Chapter 87: Volume 2 - CH 4.04

Night fell.

Well within the cellar were we all sat together: myself, Eva, and another Nafíl, a woman unhurried in mien and manner, and long in her years. The start of our quiet conversation carried through the cavernous space as the children, nigh score in number, slumbered away a ways off, sound in their assorted blankets.

Joining their dream-filled susurrations was Mia, cradled in her sister’s arms. The hours of weeping and familial consolation have left the little girl all but spent, and what left her lips now were little besides the sighs of sleep.

“I must say again. Through long courses have you come, son of Man. Your toils, we thank you for,” the elderly Nafíl spoke. “I am Irma, matron of this orphanage. And Eva here, you have made acquaintance with, I am sure.”

“Well met, Matron. It is an honour,” I bowed. “I am—”

“We have no ears for Mennish names.”

A sword-cut of an interjection from Eva, earning a mild chiding from this “Irma”.

“Come now, gentle Eva. Have warmth for him. Through wooded ways has he wended, all to bring little Mia back to our embrace.”

“I…” Eva began to rebut, before looking down to her long-lost sister. “For that, I thank him. But…”

“It’s quite all right,” I brushed off. “Your feelings are fair enough.”

“Fair” and more. No red carpets would be rolled out for a kin of Man like me—not after what’d befallen upon this place. That they gave me a chance to chat at all was well-worth a thousand of my own thanks.

“More importantly, this orphanage…” I broached anew. “The both of you have kept the children safe all this time? Here, underground?”

“…We have. What remained here in the village has sustained us,” answered Eva. “Though not for much longer…”

“To yonder, we make ventures for water. But not too far. And not too often,” Irma added. “For wary are we of another coming of the War-Men.”

My thoughts turned to the surface—and what its spans lacked. “And yet, the remains of the other villagers. It was you both who buried them, no?”

“Yes. We mourned them with fire-rites, as is our custom,” Irma sighed. “A trying trial of many days, of course, but ours was a humble village, and I had my magicks to help…”

“Our dear ones were defiled… What choice had we…?”

The voices of the two were awash with sorrow. I could imagine why. But what had bellowed in their bosoms, when they re-emerged into their devastated village and wandered its beloved yet broken spans, was beyond my knowing.

To say nothing of what they must’ve felt when, with fire, they bade farewell to their fallen family and friends.

“…My condolences are of little solace, Man that I am. But… I am sorry. Truly,” I said solemnly. “Eva, as well. What befell your family, it… I…”

“I have heard… from Mia,” said Eva. “…Poor Hanna…”

A quiver was in her quieted voice.

“Hanna”—the middle sister amongst Mia’s siblings. To Eva, another younger sister, just as cherished, and now, all the more missed. For it was this Hanna that Mia was captured with, and the one the fates saw fit to hand a dark end in Arbel’s concentration camp.

“Mother… Father… Brother… I found them. But not Hanna and not Mia. Not them, yet… Yet, by then, I had no more hope…”

A recollection, brokenly recounted by Eva. What a mountain of will this young woman had in her, to lose everyone and everything dear—and in spite of it, find the strength to give care and succour to all the children here in this room.

“Were my sisters even alive, no warmth would welcome them where they went. Only cold cages, far, far away. Forever far from where I wait for them,” Eva went on. “So… it is a miracle now. To have Mia here in my arms… Like a dream, it is…”

“Son of Man. Know you the weight of your plight? From Mennish halls have you spirited away a slave, to where but the fields of your foe. A deed undone even in our oldest myths,” Irma spoke of me. “Might my ears hear of your will?”

I opened my palms, looking at them in a brief pause. “…I wear the commander’s coat for the kingdom. This tragedy has transpired under my charge, my watch. I fear these hands are stained with the blood spilt here.”

“And forced your bloodied hand, that fear has? To fare through the wood, all to return a foe-child to her family? Or…?”

“…Think you this washes clean those hands? The saving of my sister?”

“That, I don’t know. Perhaps you have the right of it. Perhaps I play at valour too vain. Perhaps this stain is too heavy a sin upon my soul,” I said, pained. “Be that as it may, I believed Mia deserved to know. A deed to be done, must be. And so I obliged.”

“Son of Man. You have heeded your heart.”

