A Loss
Baneal
The shimmering light of sunrise had barely stretched its morning arms across the ocean’s surface above; as already the people of Baneal and Meridia hovered in traveling formation in the water of Baneal.
Hundreds of them, garbed in glistening shell shielding and tough dark leather, perched in a sphere formation on the backs of slim, large Baneal riding fish. Tridents, spears, knives and swords were the weapons strapped to their sides. Each man and woman wore stern, determined expressions; they had trained months for this day.
Anticipation rippled in the currents. The fish swimming close-by avoided and swam around the group, sensing the emotions that seeped their scent through the people’s pores.
Every man, woman and child was with them. Not a soul would stay behind.
Tao pivoted on the large shimmering fish he was riding, facing the group. His voice echoed through the cool, breezy waters, through a curved shell he held to his lips. “My people, today we ride to Meridia on a mission of rescue. For months we have prepared for the task, and on this day we shall not be denied.”
A roar boomed through the crowd.
“With noble hearts we shall free our people and chase the scum of Sangfoul from our waters. We shall fight so fiercely that they shall never again return to torment us!”
The crowd cheered, the noise startling their riding-fish.
“The people of Baneal and Meridia will live together in harmony, protecting each other, caring for each other, and becoming one people. And, in time, we shall travel to Sangfoul itself to free the enslaved people of Baneal. Together we shall triumph! We will not rest until all wrongs committed by the tailfinned race are righted! We shall have our revenge!”
The crowd roared for long moments. There was no hushing them.
“People of Baneal, remember the souls of our lost loved ones will protect and comfort us on this journey. Take warmth in your heart because of this. I know that Ailcalm, my deceased son, rides by my side.
“People of Meridia, I have learned much in the past months about your Gelu. May he also watch over us and keep us from harm.” Tao paused to let his words hover in the currents, before finishing his speech. “For the kind heart of the heavens, may we succeed! Let us ride!” A mammoth wailing sound careened forth from the large shell as Tao’s lips pressed upon it, his cheeks puffing with water.
Small fish scattered away from the noise in all directions, and the gargantuan mass of riding companions seemed to hum as they slowly stirred to movement.
Then, with a gust, the sphere of warriors moved forward like a crossbow arrow at the instant of its firing.
Baneal stood in its wake, hollow pillars and vacant water. Somewhere in the distance a whale sang. The currents were chill and swift, but no-one was there to witness it.
Within the Sphere
Anna’s husky new riding companion shook beneath her as they surged forth. She had never been a part of one of Baneal’s traveling spheres before, and was baffled by its sights and sounds as they swept with increasing speed.
People rode for vast lengths in all directions about her, keeping exact pace on their riding-fish. One could have sworn that they were going nowhere, simply swimming in place. The only giveaway was the seaweed, coral and sand, which collided with the natural wall of the traveling sphere.
Greens, blues and browns meshed and rippled on the sphere’s outer sides, the particles careening past as they swept forward.
Anna gripped her riding-fish tighter and looked to Millay on her right, who seemed also to be holding onto her riding-fish for dear life. “Is this as much fun as you thought it would be?” she shouted to Millay in an effort to be heard over the loud humming in the sphere.
“We should do it again sometime!” Millay shouted back and cracked a smile while hugging her face against her riding fish.
Both of the girls’ curly ruby locks waved in the sweeping currents.
Hours passed and the two girls rode their riding-fish close, for company on the journey. But Anna’s mind had drifted elsewhere; her eyes glazed with vague hollowness, lost in thought.
Millay glanced over to her. “What are you thinking?”
Anna shook her head and returned to the present. “You would think that the deaths of my family would be on my mind as we ride to free my people… and yet it is Maanta who haunts my thoughts.”
Millay hadn’t known Maanta personally but had seen him at a distance in Orion’s Birth. “He was a handsome boy!”
“Is,” Anna corrected her, “a little lanky, but there is something embracing and handsome about the purity that seems to be in his eyes. He has such a strong soul.”
Silence descended for a moment as both girls lapsed into thought.
Millay unclenched a hand from her riding-fish and held it to Anna’s own beside her. “It pains me to say, but surely he is no longer among the living. Lola and Sift found no trace of him around Orion’s Birth. And he could have come to us in Baneal, because he had been there before, but he never came.”
“He is alive,” Anna said, but as she spoke only half the words reached Millay’s ears. So lost in her mind, she barely raised her voice enough to be heard. “I can feel it in my soul. But that doubt of what outwardly seems to be is what haunts me. I cannot wait to be by his side once more. We only knew each other for a short time, and yet in that time he meant so much to me. We were growing so close.”
