Capítulo 151: - Joined by the Brigade [pt.2]
Laughter filled the air as the bright and warm fire tore through the night sky, the darkness surrounding them fleeing in fear of the torch light. Men and women danced and laughed, drank and some even sang only to then be bonked on the heads by their friends for their terrible singing. The night was merry and joyful, filled with ale and beer, meat and treats that passed from one hand to the other.
Lia watched as the fire burned brighter than ever rising towards the sky filled with stars, the embers and the ashes dancing and snaking across the sky as drums were beaten and lute were played. Laughter was all that filled Lia's head, the sounds of joy and happiness that surrounded her.
She held a small wooden cup in her hands, a cup filled nearly to the brim in a warm and golden colored liquid that only served to loosen everyone up for the party. Everyone was happy with the kills, everyone was happy with the deer brought back to their tables and the food that filled their stomachs full.
Everyone was happy, but Lia was different. Where there was laughter she was silent, where there was joy she was empty, and where there was a fire filled with warmth, she sat afar in the cold.
She watched the other hunters laugh and lift their glasses high thanking one another for their hard word, but all Lia could see amongst their smiling faces was the blood that dripped from their clothes. Their skin was bleached in red, stained and smeared into their clothes, as droplets fell like shining crimons pearls against the warm glow of the fire.
The small drops fell like time had been slowed, snaking towards the ground as the dull laughter filled Lia's ears and blurred, melded into one sound.
Fire.
Her eyes fell to her hands where the sight of the red blood that stained her skin filled her head with vision of the dreams. Fire raging, scorching and burning, blood pouring from open wounds as her grip on her blade slipped from the blood.
There was too much, too little, too late of a chance to run, and now she stood on that mountain side, watching the sun rise above the distant peaks of the far off hills and mountain tops. She could see Arnold standing here with this spear raised above his head, like a warrior moving in for the kill, moving in to take her life.
Like a huntress letting her arrow fly.
"Lia?"
Then it was over, like the snap of someone's fingers had set the world back to its rightful place. Lia looked up from her empty hands, now clean of any blood or grime, towards Lori who stood above her.
"You all right?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. My mind was just elsewhere at the moment."
Lori stared at her with worried eyes, eyes that were filled with concern as Lia looked into them, and at once she hated her. The worry, the concern, the pity and the fear, it all traced back to her heart where she felt those own concerns racing through her body, and she hated Lori then and there.
But she reminded herself it was only Lori, it was not some demon, not some haunted form of herself that she had to face alone. It was only Lori, and she was worried.
"Are you sure you're alright?"
She stood, placing her cup to the side, the ale still near the top as Lia didn't have much of an appetite for ale tonight.
"I'm fine, trust me. Anyways, what did you need?"
"Oh, right. Totlac is looking for you. Something about a word he needs to have about our journey."
She pointed towards one of the distant carts covered in cloth, well shaded and hidden from the rest of the caravan and the fire light.
"Thanks Lori."
Lia began to walk off past the fire and the merry laughter that haunted her mind and dreams like some ironic false dreams she was destined to never have, so the world mocked her with it.
The other hunters noticed her blank and emotionless face, a face that would set any parent to worry about their child, and at once they turned to watch her leave as Lori joined them around the fire.
"Is she alright?"
One of them asked, raising her glass of ale to gesture after Lia's fleeing figure. These hunters had been there when Lia snared the first kill of the night, and had been amazed at her calmness. She had stood above the tall grass, fully exposed to both sight and smell, but she didn't care.
In her eyes they could see the look of empty and blankness that consumed her as she let her arrow fly, and even as the deer's blood spilled the ground, Lia's red crimson eyes stood rooted to the distance, as if she was waiting for someone to appear.
Lori saw this as well, and shared the same worry for Lia that the rest of the girls did as they all shared glances between one another.
"She looked fine when she was helping us carry the deer back."
Said one who raised her glass and took a big swig of ale, gulping it down.
"But did you see her eyes? She looked so dead inside I would have mistaken her for one of the deer."
Lighter and then silence followed suit as they all watched the fire rage as the other members of the caravan danced along to the beating of the drums. Whether it was the twins who held each other hand in hand, or Lori's brother who danced to his heart's content with another girl, they all enjoyed themselves.
"Maybe fighting all those monsters in Kokono changed her. You don't just do that and come out of it fine. There's something that changes inside you."
