36ish

The Astaldi people have always been quick to dancing and laughter, and slow to war. When the Temaltans came, they accepted their presence and continued their lives much as they always had. But when the Temaltans pushed too far, the Astaldi held their ground. The central islands, which were largely untouched by the presence of the warrior monks, became home to many cells of resistance. These groups were violent in nature, and often took roving bands of the monks by surprise, slaughtering them and packing the bodies into boats which were released into the currents for their comrades to find. Many in the islands thought that there would be nothing left of either culture, and there was nothing to suggest that this would not be the case. However, when no-one could have expected it, a light came out of the darkness and blood of the central islands and swept over all of the Astaldak lands. Some have even maintained that it changed the future of the world.

-------from the Life of the Blessed Sulan, by Mei Nevrekti

Tsuda waited in the small clearing and looked around. The man on the last island had told her to come here, and she would find the nearest group of fighters. The tiny island seemed to be uninhabited, but she waited anyway. Mede sat beside her on the grassy ground and felt the warmth of the sun on her shoulders. She closed her eyes, and leaned back against the large rock that Tsuda was sitting on.
She felt like she was about to fall asleep, when she noticed a moment out of the corner of her eye. A small group of men and women had stepped into the clearing, all of them armed. Many of the members of the group carried the bows and arrows that were traditional Astaldi weapons, and they were aiming direcrtly at the two women in the middle of the clearing.
Tsuda slowly stood up, and looked at the leader of the group. He had a long scar running down the left side of his ribcage, and his dark hair stuck out in wild curls.
“What are you doing here? Why do you seek the Free Astaldi?”
“Because I want to fight with you. I want to become one of you. I want to see the monks drown in their own blood.”
The man nodded, and replied, “And so do many in our islands. Only those willing to give up everything can jnoin us. Why should we accept you?”
Tsuda held out a hand slowly. “Give me one of your arrows, and I will show you.”
He looked over his shoulder at one of the women who held a nocked arrow, and nodded to her. She slowly relaxed her arm, and lowered the bow to her side; she extended the fletched end of the arrow to Tsuda, who took it calmly. Mede watched as Tsuda drew the sharp point of the arrowhead across her forearm. The blood ran freely, and began to drip down onto the grass as Tsuda stood still as one of her statues. “I will give everything I have to see that their menace is wiped off the face of this earth.” She reached out with a blood streaked hand and the leader clasped it solemnly.
“Very well, then, mistress. And who is your friend here? Is she a fighter too?”
Tsuda shook her head. “No, she will not fight. But surely you need help in the camp? I cannot leaver her out here by herself, and she will be glad to help in any other way she can.”
Mede stood quietly as the leader looked her over, and slowly nodded. “Very well, we will take her with us. But do not slow us down, or you will be left behind.”
“I can keep up with you,” Mede said in a voice of quiet strength. “We will see if you can keep up with me.”
The boat scraped quietly onto the sand, the sound hidden behind the crashing of the wave. The moonlit water shone like silver, and Vedek wished that the clouds would cover the moons again.
“Move forward,” he called in a hoarse whisper, and the monks advanced cautiously. The tree line was only a few yards away, and they moved stealthily towards it.
As the last line of men entered the trees, an arrow hissed through the air and buried itself into the neck of one of the warriors. He fell to the ground with a soft gurgle, and at first none of the others noticed. But in another moment, scores of arrows were flying through the air. The monks shouted, and dove behind tree trunks, drawing their swords. “They cannot fire arrows forever! Let them spend their artillery, and cut them down!”

Tsuda heard his words from the bush where she hid, and tried to aim for his voice, but he kept himself well behind the tree. With a grimace, she turned away and took careful aim at the gleam of a face that she could see behind a slender palm. Her blazing purple eyes caught the moonlight, and the monk saw them glitter. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but she had released the arrow, and he fell face down in the sand, driving the arrow yet further into his rib cage.

When morning came, the boat was gone, the remaining monks in it; the bodies of those who had died lay where they had fallen, blood soaking into the ground in congealing puddles. The small band of fighters roved carefully among them, taking any weapon or armor that might prove useful.
Tsuda went over to the man she had slain in the night, and began the grisly task of checking for valuables. As she unlaced his leather belt and scabbard, pulling it off his body, his head tilted towards her and for a moment she looked directly into the glassy eyes. She could see where the blood had splattered his face, and a fly crawled across his lips. She shuddered, and quickly finished the scavenging, piling her finds with all the others.

“How many dead, Herun?” asked one of the women, dumping a few knives and boots onto the pile unceremoniously.