Millay lapsed into silence, and they rode on.
Hours passed as currents and sea life whipped by, until the light on the ocean’s surface had reached its brightest for the day.
It was then that Anna’s stomach grumbled in hunger. How long will it be before we lessen this pace and near Meridia? she wondered. I hope we find something to eat before battle. Surely it would be a bad idea to fight on empty stomachs.
Tao sounded a horn from the front of the traveling sphere, signaling for the group to stop.
“It’s about time,” Millay mumbled at Anna’s side.
Within moments the transparent sphere that had formed by their sheer momentum began dissipating as they slowed. Kelp flowed like streamers past Anna and Millay’s eyes, one piece slapping upon Anna’s face and obscuring her vision.
“Now that we’re stopping, I hope there’s more around here to eat than kelp,” Anna said to Millay, wiping the slimy green plant away from her eyes. It rippled off in the water behind them.
Tao led the group toward an outstretched cavern wall close by, instructing them to flatten into the shadow of the outward rising stone as much as they could. The entire group could not fit, but they did their best and glided upon their riding-fish while awaiting Tao’s instruction.
Their leader himself swam back and forth, his bone mask clinging stearnly to his face. Anna watched him, then noticed Sebastian too – his eyes fixed intently on his father.
“We are only a few leagues from Meridia now,” Tao spoke only loud enough for the group to hear him. “And so we must be careful not to be heard or noticed by our enemies before the time has arrived to attack. I suggest that the moment to release our enslaved has not yet arrived though, as we are famished from our journey and our bellies need replenishing.
“I have chosen this place to stop for precisely that reason. As we swam a group of four massive whales caught the corner of my eye above. They are large and would feed us well. They will also provide our weapons with some warm-up work prior to the battle.”
Anna looked to the well-lit water above and behind them and, sure enough, the torsos of four whales glistened in the rippling sunlight. Though, distant as they were, they appeared only the size of mere pebbles.
Tao stretched his bone-armor clad arm to the right of him, pointing his finger to the empty waters beyond it. “Sift will lead one third of our group in this direction and attack the whales from behind. This will frighten the creatures and cause them to flee closer to our position. The whales will focus solely on Sift’s group, not noticing the r
est of us sweeping up from beneath them.” Tao spun upon his riding-fish, toward Sift. “Sift, take Sebastian, Anna and the rest of our youth as your group, as we will need the strength of our older warriors to actually take down our prey.”
Sift pushed forward with a massive thrust on Lola’s back. “This sounds like a solid strategy,” he said. “Young people of Meridia and Baneal, come to my side.” He waved his massive, noir arm in the currents.
Anna gently kicked the side of her riding-fish. “That’s us,” she spoke softly as it sputtered behind Sift, quickly joined by Sebastian, Millay and the rest of the youth.
Sift turned to the group of young warriors behind him. “Are we ready?”
Anna smiled to him and braced tight to her shimmering fish. “We’re ready.”
“Then off we go.” Sift faced front once more, before stroking Lola’s scaly forehead and riding her swiftly into the water before him. In his wake came the gathering of youths, all hugging together tightly in the swiveling current path.
Currents wove about Anna’s skin as she and the others rode forward and slightly upward, not knowing when Sift would turn around and head toward the whales. The ocean became lighter and lighter as they rose closer to its surface.
Then Sift curled up and back on Lola, darting in the whales’ direction once more.
Anna clenched her riding fish’s scaly sides with her legs and swam after Sift. The sunlight falling through the water above twinkled in her eyes.
Whoosh! A school of smaller, ruby red fish gushed past them, bobbing the warrior youths from side to side.
As they emerged from the cloud of fish, Anna could see the four massive whales appearing larger and larger before her, un-attuned to what was about to happen.
“Swarm on them from above!” Sift shouted in her direction. Lola picked up speed, as the whales were only twenty yards away now.
The seconds passed quickly as Sift and his group bobbed above the whales, thrusting pikes they had strapped to their sides into the whales’ hulls.
“OOOOOOOOOO!” the whales bellowed, temporarily deafening their attackers. “OOOOOOOOOO!” With all the speed their large bodies could muster they fled down and away.
“There they are!” Anna exclaimed, pointing below her as she chased the whales. She had caught sight of Tao and the others rising up to surprise the massive beasts. She halted her fish and let Tao’s group do the remaining work.
“OOOOOOOOOO!” the whales cried as Tao and the older warriors surprised them, lunging tridents into their bellies, cutting into their fins and wrapping kelp ropes about their bodies, with weights attached, to help lug them down. The warriors heaved on the ropes while slashing into the whales’ underbellies. “OOOOOOOOOO!” their agonizing cries echoed.