“Heeded… my heart?” I thought aloud, looking to Irma. “I should like to think so… Yet my heart is ever lost. I feel myself a fool to heed it.”

“Oh, child. Before me sits no fool,” the elderly Nafíl smiled. “Son of Man. You are most gallant.”

Irma’s eyes were as gems of gentleness in her vouching of me. I knew then of the immeasurable depth of her own heart, and of the sea of magnanimity that filled it.

Can such charity be found upon my face, too, were I in her place?

“Irma, wise Matron,” said I. “You hold no hatred for me? A Man?”

“Hatred?” Irma blinked. “What hatred for the hero of little Mia? I have said: not before has this deed been done. A slave, returned. Two sisters, together again. For this, I know no hatred. Only happiness.” The matron then turned. “Gentle Eva here has the same heart.”

Mia’s sister gave a strained mien. “…I… I hate not Man and his kin. I make bigotry, were I to judge by his blood and not what beats in his bosom. This, I know. I know, yet…” She looked away, and embraced Mia all the more tightly. “…I need time. To think. To forgive.”

“Time…”

I was shaken then, as if struck with the feeling of defeat.

Eva…

It was her wish to forgive me, however painful it might prove. It was her will to feign not the folly that was unfounded hatred for all of Man. A far cry from his own creed, that so sees virtue in villainising and eviscerating Eva’s kind: the Nafílim, our so-called “nemeses”.

“The both of you,” I spoke again at last, “what will you do from here on?”

“Our stores empty more by the day; to Hensen we look,” Irma explained. “But too long and lorn is the way, I fear. Not one horse we have, and to make journey with many children in tow is a danger.”

By my estimation, it would take a day of haste upon horseback to reach Hensen from here. Not too terrible a distance, but to escort a veritable crowd of children through the open fields would no doubt prolong the trek to their peril.

A danger indeed, lightly put.

“To the braves of Hensen I yearn to bring word of the War-Men’s whetted blades, but… beside the little ones must we remain…” Irma added.

My brows rose. “Hold there. The Fiefguard marches for Hensen? How are you certain?”

“These ears remember well,” the matron began to recount. “‘Next is Hensen’; so spoke the mouth of a Mennish chief. This, I have heard from the shadows whence I hid as the village was invaded.”

Plausible. Gravely so.

Just as this village stood beyond the northwestern mere of the forest, so, too, did Hensen at the northeast. It had heretofore proven too bristling a Nafílim bastion for the tastes of the Fiefguard, and so was the latter loath to set foot in the fólkheimr.

But that has changed. The balance of power here was shifted of late; mighty was the momentum now found in the lunge of Londosius’ lions of war, for the Nafilim numbers were well-withered. It betrays no reason, then, to believe that the Fiefguard would next train its myriad swords upon Hensen, the very seat of the jarl.

A tide of blades I can prove no protection against, even as commandant of Balasthea.

The tragedy of Mia’s village now threatened to reprise its thunderous throes upon Hensen itself. The sole solace being that the fólkheimr had the manpower to mount a resistance.

Nay…

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For as long as Balasthea, the bulwark of Ström, yet stood, for as long as the Fiefguard, the very fangs of Ström, yet drew breath, there was scant solace to be had in the hearts of the Nafílim here.

A pressing upon my own heart, then, to realise this. And in doing so, I looked to Mia’s slumbering visage, a sight that brought to mind another matter: the other half of our journey’s designs.

“Matron,” I began again after the long thought. “You are versed in magicks, you said?”

“That I have said, yes. Meagre though my prowess may be.”

“Might you incant ‘Dispellendō’? Between Mia and I is a thrallspell—I wish to have it gone.”

“‘Dispellendō’? Yes, that is simple enough. Very well. Your wish, I grant.” With that, Irma raised both of her palms: one to me, the other to Mia. “Hmm… Yes. This thrallspell I well-sense. Then shall bonds bind no more.”

“At your will, Matron.”

Faintly did a glow next glimmer from the flats of Irma’s hands. The odyl-lights then condensed and coursed their way into Mia and me.

“Dispellendō.”

In my ears: a peal, much like the links of a chain sundered asudden.

“The manacle is unmade,” Irma confirmed. “Freedom now, for you and Mia both.”

“Good Matron,” I bowed, “you have my deepest gratitude.”

