done! I am glad to have finished, I'll probably go back through and tweak, improve and so on when I feel better. I've had a suggestion for the name of the trilogy 'war of the blood moon'
Chapter 25
Selen
charged across the bridge with her minions, and pulled up short. She was
beautiful, with deep red hair, and pale skin, and eyes normally as beautiful
and as dark as the night sky... until the red light shone in them, as it did
now.
“What?”
she said, shocked. “Who... why? Where is Rogaz?”
“Rogaz
is about to be healed, you nasty bitch,” said Rynn. “That’s why we’re here.”
“We’ll
see about that,” said Selen.
“You’re
a bit ahead of yourself, you know,” said Rynn. “But I’m sure we can live with
it. Now, are you going to come forward so your playmates get to join in, or
shall we collectively kill you and go after them?”
Selen
was horrified.
“Withdraw!”
she shouted. She did not fear this trógling, but she did fear Thyella; and
Thyella aided by Errilaz and Sjurgi... “And Errilaz! My sweet sister, what are you doing with
these ruffians? And Thea Drex, surely they have nothing with which to tempt you
that I cannot fulfil?”
“You
disrespected my kin, you red bitch,”
said Errilaz.
“And
mine; and made my life a lie,” said Sjurgi.
“And
you had my brother killed,” said Thyella.
“You
maimed all my kin,” said Hraazaz.
“You
wronged my kin above all,” said Rynn. “We are for the blue moon, for the fair,
cold starlight. You are an abomination.”
“I just
don’t like you,” said Mykota. “I stand for my mother.”
“We do
not withdraw; we will destroy you!” cried Hippona, pushing forward past Selen.
“Yes,
attack them!” said Selen, waving on her minions. She stayed on the bridge
herself.
Rynn
stepped forward as the largely reluctant lunar pantheon squared off against
their chosen foes and Mykota guarded the egg in which Rogaz lay.
Selen’s
face suddenly became one savage smirk.
“Brave
little trógling,” she sneered. “You really think you can stand against a greater
goddess? Your fellows have abandoned you for their own petty rivalries; and I
shall defeat you.”
“My
fellows trust me to be able to hold you until our leader gets here,” said Rynn.
“I will die, but I will do so in a good cause. My life is unimportant, and if
you kill me, I am assured immortality in song as a righteous Alethosi. You have
no power over me. Now, are you going to fight, or do we just continue to throw
sharpened insults and epigrams at each other?”
It was
bravado, but Rynn was sure she would die here, and was not going to let Selen
know how she grieved to be torn from Phaedros.
Selen
was already armed for combat, and swung her scimitar at Rynn, whose parry
succeeded, but jarred the valiant trógling’s arms for the force of the blow.
Selen sneered.
“Submit
and I will be merciful... DAZE!” she
reeled back, feeling the death of her twin. She screamed in primal grief, and
then in anger. “My brother! You have been distracting me to kill my brother!
You will all die!” And she turned her anger on Rynn.
“Endure, little sister, Kaz is coming,”
assured Alethos. Rynn could barely acknowledge, but she set her stubborn jaw,
and held, too preoccupied to see how her fellows were doing. Selen might be out
of date with her fighting style, but her strength as a goddess made up for it.
Thanus
was giving Sjurgi more of a fight than she might have expected, on what was
essentially home territory. But he had learned no more craft, and Sjurgi was
patiently battering him down. Thyella and Hippona were exchanging filthy
insults as well as blows. Errilaz had given up any pretence at style and had
wrestled Librax to the ground where she was strangling and pummelling him by
turns whilst he insulted her and her father.
Hraazaz
was the one who finished her opponent first, Klerus trying desperately to avoid
a fight, but being held relentlessly by the high toróg heroine.
Klerus
really had very little chance and Hraazaz wrenched his knowledge from him; and
having reduced him in power, bound him forcibly to her as a spirit, to aid her.
Kaz would likely disapprove, but Hraazaz
did not care. She came quickly to aid Rynn.
“You
have no idea how much I despise you toróg,” sneered Selen.
“It
certainly isn’t as much as we despise you,” said Hraazaz, cheerfully. “Kaz, my
sister!” she added, as Kaz arrived.
“Nice
job, Rynn, now shift,” said Kaz. Rynn
retreated, thankfully. “Hraazaz, set up the ceremony.”
“On
it, Daykaz,” said Haazaz.
“You are the Daykaz? How amusing,” said
Selen.
“Daze
died of laughing,” said Kaz. “Stand by to cocoon us both and make the power
transfer, Hraazaz.”
“Make
it so,” said Hraazaz. “Mycota, your aid.”
“What
is this?” asked Selen, startled, as a cocoon of crystal formed around her and
Daykaz. It glowed red, where the one about Rogaz glowed blue.
“This
is what I was born for,” said Kaz. “Your life is almost incidental, save that
you are an inconvenience. One of us will emerge from this crystal egg alive,
and the smart money is on it being me. It’s just you and me, Selen.”
Selen
was not happy; but she had been battering down the other trógling.
How
hard could it be?
Outside
the cocoon, Hraazaz spun lines of power between the red egg and the blue, and
stood between them, ready to channel power. Rynn stood, equally determined,
knife ready to take her own blood to place on the cocoon to add to Kaz if
things looked bad, or to absorb Kaz’s powers into herself to be a mother for
the trógling in the last resort. Something Rynn hoped would not happen, but she
had promised Kaz.
The
almost feral grin on the face of the trógling in front of her alerted Selen to
the idea that this might not be the pushover she was anticipating.
“What
do you want?” she asked.
“I
want to complete my bargain with Rogaz, to heal the blue moon and break the
trógling curse, and lead my people in freedom,” said Kaz. “Then I want a cool
glass of lemon and honey cake.”
