Over a field of countless corpses, bodies mangled by magic, two armies waited. One was not much of an army. Less than a hundred ninja. Perhaps forty knights, both Arshes Nei's and Kall-Su's combined and a handful of the most powerful wizards to grace the earth.
Kall hadn't seen him come down from the hill. He'd seen the Holloween spell rip apart the central corridor of Larz's army and felt the fringes of the blast himself, but there had been chaos after that. He'd been swept up in a confusion of retreat and attack so vast that he hadn't been able to extract himself fully from it until Larz's men were half way up the hill, being hit as they ran from one side by Arshes Nei and her men and from the other by a series of spells that Kall was absolutely certain belonged to Dark Schneider.
Somehow they had regrouped; their small, rag tag force, and Kall found himself prowling the edge of the battlefield, where he and his men had made their stand for sign of the eight men of his that were missing. He wouldn't have done it if his army had numbered in the thousands, even in hundreds. He would have taken on the role as lord general and put the little inconveniences such as the loss of a few men behind him, left it to others to sort out. Somehow, when the eight missing had been the greater part of his troops and had stood by him against tremendous odds, it was different. He thought he was getting soft. And what a wonderful time for it, if Schneider had returned to the world. He would never hear the end of it.
Or perhaps he was afraid to go back to the camp they had made because he didn't want to see what death had done to Schneider this time. He did not want to look into those piercing blue eyes and see something altogether different from what he had known.
But of course, he had too. There was no putting it off. Across the field the black swell of Larz's men had settled mostly on the opposite side of the hill, but the vanguard stood watch on the crest. He watched them for a moment in the rapidly falling dusk, muddy cloak blowing about his legs. He was dirty and his side hurt where the horse had rammed him. He hadn't the energy to emend either.
They had set up three small tents, mostly for the wounded. They were all Arshes had been able to save from her baggage. There were two fires, around which clustered the survivors. He slipped in around the edges, saw Yoko with her knees pulled up to her chest, sitting in the crevice between two rocks, but she didn't notice him, her attention fixed across the fire where Schneider sat with Arshes Nei clutching his arm as if she never planned to let him go. Gara sat on Arshes' other side, nursing a canteen. He saw Kall first and lifted the container.
"Kall-Su, where've you been?"
Attention was fixed on him of a sudden. A dozen sets of eyes turned his way, but Schneider's were the ones that snared him like a rabbit. He met those eyes and stared, wishing that he had summoned the energy to get rid of the dirt and mud, instead of wondering into camp like a derelict.
"Looking for dead." Kall said quietly, a little too flustered to utter anything but the truth.
"There's a field of them out there." Schneider waved an arm, the one Arshes wasn't clinging to, toward the battlefield. "You didn't manage to overlook them, did you? You look like hell, Kall."
He should have managed the spell. He wouldn't do it now out of pride. Schneider was acting as if he'd never been gone. One might as well go along with the ploy, if one wished not to be pierced with Schneider's wit. He walked around the fire to stand behind Gara.
"They've scouts on the hill."
"I know. My men are out there watching." Gara assured him.
"Let them come. I dare them to come." Schneider said.
"They'll die for it." Arshes echoed, as ever his staunch supporter in whatever gambit he employed.
"Sit down, Kall, before you fall down." Schneider suggested, motioning the man nearest him to make room and patting the earth as he might do if he called for a dog to lay at his feet. Kall ground his teeth and sat down beside Gara. Schneider shrugged and he thought he saw a slight smile of satisfaction cross Arshes' lips. Wasn't she the purring feline, back in Schneider's arms. He looked across the fire at Yoko, but her face was half hidden in arms folded across her knees.
"So where did he go, do you know?" Gara asked, taking up a conversation that had been going on before Kall's arrival.
"I've no notion. I don't know exactly how he did it, but I would dearly love to."
"With him gone, Larz may give up and go away." Gara theorized.
"It doesn't matter one way or another. I've a few scores to settle with Larz, too."
"With his infantry arrived, he's got a pretty capable force out there."
"I thought," Arshes said. "That I told you to bring your army, Kall-Su."
The snide superiority of her tone made his hackles rise. He leaned a little forward to fix her with his icy glare. "And where is yours? Scattered to the winds while you pined away?"
