‘Next Year’
Bengakhi huffed, strained, and pulled, the muscles on his naked arms and back writhing as he struggled to stand. Bit by bit, the barbell rose. Baring his teeth, he straightened his knees and lifted the set of weights clean over his head, holding it there as his back trembled, sending the orange and black stripes on his fur into a frenzy.
‘How much this time?’ A familiar, soothing voice threw off his concentration. His balance shifted ever so slightly to the left and the weights began to tilt. Wincing, Bengakhi forced his right arm down, wrenching the barbell back to a horizontal position, then lowered it slowly to the ground as his biceps rippled. The weights touched the floor with just the smallest of clinks.
‘One hundred and sixty thousand angaids,’ he grunted, rolling his neck and producing a series of harsh cracks. ‘Slightly above one tonne.’
‘Always pushing yourself so hard.’ The voice belonged to a willowy figure standing in the doorway. The figure stepped forward as it spoke, and the soft candlelight of the dojo washed over creamy, rice-coloured fur and a pair of mischievous blue eyes.
Bengakhi chuckled. ‘You know me, Ayanne. Won’t settle for anywhere but the top. I’m still another tonne away from the village record.’
‘Mhm. Normal shinobi would be content with the strength the Pale Flask grants,’ Ayanne said, running a finger across his bulging shoulder. ‘Well, I’m not one to complain. A proper wife should appreciate all of her husband’s assets…’
‘And exactly how do you plan to show your appreciation?’ Bengakhi teased as he leant close.
Ayanne leant closer herself. ‘Allow me to demonstrate, my Tiger,’ she breathed, tucking a finger under his chin.
‘We’re not married yet, and this is the dojo of all places,’ Bengakhi cautioned, a roguish smile dangling on his lips all the same. ‘It wouldn’t be proper. Master Kayora would have our pelts.’
‘Since when have we cared?’
‘Won’t you at least let me wash my hands first? They’re covered in grease from the barbell.’
‘I don’t mind getting a little dirty,’ Ayanne grinned, forcing him down.
The candles had long burned out when they were done. The two Po’ Tun lay there in the darkness, fingers interlaced. ‘Three years.’ Bengakhi nuzzled her neck, catching her mane on his teeth. ‘Three years before we can truly be together. Why on Nirn did Ranyun-ri forbid everyone from marrying before our journey? Some urotsuki-nin never return-’
Ayanne placed a finger on his lips. ‘Hush. We’ll both make it back to the village and become Shadeclaws in full, so don’t talk about such things. There’s nothing stopping us from acting as husband and wife, no?’
‘Except having children,’ Bengakhi grumbled. ‘Ranyun-ri saw to that too.’
Ayanne’s brow darkened. ‘Like it or not, population control is necessary. The Sixth Grandmaster had good reason to use the spells she did. More people means more drain on resources-’
‘-and that means expansion and conflict, I know, I’ve paid attention in class. To be honest, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. A bit of territorial expansion would do both us and our future generations good. We can’t stay on Mount Furiya forever.’
‘Why not?’ Ayanne argued. ‘We’ve managed for almost two millennia. Conflict means exposure, and Shadeclaws must always minimise exposure.’
‘Still, to go to such lengths to prevent it… forced infertility is almost barbaric, don’t you think?’
‘Come now, We’ve a hundred years to try for the Raffle. No matter how long it takes, I promise,’ Ayanne stroked his mane as she always did to comfort him. ‘I will bear you a child.’
In spite of himself, Bengakhi felt his heart swell. ‘You always know exactly what to say, don’t you? Come, let’s move on to lighter topics. What are you planning to do in Cyrodiil?’
‘Hmm,’ Ayanne said, biting her thumb. ‘What a question. I’ve been there before on missions, of course, but I’ve never stayed for three whole years before. And to do it all on my own… I’d probably do what most urotsuki-nin do and find work with a mercenary company. Easy coin and all that. What about you?’
‘I’ve already made up my mind,’ Bengakhi said proudly. ‘I’m going to train with the Cathay-raht warriors. I feel that I can implement a lot of their guerrilla tactics into shinobi techniques.’
Ayanne looked him up and down, then laughed. ‘Well, you can certainly pass for one at first glance, but I hope you have a good cover story ready.’
‘This one is an orphan, raised by caravan traders in the sands of Hammerfell.’ Bengakhi had been practicing the accent for months. ‘It is a good cover, yes? Impersonal, hard to trace.’