“I counted twelve, but I think we wounded one or two more who will die before they make landfall again.” Herun assigned three of the men to bring their boat from where it lay hidden in the shade of the trees. When it lay on the sands under the warm sunlight, they began loading the new cargo inside. A few minutes later the boat was loaded, and they pushed off into the surf; it was one of Herun’s rules for the cell that they never spend a night on an island where they had been seen by the Temaltans.

Tsuda paddled absently, her thoughts on the pale face of the dead man she had seen at her feet. She had thought that killing one of the monks would fill her with a sense of power, or happiness, or even excitement. Instead, she felt sick to her stomach and fought back a rising tide of nausea. I will not appear weak, she whispered to herself, and redoubled her efforts. The small boat cut swiftly through the water, racing along to another of the central islands.

Vedek raged for three days after the attack. He had traced her to the groups calling themselves the Free Astaldi, and even learned about their presence on that particular island. How was it that he had lost fourteen men, and apparently not killed even one of their number?
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. There had to be a way to get to her. He had already informed all the men and women serving as spies that he wished to have her taken alive; her intelligence value to destroying the Free Astaldi cells was invaluable, he had said. Whoever killed her would die slowly and painfully, and htat was a promise.
Over the next few weeks, the reports of Free Astaldi attacks on monks and anyone suspected of collaborating with them came in at a steady pace; the Ersan ambassador continued to rage in his house, and the monks executed anyone suspected of giving information to the Free Astaldi. Trade between islands slowed as the monks inspected every boat entering and leaving a harbor. The merchants screamed imprecations at them until one was slain on the deck of his own ship, ostensibly in self-defence. After that, the overt resistance from the traders fell away, but the sullen grumbling remained. Many trade ships that made runs throught the central islands would have their crews drop a box or two of cargo overboard in the shallows; tbhe Free Astaldi were always in need of supplies.

Mede knelt in the dust by the fire pit, stirring a pot of stew slowly, trying to keep it from burning or boiling over. She thought about the course life had taken over the past year. It had been nearly six months since the desperate night-time flight into the water, and four months she Tsuda had begun to live with the Free Astaldi. They never spoke of what happened during the short trips the band took, and Mede did not care to know. She had almost given Tsuda up as lost to fear and anger in this life, but sometimes when the talked, she could still see a glint of emotion in her friend’s face, and hoped again for a few previous moments.

A scuffle broke out across the clearing, and she swiftly got to her feet. Some of the others in the camp came over to try to see what was happening. Some of the men were dragging a handful of captives into the camp. Tsuda loped into the clearing a moment later, having heard the noise and decided to investigate.

