War Torn (1x1)

"I know the area around here fairly well," Niobe said, grateful for the change of topic but reluctant to leave the small room where she had found temporary sanctuary. "We would do training exercises on these bluffs. The easiest path out of the mountains is east, on the other side of the monastery. If we move swiftly we could reach Runnfold before dark. Or we could try to stay the night here and leave tomorrow." But looking around the room, Niobe wasn't sure if there was enough wood to keep the fire going. And she wasn't sure when the last time either of them eaten a full meal was. Delaying travel would allow them to rest, true, but it might make them weaker overall.

"Once we get to town... I don't know." She sighed, rubbing at her aching head. "I haven't exactly thought that far ahead. I have no money to pay for a room, but camping won't be so bad down in the valley. Maybe we can wash dishes at a tavern to earn a hot meal."

It was strange. She had already made up her mind to leave, but actually thinking about it in the immediate sense made something recoil in her chest. She would be leaving so much unfinished. Would Ilmater ever forgive her for forgoing the traditional funeral rites? What if the fallen were not permitted into the afterlife as they were and by leaving, she doomed them to purgatory? Niobe told herself she could return, but in truth, she knew she wouldn't. She didn't have the strength to return home to find only an icy tomb.
 
"We should move in an hour or so. I don't want to end up suffering a cold, hungry night, only to have a long walk ahead of me the next morning. If we can get to town, I have enough coins for some food, but not enough for an inn. It's warm in these months, though, so sleeping outside won't be too bad, if you can ignore the bugs." Jorsek responded. He was glad that Niobe had offered to leave this place. He didn't want to have to force her to leave if she tried to put the hundreds of bodies to rest. It was a noble goal, but even for someone with enough supplies, it was a daunting task to do so in these conditions. He wondered if he would have done the same in her situation, whether his bond of family would have conflicted with his need to survive.

The money he had, he thought grimly, would only last for a few simple meals. He had spent most of his family's small fortune paying for food and supplies on the way to the monastery, but by now, he surely didn't have enough to get back home, even if he wanted to. That jerky was the last of the food he had, and he knew it would probably be the last but of meat he had for a long while.

"Whenever you're ready to move, Niobe, we can move." The farmer stated, pulling his staff off the ground. He hunched forward from his sitting position, leaning his weight on it, listening for Niobe's answer.
 
'Ready' was so far detached from anything Niobe was feeling that it almost didn't matter. She could feel the weight of Jorsek's gaze on her, though she couldn't look at him, and she knew 'ready' didn't matter in this circumstance. She tried to reason that she was doing as she had been taught. Without a guide, Jorsek might not make it down the mountain alive. And as a member of the Order, it was her duty to ensure the safety of the civilians she encountered. She refused to admit to herself that the thought of being left here alone, in a destroyed temple with the bodies of the fallen, was terrifying.

Her cloak had dried, and she stood, picking it up and wrapping it around her shoulders. "Let's go," she answered, crossing the room without looking back. Habit told her to snuff out the fire, but she ignored it. It would die here on the lifeless mountain, too.

The storm had died down while they had sheltered in the meeting room, leaving only a bitter cold and a world so still it may as well have been frozen. Niobe would have called it peaceful, if the scene had not been the aftermath of a slaughter.

As she led Jorsek through the abandoned halls, Niobe had to force herself not to check every body they passed for signs of life. Still, she could not help herself from finding the faces of the only people she had ever called family. Shashu, the temple historian, his lower body buried by a snowdrift. Ata, a fellow apprentice, his throat cut. They passed the nursery, where the initiates lived and trained. The door was ajar, its handle smeared red. Niobe was half-aware that she was shaking, and not from the cold. She had thought she could do this. Maybe she had been wrong.
 
Jorsek followed along Niobe silently, hugging close to the walls for shelter from the gentle breeze that pierced to the bones. His guide seemed detached, absent, even, as she walked down the halls, seemingly numb to the carnage littering the area. Her gaze lingered for a while too long on some bodies, and Jorsek wondered just what they meant to her, who they were to her when this place still stood. Jorsek's blind eye wandered around, passing over the corpses and destruction. He empathized with Niobe's muted misery, but he didn't share in it.

They stopped at a bloodstained door, open just a sliver. Jorsek wondered just what was inside that caused her to tremble so. He offered out a hand to Niobe. "Close your eyes tightly, take my hand, and I can lead you through, if whatever lies beyond is too much." Anything more could be volatile for the monk, and Jorsek hoped whatever was beyond this door that Niobe hesitated at wasn't too traumatizing. It occurred to him that for the first time that the cold froze the blood before the air could pick up the smell. Their bodies would freeze, and remain here, buried under snow and remaining intact for decades to come.
 