She
stood her ground; and Selen prepared to fight for her life, the sudden
imperturbability of this being more frightening than any boast of prowess, or
taunts. Kaz fought like a machine, as her drill had taught her, countering the
slow, formal strokes of the goddess. Kaz did not gloat; it was not in her
nature. Selen must be killed, and her spirit absorbed, and that is what Kaz
did. She drove Selen back to the wall of the crystal sphere in which they found
themselves, waited for the opening, and took the goddess on the upstroke of her
sword, bifurcating Selen’s body.
The
spirit could not escape the crystal, and Kaz leaped on it, confining it,
peeling it away to channel out the greater part to Rogaz.
Hraazaz
gave a yell of triumph as the tenuous line between the crystal spheres suddenly
glowed, and pulses of power emerged from the red cocoon to travel along it, to
pass into the blue sphere, which started glowing brighter. Hraazaz resumed chanting, and watched. It
seemed to take an age, but in reality took just minutes, the glow of the husk
of the red crystal dimming as that of the blue crystal brightened. At last,
grey and spent, the once-red crystal orb cracked open, and Kaz stumbled out,
the corpse of the once beautiful Selen a dried out husk.
Kaz’s
friends embraced her, as did Mykota, who had never met her.
“The
idiot has used too much moonstone in throwing it at people,” said Kaz. “We need
to bring it all around the blue moon, but there will only be one fair face, and
the blue moon must have phases like the red. And human women will still be tied
to it, and on the thirtieth day of the month must have courses still, whilst
the dark side of the moon shows a dim, blood-red disk in the sky. I’m sorry; I
was more interested in breaking the birth curse on the toróg, and separating my
people. But the power of the shed blood from women will help maintain the moon,
despite how much has been reft from it.”
“You
did what you came to do, and did it well,” said Hraazaz. “I think we need to
open the blue crystal...”
“Tonight
is the bleeding moon,” said Kaz, “When both moons are dark. The crystal will open at moonrise tomorrow, a
sliver as it normally is, but as Rogaz assimilates her power it will increase
over the month so that it will shine bright and fair and full for three days
ere it must wane,”
oOoOo
Rogaz’s
rebirth from her crystal egg was triumphant. She was healed, but still weak.
“It is
done!” she cried. “I may not be as whole as I was before, but I am not maimed,
and my people will no longer be cursed! All my people who conceive on the
coming full moon will conceive high toróg, and twins too! Daykaz, I am in your
debt.”
“It
was a joint effort of many of us,” said Kaz. “I look forward to a close
friendship between gods who previously were rivals.”
oOoOo
“We’ve
come a long way,” said Harkon. The original group of friends and their families
and partners gathered in the temple to Alethos in Mesolimnos after a month had
passed.
“And
we will meet less often, now, for we all have our own jobs,” said Kaz. “But I
want to make a pledge that our children will grow up spending time together, so
there will be no rivalries forming in the future, and so any quarrels are
caught early, and sorted out.”
“Hear
hear,” said Tor. “We can take turns to host them meeting. They will be familiar
with every realm.”
“And
to conclude,” said Harkon, “Remember the Knights of the Clear Starlight, or
whatever the anti-Selenite sunlings and windlings called themselves?”
“Technically,
you’re a windling,” said Thyella.
“Temporarily,”
said Harkon, bouncing his son on his knee. “And I did stop them spouting awful
poetry. But I wanted to share what that fatuous idiot Erripion Windblown,
Thundermaster of Ombros – er, of me, for now, I suppose, said?”
“I
hope it wasn’t a privileged discussion like prayer,” said Kaz, disapprovingly.
“Eh?
No, he was talking to me as me, Harkon, in the market; had no idea of my
identity as Ombros,” said Harkon. “He said that if he had had any idea how
bright the full blue moon would be, they would never have called themselves
‘Knights of the Clear Starlight,’ because it was as bright as a slightly cloudy
day. I said, ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful?’
and he gave me a sour look. I think some of them half wish we hadn’t worked so
hard towards it – but I toast the ladies of the moon-healing.”
“I am
pleased that the stars may be bright when the moon is not,” said Thyella. “One
of my lesser titles is Lady of the Stars.
I think it was a compromise which works for everyone.”
“And
now, we just get on with life,” said Protasion. “No more danger, discomfort,
sitting up all night poring over obscure documents, just an ordinary life.”
“And
here’s to that,” said Kaz, kissing Iphianira on the top of her head.
“One
thing I wanted to ask,” said Hraazaz, “Your spell, oathzone, the one you invented after convincing me it already
existed; are we close enough for me to give to my priests as a
glyph-spell, to use to settle mercantile
disputes? My people are rather more likely to come to fights than human
merchants.”
“I
think that’s a good idea,” said Kaz.
“The more misunderstandings that can be settled without coming to blows,
or under oath of a limited combat, the better. But I’ll wait for Merkedes to
ask for it, before I offer it to the human god of traders; after all, he never
offered aid to us.”
“To
peace; but never at any price,” said Lelyn.
The
subduing of pockets of devout Selenites busy searching for their goddess would
take many years, but the former Selenite Empire broke up into city states, and
negotiated treaties with each other. Many accepted the idea of outlawing
slavery, and keeping the games for professional gladiators, testing themselves,
and for the execution of criminals. The world had changed; but the everyday
lives of ordinary people went on in much the same way. Save for trógling, who
formed free communities, and who were more likely to be born as single or twin
births, not litters, and be healthier than before. Many had joint communities
with wolfingas, and the intelligent wolves, and trógling wolf-cavalry were
sought after. Because while there are people, there will be wars; and while
there are wars, Alethos collects souls.
The End
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