You won't cry for my absence I know
You forgot me long ago
Am I that unimportant?
Am I so insignificant?
Isn't someone missing me?
"So that's Karaya village?" It was just before sunrise on the Grasslands, dew forming thick on the plains grasses and the stone markers that ringed the larger structure that most took for a caern or mausoleum. From the hill, it was possible to see most of the Plain of Amur, with the faint blue shimmer of the lake Duck Village was built on to the north, a dark green line further past marking the Kaput Forest, and a tree-dotted sea of green stretching out toward the mountains that formed the border between Grasslands and Harmonia. Karaya itself formed a colored spiral in the endless fields, with the small camps of hunters and warriors scattered around it. Wyatt was standing next to one of the stone markers, Galahad on the other side; there was no moss on the gravestone, sign that it was cared for, although some grew on the central stone building. Every one of the triangular stones covering the hillside marked a fallen Karayan warrior.
"Yessir; this is closer than we've ever gotten. The feint to the south drew them away enough that if we're lucky, we might be able to take the village itself today and force a surrender. The war might be over." Wyatt only nodded thoughtfully, staring off at the fields, until he realized Galahad was watching him with a distinctly bewildered expression. "Sir? Are you alright?"
"Eh? Fine, of course." He snapped out of the reverie, trying to regain his old composure, to find that old bravado he'd always kept.
"I'm sorry."
"What do you have to apologize for?"
"For your wife…for dragging you out here so soon after…." The younger knight looked away. "Sorry."
"It's quite alright; she wouldn't have wanted me to abandon all of you out here at a time like this, and I still have Chris to protect - I can't assure her safety if I quit the field now." Wyatt stretched and walked over to the old monolith, one hand on the stone.
"Sir? I just wanted to tell you, that you've been an inspiration to us all, and if there's anything you need, here or back in Vinay del Zexay, it'd be an honor to help you, if I can at all."
If only Galahad knew; it felt wrong to deceive his second in command like this, when he had no intention of returning. "If anything happens to me - would you see to it that Chris is looked after? She's a strong girl, but I don't want to see her left alone, and….she wants to be a knight, and I think she'd be able to do it, if she's just given a chance to start training."
"Sir?"
He looked back at his bewildered lieutenant. "Is something wrong?"
"Women…don't become knights."
"Really…" A wry grin cracked his face. "How many Grasslander women have we seen on the battlefield, Galahad?"
"Quite a few, sir." Galahad had taken on a blank cast, trying to find the point.
"And most of them have lived up to the task, right? Who's to say a Zexen girl can't be every bit as strong as that?"
"I'll - see what I can do, but it really shouldn't be necessary; we're this close to victory, and in another week we'll probably be back in Vinay del Zexay and you can see to her training yourself." He was thrown off, worried, to say the least; the Captain had never even brought up a glimmer of his own mortality. "We should be going back; there's preparations to make, and we don't want to make anyone worry."
"You go on ahead; I'll be right behind you in a minute."
Galahad nodded and walked off, slowly, watching Wyatt stare at the monolith; untethering his horse, he rode off, glancing back now and then.
How many people realized what the monolith was? The doorway to the shrine of the True Water Rune; it had been decades since Wyatt had stood here by this stone, emerging after sealing the Rune. Immortal, still, but seemingly as normal as anyone else; he had to wonder if he hadn't sealed the Rune, if he'd have been able to use it to save Anna. He'd had unparalleled magic for healing and purifying when he'd carried it openly…but if he hadn't sealed it, he would've been easier to track, and they would've caught up much sooner. He would've lost Anna either way.
They were going to try to take Karaya; almost forty years ago he'd fought alongside Karayans and Grasslanders. Almost forty years ago there'd been one night around a campfire, promises made to remember. Nothing had come of anything so far; the Firebringers had scattered, hidden sparks waiting for a battle that might never come. If Anna's assassination was any sign, the Howling Voice Guild was already at work putting the sparks out before they could rise again.