“Herun? Herun! We have caught some of the traitors! They served on a trading ship and they carried a monk on board. When they stopped to refill their water barrels, we came upon them and took these prisoner.” The gathering cfowd murmured, and Mede craned her neck to get a better look. As she did so, one of the prisoners raised his head to speak.
“It was no chjoice of ours! Had he not been allowed on our ship, we would not have been allowed to leave harbor. Many of us have wives and children to feed, and if we did not go on this trip, we would not be paid. Please, we have no more love of the Temaltans than you do; let us go, and we will tell no-one what we have seen here.”
Mede gave a steangled cry as she recognized the worn face of the unfortunate sailor. “Judak!” she whispered. At that moment their eyes met and Judak’s voice faded. “Mede? Mede, is that you?”
Mede did not notice the others staring at her as she pushed her way through them and ran o embrace her fiancée. “How did you find me,” she whispered, tears falling freely down her cheeks.
“You told me that you were heading for the central islands, so I took a job on a trading ship that ran through the islands regularly. I’ve asked about you in every port, and no-one had seen you. I was beginning to give up hope., But what are you doing here, of all places?”
Herun stepped out from the trees, and examined the scene in front of him. “Sulodni, you say that these men were on a trading ship? Well, we cannot allow them to elave, not now that they have seen who we are, and where we are. And you,” he said, looking down at Mede and Judak, “You said that you have been asking about your woman in the ports and towns all through the central islands? That is bad news for you, I am afraid. Now people may notice that you, a missing sailor disappeared while looking for a woman by her description. We can’t have that kind of thing.”
One of the other sailors had been fuming silently for a while, and this pronouncement was the last straw for him. He began to fight violently against those who held him, and shouted in Herun’s direction. “What do you mean, you can’t have ‘that kind of thing’? You mean the kind of love that any decent man has for a good woman? Or do you mean the desperation for work that drives a man to do things he might not, in order to provide for himself and nhis family? None of us wanted that cursed monk aboard our ship, but he came whether we would like it or not. You and your kind aree only making things worse for the rest of our people. You strike out at the Temaltans and then disappear into the night. The rest of us who hav to live in our own towns day and night, are the ones who pay. The monks kill anyone thought to have dealings with you, and now you will kill anyone who is simply on the same ship as one of them? You have become the same as the monks! You—“
His speech was cut off suddenly by the short blade that protruded from his chest. He gasped, small bubbles of bloody foam appearing at the corners of his mouth, then slumped to the ground. Judak looked shocked, and Mede felt ill, and turned her face away from the body on the ground.
Herun lowered his arm, hand on the now empty sheath on his belt. “Never say that we have anything in common with the monks of Temalta! We fight for the freedom of the true Astaldi, those whoi are brave enough to stand up against oppression, those who would rather die than be coerced by the enemy into being or doing something alien to their nature.”
A cheer went up from a few of the men, but others stood in silence, looking at the body that now lay slumped upon the ground. Tsuda stood still, staring in wide-eyed horror.
Herun turned to Mede and Judak. “If you swear to remain with us, and never leave our company, you may remain here. But we cannot allow either of you to leave now, knowing what you have seen and heard.”
Mede straightened up and prepared to refuse the offer, but Judak spoke first. “We will not leave, if that is what is required. I will gladly stay anywhere Mede is.”
Herun studied him for a moment, then nodded. He knelt by the dead man’s body and pried his knife loose. Wiping it clean on the grass, he slipped it back into the small sheath on his belt, and walked away into the trees again.
The next instant, Tsuda saw Judak and Mede locked in an intense kiss, and she looked away. Her eyes landed again on the dead man’s corpse, and her thoughts spun rapidly. How could someone so eager to fight for the freedom of the Astaldak be so ready to kill one of their own? She had heard reports about other Astaldaki being killed by resistance cells, but had assumed that they were all Temaltan informers or more likely, just rumors spread by the monks to spread distrust among the islanders.
But here lay a man who had no apparent loyalties to the monks, and had simply done what nayn man would do to provide for himself and his family…a family that would never see him again. She wondered what they would tell his family; the monks would probably tell them that it was the cost one paid for supporting the Free Astaldi.
She left Mede and Judak alone, and wandered among the trees, trying to clear her mind.

