Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 29

"How much farther?" she begged.

"Just there now," Shanata whispered back. "See?"

Torchposts lit both sides of the trail here, where it opened, and Talla caught her first glimpse of the blazing bright fortifications of the Eastern Barracks.

"Magnificent," she admired, the word escaping from her mouth involuntarily.

The vertical timber walls rose three times as high as a woman stood tall, with sharpened tips reaching to the sky. A gate, guarded by the armoured warriors atop it, beckoned with the promise of rest and drink. Behind that, on the side of the Barracks farthest from Talla, rose an immense, well lit tower. Her eyes barely made out the shapes of women standing at the highest level, one of them waving coloured flags in the air.

'Signals,' she thought. 'Like their heliograph but with nowhere near the range. Anything happens here and the Temple finds out in seconds.'

As they marched through gates and Talla heard a shouted order to seal the Barracks, Talla felt a sudden change in the air around her. What had -?

"The bell stopped," she noted into the unaccustomed silence.

"Yes, well, they were carrying on a bit," Shanata remarked and casually led Talla away from the caisson and its entourage.

In a moment, they found themselves just around the dark corner of low rising stone building.

"Talla," Shanata's teacher's voice cut through Talla's emotions, oddly steadying her.

"Mistress?"

"What's with you and him?" she jerked her head toward Zhair'lo.

"I - what do you mean?"

Shanata slid her helm off over her head.

"Sister," she intoned. "Speak to me."

"Of what," she pleaded, removing her own helm.

"Back there, on the road," Shanata glared, worry in her eyes, "When you got close to him, he ... he started to glow."

"Oh, Madra Zen," Talla cursed. "I - we haven't been together since -"

"Since when?"

"I - since a while, okay?" Talla tore at her hair with her free hand. "It happens if we stay apart a long time. When we get back together, it -"

A pregnant silence indicated Shanata's willingness to wait.

"It can be weird, when we touch," she lowered her gaze to the ground.

Geared wheels spun slowly behind the Acolyte's eyes.

"Weird?" Shanata accused. "And dangerous for those around you? That was you at the Hunter's camp, then?"

Talla bit her lip, nodded.

"Will you report me?"

"Nine hells, no," Shanata managed to shout and whisper all at once. "At least not now. Madra Zen."

"Then what?"

Talla felt as if she could hear the gears clicking now as her superior stared off into the dark alley over her head.

"Dangerous as hell," the Acolyte pronounced, not directly speaking to Talla. "But maybe, just maybe."

Decision forced a focus into the older woman's eyes.

"Stay close, but don't ever touch him," Shanata ordered, the thorough warrior stepping to the fore. "Don't let anyone see the glow. It might not even be visible during the day. Make sure ... make sure to be with him at the end. It may just be enough."

"Enough for what, Mistress?"

"Enough," she repeated. "That's all. Enough."

Shanata had no more to say and turned on her heel to rejoin the departing group. Talla replaced her helm and followed.

-===================-

The next time Zhair'lo awoke, red rays of sunlight shone up the front of his body. At some point in the night, they'd laid several blankets under him to cushion the back of his head against the rumbling of the wheels. By the sounds underneath him and the angle of the sun, however, he concluded they'd travelled a long way from any cobblestones.

"You awake for real this time?" Tara spoke beside him.

"Yeah," he muttered.

Tara's voice was modulated, just as his was, by the bump of the carriage's wheels. He couldn't imagine the caisson having enough room for two and forced his eyes open to take stock of his surroundings.

He rode in a much larger cart with a vast canvas overhead mounted on four poles. Tara, seated next to him, watched anxiously.

"Maybe don't try to walk this time," she cautioned him. "But they do want you to eat when we stop for breakfast."

"Breakfast?"

"Yeah. We've been marching for about six bells now. We left the Eastern Barracks after midnight."

"You're not walking?" he sat up, squinting his eyes.

"We take turns to sit here and watch you," Tara's quiet voice carried a deep anger in it, as if someone just outside hearing range had wronged her grievously.

'What's she got to be angry about?' Zhair'lo wondered.

He said nothing aloud, merely turning his eyes to meet hers. He had never seen the woman so serious. The petulant child had utterly disappeared, replaced by some strange grown-up wearing the same body.

"How long 'til breakfast?" he stuck out his tongue, rubbing it against his lips. "I have this weird taste in my mouth."

