The Barrow King
Years growing up on her father’s ranch, with horses’ halters sliding through, had toughened Liasta’s hands. But it took her sneaking flight across the Marukan in the dark year since that farm had fallen to toughen her spirit. She was cautious, now, and crouched in the brush beside a brook for long minutes to be sure no one was nearby; not wild animals, not beastmen, not the dead. Not even the soldiers of the Realm, who would take her as a slave. But it seemed safe, so she kept low and crawled to the shore.
Every instinct Liasta had developed told her to run when she saw blood in the water. But the color of it, the redness, spoke to her of courage, of bold action, and she rose to her feet in answer to the call.
The blood was a stream, trickling into the water from across the pebbled bank, seeping into the softer earth, cutting around a grassy mound of dirt. Liasta saw an opening in the pile, lined in stone; a little crafted cave. She stepped inside.
Stretched on the wall, like shadows made by the sun outside, she saw tack and harness, bridle and saddle, blankets, shoes, horses. Marukan wealth. Past them all, seated on a camp chair and no shadow but glowing with his own faint light, was a man. His face was haggard; his eyes were black; and a long, grey, tangled beard grew from his cheeks. A deep wound in his chest sat hollow, and poured out the red blood she had followed to get here.
In spite of those changes, Liasta knew him at once; from childhood stories, from a few glimpses in better days, from their meeting at other waters, months earlier, but mostly from her soul’s need for a hero. She said his name.
He turned towards her, but he did not rise. In a voice as distant as hoofbeats through the earth he spoke. “Where is my bright banner?”
Liasta’s breath froze. “F-fallen, lord. Your manses are conquered, your city crumbled, your people scattered across the plains.”
Was he dead now? His skin was so pale, his voice so weak. And his wound… Liasta took a step back. “Where is my terrible standard?”
“Gone. Your armies are broken, your champions missing, your herds run far afield.”
“Where is my just hand?” He seemed so uncertain, like a man in a dream. He was not dead, then; only sleeping.
“I wish I knew. We cry out for it. We break without your support. Death stalks us as she never has before. Where did you go? Please, lord, awaken. Please come back to us.” Without knowing when she started, Liasta found that she was crying.
“The spear,” he said, or the dream of him did. He started to fade, dimming before her eyes as if she were waking. The shadows on the wall grew long, the blood dried. “Bring me the spear.”
“The spear,” she repeated.
“Tell them. So much of me is lost; forbearance, courage, mercy, creed. All of my passions. So much of me here, so much in the spear. I must be whole to ride; I must have it. Tell them.” Then he was gone.
He was dreaming mad, like a man gripped with fever. Cool the fever, still the dreams, wake the man. Liasta had to tell them. He was waiting, just as much as they all were. She had to tell everyone.