She bristled, glaring back under her dark fringe of bangs. Her ears twitched, assuring him that he'd hit home. Schneider laughed, amused at their bickering. Oh, he had always played them against each other to his own benefit and amusement. Kall was very much aware of that now, even if Arshes refused to see it.
"So," Schneider said, drawing Arshes back against him. "Not even a glad you're alive? Happy to see you again?"
Kall looked down, grateful for the shadows of dusk. He had lost a glove somewhere and he absently rubbed at a spot of dirt on his hand. "I am." He admitted. "Do us all a favor and don't die again."
Schneider thought that was dreadfully amusing. He laughed and let his hand slide down under Arshes's cloak. As Kall watched, from under his lashes, he noticed Schneider's gaze kept flickering back to Yoko, as if he wanted to make certain she saw what he was doing. She was so huddled and miserable looking that it was hard to guess what she caught and what she didn't.
The talk went on into the night. Gara announced he would personally slink out into the darkness and see what mischief the southern army might be up to. Men made beds on the rocky ground, armored and armed in case they need rise quickly. Schneider led Arshes Nei into her tent and the flap closed behind them. Kall searched the fire lit darkness for Yoko, but she was gone.
She didn't understand. The pain balled in her chest like a fist trying to squeeze her heart to a pulp, it pulled the breath from her stomach and left her gasping. Nausea rose till she tasted it in the back of her throat. She couldn't understand it. Him. There had been a change -- when he had come out of that pool with power intact -- there had been a change. She had seen it in his eyes, in the way he pushed her away. What had changed, save that he had regained his power? Save that he was more now than he had been. What had she been, then, but a trusting fool, who believed him when he promised not to hurt her. When he said he loved her. But, had he said that? He had called her endearing things, called her his love, but had the words I love you, ever left his lips? She couldn't remember now.
She didn't understand. He had not uttered a word to her since the hilltop. She had followed him down, when the army had been pulling back, determined to try and stop further slaughter, but there had been little. The men were too busy trying to disengage. There was confusion, but not the blood and guts type. Evening had been falling. Where had the day gone? Has she slept through it?
She had tread between the bodies of men and horses. Broken blades littered the field, protruding from mud and soggy earth. She had stared at the twisted, burned faces, though she thought it better not to, searching for familiar features. Searching morbidly for men she had known. There had been a regrouping of men on this side of the field. So few men that had held off an army and that by the grace of magic only. She wondered who they were until an armored form swung down off a limping warhorse and ran towards Schneider. Arshes Nei flung her helmet aside, freeing her elvin ears and long, sweaty hair and crashed into his arms, armor and all. And he had held her, as he might any long lost friend -- and, one hated to bring up the image -- lover. It didn't occur to her that she was being purposefully snubbed until later. Until he ignored her when she tried to get a private word, turning his shoulder to her and walking away to confer with the Thunder Empress. Bending down to whisper something intimately in her ear while Yoko looked on. Pulling her close for a fondle in front of everyone as if he were showing off the fact that he could.
There had been a time when Yoko would have simmered or gotten angry or merely cursed him for being callous and thoughtless under her breath, but that had been before. Before they had shared -- themselves. Before she had realized what it was to give her body as well as her heart and truly be a woman. Now, she couldn't rage or curse, because the pain choked her to much to do anything but hurt. And when he took Arshes Nei into that tent, his arm about her waist, her hands caressing his arm and cast one look over his shoulder, eyes flickering for one quick moment on her, before he turned away -- then she wanted to die.
Blindly, she walked away from the fires and the humm of low noise from the camp. Out onto the battlefield among the dead. There was a great rift out along the center of the valley floor with dirt and rock piled jaggedly at its lip. She trailed along its edge, stumbling over uneven dirt.
"What are you doing out here in the dark?"
She kept walking in misery, not wanting company or witness to her wretchedness.
"Nothing. Leave me alone, Kall."
A witchlight hovered into life behind her, showing her the tortured ground. A body lay inches from her feet, and a broken sword edge lay jutting from dead fingers.
"Its not safe for you to walk this field at night."
"Is it during the day?" she asked sharply. "Then I can see the faces of all the friends who lay dead here. Which is worse?"
"Go back to camp, Yoko. We don't know what Larz plans? He could have archers on the prowl."