‘And if they ask you which caravan?’
‘Smiling R’jasha’s,’ he replied, and they both shared a quiet chuckle. Smiling R’jasha was one of Master Kayora’s many aliases during her long intel-gathering missions in the field. Bengakhi’s cover was practically watertight.
‘We’ll have to part in another week,’ Ayanne said, subdued, as she buried her face into the fur on his chest. ‘I would send you letters every day if I could, but-’
‘-no letters, no couriers, no magical messages or any other form of communication. I remember,’ Bengakhi said sadly. He pressed a small chip into her hand. She held it up, running a finger across the Akaviri character carved into the wood.
‘The glyph for “heart”,’ Ayanne’s lips twitched. ‘Bengakhi…’
‘Carry it,’ he begged of her. ‘And know that I will be thinking of you, every minute of every hour of every-’
Ayanne covered his mouth with her own, and for the rest of the night neither of them uttered a single word.
They had not spoken during their parting, either, as the fourteen kits of Year 77 gathered in front of the moonstone gates and made ready to set out.
He gazed at her, and she at him.
‘Scatter!’ Master Kayora barked.
They sped off, he to the south, she to the west.
Those three years felt like thirty. The Cathay-raht were tough and demanding, but still could not compare to the instructors in Tsukikage. Bengakhi had learned all he felt was useful in one year, and risen to occupy a spot as an infantry commanding officer in two. He had taught the Khajiit a selection of shinobi skills in return, and before long his unit had become feared across all Elsweyr.
Then the third year had finally come, and it was with a sense of intermingled excitement and dread that he handed in his resignation. He ran at full sprint all the way up the Jeralls and back to the village.
The wait in front of the moonstone gates was torture. As the sun began to set and old classmate after old classmate arrived, fear clutched at his breast. Then, as Masser and Secunda rose and he began to despair of ever seeing her again, she appeared on the horizon, moonlight streaming down her fur, his wooden chip tied onto her braided mane, every bit as beautiful as he remembered. He almost wept.
They had gotten married the next day, enrolled in the Raffle the day after. Drunk on happiness, they had already begun thinking on a name. Then morning came.
‘Rejected,’ Bengakhi said in disbelief, shaking the notice slip as if it would somehow change the cold letters written on the parchment. ‘Rejected!’
‘Don’t worry, my Tiger,’ Ayanne said, resigned, and stroked his mane. ‘Don’t you remember? We’ve a hundred years to try. We’ll sign up again next year.’
The seasons flew. Next year came and brought with it another failure on the Raffle. So did the year after that. And the year after the year after, and all the following years.
Ten years passed. Then twenty. Then thirty, forty, fifty…
By the time Bengakhi was seventy, the word ‘Raffle’ was enough to send him into a fit. Ayanne, though, ever patient, would always reassure him that they could try again next year.
One summer, much like all the other summers, the notice slip came. Bengakhi shook it out of the envelope and whooped like a kit one fifth his age. Accepted!
Then the year had passed, and though they tried as they might, Ayanne did not become pregnant. Bengakhi almost went mad with frustration.
Ayanne put a hand gently on his shoulder and with a sweet voice said, ‘There’s always next year.’
And so another decade passed. Just when he was about to give up and admit defeat, one summer the notice slip came. Once more they had been accepted.
Two months later, the fruits of their labour showed. Ayanne’s belly began to bulge. Bengakhi never slept a wink in the nine months that followed, such was his excitement.
He could hardly eat the day the baby was due. Tremors of anticipation shook his body as he waited, keeping vigil outside the door of her room in the hospice.
Then the healer came out. His blood ran cold at the look on his face.
‘Bengakhi-do…’ the healer began.
The child was stillborn.
Bengakhi sank to the floor, cradling his head in his agony, the tears burning as they filled his eyes to the brim.
When he finally mustered up the courage to go into the room and see Ayanne, he found her limp on the bed, fur matted, weak from blood loss, and somehow, miraculously, the mischievous glint still in her eyes.
She reached out and held his hand. ‘Don’t worry, my Tiger. We can always try again…
‘Next year.’
He had never loved her more.
The passage of the years no longer gnawed at him, for they were but halfway through their lives – and if she could endure past all the setbacks, who was he to grumble and complain?
Summer after summer after summer, each bringing with it a new rejection slip. The summer of 171 came and passed, and by the end of Frostfall the Great War had broken out.
