A Warrior's Path Read online

  The other two heard Urietsin's horse and quickly turned around. As they trotted up, they saw the Swift One jump off his mount and kneel down. He seemed to be investigating something on the ground.

  “What is it?” called Kiusu.

  Urietsin stood, and in one hand he held a bit and bridle just like the ones outfitted on each of their horses.

  “Where did that come from I wonder?” Su-Ni realized how silly it sounded as she uttered it.

  “Well, what happened to the horse that wore it?” Urietsin salvaged her question.

  “It might not even be the emperor's,” the young woman suggested. “Many more horses passed this way with the army.

  “This bridle is perfectly good. Why would anyone leave it behind?” the Swift One reasoned.

  Kiusu offered, “We must search the area.”

  Su-Ni nodded in agreement. She pulled off her small pack and produced three torches from within. “Here, each of you take one of these.” She handed one to each man and produced some flint. After a few tries, she got all the torches lit. “This way we can split up, and as long as we stay within sight of each other's torchlight, we should not get lost,” she explained.

  “Yes, but let us not spend too much time on this search,” advised Kiusu. “If it is not Geilo's, we may be wasting our time.”

  “Yes,” agreed Su-Ni, “and there's no telling if the emperor met with some danger further down the road.” A chill went up her spine as she recalled her encounter with the meilif-danar.

  The three of them rode out away from one another. They circled around and tried to cover as much ground as they could while remaining roughly equidistant from each other. They searched the ground around them up to the edge of their vision and then moved on, looking back every once in a while, each making sure that there were still two other torchlights bobbing around in the darkness. Almost a half hour of this pattern went by without a single sign of anything unusual.

  Su-Ni's horse plodded along slowly as she peered into the dim circle of light offered by her torch. She held the light high and a bit behind her so that the bright flame didn't obscure her sight more than it helped it. Regardless, she found nothing in this spot also and moved her horse forward. This search was clearly fruitless, and she was becoming weary of it. She barely stopped her steed at all and simply continued along halfheartedly.

  The young woman sighed deeply and was about to turn around and call out to end the search when something odd caught her attention. As she turned her head, she could have sworn she saw a dark shape just beyond her circle of light. When she looked in the direction she had seen it, only darkness was visible to her. She looked off to the side a little, and there it was in her peripheral vision again, a shadowy shape close to the ground. Her chest began to thud with the pounding of her heart. She strained to hear, but only the sound of the blood in her veins rushed in her ears. She began to move cautiously in the direction of the shape.

  As she came closer, the shadows retreated, and she clearly saw something large and dark on the ground in front of her. She quietly got off her horse and drew her sword. With the torch held behind her and her blade in front, the young woman stepped slowly toward the shape, afraid that at any instant it might jump up and attack her. It was only a few feet in front of her now, but though she strained and squinted, she could not make out its exact shape in the dancing light of her torch. She was inching forward and stretching out her sword, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles shown white. She came just a little bit closer and leaned in until her sword touched it lightly. When no reaction seemed forthcoming, she stood straight and brought her torch forward to see what it was that lay before her.

  “Urietsin! Kiusu! Come quickly! Here! Here! Come here!” Su-Ni called out as loudly as she could while she waved her torch frantically in the air.

  Within seconds the two men came galloping to her. They leapt off their horses and gathered around the shadowy shape lying on the ground. They all shared a surprised, perhaps slightly unnerved look.

  “A horse,” Kiusu said finally breaking the stunned silence.

  “What could have done this to it?” Urietsin asked in awe.

  The horse, or what was left of it, lay on the grass staring lifelessly into the night. There were several large, gaping holes on its flanks and midsection. Its corpse was riddled with several smaller holes and random raking gashes. Kiusu was stepping around it carefully and investigating all of its visible wounds.

  “Whatever it was, it did this recently. This horse has not been dead for much more than a day,” the old man informed the other two.