For moment, the biding wrath dissipated in favour of a flash of the mischievous child as Tara stifled a giggle.

"What?"

"Nothing," she shook her head, her eyes still smiling.

"What?" he glared at her through hooded eyes.

"The Goddess, of course," Tara's head tilted side to side. "She'd have given you some of her milk."

"Her milk?" he stammered. "From her -"

"Giant golden titties, yeah. I imagine it tasted just fine, then."

"I was unconscious."

"And so missed the second finest experiences of your young life," Tara shook her head in mock sadness. "So sad."

Somewhere in his mind, a witty retort existed to prevent Tara from identifying that very best experience as the bedding of herself, but Zhair'lo couldn't come up with it right then, so he smiled instead.

His eyes began to focus as he adjusted to the light. As the six horses pulling the cart blocked off the front, the rest of his squad had formed loosely around the sides. Behind and around his friends marched the largest assemblage of Fighters he had ever seen. Even with swords sheathed, bows tethered to their backs and helms racked on the various carts, they made an impressive formation.

In the near distance, off to the right and behind the cart, he spotted Sonja. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments before she flicked her gaze away. Zhair'lo couldn't imagine the woman embarrassed by what had passed the night before, but had no other explanation for her odd behaviour. He wondered what duty she held on this expedition.

"That's a big army," he observed.

"We're going into a city with a Fallen Temple."

"Do you think it'll be that bad?" Zhair'lo let his tone indicate only a touch of disbelief.

"They don't send a thousand Fighters for nothing, Zhai."

He heard them marching, speaking quietly as they moved. The smell of the musk of sweating bodies in well oiled leather armour permeated his nostrils. All their anxieties and tensions spoke to his heightened senses through their breathing and the tones of their voices. Whatever awaited them in Beshenna, these hundreds of men and women believed every disaster story predicted by the Temple.

"Wagons!", a male voice deep with a northern brogue rolled over the moving army. "O - ver!"

The army around him began breaking up as Soldiers moved to obey the command. Zhair'lo hadn't seen clearly before, for the bodies had crowded so close, but they had reached a clearing already set up with cooking pits and chopped wood sheltered under small slat roofs.

"Where are we?"

"They have these camps set up between the cities," Tara explained. "Lumberjacks come out to the closer ones to stock the wood piles. The farther in ones only get stocked when the carters go by. We'll be skipping some of them, of course, or maybe just stopping for meals like we are here."

'Of course,' Zhair'lo thought. 'We're shrinking a week long journey to three or four days.'

When the smell of burning fires reached his nose, Zhair'lo realized some portion of their contingent must have run on ahead to get breakfast ready. Men and women detached the horses and led them off to the right.

"The road runs close to a stream, here," Tara pointed to the line of horses. "So they'll water the horses downstream a bit while we fetch our own water for cooking."

Zhair'lo's eyes, alert and focused as ever under the effect of transferred upgrade energy, spotted horses he knew. He had worked with about half of them in his time at Harzen's farm, while the Temple and the Fighters must have drawn the rest from other stables. He watched those well-fed draught horses, six to a cart, march off politely to their water.

"What's Sunrise doing here?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" Tara asked.

"Sunrise," he nodded to a horse mixed in with the others. "She's wearing a saddle instead of a proper draught harness. Is someone supposed to be riding?"

"I don't know," Tara looked thoughtfully. "Maybe in case we need to move in a hurry?"

"Nice to be you, getting served like a Queen."

"Watching you snore, I deserve it."

Zhair'lo looked around anxiously and let out a sigh of relief when he noted Sonja's absence. As much as he refused to feel embarrassment for his actions, he couldn't pretend to find comfort in her presence and much preferred to not think at all about her.

Soon, the remaining six members of his squad made their way through the army, bearing bowls of porridge. They did not hide their glee at seeing him awake.

"Nine hells, Zhai," Kit said. "You gave us a start, dropping like that last night."

"Thanks, guys," Zhair'lo looked around at them one at a time. "I don't even remember."

"Eat, eat," Bree insisted. "You wouldn't believe how easy it is to bud in line when they realize we're getting food for you."

"What are we eating?" Zhair'lo eyed the bowls suspiciously from a distance.

"Porridge," Z'rus said. "Pretty good though. Spiced with something weird and some pulled pork in there or something."