Moments passed, wrestling with the beasts as blood fogged the waters and the whales slowly subdued and began dying.
Tears flowed from Anna’s eyes as sorrow for the lost lives of the creatures welled within her. “Isn’t there a better way to do this?” she asked Sift as he floated close by.
Sift remained, watching the tumbling, moaning whales beneath him. “Before there was no better way to take them down,” he spoke with a hint of what might be his own sadness in his voice. “But now, you are right, there is a better way.”
Sift dove down on Lola’s back to where Tao dislodged his trident from one of the beasts’ sides. The few exchanged a few words as Tao looked up to Anna. He moved his right arm in the water, instructing four slim men to his and Sift’s side.
After a moment’s coaching, the leather-clad men dismounted their riding-fish and swam to the fronts of the whales they had been attacking.
The four men disappeared into the mouths of the whales.
“What are they doing?” Millay spoke from behind Anna as they watched on.
“Haven’t you ever seen someone take down a whale?” Sebastian mocked her from her side. “They’ve sent men into the whales’ mouths to invade their bellies and cut out their hearts. It’s a much quicker way to put the creatures out of their misery.”
“Sounds grotesque,” Anna said. “But it’s better than what they were doing, I suppose.”
“OOOOOOOOOO!” the whales moaned, shaking in the waters in an attempt to discourage the warriors. Then, one by one, the whales’ bodies went limp and began sinking to the ocean floor.
Moments passed, before the four men who had entered the whales’ mouths emerged; covered in the blood of the animal’s mutilated stomach.
Anna’s stomach churned at the sight.
The people of Baneal and Meridia quickly led their lifeless prey to the coral dotted sands below. Here, the whales crashed into the coral beneath them, spewing clouds of sand all about their bodies.
The group hugged close to the coral garden as their cooks cut through whale flesh with bone knifes, making deep gashes to free the fatty meat. The chefs heated the meat over cracked malta shells and within the hour, the group was dining on a healthy feast.
Anna paused to whisper something before she partook of her portion. “Gelu, please take care of these creatures’ souls, for they have given their lives for us.”
Millay and Sebastian were close to Anna’s side.
Millay clasped her hand. “Do you think that once animals die they also go to Gelu’s side?”
Anna chewed her first bite and swallowed before answering, the rich and delectable morsel sliding down her throat. “For what they do for us, they deserve to.”
“Then they must, I suppose.” Millay released Anna’s hand and bit into the meat bobbing in the water before her.
As they ate their meals, the sunlight ribbons waving through the water above became slightly less bright, reminding them that the day was drawing on.
Upon finishing, Tao called them closer together once more, so that all could hear him speak. “It is time for us to venture on the remainder of our journey to Meridia. The daylight lessens and there are only a few hours left for us to fight today if we plan on freeing Meridia’s enslaved tonight. Do what you need to do and mount your riding-fish so that we may ride.”
The group had finished their meals now and placed their leftovers into the bone hulls of the hollowed whale carcasses. This would stop the small pieces from roaming free in the ocean breeze. But the remains would not go to waste; carnivorous fish would soon come along, scenting the whales’ blood in the currents.
The group remounted their riding-fish and quickly rode in the direction of Meridia.
The currents whipped briskly across Anna’s cheeks as she hugged the ocean floor on Nansk’s back.
And there it was, rising up slowly from the sands and mountainous shale walls in the distance, the shimmering spiral iris of Meridia, Cardonea Tower.
Her heart beat fast in her chest. She hadn’t seen it for months, and yet, in this moment, the sight of her city, called her to its side. A thought leapt into her mind. If we succeed there today, will I rule there as the heiress to my father’s legacy? Would Tao and the others follow me, or would they secure rule for themselves?
After all, they hadn’t really treated her much like a Zharista since her fleeing from Meridia.
Tao halted the group where they floated, beckoning them as low as they could go to the sands below them. “Meridia is barely over the ridge. Those who are not warriors must wait for us to succeed and return. Stay low to the sand, and if confronted by the people of Sangfoul, scatter quickly. A small group of our youngest warriors will remain behind to protect you.”
Anna knew this meant that her and her friends, along with the rest of the youth sent to scare the whales earlier in the day, would be the ones staying. “I will not remain behind,” she spoke up. “These are my people we fight for, and though I am not acting as my people’s Zharista now, it has been my family who has ruled over them in peace for years. I repay a debt to them by fighting for their freedom.”
Tao looked to her. “You don’t have to risk your life, Anna. Your people know how much they mean t
o you and what you would endure to grant their freedom. We all do. But there is no reason to risk the life of the last remaining heir to Meridia’s throne.”
