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

He split it in two, right through the top.

It was like he cleaved a rock, the blade stopping in the center of the demon’s back along the spine. It staring goggle eyed at the warrior with every inch of disbelief on its body.

Ljev let out the war cry again, heaving out his sword and hacking off its head like a melon chopped from the vine. His sword tip clanked heavily on the stone as he stepped back, panting, his warrior’s suit splattered in demon blood.

“He it, kills,” someone murmured.

LjuBa looked around them, hearing the return of natural sound to the village, the knife-like scrape halting as a symphony cut off. The villagers emerged, every single one stepping out with stares at the pair of red-haired warriors in the center of the blood. Their eyes were on the demon, but more on Ljev and his dripping sword.

Ljev wiped his forehead off with the back of his hand, marching over to LjuBa. “Are you ok?”

LjuBa nodded dumbly, blinking at him.

Peering into her face, he searched her eyes then felt her forehead. “Are you sure? You look dazed.”

“You killed that demon,” LjuBa murmured.

He smiled, stroking the side of her face with his bloodied hand. “You slowed it down.”

She shook her head, looking over to the corpse then at all the dead it had killed. “No…I just—”

“Sung the right song at the right time,” he answered before she could finish her retort. Ljev put his arm around her and pulled her close. “You saved us.”

Her body was shaking. LjuBa couldn’t stop it. She looked at her hands, staring at them. Her sword was still in it. In her terror, she had not let go, yet she had been useless in the fight. She felt so ashamed.

“You gole, kills.” One man approached them, his body shaking like hers. Tears were in his eyes. He was crying.

“You us, saves,” a woman said, clasping her hands and falling to her knees as if to worship them. Others gathered around in the same manner.

Ljev turned, facing them with his jaw suddenly set in anger. He said, “The Baron Hoisten you not save, why?”

The locals all looked among each other.

One man murmured, “We no send, can. Gole before we escape, catches, eats.”

LjuBa felt a shudder of anger run through Ljev’s body. She could almost hear it in his breathing. He cast a glare at the demon then at all the bones and dead bodies in the square. Leading her under the protection of his arm out of the death scene, Ljev called to the nearest important looking man. “You gole, burn.” He then pointed to others. “You people, bury. The square, clean.”

The people scattered to obey as if that squire were the king himself ordering them about. As they did, Ljev walked LjuBa to a bench outside a shop where she could sit. He crouched in front of her, checking her arm, unclenching her hold on her sword.

“You’ll be fine. You can sheath this.”

Nodding, LjuBa stuck the blade back into its scabbard.

He looked back at the bloody scene, his dark expression intensifying as he murmured. “Goles rarely travel alone. Its mate is probably near by.”

“There’s another one?” LjuBa stiffened. She looked over at the houses then towards the trees, as goles were well known to live in the forest near villages.

“Possibly,” he replied, rising. He then called to one of the men. “You! You firecrackers have?”

The man looked puzzled, shaking his head. “No.”

Hanging his shoulders in a quick slump, Ljev then turned to a woman who was watching him near by. He said to her, “You pots, pans, all metal spoons, gather. Here bring.”

The woman blinked at him, but nodded, rushing away as fast as she could, calling for others to go help her. LjuBa watched the village bustle about. Several villagers ran in carrying chests to the center of the square while others carefully collected the bones off the ground with the half eaten body parts, weeping for what looked like grief and joy at the same time, loading them into the chests. The square was soon cleared of the carnage; the bloodstain the only proof people had been killed there. Then like an army, old women, young women, children and men came out with buckets and brooms and brushes, dousing the stone with soap and vinegar, crawling on their hands and knees to scrub.

LjuBa rose, the cleaning song coming to her lips, trembling with the tears that coursed down her face. This was what a warriess was for. Saving people from this.

The song rose, the villagers joining in the tune singing in their strange dialect to her strong melody. And as the song rose, the red and baked-brown color in the stone grew lighter and lighter, lifting off as if death had never occurred there.

Ljev stood next to her, singing also.

The song was interrupted by the clatter of multiple pots and pans gathered in arms and hands of the villagers, the woman bowing to Ljev and setting them down at his feet.

“I brings,” she said, nodding breathlessly.

LjuBa looked down at it. She pointed, “What are those for?”

Sighing, Ljev replied, “For protection. If those folk tales about goles are true then they should be sensitive to sound. Their hearing is supposed to be super-human.”

“Demonic,” LjuBa corrected, nodding.

Ljev picked up a pot and one metal spoon. He held both up, showing the people there what he was doing. He called aloud for more to gather around him.

“Listen! Goles noise hate. If you gole, see, then noise make.” He nodded to LjuBa. “Loud noise. All together.”