Another girl piped up, holding her small daughter closer to her chest. This was Gea, the leader of the hunters who led the party through the woods at the front. She too had seen Lia's empty face and expression, but mistaken it for the neutral look of a hunter.
"Maybe she's worried. We are taking her on this trip to find her friend."
The others nodded in agreement, then looked to Lori who silently sipped at her own glass, watching the fire and their shadow dance along the cold hard ground.
"What about you Lori? Is there something we're not seeing?"
Lori sat silently for a moment thinking to herself, then shrugged, motioning to the fire with her glass.
"Maybe she just doesn't like parties."
It seemed like a good enough reason, so the others didn't push it any further and continued discussing amongst themselves about various topics while Lori once again sat silently by the fire, watching it flicker and burn.
She didn't mention to the others how she was the one who pulled the arrows from the corpses of the deer to reuse, nor did she mention what she found. It took a lot of practice for the girls to get used to switching between arrows, but it left less risk in having to track the beasts they shot down. But Lia, she had fired so quickly and without worry, with such an empty face and a calm mind.
They were not the eyes of someone who had hunted before, nor were they the eyes of the experienced.
They were the cold eyes of a killer.
But one thing she didn't say, and would never speak of again, was how the arrows they used broke on contact with the muscle, penetrating the skin and causing even more bleeding. They were never meant to be used more than once, which is why the girls often used two arrows to bring down their targets.
But Lia's kill only had one.
***
Away from the fire the darkness truly did chill one's bone to the core, especially after they had been covered in the spell of soot and ash, the warm fire dancing across their skin. But to Lia this cold was nothing more than a passing feeling.
She had chosen to sit outside the circle, an act that no doubt made her suspicious in the eyes of the other hunters, yet welcomed by the night. Now she moved past carts and carriages, people and pets that rushed from their own carriages to join the others by the fire in celebration.
Yet, despite her being so one with the cold air, her heart beat like a fire burning fast and quick, as her blood poured through her body in fear.
'Cain, tell me that this feeling will subside.'
He said nothing, he never spoke much since this morning, nor had he made himself known.
'Tell me that my fears will leave, that I'll stop seeing them.'
Again, he said nothing, even as her face twisted into fear as if she was about to cry, wrapping her arms around herself.
'Tell me that everything will be okay…'
Then he spoke, his voice was like a friend that fueled her blood and bones, chasing away the cold. But then it child her to her core once again.
'If I did…I would be telling you a lie.'
In some ways she was grateful that he hadn't tried to convince her that everything was going to be okay. She didn't need a father to protect her, nor did she need a mother to comfort her. She needed the truth, no matter how much she wanted the lie.
Lia reached Totlac's carriage rather quickly, the small pale lantern that hung from the single rafter above her head shone out like a single star lit flame in a sea of dark space.
'Should I knock?'
She seemed to take comfort in the sound of Cain's voice, as her fear and intuition raced through her mind.
'I wouldn't.'
She heeded his words and pulled back the cloth sheet flaps that acted as a door to the outside, a door that kept the wave of warm air that blasted across Lia's face from touching the darkness outside. Inside a small metal furnace was placed between two people, emitting a warm orange glow as Lia stepped inside.
One of the men was Totlac who sat beside the second man, sipping a small cup of warm tea, lifting his head as Lia entered the warmly lit room.
"Ah, Lia. Please, sit and join us."
She didn't sit. Her heart was pounding, her head was racing and now the fear that was flooding her bones and blood was gone, replaced by some mocking sense of knowing. Her crimson eyes glowed in the darkness as they snaked across the small tea set that had been laid out atop the small furnace, before they landed on the second man.
A man with only one arm and hand.
"Hello Rian."
The second man set down his teacup revealing his well chiseled features and several small scars that crossed over his cheeks and bald head. His many tattoos swirled up his body from his chest to his neck like wisps of smoke, his open collar revealing the long bandages that roped across his stubbed shoulder where Lia remembered a well featured and muscular arm to sit.
"It doesn't sound like you're happy to see me?"
He gave her a sad little smile as she stared back with a blank expression, taking a seat by the warmly lit furnace. Her eyes were hard as stone and cold as the darkness outside that traced her way into this home.
"I would if I hadn't asked you to stay behind."
He smiled again, taking his tea cup to his lips before gulping down the rest of the warm green liquid in one swig.
"You know I'm not one to follow orders."
