CHAPTER SIX
"Pamper not the flesh. Flesh is weak but spirit is strong; flesh is useless where spirit is strong. Let your spirit be your shield and your sword." Prima Lord Lothair Mantelar. The Way of the Light. The Corsican Edition. FY 1021
The town of Troias appeared to be a medium sized town on the fortuitous intersection of arable farmland and pine forest. Unlike the typical Illian city, this one was surrounded by a tall wooden palisade. Two scrawny watchtowers flanked the palisade gate which remained closed despite it being nearly noon. The palisade wall appeared to have been raised only in the last year; none of the sections had needed to be replaced yet from the attrition of the winter seasons.
The two Children of Light cantered up the main road up towards the gate, where they waited patiently in the sweltering heat. They have not passed any traffic on the way up here. With their trademark white cloaks destroyed at Tefike, they now wore travel dusters over their armor.
With no response from within the palisade for five minutes, Halfhand rode up to the wooden gate and hammered against the exterior with his gauntlets. "Hail! At the gate!" He shouted.
Finally there was movement atop one of the watchtowers. A figure in leather armor looked down at them from the watchtower. A loaded crossbow was held in hand, pointing at them. "Leave!" The man shouted down.
Halfhand raised his empty hands diplomatically. "We are travellers passing through. We would only like provisions and news. We have coin."
"Troias do be closed." The man replied immediately. Two additional men peered over the wall, all armed with crossbows. "Move on!" THWIP. A crossbow bolt embedded in the ground ahead of them as their horses danced back.
Seeing the futility of further discourse, the two soldiers reigned their horses back, as they retreated away empty-handed from the sealed town.
The two Children set camp out by the pine forest next to the city just off the main road. They had watched the city briefly from afar, but there was no flicker of activity except at dusk where a group of farmers had appeared at the gate and were allowed in before the gate again slammed shut.
"I could go over the walls." Villain stoked their campfire as the embers glowed. "I can see what I can find and they will be none the wiser. The dunkas didn't even clear the treeline next to the palisade."
"It's not worth a lucky crossbow shot." Halfhand continued to study the Illian map that he spread on the ground and weighed down with rocks. Troias appeared to be the last habitable settlement on the edge of the vast Illian marshland.
CRACK! There was a snap of a twig breaking at the periphery of camp. Halfhand drew his sword half from his scabbard. THWIP. Viellain gave a flip of his wrist and a dagger hilt vibrated from a pine tree trunk from the direction of the breaking twig. A face appeared from behind that same tree. The faint light of their campfire revealed the face of a young woman, barely a slip of a girl. She was thin, wearing a brown wool dress that was a size too big for her, and toting a large overstuffed knapsack.
"I do not be a threat." She called out with her biting Illianer accent. She eyed Viellain's dagger hilt at her eye level. She started to approach their campfire.
"Child, what are you doing skulking out here? That could've been your death." Halfhand watched her approach. Her straw hair was shoulder length and tied back to a ponytail by a faded red ribbon, but what he noticed was her bright blue eyes that burned with intensity.
"I missed on purpose." Viellain corrected him, "I saw the waif tailing us from the town. She's been watching us for the last two hours like a curious magpie."
"I am...I am...Jena..." She started softly, then paused as if considering her words before announcing more confidently. "Jena of Troias. I would like to join your party."
Halfhand frowned, but Viellain gave a loud laugh.
"Hello, I am Jenna Jenna of Troas," Viellain barked sharply, "Has your mother not taught you about strangers in the forest?"
"You do no be normal strangers. You do be Whitecloaks? I heard you talking. No need to be rude." She retorted
.
"We are Children of the Light" Halfhand corrected tersely.
"You do find Darkfriends then. Kill the spawn of shadows as they say? Then I would be here with you then in that town." She continued towards the fire but halted as Halfhand raised a finger at her.
"No further." Halfhand had sheathed his sword, but still kept a ready hand on the hilt. Viellain lounged at ease, yet would pincushion the woman with his flachettes at a single wrong move . The shadow often take on many forms and neither soldiers let their guard down against even this innocuous figure in the night. "Where we go or hunt is no place for a child. Be gone."
"I am not a child. I have been declared a woman before the elders." She replied fiercely, folding her arms. "I will not slow you down. I know the land well. And I heard you wanted provisions. I have brought everything of mine." She set her bulging backpack on the ground and opened it. The two Children tensed as she reached into the pack, but she only pulled out a wineskin which she raised up. "Even wine for the oily one."
"Throw that over, magpie." Viellain held out his hand. Jena threw the full wine bladder at the Hand who caught it easily. He uncapped it and sniffed it and gave a shrug to Halfhand. Your call. She turned her gaze back to Halfhand and waited.
"We are not leaving the country. Our goal is the heart of Illian." Halfhand explained.
