Blood Across The Ages
I.iv
N-ta awoke to a calm morning. After the pain of remembering the dead, the joy of celebrating the victory, she’d been emotionally drained. The sun peeked in through her entryway, and she stretched and went about her morning.
“Shall we practice fighting?”
The ageless warrior turned to the sound of the youthful voice. “Hmm, Vamdis?” N-ta guessed.
The woman beamed. “You remembered!” Vamdis spoke.
“I’d be glad to train with you,” N-ta replied. “The women have to stick together!”
They exchanged blows. Each time Vamdis came in for a strike, N-ta moved around and delivered a reversal that could be remembered. The goal was to instruct as well as act. The girl threw a flat hand forward, aiming for a chest strike. She intended to hit below the center of the chest and drive the wind out. N-ta pushed the arm aside with her left hand and drove a flat palm that shoved her foe back. The girl responded with a round kick to the side, which N-ta dodged, grabbed the leg, and spun around, depositing the girl on her back.
“When you strike,” N-ta explained, “speed is more important than power. If your enemy has difficulty hitting you, it improves your battle.”
“That’s true,” Nodir said, approaching. “What you want is to find a good balance.”
They trained for another few hours, until it was time to head out into the fields to hunt. Around the early afternoon, N-ta felt a strange tingling. Putting it to the front of her mind, she sensed a magical presence in the village. Her initial sense of alarm gave way to confusion as the feeling resembled her own. It also seemed quite miniscule, so she recognized they’d just gotten their powers. It also grew at a much lower rate than hers.
They must have tasted my blood!
Her realization drove the wind from her chest. During the battle against the Ghoul, some fool must have retrieved a sample of her blood from the combat site and drank it. Despite the years and distance from her original home, she still remembered the smell of her brother’s burning flesh as if they just wafted into her nostrils. This fool had risked immediate death. On the other hand, if he had instead stumbled upon an easy way of gaining powers, this could spell disaster.
She clutched her spear, sighted some wild game, and let fly. The spear pierced through the beast’s head, carrying it a few feet before it fell dead. As she pulled the weapon free and began dragging the corpse, her thoughts filled with the situation. She decided she would observe and wait to see what he would do with his newfound power. After all, it wasn’t good to just assume the worst. If she was going to live here for awhile, it would be a good idea to be on one’s best behavior.
She brought the kill back to the village, and helped the men remove the fur and skin from the corpse and prepare it for cooking. The bones were used to make stock that would provide a good soup. As a group of women stirred the boiling pot, as the juices left the bones and mixed into the water, she talked to them and learned some techniques for cooking different kinds of food. The different beasts provided different meats. Not just that, but birds and other fowl had a different texture and flavor altogether. Learning how to cook what and what flavors went with which meat would be a lesson she could use no matter where she went.
“Tell me,” N-ta asked the woman named Geratko, “that warrior, what’s his name?”
Geratko peered over the heads of her fellow cooks, and saw. “Him?” she replied, going back to her stirring, “he’s ‘Rethif.’ He’s mostly useful in close combat. The men say he prefers to get close in and stab.”
“Was the battle against the Ghoul the first war party he was in?”
The cook looked at N-ta. “Long before you came here,” she explained, "there was a village two days’ walk down into the valley.” She gestured a descending hillside. “The fact is they kept wanting our high ground. Used to attack in the middle of the night.”
“Huh,” N-ta noted. “So, what happened to them?”
“Water shifted,” Geratko pointed out. “Nearly flooded their crops out. They wandered downstream until they came to where the river empties out past the mountains.” She shrugged. “We never saw any of ‘em again.”
“That’s something,” N-ta commented.
“Alright,” the cook said, “the broth’s done. Now could you do me a favor and pull the bones out? We got to bury those before it attracts wolves.”
N-ta pulled the bones out of the stone pot and carried them a decent walk from the village and buried them a few feet underground. With her enhanced abilities, the digging job took minutes instead of almost an hour.
At dinnertime, she found herself eating opposite Rethif.
“I can sense your power,” he whispered, setting his plate down and leaning in. “I got to tell you, this appetite is something.”
“Be sure to eat,” she advised. She’d learned almost the hard way that, even if his healing wasn’t up to hers, he’d likely not feel the pain of hunger. His body would still experience it, though, it just wouldn’t tell him. So he’d shrivel up while at the same time not feeling the urge to eat.
