The Way of Heaven Part 1

Armitage Vacys

Armitage Vacys stood at the edge of the cliff, looking into the sky. He was screaming in his mind. All his friends were dead, he was alone. His fists were shaking as he tried to hold back his screaming from the sky, as though some god were in the sky and would feel his pain. He removed his white longcoat, with its red cross symbol on the back, and threw it over the side of the cliff, watching it as it floated down on the currents of air. He kept his eyes on it until it landed on the black rock below, kicking up a small puff of dust. Dust in the wind, he thought, feeling the cold north wind sting through his thin grey shirt, this life is just fucking dust in the wind. He felt himself sway at the edge, close to letting himself fall over to his death. But his urge for life was greater. He stepped back, fear motivating him.

He sighed, looking back up to the sky, watching the sun go down, gaze held in place by the multitude of colours created in the thickening clouds. He tried to feel the beauty of the sky, the peace that was supposed to affect him somewhere, in some special place. He remembered his martial teacher telling him to feel it in his center. How long since I felt anything in my center? He wondered, but knew the answer. Since he walked off the path, taking what he thought would be the better thing in the long run, not listening to the little voice in his head, telling him to stop and turn around. It was the work. The work of being an agent of death. He had tried to justify it to himself everyday, saying he only took jobs that involved the death of those that were evil. But in all those that he killed only two did not feel fear, only two did not beg and cry like a child for their life. The first one was the hardest, but it got progressively easier as time went on. Now he only felt an empty pit were his heart was supposed to be.

They were a team. He was their leader. They worked well together, even they were not the most skilled people he could have hired. Now they were all dead, someone’s revenge for a death they had inflicted. But for him, being away at the time, scouting out a new mark they had been given. The mark had been so easy, he decided to take an extra day and finish it himself. The killers weren’t there when he returned, but they hadn’t bothered to cover their tracks. He was too late, and there was nothing he could do. He had burned his team out in the field of loose black rock, a great pyre to send their souls somewhere into the afterlife. He wondered if there was an afterlife anymore. He couldn’t seem to figure out why, just like he could not figure out what the point was in this life. He scanned the land in front of him, so much dark rock everywhere, and thought maybe it was the land. Perhaps it was time for-

“Did you think we wouldn’t co-“ Armitage didn’t give the speaker a chance to finish. He spun, drawing his hand crossbows at the same time, as he heard the voice. He fired as soon as shapes began to appear in his vision. He heard the voice, but hadn’t heard any approach. He fired two bolts, the sound sharp in his ears after hearing the wind for so many hours. Two shots, and two forms fell, one of them the speaker. That left one. One more to die. He new who they were. They had not announced their approach, trying to get the edge of surprise. But they didn’t know Armitage Vacys. He was death now. He got the drop on them. He did not need to think, his instinct had been honed from practice, and many kills. He did not contemplate who they were, and he didn’t need to trade words with them; he moved.

He placed his crossbows back on his hip, and drew his swords as he ran toward the third person, a thin man with a bird-like face, looking surprised at the sudden death of his companions. His surprise turned to anger and just as quickly to fear as he watched Armitage running toward him, blades drawn and held out to his sides. He was the eagle descending on its prey. He tried raising his hands, his green eyes opening wide as they saw death coming. He couldn’t lift his arms because he was too afraid. He was alone. He tried to speak, but only a squeak came out, nothing that he wanted to say. Then his fear went away, for he saw the end in the grey eyes bearing down on him.

Armitage did not slow as he ran, not caring that the man would not defend himself. His swords came up, taking the bird-like head from the shoulders, and blood began to flow as the body hit the ground. He saw the fear in the eyes of the man, but stronger in his mind were the faces of his team. They were dead. More death, in return for death.

He stopped, turned and walked back to the bodies on the ground, cutting some clean cloth from one of the bodies. He wiped his blades clean, and put them away at his hips. He stopped, looked at the bodies for a minute, not seeing anything. Looking inside himself, he saw nothing. He felt nothing good, nothing pure. He thought this circle to be complete. He decided to go north, to find his martial teacher again. The first thing he needed was his coat, laying at the bottom, where he had thrown it. He walked, feeling like a ghost in the hard land of rock and sparse evergreens.

