A week had gone by, and all the soldier's armor was nearing completion. A few logistical and cosmetic changes by Aya, Norath, and Morjin were decided upon late in the process, necessitating a bit more time. Aya had been working non-stop with the soldiers, training them in combat maneuvers, archery, how to fight on horseback, and many other skills.
Kale, however, still hadn't much to do. This had not gone un-noticed by Aya, though she didn't mention anything more about it until another week later, when all the armor for all the soldiers was completed.
All Aya's students, Aya herself, Morjin, Kale, Norath, Ophelia, and the townspeople at large were quietly watching as the soldiers donned their armor. When they had finished, nearly everyone's jaw dropped in awe.
A layered chestplate overlapped a long steel chain shirt, with each piece of the armor designed to overlap the others, to allow few weak points. If an enemy managed to get an arrow or a weapon strike through the few weak points, the person inside wouldn't be seriously hurt. If it was a weapon that was stabbed into a specific weak point, the person within could easily trap the weapon. The armor's coloring was a brilliant azure, with golden-colored orichalcum trim. The helmets had a swept-back look, with a nearly winged appearance that still allowed an enemy no significant purchase with a strike. A faceplate completed the helmet, made of tightly wound steel and orichalcum mesh, with a harder steel plate over the mouth and nose. A motif of a roaring tiger was emblazoned on the chest of the armor on a single plate, showing the warriors' status as Tiger Warriors; the Alon-Ti.
As the soldiers stood silently and unmoving in formation, with the two swords at the side; the shorter over the longer, with bows over their shoulders and quivers of arrows on their backs. They looked more regal and more impressive even than Immaculate troops.
Aya stood in front of their formation, inspecting her troops with clinical precision. By comparison, she looked nearly drab; one's eyes naturally moved off of her and back onto the more brightly-armored students she was training. Her all-black armor blended perfectly with the hair she had tied into a braided bun on the back of her head. However, all her students followed her quiet orders to change stances, salute, and change formations with well-trained precision.
For a few moments, she paced in front of the troops while looking each soldier in the eye, being quietly pleased to see only calm assurance in the eyes of each one. Suddenly, she shouted "Fire!" while pointing to a target set on the locked wallgate on the other side of the town. She had made sure no townspeople would be in the way before this, as she was using this little show of their ability to show what the Alon-Ti could do for the townspeople of Mishaka.
As one, the soldiers whipped out their bows, nocked arrows, and fired in ranks, each firing rank dropping into a crouch to allow the next row to fire. All eyes looked at the distant target, and noticed that all the arrows had struck the target. A few had hit the center of the target, though none had been fired into the wooden walls surrounding the target.
The townspeople cheered at first, though quickly quieted down at a smile and a wave from Aya. She turned to address her students, shouting "Attention!"
As one, they stepped back into formation, and saluted her in the same strange way; by making a fist with their left hand, covering it with their right, and bowing, and rising with arms at their sides.
She paced in front of them, eyeing them closely as she spoke to them in a loud, clear voice. "Your introduction to the way of the Alon-Ti had officially been completed. Now you are ready to begin your real training to become among the best warriors to ever live in this age. This will require discipline from you, and hard training. Any who wish to go back to your people and live the life you once knew is free to go now, with no hard feelings, and with my blessing."
Not a single student so much as twitched. A small smile played around the corners of Aya's mouth.
"Very well. Take the rest of the day off, and meditate on what the Way of the Alon-Ti means to you personally. Think about this, for this will be a strong undercurrent of the tide that shall sweep you into completing this training. You are dismissed."
All of them bowed as one to her once more, and began wandering about town, or going outside to meditate, or just be alone with their thoughts. More than a few townspeople approached Aya about joining; some she accepted, some she did not. If the people questioned her rejection, she simply answered "The Way does not fit you."
After the crowd had dispersed, with Morjin and Norath arguing again good-naturedly as they walked back to the blacksmith's building, Aya approached Kale with a smile. "Impressed?"
Kale grinned and shook his head. "I admit to being amazed, love."
She smiled up at him as she softly kissed him. She pulled back with a smile, gently stroking his face as her armor dissipated around her like smoke on a breeze. "But don't think I haven't noticed you getting bored, my beloved."