“You’re dead on,” he uttered. “I’m not getting the urge but when I bite down, I feel famished.” He finished a bite, and drank from his clay cup. “You’re something else, though. This…” he pointed to his arm, “this power in me isn’t a tenth of what yours is.”
“I’ve been alive longer than you can count,” she told. All told, she felt a bit relieved. Sure, it didn’t mean much. He could still go on a rampage tomorrow, but his willingness to talk soothed some of her worst fears. Maybe it was her presence, that he knew she was superior in power, or maybe he just didn’t feel the need to be oppressive. She leaned in. “You tasted my blood, didn’t you?”
He sheepishly nodded. “Got me.”
She looked left and right without moving her head. A few glanced at her, but they’d gotten used to her enough that she didn’t distract. “Do you know what could’ve happened?” She said. “My brother tasted the blood of a goblin and he burned to death. We’ve no idea whether or not mine will do the same. Please tell me none else did what you did.”
He gently shook his head. “None,” he admitted. “Just me.”
“I’ll have to teach you so I can learn if your power is like mine,” she said. “Your secret will no doubt come out, but right now, I’d like not to tell everyone. The late night watch has a gap we can use.”
He beamed. “That’s perfect!” He ate more. “I want to know how it works.”
After the meal, they both helped in the clean-up, taking the dishes to the water’s edge and cleaning them. After they were brought back to the feasting area, everyone did the last bit of chores before the sun went down. The night sentries took their posts along the village’s perimeter, relieving the evening sentries. N-ta closed her eyes, focusing a bit of her power, and got a full night’s sleep in a third of the time.
“Wake up!”
Rethif blinked. She had to give him credit-she told him the time and when he woke, he was awake. He lifted himself out of his blankets, and off the furs and leaves that made up his bed. They crept through the village, carefully avoiding the fires that were kept burning through the night to provide light should an attack require the waking of everyone. By taking a series of alleys between stone and wood dwellings, they made their way to a segment of the perimeter where the logs could be easily moved.
“Alright,” N-ta said, having reached a point approximately an hour’s hike southeast from the village. “I believe we’re far enough.”
“What comes first?” he asked.
“First,” she said, “picture the power inside you.” She touched his hands and felt the faint, if vibrant, power coursing through him. “Imagine it. Don’t put your own image on it, let it come to you. What do you see?”
“A river…of light the color of the moss,” he explained. “It glows as it moves.” It touches my body and makes it stronger. He turned his head left and right. “I…I can hear better!”
“Quieter!” she uttered. “That’s a sign that it works. Picture a fire. Picture a fire made out of the river the color of moss.” She held out her hand, palm upturned. A pulse of white light came out of her upturned palm, turning into a swirling mass of fire that formed into the shape of a rough sphere. She poked it with her other finger, and it did not burn her. After a minute, she pulled her hand back and the fireball extinguished.
It took him several full minutes, but he conjured a small ball of flame in his palm. It was only a tiny fruit compared to hers, but progress had been made nonetheless. “I’ve gotten it,” he pointed out.
“The point is that your mind is the key,” she explained. “You can do much if you can imagine it. I think that’s enough for tonight. We don’t want to risk too much. We can go for longer when we have a better idea of how your powers work.”
“That’s fine,” he agreed. “I’m just so glad it works at all.”
They crept through the forest, his steps matching hers in stealth after a few feet. The sentries kept a watch that went in patterns. There was a gap of about three minutes where certain sections had no eyes on them. They made their way through the open section and quietly slipped back to their quarters. Rethif went back to sleep right away and N-ta lay on her bed, committing to memory the feeling his power gave hers. Hers grew within her at a much faster rate than his grew within him. Could it be a symptom of the goblin’s blood coming directly from the source with her, whereas he only got the diluted stuff from hers? She would have to ponder this for later.
It wasn’t just him. He’d taught her a lot about how her powers worked just by getting a chance to be close to him and sense his inner energy. She’d had to figure out a great deal just by experimentation. Fire, water, and summoning things to her by thought had all been her playing around over years and years. By having someone else whose energies she could peer into with her extra sense, she determined how a great many things might work. In the night, she focused on practicing many of the things she wondered about being possible.