For her part, Mia slept on with nary a disturbance in her peace. Yes… peace, indeed. At long last, a peaceful end to her lot as a slave.

“The laws of my land forbid the breaking of thrallspells, you see,” I explained. “Had I not found a wiċċe like you here, it was my intent to take Mia with me to Hensen, and there try our luck.”

“You intended well,” nodded Irma.

“But having spoken with you both, it’s clear to me now: Hensen is where I must go, no matter the circumstance.”

“It is your will to warn the jarl, or…?”

“It is.”

The matron’s mien wrinkled with trouble. “You are sure of this? Of another attack by the Mennish host, I have spoken, yes. But five moons it has been, and nothing. The possibility yet looms, of course, but Hensen watches and listens with many eyes and ears. Its braves might be wise to it, I think.”

“They watch and listen, but have they moved?” I doubted. “My men also watch the woods, and of late, they’ve espied little. I cannot think, then, that the lions of Hensen have evacuated their citizenry. They must know the full peril of their plight, and I’m the only free hand here.”

To the children I looked, and then to the sisters.

“I must go, if only to spare even one child from the same tragedy as Mia’s.”

“…Why is it you do this? Turn to Hensen, and you turn against your king,” Eva warned. “A just act it is in our eyes, yes, but in those of Men, it is the doings of a traitor.”

“Let them look. I know something of their scorn,” I said, sternly then, and softly next. “Besides, you, Mia—your whole family went there once a year, yes? Mia’s told me. To her, it’s a place of many memories, all precious.”

“And to me, no less precious. But what of it?”

“The lemonade they make there is a treat, I hear. One well-loved by your family.”

Brows furrowed. “It is…! …It was…! So what of it!?”

“In other words, Eva… I will heed my heart.”

Firm in those words, I rose to my feet. Awe was in Irma’s face as she watched, but it faded fast into a smile, calm and knowing in its glow.

Mild hills and sky-bearing flats were what spanned between here and Hensen. A lay-of-the-land gentle enough for journeys by carriage; with the moon hanging high and unhazed, I foresaw little trouble in galloping the whole way on horseback.

“You go now? Without a word to little Mia…?” the matron asked.

“I’m no good with goodbyes,” I confessed. “A word to her now will be a wound too deep for me.”

“Those words…” spoke Eva, “…to my ears, they sound a farewell bade to my sister.”

I paused.

“…We knew this moment might come, Mia and I. It’s by your side where she belongs, Eva, should we find you alive and well. And indeed, we have…” I explained. “We are worlds apart. She, an innocent child. And I, a Man steeped in war. Were I to keep her in tow for too long, the stain will be hers as well one day, and to our woe. What Mia needs from here on is healing and happiness. That, I leave to you.”

“…I see.”

And by then, I well-knew.

Mia’s was a mind most keen. No veil could hope to hide the heart from those amber eyes of hers. Mine especially, and so were we to share words now, I doubt my resolve could escape her ken. A resolve to lay my life on the line for what’s to come: the safeguarding of innocent lives, and as well, Mia’s very future.

A promise made is a promise kept, after all.

But to see me as I set out to certain death would surely slash another scar upon her own heart. No, Mia has had her fill of misery. Thus did I choose to be on my way without a word.

She’ll be all right from here on. Eva stands with her now. A young woman, strong of will, with prudence aplenty and, more than anything, a whole-souled sisterly love for Mia. This was my measure of her, gleaned from just this conversation. A measure that has unmade a mountain of my worries. I can go now, unburdened by its weight.

In the midst of these thoughts, I watched Mia sleep on peacefully in Eva’s arms.

Kneeling, I then caressed her head, to which she stirred most softly.

“…mm…”

Thank you, Mia.

For saving me.

Gratitude given from the depths of my heart.

Steps taken as I began to set out.

“Son of Man. May fair winds find you.”

“…Be safe.”

Irma’s and Eva’s words, heard as I parted from their company and their home.

────　Notes　────

Dispellendō

(Language: Latin; original name: “Dispel”) Magick of unstated type. Nullifies the influence of another magick on the target.

Jarl

(Language: Old Norse) A highborn noble or warrior; also, an “earl” who rules a region for a monarch. In Soot-Steeped Knight, a jarl is chieftain to a Nafílim clan.

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