The Rivers of Zadaa

JOURNAL #20
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA

Saint Dane had taken the form of a Ghee warrior. It didn’t matter what side he was on. He could have chosen to be with those loyal to the royal family of Zinj, or put in with the rebels who wanted war with the Rokador. Right now, that didn’t make a difference. He was a Batu. I looked like a Rokador. We were enemies in the eyes of everyone here…and we were about to fight. I shot her a quick glance to see that Loor was being held firm by three of her fellow warriors.

“Loor,” I shouted while keeping an eye on Saint Dane. “It’s Saint Dane.”

Loor gave a quick, surprised look to the tall, dark warrior who had called me out. Saint Dane returned her look, gave her a quick nod, and actually winked at her.

I saw Loor’s eyes grow wide. “Who is that Ghee?” she shouted to the other warriors. “I do not know him! He is not one of us! We must summon the commander and-” The Ghees holding her clamped a hand over her mouth. She struggled to get away, but it was hopeless. I was on my own. I looked at Saint Dane. He gave me a quick shrug, as if to say: “Guess you’re on your own, pal.”

The only choice I had was to reach down and pick up the weapon.

You guys know, I’m not a fighter. Up until that moment I’d managed to survive by luck, and with the help of my fellow Travelers. The one serious fight I’d been in was on Eelong, but that was against a prisoner who was half my size, and so starved and weak that it was a joke. I was now looking up at a warrior who towered over me, with biceps like you’d see in a graphic novel about gladiators. If that weren’t bad enough, it was Saint Dane behind all that muscle. My enemy. The demon who was trying to lay waste to Halla. I was scared, obviously. But I was also confused. Why was he doing this? This wasn’t his style. For him, fighting was too…simple. Unimaginative, even. I had some vague shred of hope that he had another reason for doing this, other than to beat me up. There was a chance this fight would never happen.

“Are you serious?” I asked, trying not to sound as scared as I was. “Isn’t fighting beneath you?”

His answer was to lash out with his stave and clock me on the side of my head. It was so fast, and so violent, I wasn’t sure if I was more hurt, or shocked. I stumbled, but stayed on my feet. The crowd of Ghees cheered. Saint Dane circled in front of me, relaxed and smiling.

“If there is one thing you should have learned by now, Pendragon,” Saint Dane said, “it’s to expect the unexpected.”

He lashed out with his weapon. I ducked, but it was a fake. He never swung. The Ghees laughed. I backed away. Saint Dane stayed with me.

“Come now, Pendragon,” Saint Dane taunted. “Don’t you want to hurt me? This is your chance. No pretense. No illusion. Just the two of us.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “You can turn yourself into a studly warrior with armor and all. I’m just me. Is that fair?”

Saint Dane laughed. I hated it when he laughed. “Fair?” He chuckled. “What has fair got to do with anything?”

I caught a glimpse of Loor struggling to get away from the Ghees. They held her firm. She couldn’t bail me out this time. This was all about me…and Saint Dane. I thrust my stave at his gut. He knocked it away as easily as if he was batting a moth. He then cracked me across the back with the other end of his weapon. I stumbled forward. It hurt. He wasn’t fooling around.

“Come now, Pendragon,” he taunted. “Show a little enthusiasm.” He flicked his stave up quickly, catching me on the chin, making me bite my hp. I tasted blood. “Where is your rage? Think of how miserable your life is because of me.” He punctuated this with a quick jab that clipped my shoulder. He was playing with me. He was enjoying this. I wasn’t.

“Don’t you miss your family?” he jeered. “Don’t you want revenge for those you’ve lost? So many have died in your futile crusade. Surely that makes you angry.”

He flipped one end of his stave toward me; I actually knocked it away with my weapon and was smart enough to know another blow would quickly follow. He spun away from me and whipped the other end of his weapon backward, like he was paddling a canoe. But I was ready for that one too. I dodged out of the way. It was the third attack I wasn’t ready for. Saint Dane spun back around and jabbed at me underhanded, catching me square in the gut. Oof! It hurt, but I was okay. So far. The crowd of Ghees watching didn’t matter to me anymore. They were nothing more than a blur on the edges of my vision.