The next night, they practiced sensory enhancement. She determined he could hear sounds about half as quiet as the ones she could. This gave her a baseline to determine what he could do. His abilities, despite being limited, gave her hope. Not only could she help someone, but she could also figure out how she operated. Not having to experiment as she went along would be a great help.
“So,” he said, “how do you become stronger and faster?”
“We’re almost there,” she explained. “You have to learn how to focus your power into your senses first. Your senses are easy. How they operate doesn’t change. Your muscles do different things depending on what motion you’re doing, and you have to adjust in real time.”
As he focused on his sight, she pushed hers to the limit. The dim moonlight illuminated all the details she could pick up. The sounds of tiny insects crawling through the leaves registered clearly in her ears. Despite the ambient sounds, the magic in her ears separated the sounds. She could hear his heartbeat quite clearly, as well as her own, despite the faint wind and the rustle of leaves.
“I can see the tiny bugs in the air,” he said. “There normally has to be a big cloud of them.”
She nodded. “Great job,” she praised. “The way you focus your senses is how you focus all your magic.”
Over the next week, their training sessions bore fruit for both. His hunts and tending crops became easier, as she trained his abilities. He became stronger and could sneak up on the beasts easier. Pulling weeds and plowing the ground tired him out less. As it progressed, though, she improved as well. A lot of what she could do she kept to herself, but she found she could produce lightning in miniature in her hands, among other things. Despite having lived hundreds of years, her lessons with him had given her new avenues to study.
This is the kind of thing I’ve been looking for, she thought.
Even as the winters came, the snow falling and the wildlife becoming scarce, the village had plenty of crops stored away. The villagers benefited from her hard work, their gratitude on display every time she trained with the warriors or helped prepare dinner.
One day, she noticed the gossip. She listened in, pretending not to hear.
“Rethif isn’t getting older,” one man said.
“You think she’s taken him for a lover?” the other replied.
“Must be,” a third chimed in. “How else would you explain it?”
That evening, she started gathering supplies. Each morning, she would do whatever tasks were asked of her, but she no longer volunteered. She tucked her friendliness away, as she knew she’d have to abandon this tribe as well. It hurt her less, because the people she had strong attachments to were getting older, and a few had passed on. At the end of the week, she would have enough to venture out into the night. The prospect of venturing outward further into the world both intrigued and frightened her. Out there, the winters were long, and snow fell much of the time. Still, with her magics, she would figure it out.
The fateful night, she attached the fur sacks of supplies to her body with hand-made ropes. She tied her knife to her pants and wrapped another layer of fur hide around her feet. Setting out into the village, she snuck past the guards and pressed out into the night, the cold biting at her mostly covered face.
“Wait!”
She turned.
“Rethif,” she explained, “I can’t stay.”
He threw up his arms in frustration. “Why not?” he demanded. “The gossip?”
“Not just the gossip,” she corrected. “If they think I made you long-lived because I took you as a lover, others will seek such boons.”
“That’s not fair!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been so helpful!”
She shook her head. “Our friends will survive,” she explained. “You’re strong enough to protect them now. But I can’t be the source of conflict.” She laughed. “For all you know, we might meet again if we live long enough.”
Before he could make a run for her, she took off. It wasn’t hard to get away from him. Her feet carried her until morning. The sun poked through the sky and her magic allowed her to set up camp and rest. After sitting down and taking a sip of water and a quick snack, she buried her face in her hands and cried.
Once again, everyone she cared about had to be left behind. As years had passed, with seasons coming and going, she thought of the people she cared about and the ones that had passed on. Time moved forward and could not be stopped. After all this time, she thought she’d be used to it by now.
Weeks of journeying through the mountains led her to an area of valley plains where the snow covered the ground, there were forests nearby, and mountains created two pathways in and out. It was an area of one day’s walk from the center to the mountains on two sides, and the exits on one far end and the other were a day and a half.
This time, she wasn’t a young pup just figuring her place out in the world. Using the magic she’d honed, she cast her power into the air. At once, the snowfall changed to rain. The clouds overhead dumped their contents and then parted. As the day progressed, the sun shone on a much warmer valley. She summoned a dwelling out of stone and wood, and created a bed of feathers wrapped in fabric, even without birds or weavers. She ate a meal and slept.