Alex, if he was still alive, was probably back at Chisha with Sana; little ever came to the mountain village, protected by the pass and a lack of anything for a raiding army to take. After all Alex had been through, Wyatt couldn't bring himself to consider going there, assassins in tow, and shattering the peace and happiness Alex had fought so hard for; much less possibly inflicting on Alex and Sana the kind of pain he'd found. Alex had given up the wars and strife when he'd given up the Fire Rune, seeking to forget; Wyatt wouldn't remind him. Geddoe had wandered off to find somewhere to disappear; the inscrutable old warrior could be anywhere, and probably wasn't far from conflict. Wyatt didn't think Geddoe would forget the promise, but he kept busy; it was possible for Geddoe to be distracted, embroiled in other problems, perhaps even to the point that he might not be able to make it back if the renewed Harmonian invasion Alex had feared happened. Wyatt had heard there was some kind of disturbance beginning in Dunan, but he could hardly find a new life by tracking strife and battles hoping to find a one-eyed ghost.
If he cut ties to Zexen and let the name of Wyatt Lightfellow die, he'd destroy the one way left for them to find him; he'd have to find some way of his own to keep track of events in case the promise was ever invoked. Until then, he would fade into memory, a half-remembered story that followed at the Flame Champion's heels in a war few people remembered.
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Even though I'm the sacrifice
You won't try for me, not now
Though I died to know you love me
I'm all alone
Isn't someone missing me?
It was late afternoon; they'd made it most of the way down the hills when they realized the main Karayan force had figured out the feint and turned around. The Grasslanders moved fast, and were on them before they'd even properly formed the lines to defend. It had been a bloody battle so far; they were taking heavy losses, being pushed back, but giving almost as good as they got.
It came down to Wyatt, Galahad, and a unit of cavalry holding a bottleneck in the dusty, grass-lined road, playing rearguard as long as they could to buy time.
There was a lull of a few minutes in the assault, then arrows raked them from either side; the Karayan archers must've gotten up the dropoff to flank them. Some of the cavalry went down, shot off their horses, some of the horses buckled, there was a moment of chaos; Wyatt's shoulder was clipped, and his horse went down with a scream, arrows in its legs and neck.
Galahad was trying to regain order as he struggled to his feet, yelling an order to retreat. three of the men bolted just at that, the rest that were still mounted or standing rallied to him and Galahad, who'd ridden over to him.
"Sir! Take my horse!" Galahad tried to dismount; Wyatt grabbed his leg, holding it in the stirrup.
"Take the men and go, lead them out of here - anyone who can't make it, stay here with me and go down fighting!"
"But sir-"
"Take care of Chris!", Wyatt snapped, and smacked the horse with the flat of his blade, setting it dancing forward; Galahad gave him a last, helpless look, then rode off, leading all but one of the mounted soldiers and a few on foot.
It was as if the spirits knew what he wanted.
Some of the men who'd stayed were wounded; a couple he'd taken for dead were straggling tto their feet, dragging weapons out of the dirt. Others were unscathed, facing the impending Karayan charge with the same grim resolve as the dying.
"Let's make this sacrifice mean something!" He raised his blade, and the Karayan attack hit.
They did damage, to be sure; he saw some of the Karayan warriors go down, and it seemed that even as they were hopelessly overwhelmed they were taking three Karayans for each of them that fell. Wyatt was wounded, bloodied, and shrugging it off; soon he was the only Zexen left in the bottleneck. Fletchings and broken off shafts marked about every crack in his armor, mirror-bright turned red; he should already be dead, the True Rune and blank resolve keeping him standing, the world dimmed to a bloody haze.
There was a horn, then there wasn't a next attack to parry, another target to strike; he stood shakily in the middle of the Karayan army, with a ring of dead warriors around him, blinking blood and sweat out of his eyes. It was bad enough on one eye for him to wonder briefly if he'd lost it, a wound to match Geddoe's, bad enough to narrow the world to a blurry, blotchy mist. Now that the fight had stopped, the adrenaline that had been holding him up bled away, and he fell to his knees in the middle of the ring, coughing up blood. He was still clutching his sword in one hand, and none of the Karayans dared to approach.