“You can’t keep this up.” Saint Dane chuckled. “You’re going to get hit. Like Kasha did with that rock that crushed her skull.”

He was baiting me. He wanted me to attack. I realized if that’s what he wanted, it was the one thing I shouldn’t do.

“Your uncle couldn’t avoid me either. Was there much pain when the bullets tore through his heart? Did he die quickly? I certainly hope not.”

That one hit too close to home. I lost it and swung my stave at him in anger. He took a simple step back and danced out of the way. I had swung for the fences and missed, losing my balance and nearly falling over in the process. I sensed that the Ghee warriors were once again laughing, but I didn’t care. I had to force myself to get my act together.

That’s more like it,” said Saint Dane, chuckling. “Rage is such an exhilarating emotion, no?”

He flipped his stave again and clipped me on the knee. I staggered, but I was back in control. At least of my emotions, anyway. I had to be. It was the only chance I had. Saint Dane was making me look bad, but I was beginning to think that making me look foolish was exactly what this fight was about. To embarrass me. To show his power over me. There was no question that if he wanted to, he could knock me silly. But he hadn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the knocks I was taking hurt, but they weren’t serious. I figured I’d be black and blue the next day, but I’d survive. It made my confidence grow. I figured I knew what this fight was about. I decided it was time to fight back.

So I laughed.

“You find this amusing?” Saint Dane asked with a touch of confusion.

“Getting hit, no,” I said. “But when you try this hard, all it says is you’re getting desperate.”

He didn’t expect that. He jabbed his stave out at me, but I dodged it.

“Four times,” I continued, trying not to let the pain creep into my voice. “That’s how many times you’ve tried to control a territory, and how many times we’ve stopped you cold.”

He spun around and swung his weapon at me. I ducked. He missed, but it was so close I felt the wind rustle my hair. If he had connected, he would have knocked me into next Tuesday… if there was such a thing as Tuesday on Zadaa.

“And Veelox?” he asked. I heard the confidence in his voice waver.

“No biggie,” I said cockily. “When you go down for good, we’re going back and pull Veelox out too. Aja is working on it right now. Veelox was a draw.”

Saint Dane took a step back as if I had physically hit him. I was definitely getting to him. I didn’t think it was because of what I was saying. None of it was new news. It was more the way I was saying it, with absolute confidence. It was becoming pretty clear that Saint Dane’s plan to embarrass me in this fight, wasn’t working. I was slowly getting the upper hand.

“You can beat up on me all you want,” I said. “But you can’t change the truth. You are losing. I think you know it too. You’re getting so desperate that you’ve resorted to beating me up with a stick. How pathetic is that?”

Saint Dane staggered. Oh yeah, I was hitting him worse than he had hit me.

“You can’t even make me feel bad about Uncle Press anymore, because he promised that one day I would see him again. And I believe that. I believe all the Travelers will be together again. I don’t know how, but you know what? I think you do. Oh yeah, you know exactly how it’s going to happen, and you’re getting nervous because that time is getting closer. And when we’re all together again, it’ll be the end of your sad little quest.”

I was hammering him, bad. I saw it in his eyes. He clutched his stave, wringing it fitfully. It was time to go in for the kill.

“And you know what? The real reason you’re going down is because that’s the way it was meant to be…and there’s nothing you can do to change it.”

Since the day I learned that I was a Traveler, I had made a lot of mistakes. Some of them small, others not so small. What I had just done with Saint Dane in the Ghee compound on Zadaa was one of the big ones. Saint Dane’s plan in picking this fight may have been to embarrass me in front of the Ghees and hurt my confidence, but in that one second, his plan changed. I’m sorry to say that I changed it. What happened next I had brought on myself, with my words. The only good thing I can say about it was that it was fast.

Saint Dane took me apart.

