Under Guard

[Jay Carpenter]

 

Asha'man Kojima & M'Hael Larnair

He intended on keeping his feet as long as possible.  It was always a pathetic sight to see a guy drop like a sack of sand on the first blow.  Somehow, those watching always ended up cheering against the fool when that happened.  Their ear-pounding roars only accelerated the defeat.  But when those few men that lasted long enough to make a stand, when they showed some mettle, the crowd ended behind him.  Encouraging him to keep to his core.  As though holding out was somehow defending he in the right the whole time. 

Yeah.  It didn't work that way.  Jai dropped fast.  Well, faster than he thought he would.  Lennox landed the Power on him like a tangled up storm.  The first blow stumbled him back some steps.  The second forced him to throw up his arms; defensive instinct first, then outward to keep his balance.  Apparently Lennox was only warming up, because once he settled in, Jai realized his chances were poor. 

He pushed against the floor to look up when the group paused.  Another fantastic tactic.  Draw the whole ordeal out. It gives the guy a breather before going on.  A glimmer of hope that it was over before redoubling efforts.  He didn't need to look to know the councilman's brother swarmed with the Power, but didn't break gaze all the way to his feet again.  The guy was the sort of overbearing force regular channelers didn't sense every day.  Dex was not exaggerating!  And the guy would be a fool to exert himself for this, which meant no estimation of what he held in reserve.  For half a second Lennox reminded him of Daryen.  A tight-lipped, soldier's version of Daryen at least.  Without the famous charismatic royal glint on his brow.  Just a man carrying out orders.  A vessel.

He pounded the floor for that.  But still, he forced himself to recover every chance he had.  Not to prove ego or strength.  But because to give in now meant compliance.  An acceptance he couldn't swallow.  Until time became a blur and he could no longer differentiate between crash after crash of Saidin. And when his assailants paused once in a while, he managed to get a look around when he got up.  By the cheers, the crowd was enjoying their show.  The line up front carried out this task as complacently as turning the machine on any other enemy.  Lennox though, stood apart from them.  Leading it all.  Deftly coordinating.  Any other time, the guy would have been worth the watch. 

His vision circled dangerously when he pushed himself to stand the next time.  Jai put a shaky hand to his temple to right himself, but ignored the distant cries that he stay down.  He tried to recall which side of the coin he on during his earlier days when he had foolishly been caught up in all the crowd: encouraging the fool on the floor to stay there or calling him to his feet to see how much longer he'd last. He couldn't remember.  Memory blurred incoherent; he pinched the sweat from his eyes.  He'd usually walked out before things turned bloody.  He looked at his hands, they'd come away with more than sweat; nobody was ducking out now.

Saidin surged again and his muscles tensed reflexively.  This. is. abuse. of. power.  The thought rang surprisingly clear, and for a moment, his vision collided with the thread of concentration inside and he reached for it.  Saidin.  It burned furious in his grasp.  Enhancing the moment of clarity, and nearly overwhelmed him with the uprising of pain that followed.  But so also did the clarity to find his target quickly, and in the next breath, he coiled with anger and flung it forward toward his attackers in pure defense. 

Lennox swat it aside, and Jai reeled with shock. It was usually not so easy to swat his weaves away. But Lennox barely seemed to notice.  The others paused their onslaught to see what their leader would do, curious as to how one such as him might go against a rising legend.  He banished them from his mind.  There was nothing but the weapon and a target.  He tried again.  And again.  Lennox swat all the flows away.

Then the real gates were unleashed.  Lennox handled so many flows at once, Jai could hardly keep up with them let alone craft enough counters.  He heard his own voice cry out in shock as he smashed against the onyx floor with far harder force than having merely fallen there. Faster than he could process what was happening, except to throw out his arms as a brace.  One palm hit off side, then he heard a sick crunch as he landed atop it.  And then he laid still. 