  “Regardless of what it was,” piped the Swift One, “if this was the emperor's horse, then where is the emperor?”

  “We must continue our journey,” responded Kiusu. “If Geilo escaped, we may find him along the way. If he did not...”

  “...then he is surely dead,” finished Urietsin.

  The two men quickly got back on their horses and turned to leave. Su-Ni, however, who had been silent since Kiusu and Urietsin arrived, simply stood and stared at the lifeless equine body before her. The younger of the men called out to her, and she blinked with a start. She mechanically walked back to her own horse and climbed onto it.

  “Are you alright, Su-Ni?” the Swift One asked her delicately.

  She nodded, and the hint of a grateful smile passed briefly over her face. “Let us waste no more time,” she said determinedly.

  The young woman rode out hard with her companions, but in her mind she still stood near the decomposing corpse of the animal that had bore the emperor. Its terrible wounds flashed in horrid detail in her mind's eye. She shuddered as she played out the last moments of that poor creature's life in her head. Haunted by these images that seemed eerily familiar, Su-Ni had little hope that the emperor had escaped with his life.

  About an hour later, it was Urietsin, once again, who spotted something ahead, though a bit off their course. This was something that was not so difficult for the others to see as they rode up to it. Considering their search an hour ago, they were hopeful and terrified as they came upon a roughly man-sized shape lying in the cold, dew-clad grass.

  Urietsin and Kiusu dismounted and approached the shape. It was the Swift One who bent down to turn over what was definitely a man lying face down in his nightclothes. There was a slight moaning sound as he did so, and a face that he recognized as the emperor's looked up at him blearily.

  Geilo was deathly pale and as cold as the grass he lay in, but he was not quite dead. He looked from Kiusu to Urietsin and smiled. “The dead have come for me,” he whispered weakly.

  “Nay, highness, not yet,” Urietsin reassured. “Su-Ni, give me some water.”

  The young woman reached into her pack and drew out a waterskin and tossed it to the Swift One. He unstoppered it quickly and poured some of the cool liquid into the emperor's mouth. Geilo began to drink, but was soon coughing and sputtering. As Urietsin pulled the skin away, the emperor retched and vomited up the water he had just consumed.

  The Swift One looked up at Kiusu sadly. “We must get him back to camp,” he said, though his voice revealed no hope with that statement.

  “No!” the emperor yelped with surprising fierceness. “I must get to Etrusin.”

  “Emperor, you are not well. We must get you help as soon as possible, and the camp is the closest,” Urietsin explained.

  “My throne will be empty,” Geilo said hollowly. “There is no help for me. I must get to Etrusin, or there will be no help for the empire!” This last statement seemed to be too much for him and he slumped into unconsciousness.

  Again, Urietsin looked up to his former master. “What should we do?” he asked.

  Kiusu looked down at the man he had once known. The strong rider who had led his people to victory against Reisothin. It was that strength that kept him alive now, and Kiusu knew that if he died before his message was relayed, the results could be catastrophic. He intimated as much to Urietsin.

 
; “Perhaps one of us can continue on with Su-Ni to relay his message while one of us rides back to camp with the emperor,” the Swift One suggested.

  Kiusu shot him a doubtful look. “Perhaps you would like to ask him what his message was,” he said, indicating the unconscious Geilo.

  “He is poisoned,” called out Su-Ni suddenly, “and I know that Marui has the cure. Many of the Shionen probably do. Let us not ride back to camp when there is a chance that it will end up with the emperor dying in vain. Take him, with his message, to Etrusin. If Marui can help him, we will all be blessed. If not...then at least the emperor will die proudly, knowing that he has saved the empire once more.” Tears welled up in the worried woman's eyes.

  Kiusu and Urietsin looked at one another and nodded slowly in agreement. “Let him ride with you, Su-Ni,” the older man said. “You are the lightest.”