The offer startled Niobe, and she snapped out of her trance to look over at her new companion. She felt she should have been insulted, she would have been under any other circumstances, but now, she couldn't muster up the indignation. The small indignity was a scraped knee in comparison to the rest of the day's gaping wounds. Besides, from the look on Jorsek's face, there was no malice in the suggestion, only genuine empathy and the need to achieve a goal. They needed to get to the east wing. The east wing was through the room. Simple. Still, Niobe shook her head. "I can handle it," she answered finally, stepping forward to push open the door.

"But just to warn you," she added, hesitating as her hand brushed the heavy wood, "this is the nursery."

Every apprentice had been required to do volunteer work around the monastery. Some helped in the kitchens, others with the healers, still others sorting books in the archives. Niobe had always preferred to log her hours with the initiates. She had helped with everything from teaching classes to the older children to changing the diapers of the very youngest. With its colorful banners and wide windows to let in the sun, the nursery had seemed to her the happiest place in the temple. The way always seemed clear to the young ones. On days when she had doubts or questions that could not be asked, Niobe would find comfort among the children. They seemed to be the only ones in the Order who truly laughed, and the sound had always given her a reason to smile again when things went wrong.

Things had definitely gone wrong, but now the nursery brought Niobe anything but comfort. The detached trance she had mercifully slipped into earlier was long gone, and she felt each tiny body like a physical blow. Master Givon's body was the first she saw, right by the doorway, his eyes still open wide. Of course he would have stayed. The elderly master would have protected the initiates to his dying breath. And there was Rinn, his apprentice, in the corner. She had fallen shielding the two children behind her.

Why had Niobe run to the northern entrance? She should have come here. Maybe if there had been three of them, the scene would have ended differently. Maybe she could have... she shut off the thoughts as best she could. They only served to torture her. Master Givon and Rinn had done their jobs well, faithful until the end. They had both been well trained, but the Brotherhood was as well, and the Brotherhood had been prepared to fight. Had they been three, or four or five or more, they would have met the same fate.

It took all the strength Niobe had and some she didn't to step over Master Givon's body and into the room. As she forced herself to keep moving, she scanned the tiny bodies for any sign of life, even though she was well aware the most she would likely be able to offer at this point was a release from pain. She didn't need to look up to feel Jorsek's presence by her side, and despite what she had decided only moments before, her hand sought his.
 
Even with the warning from Niobe about what lay beyond, Jorsek's stomach couldn't help but churn, wanting to expel what little contents it held. His worn boots nearly slipped on the thin veneer of icy blood as he walked through the nursery. It was absolute carnage, indiscriminate and terrible, sparing no one. Jorsek thought that he would have been tempered, at least to some degree, by what he had seen before this, that the crimson, blood soaked earth of the battlefields he had wandered through in search of his family would have hardened him against the scene before him now, but je was wrong. The small, huddled, lifeless forms of the children, eyes glazed over with a thin layer of frost, it was upsetting, to say the least. He could only imagine how Niobe was handling it.

He felt the monk's cold hand slip gently into his, and he gave it a light, affirming squeeze, It was so cold, so cold. Jorsek couldn't imagine what the monestary was like before this, warm and full of life, this nursery, filed with laughing children and vigilant elders, watching with bemused smiles, warm and happy at the top of a frozen mountain. Jorsek tapped along forward with his staff, doing his best to avoid the bodies that littered the ground. "There are times-" The farmer said to himself, "-that I wish I truly was blind." He gripped the staff tightly as he walked, his knuckles white and his thin body shivering as he moved towards the doorway at the far end of the hall.
 
Everything in Niobe revolted at the way they simply passed through the carnage, but what could they do? Tears did no good. Besides, tears did not seem remotely like enough. Niobe had cried when she had thought no master would ever choose her, she had cried when she had broken her ankle sparring. It struck her that she had never truly had a reason to cry before, at least, not like this. And now, to cry would feel like she was placing the slaughter in front of her in the same realm as childish self-doubt or minor pains. No, some things had to be beyond tears. "Ilmater help them," she murmured quietly.

It felt as though lifetimes passed before they finally reached the end of the nursery hall. But despite her initial reluctance to enter, now Niobe found herself reluctant to leave. Once she and Jorsek closed the nursery doors behind them, Niobe knew they would never open again. The young lives inside would be sealed there forever, perfectly preserved by the mountain ice. She would never forget them, no, and she doubted Jorsek would, either, but one day, when they were gone, there would be no one left to carry the story.

