Chimi roared as she pulled herself up from the ground and gripped her spear. The Blades were locked in combat with the fell forces, and a few Lesnik turned to her and wardanced. She hissed cold air, felt it leave between her teeth and the hole in her cheek.
Be one with the land.
She scooped up red snow from her own blood and chewed it. Stabbed the Lesnik, she was wounded in the face, then the trunk, it died badly, flailed and screamed. She kicked it.
"Fucking shut up," she growled and readied herself to face death.
When she saw the three Lesnik and two Leshii that bore down on her. She felt her heart thunder. Steadied herself with a breath and thought of a million ways to attack.
A million ways that were shattered with her shield, she felt her shoulder crack. The shocks of pain travelled up through her head, teeth and skull. She lost her footing.
Something special. Eleanor said.
She panted for breath as she hit the ground and tumbled into the snow. She tried to speak, but the ringing in her ears and stinging pain- she spat blood, vomited the remnants of breakfast. Her vision came back to focus, and the root that whipped at her came straight at her.
Flashes of memory, a burning star. A light that shone across the Auresi, the ground beneath her. Promises whispered in glades and groves, blessed holy lands where you must walk barefoot.
Her flesh ignited with balefire. The root blazed into dust when it came inches from her face. She reached a hand toward the horde, felt the air, and the sickly feeling in her stomach made her wince from the agony. She could hear the land scream.
The air, oxygen, creations of the ancient of days. Condense the air, constrict it.
The faes panicked, crooked branches reached for sunlight they didn't deserve. Blank eyes filled with dread.
Heat the air.
White flames erupted in a concentrated explosion at their centre that razed those in the middle of the pack; those at the edge had their cores disintegrated.
She rolled over onto her back. She couldn't move her right arm. She could taste her blood. The scent of steel and iron flooded her nostrils. But she could breathe. Focus on the breath.
Don't panic.
"Chimi!" Lloyd and Gibson were at both her sides.
"I want some rum," she grunted, coughed.
They both laughed.
"She's alive, you worrywart Yeomen!" Gibson said.
She winced when he gave her a clap to the shoulder.
"Shit, that's bad." Lloyd said, "We need to get her back, call over the bloody horse-"
The horse neighed, blasted its nostrils and turned. Lloyd and Gibson hoisted Chimi up onto the horse. She awkwardly took the reins. Gasped at each spike of pain from her side and her shoulders. Something inside felt wet. She tensed her stomach when panic pricked her middle. Groaned from the pain that it caused. Bad habits. Gibson had taken up her spear and shield.
The barrier had been broken, and father stood at the entrance with the main forces and glanced at her with a stone face. His eyes betrayed concern, but only she knew that look, she and her mother. Lloyd looked like he had braced himself, but Gibson had a fierceness about him. Something akin to a zealot ready to preach his faith to blood-sworn enemies.
When they met, Eleanor's face lit up with a delighted smile.
Father spoke first, "What happened?"
"The barrier was not broken quickly enough by the mages; we were trapped," Gibson said.
"And none of you--"
"Chimi is Rasu Reborn." A woman with a scar across her face said without a hint of doubt.
The words left father's mouth, everyone stared at him as if he were a lunatic.
"Ravalel has lied to us, Commander, Rasu is Reborn in her!" the woman said again. Some of the guards and the mages saluted. Half the Blades of Emmerlaine raised theirs in response.
"Excuse me!" Ishi shoved her way through the ranks with two other medics who carried a makeshift stretcher.
Two of the women planted their spears in the snow and helped her down off the horse, and the medics hoisted her onto the stretcher.
She looked at the sky as her consciousness started to fade with the adrenaline drained out of her veins, her muscles ached.
"Rest now, Chimi, you've done well." She placed a warm palm on her forehead, and her breath turned to faint mist.
Chimi managed to force a smile through the pain that started to form into a headache.
"Just calm down," Ishi said, "Relax," and placed a finger on her forehead.
Chimi felt herself fall into cooling water and closed her eyes.
She regained consciousness to the smell of smoked meat under the Shimmerrain tree, cleansed of the black tar. To her left, she could see soldiers sitting around fires under bright moonlight, about three-quarters of the force they came with;the hunters had gone back to Emmerlaine to deliver meat they probably hunted down after the battle.
She was alive, and she could feel her right arm again. A sigh of relief that it hadn't been amputated, the hole in her cheek had been patched. When she touched it with her left arm, she felt a rough patch of skin. She sighed at the blemish. Her father would approve of the scar. She didn't want to get too many of those; a soldier with scars on the face was a soldier who had too much luck... she'd had plenty of luck.
Rasu Reborn.
She shook her head, but the fire. There was the fire that burned on her skin, the blaze and extension of her senses into the world. Gods, she knew why Dad loved to chew tobacco when thoughts clouded his bloody head... Risis grants her clarity and peace of mind.
Chimi opened her mouth to speak, but instead felt the primal energies of war in her stomach and roared them out. The soldiers cheered, raised mugs and cast the liquor into the flames.