The Last Duty Owed

998,000, Age of Life, Late Winter

"Some fought; some looked on doom and laughed,

And others wielded swords that rang like bells.

But the unicorns killed them, and in aftermath

Wove their first songs of the day Rowan fell."

-From the song "The Fall of Rowan" by Kerlyon Deerfriend.

There they were.

Arbleron Turnlong stood gazing down at them, and tried to imagine that he felt something. But all he really felt was cold. The chill on his skin was the most interesting thing occupying his mind at the moment. Of course, there was always the hatred, but it had retreated over the months since Rowan’s fall, becoming as much a part of him as his arms and sword.

Beneath him, the silver unicorns continued setting up camp, unaware that someone was watching them. They talked, mostly, letting their slaves scuff in the snow for the grass they themselves needed. Their slaves were Elwen, all of them, and they were the ones who prepared fires to warm the foals, who found the grass, who warmed blankets to put them on their masters. They did all these tasks willingly.

And eagerly, Arbleron knew, much as it disgusted him to admit that. They had no wills of their own left anymore. When a silver unicorn met an Elwen’s eyes, then he tore that Elwen’s will apart, and killed everything that might still be left of the original spirit and personality. The body was left behind to become a slave, controlled entirely by the taking unicorn’s mind.

It was so effective, most of the time, Arbleron thought with the part of his mind that could think about such things. Many Elwens had the delusion that thought and recognition of some kind still lingered in those bodies. They would hesitate to kill the ones who had once been their kin.

Arbleron knew well enough that nothing lingered on. He had come entirely for his own satisfaction. The silver unicorns had destroyed Rowan, and Arbleron, one of the city’s few survivors, had become a Killsworn on the day they did, swearing himself to unending vengeance on them. This particular group of unicorns happened to have participated in the fall themselves, which would bring a smile to his lips when he killed them.

And in the group of slaves below was a woman who had once been his sister.

Oriela as she had been before that day was one of Arbleron’s favorite memories. She was gentle and sportive, unlike him, and treated swordplay as a game, not the grim pursuit that Arbleron had made of it. She wasn’t stupid, but she saw enough good in everyone to believe that even the unicorns might make peace with the Elwens someday. And she had loved to laugh, and play on the lute, and play with her niece, Arbleron’s daughter Denion.

She was gone, now. Taken away like all the others, that day. Arbleron’s parents had died. His liege lord, Rainsong Deerfriend, like a fool had trusted the unicorns, and Arbleron had killed the man himself the moment he was taken as a slave.

And Rohera, his wife, had seized their daughter and fled far away, leaving behind a plea for him to come and join her. She had always feared war. When she had foreseen that the city would fall, she was in such a fright that she had simply grabbed Denion and run, without pausing to tell anyone else.

Or so she tried to excuse herself, in her frightened telepathic pleadings. They were still bound at the soul, given the oaths they had sworn to each other. Once, Arbleron had smiled into her eyes, and given her the true name of his spirit, and believed that he would love her enough to be reborn with her again and again.

Now he listened to her try to justify herself, and killed unicorns. If Rohera grew too troublesome, or talked during the middle of a battle, Arbleron just snarled Coward at her, and she fled. It was the one taunt she hadn’t yet learned how to answer.

But, for now, there were the unicorns who had taken Oriela prisoner and marched her away. Arbleron owed them something for that.

It didn’t really matter, of course. Nothing did. The unicorns were winning. They would take all the continent and eliminate the free Elwens in a few centuries’ time. Anyone could see that.

So why be a Killsworn and slay them, and why spend two months tracking a group of unicorns that had a single body with them, even if the body had once been his sister?

Arbleron didn’t know. But then, he didn’t think that anything made sense anymore, nor had since Rowan’s fall, except two things.

He hated the silver unicorns.

And he would kill them.

He stretched, and eyed the camp below for a moment. It would make sense to go in under cover of the fast-falling darkness, locate Oriela- who was one of the slaves scuffing in the snow at the moment- and kill her. Then he could leave before anyone else was the wiser.

But he was a Killsworn, and any life he had was to be used only to cause pain to the sonorini.

Arbleron shrugged, and flung himself down the slope. Of course the unicorns noticed him almost at once, and a few of them trotted forward, heads up and horns gleaming in the fading sun.

Arbleron tucked into roll at the bottom of the hill, and swung himself on his back directly under a mare’s hooves. She seemed startled, but not nearly as startled as she was a moment later when Arbleron’s blade opened her belly. A rush of blood coated Arbleron at once.