Kale looked slightly embarassed, but nodded. "I know this is important to you, and I'll help support you in any way I can - because I love you. However, there doesn't really seem to have been much to keep me occupied."
Aya gave him a satisfied smile. "If I bribe you, will you be willing to send a message for me?"
Kale raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Depends on the bribe, depends on who you want me to give the message to, and it depends on what the message is."
Her arms encircled his waist as she stood closer to him to look him in the eyes more comfortably. "I want to know if you're willing to go to the Lunar territories, and ask for their help in attacking Thorns, and removing the undead from there as permanently as possible. You see, I'm going to be training two groups of students at once now, and sending riders out to nearby towns asking for their recruits as well. I'll have Morjin's help to train the newest students, but I'm going to feel tremendously guilty if I can't spend any time with you, and I won't want you to feel or get the impression that I don't love you with all my heart just because I'm going to have no time."
Kale nodded, kissing her gently, which she warmly responded to. She pulled back with a slightly anxious look on her slightly tanned face, awaiting his reponse. Kale smiled at her. "I know you have your hands full, and you're right about this - we'll probably need the Lunars to help with this. I don't doubt your ability to lead an army, but this is a small one compared to the one you led to first take Thorns. I'll be happy to go even if you didn't bribe me."
He paused, with a growing smile on his face. "I am curious though - what's the bribe?"
Ays grinned at him, pressing herself against him to look him closely and softly in the eyes. "For one month, once all this is over with, at a time of your choosing, I'll say yes to anything you ask that only involves you and I."
Kale's eyebrows rose, as an amused smile grew on his face. "Anything, huh?"
Aya grinned at him with a hint of promise in her eyes. "Anything."
Kale looked thoughtful as he smiled, but both of them knew what his answer was - he was merely thinking of the possibilities. "Alright, I'll go. But I do ask that sometime before I take you up on your offer, you learn to make that wake-up tea from the innkeeper."
Aya raised her eyebrows curiously, as a small smile betrayed the innocent look she was trying quite hard to wear. "Planning on exerting a lot of energy, are you?"
Kale kissed her back, long and passionately, which left both of them slightly breathless. "Oh, bet on it," he replied with a grin.
They looked at each other for a few moments more, staring into once another's eyes before they both let go. Kale strode up to their room in the inn where all his things were kept, and appeared again only a few minutes later, wearing his long, thin travelling jacket, with a quiver full of arrows on his back, and an orichalcum bow over his shoulder.
Aya's eyebrows rose as she saw the bow. "I thought you had to give up the only one Melia had to escape the Labyrinth. Wherever did you find that one?"
Kale kissed her again with a smile. "Melia had a spare."
They shared a few quiet moments, talking to each other softly, saying goodbye without saying goodbye. Soon enough, Kale strode away, out of the wallgate, and toward the wild Northlands, where no regime save that of the wild Lunars themselves reigned. Aya watched with slightly shining eyes before she turned away, walking to the blacksmith's shop.
* * *
Kale had to admit, he'd missed being in the wilderness. Its wildness had called to him ever since he was a little boy. He didn't fear being alone in the wilds of the North in the least; he was just as familiar with the plants and animals that made their home in the forests as he was with his own hands. Kale knew that he had a couple days' travel at least before he entered the territory of the Lunars. His father's advice for meeting one was pretty simple - "apologize if it tells you that you've done something wrong, and leave as quietly as you can."
As he travelled over the days, he made camp, rested, and kept hiking most of the day. To pass the time, he lost himself in thought quite a bit, though still keeping his senses sharp for any sign of the border markers that might signified their territory - if indeed they used any.
He was voluntarily going into their territory, and to ask for their help, no less. Kale sighed to himself as he vaulted a boulder. It seemed that the complex things in life seemed to break down into many simple things when you thought about it. Even a strange point of view could be understood once you understand the underlying reasons for a person to hold that point of view. One may not agree with it, but at least you would be able to understand it.
Kale shook his head as he hiked. A little over a year ago, his primary concerns were dealing with his parents' death, and learning to make a living as best he could. The Anathema of all sorts were a distant bogeyman. And now that he had become one of them, he had learned many things. The Solars, for instance, had a very long memory, as did the others. Their memories were passed from incarnation to incarnation between people; they often called the time when a person Exalted as that person's "second breath," in reference to the first breath a child takes when born into the world.