"Why are you here, then?"
He didn't answer that right away and she turned her head slightly to see where he stood behind her. The faint witch light, hovering low to the ground cast shadows over his eyes. She could not see his expression.
"I came to find you."
She laughed, on the verge of tears. "I'm fine. Just fine. I've survived this far, haven't I? What does a field of dead have to threaten me?" She looked down at the dead man at her feet. His face was twisted in pain and fear, his eyes staring blankly up at her. A young man, who had died before his time. They all had. Because of sorcerous greed and plots. Everything was a power play to wizards. Even the good ones like her father all had agendas of one sort or another. They convinced themselves that somehow, for some reason it was okay to use and hurt people.
Her stomach rebelled. Tears welled in her eyes at this one more indignity. She wiped a hand at her cheeks furiously, but the wetness wouldn't stop. Kall was staring at her, aghast and she waved a hand weakly at the corpse.
"There are so many dead. Good men of Meta-Rikan. And for what? How can the goddess let something like this happen?"
"The same as they let anything happen." He said quietly. "The little things aren't important."
"The little things?" she sobbed and hiccuped and bile rose with it. She gagged at the taste and that was all it took to have her stomach attempt to heave the rest of its contents up her throat. She spasmed, and doubled over, dropping to her knees, gagging up what little she had eaten during the day. She felt Kall hovering behind her, not knowing what to do to help her. She didn't know what to do herself. She hated the sickness and the dizziness that came with it. She had thought it was all due to the effects of the acorn drawing her to Mother, but it still persisted. Work a healing, she thought, distracted in her affliction. Find the flu that ailed her and banish it.
She concentrated her will to summon a healing, focused it on her pain and discomfort and felt of a sudden a spark of luminescence living within her. A tiny speck of life that was not her own, that coiled, mindless and sleeping at the core of her being. She cried out, banished the healing and starting backwards so violently she staggered into Kall-Su. He caught her before she could fall and frantically she ripped away from him, wanting escape from the enormity of what she had perceived.
"Let me go." She wailed, when his fingers gripped her arms and refused to let her go. She twisted, beating at his chest, kicking at his legs in desperation to flee. Flight was all she could think of. Flight away from everything here.
"What's wrong? Yoko, what's wrong with you?" He half shook her, his eyes wide and his face shocked at her mania.
"How could he?" she cried. "How could he -- and then -- then treat me like this? I hate him!! I hate him so much!!" She gave up the fight and collapsed against him, surprising him further. He didn't know whether to sit her away from him or comfort her.
"Oh. Schneider." He said. "I'm sorry."
"Why are you sorry?" she cried. "You're not pre--- he didn't lie to you. I trusted him. I thought -- it would be different. I'm such a fool." She clutched at his cloak and sobbed. "I don't know what I did? If he had only told me what I'd done. I don't understand. He was so cold. He wouldn't talk to me. What did I do wrong, Kall?"
"Sometimes he doesn't think, Yoko. Sometimes the only thing that matters is what he wants at the time. He wouldn't hurt you on purpose."
"He knows exactly what he's doing. Don't even try to lie to me about that. Don't defend him."
"I'm not."
"Yes you are. You always do. You all do and he doesn't deserve it. He's arrogant and cold and I wish -- I wish he'd never gotten his powers back."
She pushed away from him, disoriented and dazed, and he let her go. She started to hurry away, wanting distance, wanting darkness and solitude where she could pull her thoughts together.
"Yoko." Kall-Su called after her. "What you said? Are you pregnant?"
She froze, breath catching in her throat, heat beating thunderously in her chest. No, no. It could not get out. She would not Him know of it and suddenly turn solicitous again, treating her like a broodmare while he romped with Arshes Nei. She turned back to face Kall-Su, her eyes huge and pleading.
"Don't tell him. Promise me you won't tell him, Kall."
He opened his mouth, the beginnings of an argument at the edge of his breath. She cut him off, desperately. "Its not yours to tell. He lost right to know when he treated me so in front of everyone. If this is the way he wants things, then so be it. Its not like a baby would make any difference in what he did. Its not like he would care."
"Yoko, you can't keep it from him. Its bound to show sooner or later."
"I'll have thought it through then. I can't if he's hounding me. Just give me time to think. Swear to me you won't tell him. Please."
