True Warriors Sing by Rowan Erlking (classic book list .TXT) 📕

“LjuBa.” Ljev gently shook her shoulder.

Blinking, LjuBa opened her eyes, gazing up at the still dark sky. She closed them again, rolling over. The fur in her collar tickled her nose, and she sneezed.

“Wake up, LjuBa.” Ljev hissed. “MiKial’s daughter, wake up.”

Moaning, LjuBa sat up. She could barely see his face. There was no moon. “It is still night.”

“The sun will rise within the hour. We have to keep moving.” He got up, extending a hand to her. “Come on. You can do this. Just lean on me and you’ll be ok.”

“I’m so tired,” LjuBa moaned. “Why did I leave home?”

Ljev chuckled. “Now I know you are still asleep. LjuBa wake up. We are going to find your father. Come on.”

Find her father.

The reality of it shook a certain sense into her mind. Yet around her so much was sleeping. The natural song was a lulling one. Only a few melodies of nocturnal life, crickets and owls and bats, was on the light wind, and even those were turning towards bed as they were tired from a long night of hunting.

“Come on, LjuBa.” Ljev grasped her hand, pulling her up to her feet. “Let’s walk.”

He propped her for a little while until she was able to shake off her drowsiness. When LjuBa did, he opened up a corner of the kerchief the farmer’s wife had given them and passed over a broken off piece of black bread. Taking it, LjuBa peered at it.

“It’s burnt,” she muttered.

“No.” Ljev was already munching on it, actually sounding like he enjoyed it. “The color is from the sweetener and the grain.”

Setting it to her lips, Ljuba tasted it. Again, a sweet yet bitter taste, still it was different from the drink the woman had given her, almost entirely. It wasn’t bad. It was just odd.

“What is this?” she murmured.

He shrugged. “Some sort of sweetbread.”

She tasted more, munching on the soft yet dense bread. Shrugging, she stuck out her hand for more.

Ljev chuckled, breaking off another piece. “You like it?”

LjuBa replied, “I don’t hate it.”

He laughed more.

They drank water from their sheepskin bladders that they had filled at the farmhouse. Then they chewed pieces of the salted lamb, all while walking. LjuBa demanded only one break after the sun rose, feeling her body demand to take private attention in the bushes. Happily, Ljev found his own spot, just as eager to relieve himself. She found him again where she left him though he was washing his hands with the water from the bladder.

Pointing at the spilling water, she said, “We’re going to have to fill those again if you do that.”

He held out the bladder to her, nodding. “Of course. But you’d better wash too. I know you want to.”

Sighing, she took it.

It wasn’t how she imagined a warriess going about in the wild. All the day-to-day necessities had become extremely difficult, seeking food, water, rest and cleanliness. She wished she could have bathed at the farmhouse. It was too late now. Unfortunately, with the baron’s men chasing after them, the chances would be nil.

They walked a long distance towards the north, keeping both ears open for the approach of horses and riders. So far all they detected was the rustle of trees and grass. It was well after noon before they saw anyone. Unfortunately that someone saw them first and ran off with a start to tell about it.

“We need to run,” Ljev said, grabbing LjuBa by the arm.

She groaned, yet sprinted after him. “I’m tired of running! This is undignified!”

Yet she did not stop running, singing a song to strengthen her heart as Ljev rushed them to the edge of cultivated land. They hopped a fence then ran through cabbages, heading towards the distant line of the northern forest. The farmers in the fields rose to watch, but did not approach the two red-haired warriors even as the pair dashed into the spinach next.

“What’s that up ahead?” LjuBa shouted, pointing to the cluster of houses that were now becoming more visible under the large trees. “Is that a village? I thought we were avoiding villages?”

“Can’t help it,” he answered, nearly breathless. “North is straight through there. It will take to long to go around.”

They heard horse hooves behind them on the road.

Ljev and LuBa glanced back once. Beyond the fence, rising up the hill on the far road, they saw three riders. One shouted, pointing after them. One of the others urged his horse quicker to the lane, riding fast to catch them.

“Ljev! We have to stop! We have to make a stand!” LjuBa shouted, hearing the hooves get closer and closer.

“Only when they’re on us will I do that!” Ljev called back, dragging her along.

She groaned, yet tried to keep up. Her heart was starting to strain against the calm of the song. She was afraid it was going to burst.

But then one of the other riders called back to the one chasing them. LjuBa understood most of it though it was in the eastern dialect.

“Them, let go! Worth it, not!”

The rider called back, “I them almost have!”

“Fool! In there no go! Gole has! You get eaten! Them die, let!”

The rider yanked on his horse’s reins, wrapping them around his fists to keep from going further. The animal reared, whinnying hard, then spun around, running as if something terrible were on its flank.