Armitage picked up his coat from the bottom of the cliff and began walking north the next morning. Aldebaran. The thousand steps of Aldebaran. He remembered that was where his teacher, Jin Lei, had lived. A long time, it seemed, since he had been there. Far too long to be off the path. He didn’t remember what the path was anymore. He knew how to kill. With weapons. The magi power didn’t come to him any longer. He had forgotten about it, couldn’t connect with the living energy any more. As he made his way out of the black-rock land known as Sud, he made his way north, coming into leafy forest. It was late in the fall, and the leaves had mostly fallen from the trees, maple reds and birch yellows coating the ground in a soft carpet, covering his tracks, and making his passing soundless upon the damp ground. His pack, which he picked up from his campsite on the way out, had little food left in it. He would have to hunt. He continued on, and a feeling of quietness come over him as he traveled along a path through the trees, sheltered from the cold wind blowing. The greyness of the sky made the leaves on the forest floor and on the trees bright in the gloom of fall. He felt alone. Lost.

He shortly came to a packed road, ending his pleasant walk through the forest, though he would make better time walking down the road. More exposed to potential enemies, he thought to himself, but much easier. He started walking up the road, his tall, black leather boots making steady, paced sounds on the dry earth. He let out a chuckle, thinking that one couldn’t get lost on a highway, for they only went two ways, the place you had come from, and the place you were going.
After walking along the empty road for a few hours, eating while walking, he began to hear the sound of voices around a bend in the road, carried down to his ears on the wind. He loosened his crossbow in its place at his hip, and readied himself, he would beat whoever it was to the attack.

“Do you really think someone will come and give us a ride north?” Armitage heard a young man’s voice say.

“Sure, Sure, we just have to be patient.” Came another male voice, speaking slowly, drawn out.
“But we’ve been here almost two days, and no one has come.” The young one said again, disbelief in his voice. Armitage didn’t think they were a threat, by the sounds of their voices. It could be an act for him, others trying to get him, in the event that the first three had failed. They had failed. Well, they had succeeded in killing the rest of his crew, but had failed to finish the job with him. He didn’t care who they were, they could die like all the others. So many others, his dark mind spoke, and he felt drawn deeper into the gloom of himself. But his instinct didn’t mark them as a threat.

He saw them as he rounded the bend. There were two on the side of the road. Standing, a young man with brown unruly hair, and fine, almost pointed features on his face. He wore a short black coat, with grey fur lining the collar, plain black pants, and black boots. He had what Armitage could tell from the scabbard was an eastern longsword hanging from his hip, though he wore it like it was new to him. The young man’s back was to him, but when Armitage came around the corner, the youth’s head immediately turned around to see Armitage walking towards them.

The young man’s partner lounging on the ground, was a lengthy person, all arms and legs. His clothes were a rusty colour, plain shirt, with sleeves rolled up, plain pants as well, but he had leather breastplate hanging on his shoulders, and a long cloak was attached to the breastplate. He also had a sword, which he was waving around as he spoke, a finely made western longsword, with a wide, curved hilt. Armitage didn’t think the one sitting on the ground even new he was there until the young man called out strongly, “Hold!”.

“I am not here to harm you.” Armitage spoke, showing his empty hands. Empty hands meant peace between strangers, but how were they to know? He was a quick draw, or he would have been dead long before. “You are simply on the same road that I am travelling. But if you want a problem, I can accommodate you.” He said the last quietly, knowing a calm, quiet voice unnerved many would-be attackers. The thin pale one stood, his blade swinging back and forth in his hand like a snake.

“No, no, we don’t want to fight either. But don’t think that we can’t.” the young one boasted, his dark blue eyes flashing with heat.

“I have no doubt you both can fight,” Armitage replied, the corner of his mouth quivering with a hint of a smile.

“We can,” the young one said, smiling, “but let’s not go there. I am Kai Nivaalis Frost, but most just call me Nivaalis. This fellow with me is Talcott Wallace.” Nivaalis’s blue eyes looked at Armitage expectantly.

“I am Armitage Vacys.” He said, bowing.

“Now that we know-” Nivaalis began, but was interrupted by Talcott.

“You are? Where are the rest of you? Where is my brother?” he hissed.

“Your brother?” Armitage asked. He didn’t like where this was going. Of all the people on this island, I have to meet relations of dead people.

