Freedom Fighters of Trelandar
A Tale of Adventure in the Second Dark Age
Book Nine of the Warlady Series
By Jerome B. Bigge
Chapter Five
     
"We'd better get a fire started," I suggested, aware of the
nature of "life" here in these forests. The war had changed much
more than just the "lives" people led now. Even the animals were
"different" due to the dead bodies about after every battle here.
Many of the predatory beasts having developed a "taste" for human
flesh, and they were quite willing to "kill" to get it sometimes!
The boles of the trees surrounding us on all sides barely visible
now in the last light of the sunset's dying red glow to the west.

     
"You never did really answer my question," Carl said to me,
the firelight flickering on his face as he squatted over it now.
The crumbling walls of the ruins seeming to move with the light.
There was but little smoke, and I knew Imperials did not enter a
forest at night, but stayed out in the open away from the trees.
Archery at two hundred yards at night can be quite disconcerting,
if perhaps not really all that effective in the military sense.
     
"I killed a classmate in a duel," I said in a level voice.
     
"Dueling is not `uncommon' among the cadets," he stated.
     
"I didn't mean to kill her," I said, looking at the fire.
     
"It is hard to control one's point at times," he answered.
     
"She cut my shoulder, and I slashed out with my sword..," I
said, remembering the scene, seeing the blood, the horror in her
eyes as she clutched at her throat, the blood welling between her
fingers. The strangled choking sounds she made before she died!!
"I killed her, just because she `hurt me'!" I spoke, squatting on
my calves before him, my knees tight together, as befitting here.
I'd dropped my sword, grabbed her in my arms, the others standing
there watching, Darlanis too, tall and golden, as Jani died then
choking on her own life blood, "staining" her clothing, mine too.
     
"You killed today," Carl Talen pointed out, sitting down on
a bit of rubble, some sort of device so badly rusted now there'd
be no way of telling what it had once been so long ago here now.
The firelight gleaming off his leather tunic, the golden hilt of
his sword. His eyes in the firelight seeming to gleam into mine.
     
"I'm defending my country, fighting its enemies," I replied.
     
"I think its more a matter of that they're `strangers'," he
mused thoughtfully. "Your classmate was someone that you knew."
His dark eyes holding mine as I now nodded thoughtfully in reply.
"She was a `person', someone who'd you'd talked to, shared meals
with, opinions you'd heard, perhaps even shared secrets with..."
     
"I murdered her in a fit of rage..!" I said, squatting there
by the fire, feeding it little twigs, watching them flame up now.
"It all `happened' so fast..." I breathed, memories coming back.
The heated angry words, the inhibitions released by alcohol, it
having been a last "fling" together before graduation, the young
men there with us perhaps even egging us on a bit as men will do.
I remembered too the "blood", so much of it, Jani's eyes looking
into mine, the horror in their depths as she knew she was dying!!
Choking on her own blood, unable to speak, Jani lived for perhaps
a minute, a horrid long dragged out minute, before she then died!
And every long second of that awful minute she kept looking at me
with those eyes, making those horrid gurgling sounds, touching my
face while everyone just stood there and watched. Even the bar-
tender and the bar maids now standing there along with everyone.
Everyone gathering around us like ghouls, watching a young woman,
who only a minute ago had her whole life before her, lie dying in
the arms of the sobbing cadet who had just killed her right here!
     
"I think I understand," Carl Talen said to me sitting there.
     
"The idea of killing again was something I couldn't face," I
said, getting up, finding something to sit down upon here. "Jani
wasn't a close friend, but I did know her, even if Darlanis said
that it was Jani who actually started the fight here with me..."
     
"You saw Darlanis as your `friend'?" he asked, regarding me,
one of our unicorns pawing at the ruins, making a ringing sound.
The stars now bright in the sky above there between the treetops.
I could smell the smoke, the odor of wood burning, as I "nodded".
     
"She was `different' than anyone else, and she listened," I
said, remembering. "She didn't make fun of my ideas like every-
one else did. She was a real `princess' even if she was disowned
by her mother," I added, so aware I was speaking of the woman who
was now killing my people, raping my country, burning villages...
I wondered to myself if Darlanis was the way she was now because
as a young woman we'd all made fun of her, teased her, called her
names, and even I never stood up for her like I should have done!
     
