Battle Cleric

[Raya]

I thought you guys n' gals might like to have a look at one of my stories. Here is one that many are saying is their favorite. Hope you enjoy it.

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BATTLE CLERIC (Part 1)
by Sandra “Raya” Bell (aka Raydiance Alive)


When I first retired from active duty, most nights I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t realized how much being on the alert created instant sleep in off-duty hours. My squad said I snored like a banshee in the killing grounds of Utraito. I deny that with my last breath.

Even now on these restless nights, so many memories come back to entice me (or frighten me, depending on which ones are my karma for the night). Yet, I have to be fresh and alert in the morning…the faithful demand it of me, and the students need it. Sometimes I wish I were back on the battlefields, healing the wounded, deciding who will live and die as my healing energy runs out, cursing the warriors who move beyond my range, and running to them, heedless of the rain of death around me. I have seen my subordinates, young men and women all, snuffed out in the budding of their lives, sacrificing themselves so that others might live.

Did you know that you can only be resurrected so many times before the life force becomes weak and ebbs away, no matter what prodigious energy is brought to bear on it? I found that out in battle, too. My second-in-command, Suncloud, was tireless in his efforts to heal and resurrect. He so often attracted the unwanted attention of the foe, who would kill him first before turning to the warriors he was healing.

Came the terrible day, the Battle of Long Sound, and I had asked him to keep himself in reserve. I needed someone with the kind of experience he had gained in the field, who was still relatively fresh and with full reserves of the healing magic. The undead from the Long Sound area were not just a rattly collection of old bones…their skulls still possessed the ability to think, and they were shrewd. Thus would they throw what we deemed their full strength at us. Then, when the tide was surely turning in our favor, they would bring out another contingent of leering, screaming horrors, unscathed and yelling for our blood. Our battle-weary fighters would be forced to fall back, the battle clerics with them, all of us depleted by the fighting beforehand. The undead would swarm over us and that, as they say, would be that.

But we were getting wise to their tricks and had learned to keep a reserve of our own. This day, it was Suncloud who was elected. Once again, the Long Sound undead fooled us and brought the fresh contingent upon us, this time from our rearward position. By the time I reached Suncloud, he was lying with a look of frustration frozen on his dead face. Without thought, I lifted my arms to call upon the Maker’s strength so I could bring life back to him. I could feel the strength pouring through me… briefly tying me to my God’s energy, such an exhilarating, abundant feeling of joy, even in the midst of chaos and death. I no longer heard the screams of the wounded, the fearful clash of battle, the squealing of horses as they fell beneath the enemy’s blades. For that brief instant, as always, I was part of the God. I watched, almost as if from a distance, as the energy poured from me to Suncloud’s lifeless body, fully expecting him to slowly sit up, wait for the dizziness to pass, and then stand, a rueful expression of chagrin on his face for having been taken in by the undeads’ ploy.

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[Raya]

Battle Cleric (Part 2)

Instead, the body became so full of energy that it glowed, but no life animated its limbs or brought any expression to its face. I thought it was just me and tried again…then again and again with mounting horror. He was, in fact, gone. The corpse was a lifeless shell of what my friend and comrade-in-arms had been. I sank to the ground and cried…in the midst of battle. I could have been destroyed a dozen times over, but perhaps the Maker had other plans for me.

With men and women dropping like wish stones in a pond, I couldn’t indulge my grief any longer. I stood and mechanically healed as fast as the energy was restored to me by the Maker. I made the split decisions that a battle cleric must make…who was to live and who was to die. I only had enough energy to resurrect a few. The rest, if they lay unsouled long enough, would not be able to regain a hold on life and would pass on to the Halls of the Dead. But surely this was not the case with Suncloud. I had attended him moments after he fell. This was when it dawned on me that too many such deaths robbed the soul of its affinity with its physical form. The soul returned to the Maker; and the body, the shell, was left, crumpled, on the battlefield.

Now, after all these years, I still have nights of restlessness. This night was one of them. I finally gave up my battle with sleep and arose, looking out the window of my tower. This window overlooked the still-quiet streets of our elven port city of Shemara, with the buildings starting to glow rosily in the slowly ascending sun, and the ocean air from the south bringing interesting odors of dusty moisture, fish, seaweed and an indefinable musky smell that seemed peculiar to Shemara’s dockside.

