Kestrel snatched her bow from the snow, shaking the powder off of it, and drew another arrow. She ran up to the edge of the homestead. Below, the buildings of Forst Sjork smoldered and the field was littered with the dead. Somewhere down there were two Icewalkers, the last two who needed executing.
Her eyes were narrow, her visage grim, and she didn't care anymore if she presented a profile for them to target. The pain in every breath wasn't from the cold anymore. It came from a punctured lung and there was very little hope that she would survive it, alone in the North. At this point, risking what was left of her life for justice was the best she could hope for.
Old Salty sharpened her eyes and her reflexes. A smudge of black obscured a tiny portion of the pattern of falling snowflakes. An oncoming arrow. She could take a chance and try to dodge it or she could take advantage of it and find the archer.
Kestrel decided against dodging. Instead, she concentrated fully on backtracking the oncoming projectile. There.
The arrow hit her high in the leg, right in the muscle of her left thigh. Kestrel didn't feel any pain, thanks to the battle drug. She only felt grim satisfaction as she released another arrow and gut-shot the man.
One.
There he was, making a break for it all the way across the homestead. He might have made it if she were mortal but old Salty made her as Exalted as any Dragon-Blooded. It was horribly addictive, extremely damaging to one's health if used too often, but its advantages were the reason General Arada had supplied his Lightning Forces. She wasn't Ashigaru but she'd lay good jade against a Lookshyan Ranger in a fight.
Kestrel pulled her last three arrows out. With one, she hit him in the back of the kneecap, sending him sprawling to the snow. She drew back on her bow and waited. Sure enough, he tried to rise and rolled on his side to get back up. Carefully, she held her shot...and then fired. Seconds later, the arrow hit him clean in the groin.
The former Sergeant Sesus Kestrel stalked through the snow, past the destroyed remains of her home and the bodies of her slaughtered family. She glanced back once and almost chuckled at her blood trail. The cold slowed her bleeding but she gave herself maybe fifteen minutes, tops. Plenty of time when you really thought about it, at least when you rode old Salty.
She climbed the embankment and wobbled over to the badly wounded Icewalker. Kestrel's leg didn't work too well now but she could still stand. Stand, hell, she could still pull her bow.
The groaning man stiffened when he realized he had an arrow pointed right at his eye. He was just a boy, she realized. Just into his teenage years.
"That's right," Kestrel said. "I got all your buddies. I got every single last one of you. Any last words? Anything to say for yourself?"
"Wha...? Why?" he mumbled thickly.
"Why?" Kestrel glared, her anger flaring hotly. It was the only heat in her now. "My friends are dead. My family is dead. You killed them all, you and your kind. You killed babies and took everything precious to those people. For that, you deserve a hell of a lot more than a clean death. But that's what I'm going to give you."
"...who?" he asked. The barbarian looked increasingly confused, which might be due to blood loss too. Kestrel knew how that was. She was really light-headed now. Probably because every breath bubbled in her pierced lung.
"Who? You mean, who am I? I'm your angel of death. I'm Justice. I'm what happens when people like you think they can do whatever they want to people like these. I'm the goddamned line against the chaos. You're stopped cold and now you're going to die."
"...you're...you're just a girl!" he exclaimed weakly.
"If I'd had kids at your age, I'd be a grandmother now," Kestrel snickered. "I'm old enough, Icewalker. Old enough to kill every last one of you."
"...you can't kill...all of us," he said, just a hint of anger flaring in his numb words. His eyes met hers, challenging her. It was a challenge she had to resist. She needed information.
"All of who? Was this more than a raiding party? Did someone order this?"
"...a mighty God...too strong for us...the Tundra Bear King. He demanded tribute. He...he wants to tear down...your cities."
"Thanks for the name," Kestrel said softly. Then she put her last arrow right through his head. She could have made it a stomach wound, to find out if the cold or blood loss would get him first, but she wasn't that kind of woman. She'd killed hundreds for General Arada in her ten-year military service and every one of them was a military target. That's what made her different from animals like this.
She didn't mind hurting him a bit but she'd be damned if she became like them.
The wind seemed to gnaw through her shoulder and her leg. Kestrel settled down next to the body of the last barbarian and uncorked her old Salty. She took another hit, cringing at the rasp of the smell in her nose, like a file grinding down bone. Yeah, that took care of the last bit of feeling. She'd taken enough now to put her in a medic's tent when she came down...but she wouldn't before she froze to death so no worries, right?
"It isn't right," Kestrel said, shaking her head as she watched the snow slowly burying Forst Sjork. Soon her home would be gone, the only place of peace she'd known since taking her early retirement bonus from the Legions four years ago. These people had been closer to her than her own Dragon-Blooded parents had been to a child who had never measured up to their standards.
