Of Birds of Balm III

An ear-ringing explosion was followed by rockfall that knocked two horses and one man down the now five-chain drop.

The Leonounds of Laeonaké had attacked.

Brigands of bloodshed, their network was expansive. The ongoing civil war had elevated their simply banditry of the city of Laeonaké into a region-spanning web of lawless control loyal only to the original crimelords; patrons to many scared villagers that payed for their safety. A symbol of security for some, and the wealth of a ransom like this from the pocket of Pureus II would be enough to buy at least one island.

Their ambush was calculated and swift, probably best coordinated by the earlier sounds of singing and wailing and shouting. Three men stood at an overhead bluff, some twelve chains above, with composite crossbows and fustibal-staff-slings, calling orders to the eight below. five had lined themselves behind, and three in front, all setting themselves ready during the chaos of their explosion. Though the frontline was weaker, it was no small task to run a train down such a steep passage. Rekamé admired their cunning highly.

With the scarcity of sulphur and caesium, and the few Bakufragists left to make explosives outside of Sourcing, it was very possible that amongst those outlaws stood some fairly powerful Sourcers.

The frontman of Harkés’ retinue had drawn his jiayim. The traditional sword of duellists and temple guards, it was beautiful in the starlight, but little use against the quick-armoured bandits. Rekamé watched it glimmer in the darkness with a familiar glee. A gaunt thing.

Around him, the rest of the two-dozen odd troop had taken polearms from beside Rekamé in the wagon, remounted, and lowered them as if for a cavalry charge. It seemed too precarious on that thin snake of pass; the Leonounds had done right by leaving their horses off the road. Those outlaws were built for this guerrilla fighting; the steel-scales and plates that weighed down the retinue were pierceable still by arrows from that range, and only a burden of speed.

Then a flash of moonlight cut the blade of the frontman’s sword in two. Sourcing indeed. The battle had begun.

Three of the back-tail bandits drew crude sabres, more akin to machetes, and charged at the horse men that surrounded Rekamé’s cart housing. Naturally, the cavalry took the advantage, but right into the bait of the outlaws; for just as quickly did they reach a gallop, were two more flashes of a moonlight blade. It cut hooves clean off and set legs ablaze, and steel-tipped bolts were released at a fierce velocity to pierce one of the four still ahorse through the crease in his neck. The charge was down to three when one of the outlaws was quickly trampled, though not before more moon-blades swiped down, and cut one woman fierce through the stomach, spilling her humours over her still-charging horse, who turned in panic to cut-off the winging charger to its right.

The final horseman caught the two at the back, taking with him their heads ripped stringy from their shoulders in a bloody mess upon the skewer of his spear. Alas, though the next swipe of moonlight missed his arm, the next Sourcing was not in the form of a simple slice, rather a slower-moving orb of blinding radiance. It would not have been effective to a thin man running, perhaps even the dexterity of a centaur, but a galloping destrier could not evade quick enough before the orb swelled as wide as the road and the poor stallion erupted into a fierce white flame that engulfed its coat like a stormy wave. The man’s steel shielded him from harm, but as the horse panicked, it fell atop his leg, leaving only his waving sword-arm, wherein he had drawn a blade no longer than a forearm. A whistling bolt ended his calls to duel.

The two Sourcers crept slowly close to Rekamé, still tied down and glancing at the other battle behind him. They stopped at each body that lay before them, including the horses. That was their offering to Aureus and Illeus: the blood and organs of begins still warm, storing their hearts and stomachs and heads in leather satchels.

On the front-end, the retinue had been far more successful. All three bandits were brought down with only one casualty, whose head was slammed in by a small slung boulder. Only six of Harkés men were bowmen, with two longbows, but none had been given the order of loosing their arrows upwards. It was a task futile, for if their ammunition fell back, friendly-fire would ensue further chaos. No, Harkés wanted order in the entropy of life and this was no different.

But he too was a Sourcer. And his sacrifice was none, for he had learnt his ways in Kardylon with the sages of Areus and monks of Illeus. They taught him one crucial rule: the Sentinels can offer their sacrifices in place of mortal blood, as long as one can call upon the constellation that best beckons upon any given night. A strenuous learning process, but one ever-so-useful.