The sky was lightening with that predawn shimmer that turns the horizon dove-gray, heralding the light rising in the eastern reaches. I couldn’t tell if it was going to be a nice day or not. However, as I stood watching, the gray turned suddenly to peach and then poured molten light along the horizon, as the rest of the sky turned from black to midnight blue and then to a lighter blue. It seemed as if the weather dice had rolled fair, and this, despite the aching in one knee that I could never heal, no matter what deep spells I piled on it. I shrugged. Famous as people told me I was, as revered as people usually held me, I could definitely be wrong… and when I was wrong, it was frequently more wrong than anyone else had ever thought of being. It all came with my tempestuous nature.

I dressed leisurely. The good thing about not sleeping, if you took advan-tage of it, was that it freed up time in a day that you otherwise wouldn’t have. I selected a seagreen gown, my favorite color, which was lucky in view of my name, Emerald. The low cinch belt was of a gold color and felt oddly light, even after all these years, without my battle sword hanging from it. The small ceremonial sword I wore when carrying out my tasks was not much more than a toy, pretty but ineffective.

With a girlish touch, I braided a crown of my thick silver hair and wound it about my forehead, inserting into the braid some of the lovely rose-colored cala blooms from the daily bowl of flowers that my tiring woman always put in my room. I looked in my mirror, crafted by one of the halfling artisans in Shemara, and was pleased to see that my age didn’t show in any lines on my face…but then elven women rarely do show their age.

Walking downstairs, I smelled the delicious odor of fresh-made bread. Probably the dozen or so of miles I walked a day, visiting sick parishion-ers, inspecting the many nooks and crannies of my little temple kingdom, even just walking from appointment to appointment, were all that kept my figure trim. I admit to an overeager fondness for new bread, hot out of the oven, buttered lightly, with just a touch of the homemade apple jam that the orchards just outside Shemara were famous for.

Molly, the young halfling cook for the temple staff, a pretty thing with a willing nature and kind ways, ran up to me, her hands covered in flour, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the ovens. “Milady,” she cried. “And you’un being up so early like.” She cocked a bright, enquiring eye at me. “Couldn’t ya sleep again, love?”

I smiled. I was very fond of Molly, as fond as I was of her bread. “You’re quite right, Molly, but ‘twas the perfume of your bread-making that enticed me downstairs.”

She laughed and dashed away to fetch me some buttered bread, just as I liked it, and a cup of elven tea, made from specially crushed leaves of bushes from the slopes of Margonal. They were brought to Shemara as part of ballast loads to compensate for near-empty holds of merchant ships who had sold all of their Shemaran lumber and fish and most of the halfling artisan products created by the substantial halfling population in Shemara.

I took the tea and plate of bread and ascended again to the tower and my study on the north side, opposite my bedchamber but one level lower. This side looked out onto the neat fields and orchards of the area north of the city. An apple orchard came right up to the boundary of the tower yard, and there were even a couple of trees within the L-shaped yard created by the back wall of the tower and the side wall of the temple.

Sitting at my desk, I applied myself to the lectures I would be giving that day and for the rest of the week, as well as the sermon I would need for tomorrow’s service for the Maker’s children. I did enjoy talking to the people, letting them know they were as important in the eyes of the Maker as anyone else. But sometimes it was hard to find so many different ways to say the same thing. After an hour or so, I stopped, finished my now-cold piece of bread and sipped my equally cold tea. As I rested before moving back to my task, I heard the sound of giggling coming from outside. It made me smile, since it had the unmistakable ring of a young girl teasing her smitten swain. I had produced that giggle many times myself in my younger days. I moved to the window, not wanting to startle them in their romantic play.