“Thank you for caring for me.” Anna rode her fish to Tao’s side. “I have made up my mind.”
Sebastian had been looking agitated and red in the face all during Anna’s conversation with his father. “I’m not staying behind this time, father,” he said insistently. He was not about to let a girl he felt less adept than him, fighting wise, go to battle when he could not. “Someday you’ll have to let me join you in combat. There has never been a more worthy cause than today.”
“Son!” Tao reprimanded him.
“If she goes, I go.” Sebastian quickly dove on his riding-fish within a group of older warriors close to Tao.
Tao looked to Millay and the rest of the youth. “Is there anyone else who wishes to charge into battle naively?”
The rest of the group was silent.
“Very well, you are needed here more than you know, to protect our mothers and children.”
Anna looked to Millay a few yards away. “Be safe.”
“Me?” Millay laughed. “You be safe! We should be fine.” The group of people staying behind hunkered down into a nearby crater, flattening down between flowing kelp swaying within its bowl. There they blended in, barely seen, whilst Tao, Sift, Anna, Sebastian and the hundred or so other warriors faced Cardonea Tower once more.
Tao’s eyes fixed on the city before him, contemplating destiny. “We charge into a battle which many of us shall not return from. We will see our brothers and sisters fall by our sides. Our own lifeblood might purge itself into the sea. If there is anyone who wishes to stay behind, do so now. We will not hold it against you.” No one moved.
“We stay by your side,” said a warrior beside Tao.
Strengthened by the firm resolve of his people, Tao began to drift forward on his riding fish. “Then we must move quickly, before the day’s light fades,” he said with a last glance behind him. Cool currents swiveled about him. “We will divide into two groups as we approach. I will lead the warriors of Baneal in the first group, and will swoop directly for Cardonea Tower when we enter the city. The second group will be the warriors of Meridia, led by Sift. You will serve as our protection in the back in case we are flanked. Follow us also to Cardonea Tower, but leave space between us so that if we are attacked from behind, you can peal the tailfinned ones from our backs. Let us separate into our two groups now.”
Sift and the pale, blue-skinned Meridian warriors held back and let Tao and the dark-skinned warriors of Baneal pass in front of them.
Sebastian patted Anna on the back as he hurried past her to join the front group. “You may not have anyone to fight after we get through with them,” he blustered.
“I wish none of us had anyone to fight,” she spoke back.
Sebastian hollered back as he swept on. “That makes one of us!” He had anticipated battle for years, since his father first began training him.
Tao’s group moved a good twenty yards ahead, while Anna stayed at Sift’s side. Their pace quickened, Cardonea Tower growing larger and larger before them, like a large horn glistening to the ocean’s surface above.
A small school of orange fish swam past Anna’s cheek as she spoke. “Will he be ok?”
Sift didn’t look at her, but instead increased his pace to match that of Tao’s group. “Who? Sebastian? He is a strong warrior, but one of youthful mind. I worry for the fate awaiting him.”
Anna couldn’t see Sebastian anymore; he had moved through the group to Tao’s side. Her fingers clutched Nansk tightly. “As do I.”
Cardonea Tower rose higher and higher before them as they approached, its windows once specks of blur on its wall, now came to sharpness in Anna’s sight. Something was wrong, but what? Nothing moved in the flickering light of the windows. Aside from small schools of fish, nothing moved in the waters about Meridia.
It’s a trap, the thought rushed to Anna’s mind. Where are the tailfinned beings? They must know we’re coming if they’re not out living their daily lives. Before she had a chance to share her thoughts with Sift, the sound of rushing currents swept into her ears from somewhere before Tao’s group.
They had been about to cross over a cliff that sloped down in Meridia, when instantly a horde of tailfinned people of Sangfoul burst up from below them, engaging them in combat. Evanshade led the attackers, his double-sided trident whirling and thrusting against Tao’s own. Evanshade’s muscles tensed and thrust in the water with his weapon.
“Ambush!” Tao shouted back to Sift’s group as he was pushed back and cut from the longest point of Evanshade’s trident.
Anna could barely make out what was happening in the blur of dark-skinned and tailfinned people.
Sift swept forward on Lola’s back with his trident poised for attack. “To their sides!” he bellowed.
Following closely in his path, Anna’s heart heaved in her chest. She could feel her veins pulsing about her pastel blue skin. Minute sand in the water stung her flesh as she rushed faster and faster toward Tao and the others’ side.
Within moments she was engaged in combat with a tailfinned man whose eyes were a burnt, hazed-over brown. A scar ran across his forehead that tapered off around his jaw. Her muscles burned as their tridents locked and wrestled. He spun in the currents, almost throwing her from Nansk, then retreated and charged for her, attempting to run her through.