Everyone snatched a pot and a spoon.

“These near, have,” he said, peering over the crowd that now stopped scrubbing. “If gole, see, alarm, make. Everyone noise, make. Understand?”

The crowd nodded.

“We go. We later return, wards, bring,” he said.

“Wards?” LjuBa blinked at him. “What do you mean by wards?”

Sighing he turned to her. “LjuBa, not all magic is evil. There are magic wards that can drive away goles.”

She stepped back from him. “But…Ljev, if then legends are true then magic made those demons!”

He nodded. “I know. But the best way to defeat magic, is to use magic.”

LjuBa slapped his arm. “We didn’t use magic!”

Lowering his head, Ljev shook it. “LjuBa, your song was magic. The war cry is magic. We couldn’t have defeated that demon without it.”

“No.” It was too much. LjuBa kept shaking her head, pulling her arms to herself. “No. I don’t do magic.”

But he leaned in, whispering to her, “You do more magic than you realize.”

Shuddering with a step back from him, LjuBa retreated to the wall. He watched her, his eyes turning mournful. Then he looked to the man who appeared to be the leader of the village.

“You. We food need. You give?”

The leader nodded vigorously, beckoning them towards a doorway.

Ljev looked back to LjuBa. “Come on. We can eat and wash up. Then we’ll start right away to the north.”

She followed him, casting him a glare. “But what if the other gole comes after us in the forest?”

“Then we’ll kill it,” he said though his teeth with more bite than he had ever exhibited previously. His eyes said he would be glad to kill again if he saw another demon. Though she was thankful for his conviction, she was uncomfortable with this angry side of him. In a strange way, she missed the tender man that hated death.

Ljev negotiated for a bath and a brief rest in one of the homes for the pair of them. The villagers gladly gave it to them, even offering to wash their clothes and dry them, but LjuBa insisted they not linger in case they could not get ahead of the slave traders that had her father. The squire ate his fill while listening to the woes of the villagers who recounted all that had happened since the rising of Baron Hoisten, including their scant knowledge of the overthrow of the KiTai tower.

LjuBa listened to him make promises to tell the king about the state of affairs in the Eastern Provenance as well as repeated promised to return with wards to scare off demons. Almost a second after they were soon on their way to the north with a packed bag of food and full water bladders, a crowd of cheering villagers at their backs.

“Ljev,” LjuBa said after they had walked a while through the trees. “Why did you make so many promises to them? There is so much that has to be done before we can even consider bringing back those vile wards for them.”

He didn’t even look at her when he responded. “I will make certain they get their wards.”

She blinked at him. This man was no longer a squire. A warrior stood before her. He had defeated a demon and found his reason to fight. He was now making bold promises, and she knew he would stick to them. It made her happy and sad all at the same time.

Ljev glanced at her after a while. “Why do you hate magic so much?”

It startled her. She had been listening to the melodies of the forest around her. She blinked then frowned. “Isn’t it obvious? Every legend we have of the world, the dangers, the evils, the foes, and the blights—all of them are magical. Every demon is the result of ill-borne magic. That gole is the worst of them. And then there’s Westhaven—the nation of demons that destroyed KiTai’s glory.”

Ljev’s head slowly nodded, his eyes flickering at last with understanding. “I see. So, you blame the end of KiTai’s glory days on magic.”

She jerked her chin sharply down in a nod. “Yes.”

But she got a sigh in response, not what she wanted to hear. Ljev shook his head, gazing to the ground. “LjuBa. Are you familiar with all the legends of our people?”

Blinking, LjuBa tilted her head. “They’re not all real. Some of them are just stories.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” he said. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “But…you pray to Jodis, the northern god. Do you really believe he is real?”

Stiffening at the blasphemous leaning that was leading to in his question, LjuBa narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying he isn’t?”

Ljev shook his head. “No. I’m not saying that. I’m…no. I just know this legend about Jodis and the other three gods, the creation of our world. I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

She nodded, easing only a little. “I have.”

“According to the legend, the world is magic,” he said, waiting for her reaction.

There was no reaction. LjuBa waited for the shocking part. He clearly hadn’t gotten to it yet.

“That doesn’t bother you?” Ljev asked, peering into her face.

LjuBa shook her head. “Why should it? Magic is not mankind’s domain. Magic is the power of the gods. Of course they can use it. It is theirs. Dabblers in magic are thieves, stealing from the gods. That is the crime.”

He nodded again, very slowly. “Oh. I see your view point now. That makes it all clear.”

And they continued on in silence, one which made LjuBa peer at Ljev several times to see what was going on in the expression that strange man held on his face. Clearly he still did not agree with her, but had decided to let it go.