The two were resting beneath the apple tree nearest my window. The girl, barely past puberty, already showed signs of the full-blown woman she would be. Her firm young breasts pushed against her simple beige gown, her unbound hair flowing down her back in a cascade of new gold, her smooth ivory complexion so typical of elven women. Her ardent admirer had the air of a sailor drowning in a pleasant sea. The girl giggled and pointed to the upper branches of the apple tree. You didn’t have to be a chart-maker to know she wanted an apple. Furthermore, this young temptress didn’t want any old apple…she wanted one that was out of reach of the young man’s hands, unless he climbed the tree. I sighed at youth, always testing, always wanting proof. The swain outfoxed her though and his methods made me smile again. Not wanting to disappoint his lady, yet anxious to save his masculine pride, he grabbed the nearest beautifully ripe apple and presented it to her with an elegant bow. It was a smooth move and one I approved of.

The girl giggled again, bit into the apple with a crunch, then held it out to her sweetheart to take his bite as well. From the look on his face, I knew it wasn’t an apple he wanted to put his lips on, but he dutifully bit into the fruit, never taking his eyes from her face.

I grinned and remembered my youth. I had been a tease and a flirt at times, no question about that. But in my day, these innocent moments were snatched between bouts of war and were, thus, all the more precious to me. I thought of my own sweetheart, Bronzeleaf Shemara, the current Lord of Shemara’s grandson…ah, he was a handsome youth, and a smile from him could make my toes curl. I thought it great luck that Bronze was assigned to my first battle unit. Little did I know that war is not for lovers, and love turns to grief in battle.

At first, it was almost fun. A small contingent of the undead had been sniping at a village some distance west of Shemara, so we put out to sea in a landing craft, sailed the seven miles, I think it was, disembarked at the Guron Strand and quick-marched inland for a couple of miles. We took the undead monsters by surprise, and I thought, oh, is this all it is? It’s fun…it wasn’t even like we were killing real people.

I glanced every so often over to where Bronze was fighting, his helmet pulled low over his brow and his swords lifting and falling with rhythmic ease. My own instructions were simple—heal the fighters—which I did with amazing effortlessness. My energy seemed inexhaustible then. I even had time to whack a few of the ungodly undead with my new sword, and was congratulating myself on such expertise in my first battle. Then I heard the battle call of “cleric” and came out of my reverie, which, looking back, was almost inexcusable for a battle cleric to indulge in. I use my youth to excuse it, but it is a weak excuse at best.

I rushed to where the fighters were surrounded by a crowd of undead warriors, uttering their chilling moans and insane laughter. Reinforce-ments had joined them, and we were in trouble. The situation hit me foursquare between the eyes. Men and women were down, some dying of their wounds. With so many dead and dying…it was all very well to say heal the fighters but who did I heal first…whom did I resurrect and whom did I leave to the final death because my healing energy was gone? Not only was the decision-making process almost impossible for me, but I had to do it instantaneously. It was my first taste of the heart-rending responsibility of a battle cleric…deciding who would live and who would never be with their families again.


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[Raya]

Battle Cleric (Part 3)

I made the decisions and afterwards was told I made the right ones. The leader of our party, a grizzled warrior with more fighting knowledge in his little finger than I had in my entire body, was resurrected immediately. I threw healings upon him while the younger warriors took the brunt of the renewed attack of the undead. Bronze fell, and I saw it, but I could not aid him. I healed in order of priority and fighting ability. Bronze had been a good fighter for a young man, but there were others who had more experience, more ability, more to offer the fighting companions. Thus, Bronze died and was untended for the duration of the resurrection time limit. When I finally got to him, it was too late. His father and grand-father were overcome with grief when we finally returned to Shemara, and a day of mourning was proclaimed throughout the city. No one mourned more deeply than I.

As I said, I was upheld in my decisions by everyone, right up to the Lord of Shemara himself. I was impressed with his dignity and courage and generosity, but I still wondered if I had done the right thing. So many years later, it bothered…

The door to my study was flung open and a courier burst into my room. Can they not give me peace? I thought. Couldn’t I just once finish my reverie before they come bursting in upon me, unannounced. Then I noticed that the courier was out of breath and quite distraught, sweat and dirt smudging his face like a dwarven miner’s. I realized then that I would have it no other way…that of course people could interrupt me when it was for the common weal. I had built the trust with the people and invited them to use my service. It had taken me a while to gain that trust, but they now held me in reverence and seemed interested in hearing my message…the Maker loves and respects you.

