Sajani Tails

      After three days of green, Sajani wasn’t sure she’d recognize any other color. Simon’s arm had started to heal, but he was limited on what he could do and even more limited on what spells he could cast. The rations they had were almost gone and she’d have to take to hunting if they didn’t cross a road soon. There was something about using her arrows that made her nervous and by the end of each day’s travel, she didn’t really feel up to making any sort of trap. By her best guess they were just over the border to Rhidayar, but there was still no sign of a road, let alone any kind of civilization

      They were both unprepared when the shots rang out. A bullet impacted below her shoulder blade, about halfway between her left armpit and the base of her neck. Another grazed the other side of her neck. Sajani painfully dropped from her mount and noticed Simon do the same, although she’d no way of knowing if it was because he was hit or because he’d be safer on the ground.

      The underbrush hid them long enough to circle behind a nearby tree. She tried to peer around the edge once they had their bearings but was answered with a shot that ricocheted off the trunk and grazed her ear. She was relatively sure that whoever was shooting wasn’t a bad shot, so much as she was very lucky. As she looked back at Simon, he’d just finished casting a quick spell.

      There’s at least three of them, probably four unless one is very fast at reloading, she thought to herself. She made sure Simon was watching and pointed to her eyes and then to his side of the tree. Watch your side of the tree, she’d told him. He responded by tapping his left index finger to his temple and wiggling his fingers. I have a spell ready, was his response. It made her somewhat relieved that she’d traveled with Simon before.

      The enemy would have to circle around to be able to fire at them again, so she had a moment at least. She began by channeling some healing energy to close their wounds. The spell painfully extracted the bullet from her shoulder, but she was still bleeding. Simon’s wound closed. Three arrows and three, maybe four targets. They’d already talked about what Simon’s spells could do. A good number of what he’d normally cast required him to move his arm, so he was limited to spells that’d disable foes and help protect them. She readied her bow and waited.

      Two came from Simon’s side of the tree. She heard him intone a spell followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground. The second person was ready for him and she saw the conman fall backwards, nearly on top of her. His face was very pale, but he wasn’t dead. His shirt was moist with blood. He’d taken a shot to his upper left chest.

      She channeled more healing energy, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop his bleeding. Another shot rang out and she felt the bullet graze her other ear. Sajani could just make out the shooter through the foliage. She let off a shot and was relieved to hear it strike home. If they were lucky the enemy didn’t have a healer or even an almost healer like she was.

      Simon was working his way back to his side of the tree, but she hardly had time to notice. Another set of enemies had moved around to her side and opened fire. There were three shots and they all missed her. How many are there, she wondered? She dropped further down and fired off a shot quickly. If it hit its target, there was no way to know. Her guess was that it didn’t, because yet another shot rang out. She revised her guess to six enemies and fired another shot at the only exposed enemy she could see. It connected. More shots answered though.

      “Lay down your weapons!” a voice shouted to her speaking haltingly in the common language. Well, she had to have done some damage, or they’d have just kept fighting.

      “One moment!” she shouted back as she grabbed for the loaded flare gun. She heard Simon cast another spell and took aim in the direction of the voice.

      “Surrender!” the person shouted again.

      “Maybe,” she answered back.

      “That’s not an answer!” came the response, backed up by another round of bullets.

      “No,” she said mostly to herself, “but this is!” Sajani pulled the trigger and watched as the flare left the gun in exaggerated slow motion. She almost cursed to herself when the target dodged easily out of the way. A military flare wouldn’t have gone that slowly. She was sure of it, although she’d never used a flare as a weapon before.

      She was hoping that she could get at least an idea of who her enemy was, but they stayed low and just out of sight. Simon seemed to be busy to her right, but after another moment, he fell over again, whether from loss of blood or from a hit from the most recent volley, she couldn’t tell. She fired off the next four rounds in quick succession and missed wildly, throwing the gun from her when she was done. She took two more bullets in the meantime: one had grazed her arm and another had ricocheted painfully into her leg, making it difficult for her to stand. She channeled healing again and grasped for Simon’s old rapier. Simon had managed to get back to his side of the tree and cast another spell.

      “Surrender!” came the cry from their opponents again.