"Then you do be needing my help even more. Neither of you know this land and you will need my guidance, and not any of the sniffling cowards in Troias or anywhere else will lift a finger for you. I got through your strings-and-bells around your camp. I am not dead wood. I have even killed a skudirka with this." She pulled a hunting knife from her belt and held it up to the light. It was an old blade but the carefully sharpened edge gleamed, and the hilt well-cared for. The knife was older than her but it fit her like a soldier's sworn blade. Halfhand has not heard of a skudirka, but he did not doubt the dedication of her words.
The last thing they needed was a girl of unknown measure following them into a storm of evil. But yet something held his doubt. In that girls' burning eyes, he saw his own. In this depressing Lightforsaken country, she has been the only bright sun that still seemed to shine. A sole lighthouse in a fog of misery and corruption.
He hesitated with his answer but finally shook his head. This was far too important and dangerous to bring her with them.
"I'm sorry, Jena of Troias." He addressed her respectfully. His voice was soft and firm. "One day, the Children will once more ride through Illian, but you will have to wait for that day. Until then, keep your fire burning."
Jena frowned and thinned her lips at the rejection. She briefly opened her mouth to argue again, but stopped when she saw the firmness in Halfhand's face. She picked her pack and then faced them once more. "I do not accept your answer. I will show you. You will see." With that, she turned and disappeared into the treeline once more.
"You know her eyes as well as me. That is one who will not take 'No' for an answer. Shall I see the magpie back to the city?" Viellain glanced up at her departure from his study of the wineskin.
"No, I suspect it will be a futile cat and mouse chase. She clearly knows the land well enough to track us down and skirt around your warning perimeter. We will trust that she has enough sense to return home." Halfhand replied.
But he would be wrong. However, that night at least, the girl did not show her face again and in the morning they had set off on the planned course towards the goal of the mountain pass. Quickly, the land of Illian dipped into marshlands. There were no travelers and the roads were in severe disrepair, not having seen a maintenance crew in months, possibly years. They ran into multiple sections of road overgrown by thick snakevines and thorns, as well as others collapsing into hungry sinkholes. On several occasions they had to backtrack around areas of the roads that seemed to dissolve into the swamp.
Outside of the general decay of Illian's infrastructure, they passed several unsettling sites. The first was a fish kill of immense proportion. Upon the small marshy inlet floated thousands of shimmering bodies of fish corpses, mixed in with floating cadavers of wild fowl and even dead mammals at the edge. Yet instead of a warning smell of decay and stagnant water, there was a nutty smell drifting from the lake like roasted almonds.
The second they passed was a circle of statues on a hillside. This was a spot called the Council of Kings on the map, where travelers could rest under the shade of the twenty-foot tall busts of long forgotten royalty encircled in frozen dialogue. But, their century old stone faces seemed to be in the process of melting like candle wax, with rivulets of stony drops down their facade, leaving their regal ancient figures contorted into monstrous distortions.
The third was a massive sunken crater centered on an otherwise uninterrupted segment of road. In the middle of the crater was a jagged hole about five paces wide surrounded by piles of dirt, as if something large had bore out. Or in. It took an extra hour to circle around the rim of the crater to the other side. It went without saying that the Children decided to strike camp far away from those sites.
They dubbed these sites Stigmata, wounds of the earth that speaks the evidence of a sick and dying land. These rare omen have been spotted more and more often in the Westlands since Tarwin's Gap was overrun by the Blight and Falme was lost to the Seanchan. Halfhand had always believed that something important vital to life was lost that began the Westland's decay. But to see three Stigmata in Illian in a measure of a few days was more proof that the wider rot is accelerating here.
It was on the third morning upon waking that Viellain showed them the sign that they were still being followed. Next to their camp was a small collection of nuts, fruits, and a stale honey cake set out for them.
"Looks like we have a friendly magpie. Or at the least a very absent minded squirrel." Viellain picked up a blueberry and turned it in his finger.
Halfhand looked around but could only see the desolate gloom of the Illian marshlands. It was a message from her. Bold, yet naive. While they kept their horse at only a walking speed and they needed to backtrack, it was still an impressive feat for the girl to catch up to them on foot. Clearly she had paid attention to their planned route and knew the better paths to catch up.
Villain chewed the berry carefully. "Not poisoned. Fresh, plucked on the last day."
"Leave it. We should not encourage her. She will likely need this more than us." Halfhand took one last study of their dreary surrounding and resolved to lose their tail. At least for her own good.
They pushed the speed of the travels through the marshland but the terrain was a challenge. The useable roads have dwindled to useless sections of forgotten step stones, and they needed to forge through dense patches of swamp foliage that grew in bewildering chaotic tangles of roots and tangling branches. The ground underneath was untrustworthy, with areas that threatened to swallow a horse or man whole within minutes. But they pressed hard on through the treacherous terrain and after two days, Halfhand felt likely that Jena had been left long behind.