"Is'ka," Zhair'lo smiled as he took a bowl

"I've never heard of a spice called 'Is'ka'," Del replied.

"Is'ka is the man you took this from," Zhair'lo explained, taking a spoon. "The spice is called 'cumin'. Are there Hunters with us?"

"Yeah," Del put in. "A lot of the Hunters are Fighters. Plus we need people who can kill and clean game. 'Travelling armies run on their stomachs'."

Zhair'lo recognized that last as coming from one of the tactical manuals. He looked around to see whom he could recognize. His brain processed dozens of faces instantly, even those great distances away. Who would come on a journey like this? As he let his mind open up, a thing very much like a block of sandstone hit him in his spine, just behind his hear.

'Talla.'

'I'm here. Behind you. Don't turn around.'

'How - '

'Doesn't matter. I'm here to keep an eye on you.'

Zhair'lo took a spoonful of the porridge.

'From way back there?'

'It's only twenty paces. It's too dangerous to come closer.'

'Dangerous?'

'The thing where we knock people unconscious. It looks fully charged. We glow. Shanata noticed.'

'Shanata? Your sister with the - ' An image flashed between them: Shanata removing her top to let Talla kiss her breasts in a sign of friendship.

'Yes. Her.' Zhair'lo sensed a smirk from Talla. 'Now pay attention to your friends. They're staring at you.'

Zhair'lo shook himself back to his surrounding as Talla faded into the distance, perhaps to seek her own breakfast.

"How long will we stop?" he asked no one in particular.

"They claim it's for less than a bell," Bree reported, looking around. "Hard to believe, but I guess the clean up crew can catch up, since they can run faster than the horses can pull these carts."

"We'll eat lunch on the move," Del added. "We're to tell you that you are advised to rest up for the night."

"The night?" Zhair'lo asked. "We can't march through the night, can we?"

He knew draught horses as tough animals, but even they had limits. Instead of answering, they greeted him with a universal shrug.

"We'll pitch tents tonight," Del pronounced. "They said that for sure."

"Do you want more?" Kit asked.

"Huh?" Zhair'lo gave a start when he looked down at his empty bowl. "Uh, yeah, I guess so."

Kit dashed off for the fires.

"What's with him?"

"He told ya," Tara reminded. "It wasn't nice seeing you collapse like that. Whatever the Goddess and her lot did to you ..."

Whatever mutinous statement she'd lined up faded somewhere short of her vocal chords. The unpleasant gap in the conversation, a train of speech unrecoverable due to its clearly unacceptable direction, found relief in the hurried return of Kit.

"There ya go, man," the boy handed over the bowl.

"Much appreciated," Zhair'lo spoke earnestly, looking directly into Kit's eyes. "Really."

"No sweat, Zhai."

The others, seeing his hunger, chatted pleasantly amongst themselves. Their speech tilted heavily toward the horror stories caught second hand from the more experienced Fighters. Some few, even in this army, had seen frontier cities and fallen Temples. These reported tragedy and misery to any others who would listen. Zhair'lo tried not to lend them credence, and tried simultaneously to hide his incredulity.

"I - uh," he stammered. "I should - uh -"

His vision, so clear just moments before, began to waver.

"You are going to lie down now," Bree ordered. "Real gentle. The wagons will move again soon enough."

"Yeah," he agreed while Kit took his bowl away and Bree and Tara braced him so he could fall back into the makeshift bed he'd never really risen from.

Darkness clouded in as his vision tunnelled. Through the tiny circle of sight his exhaustion had left him, the sun blazed through reddish orange. He would see nothing more for many bells.

-===================-

Talla had tried to bear the endless march in silence, but nothing in her weeks of training in Form had prepared her for so many hours of monotonous walking. The soles of her feet burned and her calves had threatened to lock up entirely since midway through the afternoon. The sun, now falling to the horizon behind them, vaguely hinted that dinner approached, but the army gave no sign of having received the solar communique.

They'd passed a clearing with a camp several bells before and paid it no heed.

"When do we stop, Mistress?" Talla heard more weakness in her voice than she'd wanted to make public.

"They can't go much longer if they want the horses ready in the morning," Shanata predicted, uncertainty tinging her voice. "Probably before the sun sets."