He laughed, feeling momentarily happy.

The mare fell dead, but by then Arbleron was out from under her, having recovered his feet. Unicorns were all around him, trying to capture his gaze, but that was stupid. While they were trying to make him a slave, they couldn’t use their hooves or horns or teeth or ice bolts, all weapons that were occasionally troublesome, and their own slaves stood passive.

Arbleron moved through them, slicing and tearing, taking a horn with one sweep and a throat with another, severing a spine with a single well-placed chop and cutting halfway through a neck on the backswing. He could have die at any time, or surrendered his spirit. Since Killsworns were sworn only to slay, not to defend their own lives, there was a very great chance of it.

Arbleron didn’t care. He was immersed in the middle of a sea, a drowning sea, a blurring one, one that glowed at the edges with light and blood. He was having fun.

He flung himself forward as one silver throat appeared in front of him and bit through it. Blood slicked his face and his hands, and flew down his throat. Arbleron drew back, shaking his head like a wolf, and the blood splattered further.

Now he was feeling something, namely pure joy. He spat out the fur and rushed forward, wanting to lap the blood from that tempting target, but the unicorn was already falling. He looked around for someone else to bite.

"Arbleron."

Arbleron looked up. Oriela stood in front of him, and there was the light of intelligence in her eyes.

"I remember you," she whispered. "What has happened to you? Where has your innocence gone? Lost to madness, I suppose?"

Arbleron shrugged. "I am not surprised that he chose those memories," he said, as he cut off one of her hands and then stabbed her through the groin before the body fell. "They are among the most tender."

One of the unicorns screamed as she died, and Arbleron turned, almost meeting the stallion’s eyes as he threw icefire with one hand. His temper burned too cold to call flames, an Elwen’s most common weapon, but this would do well enough. It locked the unicorn’s legs to the snow, and held him helpless there as Arbleron advanced. Long before Arbleron got to him, he had lifted his tail and discharged a stream of yellow piss on the snow.

"How could you?" he neighed softly, the closest that a unicorn could come to a whimper. "She was your sister!"

"She used to be," said Arbleron. He didn’t mind talking with sonorini, sometimes, if they said something that made sense. "I just killed a body."

"Then why kill it at all?"

Arbleron shrugged. "I want to," he said, and cut off the stallion’s horn first. That always made them scream, and he wanted this one to scream. Then he cut off the head, and went about hacking the body to pieces until the joy faded a little and he could turn to see what became of the rest. Their hoofprints led away across the snow.

Arbleron followed them, and killed them.

******

Did you find her?

Arbleron sighed and rolled his eyes. Of course, Rohera had come into his mind again. He couldn’t completely shut her out, not as long as the bond between them endured, and he didn’t know how to break it.

"Yes, of course I did," he said aloud, since he refused to use the soul-speech.

I felt a great killing. It disgusted me.

"Of course it did."

Why, Arbleron? Rohera burst out. I am in a warm and sunlit forest, and watching our daughter learn the proper prayers to Sarastaa. You could come to me, and we would live out our lives in peace, forgetting Rowan. Yes, I made a mistake, but it was not one that should cost us everything.

And she showed him the room where sunlight streamed through the windows and turned the walls to living fire. Denion sat in the center of a brightly patterned rug, regarding a scroll painted with the Litany of prayers to Sarastaa of the Dawn. She sounded them out, and the noise of her voice was the equivalent of the sunlight.

Arbleron showed Rohera snow, and blood, and how good he had felt when the unicorns died.

And your sister? Can anything ever bring her back?

Arbleron blinked. "Of course not. The dead can never be brought back with vengeance."

Then why do this?

Arbleron shrugged. "I wanted to."

Rohera wailed, and disappeared from his mind for now.

Arbleron leaned back in the snow, and watched the stars and the sunrise. A cold winter sunrise, but there would come spring soon, and beyond that summer, and then the glorious colors of autumn. He might well live a long time, though most Killsworns died in a few years. Then again, most Killsworns didn’t have his skill with the blade.

There would be time to shed blood.

Arbleron considered, idly, the notion that someday he would get tired of the killing, that he would wake to sanity one day and mourn Rohera lost, that he would look aghast on the ashes of his vengeance.

A moment later, he burst out laughing, and grinned at the sunrise. So that is what hilarity feels like. I had almost forgotten.

Now, which way did that last group go?