For two nights they had to sleep in the crooks of low hanging march trees due to the swamp ground, but as the third night approached, they finally spied an auspicious stopping point. It appeared to be the only serviceable site in miles of marsh. It was a rocky outcropping that rose from the marches, and likely offered a measure of dryness and visibility. Pressing their tired horses, they finally reached it at dusk.
As they rode up the outcropping, the horses shaking thick mud, Viellain raised a silent finger and pointed ahead.
Curled up ahead was the figure of a familiar young woman sound asleep, still in her mud soaked cloak. She was still holding a string of three whole skinned rabbits in her hand where she had passed out from exhaustion. It was Jena. Somehow, she had managed to reach them here, likely knowing this would be the only usable camp site for them. And from the looks of it, had spent a long time traveling through both day and night.
"I think, fradis, that she is going to keep following us or die trying." Viellain dismounted from his horse. The girl continued to sleep without stirring. "Either we put her out of her misery or…"
Halfhand dismounted as well, looked down at the sleeping girl. Viellain was right. This was not a decision they could outrun.
When Jena woke up, night had fallen. She sat up quickly, realizing that she had fallen asleep in the middle of trying to gather tinder. First she patted the ground for her missing rabbits and turned to see the campfire crackling and the two men sitting by the fire. She pulled out her knife before she recognized the two figures at the campfire. Then her eyes turned to the remaining quarter of a rabbit still crisping on the campfire.
"My rabbits…!" She cried out, but quickly clamped down her outrage, holding onto a front as if this was of no concern to her. Her gurgling stomach betrayed her.
"Yes, they are delicious." Viellain grinned to her over a mouthful of greasy meat.
She still eyed the rabbit hungrily, but she put her knife away.
"You are very far from home, Jena of Troias." Halfhand turned to the young woman, who matched him with her unblinking blue eyes.
"There is nothing in Troias for me. For anyone for that matter. Not anymore." her eyes flickering longingly to the rabbit, and back at him. "I will join you like I had explained. As you can see, I will not slow you down a step. You can no longer deny that you need me. You wander the marshes in circles. I do carry my weight and tend to myself without complaint."
Halfhand gave a nod of acknowledgement. She did earn his respect. "Why is it that you want so badly to come with us? Knowing that it could be to the end of death or worse?"
She paused, internally debating her words when she found them. "Because I do not want to be a frog in the well."
"A frog in the well?"
"There do be a story in Troias. A lesson. There is a group of fen frogs that live in a dark, damp empty well. All they see of the world is the shadows from above. But down in the well, they are safe. Those frogs that try to jump out get plucked immediately by hungry beaks. That do be the warning of Troias, stay in the safety of the well. Don't be a jumping frog. Don't stick your head out or you'll be plucked.
"But they do be wrong. They don't see the well is flooding bit by bit. Worse, they refuse to see. And the frogs huddle as the water rises up, and frogs one by one disappear under the water. I will not be one of them." Jenna finished, her jaw clenched.
"And what if you are plucked away outside your well?"
She replied without hesitation. "Better to die with just a glimpse of the light than to scrabble in the well's smothering illusion of safety. I had desperately asked the Creator for an answer and you have rode in from the veil. One way or the other. I will not be returning to the well." Her eyes held Halfhand with conviction but also a sense of desperation as if she hung on the edge of a cliffside and he held the only safety line.
Halfhand made his decision. He stood up from the fire. "Remove your clothes, girl."
Jena's eyes widened slightly at his command. Her mouth became a thin line. But, her face defiant, she stripped, removing her cloak, her long dress and blouse. Without speaking, she folded her clothes and set them next to her. She stood up straight, stared back at Halfhand without shame.
Halfhand walked around the girl with studied eyes. The girl merely stared forward silently. Then, the Child of Light reached to his side, unclipped a water skin and emptied its content over the girl.
Jena gasped as the sanctified water soaked down her hair, dripping down her body, but gave no other reaction.
"I witness no brand or marks of the beast or witch." Halfhand declared. "Very well, you may join us, child. But you will do as I command. Run when I say. Fight when I say. And at the first instant you slow us down, you will leave without argument. And if we find you are not what you say, your life forfeit."
A wide smile flashed on Jena's face. She hastily redonned her clothes, not caring that she was still wet and quickly dragged her pack down to join them at the fire. Viellain handed her the last quarter of the rabbit, which she consumed in two large bites, heedless of the burning grease dripping down her chin.
As Jena sat down, her eyes lighted on Halfhand''s scabbard and the flowing runes of Solon's Tree etched down the scabbard's sides. "You have those strange markings on your weapons just like the Companions."
Viellain was suddenly paying attention, but he kept his voice even, "What did you just say, girl?"
"The Illian soldiers that have been stopping by Troias. They do have weird markings like that on their armor now."
Halfhand frowned at this. This would mean that the Illian Companions have delved into runes and sigils of power. But, if not the Light…
"Jena, tell us everything you know about Troias and the Companions. Start from the beginning."