Mede and Judak didn’t bother to get up from the ground where she had knelt beside him. Mede had no home to invite him to, and he had nothing to offer her, so they simply sat in the grass in the clearing. Mede told him of all that had happened to bring her to the central islands, from the night on the branch floating under the stars, to the time spent with Relni and her family, and the two month long search for the Free Astaldi. She cried when she spoke of the changes she had sene in Tsuda, and he held her close. When her story was done, he told her about searchinjg in the ports nad towns for her. Once, he said, his ship had even left him behind; he had had some slight rumor that he pursued until the sun went down. He had run back to the harbor to board the ship, and seen it sailing away, black against the setting sun.
“But nothing could keep me from finding you. I would travel hundreds of years just for this moment, if I had to,” he whispered, brushing her ginger hair out of her face.
Mede cluing to him, her words gone.
Tsuda wandered through the trees for what seemed like hours. Her legs ached and she wanted to sit and rest, but every time she sat down, she found herself leaping back to her feet and pacing. She pressed her fingertips to her temple, and groaned slightly.
“What do I do now?” she whispered. “I cannot stay here, not now…This will never do. Becoming like the monks will not rid the world of them, nor will it bring back those we have lost. It will not even soothe the ache of the memories, but enflames them. Oh gods, I wish I could forget all that they have done, I was happier before I remembered.”
Slowly, the sun sank and the whole island was cast into the short gloom of twilight; one by one the stars came out in the sky. Tsuda watched them, dancing ever so slow a path from one side of the sky to another. The memories of the night sky out on the ocean came back to her, and the sky seemed to glow with a million miniscule flames.
Tsuda felt her legs quiver, and slowly dropped to the ground. She rolled voer onto her back, and saw the cold disc of Lotha heave into view. “Please…if Mede was right, if you are ones who have learned what you needed…olease help me. I no longer know what to do.” Her eyes fluttered, and she slowly sank into an exhausted sleep while the sky wheeled overhead.
She woke suddenly in the middle of the night. Lotha was almost directly overhead, larger than Tsuda had ever seen her, and Lede was racing towards the far horizon. An almost palpable silence lay over the land, and she could see a faint mist rolling in from the sea. As she looked out to the horizon, she thought she could see a large island, one that she was sure had not been there by day. As she watched, a light began to shine from within the island, and she heard a faint voice booming out over the water. The light pulsed brighter, then flashed up into the sky and was gone. A loud crack issued from the island, and she saw it begin to quake. In a few moments, it faded into the mist and was gone. She felt as though her heart had faded out with it. I am empty, she thought, and there is nothing left of me. Is that all there is to me, a shell with nothing inside? Every time I live, I end up empty and aching for something that I do not have.
As she turned back towards the clearing and the hammock that she had striung up for a bed, she saw the pale form of Mede. She was curled up by the side of Judak at the foot of a large tree. Her skin shone silver in the light, and her mouth was slightly open in sleep.
Tsuda couldn’t help smiling as she looked at her friend. Mede had not wanted to be here, she reminded herself. She should be back on Mei, starting her own household, and having beautiful children with Judak, not here in the cold night air, crouched at the foot of a tree.
A tear slipped down Tsuda’s cheek, and she dashed it away. Mede stirred in her sleep, and opened her eyes. She saw Tsuda standing at the edge of the clearing, and sat up.
“Tsuda, are you alright? What are you doing wandering around at this time of the night?”
“I…I don’t know. I thought I was doing what I needed to do, but…” Her voice lowered to an intense whisper. “They…I can’t do this. I want the monks dead, all of them, but not our own people. Not innocent people. I think they would have evne killed Judak if you hadn’t stepped in. Why can’t they just kill the monks and leave everyone else alone?”
Mede sat quietly in the hammock, watching her friend’s distress. After a moment, she replied in a low voice, “Because that’s what always happens. First you begin by taking your revenge on your enemy. Then you must destroy anyone who has helped them. Finally you destroy anyone who does not agree with you. It’s what hatred always does. It will eat you from within, Tsuda; the hatred will devour you, and there will be nothing left, and I will have lost my dearest friend.”
Tsuda looked up, startled, to see great streams lof tears running down Mede’s face. “There is nothing left of me, Mede. I am empty. It is all eaten away.”
Mede shook her head, and slowly climbed out of the hammock. “No. I can see it in your eyes. As long as you can still feel the emptiness, there is something of you left to feel. You cannot give up hope, Tsuda. You can still leave the hatred behind.”
“It will go with me wherever I go.”
“Only if you let it. You could leave it behind tonight. It might take years to completely let go, but you could begin.”
Tsuda looked over her should at the rising moon. “Lotha help me, I do not even know who I am anymore.” She flexed her fingers contemplatively; the moonlight made them look like bones, she thought. She looked out through the trees; in the distance, she could see the light sparkling on the waters. With an ache, she turned away from the sight, only to find Mede standing beside her.
“We can go, Tsuda. We can go tonight, right now, and start again somewhere new.”
The island was silent, as the disc of the second moon rose swiftly over the horizon. Even the insects ceased humming for a moment, and Tsuda could hear her own heart beating.
“Will you go with me?” The words were so quiet that Mede could hardly hear them, but she reached out and took her friend’s hand.
“To the ends of the earth. Beyond, if need be.” The small golden moon seemed to be leaping into the sky, following the lead of the larger colder orb. The twin lights reflected in the eyes of the women as they stood together.
“I want to go. I cannot live like this.” Tsuda’s words were quiet, but firm, and though another tear slipped down her cheeks, she did not waver in her resolve.
“Let me wake Judak, and we will be ready to go. Can you get us around the guards?” Mede asked, turning back towards the hammock.
Tsuda nodded, and Mede shook Judak awake gently, motioning him to remain silent. He looked at her, questions in his eyes, but kept his mouth closed, and got out of the hammock. He silently untied the ropes that held the hammock to the tree, and rolled it up under his arm.
The three made their way quietly down towards the beach. As they neared the edge of the trees, Tsuda could see the dim shapes of the guards at their posts. She whispered under her breath, muttering words as ancient as the seas, calling up the power that she had known in lifetimes past, and the guards heads drooped. One by one, they fell asleep, leaning on their spears and bows, as the little group passed through on their way to the beach. Judak quickly found one of the beached canoes, and pushed it out into the waves. Tsuda and Mede climbed in as it bounced on the waves, and Judak followed shortly after. Handing Mede one of the paddles that were stowed on board, he took the other, and they slowly guided the boat out into the open water. Heading once again for the current that flowed through the islands, they paddled as hard as they could. The little boat floated out under the stars, and drifted through the islands into the night.