Thank you to my readers for taking the time to read. It has been a while since I posted thank you to all of you who are still with me.
Disclaimer: All profits to RJ
Note: The character Dirk's real name is Kye. So either appellation refers to him.
Chapter 10: The Warder
"A Warder!" exclaimed Dirk. "Now I have heard that title. It is a defender of the Aes Sedai."
"Yes" agreed the librarian. Her face not youthful and yet still not wrinkled showed her exasperation. She kept it out of her voice but not fully out of her face. She had not expected him to know so little when the time came.
"What is this…Warder? Is it like a sul'dam?" asked Kea.
"No!" replied Dirk at once. "Your sul'dam are slave masters and animal handlers. Here we see those who can wield the power as people, or more."
"Aes Sedai are people to be respected, honoured and protected, young girl!" exclaimed Paula. "Warders are men who bond themselves, or I should say allow themselves to be bonded to one Aes Sedai. They then serve as her personal bodyguard for the rest of their lives." She paused and took a long breath and then her voice becoming softer but even more serious. "Those men who take this road consider it the highest of honours. They are the very best of men."
Kea looked confused and began to chew on the end of her hair. "So Dirk, I mean Kye, used to be one?"
"You don't stop, being a Warder. It is like an oath, you can't remove it. It's forever."
"Then why," countered Kea turning her face to stare directly at Paula "has he no Aes Sedai? Where is she? Shouldn't he know? The Death Watch Guard is the only thing I can think of that is similar to these Warders. They are the best and are sworn to the Imperial Family. They would not lose their charges. It seems strange to me that Di... Kye has lost his."
"Yes, that is true" mused Dirk. "I must find her I suppose. The only thing is I cannot remember who she was or how I am supposed to find her. I've never felt so lost." He sat down on a tottering pile of books and only by quickly shifting his weight did he prevent a total and comical collapse of the said pile.
"Tar Valon" he muttered almost to himself. "That's where the answers are, it's where they always are. Still this sounds like we do not understand everything that has happened. We may well be walking into danger. A city full of Aes Sedai for example. Best that for now you keep calling me Dirk, Kea. Beside," he added with a sheepish grin, "I don't know if I will ever be comfortable with the name Kye."
"A dangerous place, the White Tower, these days" put in Paula. "There are problems though I'm not sure what. Someone is apparently attacking the Tower or going to. A fool's errand if ever I heard of one. Who can possibly think that they can defeat women who can channel? Hawkwing couldn't and that means no one could!"
"Well we don't have a choice. Kea, as you now know Paula, can channel. If the Seanchan get a hold of her they will collar her and well… I'll have to go down in a blaze of glory. I've given her my word and I do be a man of my word."
"That you are" agreed Paula her voice normal but again her mobile face betraying an uncomfortable undercurrent of past pain. "Little meant more to you than duty, oaths and obligation."
"The White Tower, that is where Kea will be safe; it do be where she can be trained in how to use her power for right." Dirk's voice and whole posture had changed. He had become more assured and his back had straightened. He no longer looked like a man who had snuck into Caemlyn but rather a knight ready to go and announce himself to the world. Things were changing, that much was sure.
"We must leave now, if there is unrest about the Tower we may struggle to enter." He held out is hand and Kea took it looking bewildered but grateful for Dirk's presence. She seemed to be a woman tossed about by a storm of surprises but one who knew she was in a sturdy boat.
"We'll take our chances with these Aes Sedai then?" she reasoned. He opened his mouth but with a short laugh she cut him off. "Because they are our only chance, I know!"
With words of thanks the two struck out as if to leave Caemlyn that very minute in dramatic style. That however was short lived as the library was quite a maze to the unschooled. Sheepishly they returned to Paula and asked her to guide them out which she did without laughing at their hastiness… too much.
Still farewells were brief and the duo head into the city. "Not enough money" complained Dirk as they headed for the edge of the city. "We don't have any food or supplies and even our directions are limited at best. 'Follow the road east to Aringail and catch a boat north with the food supplies.' I don't remember any of these places. Feels like I haven't ever seen a map in my life." Dirk knew he was whining but his initial surge of adrenalin or gusto had flagged swiftly in the face of reality. Shadowspawn were loose in the land and the Seanchan on their tail. They were travelling in secret and one of them had no memory and the other was a foreigner… even better, from an invading power.
"It will work out," she said. And he suddenly felt something go through him. He snapped his gaze suspiciously around him and then onto her. She averted her eyes which was all he needed. "You channelled," he stated. "What did you do to me?"
"I'm not sure. I just let the power into you for a bit, it always makes me feel better when I hold it."