Over the next few days, the snow melted for much of the area, save for the mountains, and life slowly returned to the forest. An area of low grass was ripe for tilling, so she pushed out her magic and prepared a large area for a garden. Crops of various kinds got planted. Wild boars roamed the forest, so she killed one, cleaned the meat, and used the bones to make soup broth. A stream ran from the mountains through the center of the valley, so she washed herself and her clothes and dried them with magic.
Making time to visit each end of her new home, she set up magic that would be invisible, but would alert her if any people or, heavens forbid, monsters like ghouls or goblins would enter her territory.
A few years into her new life, from the southeastern end of the valley, the first stragglers from afar came in. She sensed them from afar and used her magic to view them. These people wore furs even stranger than the ones she’d seen before. Their eyes had a curve to them that surprised her, and their skin was the lightest yet. Even the people she’d left behind, one could call slightly dark-skinned. These were clearly light-skinned people.
Maybe it’s time to change shape again, she thought.
As her strange visitors approached, drawn by the sight of the smoke from her cooking fire, she decided upon and changed into a form that resembled someone like them. It took them hours to get close enough that she could come to them.
When the two groups met, the sun had reached its highest point. “Hello,” N-ta said. “You must’ve come from far.”
They spoke in a language she’d never heard before. Moreover, she could instinctually tell the tones of the words changed the meaning of the words themselves. A magic spell she’d learned allowed her to learn their language instantly from their mind. “We never would have imagined someone living this far out,” one of them had said.
“What area are you from?” A tall man with broad shoulders said.
“I’m not from where you’re from,” she admitted. As far as she could tell, the best approach should be to be as honest as possible. She held her palm upturned and created a small fireball. “I look like you through magic.”
They started. “Oh gods!” the shortest woman of the three exclaimed.
With them still, she got a good look at them. They were five in total. Three women and two men. The two men were a contrast for the ages. The tall warrior had a build meant for battle and the scars to match. His eyebrows were bushy and his face tall and thin, with a harsh expression. The other man stood short and stout, his build less lean but still very durable. The women seemed much more like each other with the height being the only major difference.
“I mean you no harm,” N-ta pointed out. “You’re free to stay for as long as you like. I’ll help you set up camp.”
The group let out a sigh that even N-ta felt. Only the warrior was apprehensive. Still, it was obvious they’d walked for a long time and had run out of food relatively recently. They followed her back to her home, stopping for the night halfway. She set up a bed for them and made sure it didn’t rain.
“So,” the short man explained. “We come from a nation of tribes set up around a large town. Our local leaders and the national leader had to decide what to do. You see, the great snow and ice had begun to encroach on our land. It became difficult to grow crops. Some of us were sent out. We tried to fight back, but we lost, and we left so our families wouldn’t be cast out.”
N-ta decided not to tell them about the place she originally came from, where the weather was hot almost always, and the rain was the deciding factor whether people lived or died. Instead, she told them of the mountains and the fact that she had to leave because it was getting too crowded. She explained that the climate here was much milder because of her magic and she was going to take some time away from people to learn about her magic in its entirety.
“I never asked your names,” she said.
“Wa-ven,” the short man told. “Our strongest fighter is my brother Hu-ven.”
“Wei-ulan,” the tall woman said.
“Po-roha,” a woman of average height but strong legs introduced.
“Wai-sho,” the short woman introduced. “And you?”
“N-ta,” she told them.
“Eh-tah?” Wei-ulan mispronounced.
“Close enough,” N-ta replied.
The next morning, they finally made it to the open plains area in the middle where N-ta kept her living quarters. Using magic, she made one for each of them, spread out and giving them plenty of space to move around in.
“This is great!” Wa-ven exclaimed.
“We’ve got water from the stream,” Po-roha said, “and plenty of food to eat!”
N-ta decided to take a risk. “I don’t think I can make you exactly like me,” she said, “but I think I can teach you magic.”
They stared.
“You mean it?” Wai-sho demanded.
“The truth is,” N-ta pointed out, “I keep running from place to place. There are monsters out there. I’ve fought and killed some. I can’t be the only one who knows magic.” She saw their apprehension. “Do you want to learn? Do you want to try this out with me?”
They nodded.
Wa-ven said, “we’re in.”