He couldn't think, but only to try and move.  Not to get up; that was far from his blanked out mind.  To get off his arm.  He could feel it trapped under his chest.  And warm against the cold floor.  He could feel something weeping across his skin.  Then metallic flecks gumming up the inside of his mouth.  He opened his eyes, or thought he did, and saw something constructed of horror.  The obsidian floor was warped with random ridges.  Bulges of men's bodies made little mounds beside the boiled leather of larger ones.  The air stank of burnt flesh, like wild dog-corpses on a bonfire mixed with blood and excrement.  His own excrement.  Not voided in fear. No. Nothing so natural as that.  But spilled out, eviscerated from the front.  The vision framed a sick view.  An executioner standing over him, twisted worm-gray face driling parasitically into his soul.  And heard the laughter.  Victorious and shockingly heartfelt, but he couldn't look away.  Then a war cry, the flash of steel, and the robe of shadow took a step back.  Then another.  No.  He wanted to tell the Lieutenant to turn aside. Not for him! Don't!  Then more cries filled his ears, enough to drown out the trumpets calling them to fall back.  No!  He cringed, tears welling up.

Some time later, when Jai found real eyesight, the battlefield was gone.  Floor returned.  Boots and the lower edges of black coats filled it up.  His head pounded alarmingly, and his arm jabbed into his chest.  He managed to roll to his side with a groan, but the arm didn't follow.  And when he checked why, he dizzingly looked away from what jutted out. 

The approach of footfalls eventually drew him back to his surroundings.  Everyone had stopped.  Saidin pulsed somewhere distant, held in someone's grip although Jai barely cared whose.  The M'Hael glanced at him as he walked by, but that was all it took.  One glance, and Jai grit down somewhere deep, rolled with grimaced efforts, but managed to push to one knee despite the fog nearly overwhelming his mmind and stagger upward.  His legs ached.  His stomach throbbed.  An entire upper quadrant of his body vibrated with some strange sort of numbness like the distant thundering of far drums.  He stood with terrible, slumped posture because his back refused to take the tension of straightening out.  Or maybe it was his stomach; he couldn't quite tell the two apart just then.  His face felt pounded in.  The salty syrup of blood perfused his mouth and sweat coated crystals on his lips.  He clamped his fingers around the split arm with an instinctively protective grip.  But no roaring acknowledgement encouraged him to stay upright this time.  The M'Hael occupied their attention instead.

When their leader beckoned Dex from among the crowd of black coats, and took Jai's sword into his hands, he then had its owner's complete attention. 
"Beautiful."
He said, turning and sliding the blade from its sheathe out as he did.    Anger and pain throbbed indiscrimminantly as Jai carefully watched his leader invade his property.  Expecting him to turn it into some form of torture any moment.  A comment about its original owner, perhaps.  Or of a family descended from dishonor.  But the M'Hael did no such thing.  He tested the blade's balance in his hands and found the sweet spot on the hilt to wrap his fingers.  He appreciated the careful polish and studied the extinct steelmaker's mark. 
"This is Malkieri,"
he said almost to himself, though those closest heard him.  Jai shot the faces swinging between back and forth between them a clear, but unspoken affirmation.  Yes.  It is.  And dared them to question it.  The M'Hael looked him dead in the eye and responded, cold as Malkier's national veins, "I almost hate to do this."
All appreciation for the blade vanished, and he took saidin.

Understanding flooded in. 
"NO!"
Jai rushed forward foolishly, then stopped.  If he was powerless against Lennox, he stood no chance against the M'Hael.  Their gazes locked half a heartbeat then Jai shook his head, pleading.  "Please don't."
  And he was right.  He could do nothing. 

His legs went numb.  He was vaguely aware of sinking to his knees as his very identity melted away drop by silvery drop.  His father's voice screamed in his head to do something.  His brother cringed with regret that such an heirloom had been entrusted to someone so irresponsible.  The shock caused a sort of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror.  Though he was quite conscious of all that was happening.  It was almost merciful.

The hilt clattered to the floor in front of him, and Jai simply stared at it.  And stayed there.