  Su-Ni nodded and shifted as they lifted the emperor onto her horse's back. “Will you be able to hold him?” the Swift One asked her. Again she nodded and reached around Geilo's limp body and gripped the reign tightly. “Tell me if he becomes too much for you to carry,” Urietsin reassured her.

  In seconds their horses' hooves beat the ground again as they rode like the wind to the southwest. The moon was setting, and the horizon behind them was getting brighter, but their only focus was on the way ahead. They did not stop to rest, and they drove their horses as hard as they dared. Though the temperature was cool, even after the sun rose, the animals were lathered in sweat, and the riders felt no better. They were all experienced riders, but none of them rode regularly enough to make this an easy journey.

  Su-Ni was having the worst time of it, trying to hang on and keep the emperor in place as well. While the past several weeks had done wonders for her fitness, she was still not nearly as well-built as her two male companions. Her arms burned, as did her legs, and because of the way she was sitting toward the back of her horse to make room for Geilo, she feared her teeth would be rattled right out of her head. Every time Urietsin looked back at her, though, she grit her teeth and forced a reassuring grin. She was determined to make it to the end of this journey without holding up her companions. She would get the emperor to Etrusin even if her limbs fell off doing so.

  * * *

  A red sunrise greeted General Etrusin as he woke from his brief and intermittent sleep. He sullenly watched the sun continue its upward path as his army bustled around him, clearing the camp and getting ready to march. More than one soldier glanced furtively over his shoulder at the ill omen on the horizon. Few armies marching to war have ever welcomed the red sunrise. As Etrusin stood pondering the possibilities that the day might present for good or ill, Komeris and Tilon walked up behind him.

  “The Shionen know the news that the dawn brings,” Tilon said, his glittering armor taking on a deep golden hue in the red light of the morning sun.

  “Fear it not, general, it may be for our enemy,” reassured Komeris.

  Etrusin nodded, but still he stared at the brightening horizon. “Rarely is the red dawn for one side only. The fighting will take its toll no matter how many or how few soldiers fall,” he said soberingly.

  The captain and the elf were silent. They agreed that the general was right, but both of them had known and accepted their possible fate at the end of this march. It was the price they were willing to pay for the safety and freedom of their people. Komeris spoke this sentiment aloud as Tilon nodded his approval.

  General Etrusin turned away from the sunrise to look at the captain. “You are right, of course,” he said with an appreciative smile.

  Komeris returned the smile and asked, “When shall we give the order to march?”

  “Immediately,” Etrusin responded.

  “General,” Tilon interrupted, “riders approach!”

  Etrusin spun and peered in the direction that Tilon was pointing. “I see nothing,” he admitted after a long pause.

  “Three of them,” the elf insisted.

  Komeris and Etrusin continued to squint in the direction indicated by the elf, but it was still some minutes later before they recognized the three blots on the horizon that were moving toward them. By this time, Tilon was able to make out one more detail.

  “One of the horses carries two,” he said.

  They stood and waited and wondered who could be riding in from the camp, as that was clearly the direction from whence they had come. Soon the riders were close enough that the three onlookers could faintly hear the pounding of the horses' hooves carried on the wind, although it was Tilon who heard them long before the other two. Indeed, many of the elven archers among the army perked up their ears at the sound of approaching horses. Those who paid attention could sense an urgency in the riders' pace. It did nothing to quell the unease that had come with the dawning of the sun.

  Shock did not even begin to describe the reaction of the three that stood to receive the riders when they finally galloped up and stopped short. All three were surprised to see Urietsin, the man they had thought lost forever on the mountainside, but not nearly as surprised as Etrusin and Komeris were to see their emperor slumped in front of Su-Ni in his nightclothes. They all simply stood there agape for a moment before they remembered themselves. Then all at once, they sprung into action, running to the riders and asking the obvious questions.

  “See to the emperor!” Su-Ni shouted to all of them.

  Etrusin hurried over to her horse and gently took the emperor's unconscious form in his arms. If he had not been worried before, he certainly was now as he noted with fright how light Geilo felt. He carried him away and shouted orders for a canopy to be put up.