I noted that the courier, like all Huramesti elves, carried his saddle with him. These special saddles were perfectly crafted to fit not only the horse but the rider too. A Huramesti rider would sooner lose his right arm than his saddle. From that and the desperate look of him, I correctly deduced he had ridden, with disregard for life and limb, as fast as he could to reach me.

“Please,” I said to the courier, jumping up and pulling over a chair for him, “sit and tell me what urgent message you have for me.”

The man gratefully slumped into the chair. “Holy Lady Verity,” he said. “The halfling mother Mattine at Smoky Crossing, the one you visited two days ago, has had a relapse. She begs you to attend her again and is in fear for her life.”

I questioned him quickly about Mattine’s vital signs, was she breathing or panting or anything in between, the color of her skin, the clearness or lack thereof in her eyes, and so on. The courier, being a plains rider, had not noticed some of these signs; his job was to get from one place to another quickly, and that’s what he had done. Huramesti elves were the best riders on Athero, which is why we hired them to run messages between our towns and cities. I saw I would have to go and see for myself. I bade the man to go to the kitchen and prevail upon Molly to feed him. I swiftly changed into riding gear and packed my medical kit with necessary items, before hurrying out to the stable on the far side of the orchard. My horse, Shadow, was a pure black Huramesti gelding, the finest of the their riding stock, and I prided myself on my horsemanship…not as good as the Huramesti themselves, but pretty good all the same.

It was lucky that Shadow was feeling his oats that day. He flew over the fields like the ground shadow of a cloud sailing through the sky. I arrived at Smoky Crossing just after lunch and immediately attended Mattine in her cottage some two fields away from the Crossing. It was good that I had come immediately. She had delivered a baby, which was healthy and happy in its aunt’s arms, but Mattine was not. She was alternating between flushed fever and icy trembling, despite the pleasant temperatures of early afternoon. I recognized it at once as afterbirth fever and dosed her with a concoction made from various roots and plants distilled with pure spring water, then reboiled until what was left was the thick essence of a healing potion.

Soon, Mattine fell asleep, this time a peaceful one. I left instructions with her sister Joline, who had come to stay with Mattine and look after the baby while Mattine convalesced. Joline had a good head on her shoulders and a cheerful smile on her lips, now that she knew her older sister would be all right. I departed, feeling that Mattine was in good hands.

Mattine’s older boy had rubbed Shadow down and watered him, so the horse was in a mellow mood when I climbed up on his back. I was weary and it wasn’t even evening yet. Worse, I still hadn’t finished my lecture notes for one day, never mind for the whole week. I felt like ambling back to Shemara, but the sky suddenly changed its mood in accordance with the ache in my knee. I wondered when I was going to learn to trust that never-fail weather warning. A battalion of clouds was moving in, dark and bulging, full of moisture and promising a good storm. Like many folks who didn’t want to be caught in the rain, as if they were going to melt, I hurried Shadow who obligingly broke into a bone-jarring trot and then, having pity on me, slid into an easy lope. I thought, with some satisfac-tion that I would be home before the rain and in plenty of time for dinner.

As we covered the ground on the return almost as swiftly as the going, I went over in my mind the sermons and lecture notes for the week. I was feeling rather pleased…it would only take the writing of it to capture the feeling of love and sanction of the Maker. That’s all people needed, really —a little hope and the knowledge that each one was special. People have to feel special, if only to themselves.

We were passing the fields nearer Shemara now…within hearing distance of the great temple bells. I was heading up a rise, and over the hill was a mile of straightaway and home. I could smell the heavy scent of rain in the air…and was savoring the coziness of a fine meal from Molly, a fire in my study and finishing all my work in time for the morrow…and yet something pulled me to a stop. Shadow, sensing our nearness to home, didn’t want to, but I insisted. There in the field below me a farmer had left his harvesting of a late summer crop of ripe corn…and was playing with his children in the pond beyond his field. I could see from here the little twig boats he and his two sons were crafting, with green leaf sails and pebble ballasts to hold them steady on their little sea. I was puzzled that he had left his field, with the storm moving in quickly. I would not have made that decision…or would I? I watched the happiness on the faces of the two young boys and wondered. The farmer looked up and saw me on the hill, then glanced at the sky and jumped hastily to his feet. I could hear him calling to his sons to help him as he hurried back to his harvest.

