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

“I wonder if they have been lying to the Westhaveners too,” Ljev muttered.

The cries outside now switched to KiTai dialect. It was a shoddy level of, but both Ljev and LjuBa understood it.

“You there! Come out! Be brave warrior! Or you be cowards!”

LjuBa bristled, her chest rising and her fists clenching.

Ljev popped up, rushing to her. “Woah! Woah! What are thinking?”

She turned toward the door, marching.

He followed after her. “Miss! Please! You can’t take them all on yourself!”

Whipping her face to glare at him, LjuBa snapped, “Then come, squire, and fight them with me!”

“But why should we fight?” He stared at her, exasperated. “Shouldn’t we just sneak out?”

Groaning aloud with a growl, LjuBa grabbed his shirt. “Do you want to be a warrior or not?”

Ljev cringed. “I…I should….”

“What do you mean, you should?” She shouted. “Don’t you want to?”

Shrugging, Ljev answered, “I just don’t see the point in killing people.”

With a louder moan, LjuBa let go. “Oh for pity’s sake! You are incorrigible!” She stomped out of the room. “My father was right about you! You are not worth my time.”

But Ljev followed after her. “LjuBa, you can’t go out there! They’ll kill you!”

She continued on, her voice echoing down the stairwell as she marched back to the main doors. “Better to die a warrior than a coward!”

Her heels clopped across the stone. She drew back her shoulder, pulled out her sword and sung a brief strengthening song for her heart so that it would beat true long enough for her to slay every one of those savage barbarians that dared take on a KiTai warriess. Ljev hurried down after her.

He thrust himself between her and the main doors, spreading out his arms. “You can’t go out there.”

LjuBa lifted up her sword, pulling it back high. “Get out of my way or I will run you through.

Blanching, Ljev stepped to the side. He watched her push open the door and slip through the crack to the outside. LjuBa did not look back.

Facing her were over fifteen barbarians with clubs, slings, swords rocks, chains, and knives. Bristly chins surrounding dark eyes, their teeth set in menacing grins, the locals of DiNo Village advanced. LjuBa did not wait for their attack. If she was to die that day, she would not wait for the honor. She would dive into it.

They let out a war cry as they attacked, casting jeers and curses with every muscled swing for deadly blow. But light footed LjuBa remembered all that her father, the captain of the king’s men, taught her as she took out her attackers one by one though three at once charged at her. The others could not get in close enough to make their hits.

But then her sword was suddenly not the only one in the fray. At first she thought it was another enemy attacker and she swung around to cleave that man in two with the war cry, but the long KiTai blade blocked her. LjuBa blinked at Ljev’s face, even as he pushed back and took out another man with a powerful swipe. In another blink, she found that around them were only five men now, all of them bleeding though three were turning away at a run.

Panting hard, Ljev shouted at the other two. “Get out of here!”

His bloody sword was raised over his head.

The other two ran.

LjuBa turned, her eyes scanning the hilltop plateau. Around eight dead, two wounded and gasping, the three running off far ahead with the two after them shouting back promises that they would return. All the horses were scattered. Ljev went over to one man and picked up a sword the dead had dropped. He shouted something under his breath and stabbed the earth at the head of the enemy. She watched him wipe his hand over his wrought face, his shoulders hunched as if mourning.

But then her heart twinged. She staggered back towards the tower for a place to sit. Ljev looked up at her, his lips white. He walked over.

“Are you all right?”

She just shook her head, feeling her heart flutter. The luck of the song had worn off. She needed to rest.

Ljev helped her back to the tower, leaning her against the outside wall. He then peered down the hill.

“We can’t stay here,” he said. “Those men will come back with more. We should leave as soon as possible.”

“My saddlebag is still on our horse,” LjuBa murmured. She then gazed up at him. “I thought you couldn’t fight.”

Shaking his head at her, he straightened up to look around at the dead atop the hill again. “I never said that. I just don’t see the point in killing.”

But LjuBa pushed up along the wall to stand, facing him. “But I saw you. You…you have no reason to be afraid. You can really swordfight.”

She watched Ljev hang his head back, his eyes closing. He set his hand to his forehead with a groan. “LjuBa, please….” He then popped his head down, ducking a little, “I’m sorry, MiKial’s daughter…please. Let’s just get some supplies and hurry away from here.”

Frowning, LjuBa walked over to him. “Hurry back to KiTai central Provenance? Or to find my father?”

He returned her look with an equally annoyed frown. “To find your father, though we are going to have to guess where they took him from here on. There is no one in the tower that can help us.”