With an angry roar he charged at me, the wooden stave spinning like a helicopter blade. I threw my weapon up to protect myself, but Saint Dane dropped to one knee and kicked up at me with his boot, catching me right in the gut and knocking the air out of my lungs. I doubled over as he stood, driving his knee into my forehead. He was done playing. He wanted to hurt me. To say that I had never taken a beating like this is probably the biggest understatement I have ever made. When his knee hit me, I saw colors. Splotches of green and yellow floated everywhere. My ears rang.

I had a vague understanding that the Ghee warriors were laughing and cheering, but they sounded like they were on the far end of a long tunnel. I turned away to get my balance and cover up, but I wasn’t fast enough. A dark flash hit me square on the cheek that must have been Saint Dane’s weapon. It spun me around so fast, everything went blurry. I think this is when I dropped my weapon, not that it wasdoing me any good anyway. I fell to my knees and looked up in time to see Saint Dane winding up and attacking me with his weapon like a lumberjack chopping with a giant axe. The stave came straight down at me.

In that one fleeting instant I realized that this could be the end. It’s amazing how many thoughts can race through your head so quickly. In times like this, it’s almost like time slows down. It suddenly all seemed so clear. Forget the games. Forget the mystery and the misdirection and the complex plots to turn the territories toward chaos. The only thing standing between Saint Dane and the conquest of Halla were the Travelers, and I was their leader. With me out of the way, he would have a much easier time. Believe it or not, in that one instant I actually wondered what had taken him so long to figure that out.

Saint Dane was trying to kill me.

But I wasn’t giving up. I threw my arm up and caught the full brunt of the blow. It didn’t even hurt. My battered body was beyond pain at this point. My brain couldn’t process it anymore. I deflected the blow from my head, but the force was so strong it knocked me onto my back. Saint Dane leaped at me, ramrodding the end of his weapon into my ribs. Once, twice, again. I knew he must be breaking bones, but I couldn’t feel anything anymore. The demon got right into my face.

“Beg me to stop,” he hissed angrily. He hit me in the ribs again. I looked into his eyes. They had returned to lightning white…and were mad with rage. “Beg me,” he demanded. I felt his spittle land on my cheek. His anger had turned to frenzy. There was no plan here. No plot. No trickery. He had lost it.

“Thisis the way it was meant to be, cretin,” he growled. “This is what the future holds, for you and your like. That is the promise I made, and I will keep it.” He hit me again, but I was beyond caring. “You will beg for my forgiveness and mercy.”

I looked up at him. I can’t begin to tell you where I got the strength or the brass to do this, but I smiled and croaked out, “Dude, you are talking to the wrong guy.”

He froze. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was because he couldn’t believe I had that kind of brass either. At least, that’s what I hoped. But the shocked look on his face quickly turned back into a fury that I feared would finally put an end to this beating, and my life. He reared back and let out a howl like a wild animal standing over fallen prey. He looked back down at me and raised his weapon. This was it. End of the line.

“Stop!” I heard a voice call out.

Saint Dane snapped a look to the crowd. He hesitated long enough so that two Ghee warriors had the chance to run in and pull him off me. Somebody had saved me. There was somebody out there who took pity on a poor Rokador. But I didn’t recognize the voice. I was flat on my back and barely able to move, but I painfully turned my head to where the command had come from.

Standing in the crowd was a new spectator. He wore a dark purple robe that covered his head. It looked familiar, but I didn’t know why. How could I possibly know anybody on Zadaa? I then remembered where I had seen him before. It was at the zhou battle. He was the mysterious guy who was in the tier above me, watching the fight. Whoever this guy was, he was my new best friend. He took a step into the circle, and I was surprised to see that the Ghee warriors backed away from him and knelt down on one knee.

Who was this guy?

He walked up to me and said in a soft, compassionate voice, “This is not what we are about.” He then took off the robe to reveal a tall, dark-skinned guy who wore an incredibly ornate, bright red tunic with an elaborate design around the neck. He held out his hand to me and said, “I am Pelle, heir to the throne of Zinj. We will take care of you.”

I looked at the guy’s hand. For a moment I thought about reaching up for him. After all, he was my new best friend. Instead, everything went black and I passed out.