He looked away, torn, took a great breath and inclined his head. "You have my word."
She sighed, could not gather the will to smile and nodded at him instead.
In the morning, a knight rode out into the field with a flag of truce tied to his lance. He sat in the middle of the field until Schneider came out of Arshes Nei's tent and stood at the edge of their small encampment, staring at the lone progenitor of parlay. His hair tangled about his face in a morning breeze blessedly free of rain or even the hint of it. He folded his arms, standing there thoughtfully, while the knight was forced to bide his time and wait for a reply.
"Send somebody out to see what he wants." He told Arshes, who had come to stand at his side. She signaled to one of her men, and that knight mounted up and trotted out into the field. They met and spoke briefly, then her knight came back, leaving the other man still waiting amidst the dead.
"King Larz wishes a parlay, my lady."
"Does he?" Schneider pushed hair out of his eyes and grinned, even as Arshes frowned. "Well, by all means go tell his man that I wouldn't miss it for the world."
He spun around, laughing when the knight had ridden off to relay that message, finding Kall-Su, who had come to stand a few yards away, and fixing him with his azure gaze.
"Kall, you'll come and Arshes. Where's Gara?"
"Skulking about the fringes of Larz's army, no doubt." Arshes supplied.
Schneider shrugged. "Find him. Someone needs to keep an eye for our own camp just in case his majesty attempts to be creative. Oh, I do believe I will enjoy this."
"I don't trust him." Arshes said sullenly and Schneider caught her about the waist and swung her around, in fine spirits.
"Does it matter? He can't best us and he knows it. All he can do is play at politics and pray to all his gods that I'm in a generous mood."
"Are you?" Kall asked coldly, remembering Yoko's anguished face from the night before. Disgusted that Schneider could be so gleefully insouciant while actions of his wounded to the core a young woman Kall-Su had come to regard highly.
"I don't know, it depends on how much he entertains me." Schneider said and clapped a hand down on Kall's shoulder. Kall stepped out from the touch, looking elsewhere when Schneider lifted a brow at the avoidance.
They armed and armored themselves, more a matter of ceremonial appearances than anything else. The three of them combined and with a night's rest were a force to give the greatest of armies nightmares. The army parted for them, escorted by six knights in full regalia to the king's pavilion. The faces of the men who watched from the ground as they rode by were somber and battlescarred. The eyes of men who had survived less from skill than from the good luck to be elsewhere when the spells had hit and well knew it.
They were let into the tent where guards stood at rigid attention. A table had been set up in the outer section, and chairs set around it. Larz sat behind it, a line of advisors behind him, generals on either side and the moral support of a trio of robed priests sternly fixing the demonspawn who walked among them with their righteous gazes.
Larz stood when they entered. Schneider walked right in, breezing past guards and aides alike, looking about the tent as if he expected to see someone who was not in attendance.
"Isn't someone missing?" he said without preamble or introduction. "Where's the Voice of God? The puppeteer who pulls your strings, Larz? Not headed for the hills, is he?"
"Blasphemer." One of the priests muttered and Larz waved a sharp hand to silence the complaints.
"It was assumed you had killed him." Larz said levelly, meeting Schneider's eyes without flinching.
"If only I had been that lucky."
"Liar." The same priest hissed and Larz turned an angry dark glare the man's way. The other two priests patted the arm of the malcontent soothingly, whispering for their fellow to keep his tongue.
"Oh, believe me," Schneider purred. "If I had, I would be crying it out for the world to hear. He skipped on you, Larz. He wasn't the man you thought him to be."
"Sit down if you will." Larz offered, trying to be reasonable. Trying to put them all at ease. He looked past Schneider for the first time, at Kall and Arshes. "Lady Nei. Lord Kall-Su, please sit."
Schneider sniffed disdainfully and plopped down in the center chair, sprawling his legs out before him negligently. "So what exactly do you have to say, Larz? You tried like hell to get me and you failed. I owe you, Larz. For what happened in Meta-Rikan. For your little pseudo trial."
"There were crimes that needed to be paid for. Justice is blind, haven't you heard that phrase? Kings, wizards or laymen can't escape her reach."