Hooves approached and stopped, and through the red blotches of blur he made out the hooves and ankles of a Grasslander riding beast, its rider dismounting. Painfully, he scanned up to see who was now standing in front of him. It was a Karayan, of course, a man looking down at him in a sort of awed bewilderment; he could fuzzily make out extra bands of colors on the bracelets, a mace in one hand, something on the necklace glinting. He had to struggle to remember what it all meant, then realized he was at the feet of the Karayan Chief.
"You're the Zexen Captain - the leader of their army." Wyatt wasn't sure if his nod was readable through the shaking of the coughing he was barely suppressing, or the weaving of his own loss of balance and strength. "You would fight to your death to allow your men to escape?" The Chief's voice was quiet, filled with hushed respect.
Wyatt bowed his head, black spots starting to creep in among the red blurs, there was blood rising in the back of his throat again. He wasn't a hero; he was just trying to commit suicide with some dignity.
"Before you die, I wish to know your name."
"Wyatt...Wyatt Lightfellow." He choked the words out, surprised he even found a voice, and waited. The blow came, sending everything black.
-------------------------------------------
He woke up; that itself was surprising. What wasn't outright wounded was sore to the point of torment. Both eyes opened; his left eye was still present, if still blurred. The Karayan chief was on a stool beside the hammock Wyatt was lying in, covered in bandages, in a simple Karayan tent.
Wyatt closed his eyes, finding his voice again. "Why..." He swallowed, his voice scratched and hoarse. "Why did you spare me?"
The Chief folded his hands, leaning on them. "When I was a child, my parents and grandparents told me tales of the Firebringers, and of the heroes they fought along side. One of the Flame Champion's most trusted friends was a warrior named Wyatt Lightfellow. They told me, that the old heroes had gone to find their own lives, and to wait for the day in which they would be needed again. I would wonder, after the stand you made for your troops, if you were that Wyatt Lightfellow?"
A hero. Again, he was being treated as a hero. "Wyatt Lightfellow...was a man, who took pity on a group of prisoners and helped them escape. Was...someone who'd come into power quite accidentally, who tried to live honestly with himself, and wanted nothing more at the end of a long and bloody war than to find someplace quiet and comfortable to live while he could. Had a family, like any other man, and..." He swallowed hard. "Lost his wife to old ghosts, ghosts he could neither stop nor fight, who had a little daughter that looked up to him and sought to follow in his footsteps as a knight, that would suffer for his past as long as he lived, but had too much stubborn pride to walk out to his enemies and take her place, who rode out hoping for nothing more than a chance to die with some honor left." He caught the Chief's eyes with a dim, pleading look. "Wyatt Lightfellow has lived long enough, and came here to die."
The Chief nodded solemnly and stood, drawing the dagger at his side; Wyatt closed his eyes. The blade came down - through the line of rope beside his head; the Chief left it hanging in the hammock-net, standing over him. "Then Wyatt Lightfellow died on the battlefield, and the man I had brought back to our camp was a Karayan warrior like any other. I would hope, that you could live to see a certain little girl grown to a proud warrior like her father." He retrieved his dagger and bowed slightly to Wyatt.
Wyatt broke into choked, sobbing laughter, trailing off in tears as the pain in his ribs renewed and wounds threatened to reopen. "Thank you..."
"You'll need a Karayan name, of course...you were the Keeper of Water, yes? The shrine has been the secret of the Chiefs, kept in your faith." Wyatt listened in silence, with just a slight nod of acknowledgement, as the Chief stood in deep thought. "Jimba Cheeva...it means river of resurrection." He turned for the tent flap. "The healers will return soon; I will swear the warriors to this."
"Jimba Cheeva." Wyatt murmered, nodding at the new name, a sign to the spirits from the Karayan Chief.