Again, my memory detoured me from the present. I let Shadow have his head as we moved away from the farmer’s field. The past led me to another scene of battle…a great deal of my past involved warfare of some kind. It was a similar scene to the one where Bronzeleaf had passed on to the Maker. This time, however, I was older, presumably wiser, and in charge of a battle brigade of clerics and healing assistants. Our forces were large and had come recently from another victory in the south against the orcs…the Bruiseface Orcs, I believe…one of the older tribes, anyhow.

The battalion leader should have known better…never trust an orc you can’t see…and even then don’t trust him as far as you can throw him, which isn’t far…those brutes were all muscles and bone and fang. In any event, the victory had been welcome, since we had suffered a few defeats previously. Morale was high now, despite the large number of wounded the cleric unit was dealing with. I was satisfied that we were saving all the lives and healing as much as we could. I had figured, for some reason, that we wouldn’t be engaging the enemy anymore that night and had encouraged the use of our healing energy to make the walking wounded more comfortable and able to keep up.

[Raya]

Battle Cleric (Part 4)

As it turned out, it was the wrong decision…the orcs, whom we had beaten thoroughly, refused to stay beaten, had raced to a more southerly area filled with caves and pockmarked with huge burrows beneath the earth. They had brought their brethren to aid them, and suddenly, into the failing light of day, we were surrounded by a couple of hundred orcs, all enraged by their previous downfall and determined to wrest the victory from our hands.

I will never forget that battle on Suncrest Rise…and now that I am remembering, it was indeed the Bruiseface Orcs. I can still see the ritual mutilation of their faces, done at puberty to invoke terror in their enemies and courage in each other. They were fearsome. I was no young cleric without experience. I was a battle-hardened healer by then. Decisions were made at the speed of light, since life and limb will not wait on a healer’s vacillation.

The healing team cleared an area at the back of the fighting. Several battle clerics moved ahead to the fighting area so that they could use their healing spells more effectively, while the rearguard tended to the wounded who were incapacitated and others beyond healing who were dying. Although I was more experienced, it was the same doubt that assailed me. I shrugged it off and snapped out orders to my healers like water bouncing off a hot grill. The healers didn’t bother to think. They heard, they complied. And some of the soldiers lived, and some died.

Always the hardest part of the battle. How many men and women had I let die over the years, whose families were destitute without them? If they knew that it had been my decision alone, would they cry out against me? And now these many years later, I still feel the pain…and perhaps the doubt still lingers too. No one should have to make the gods’ decisions for them.

I pulled back on Shadow’s reins, and turned him around, ignoring his peevish snort. We didn’t have too far to retrace our steps…and I stopped at the edge of the farmer’s field. I could barely see him but didn’t want to take the time to get closer. Then, knowing I would deplete my energy but needing to clear some of the guilt from my soul, I raised my arms to the sky and sent a prayer to the Maker to stay the storm for just a while longer. When it was finished, I lowered my arms, thanked the gods and remounted Shadow. The last I saw of the farmer, he was dumping a load into his harvest wagon, then pulling like the very hounds of the Evil One were after him.

The relief I felt after this was worth the trip…the Maker, true to His promise, held off the storm for another hour. I arrived home in time for an early supper and well before the rain. I ate quickly, hardly tasting Molly’s latest triumph over meat and vegetables that sprang into a tasty stew at her command. Then I hurried up to my study, wanting to get the words in my mind from this afternoon down on parchment. I had come up with a theme, something I felt strongly, something that would help the people to understand. I had just started pouring my thoughts out and writing quickly to keep up with them, when, once again, my study door banged open.

My secretary stood in the doorway, looking pale. “Milady, come quickly,” she said. “There has been a bad accident at the gristmill.”

