They blew away like leaves...
Chapter Thirty-Three - THE WASTING
What colour will the sun be when it rises? pondered Jerian, the earth solid underfoot, the stars hot white irons. On the battlefield he had stumbled across the decapitated body of an owl, its bloody plumage a twisted ruin, its wings encumbered as gradually it sank in the mud.
Red? Green?
Sounds filled the night, murmurings of the damned, notes of dissatisfaction, the slamming of shields and helms. There was thirst and anger amongst them, the aftermath of carnage, all the frustrations of victory.
Yellow?
Nothing was certain; soldier's gambled.
The farmers refashioned their maces and javelins. The artists made jewellery from arrowheads. Shopkeepers opened for business and masons were occupied, sculpters and carpenters augmenting their buildings with post-war confidence. But a significant few chose to retain their weapons and morbid livery, knowing no other trade, preying upon strangers whose flesh was new, vital, warm.
They were the pale and they haunted the land, taking the fight to the quick and uncovering fresh enemies. The wanderer pursued these renegades, their trail one of fear and waste, a ragged troop of disparate adventurers whose faces were ever changing, whose niche in the world was cut from greed, carved in wealth and misunderstanding. Jerian could not expect to catch them all. His task was unending. If the sun did not rise this day, still he and the earth were in motion.
It was a heavy toll they exacted, the ravening consequences of disorder, a price demanded in full. But dawn, the outcast knew, was only ever delayed, never suspended.
Wondrous orange in her wakening, the mother of light cast her spell on the sky, illuminating clouds and prising loose the dreams of beasts and forests. Shadows yawned, lingering, and the nine worlds deserted the past as one.
Saddling a nameless horse, Jerian brooded over yesterday's confrontations, the challenges met and the adversaries killed or conquered. As always he felt disheartened; the blood ran thick in his veins and his bowels clenched with anticipation, yet he was ageless, forever wedded to the cause he championed.
He could have no fear of death - but remained frightened, a small boy inside a large man, confused and emotional, driven by something bigger, a subsequent flesh inside which he babbled and cringed, the words he would not speak reverberating in his skull like trapped insects, fragments of countless lives he had no choice but to assemble, doing the best he could, failing often, retracing his steps and trying again, the occasional success down more to luck than cunning, on that persons lips a smile.
And a smile was his only reward. Udioe was lost to him, her comfort a memory...
The closeness another woman's.
He cried in her arms. He did not love or number his children. He wore his hair short and bathed in the wildest rivers, sometimes drifting out to sea where the fish could nibble him. His mind travelled free of his bones.
Through contemplation the nature of his tremors were made clear to him. It was a truth scaring Jerian, the knowledge that given the chance he would eschew his victories, would have stood by as summer and the Lady triumphed, if Udioe was his, the conclusion of his wanderings a shared grave, her hands in his own. There would be no more doubts, no more guilt, no more whispers, just the shining girl, limp and fragile, a love in death and silence...
But there was no such promise; never had been. So Jerian swallowed his pain and rode.
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