Shalmar Read online

  SHALMAR

  A Tale of Lifetimes I

  Serena Whynd

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  copyright © 2018 Serena Whynd

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or means, or stored in a database retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author. Circulation of this book is prohibited in any format. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is not intentional and entirely coincidental.

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  Other Books by Serena Whynd:

  The Paths That Be

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  *** CHAPTER 1 ***

  The passersby on the street, near The Old Bart pub, had a good laugh as they watched the scene unfold. A group of hard criminals were running mindlessly out of the bar. Two beautiful white geldings stood tied in front of the tavern, sending a clear message to the people outside exactly what was occurring within the only watering hole in town. Such noble, powerful animals were reserved almost exclusively for the elite members of the Gilsk army, more commonly referred to as Amazons.

  The suburb of Blyst, the capital of Gilsk, was the exact opposite of other parts of the big city. The appearance, and even more the way of life of its inhabitants, stood out completely from the rest of the kingdom. It was the only place where the most rebellious male citizens, and a few disobedient females, were somewhat free to live and act as they wished. In exchange for this kind of freedom, those who chose to settle down in Blyst had to agree to the inconveniences that it had to offer: an absolute rule of lawlessness, complete disregard of authorities for their welfare, and frequent life-threatening disrepair of buildings. This life without rules implied that they should not wholly resist the laws. Every major theft that could affect the rest of the kingdom would cause rapid and relentless intervention by the regular army, and sometimes even by the most elite warrior women.

  The first thing that crossed the minds of these shabby suburb inhabitants, when seeing two Amazons on the muddy streets, was that somebody was about to learn the hard way not to stray too far from the rules. Someone had apparently committed a crime, and it was almost inevitable that he would regret it very soon. The usual suspects ended up pressed against the wall. It was difficult to hide one’s fear. Once in the hands of the Amazon women, one would never consider performing another foolish act. Only a couple of slaps were usually enough to make a man swear on his life and the lives of all of his loved ones that he knew nothing. Frightened facial expressions, often a scream or two and a few tears were convincing evidence that he was not lying.

  Amazon warriors were equally well known for their tendency to fight whenever possible, and for their extreme cruelty, which was applied only when it was considered necessary. All existent forms of torture were known to them. One rule, though, was clear: the cruelty would not be applied to anyone they desired, especially if not in war activities. It was allowed only in dealing with known and proven criminals. In the suburbs, it was challenging to find someone who did not belong to that group.

  The investigation was long and grueling. To save themselves from the pain, some of the examinees were ready to provide useless information and send the Amazons after others, who in fact knew nothing.

  The trail finally lead them to the all-knowing Nob and the pub he was tending.

  After having most of the guests take her advice and leave the premises, Shalmar had pinned to the wall the guy known to be up to date on most current affairs. She placed a knife under his chin and pushed it just enough to stretch the skin, but not quite enough to cut it and spill blood.

  “If you need any information, just turn to Nob, they said,” Shalmar placed her face right in front of the thief's eyes, “but Nob is kinda quiet today!”

  The bald old man stared at Shalmar with bewilderment, trying to figure out how to get out of this extremely unfavourable situation. A quick glance at the room, which the warriors had effortlessly turned upside down, made their seriousness and determination evident. Pieces of the inventory and some of the guests’ belongings were strewn about. Nob quickly realized that his only choices were agreeing to Shalmar's demands or enduring additional pain.

  “I do not know who robbed the palace, I swear!”

  “But you must know something. Do you plan to sing it out or do you want me to introduce more convincing methods of making you talk?”

  “Okay, okay,” Nob cried like a scared little boy. He knew that in this kingdom ruled by women, it was not clever to displease the most respected of all women. “An acquaintance of mine, Bryn, mentioned something interesting... it might be nothing, but…”

  "Let me be the judge of that,” Shalmar stated as her partner Jacqueline stood alert.

  “He told me that his cousin bragged how he got an offer for a lifetime deal...”

  “Oh, did he?” Shalmar put on a smile, “and Bryn can be found at …?”

  “He lives in a small hut near the Grey Bridge,” Nob sputtered, wholeheartedly hoping that the joyful expression on the Amazon’s face meant that she would not reveal to him everything that could be done to him with a knife.

  * * *

  “No! Don’t let me go, I beg ya!” Bryn squealed hysterically. His pleas were understandable, given that he was hanging from a bridge about fifteen feet above the river, and held by one leg, by the arm of an Amazon warrior.

  Surveying this scene, and vividly recalling a similar event in the pub, Jacqueline mused that her new partner might be trying to make her first task as enjoyable as possible. Stories of heroic feats achieved by this chestnut-haired warrior were often retold in Amazon warrior school. Jacqueline knew all about how Shalmar had to join the war immediately after the end of warrior training and how she was crossing from one warrior rank to another, faster than any warriors before her. In these stories, Shalmar was presented as charismatic, bold and a bit sassy. Such notions had led Jacqueline to develop a great respect for the woman, but taking this kind of joy in the humiliation of criminals was unexpected.