Niobe was unable to stop herself from kneeling to close the eyes of one of her former students. Darra, she thought. She couldn't even remember. Although the girl couldn't have been more than twelve, she clutched a dagger in one frozen hand. Its blade was stained with dried blood- Darra had gone down fighting, and managed to do some damage before she went. The thought filled Niobe with a sort of sad pride while also making her stomach churn uncomfortably. With gentle hands, she coaxed the blade from Dara's lifeless grip, whispering a nearly inaudible thanks as she wiped the weapon in the snow and stood, tucking it into her belt.

"It feels wrong," she said, lingering in the doorway. "It feels wrong to leave them like this." She looked to Jorsek. "I know you aren't of the Order, but do you pray? To any god?" She hesitated. "Do you believe in another life for those who have passed?" She hoped the question wasn't too raw, given the reason for Jorsek's presence at the monastery to begin with.
 
It was merciful when they reached the end of the room, another set of heavy doors standing guard at the exit, with a small, huddled frozen figure lying nearby. Jorsek stood a few paces behind her, respectfully silent as Niobe payed the body its final rites. Jorsek did his best to quiet his shivering, shallow breaths, the sound seeming to violate the sanctity of the temple-turned-tomb. Even as Niobe pried the weapon from the dead girl's grip, Jorsek was still caught up in it all, the contrast or red on white snow, the rubble strewn about the room, when Niobe snapped him out of it with her question.

"I don't pray, and I don't know if there is another life after this one." Jorsek paused bracing himself against the heavy door to push it open, the frozen hinges crackling and groaning as they moved. "I can't praise a god for letting the great war happen, but I can't damn them either. There is more to their realm then we as mortals can ever know." The farmer said, grunting as he struggled with the door. "I want to live a good life, a life that my ancestors wouldn't frown upon, if I ever got the chance to meet them in that afterlife."

"And what about you, Niobe?" Jorsek asked, finally having pushed the door fully open, a cross breeze flowing through and biting through his clothes with a vicious cold. "What of Ilmater's dead? What kind of life will they receive, when they arrive in his hands?" The farmer asked.
 
Niobe nodded slowly as she considered Jorsek's answer. She understood where it came from, more so now than she ever would have before the Order had fallen. Knowing about war and seeing it were two very different things, she was coming to understand. She followed Jorsek out of the nursery, shutting the door firmly behind her.

"We don't know for sure," she answered, starting down the last series of halls towards the east exit. "As you said, there are some things beyond mortal minds. But I do believe..." Niobe took a breath. "I have to believe they are at some sort of peace now." She shrugged a shoulder halfheartedly. "The teachings say that unless their souls are too weighted by sin, they become one with Ilmater, forever bringing light and warmth to the land. I don't know what that means, exactly. We don't have to know exactly what it means for it to bring us comfort."

But nothing was making sense lately, and Niobe couldn't find the comfort she spoke of. The destruction they walked through now, the pain and fear that still echoed around the empty chambers, Ilmater had allowed it all to happen. He had ignored her pleas for guidance at the Altar. And now his followers were wiped out, all but her. As hard as she tried, Niobe could not find comfort in trusting Ilmater as she always had. The thought brought with it a hot flush of shame that she hoped didn't make it to her face. No wonder she had been deemed unworthy. But if she was so unworthy, why was she the only one to have survived?
 
Jorsek flexed his hands, trying to get some blood flowing to them. They were an unnaturally pale white, and it took some difficulty to force them to move, stretching open and closed several times before balling them into tight fists. He looked either way down the long, open stone hallway they had entered, his shoulders huddled high. He turned right, seeing a shattered door opening up into the light and out into the snow covered, rocky expanse outside.

"Religion tends to be ambiguous that way." Jorsek responded. He shifted the bandage over his eye uncomfortably before pulling his worn cloak tightly around him. He looked over to Niobe, his filmy eye watching her, unfocused. "One god's rules conflict with another's. You can never eat meat, you can never wear shoes, you kneel in prayer three times per day, all of it runs against itself, everyone has a different creed and set of laws, even within the same house of worship." He paused, continuing to the door, quarterstaff tapping rhythmically along. "None of them, I think, know exactly what they mean i half of what they do."

"When was the last time you left the sect, Niobe? What was the task you set out for, before the monastery shut its doors?"
 
Jorsek spoke so casually, almost dismissively, that Niobe wanted to argue, but she held her tongue. It almost felt like he was trying to make her angry, see how she would react. But no, from what she had seen thus far, Jorsek was simply that blunt. Niobe was on edge from the situation and looking for a reason to lash out. She wanted to hate Jorsek for living when her Order was gone, and she would not go looking for a reason to. Jorsek was who she had, now, and she would only be more miserable on her own.