Ljev halted, staring back at the riders breathlessly. All three of the baron’s men watched them then turned, riding off, though one called to LjuBa and Ljev.

“In there, you die!”

His horse lurched, taking him away from the fields, then soon back over the hill.

LjuBa clenched her chest, panting with a whisper of the song to keep her heart together. She willed it with all she had. And as the pain eased, the sides of her thundering heart no longer strained.

Lifting her eyes after the riders, she murmured to Ljev, “What did they mean by that? Why did they run off?”

Barely shaking his head, Ljev replied, “I don’t know.” He then turned, looking back towards the village. “He said something about death…that it wasn’t worth it to go in there.”

“He said something about getting eaten,” LjuBa snapped. Her eyes fell on the farmers who gazed over at them with draw out, grim faces. They continued to work in silence, stooped as if there were invisible slave drivers whipping their backs. “What is over there that scares them so much?”

Shaking his head again, Ljev started once more to walk towards the village. “I don’t know. But isn’t it the duty of a warrior to find out?”

“It is…” But LjuBa felt sick in her stomach. There was an odd yet distant off-tone in the direction of the village. She had detected it earlier, but with being chased, she had thought it was something to do with the pain in her heart. But now she knew it wasn’t that.

LjuBa followed Ljev at walk, heading much slower to the north. As they approached the village proper they started to hear weeping. It was the saddest melody yet, accompanied by an ominous undertone that was so unnatural, like a knife scraping on metal wires, that LjuBa braced her arms closer to her body setting her hand on her sword, her finger’s curling around the handle. Ljev had already slid his blade out two inches, clenching the handle in his fist, his breath going rigid.

Every eye of the village turned on the sight of them as they walked in further towards the village center where the marketplace ought to be, their plan to cut through still in motion. Murmurs, hushed under hands, cries of shaky hope escaping before being stifled by fear and shifty glances around the corner followed them also, all the way in.

Ljev stopped at the edge of the market square, tensing. “Oh no.”

LjuBa stepped next to him, peering in, then drew in a gasp. She immediately drew her sword.

“Now, now…” said a deep honey sweet voice from the center of the market square, a place that Ljev and LjuBa could see was covered in a wash of blood, bones and pieces of freshly chewed on bodies. The source of the voice was a disgusting looking human-like creature the size of a horse cart. It had beady black eyes that could see them very clearly, gray fat skin that wrinkled and folded over in several layers over its rotund stomach, tree trunk legs and long ape-like arms. It was a demon, almost forgotten in modern KiTai, often regaled to the storybooks those days. A gole.

It grinned its hinged wide smile, each sharp tooth stained with the blood of its current meal, one gnawed-on human leg in his hand. “Two tasty new morsels. Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the inside. Which one should I eat first?”

Then, swifter than a bird, it was standing right in front of them.

LjuBa screamed, jumping back.

“Ah!” It reached for her. “I like screamers!”

“No!” Ljev whipped out his sword, swiping for the gole’s arm. The blade hardly even scratched its thick skin.

The demon smiled, laughing throatily. Then it smacked Ljev with the back of its meaty arm, throwing the man against the house wall.

Ljev toppled to the ground with a groan.

“Fool.” The gole peered down at him with a haughty grin, wrenching LjuBa into a hugging grasp to haul her back to the bloody ground. “Don’t you know you can’t cut through gole skin? When I’m done feasting on her, I’ll have you next.”

“No!” Ljev popped back up on his feet, pushing off the cobblestone.

But the demon was already in the center of the village square enjoying the look of pain on LjuBa’s face as it pulled on her arm to watch it strain. Ljev dashed after him, his eyes fixed darkly on the demon. LjuBa watched Ljev rush up, heaving his sword as the gole casually glanced at the man. It twisted her arm, preparing to break it.

Immediately the words to the sleeping song came to her lips, and LjuBa sang it with all her strength.

“None of that!” The gole slapped a hand over her mouth, blearily blinking his eyes to stay awake.

Ljev shouted the warrior’s cry, “Jodis! Temis! Klodil! Hanin! Give strength to my sword. Cleave!” bringing down the blade hard on the gole’s back. 

The demon stiffened, sharply drawing in a breath. It let go of LjuBa’s arm, dropping her. She thumped into a pile of human bones, some child sized.

“LjuBa! Get away from there!” Ljev cried out.

She stumbled back, tripping on a femur then slipping on the stack of skins the demon had collected as if to make a suit out them.

The gole was up, but its eyes were not on her. Beastily fixed on Ljev, the demon reached out to tear his head off. But LjuBa watched Ljev leap back, his bloody sword raised once more in a swing as he let out the war cry