Ah, your mother
has gone out to do battle. You have some time to rest. You should do so while
you can.”

Jeliya gratefully closed her eyes, and she fell into
a light doze, only to jerk awake at a touch from the ol’bey woman.

“If you have any hidden reserves of strength,
Princess,” D’rad’ni murmured under the rising cheers of the crowds, “now would
be the time to find them. Your mother is about to best Otaga, and you will be
required to face her seven second best warru soon.”

Jeliya heard her through eyes closed to searing
pain, which had returned. Her own body held nothing left, so she turned to the
only other place from which strength might come - the Jur’Av’chi. And she found
that from the Jur’Av’chi, Gavaron’s tireless will came to her, waiting like a
still pool, depthless as his eyes. It was the same will that had allowed him to
run for turns to get her away from her pursuers; the same strength that had
served her on the Blessed Path. She drew upon that silent, silver pool of
strength once more, throwing off the pain, the weakness, even the swelling in
her ankle. It filled her, taking away the debilitation and replacing it with
silvered steel. She opened her eyes and heard the murmurings of the masses as
her mother came back to the pavilion, the wonderings if she would be able to do
combat with the obvious weakness of her condition.

The murmuring died and turned to gasps as she rose
to the kiss of silver and walked slowly out of the pavilion, as if a Goddess
reborn from the fires of agony. She stepped into the circle so recently vacated
by her mother, still wearing little save her beauty. Silence descended, awed
silence. She had been as one near death a few san’chrons before. Now she stood
tall and proud, even if there was a gray tinge to her creamy brown skin. Gray
that held a hint of silver. They waited, withheld breath, as she looked to the
waiting warru. As one against many, it was her choice how to meet her
opponents. Except for the last. The best. That one she had to defeat in single
combat.

“I would dance the An War’don’mi,” she said into the
hush, her voice exhibiting the faintest silver ring. There were murmurs of
approval. This was the best strategic move she could make, for this was the
dance of a single warru surrounded by six others, dancing with spear and sword.
It allowed her to battle six at once, rather than each individually. Jeliya
would be the center dancer, fending off the fluid attacks of the other six.
When done with staves and wooden swords it was merely beautiful, a complex
ritual of attack/defense/counterattack, that was used partly to train and
partly to entertain. But with real spears and the gently curving dom’ma sword
that was as long as a woman’s torso and razor sharp, then the dance became deadly.
For the six outer dancers could use any of a variety of combination attacks to
strike at the center, or even weave their own attacks into the dance. And the
one at the center, who had better be adept at the dance, would not know where
which attack would come from or when.

A young warru, Ak’ya, who was chosen as the first of
the second-best of the High Queen’s warru in the trials the turn before,
brought forth her dom’ma and spear, and the raiment of the War’don’mi. Jeliya
took the sword and bowed before the pavilion that held her Family. She
presented the dom’ma to Luyon, showing as a sign of trust that he would see
when she should need it most and toss it to her within the rhythm of the dance.

Otaga came forward to help her prepare. She took up
a long thong from the vestments in the hands of Ak’ya and bound Jeliya’s
guinne, which were faintly silver at the ends, into a thick, solid braid. Two
others wrapped her wrists and the palms of her hands in silk-fine leather. A bustiere
of coarse silk was wrapped around her top half. The Warru First then bent down
to lace the special soft-soled sandals onto the High Heir’s feet. Jeliya smiled
and turned to receive her spear from Ak’ya.

“Choose,” she said to Ak’ya, honoring the age-old
ritual that surpassed memory. “Name those from among your sisters and brothers
to join me in the War’don’mi. Let them stand forth, and match me, skill for
skill.”

Ak’ya stepped forward, her young face lighting up,
her eyes bright, honored to be given the right to name the five others who had
passed the trials with her. The seventh had already been designated and was
waiting.

She named San’disha, a tall, regal woman who was of
a height with Rilantu and Staventu, and who could not be beaten when it came to
spear fighting, not even by Otaga herself. I’cho, a short warru woman who was
death itself with the long sword. Ihannu, a tall, silent warru man who was a
champion stick-fighter. Daj’ju, a muscular warru man renowned for his strength
and endurance. Dadenyi, whose lightning fast reflexes had earned him the name
Dadenyi do Av’io, the blink of Av. And Ihrasal, the warru who had stood by
Pentuk when she had been given command of the egwae, and who was said to be
death incarnate with the paired short staves.