“My brother,” Talcott said through clenched teeth, “Renshaw, he is with you, is he not?”

“He is dead.” Armitage replied. He felt, more than saw, the longsword as it sped towards his neck like an arrow. But he was not alive from being lucky. A quarter step to the left, and the blade stopped at the skin on the side of his neck. And stayed there. Talcott found a hand crossbow in his face, a steady hand pointing it at the center of his forehead.

“Fast enough to stop this?” Armitage said, his mind an empty cavern. He felt a shift, and fired. I am death, he lamented. There was blood on his forearm.

Not fast enough to stop a bolt. But Talcott Wallace was fast enough to move his head away from the path the crossbow bolt would have taken through his head. Nearly. The small arrow did draw a line above his left eye. Armitage began moving away from the thin man’s blade as he fired, though not before a deep cut had been scored on his forearm. Armitage spun away from Talcott, his left hand dropping the crossbow, fingers useless because of the cut muscle. As he spun, he dropped down on one foot, kicking out with his other leg, looking for his enemy’s knee. He found nothing, seeing as he came around again, that Talcott had also spun away from their point of contact. Armitage let his momentum draw him upward, as he drew a single blade with his good right arm. He watched Talcott blinking away blood from his left eye. His eyes flicked over to his right, where the young Nivaalis boy stood away from the two combatants, clearly afraid, blue eyes looking back forth; one hand resting on the hilt of his own sword. Be a smart boy, don’t do anything. Armitage had instantly re-evaluated his opponent the moment he felt his blade slice his arm.

He was the fastest human he had ever met, aside from his teacher, Jin Lei, and one of his fellow students Tien Kwan. There was always someone faster, somewhere. And anyone could be an elemental. Sometimes it was almost too late, when they were fast at entering into their so-called trance state. The only clue a person had was the eyes.
He noticed eyes now. He had lost a white cloak to an elemental, fire engulfing him. Leaving him cold in the snow after he had killed his attacker, needing to fire eight fast shots before one got through the bullet melting shield of heat the elemental had erected. And all because the crazed mountain man didn’t want to share his cave for the night.
His cloaks were expensive, the red cross dyed crisply, cleanly on the back, his advertising for those who knew to look for the white cloak and black boots. For those who didn’t know what to look for, he was merely one of the wandering White Men, priests of a god in the Green. They didn’t wear any black, only white. He didn’t know anything about gods. He knew about killing, stalking, hunting men, or women that were evil. He was well paid well for his knowledge. He knew about facing enemies that were as fast as him.

“I didn’t kill your brother.” Armitage said.

“No? Then where is he?” Talcott replied, circling to Armitage’s left.

“My team was ambushed. I wasn’t there. I killed their murderers.” He moved with his opponent, keeping him in front.

“Convenient story, do you not think?” his lip twitched as he moved, blade flicking toward the left side of Armitage’s face. Just what Armitage had hoped for. He dropped his feet out from under him, letting gravity take him down. Break their rhythm. As his feet touched the ground, he sprang forward, his own blade above his head, parrying two downward slashes aside. He drove his left shoulder into Talcott’s chest, grimacing as pain shot through his cut arm. His enemy grunted, off balance, and Armitage brought his sword hilt down like a hammer, twice to Talcott’s forehead, breaking the skin on the right side. He pivoted, and drove a side kick into the tall man’s center, pushing him back two paces. The air left Talcott’s lungs in a whoosh as he staggered back, yet not before his blade found a place to bite on Armitage’s thigh. His left thigh. This one’s fast, he thought, and I’m in trouble. Unable to stand on both feet, he drew up his left leg into a cat stance, his weight resting on his right leg, his left held close, resting lightly. He held his blade in his right hand above his head, blade up, pointing toward his enemy. Talcott’s head whipped up, black hair flying, green eyes glittering as he kept backing away, arms held around is stomach, eyes blinking blood away.

“Where is my brother?” he hissed.

“I burned him and the rest of my team at a large field of black rock, two days south of here.” He could see Talcott was not in a good condition either.

“Burned him? What kind of barbarian are you? No matter. I will find you again, Armitage Vacys,” he said, wiping his eyes with pale fingers. He turned, moving off the road, into the thick forest, his brown cape waving in a cold wind that had come upon them.

Still in his stance, he turned toward the young man who had watched the incident. “And you?” he asked.