They did not see deployment to the front lines of Cyrodiil and Hammerfell. Instead they had been assigned to Elsweyr, to report back on the Dominion’s influence on the area.
It had been in the forests of Tenmar that they came across the extremists. Large claws, bulging muscles, a mane as livid as the expressions on their faces. Cathay-raht much like the ones he had trained with and trained, almost a century ago.
The enemy were sixteen, they were two. The obvious choice was to run. But the extremists had been well-trained; they moved just as fast as shinobi and their noses traced them right through their smoke pellets.
Ayanne fought harder than Bengakhi had ever seen her before, her bladework flawless, a testament to her experience. She felled one, two, three, but the fourth Khajiit stood firm with his dying breath and grasped her wakizashi with his hands, pinning her in place for an instant, and the rest swarmed her like feral beasts.
The roar he released rang six times through the forest. Their foes fell back, stunned by his ferocity. He scooped Ayanne up by one hand and leapt up onto a thick branch.
Her breathing was ragged. She was gurgling with blood. The Cathay-raht had savaged her from collarbone to pelvis, and no matter how much Regeneration magic he blasted into her, the bleeding would not stop. She pleaded with him, in a voice low and tainted with the touch of death, to conserve his strength.
‘No,’ Bengakhi choked. ‘No, no, no, no, no…’
‘My Tiger,’ Ayanne whispered, trembling as she struggled to reach him. ‘I’m so sorry… but there’s… no next year.’
Her hand fell as the light in her eyes dimmed, and Bengakhi screamed.
He screamed as he fell on the Cathay-raht from above, his claws flicking out of his fingertips, as sharp as pain. He screamed as he swept into their ranks, tinging the sickly humid air with red. He screamed as he grabbed one Khajiit by the arms and ripped him apart like a spring chicken. He screamed as he turned on the last one, now trying to flee, and pounced. He screamed as he powered his sole into the prone warrior’s sacrum, shattering the bone. He screamed even as his prey screamed, a scream that petered out as the individual vertebrae on his neck cracked and popped and snapped as Bengakhi tore his head off his shoulders.
And then he had collapsed, the bone-deep gashes they inflicted on him before their deaths finally taking their toll.
When he woke again in the Tsukikage hospice, he turned his head into his pillow and cursed the healers who brought him back.
But a Shadeclaw was a Shadeclaw, and the war beckoned. Bengakhi did not hesitate.
After all, what more had he to lose?
Takarro-dro – no, the Grandmaster, he would never get used to calling him that – had found his new drive disturbing. He told him as much one night in the Alik’r.
‘Are you trying to throw your life away on the battlefield?’ The Shikabanegami shook his head, sighing. Half a dozen Redguard corpses, reanimated as his puppets, followed his motions. Six ragged turbans flung gathered dust into the air as they whipped about in the desert wind. ‘What would Ayanne-ko say?’
‘Ayanne is dead,’ Bengakhi said curtly, slipping a worn wooden glyph into his pocket as he squatted over on a dune. He weighed more than a young camel, and yet his feet made no prints. ‘All that matters is the village… and your orders, Takarro-dro.’
The Grandmaster looked away. Bengakhi saw sorrow in his eyes. Save your tears, old man. I have no more to spare.
‘Reconnaissance indicates a full camp with thirty-six enemy combatants. Security is moderate with nine guards on watch, all sitting around fires. Normally I would only go after the commander, but each target here is of high rank.’
‘Extermination, sir?’
Takarro nodded coldly. ‘Purge them as they did Valenwood.’
Bengakhi stood, working the fingers of his right hand. He bent his leg to jump, then paused.
‘Takarro-dro,’ he asked, his face devoid of emotion. ‘How is Verra-daro?’
There was silence for almost a whole minute. ‘My daughter is well,’ the Grandmaster said, very quietly. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
‘I see.’ A century of shinobi training had given him perfect control over his lungs, his breath, and subsequently his voice. Bengakhi leapt off the dune and began the long slide down, his claws flicking out from their sheaths once more.
Comments
The anguished cries haunted the story from that point....
Powerful stuff Harrow...
I like this, it's quite powerful. The impact is there. Interesting how the events conspired against Bengahli while the Grandmaster has a daughter and even grand children.
I like this, it's quite powerful. The impact is there. Interesting how the events conspired against Bengahli while the Grandmaster has a daughter and even grand children.