“All fine warru,” Jeliya said, saluting to each.
They took their places and bowed in honor to each other and to the center. They
made benedictions to the four compass points which held the four ‘ritas, and
knelt to touch their foreheads to the ground in honor of the Ancestors. And they
stood and lifted their arms, saying rites in praise of the Goddesses and the
Supreme One. The multitudes followed suit, then sat as the tan’kai players
began to strike single beats on their drums. Other warru joined in with their
spears on shields. They intoned a low chant, in the ancient Alonan tongue,

“Una lai lai,

Una lai lai

Is’si’ona ka
wai!

Una lai lai!

Is’si bau’u ka
ya!

Is’si’ona ka
wai!

Is’Solu a ka ya!

Una lai lai!”

It was an almost-song that throbbed, working its way
into the body’s rhythms, heightening the senses, toning and conditioning the
muscles to move within the patterns of the dance. The Six began to slowly move
clockwise around Jeliya, stepping with each beat; and she moved opposite to
them, counter-clockwise, her spear raised high. She let the silver rhythm take
possession of her, let it guide her breathing and infiltrate her blood. It
moved her body and her soul, drawing her into the silver pulse of the dance.
And when it had integrated her into itself, it gave her the cue she sought and
she sent up the cry, translating the words,

“One stands here!”

“One stands here!” the drummers and warru answered
in chorus, the drums taking up the rhythm of the syllables.

“I stand here!”

“One stands here!”

 “There stand the honored Six!”

“One stands here!”

“Honor stands with this One!”

 “Honor holds this Six!”

“In Solu’s honor do we fight!”

“One stands here!”

She whirled with a roll of the drums, the rhythm
growing into the full dance of the War’don’mi. The Six dropped to crouches,
still moving in a circle, stalking her like encroaching predators. She studied
their movements as she still moved counter to them.

They’re all skilled fighters, but they’ve probably
not danced the War’don’mi in quite this combination before,
she thought.
That
works to my advantage They probably won’t be able to coordinate their attacks.
She was almost confident that she could take them, provided her strength held
out - after all, she had danced with the finest, and that included her father.

They began with the traditional star formation
thrust, dancers on opposing points attacking, weaving out a six-pointed star.
She countered each with precision, then moved immediately to counter the next
traditional move, the Six each making a low sweep at her legs in staggered
procession, followed by an upward thrust with the butt of the spears toward her
abdomen. She pivoted out of the way of each instead of meeting them, dancing
back and relying on her silver agility to avoid the flashing spears. She closed
briefly with each, then sent an unexpected counter-thrust at Dadenyi, changing
the whole symmetry of the dance, putting the movements on the upbeat. As the
center she controlled the rhythm of the dance. Most left the rhythm as it was,
but rhythm, too, could be a weapon, and she had been taught by a master to
manipulate the rhythm. It might put the others off their stride, and might make
them less inclined to spring surprise attacks on her.

Jeliya whirled her spear as they fell back, now
freed by her move to break with the traditional movements and attack as they
would. Her body flowed in time to the silver drums, the rhythm controlling her
now, weakness forgotten. Then the attacks came, randomly and seemingly from
every quarter. She blocked an overhead strike from Ihrasal, spun away, into
another attack by Dadenyi, a furious flurry of sword slashes that could not be
defended against for long. She studied the system of throbbing movements,
letting the silver heart-beat of the drums show her the cracks in the pattern.
On an off-beat she reversed her spear and thrust it at Dadenyi’s face, the
razor tip barely touching the warru’s surprised nose before Jeliya slid away to
face another opponent. The next was a sweep at her head followed by a whirling
attack that swept out a deadly figure eight before her eyes. The wielder was
San’disha, and she advanced, the spear a flashing gyration that seemed to dance
from one hand to the other, never stopping the dizzyingly fast twirling. She
came at the Heir that way, the spear part shield and part weapon, seeming a
solid thing. Jeliya matched her, spin for spin, the spears a blur in a higher
order of the dance, two blows traded for every half-beat. Finally the Heir
broke away from her attack and turned away, back into the main dance. I’cho
dallied with the Princess with her sword, more playing with her than really
attacking, testing her mettle. The warru feinted left and right, but did not
follow through on any of them while Jeliya was open and vulnerable. Her eyes
were filled with merriment and mischief and she finally drew back, to let
Ihannu put the Heir through her paces and test her reflexes. Daj’ja closed with
her only briefly, and Ihrasal not at all, except of that initial attack. She,
instead, hung back, watching. Jeliya kept an eye on her with her peripheral
vision, waiting for the attack that did not come.