They locked iron once more, and this time she managed to throw him off guard. She pivoted him downward with her trident, thrusting him toward the sand below. He fled beneath her in frustration, and whipped off to find someone else to battle with, whom he would defeat with more ease.
Anna’s stomach churned as she noticed the bodies of several of her comrades limply sinking down to the sand beneath the fighting. Blood streamed out from where they had been wounded, and some twitched as they breathed their final aquatic breaths.
Screams and wails purged the silence that had possessed the water, mere moments before and Anna rejoined the fighting with a clench of Nansk’s sides.
She found herself close to where Sebastian was battling his own opponent, but before she could signal to him, a tailfinned man over twice her size besieged her. His long sword descended against her trident, but she deftly maneuvered to evade its blade.
“You’ve found the wrong girl to pick on!” she goaded him, while clanging her weapon crisply against his blade several times. “We will free my people! I promise you that!”
The massive hulk of a man beat his thick tail-fin vigorously beneath him, causing the water beneath Anna to swirl about her. Off balance, she was swept from her riding fish’s back, and sucked down in the current’s flow.
“Help!” she called to whoever may hear above.
The massive man of Sangfoul loomed above her now, his vast body eclipsing the light from the water above.
Clang!
He slashed for her with his sword and met her trident with swift force, then sliced again for her neck.
“Accht!” he cried, and Anna spotted three trident spikes protruding through his stomach.
Sift stood on his back with his trident running the man through, and rode him to the sand and hard stone floor below. Sift dislodged the trident, and with a crack, thrust it through the man’s skull. “Are you alright?” he called to Anna.
“Thanks to you I am alive! And that is all that I can ask for right now!” she responded breathlessly.
Sift quickly swam to her side and together they rejoined the battle. Within moments, they found themselves overwhelmed with attackers and huddled in a group, Tao and Sebastian close by.
As Anna battled her own foe, she saw Evanshade slay three warriors of Baneal with one keen maneuver of his trident. “That venomous spawn!” she cursed. “You will die at my hands, Evanshade!” She shouted to him as she backed her young opponent up and Sift ran him through.
If Evanshade had heard
her he paid her no mind, gusting with his tail down to a group of Meridian warriors beneath him.
Anna turned, immediately shivering with shock at what she witnessed.
There was Venge, his sharp pointed teeth and demonic grin thrusting toward them, a shimmering sword clutched in his fists. With a swoop of his blade Venge nearly severed Sebastian’s head. Bone crunched against blade. The boy’s head spun against a flap of skin still connected. Blood flooded the waters, and Sebastian’s crippled husk convulsed, sinking.
Venge flipped back and quickly swam away.
“Nooooo!” Tao screamed, chasing after Venge on his riding-fish.
Anna gasped for breath as Sift defended her, stunned to stillness from the shock.
But then, in that moment after Sebastian’s death, a loud rumble echoed and bellowed from beneath the stone and sand below. The ocean quaked about them, causing all who were fighting to lose their balance and separate from their opponents to avoid being hurt.
The loud rumble increased, deafening all in Meridia, as the land split beneath them and caved in on itself around Cardonea Tower. The East and West Shale Walls crumbled into the open ring about the towering iris and then burst upwards in an explosion of air that swept in gargantuan volcanic bubbles toward the ocean’s surface.
Cardonea Tower itself began to lean and crack.
“Retreat!” Evanshade harked to the warriors of Sangfoul. “They have distracted us beyond the city’s walls while sabotaging Meridia from below! Gather your families quickly from the tower and retreat to Sangfoul!
The tailfinned warriors of Sangfoul quickly scattered, fleeing either into the unseen distance, or making for Cardonea Tower to rescue their families.
Only their opponents, the people of Baneal and Meridia, remained.
“Brace yourselves. They may return. This is surely a trap,” Tao spoke to his comrades; his eyes alert and fixed on where Venge had fled into the open sea.
They had lost at least thirty of their number since the battle had begun, and bodies from both sides swayed in piles against the ocean floor.
Moments passed.
Large stones broke free from Cardonea Tower in the distance, falling and imbedding in the sand below.
Tailfinned people scurried like panicked minnows in the distance to free their people from the tower, before its possible collapse.
Anna watched painfully as Cardonea Tower cracked in three pieces, booming to the sands below. She would never know her Meridia again. All was lost, as sand consumed the water where the tower had fallen. A gust of cinnamon-hued fog swept all about the ocean, stinging Anna’s face before robbing her and the others of sight.
25