The Lunars were in most underlying ways the same as the Solars, from what he knew. They passed on their abilities and Exaltation from lifetime to lifetime, just as the Solars did. However, they hadn't been captured and their Essences imprisoned. They had learned to live on the edges and outskirts of the world, becoming even more bestial and wild than Melia had described them from the time of the First Age. They had kept their society going, though its rules were unknown to anyone who wasn't a Lunar, and that was the way they seemed to prefer it. They had long memories as well, and were quite apt at righting a wrong committed to them.
Aya had never told him how she managed to wrest control over a barbarian horde from a Lunar, other than blithely saying she won a fair duel. However, Kale suspected that no young or weak Lunar would be allowed to raid villages with a barbarian horde in tow, which made him wonder how she managed to do it. She had merely shrugged when asked, saying that she had won. That always made his eyes narrow slightly; her habit of not bragging seemed to almost go into the realm of not saying enough.
He had been travelling a week now in the wilderness, sneaking by quietly, so as to not disturb or frighten the beings that called this expansive forestland home. Sometimes he had been forced to make leaps from tree to tree to follow a river, so as to stay on his course. He didn't really think about it until afterward, smiling as he remembered the simple rote Melia had taught him to make his feet light. He used it almost unconsciously now, as one might do with anything one is used to.
Kale still worried from time to time about becoming too sedate and too comfortable with the abilities granted by his Exaltation, and so still used his own natural skills as a woodsman and a hunter as much as possible, utilizing the rotes that channeling essence could invoke only when necessary. He smiled to himself as he realized he had done this unconsciously now as well; he'd only drawn upon the essence within him when he had no other recourse, other than wading slowly through a rushing river. There was no room on the banks due to how tightly overgrown the trees were. Kale began to suspect that this was perhaps by design of someone who knew how to influence forest growth.
This, along with other subtle signs he noticed as he progressed into the greater Northern forests made him suspect that he was entering Lunar territory. The signs for their borders weren't obvious at all; indeed, he probably wouldn't have noticed them if he hadn't been living in a forest most of his life.
Little things, like how trees had grown, the way some animals looked at him curiously as he snuck by, previously unseen, and other little things made him think that he was now being watched by beings who did not worship or venerate the Sun. They worshipped the mercurial Luna, and all the wildness granted by those who were Luna and Gaia's consorts, warriors, and shamans. The very breathing life of the wild, unexplored places was brought to towering heights by the influence of these Exalted.
Kale took a few breaths to calm himself. He might be walking purposefully into the territory of those who would not, in all likelihood, consider him a friend. The ties Melia had spoken of and experienced more than a millenium ago were now broken and untied; the Lunars and the Solars no longer had business with one another.
Part of it was that the Solars were bound for a thousand years, prevented from Exalting anyone during that time, while the Lunars had survived, and moved onward without their one-time mates, friends, lovers, and companions. He thought that those who survived the First Age wouldn't have many friendly feelings either, remembering the decadence and all manner of terrible things the Solars had done in their arrogance. Kale shook his head. Though Melia and her husband Melek had been respected and even been called friend by the Lunars, they were only two out of over three hundred.
Kale climbed a tree to take his rest again, quietly casting the rote to wake him if something wished to disturb him. He hoped it actually worked; the times he'd used it he hadn't ever been awakened by it. He settled into an uneasy sleep.
Without warning, the glaring, bright and hot image of the sun appeared, interrupting his dreams. He sat bolt upright and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he took stock of his surroundings.
It was now past midnight, the light of the moon obscured by clouds, except for small patches of soft light here and there. At first, he didn't see or hear anything suspicious, but he kept looking, using essence to enhance his senses as he did so.
Then, he saw them. Eyes, reflecting the dim light of the moon up at him. He counted six pairs of eyes at first, and they weren't the eyes of small creatures. He looked around, and saw a few more, all looking at him, and all surrounding the tree he was sleeping in. He counted at least ten eyes looking up at him, and heard a few growls from them.
One of them spoke to him. It sounded like the voice of a large and angry bear growling, even as it spoke with the tongue of humans. "You are trespassing!"
Kale squinted down, refocusing his eyes as he looked at the one who spoke. It was indeed a very large bear, standing on its hind legs. However, it was larger than a bear normally would be, and with much longer hind legs. He noticed that one of its forepaws clasped a spear tightly.