Schneider burst out in laughter, seemingly genuinely amused by that notion. The generals behind Larz stirred uneasily at the disrespect. "Are you quite insane? Not that I have to explain myself, but I feel the need to enlighten your obviously misinformed majesty of the hard facts. One. I didn't cast the spell that did the damage at the damned temple. Two. I was fucked up in a major way or you never would have taken me. Three. Are you such an incompetent wizard yourself that you forget how much concentration it takes to cast something with the complexity of an Exodus spell? Put two and two together Larz, if I was coherent enough to cast an Exodus spell then why the hell is Meta-Rikan anything but smoldering ruins now? A few measly priests couldn't have held me if their immortal souls were on burning stakes roasting over the devil's firepit."
The priest glared at him. Larz did, but it was not with quite the moral indignity as the priests managed to work into their eyes. "That remained to be proven. I would have seen you had a fair trial."
"Bullshit. You jump at the Prophet's word and the Prophet was out for more than my blood. He's a body snatching, black hearted sorcerer, Larz, who thinks he's got a direct line to god. He cast that spell. He had Linden killed. You remember Linden? One of yours, right?"
"He did not." The priest whispered in outrage. But Larz had widened his eyes momentarily, some vague horror flashing behind them before he shuttered the emotion.
"Why'd you go to so much trouble to find me, then? Did you miss me that much that you needed an army to get me back? Tell me he didn't urge you to it."
"He did." Larz admitted. "For the good of the land. You have a reputation, you know, for destruction."
Schneider smiled lazily. "Yesss. I do, don't I? I wanted to destroy your little army, you know. Bunch of mindless fools to follow my trail on the word of a hypocritical priest."
"Why didn't you?" Ah, there it was, Larz admitting that he knew he was outmatched, which surprised Kall considerably. Larz was usually more stubborn in his campaigns.
Schneider hesitated, glancing at the table top for an instant as some truer emotion than the dangerous sarcasm he had been exhibiting crossed his face. "A favor. You're alive because of a favor, that's all."
"Well, small favors save lives do that not? I have no notion of whether what you say is truth or not. The Prophet is not here to defend himself."
"It is slander, my king." The one priest cried and Schneider and Larz both looked his way, the latter with exasperation at the interruption, the former with lazy menace in his blue eyes. The priest blanched and cringed back among his colleagues.
"But, " Larz continued purposefully. "It seems as if the point is mute, considering I am not willing to risk an army to pursue it."
"Oh, my, a rational decision. What a surprise."
Larz narrowed his eyes at him. "Go your way and I shall go mine. But bear in mind, that you are not welcome in Meta-Rikan, as Tia Note Yoko is not, until this matter is resolved."
"You've got to be kidding?" Schneider was out of his chair, leaning across the table to glare at Larz. "What the hell has she to do with it? It's her home."
"She is a traitor to church, king and city. Blame yourself for that. Surely you can't place that responsibility on the Prophet."
Schneider straightened, lifting his chin. "I'll go where I want. Harm anything of mine and this little skirmish will seem like a tea party."
"I'll keep that in mind." Larz said quietly.
Schneider spun on his heel and stalked out. Arshes was right in his tracks. Kall hesitated a moment, looking back at Larz, who's face had gone from the rigid strength he used to confront Schneider to weary thoughtfulness. There was uncertainty in his face, in his dark eyes, but Kall did not think it had to do with Schneider. More for his own hierarchy of beliefs that he was just beginning to question. He looked up and at Kall, at the flap of the tent. He inclined his head and said.
"I would have let you go -- but the Prophet had a vision."
Kall nodded once, then let the flap fall behind him, walked among the company of knights to where Schneider and Arshes waited impatiently for him to mount up so they might leave.
"What was that about?" Schneider asked imperiously when they had cleared the camp and rode down the hill back across the field. "Did he say something to you?"
"It doesn't matter." After a long pause. Behind them, men from the southern army slowly moved out onto the field to collect their dead.
"That's for me to decide."
"Not everything is about you."
Schneider gave him an offended look. Arshes glared from his other side. He did not wish to be at odds with Schneider. He did not wish to feel this animosity. He wanted to blurt out Yoko's secret and hope some honest emotion crossed Schneider's face because of it. He wanted very much to see Schneider go and take responsibility for what he had wrought. But Schneider and responsibility were often at odds and his promise to Yoko forbade him speaking of it to him.