“I don’t want to fight,” Kai said, holding his hands up, stepping back. “I can’t, really.”

“Anyone can fight, if they have the will.” He replied, appraising Kai. His sharp features gave him a serious look. Sharp, dark blue eyes, looking fearful at the moment, looked out through a few strands of messy, medium length brown hair. He was tall, like Armitage, dressed in a short black coat, loose black pants, and wore sturdy black leather boots. A pair of belts hung at his waist, one holding a dark blue scabbard. The hilt of the concealed blade was white, ivory, corded with a fine blue fabric for grip. He wore a chain around his neck with a steel pendant of a lion head. Armitage had to struggle to take his eyes away from the sight of what he knew was the symbol of the young man’s family. And darkness crept into his soul again. “I think you can fight.”

“But I don’t know how, I can’t even use this sword I have.” He said.

“You can learn it. Anyone can learn to use a sword. The difference is that some can fight, and some can’t.”

“If you say so,” Kai replied, shrugging.

“Look, just now you stood watched two men in combat from three paces away. Why didn’t you run away?”

“I wasn’t in danger. You were fighting each other.”

“But you can’t know that for sure. We could have turned on you, one of us, or both of us. Anything can happen in the heat of the moment.”

“I guess you’re right,” Kai said, “But it didn’t seem like that would happen.”

“Exactly. What it seemed like,” Armitage paused, sheathing his sword and sitting on the ground. He reached into one of the many small pockets of his cloak and pulled out clean cloth and began the difficult process of wrapping his forearm with one hand before he continued. “Is called instinct. You can’t learn it.” He struggled to tie the piece of string he had taken out to his wrist with one hand.

“If you say. Would you like help with that?” Kai asked. Armitage nodded and Kai knelt down, pulling the string tight, but not tight enough to cut off total circulation to his hand.

“You’ve done this before?” he asked.

“Yes. My mother made me learn when I was little,” he said, nodding. “She believed in being prepared for anything. She died five years ago.” his voice quieted to a whisper.

“What about your father?” Armitage asked, unable to stop a tremor in his voice. The young man didn’t notice though.

“He died a week ago, killed by an assassin.” He said, wrapping the clean cloth around Armitage’s arm. He let out a long sigh, and continued. “But I didn’t know him very well. He was…not a nice man.” He drew a long breath before speaking again. “I didn’t see him often, except for when there were gatherings of the families, the families that had the power in El Nath, you know?” Armitage nodded. “I had to sit there and pretend that I liked them all. But I never thought that we had the right to take money from people, because it was our own people that would hurt them if they didn’t pay. So when he wasn’t watching I spent most of my time with the White Women. You must know them. You must be a White Man. Well, they taught me things like how to make a bow, how to read and write, and about the one god. Making a bow and skinning animals, that interested me.” He wrapped string over the cloth, holding it tight with a tanned hand as he tied the end, cutting it with a bone handle knife that Armitage handed to him. “There, done. Now for your leg.”

“I will take care of that.” He snapped, and then softened his voice, “You did a good job though, my thanks.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Armitage paused before answering, “Sure.” He felt the world closing on him.

“Why no poultice on your wound?”

“Oh,” Armitage said, relieved. “I let my body work on it’s own before I add anything. If there is no infection, there is no need for a poultice. Eliminate what is unnecessary.”

“Ok. I never thought that White Men were warriors. The White Women told me it is the Women that fight any battle that is needed.”

“I’m not a White Man,” Armitage said, and the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff came over him. The truth, or the lie? “I am a warrior priest of Aldebaran, but I wear this cloak which was a gift of service I did for the White Women.” He stepped off the cliff, dying as he fell, unable to face the monster behind him on the ledge. A half truth is still a lie. I killed his father! He had been a priest of Aldebaran though, before he chose his profession. Jin Lei could not accept his choice. And now his karma had come to him. He had to choose a new path. He took a deep breath as he looked toward the sky, watching dark clouds roll in from the north. The air had cooled considerably. Right now, right now I make the choice. I am a priest of Aldebaran. The killer in him laughed at his thoughts. He still was not going to tell Kai Nivaalis Frost that he was the assassin that had killed his father Lucius Nivaalis Frost. Or that he had been hired by the White Women to kill his mother five years ago.