Michael Manning - The Line of Illeniel

“Marc… tonight I want you to take the women and children back to Lancaster. You remember how to use the circles right?” I asked him.

He sighed, “You’ve asked me that about a dozen times. Yes I can remember, and even if I couldn’t my Lady would provide the necessary knowledge. It’s her power I am using after all. But why me?”

“It will take a lot of trips back and forth,” I told him. “I don’t want to exhaust myself the night before the assault begins. By the way, I’m sending your father with a small force to eliminate the small group they left behind to watch your home. Your mother requests that you not bring him back with you.”

“I can see I’m about to become more popular with him,” he laughed. “You certainly picked an unpleasant task for me.”

I grimaced. “I’m afraid there are no pleasant tasks,” I said sourly.

That night things went as smoothly as could be hoped. Marc took his father and a group of about fifty men back to Lancaster. I didn’t go with them but apparently they were able to eliminate the enemy scouts without too much trouble. Five of the men were injured but Marc’s goddess healed them almost before the battle was done.

After that they sealed the gates and Marc began transporting the women and children back as quickly as he could manage. Despite the fact that his goddess provided all the energy it still exhausted him. He explained to me later that although his Lady’s energy was limitless (according to him) his body limited what she could do. The more he channeled her power the more it cost him in terms of fatigue and exhaustion. I filed the information away as being of possible future use. After all I had already faced two channelers working for Mal’goroth and there might be more.

Penny and I retired early. Neither of us was tired but I figured the more time we gave ourselves to ‘attempt’ to sleep the better our chances were of succeeding. As it was we slept fitfully but we did manage to get five or six hours of good rest. I was sure we would need it come morning.

By the time dawn arrived we had already been up for several hours. I watched the sun lighting the horizon to the east with Penny. We were standing on top of the curtain wall trying to make out the enemy’s arrangements as they became steadily more visible. Most of our warriors were positioned behind the wooden palisade which stood a full hundred yards beyond the outer curtain wall. We planned to hold the enemy there as long as we could before retreating within the more defensible stone walls. At least that is what I had told them. I hadn’t shared my true plan with anyone yet.

Penny’s eyes grew wide as the dawn sun brought greater clarity to the field laid out before us. Her eyes darted back and forth, from our earthworks to the enemy lines and their siege weapons beyond that. A gasp escaped her lips almost inaudibly. I turned to look at her face but she put her back to me to hide her expression.

“It’s today isn’t it?” I said calmly. Some inner intuition had told me what caused her to react like this.

She didn’t answer immediately. She kept her back to me and hugged herself. I didn’t press, waiting instead for her to find the words. After several long minutes she looked back at me. “Yes,” she answered simply. Her eyes were wet.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve had a feeling of deja vu since we walked out here this morning, but I wasn’t sure until I saw that,” she gestured toward the enemy encampment. “It looks almost exactly like what I saw in my vision. It can’t be more than… more than… a few hours…,” her voice broke as she spoke forcing her to leave the sentence unfinished. I gently drew her to me and she shook as I held her, crying softly into my shoulder.

I felt strangely calm as she wept. The events of the past few weeks had been a wild jumble of emotions but now I felt numb. There was nothing left for me but to finish what I had started. When she finished I held her at arm’s length gazing solemnly into her eyes. “If it is today, then I have several things to tell you. Things you will have to finish for me,” I said slowly.

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, “You’ve been keeping secrets again.”

“Just a few… Nothing dire, but you will have to play my part if I die before the time is right,” I told her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Not yet, we have something else to take care of first,” I said meaningfully.

“We don’t have to do that yet,” she protested. “There are at least several hours still.”

“Yes we do. I don’t know what will happen from here on out. There may not be a chance once things get chaotic. We do it now, and then I’ll tell you what you need to know,” I said firmly.

“You kept those secrets just to have a bargaining chip didn’t you?” she said sharply.

In fact I had, there had been no reason to hide my final plans, other than to make sure she would cooperate near the end. “Not intentionally,” I lied, “but now that the time is here I’m glad I did.”

“You really are a bastard sometimes,” she replied sweetly. “Fine, how do we do this exactly?”

That was the one part of the bond I had paid close attention to back when Cyhan had been instructing her. “First you take out your sword and we hold it between us, then you simply ask, formally and in all seriousness for me to release you. You have to mean it. I will respond formally as well and then we have to let go of one another… in here,” I pointed to my chest. Her eyes started watering again when I gestured to my heart.

“Alright,” she replied, letting her head droop downward. She drew out her sword and held it across her palms facing me. When I had placed my hands over hers she spoke, “I, Penelope Illeniel, would break my oath and I ask you to release me from this bond we share.” Her hair had fallen, blocking my view of her face, but I could see wet spots appearing on the stone between her feet.

I took a deep breath and answered her, “I, Mordecai Ardeth’Illeniel, do release you from your bond.” I invested the words with power and inwardly I felt our spirits separating. A part of myself that I hadn’t realized had been her, slipped away from me. For a moment I was left with a feeling of incredible emptiness as for the first time in months I was just myself, alone. The sword we held glowed brighter for a moment and then shattered, as if it had been made of glass.

We stood quietly for a minute, neither of us daring to speak. We both knew the distance between us had become much greater than the scant inches separating us physically. Finally I broke the silence. “How do you feel?” I asked.

“Much weaker,” she said ruefully. “I had forgotten what it was like to be normal. How about you?”

“I feel empty. Like a man living alone in a house that has become much too large for him,” I replied honestly.

She gave me a serious look, gazing steadily into my eyes. Despite what we had just done I could see incredible strength of spirit within her. Every time I looked at her it was as if I had fallen in love all over again. “Your eyes are blue again,” she said wistfully.

“I think you look better with your natural brown,” I told her in return.

“So what secrets do you have to share?” she said, changing the subject.

I opened the heavy leather pouch I wore at my belt. As I looked inside I saw the gem that had been used when we created our bond. It was no longer glowing. I ignored it and brought out two cloth sacks that had been marked with ink. “This pouch holds the stones that will destroy the dam,” I told her. “When the time comes, destroy them. I had hoped to drive the enemy back into the valley first, but you’ll have to use your own judgment since I won’t be here.”