"I know. I remember you telling me about that in the caves. We might be going into some caves later, the Eastern mountains are full of them."
"Just like the West. I'll manage. 'Fear compels people to do the things they hate.'"
He said, placing his teacup down whilst quoting her own line she had once quoted to him. The whole situation screamed in irony and skepticism.
"I'm more afraid for you than I am for some hole in the rock. I'll manage."
"We could face monsters, we could lose men. People, friends, loved ones…you might never see Becka again."
Rian drew his eyes to the floor and watched the small holes in the furnace dance with orange light, his heart beating in rhythm to the sounds of the drums.
"How did you know?"
"I knew for a while. Small things don't get past me so easily. He once said that details matter in friendships."
Rian scoffed, knowing full well who this 'he' was.
"Is he teaching you to die alone as well? Without your friends by your side? I know people who would give up their fortunes for that."
"But all those people are dead. You aren't."
Rian sighed as his mind faded back to the images of his friends and his family, the men in the caves and the ones who gave their lives for the survival of their friends. He even remembered as men threw themselves before him to die so that he might still live and lead the rest of them onwards to victory.
It was a sad memory. But it didn't stop him from seeing the reason.
"My point exactly."
If he was to die, even in this battle or the next - even in tens of dozens of years when he was old and frail, he would die to insure that his friends would survive. He wouldn't sit back at him in peace, waiting for the others to fall first.
Lia's eyes turned to him with worry and a lingering sadness, a feeling of knowing that only pained her to turn it back into regret. It was her next words that formed the hammer against the nail.
"You're not going to stop are you?"
Rian met her eyes and in the faded warm glow of the fire raging within the furnace, she could see his hallowed out features, the sleepless nights that must have haunted him since that day. The day fire raged in the city, blood spilled to the ground and the only smell that lingered in the air was that of iron and flesh, ash and death.
The night he lost his arm to another hand.
"Are you?"
Lia didn't say anything, only her eyes changed from the loss of fear to the sadness that filled her soul, until finally it too faded and was replaced by the only look of change that Rian would get.
At once, she stood and turned out the door, leaving Totlac and Rian to wallow in their silence, to wait and to think. How the mind wandered for those men in their moments, no one ever knew. But some guessed as the years came to pass, that those seconds turned to minutes, and those minutes turned to hours until finally one thought eased their mind as they wondered just how much Lia had changed.
When Lia left the carriage, letting the folds of cloth fall behind her, she was met with the faces of three individuals standing within the darkness and shadow of the home.
"You brought him?"
She asked as she descended the steps to face Lance, Shawl and Becka, all on even ground. They watched her with curiosity, which then turned to grief and regret.
"He didn't give us much choice."
Becka glanced between Lia and the cart, watching through the small crack in the door as the warm glow of the fire painted the room. She knew why Rian was here, and even as she felt no right to say what she said, she needed to say it.
"Please, don't send him back."
Lia's eyes turned to her but her expression remained blank, blank like a sheet of gray stone as the darkness melded with her features, casting her own shadow over her face.
"He wants this. He's spent so many nights awake thinking about that night, wondering how you would survive against him. He wants to help you. He doesn't want you to die."
She watched her as she spoke, hearing her words yet remaining silent until Becka's eyes turned to the ground in shame, hiding within the shadows of the night.
"What right do you have to speak of that night? Were you not the one who brought it on him?"
But Lia's words were the battering ram that brought her face back up into the light, her warm eyes dyed in the lanterns glow. Only one person needed to walk in the shadows tonight, outcast and alone.
She traced her eyes themselves through Lia's mind as her blue eyes succumbed to the fear and fire of Lia's red. At once she hated herself, but as if some spark was ignited within her, her mind traced back to the nights with Rian, how she held him when he sat in bed empty and afraid as if Arnold was standing in that very room.
Her heart pained to see her like that, and was filled with joy when she saw his smile, like butterflies in her stomach, her mind always tracing back to that one conversation behind the barn.
"If I could take it back, I would."
And the words were out of her mouth before she could think, a defiance in her tone that pulled Lance and Shawl back from her defense.
"But you can't. You have to live with your grief and your shame, your regret and your pain."
Even as Lia walked past them, her words traced back to their ears, and filled Becka's eyes with tears that glistened in the candle light.
"Just as I will have to live…"
Only one person needed to walk in the shadows tonight.
"...with accepting his request."
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