  “Spit it out! Where is your cousin and what kind of business does he deal in lately? Tell me or prepare to dive!”

  “Okay, okay! Can you please just put me back on the bridge?”

  When Shalmar dropped Bryn on the dusty road, he stayed on the ground and spat out his story.

  “So, it was like this. Dlenn, my cousin, mentioned to me a few weeks ago that he met someone with a higher rank. From the very palace, he said! I did not believe him. It sounded too incredible.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it was like... a person approached him in the middle of the night in the pitch dark, all in disguise and hooded, and spoke to him softly, in a whisper. Told him where he was from…he could tell by his speech that the person belonged to the high society. Offered him a job.”

  The warrior women looked at each other. Their darkest forebodings began to shine true.

  “He told me no more after I accused him of lying. But then in the next few days, he started acting strange, nervous. This morning I saw him and two more men loading things on horses. I approached him to ask where he got a horse—he didn’t have it before—and he yelled at me. Told me I was a fool for not believing him. And how I could've earned a lot in a job that he got. I mean, ho
w was I to know? With him, you never know, when he tells lies more often than the truth…”

  “Okay, okay! What happened next?” Shalmar pushed him on with no interest in his babbling.

  “Well, then he calmed down and said goodbye to me. Told me for some time he will no longer be in the city, that he needed to move as far away from here as he could.”

  “And? Where would that be for him, as far away from here as possible?”

  “I do not know.”

  She stepped towards him. “Would you still like to go for that swim?”

  “For Rheyn he went.”

  Bryn ended his story, and with Shalmar’s permission, he ran from the Grey Bridge on which, after that day, he did not dare set foot again.

  The girls knew they had to act quickly.

  “They left this morning. That means they have about an 8-hour lead,” Jacqueline said.

  “We'll have to go immediately and run the horses as hard as they can go. I’m hoping that those three do not expect to have already been discovered.”

  “What about their client? Who could that be? And what are their motives? What plans does he have with the statuette?”

  “Based on the information that this primitive provided us, we can’t draw any conclusions. The three fugitives are the only ones with the answers.”

  Late in the afternoon of the same day, the two Amazons rode out of Blyst and headed along the old road to the north. Trusting their strength and endurance, they forced their horses to a constant gallop. The path to Blyst was well maintained and perfect for urgent travel. It was a beautiful change from the southern roads which were destroyed by the many cavalry boots and wagons that crossed over them.

  Shalmar immediately noticed a big difference between the landscape through which she had travelled frequently in recent years and the one she was faced with now. Jacqueline, who had lived her entire childhood in the seaside town of Nellen where one could not feel the war, only knew roads like this. She had trained in Gilsk’s capital, which was so far still intact, and took all this beauty for granted. Vast plains were in front and on the left of warriors as they rode, and a full clean river, which had been of significant natural inspiration for the poets of Gilsk, followed them on the right. It ended when they reached the crossroads. The road to the right lead to the cities of Derryel and Urryel, which were lost in recent, and very bloody, battles. Further ahead to the north was the dusty road to Rheyn.

  At first glance, it seemed that the war had not disturbed the idyllic villages located along the road, but a closer inspection, for which the girls did not have much time, revealed the reality of the situation. The farms and surrounding lands were dotted with workers: all elderly women and young children. The male workforce and stronger women the war had embraced in its arms.

  They rode all night; did not even think to rest until the morning. With the light of dawn, the horses, well loaded with their equipment, simply had to take a break. They had slowed their pace significantly, a good indication to any good rider who was paying attention that it was time to rest.

  Shalmar used this rest to bathe in a nearby lake. Her younger colleague, while preparing breakfast, could not resist staring at the lean, yet visibly bruised body of the experienced warrior in the water. She did not feel concerned that her skin would one day look like Shalmar’s. On the contrary, she hoped one day she too would have the same signature marks from the battles in which she had partaken. She felt a full sense of pride and was grateful to the All that she had the chance to belong to the Order of the Amazon Warriors and to serve the proud society of Gilsk. It had been her dream since her youngest days.

  More importantly, Jacqueline felt a stirring within while gazing at this strong, confident woman. It wasn’t simply the marks on Shalmar’s youthful body and the stories they told that pulled Jacqueline towards her. She admired her from a distance, loving the softer side of Shalmar that was revealed as she soothed her tired body in the lake. Jacqueline loved the way Shalmar’s amber highlights in her hair shone in the warmth of the sun. Her heart was drawn to her in a way she hadn’t known before. She watched Shalmar stand up from the water, looking like some kind of ethereal goddess. Water dripped from her lean, smooth frame and from her long hair, which was wet and falling seductively across her face. Jacqueline knew if she were to see herself in a glassy surface, her cheeks would be flush. She turned away just as Shalmar glanced up to see her do so. She took a deep breath and hoped that she hadn’t been seen admiring her partner in a way that could only complicate matters. She had to hide it. They were on a mission. Not to mention that she was not sure whether Shalmar was that kind of girl.