Fitting that she die with them. What didn't fit was that the one most responsible for this crime would live...and keep on killing more families like hers. Kestrel's fingers tightened around her bow but it was an impotent gesture. She wouldn't survive the trip to kill their leader, even if she knew where he was.
"No, it's not."
Kestrel glanced at the strange woman sitting next to her. How long had she been there, anyway? And what was an Immaculate Monk doing out here, dressed only in light robes in the middle of a blizzard?
"Some God wants tribute and he kills everyone I know for it," Kestrel said angrily. "I should be preparing my soul for its next life...but I can't let this one go, priest. That Tundra Bear King should pay for what he's done. These people couldn't stop him...how many more are going to die before someone does?"
"I don't know," the bald Immaculate said, looking over the scene of carnage. She barely looked past her teenage years, which meant she was probably a young Dragon-Blooded. "But I'd say you should be the someone. You just killed twenty-one barbarians, four wolves...by yourself, with only a quiver of arrows. That's amazing!"
"Thanks," Kestrel said. "I didn't think I'd make it, to tell you the truth. Not that I'm going to make it now of course. But I got them all. I guess Hesiesh hears prayers."
"Oh, it wasn't Hesiesh who heard you," the monk chuckled. She was wonderfully beautiful, in a way that might have stirred Kestrel if that portion of her anatomy wasn't frozen along with the rest of her. "It was Me."
"Oh yeah? Well, thanks anyway." Kestrel coughed up blood and felt it freeze on her gloved fingers. "Do me a favor? Next time you're back in the Realm...you look up Sesus Vece and you tell her that her daughter died well."
"Tell her yourself," the monk grinned. It was a strange show of emotion on the face of a woman who did not look given to smiling much. A curious passion danced in her eyes and it made Kestrel wonder. "Or maybe you can tell her after you bring the one responsible to justice. You see, Kestrel, I'm going to Exalt you. Even I rarely see courage like yours. You actually killed all of these yourself and you're still willing to go after their leader. I'd be a fool to pass up a drive like that."
"Who are you?" Kestrel asked.
"I could be your Mother," the woman smiled. She reached over, caressed Kestrel's face, and then yanked the arrow right out of her back. Thanks to old Salty, it didn't hurt a bit. "I could be your Daughter." The monk pulled the arrow in her leg out next. "But, for you, I'm your Wife."
"So much for those monastic vows," Kestrel chuckled. She felt a little better, which was bizarre. Must be the overdose. "Actually, I had my eye on this sweet widow over in the next homestead. Her kid even liked me...but I don't suppose that's going to happen now."
"Oh no," the monk grinned. "I've got plans for you." The bald woman suddenly kissed her passionately...and the kiss hissed along Kestrel's skin, searing its way down into her blood and bones. Where the sensation passed, she felt heat and life return. "First, you need to see Tiern-she. She'll give you what you need to succeed, Kestrel. Then...I want you to go after the mastermind behind this slaughter. Find the one responsible, my hawk, and mete out the justice they deserve."
"Who are you?" Kestrel repeated, eyes growing wide with the realization that this woman was something greater than any Exalt.
"I have many names and none. Most call me Luna." The Goddess of the Moon smiled and Her eyes lit up with silvery incandescence. "But you, my little hawk, can call me Lover."
Kestrel sat blankly as the Goddess picked up her hand and kissed her palm. Their skin glowed, she realized. Both of them.
"I'm Anathema," she whispered. "But I don't feel any different."
"You're about to," the Moon grinned wickedly. Wreathed in Immaculate Robes, head bare and gleaming in the snow, the monk nonetheless climbed into Kestrel's lap and pushed her down into the snow. And then Luna demonstrated Her divinity in a way that left no doubt at all in the mind of her new Lunar.
Kestrel Sesus' first thought upon waking was that she was covered in snow. She lifted her head, shook it free, and realized she was in a large indentation in the homestead's embankments. She was naked and she lay on grass, as if her body had melted the snow all the way down to the ground.
White powder fell from her as she rose. She sure wasn't melting it like that now. It must have been...Luna.
She grinned at the memory, then shook it off to find her clothes. Her whitewashed leathers were a little hard to find but soon she was dressed. Kestrel holstered her knife and her hatchet, unstrung her bow and packed it away for travel.
Then she paused to think about what she was doing. An Anathema Goddess had healed her and given her the strength to avenge Forst Sjork. A place hovered in her mind, pulling her northward toward this Tiern-She that Luna wanted her to meet.
Kestrel nodded to herself slowly. She wasn't dying at the moment. There was nothing left for her here. She had a place to go. And a purpose that lay beyond it.
When she set her boots on the trail northward, Kestrel Sesus had a smile on her face. Hellish or not, Luna had given her the power to stop this Tundra Bear King. Damned or not, she was going to use that power.
And Heaven have mercy on the entire Icewalker nation if it got in her way.