"It was a small thing," Niobe answered the question. "My master and I were tasked with delivering a letter to a general passing through the area. It was nothing more than a simple trip down into the valley and back. We didn't even know what it said." Or at least, she hadn't. Niobe had often suspected Master Grimborn had known more than he let on, though she hadn't questioned it. "I was fourteen or fifteen, so that must have been... three or four years ago, now." She hadn't realized it had been that long since she had left the monastery. Jorsek's foreign presence in the halls of her home was forcing her to look at it for the first time with an outsider's eyes, and the view made her uncomfortable, though she didn't know why. She hadn't been told of the contents of the letter because the information hadn't been meant for her, the concept wasn't that difficult. Jorsek and she had lived two very different lives. Niobe wondered if his had better prepared him for this intimidating new world they were now discovering, one without masters or rules, one with the freedom to ask the questions that burned your throat and the power to seek out the answers.

They had reached the east gate. Niobe had expected the first step over the threshold to be a battle but found it as simple as all the rest. It was almost anticlimactic, how easily she moved from the wreckage of her old life to the unprotected mountain winds of her new one. She turned, and that was when the overwhelming finality of her actions hit her, along with an overwhelming urge to run back inside just so she couldn't say she had left the temple for the last time.

"Hold on," she said suddenly. "Let me- let me say a prayer." She couldn't give each and every fallen monk the funeral they deserved, so this would have to suffice. What she would actually say, Niobe still wasn't sure, but as she spoke, the words came more smoothly than she had imagined they would.

"Creator Ilmater," she began, her voice small against the harsh icy slopes around her, "you give us all life, and you take it away. We t-trust that you are merciful and benevolent, and that what lies beyond is better than what we could ever find in this realm. Take those fallen into your arms, and allow them to be light and hope for those of us left behind." Niobe silently included Jorsek and his family in her prayer, too, though she didn't say it outright aloud. "As we honor and serve the dead through both our remembrance and our actions, let them lend us strength in moving on. All we humbly ask of you is to see those we love safe and at rest."

Niobe closed her eyes a moment, remembering the monestary and its inhabitants as they had been, alive and warm and content, before opening them again as a reminder of the present. "I think... I'm ready now," she said without looking at Jorsek. "Let's go." She turned and started down the mountain path, wrapping her cloak around her to guard from the cold air. It could do nothing about the cold in her chest.
 
Jorsek stood silently behind Niobe, maintaining a respectful distance as he listened to the quiet prayer she spoke. He didn't know anything about the religion, nothing about the the tenants of Ilmater, and little of how the priests showed their devotion, but it seemed comforting, to have a god to turn to in such a trying time. Perhaps that was why worship began, people searching for aid beyond the mortal world in the most tragic of times. They seemed a good force, good people who were killed for all the wrong reasons. It was a tragedy, by any standards, but he was hollow enough that the blow seemingly passed through him.

Jorsek gazed down the long, gentle, winding pathway down into the green mountain valley below. The journey would take the remainder of the day, even taking into account the fact they were travelling downhill. With the bitter cold spurring him on, he stepped down the first wide step, staff beating along the icy stones with him. He followed alongside the solemn monk, in the path of all the invaders that had left this way before them, accompanying Niobe in the long, lonely descent.

It was after some distance of walking, Jorsek spotted a red robed figure, lying face down and motionless on the steps of the path. His body was a tangled mess, crumpled on the rocks, visible from even this distance. "From the footprints, it looks like every left this way." Jorsek said to Niobe, pointing to the body. "Why is he dead here?" He asked.
 
"I have no idea," Niobe mumbled, resting her hand on the dagger at her hip as she cautiously moved forward. The monk seemed almost certainly dead, but she felt she had the right to be wary after seeing the destruction his order had wreaked upon her own. As she got closer, though, she saw that his eyes were open, staring blankly into space, and she relaxed. With the emotion came a bit of shame -she was relieved at the loss of a life? - but Niobe was too emotionally tired to process it as she knelt beside the body.

The red robes had hidden it from a distance, but closer up Niobe saw a large dark stain across the man's side. The pattern torn into the fabric had not been caused by a dagger or a sword, though. The dozens of small tears could only be teeth. Wolves. What must it have been like, to survive a great battle like the one up at the temple, only to fall to a pack of dogs?

Niobe stood quickly, uncomfortable with the sympathy she couldn't help but feel for the unknown monk. The man before her might have killed her friends, her teachers, her family, she reminded herself. If he had gotten the chance, he would have killed her. And she would have killed him. She refused to feel grief for him, of all people, and now, of all times. "Wolves," she reported grimly. "We should move. We want to be out of their hunting territory well before nightfall."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top