Once again I took up my bag of herbs and bandages, and hurried out of the room. Whitemist explained what had happened as we went. One of the millworkers had been late to work, and had apparently been rushing, trying to get the whole day’s work done in half a day. The brewing storm had made him work even faster and he had been careless in his haste. He had tried to check the gears prior to engaging the huge stones in their grinding position. Instead, he had slipped on the flour dust overlaying the well worn floor and had fallen forward into the belts and pulleys that drive the dwarven-crafted milling stones.

We had arrived by this time and I was led right to the victim. There had been no need to explain his injuries to me. I could see them at a glance. “Dear Maker,” I murmured involuntarily. In thirty years of battle healing, I had seen no worse wounding of the elfin body than this. The skin on his face had been torn away…one of his eyes had been gouged…he had lost his left arm, along with most of his body’s blood. I recognized right away the signs of imminent death.

And here I was, faced with a situation and a decision. If it had been the battlefield, I would have instantly marked him as gone and turned to someone who would recover more rapidly and better able to quickly return to battle.

And then my heart caught in my throat. Almost unrecognizable, but not quite, for two reasons…the clothes that the young swain had worn were on this man…and held back by a miller was the young woman who had teased her sweetheart into getting her the apple. She was white-faced and quiet, but tears streamed down her cheeks, making her look even younger and more vulnerable than she was.

What should I do? Holy Maker, do I never get to put these agonizing decisions behind me? The energy I had used to stay the storm for the farmer was considerable. However, I still had energy left over to meet an emergency that might arise to threaten the city or any of the outlying villages. If I used the energy I needed to heal this young man, it would deplete my reserves, not only for today but for days to come. That would leave our community unprotected or at least not adequately protected.

The clerics and healers who lived in Shemara were good people and had unfolded their talents to a great degree, but they would not be able to cope with an attack…similar to the one that struck the city some moons ago when the Raidsea Orcs had floated into Shemara on their many, strangely constructed crafts and nearly took the city. They did take one of our valuable citizens, who has not yet returned. What if that were to happen again?

But how could I NOT heal him?

Every moment of my indecision was costing the lad more life’s blood and it would take that much more of my healing energy to restore it. Finally, I threw caution to the wind. Remembering how good I felt to help the farmer with his harvest, I motioned the crowd away from the young man. I directed my secretary and the miller to straighten the young man’s arm and legs and raise his head slightly with a makeshift pillow. Again, under my direction, they covered him with someone’s cloak. Then I urged the crowd to disperse. I could not perform at full efficiency if they were watch-ing and pulling on my energy with their worry and their fears.

I motioned to my secretary and the miller to stay. Then I moved deep within myself. The energy was there and needed only to be measured, embraced and lifted until it flowed like wine at a wedding. The huge chamber lit up, the energy sparkling in the water still dropping from the top of the millrace down the sluice and onto the huge stone. As I con-tinued, building the energy and gaining firm control of it, I began to direct it at the injured man. It was akin to filling a lantern with the magic oil that glowed only at night…but this was ethereal energy, the gift of the gods and the specialty of the Maker. I tuned into His enormous love for all creatures and let that warm expanding feeling course through me. When I felt I could stand it no longer, I threw my arms outwards, towards the lad.

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[Raya]

Battle Cleric (Part 5 - final)

Afterwards, my secretary, who had actually never watched an in-depth healing like this, since she had never gone to battle, said it looked like the lad was going to burst into flames. There was a current, like lightning, passing through him, leaving behind a flaming curtain of golden energy that utterly consumed him. I, of course, was totally unaware of the visual effects, being more interested in maintaining control so that we both didn’t go up in flames.

As the energy died down, I fervently hoped it had been enough. I knew I had no more than a shred of this energy left…and was even pondering whether I had enough strength to make it back to the tower. As I sagged, the miller caught me, having been warned in advance that this might happen. He pulled me onto a chair he had had the forethought to provide before I arrived on the scene. I sat there, unseeing, limp and without even energy enough to look at the young man.