Rekamé glanced at his father, still on horseback, raising his left hand up to the sea of onyx. Outstretched and pointing his fingers in peculiar and dynamic shapes, as if aligning with the Sentinels themselves, and murmuring names of heroes and legends. With the call of “Améhaga Onirikirin” did a lance of white lightning crash down at the high bluff, where the bandits had their camp. It scarred the cliff face, fracturing the very stone, and setting the small shrubs ablaze. Wicked cries of death-wishing torture came as fast as “Onirikirin” whence bodies were engulfed in the emanating pearl glow of celestial white plasma.

Though this only sought to work as a distraction for Harkés’ troop, where their words of awe were no mourning for the dead; for the two impending Sources had taken their sacrifices and reached Rekamé.

Rekamé struggled, and they expressed their horrified shock at his repulsive form, but he was no strong-arm and easily taken over shoulder by the outlaws that traced their broad silhouettes up the road. A crying call of help told Harkés first of his son, ordering then the bowmen to rain their arrows. As fast as they nocked did they lot arrows fly, blurring the starlight with the disorderly formation of rushed missiles. They found their target: the man carrying Rekamé was struck first in the leg before a near-immediate-following pierce through his ribs.

Rekamé was dropped, and rolled, and the lord fell.

He watched the onyx stain the emerald as minerals should not, as he slipped and screamed, deep into the canopy of outer Chaparralion.

Harkés furious voice, at losing his spare heir, echoed with the resting creatures that were woken by the falling form of a disease-curse being. Yet, all the Granshi could think on was how many had died just so he would eventually die.

Birds flew around him, with white-black-and-bleak feathers, sprayed out proud and expressive, as if the colour was drained from them bloodless. Instinctively, the cruel lord snatched at one of the birds. It pecked so vigorously at his hand that skin was peeled to raw red flesh, and even to bone. That was all the blood he would need, but Rekamé was too desperate to use another’s vigour, and beheaded the bird in an agonising yank. One more death for his death.

The other birds scratched and pecked as he did, curling into a tight ball, rubbing the blood of the neck of the bird along his arms. And then he prayed upon Aeris. But Aeris was sleeping.

Finally, he hit the bush below.

It was a thorn-ridden bush. For each miniscule knife that nestled itself within his flesh, though, he felt no more. He felt nothing more.

He had woken to Aeris’ rising. He had woken with slimy-legged things and the jittering creatures of Chaparralion all-over his destroyed body. Then, finally, did he see it: the crude form he was given. The vulgar appearance all but himself had seen. Finally, his sight had returned.

His thinning stomach was violently released onto his torn shirt and exposed chest. The blood of birds, bandits, himself, all stained his once-considered attractive body. He was disgusting in every sense of the word, and yet he still smelt of that perfume, the scent of Birds of Balm.

Realising he was paralysed, Rekamé could do little more than watch those jittering creatures. Even if he was found, there was no more for him in the world. He would die heirless, unloved, and full of the realisations a person should never have to realise.

Then the Chalice of Erudition fell upon his crotch. It sat there, full of something.

Rekamé could not reach. His arms told him nothing, and his nerves said no. All the knowledge in the world, and the favour of his father, and the love of his people, and perhaps even a way to right his wrongs, and he had made so that he could not reach it. It would tell a man how to solve paralysis. It told a voice how to cure blindness. It made monarchs lust.

But instead he smelt only of Birds of Balm. For everything else, he was had become the vile truth of how Rekamé of Paruskyn, Granshi of Takaeyon, brother of the royal King of Pearls Pureus II, was inside. He realised then, why he could not reach the Chalice that had woken up in his grasp only one morning prior.

Before he accepted his death, he met it: the flapping of grand wings like the early whispers of a hurricane came before him, and all those creatures left again. He even saw a hungry cat, some stalker of the jungle lurking in near foliage, that likely would have eaten him had Chaparralion himself not settled in the clearing just beyond the trees. The smell was exotic, if not utterly cruel.