All Kalen could do was stare. What perverted savages would think of such a thing? The walls were torn down and stripped of their silver--all but the Eternal Spire. The ancient monument, the only one still standing from when the city had first been erected, five hundred years since, had been turned into a monstrosity. The sides, half-way up, were painted with flaking dried blood. Bodies of warriors were pinned to the spire with massive spikes driven through their hearts, and all around, decapitated bodies of men, women, and children were strewn all laid out carefully, with their heads lying at their feet in a grotesque distortion.
"Look well, Tassin," Assassin's cold voice rang out in the empty space. "Behold the work of Fellyre. There will be no peace for your people until they are overthrown. They do not delight in conquest so much as cruelty. They revel in it. And you, man of Hyedan: these are the people in whose hands you have left your sister." She turned to Kalen, who had sank to his knees. He could not--would not look at the faces. He didn't want to know. "Elnite, think of your friends and family who lie here. Those who butchered them and desecrated their bodies--do you not want revenge? Follow me and we will overthrow Fellyre's plans. We will weaken them such that they may yet fall."
Revenge. The word seemed meaningless. All Kalen could feel was a hollow nausea. Dallanis, Aethan, Taldyr--and so many others. They had trained together, fought together--the countless evening of laughter and humble feasting beside a roaring fire, the foolish horse-racing that had nearly sent twenty of them home, the early mornings when they stumbled out of the tents, rumpled and bleary eyed--gone. A sickening guilt washed over him. He had fled the field. He should have stay--stayed and died with them. The Four Loyalties--he had failed them all. He saw, once again, the girl with the arrow in her throat. She had the courage--she had died for her people. She had died for him. All the Elnites lying here had died because of him. They had been sent there because of him. Dallanis had been right: they should have deserted.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Eldan. But it was she who had taken him from this field of death. He pulled away involuntarily. If she had only left him...
"Kalen." Her voice was no more than a distant whisper against the torrent of accusations and questions raging in his mind. "Kalen, look at me." She knelt in front of him, her eyes unavoidable. "I know what's going through your head. Your death would have changed nothing here. It is no sin to survive."
"And no sin to avenge." Assassin's tone was cool. Kalen realized he hated her. She was unmoved by the carnage--she had brought them here to serve her own ends. She only cared about his grief if it served her purposes. He turned to face her and--Eldan's hand tightened on his arm in an effort to restrain him.
Assassin was moving quickly from body to body, rifling through their gear and weapons. Plundering the dead. She looked up and saw them watching her.
"What? Friend or foe, they have no more need of these. You three are poorly armed. Like it or not, they have what you need." She tossed a sheathed broad sword towards Jaened, but he made no effort to catch it.
"You--" The words came from Kalen with difficulty. "Have you no respect for the dead?"
"No. Nor for the living. Why should I? They've gone where they'll never return. Why would they care what becomes of their carcasses? Come--if your self-righteous sense of honor won't let you take from your own people, take some Fellyrian gear. It's not half as good quality, though."
After a few minutes, Eldan and Jaened reluctantly took up a few weapons from the dead, but Kalen couldn't. Assissin's logic made sense--cold, heartless sense--but he could only think of what Taldyr would say if he could see them now. How are we better than Fellyre? He recalled the commander's rebuke from years ago. We cannot and we will not stoop to their level. Where is your honor? You call yourselves followers of Ithien?
"This is a fine piece." Assassin easily spun a massive glaive around. Kalen recognized it immediately. It was Taldyr's. That weapon had been Syriel's pride; she was the only one he permitted to touch it. It had no equal. Now, to see it in the hands of that woman...
"Give me that."
Assassin laughed. "Look who is suddenly interested! Found a weapon that suits your fancy?"
"A plague on you!" Kalen cursed, "That's Taldyr's--you have no right to touch it!"
"I don't care if it belonged to Zerak. It's the finest blade I've ever seen and it's mine. Any who would contest that is welcome to fight me for it." To prove her point, she lowered it so to point was inches from Kalen's face.
"No one is going to fight you for it." Eldan stepped between them. "Right, Kalen?" Kalen lowered his eyes, too angry to reply. How had they let themselves fall into Assassin's power like this?
"We should leave. Whoever did this can't be far away," Jaened put in.
"Fellyre moves quickly, but they wasted a bloody lot of time here." Assassin smirked. "Their arrogance could be there downfall yet." Kalen almost choked. You're one to talk of arrogance! "But if you have all you need, we can go."
Their pace was slower, laden down with weapons. Jaened had acquired a Syxelite mail shirt and a round Fellyrian shield as well as the sword Assassin had given him, and Eldan now had a crossbow bound to her back. Assassin led the way, pointing directions with Taldyr's glaive. She had taken a bronze helm with a rough half-mask which made her look more manly than ever, and four swords of varying length and make had joined hers on her belt. Kalen marveled that she could walk at all. Marveled and wished it otherwise. If she dropped dead in her tracks, he would have been glad. The force of his hatred surprised him, but it felt good in the place of the numb horror of the carnage at Syxel.
"We will be at Terraphel by nightfall. I trust you all know how to use those weapons?" When Jaened admitted that he did not, Assassin called a halt and, laying aside the rest, drew her old sword.
"Attack me."
It was both sad and comical to watch Jaened try to fight Assassin. She fought carelessly, holding the blade with only two fingers at times, but every time he swung, she sent him to the ground with the flat of her sword. Finally, she laid her sword aside and challenged him again. He swung his blade at her neck and she dove for his feet and laid him flat again, effortlessly catching his blade and disarming him. He tried again, and she sent him flying without even looking. At last, she stepped back.
"You're hopeless." There was no humor in her tone. "You'll never be a warrior. You are more a danger to yourself than anyone else with that blade." She took it away and put it in Kalen's hands before he could protest. "That shield will be your weapon. Don't fight. We need you alive."
They walked on in silence. Kalen suspected that she had done that, not to train Jaened, but to show them all her strength and skill. The sooner they were finished at Terraphel, the sooner they would be free of her. And that was all Kalen wanted.
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