"Don't channel" he began but she cut him off something she would not have dared do to a lame dog a few weeks ago.
"It isn't even channelling," she countered loudly. "I just let the power flow into you I made no weaves. I remember what you said about Aes Sedai being in town. I am not a fool Dirk I was careful! No one felt me channelling, they could not know we were here!"
"Unless of course they heard you," came a deep voice.
That caught their attention both. Standing several paces in front of them were three men and two women. At first Dirk didn't believe they could be whom he feared. Then one of the men moved and he saw it: the grace, the deadly step of a warrior that didn't waste a movement and knew his trade. For these men this was no trade this was life itself. They were dangerous, hounds trusted enough not to be leashed, dangerous enough to never stray far from their master. The women had something different about them too. They were somewhere between twenty and forty he would guess. They had a beauty to them and an aura of power and strength. These were Aes Sedai and their Warders and they had blundered into them.
How would they take to Kea, being a Seanchan channeller, he did not know? With this in mind he lengthened his stride to pull ahead of the smaller woman. Though with the One Power did his body being physically in the way really offer her any protection? Aes Sedai don't kill with the Power, isn't that what he had heard? He tried to hold onto that as he steadied himself in front of his charge.
"Maybe he is a Warder," remarked one of the men. "He stands well."
"Maybe Jerome, but does he fight as well?" threw in his nearest companion. As he spoke he drew two axes. Both were to be wielded one handed but they had enough room on the haft to be swung two handed if the wielder so desired. He put one in a reverse grip the axe head pointing downwards and behind him. The other he hefted normally, and then he quickly span them around, as if to get a feel for their weight.
The one called Jerome pulled out his own sword and looked at Dirk. "So you wear that cloak as if you had the right, but that is no Aes Sedai you be protecting."
At least he knew now there was no point bluffing. If the Warders were not fooled the Aes Sedai themselves certainly would not be. Why hadn't he taken off the cloak? It had just felt so natural and yet he knew he should not have made such a sloppy error.
"They are complete" said Kea quietly behind him.
"Complete?" he whispered back.
"I think she means we are linked and she is right. Your little wilder is quite strong but she should not…" There was a brief pause, then the woman her fair hair in long braids shook her head and finished. "Try to do that."
"What?" asked Dirk confused?
"I tried to hold the power and she shielded me, or at least one of them did. I am not sure which is the sul'dam," explained Kea.
"Sul'dam?" asked one of the Aes Sedai aloud.
"Seanchan," provided the other.
"At least she isn't a rebel then. Maybe we could help her find her way."
"We need to go to the White Tower," cut in Dirk and the glares he received for speaking almost on the heels of the Aes Sedai were many and awful. He was silenced by them.
"Why do you need to go?" asked the Aes Sedai with the fair, braided hair. Her dress was simple but her stature was regal and her gaze demanding.
Surprisingly Kea answered. "I can channel and my protector explained that if I want to learn and be looked after on this land I must join myself to the White Tower, to you Aes Sedai."
The two women exchanged a look. The second Aes Sedai wore a white dress a little low cut for Dirk's taste but it clung to a shapely form and made her appear something of an ice queen. Still her unreadable face and hard eyes made him think of a cold steel blade in a sheath of ice. As she spoke it was as if she had drawn on him.
"She seems to manage her manners well, for a frightened child. She is a Wilder and foreigner, so her snatch for The Power when she felt threatened is understandable. There is hope for her as a novice yet. You however have no right to what you wear. If it were not for your excellent advice to the girl I would hand you over to Kera's Gaidin now to make them an answer. You need not explain your plans for you revealed them to all with your blundering mouth. We will take this girl to Aringail and see her safely past the rebels into the Tower. She will be protected and receive her training. You," here she pointed imperiously, will remove that cloak and we will return it to the Tower for a rightful user."
"Pardon Aes Sedai, but I will not let you take things in my charge from me" replied Dirk. He made an intense effort to remain calm. He was not angry at the woman or her Warder Protectors. The assumptions they had come to and the actions they intended to take made perfect sense. He was angry at himself for getting into this mess. He was angry that he could no longer relinquish Kea and angry that he did not know enough to safely refute her accusation that he had no right to what he wore. He could hardly claim he had been a Warder but no longer knew who his Aes Sedai was supposed to be! It sounded pathetic even to himself. But he could not willingly give up this tangible part of his identity. Not after having just received it.
"Gaidin take it from him, girl come here out of the way. Men tend to do things messily" replied the woman in white. The woman she had called Kera laughed a nice rich laugh. "Sometimes it's nice to get a little messy. You have to gut a fish before you can eat it after all."