  “What has happened to him?” Komeris asked of the three riders.

  “He was attacked by something. We believe he has been poisoned,” Urietsin answered.

  “Why have you brought him here?” the captain continued, the confusion evident on his face.

  “He was already on his way,” explained Su-Ni, who looked very road weary. “A guard from the palace said that the emperor rushed out and galloped away on a horse as fast as could be. He made it through the forest in three days.”

  Komeris's eyes widened.

  “We came after him,” Urietsin went on. “We found his mutilated horse, then later the emperor himself. He insisted that we take him here. He said he had and urgent message for the general.”

  “Why would he come himself? And by himself?” Komeris wondered aloud.

  “The message must have been very important indeed,” the Swift One offered. “He knew he was the only one who could have ridden so fast.”

  “Hopefully it was fast enough,” the captain said with a look over to where Etrusin and Marui were looking after Geilo. He went to walk over to them, but paused briefly and called over his shoulder, “I don't know how you are still alive, Swift One, but it is truly good to see you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he replied sincerely.

  Kiusu tensed in spite of himself. He recognized Komeris as the man who had come looking for Urietsin after the gotori attack.

  “Your mounts look tired, as do you,” Tilon said. “Let me get someone to tend to them.”

  “Thank you,” said Su-Ni, truly grateful for that offer. She went to climb off her horse, but she could not hold on well enough to steady herself, and she tumbled to the ground.

  Urietsin leapt off his horse and was by her side in an instant. “Su-Ni! Su-Ni, are you alright?” he cried.

  The young woman looked up at him as tears streamed down her temples. “I can’t feel my arms, Urietsin,” she moaned.

  The Swift One took her hand and lifted her sleeve. Huge purple bruises covered the entirety of her forearms, which he also noticed were heavily scarred from some previous injury. “Su-Ni, why did you not tell us? One of us could have taken him,” he said plaintively.

  “My horse had the lightest load,” she responded. “I did not wish to slow us.”

  Urietsin grimaced and lifted the young woman and carried her over t
o where the emperor was being tended. He saw Etrusin standing by impotently as Marui administered what care she could. Busy though she was, the elf did acknowledge Su-Ni's condition. The Swift One laid the former diplomat down and said, “Fear not. I will go find someone to tend to you.”

  “No,” she pleaded. “Stay here with me, Urietsin. Marui will see to me when she is done. My wounds are not so grievous. Please don't leave me alone.”

  Urietsin paused, then nodded.

  Kiusu remained seated on his horse and watched the wave of curiosity and confusion wash over the army as they wondered what all the commotion was about, then realized the answer. A young soldier, looking very disconcerted, stepped up to him and offered to take his horse. The old man jumped down and gave the horse a grateful pat on the neck as the soldier led it away. He went back to looking at the throng of kinsmen that were crowded around the canopy where the emperor lay. It was sobering to see Etrusin's army rebuilt, especially when he considered that the last time he had seen so many people was when he had been part of the original fighting force that had glued the empire together.

  “I know you,” came the voice of Tilon, shattering Kiusu's reverie.

  The old man considered the elf for a moment before answering, “You may, though it has been many years since you saw me, no doubt.”

  Tilon nodded. “Yes, my people have a fine memory, especially for that which is unusual to us. Few who are not our kin may walk through our forest without being noticed. Where were you going all those years ago?”

  Kiusu shrugged and shifted his focus to somewhere beyond. “I was not sure then, and I don't believe I am all that sure now. I felt I needed solitude, though I fear I have had more than my fill,” he decided.

  “It is strange to be among your people again?” Tilon asked, though it was more of a statement.

  The old man nodded in confirmation. “Strange. Strange because I regret being away for so long, now that I see them. I have lived many more winters than most men, and though my master was many more years older when he died, I fear my reunion with my people may be a short one,” he lamented.