He called down to the one who spoke, deciding that being polite to them would probably go over best. He took a deep breath to calm himself before speaking. "I am sorry that I did not announce myself to you before I entered your territory, but I did not know how I should. I came to speak with you."
The huge bear snarled at him more savagely, the sound echoing through the trees before it spoke once more. "You are alone, Solar! You are either foolhardy or ignorant. Come down to the ground, or we will bring you down!"
Kale heard acknowledging noises coming from the eyes around him, but was unable to see what shapes they were wearing. He nodded. "Alright."
Quietly channeling his essence into the rote to make his feet light, he jumped down from the high tree, somersaulting gracefully through the air as he did. He landed without a sound, a trick he had often used as a boy to scare Aya to no end, and he was thankful he hadn't forgotten how to do so now.
Kale stood, and looked at the one in the shape of a bear that had spoken to him. He heard soft noises of the others coming closer, surrounding him on all sides. He decided to speak up once more now, before things got ugly. "I am here because I wish to speak to your council of elders."
He heard the soft noises of movement stop, and rough, savage laughter break out around him. The chuckles of those that sounded like wolves, some of large birds of prey, some of big cats, some of snakes, though the one with the shape of the bear laughed the loudest. The bear's growling laughter held more than a hint of contempt. The bear anwered shortly with growls and snarls punctuating his words. "What arrogance makes you think you are even worthy of being food for them, Solar?"
Kale took another silent breath, looking up into the shadowed huge face of the bear, twenty yards away. "Because the woman I love is raising an army to shatter the foothold the undead have in our world, and I'm here to ask for your help in doing so."
There was a short pause, and then laughter louder than before broke out around him on all sides. After a few seconds of hearing their laughter, he was swiftly surrounded on all sides, each being only ten yards away, and visible now. All were in a hybrid form of human and beast, and all carried weapons. The one in the shape of a hybrid bear walked with silent footsteps to within a bare two yards away from him, looking down on Kale from a great height. Kale almost strained his neck to look the huge being in the eyes, as it glared savagely down at him. "I have decided that you are both ignorant and foolhardy, young Solar! What makes you think our elders would listen to you? From your smell, you haven't even had the Sun touching your soul for ten summers yet, let alone the hundreds of summers our elders have seen!"
Kale's jaw tightened in a determined look. "I'm not trying to insult your wisdom, and I'm especially not trying to presume on your hospitality. However, I do know firsthand the kind of blight the undead are. The Deathlord responsible for it released a contagion that slew nine out of ten people living around the area of Thorns seven years before Thorns was taken, in an effort to swell the ranks of the Deathlord's army. The Immaculate Order is now attempting to trade with them instead of attacking them. If left unchecked, they'll keep spreading, and by the time the Immaculates actually do something about it, it might be too late."
The great bear growled down at him. "And how is this our problem? We have no problems with Deathlords, and they have no problems with us."
Kale looked determinedly up into the great bear's huge eyes. "Because they hate all life. They will spare nobody in their effort to supplant all life with the dead. The woman I love is now in a position to pull the rug out from under their efforts to slowly spread into our world with the patience of centuries, and put a halt to it before it becomes a problem."
The huge bear exhaled sharply at him, causing a hot wind that nearly pushed Kale back. "I will tell you this, Solar. If in your previous lifetime you were called friend of our people, you would know a few names of who now would be called our elders. If you can name one we know, we will bring you to them."
The bear leaned down to put his huge, brown-furred face in front of Kale, and growling meaningfully. "Fail, and no one will ever find your remains!"
Kale inclined his head, not looking away from the great bear's huge eyes that glared into his own. "Long Stripe Fangs-First, or Winterstripe as he is known now."
The bear stood bolt upright, and glared down at him. "How do you know his name, Solar? SPEAK!"
Kale did not look away. "He trained my previous incarnation in the Art of the Tiger, in thanks for her helping him when the rest of the Council decried the Lunars. He also gave her the Silver Horn in thanks for saving his life, a weapon I carry now."
The bear took a long, deep breath, and exhaled sharply at Kale. "You are lucky, Solar, for Winterstripe still lives. I think he'll be extremely interested in knowing how a child like you could know of him. Come!"
Kale followed the great bear and the other Lunars deeper into the forest.