Nodding, LjuBa gazed back towards the town. Then she took a step, blinking at the view. She murmured, “We can see the lay of the land from the top of the tower, right?”

Ljev nodded, though looking puzzled. “Certainly.”

She turned, marching back to the open door. “I need to see something.”

Ljev followed her.

They hiked back up the stairs that wound round and round the tower center, passing rooms full of sleeping quarters, levels of armor, food stores and weapon stores until they reached the very narrow top where there was a hatch and a dusty varnished wooden ladder. Though LjuBa was winded and had to pause occasionally, the view up top truly took her breath away.

She leaned on the stone banister gazing out next to the eastern pillar that held up the peaked tile roof. In front of her she gazed over stretches of farmland full of flourishing grain. Turning to the south she peered at the near town of DiNo, taking in the shape of it, especially one prominent portion. There was a building, its structure containing one jutting tower with a lower spread that was two stories high—not KiTai build. It seemed fairly new.

Pointing at it, LjuBa said, “See that tower? What do you make of that?”

Ljev squinted at it, the corners of his mouth turning down. “That shouldn’t be there. The KiTai were to have the only watchtower.”

“Why is there one in town?” LjuBa asked, barely glancing at Ljev’s shrugs. “Whom does it belong to?”

“That’s the better question,” Ljev said.

Indeed. LjuBa knew that no unorganized mob could be behind the clearly hidden insurrection against the king. Someone was paying the regular tribute that kept KiTai warriors from investigating changes in the land, and someone was sending in regular reports on behalf of the tower outpost, which meant someone was benefiting from it.

“I wonder,” Ljev mused aloud with a glance towards the west, “We saw no signs of a real army preparing to take on our warriors. Those locals were poorly prepared to take on just us. What do you think is their plan?”

“We need to tell the king.” LjuBa walked back to the hatch, lifting it.

“Right now?” Ljev followed her. “I thought we were going to find your father.”

She climbed down, hopping to the floor then looking up. “We’ll find my father first. But I’m sure by now he’s gotten away from those bandits, and busted their heads while he was at it. We can meet him…” She then turned with smirk. “And you can tell him about how you fought those barbarians almost like a man.”

He dropped in after her, shaking his head as he choked on a chuckle. “…almost like a man. That was almost a compliment.”

She held back a laugh, leading the way down.

They stopped at each of the rooms this time, mostly looking for food to take with them on their journey. But all the perishables had perished, and all that was left were extremely pickled eggs, jerked lamb packed in salt, and dried herbs crumbling into powder. They took the lamb and gathered up what water bladders they could find, planning to fill them at a local well rather than in the tower well, just in case the poison was actually in there and not in the wine.

Ljev insisted they sneak out, but LjuBa led them to the north, marching down the hill towards the village of NuLi.

On foot, their pace went a great deal slower. For starters, LjuBa had to rest more. Ljev insisted on it, and she decided that she really didn’t mind. Her heart had already had enough palpitations for the day.

Also, on foot, LjuBa noticed the scene around them more. They were entering the fields of grass and hay, cutting across farmland with little canals and irrigation ditches that divides lots. The eeing of crickets, pheasants rustling though the grass with cats pursuing field mice and rabbits, the world had a different music. In a way, LjuBa wondered over how she had not heard these songs as much, thinking that perhaps the music of her home had overwhelmed it. Around her, everything was singing. It was just a faint song, like the wind.

It was like Ljev. Things about him were just as hidden. She noticed that he did not talk much unless he really had something to say, which was fine except there were times she could have sworn she could hear in his silence the beating of his own heart. It leapt with worry over her whenever she got winded. And every time she sang a song to calm it, his heart calmed also. His breathing also changed occasionally, as his eyes scanned the horizon ahead as well as the path they had come from, keeping watch for armed barbarians following them.

“Miss.” He pointed to a distant clump of trees on the horizon. Ljuba noticed a small farmhouse in the center of it. “We might be able to get food there and some rest.”

Cringing with weariness, LjuBa frowned at it. “A barbarian’s home? Won’t that just alert those following us?”

He shook his head, taking hold of her wrist to pull her that way. “How would it? Besides, it will soon be night, and I think we’d be safe under a roof rather than out in the open where they can ambush us.”

LjuBa blushed, her skin prickling as his fingers gently touched hers. His hand was warm.

“What do you say?” he asked, gazing with those eyes into her face for an answer.

She didn’t know what to say at first. Her heart had jumped, but it did not hurt this time. At last she managed, “Um, yes. I suppose you are right. But, you had better keep watch on the people there to make sure they don’t run off to tell those…savages where we are.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

Ljev led