There was a gasp, and then a glad cry behind me. The young woman had not departed very far and now was running back, then stopping in sheer astonishment. I looked first at her, at the glow of joy in her eyes, and then at the man. He was sitting up, looking around him with a dazed air. His face, which minutes before had been half torn from his skull, was now in one piece and, presumably, firmly attached to said skull. Scars were evident on the face, and they would not fade quickly. But what even astonished me, and I thought I was impervious to being amazed, was the fact that the eye that had been gouged out was sitting smoothly back in its socket, a little bloodshot, but not really that much worse for the wear. A very nice touch of the Maker, I thought, but it’s going to cost me at least a day’s worth of energy. And then, almost as an anticlimax, I noticed that somehow his left arm had been reattached. No wonder I was so drained.

The storm finally broke with a loud crash of thunder and sizzling lightning chasing around the sky. I left the young woman and her lover sitting side by side, looking wonderingly into each other’s eyes, and walked slowly home to the tower, supported by my secretary. I decided I never really had been that young after all and moved upstairs stiffly into my study …the notes of the sermon and lectures still unfinished. I sighed. A day of work turned upside down, and I still had no sermon to show for it. I would have to get up very early tomorrow to complete it for the midday service at the temple. So why did I feel so good? Tired and a little sore, but good.

So good, as a matter of fact, that I wanted to go and give thanks to the Maker in His home. I changed my wet gown for an old tunic and leather trews. It was my battle underdress…all I needed was my plate armor to make the outfit complete…and, of course, my battle sword, which I called the Holy Avenger. Strange, how much like a battle cleric I felt right now…even more so than on the field.

I slipped down the stairway and out the back door. I didn’t want anyone seeing me, wondering what I was up to. I just wanted some time alone with the Maker. I entered the temple from the rear door, through the vestibule and up into the main part. I circled around, approached the altar from the front and knelt, composing my thoughts, my heart full of peace and, surprisingly, victory.

I hadn’t noticed the people standing in the shadows near the front door, but I heard a cough, stood and turned to see who it was. I still couldn’t see clearly—the man, for it was a man, had his head lowered and shuffled his feet. It looked very much like my father did when he had something unpleasant he wanted to say but wasn’t sure how to say it.

“I gave a donation to the Maker, Lady,” the man said. I started and then recognized him as the farmer from the field this afternoon. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he continued in a hurry, “You know, though, I sure coulda used a prayer or two…that storm, it warn’t supposed to be there, and I took the time to play with my boys. And then the storm moves in and I barely gets all my corn in before it hit. Was a hustle, I’ll tell you.” The two young boys looked up at me, from behind their father’s legs, and nodded.

I opened my mouth a couple of times, not knowing what to say. At this point almost anything I said would only make the situation worse for everyone. Yet I couldn’t not say anything. I made my final decision of the day.

Smiling, I took one of the farmer’s callused hands in mine and shook it. “Thank you for your donation,” I said. “The least I can do is give you the Maker’s blessings for your family and for abundance for the rest of your harvest.”

The farmer looked mollified and, indeed, even a little sheepish. I think my appearance had penetrated, leading him to think that all was not well with me. Yes, I was dressed in my battle gear, but my eyes were sunken and weary, and lines from the strain of the day crossed my forehead and around my eyes. He tried to pull his hand back, but I held on to it.

“It is people like you, who do the work of the land, and hold your children and wives or husbands in esteem, that create our heaven here on earth.”

I looked him earnestly in the eye and then down at the two boys. “May the Maker bless you and your seed and your family’s family. May your honest heart and your stout arm stand you in good stead and bring to you the joys of your life’s harvest…respect, reward, love and honor.” I held the man’s hand and moved my other hand to the head of first one boy and then the other. I could feel the last little dregs of my energy going into them. For a moment, the glow of absolute oneness surrounded all four of us. Then I let go and stepped back.

The farmer, his eyes wide at the strong touch of the Maker on his soul, looked at me for a moment, then bowed. “You honor us with your presence, Lady,” he said. “We will return tomorrow for your speech.”

He turned and took the boys with him…the three of them walking quietly out into the storm. I turned back to the altar. “Thank you, my Maker, for showing me the way,” I said. I returned through the back way to the tower. I still had a sermon to finish, and I knew what to write now.


Battle Cleric © 2006 by Sandra Bell
All rights reserved.

(Further stories in this series will be part of an anthology of Anthero.)

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Final draft – April 14, 2006
6480 words