      She looked over at Simon who was still very pale. She placed her hands on his shoulders and healed him as best she could. He turned to face her and their gazes locked for a moment. “You’re not quitting on me now are you, you old gong farmer?”

      “Not on your life, you crazy wolf lady!” he answered with surprising flare.

      They turned their backs to each other and prepared to step away from the tree. This was it. Maybe if they were fast enough, they could take out the remaining enemies before they were shot down.

            Before they had a chance to charge, they heard Colonel Lahnk’s voice and the sound of many swords being drawn at once and rifles being cocked. “Put down your weapons, scum. Even if I didn’t have you surrounded, I’d take you with only my rifle, my sword and my wits. Call in the air support and let loose the dogs of war!” The air became full of vykati war howls.

       Gregor stood, turned, and put his back to her. As she was getting ready to go into the river, he asked her, “Can I ask you a somewhat personal question?”

       That sounded ominous, but she was confident that, coming from him, it wouldn’t be anything too horrible. “Sure.”

       “Why do you have so much trouble being alone?”

       Ok, so maybe it could be a really horrible question. She paused while she tried to gather her thoughts. Hopefully, like many times before, he’d take her silence as not wanting to answer and retract his question. It must have been something he really wanted to know, because he didn’t take it back. “It comes from when I found out my mother died. Benayle and a priest, Father Lamarr, came to see my paw and I.” Her voice was shaking. Please, please take back the question, she thought. “I heard Benayle tell my father that my mother told her troops, ‘Kra’la al’ark.’” Gregor remained silent. Why did he even need to know? Why did she feel like she had to tell him? She’d never told anyone this much about it. “That night I saw her in a dream. She was lying near a big stone building that looked like a church. She whispered, ‘Sajani’et al’ark’ and then her eyes closed. I looked around and I was alone on a mountainside, there was no one else there. I shouted out for help and no one answered.” There were now tears in her eyes and it was impossible for Gregor to not  know she was hurting. Why did he let her hurt like this? Why did he insist on an answer? Why did she feel like she had to answer? “I had that same dream, sometimes multiple times a night for months after that.” Why’d he pick this, of all times, to ask his question? While she was half dressed? Perhaps, a voice inside her said cynically, that’s why he picked it.

       Gregor’s back was still to her and as he spoke, she felt positive that he wanted to be near her and comfort her. That wouldn’t be as embarrassing as it could be, but still… “I’m sorry you experienced that. I’d try to tell you I’ll never leave you unless you want me to go, but after what’s happened so far in your life, I doubt you’d believe me.”

       While she was thrilled to hear him say that, she also knew he was right: believing anyone that said that wasn’t an option. Her experiences so far didn’t allow it. Two of her childhood friends, her mother, and in many ways, her father as well. They’d all left her. Being alone was how she defined herself now.

       Whether he meant to or not, Sajani was never sure, he answered most of her recent questions when he said, “Maybe… now that it’s out in the open and you’ve faced that fear, you can start to heal.”

      Plaster fell from the ceiling, trailing white dust behind it and spewing its uncleanness over the expensive furniture in the sitting room. The enemy’s artillery had been bombarding the city of Yasef for the last hour. It wouldn’t be long before the last of the troops fell and the strange newcomers to the world of Terah took possession of the Rathaus. Surrender wasn’t an option they were given and now, the capital of Zenache was doomed to fall in the next few hours, like most of their major cities had over the last week. All their military had been able to do was provide non-civilian targets.

      There were two people in the room, although the human would have been loathe to call the other a “person.” Liaison Troubet was a staunch and rough looking human, with the light hair and eyes typical of his countrymen. His military uniform was in better shape than the rough spun clothing and furs of the other occupant, but not by much. He’d left the trenches outside the rathaus to be at this meeting. It was a sign of pure desperation Zenache would even seek aid from the wolf folk of Vharkylia, commonly called vykati. The human nation of Rhidayar, directly to their south, had flat out refused to send help. “You’re sure you can get this message to your lady general in time?”