Gern no longer sat in the highest part of summer, but the days still ran longer than twelve bells. How much did the Fighters want to shave off the transit? What level of urgency had they assigned to the situation in Beshenna? If disaster truly awaited, would they want to arrive exhausted?

Knowing no other option, Talla marched with the army as the sky turned from blue to orange before her weary eyes. Clouds laced with red soon moved lazily across the sky. Talla spared an occasional glance over her shoulder, watching the sun touch and sink below the horizon.

Stuck in the middle of the long line of carts and its entourage of tall men and women, Talla only became aware of curves in the road when the carts in front of her changed direction. She inhaled deeply as one such shift took place. Did she smell smoke?

"Wagons! O-ver!" that voice bellowed out again. "Pitch camp!"

Bodies moved as they had before, serious and quiet. She had never seen people inside the Temple operate like this, not even in the practice yards of Form. These before her placed a great premium on their energy, moving to set up their tents and cots with an efficiency that made her jealous.

"Should we help?" Talla asked.

"No," Shanata's firm voice replied. "We'd only get in their way. They'll have a place for us, though, don't worry."

"And him?"

"It's getting dark. You'd best stay away. The guards here will see him well protected. You needn't worry for now."

-===================-

Zhair'lo found his legs capable once more and, feeling energized, trusted himself well enough to make it to the latrine farther downhill than where the horses drank. The dark, vengeance-laced horror of the night before vanished into distant memory. Those events had taken place a great distance down the river from where he now washed his hands. Denial fiddled with his mind, pushing spaces between his present situation and his past actions, inserting bells that had never rung. The time he had spent in the Goddess's bed chamber belonged to a past life.

Guards, both the seven from his own squad and four women assigned from elsewhere, waited a polite distance back from the river bank while he splashed water on his face. When he turned to face them, it was one of the larger women who stepped forward.

"A tent is prepared for you," her helm-muffled voice instructed him.

"For all of us, I should think," Tara piped up, hands on her hips, making the obvious point that a squad that slept together in Barracks would sleep together in the field.

"For him alone," the guard reiterated. "His status as Conduit requires it."

Zhair'lo watched his friends. They didn't literally reach for their weapons, but a vague threat put ghostly hands on hilts. He read the tension, saw the creases in their muscles, and knew the pointlessness of their show of loyalty.

"It's alright, guys," he soothed them. "They've got rules to follow. It's all for my safety, right?"

Tara still looked mutinous, but at least the phantom hands disappeared. The four women, anonymous and unfeeling beneath their masks, formed up around him.

"See you in the morning," he shrugged as he left his squad.

Having long since passed the point of numbness with regards to escorts by dull Form women, he did his best to ignore them for a time, but couldn't completely hold his anxiety in.

"Why exactly do I need my own tent?"

"You will understand," one of the nameless escorts waved off his question.

He knew their destination the moment he saw the cylindrical tent in the centre of the clearing, surrounded by much larger, rectangular tents. Not only it's shape, but its coloured panels and pointed top separated it from the drab, functional shelters around it. Zhair'lo well knew the Temple's penchant for ceremony, but he found it crazy to go to this level of extravagance during a military emergency. He saw it as one more piece of evidence that very little danger awaited them in Beshenna.

The guards bracketing stopped silently outside the awning over the entrance to the tent

None of them spoke a word to him.

"Not going to tuck me in, then?" he quipped before he ducked his head through the parted blankets.

Zhair'lo's eyes needed only the space of a heartbeat to adjust to the dimmer lighting inside the tent. With his enhanced vision, he discovered a small table in front of him bracketed by a pair of dim charcoal braziers on stands beside the table. On the table stood a pair of empty silver goblets and a matching decanter, all three items generously inlaid with swirling patterns made of small blue sapphires and other, opaque blue stones whose name escaped him at that moment.

He vision cleared up further and he saw the bed behind the little table. Though minimal by city standards, a bed wide enough to spread his arms and legs upon constituted an irresponsible luxury this far afield. Zhair'lo wondered what the people who had assembled this tent thought of him.

As he walked around the table to the left side of the bed, he paused as something nagged for his attention. Turning around slowly, he surveyed the room again. Little of note presented itself to his mind. The bed, wooden and laid with simple sheets, did nothing to pique his curiosity. Next he turned to the braziers and the small table at the foot of the bed.

'Two goblets,' his eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'Why two?'

The curtains parted and a woman entered.