Tears began to condense at the corners of his single functioning eye, and one by one they inched their way down his cheek. A bitter anger fizzed on his tongue like a regurgitated, half-dissolved pill.
‘We did everything You wanted, everything we thought You wanted, my brothers and sisters and I of the Western Council. And yet you allowed the Catholic Church and their crusader army, led by Huntsmen lords and their lackey knights, to besiege us, to starve us out. And then, in the end, when we knew we could not win, the Council sent me and N’Jalabenadou out with the one treasure our order possessed: Your Grail. We snuck through their lines by the darkness of a moonless night, but we watched from the hills as they took the castle in the days that followed. And we watched helplessly as our friends, our brothers, our sisters, and our teachers, who had walked the Earth since the dawn of time, were burned alive in that monstrous bonfire … that hellfire. We watched as the Huntsmen tore down our fortress and defiled and destroyed everything we had worked over centuries to build. And … and … You let it happen! You let us be written out of history, as if we had not existed at all! You let your most faithful, pious and peace-loving servants be tortured, humiliated degraded and murdered!’
His words now came through gritted teeth, and flecks of spittle flew at irregular intervals from his lips, while his meaty hands quivered with intensity as they squeezed the sword blade in a python’s throttling grip.
‘You gave me a gift, oh yes, you gave me a gift all right … the gift of pain. Of bitterness. Of unending wrath, to fuel my sword-arm through the centuries. Yet that was the only thing I didn’t want! Why couldn’t I have been a martyr, along with all of my brothers and sisters? Why did I have to live, while they were allowed to shed their flesh-prisons, their cages of meat and bone, while my suffering soul remains trapped in this scarred body of mine? And why, why have You not given me the peace and enlightenment that You gave to so many others of my kind? Why couldn’t You see fit to bestow on me the same gifts of wisdom and power You have given to others, others who have only served You with a fraction of the dedication that I have? Is this some drawn-out test of faith? Why must You do this?! Have I not spent enough time proving my faith again and again? Why, why, why have You not given me anything?! You cannot blame me, and nor can You blame N’Jalabenadou, for turning away from the Councils and striking out a path of our own. Not after what happened to our brothers and sisters of the Western Council. What You allowed to happen to them! Yet even when N’Jalabenadou and I and a few others started our own faction, we were always, always loyal, above anything else, to You. We simply interpreted Your teachings in a … different … way to the way the Councils did. But everything we did, everything we believed, it was all for You, Great Mother.’
Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and the steel edge of the blade was biting into his hands and fingers. His prayer, however, only became even more fervent.
‘I speak to You, Great Spirit, I pray to You, I pray with such zeal and dedication, yet all I get in return is silence. Silence! Hollow silence, and this unending pain and emptiness! How much longer will You test me?! How much longer must I prove my faith to You before I receive a reward?! Those of us who serve You, who serve the Light, we are few and we are weak, so very weak … yet those who serve the powers of darkness are many, and they have grown strong, almost to the point of invincibility. It plants seeds in my mind sometimes, seeds of … seeds of things of which I do not – cannot – speak. But there is … temptation … yes, temptation…’
He bowed his head and knelt in silence for a while, breathing heavily and sweating from the intensity of his concentration and exertion.
‘Forgive me my doubts and my sins,’ he muttered eventually. ‘Forgive me, Great Spirit, Mother of Light and Giver of Life. I am always … Your faithful servant.’
When he stood up, still trembling slightly from the vociferousness of his tirade, he felt a liquid warmth pooling between his fingers. He looked down and saw the darkness of blood shading his hands; in the delirium of his prayer, he had throttled his sword blade to the point at which the steel had fought back. He stared emotionlessly at the blood for a while, wiped his hands off on the front of his black trousers, sheathed the sword and then turned around and trudged listlessly into the night forest.
***
Lightning Bird wandered barefoot through the trees, as he always did; the vast web of interconnected life in this forest provided him with nourishing energy with every step he took, his feet like the deep roots of an ancient tree, slowly and continuously drawing water from the ground. A gentle breeze whispered its susurrus hiss through the pine and spruce needles, and rippled with playful abandon through the shaman’s long jet-black hair, which hung loose about his shoulders and