      The wolf person had a particularly wild look about him, even for his race. Vykati stand on their toes, like the wolves they share appearance with, but walk upright. This one introduced himself as Blade, definitely a nickname, and seemed as though he’d run from his home country to here without ever changing clothes. Another explosion shook the room, and they could hear a light fixture fall nearby, creating a musical crash as crystal struck hardwood and slid across the floor. The vykati’s brown fur was matted with sweat. Syllables came from his lips, sounding a little like profanity of some kind to the human’s ears. It might have been, because Blade then growled low before saying, “I give her.” He didn’t speak Zenache at all and what little of the common tongue he spoke was heavily accented, both with strange vowels and occasional growls.

      Troubet’s orders from the royal family were simple: make a last attempt to surrender, try to keep the government intact, and buy as much time as possible for the final evacuations of the capital. Hopefully those fleeing could find shelter in Rhidayar. Vharkylia, as was typical of the wolf nation, made no promise as to the safety of any humans, not even refugees of war.

      The human handed an envelope to the vykati and headed straight for the door, not bothering to look back as Blade exited the building heading the opposite direction. The brown wolf had shown up rather mysteriously, bearing a seal from Lady General Sajani of his home country. She wanted to know details regarding the enemy before she would request her leadership send aid.

      There wasn’t much to tell. It was too late to save his country.

      Artillery fire hit three more times before he reached the door. One was close enough to shatter the nearby windows and sent him ducking under a table for protection. It was a wonder the building was still standing.

      Grabbing a white cloth that’d fallen, he opened the door and stepped out with his head held high. The rest of the soldiers there had left earlier to make their last stand. The civilians had been fleeing for days. This was the last effort to be made before the country fell. Diplomacy hadn’t worked up to this point, but it was the only chance the liaison had left.

      Before him stood the courtyard, the bright tulips and other flowers that usually graced the gardens were wilted and a shadow of their former beauty. The gateway entrance that he’d last seen with its cast-iron fence locked and chained had been crushed under the treads of a huge machine that was topped with a turret containing a gigantic set of cannons. They were pointed directly at the door. Welded together to form a circle, the barrels had a frightening and intimidating effect.

      To either side of the machine stood enemy soldiers with rifles raised. Standing before the huge war construction were two more. Their disposition, a sort of solid casualness, bespoke their status as veteran officers. These were not  line soldiers who’d only experienced a few weeks of war. Those two had trudged through the hell of war for years, if not decades. It showed in their eyes and their ability to look alert and unconcerned at the same time.

      One had a pistol at his side. The other not only didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons, but he’d also removed his helmet and was holding it to his side, allowing the Zenache man to see the pointed ears he’d heard about in prior reports. It was true then: these pale people weren’t human and mostly likely not from Terah at all unless, like the vykati, they were humans that’d changed form.

      Holding the white cloth before him and hoping it meant the same to them as it did to him, Troubet walked boldly up to the two closest soldiers.

      The armed one held out a hand and said in rough common, “Stop there.”

      Troubet obeyed. No sense starting off the negotiations on the wrong foot. He knew how much influence he could have on these two and it didn’t amount to much.

      Leaning together and speaking softly in a language he didn’t understand, the two spoke for a while before the first one said almost kindly, “You wish to surrender? By what authority?”

      So they did understand the meaning of the white cloth. “I am Liaison Micktil Troubet, Chief Officer to the Crown of Zenache. I speak on behalf of the royal family.”

      The two conversed some more briefly and then one handed his pistol to the other. When they finished, they approached carefully and the first one said, “We will accept your country’s unconditional surrender. You’re not in a position to negotiate terms. We’ll set our own.”

      Relief washed over the Liaison. So this was the end of the fighting, at least for now. Hopefully Rhidayar and Vharkylia would do better against this enemy. They didn’t have as strong a military as Zenache, but with more warning, there might be a chance of success. Even as he had those thoughts, however, Troubet knew there was no hope for those countries either.

      The soldier that’d done all the speaking continued, “We’ll be sending a message to your royal family. We’re disappointed they refused to meet us in person. At least your king should have been present here. I’m sure our method of communication will be one that cannot be misunderstood.”

      “I’d be happy to relay any message to…” He noticed the other soldier had raised the pistol and was pointing it directly at his forehead. The nature of this message was going to be exceptionally clear and bought at a higher price than the liaison wanted.

      “I’m sure you will.”

      The pistol fired.