"I still remember my first time as if it was yesterday," he
said to me, getting a blanket, and putting it over my shoulders.
"it was when Tulis was giving us so much trouble there with her
raiders," he spoke, sitting back down across the fire from me. I
nodded, aware that Carl was speaking of "something" very private,
very personal here. Not something one might share with anyone.
     
"Go on," I said softly, giving him a reassuring smile.
     
"She was a woman, a young woman, blonde," he said to me.
     
"And you slew her in battle," I said, suspecting this here.
     
"My thrust was low, not instantly fatal," he said to me now.
I could visualize it for myself, having seen such before. Death
is sure, but not swift. Sometimes the person will live for a pe-
riod of time, as much as an hour, although not usually as a rule.
"She screamed in agony as I drew my sword out of her belly," Carl
said, looking down at the fire flickering there between us here.
"I wanted to put her out of her misery, but I couldn't do it..."
     
"There were others about?" I asked him, well aware of how it
would have been. The ship coming in under the cover of darkness.
The sails taken down from the masts, the vessel now under sweeps.
The boats being drawn up on the sands, the sudden attack on them!
     
"I picked her up and carried her away from the battle," he
said, "Knowing nothing but that I had killed this beautiful young
woman even if she still yet lived, still breathed..." he went on.
"This fair `flower' of Dularn that I'd thrust my own sword into!"
I saw the glitter in his eyes, understood how he felt about this.
She'd been an enemy Warrioress, a professional fighting woman, as
were those who we'd shot down today, but face to face is differ-
ent than it is shooting at people with missile weapons in combat.
I think that is why the ancients with their rifles could kill so
easily, even to using "telescopes" on their weapons so that they
might kill from even greater distances, perhaps as much as half a
mile away. Why men could fly airplanes over a city, drop bombs.
"Do" all the things that those of the past did here so long ago.
Maybe that's "why" The War happened, why we are like we are now.
     
"She was a mother too, with a little daughter back home," he
spoke, almost sobbing now as it all came pouring out. "She could
talk for a while before the end came..." he said, wiping his eyes
as he sat looking at the fire, no doubt seeing only "her" dying!!
I got up, the blanket over my shoulders, and sat down beside him,
pulling him to me, drawing the blanket around us both as we sat
there, aware of the ghosts of the past that now filled the ruins.

     
It is easy to speak, to write of the glories of war, to tell
of battle horns, of the feel of a charger between your thighs, of
the flights of arrows like a flock of birds, of the ring of steel
as swords meet, but war is still killing people, hurting people,
even if those people have come to your country to kill and hurt!
It is in my opinion the "facelessness" of the enemy that makes it
possible to kill, the very term "enemy" speaking so very much now
too of the realities of war. This is perhaps why I've never been
able to accept the caste mark of the Warrioress, even if I was in
fact trained to be one, taught to use the weapons of a Warrioress
in battle, taught military tactics at the Warrioress Academy, a
bit of "knowledge" that I later put to good use against Darlanis.
     
I used to speak of these matters to Lorraine when we sat to-
gether there on the estate in '65 and talked, but even she never
really understood the way I felt. Lorraine was a true Warrioress
in the very meaning of the word... A professional fighting woman
who died as she would have wished, with a sword in her hand... I
can only say that I admired her greatly, even if we didn't agree.

     
"What did your commanding officer say?" I ventured, aware of
the rules and laws of warfare, of deserting one's comrades, even
in a case like this! Such had been a part of my own training as
a Warrioress, and part too of what I'd been trained as a lawyer.
     
"Queen Tulis the week before had signed a peace treaty with
us," he answered. "It had all been a horrible `mistake', both on
our side and on theirs too," he explained, looking into my eyes.
"We were in northern Trelandar, and notice arrived the next day."
     
"You said your wife was Dularnian," I spoke, hoping to draw
him away from these memories, aware of how they could "fester" so
inside a person. I suspected that there had been "more" to this!
     
"There was a court martial over it," Carl said. "My lawyer
was Mathis Olan, one of the `finest' in Trelandar," he smiled, no
doubt aware that I'd known of her, she having been of two castes,
both that of the Warrioresses and too of the Scribes. "They kept
it out of the papers due to the political ramifications, both due
to the fact that we were now allied with Dularn and because Tia
(the woman he killed) had been the daughter of a Senator there."
     
"And you married your attorney," I said, remembering now.
     
"She was `Dularnian', and blonde," he said, meeting my eyes.
I could guess the rest for myself. A position in the Royal Guard
where this "incident" might be kept a state secret forever now...
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