The Gaidin, another name for Warders it seemed closed in on Dirk. The two axes were spinning, the sword rock still. "Stop!" cried Kea. "I need him; he saved me from my people. If he will not go, neither will I!"
"Do not be foolish girl. That ship has sailed. You are shielded and we could wrap the two of you in flows of air and carry you off like so much cargo." Kera Sedai made her point simply but she was not looking at Kea. Her eyes were on her Warders and Dirk. Her gaze implied she would find what followed at least mildly entertaining.
These two were trained, even expert fighters. It was unlikely he could win this fight. Still his pride would not let him relinquish Kea or the cloak. It was just too soon their meaning too deeply ingrained in him. They were all he had left. So reluctantly, even sighing audibly he drew his sword.
"I do not want to be fighting Warders," he admitted resignedly.
"Not many do," replied the one called Jerome with a grin. "Ready Saffé?"
"Course" replied the axe man with a wide grin of relish. Then in he span.
Dirk's sword sprang forward, and he was surprised how much better it felt to be fighting with this blade, than it had with the others he had used. The blade felt lighter in his hand and moved almost unerringly at his touch. Its balance was perfect and its grip seemed moulded to his hand.
He deflected the downward axe blow and dodged away from the following horizontal cut. Then he reversed his momentum and span going back to back with Saffé, spinning round now in front of Jerome. His wrist flicked and the point of his sword flashed from in front of his left knee to his opponent's left shoulder. Even the slightest move of his hand sent his blade swishing through the air faster than his eye could follow. His instinct for fighting was upon him and his blade responded to every command.
He turned frequently often having to abandon excellent opportunities in order to fend off another attack. Jerome, the swordsman, was skilled enough to have caused him mortal worry but it was Saffé who caused him the greater fear. The single heads on his axes hung down the shafts like icicles off an archway. If his sword got caught between the inside of the blade and the shaft it could be snapped or yanked from his grasp. Then the battle would be over.
An axe cut inside his guard, while his sword was arching over his head to block an incoming blow from the man's other weapon. Dirk hurled his body backwards, more falling than anything else. Neither weapon managed to land a killing blow, but his block was compromised; his wrist screamed out in pain as his blade vibrated under the attack. He knew enough of his opponents from the brief fight, to know that Jerome would stab him before he got up.
"Stop it!" came a shout. It was so near and loud that he felt it more than heard it. It was so heavy it knocked the breathe out of him. Then he realised that as Kea had shouted, she had flung herself atop him, desperate to protect him; to save his life.
"Do not kill her!" the command was instant and imperative. The Warders stopped their attacks in mid-motion; so controlled, so disciplined.
"She must go to the tower, novices are hard enough to come by as it is" curtly announced Aes Sedai, clothed in white.
"Even if he has crossed the line maybe he could accompany us. As long as he submits himself to our terms" she continued.
"Sister is that wise?" cautioned Kera Sedai. One of her two Warders moved slightly. It had been a minor movement, so minor in fact that Dirk was not sure which of them had made it. But Kera's head snapped forward in a way that betrayed the calm voice she then employed.
"Yes? You would speak Gaidin?"
"Kera Sedai," it was Jerome. "He fights as if White Tower trained. Not only to say he is good, mark you. He is an advanced swordsman, but he has tower trained moves laid atop his skills. I can feel the work of Hammar on this man."
The Warder's strong clear voice appeared to become subdued all of a sudden and tailed off. Dirk looked at him and was surprised to see a mask of a face hiding some hidden pain. This left him confused as he had thought this would have been a point in his favour.
"Are you saying he is what he claims? Though not one of us recognises him, nor he us? Where is his Aes Sedai?" questioned Kera Sedai.
"I wish I knew," muttered Dirk under his breath.
He had thought to speak low enough to remain unheard but flickers of eyelashes told him that he had not been as successful as he might have hoped. Still neither the Aes Sedai nor their sharp eared Warders made any comment.
"May I accompany you then to the White Tower? I have some questions to ask there that I think will help all of us." As he said this Dirk motioned to all the people present. Kea, himself and the Aes Sedai with their Warders.
"You may, but you will doff the cloak and keep your sword bound into its sheath, until we get those answers" explained the Aes Sedai in the white dress. "My name is Turanna and you would do well not to cross me. Now come do as we say and let us make haste for the Tower. I long, to present our new novice to the Amyrlin."
With that swords were sheathed and sharing nothing but a silent look of reassurance Dirk and Kea followed the two Aes Sedai out towards the east.