  Shalmar watched her younger partner quizzically. She had felt Jacqueline’s eyes on her, and was far too familiar with the energy that was intensifying between them. She had felt that unmistakable energy move her to her being the day their eyes had met for the first time. She had sensed Jacqueline long before that day. It was one of many gifts with which Shalmar was blessed: the way she could move energy and sense the people in her life and their importance without knowing them right away. She had chosen Jacqueline out of a crowd of young warriors from a distance. She was looking for the right partner for this mission and knew that Jacqueline was not only right for the task, but also, for reasons that she was not ready to admit, Shalmar was undeniably drawn to Jacqueline. Shalmar shook her head lightly as if to clear from her mind the thoughts of Jacqueline that were threatening to surface. Now was not the time to be distracted: the Queen needed this mission fulfilled. Shalmar forced her thoughts back to the investigation, and found her mind plagued with concerns about what was happening on the battlefield.

  For her part, Jacqueline steered her thoughts away from the emotion she was feeling and focused on what she wanted to accomplish. The will to prove herself as an Amazon was particularly strong because she came from a noble family. Although it was quite common for members of the aristocracy to join the Order, people always believed that they would not—and could not—be as good as the girls who came from lower layers of society. A wealthy woman’s life, according to the majority opinion, made them too fine for all the challenges that warrior girls faced. Jacqueline struggled hard to prove the contrary, and so far, had been quite successful at it. This task was the final reward and fulfilling the mission would be proof that she had defeated the prejudices that she had struggled with during warrior training.

  “It would be nice to have this task proved easy and to immediately find Dlenn,” Jacqueline started a conversation as soon as Shalmar came up from the water, revealing that her thoughts match those of her older partner’s, “otherwise the investigation could become quite a stretch.”

  “Yes. Although I do not look forward to meeting the damn statuette again.”

  “Yes, you have quite a turbulent joint past.”

  “I personally carried it out of Yaraelen to the Queen in Blyst. And also, five years before that, I participated in the rescue of that... that... freak of the Queen’s sister.” Shalmar growled.

  "At that time, I was quite young, and I do not remember those events much."

  Shalmar’s memories were still fresh. Those moments came back to her, detailed and precise as if they had just taken place yesterday.

  “It would be the smartest thing to forget how one spoiled and arrogant princess managed to offend one king and his people so badly. So much that they wanted to decapitate her just two weeks after she married the king’s son.”

  Shalmar could not find words to describe or explain the extent to which those times were different from the ones in which the girls were now living. She was not sure that anyone would believe that only eight years ago, there was no sign of the anger and hatred worn inside the hearts of the Gilsk and Gondor people today. It was difficult to believe that these two nations were once considered allies and that their two countries were the closest members of a sizeable continental pact.

  She also did not dare to use the ugliest part of her vocabulary for a
member of the Royal Family. She held the Princess the most responsible for all the evil that occupied her world. She fully believed that in all the known universe, there was no more significant or more complete fool than the Queen’s sister Trupya. If she had not spent a short and very uncomfortable time with that woman, Shalmar would not believe that there could exist such an arrogant, selfish and wicked creature. She held no respect for her and was amazed that she could be the Queen’s sibling. They were nothing alike. As much as Shalmar tried to see any similarities, none came to mind.

  “Our Queen made a tough decision then. She sacrificed a powerful military and political alliance while remaining faithful to the ideals of loyalty that we all learn in our society. She sent Amazons to save her sister from captivity. In turn, she traded her married life and returned to her native country of Gilsk. She paid a high price of war against Gondor.”

  Jacqueline knew the story, but it was enjoyable to listen to the tone used by a direct participant in these events. Each new generation of Amazon warriors inevitably studied tactical simulation of the Queen’s sister’s rescue operation. It was a genuinely brilliant articulated action. The Queen’s sister was not a popular figure among Jacqueline or her colleagues, but their distaste of the woman did not stem from the same reasons as Shalmar’s disgust. The whole school of Amazon warriors was considered endangered due to Trupya’s ambition to take control of the institution. The only figure superior to the Amazon warriors was the Queen. Princess Trupya wanted to adjust this rule to further her involvement with the Amazons. She wanted to control the new generations of warriors who had just honed their skills and knowledge. It was assumed that in doing so, she planned to create her own faction of loyal elite warriors, if not to try to take complete control over the order.

  Such efforts, of course, were not well received within the Amazon order. Their loyalty to the Queen was absolute. However, there was an ongoing concern that the Queen was blinded by her love for her sister and would give into Trupya’s requests in the end. This possibility was always present in the back of the minds of the young Amazons, and they would not stand for it.