Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (8 page)

“Again,” I said.

He switched styles now, shifting from hack and slash, to flit and flick, dancing his edges around me in swift and shimmering network that let him prick two points off me in less than a minute. He was so very good. But, dammit, so was I. I would not let him do this to me.

Kelos came in for the third point, but I deflected him. Barely. And again. And yet again. I was fighting him off, but only by pushing myself to the very top of my form, and only for a time. He really was better than me, and not just in my head. For some reason it was far harder to admit that than it had ever been to admit that Siri was.

So, I couldn’t win. Accept that, move on. Maybe I could still at least score a point if I waited for the right opportunity. My tactics stayed much the same—Kelos had kept me on the defensive from our first moment of engagement—but my attitude shifted. Instead of fighting a sense of defeat as well as Kelos, I embraced it. I was going to lose. The best I could do was lose with style.

I saw an opening that I wouldn’t have tried for before—too risky, too little chance of scoring a point. This time, I went for it hard. I missed, but Kelos had to actually hop back to keep my edge away from his skin. I had surprised him, and he grinned. He likes surprises. Another minute went by with me somehow managing to keep him from scoring that final point. I saw a second opening—low, and riskier even than the last. If I missed, Kelos couldn’t help but finish me off.

Why not?

I started a lunge at Kelos’s chest, but at the last moment I let my forward leg collapse, dropping my whole body toward the floor. I released my left-hand sword and caught myself on the palm of that hand. My thrusting hand shifted with me as I fell, angling up now at the meaty part of Kelos’s thigh rather than straight into his chest, just as I had planned.

My point went home, sinking a good inch into his leg before I had the presence of mind to stop my thrust, so
unexpected was my success. We both froze then, him standing, me balanced precariously on knee and toes and palm. A trickle of blood ran down half the length of my blade before meeting the edge and dripping to the deck in a series of bright drops.

I didn’t know what to do or say. In all the years I’d known Kelos, and all the times I’d sparred with him, I had never once needed to pull a blow before. Even in those moments where I’d scored a point as a boy I had never been in any danger of actually hurting him, so thoroughly had he controlled our exchanges.

“I . . . I’m sorry. . . .” I stammered as I reverted briefly to nine. “I didn’t . . . I . . .”

Kelos stepped back, pulling himself free of my sword. “Good point, boy. Excellent!” He had a huge smile on his face. “Totally unexpected and you’d have hit bone if you hadn’t pulled it. No one’s pricked me that solidly since Nuriko.”

“I didn’t think I would actually hit you,” I said. “You’re so much better than I am . . . I just . . .”

“Stop apologizing, Aral. That thrust was a thing of beauty. Riskier than anything you’d want to try if you didn’t have to, but I
am
better than you are, and if you can’t outfence an opponent you have to outrisk them. You’re a thinker and a planner, always have been, and damned good at it. But that’s made you overly cautious. Sometimes you simply have to take a leap in the dark and hope.”

I realized then that I was grinning like a madman, and mentally kicked myself. I hated that praise from this man could still light me up like a fucking schoolboy. But somewhere, deep down inside, no matter how much I hated what he had done to the goddess and my order, no matter how much I might hate
him
, he was still
my
master, still the man whose approval mattered most to me.

Would I ever be able to let that go?

*   *   *

Whether
it was the two weeks on untamed water, or simply that the last of the risen who had attacked us in Wall had
fallen to the forces of the Magelanders, I couldn’t say, but we didn’t encounter any more of them in Uln or on our way into the mountains above. The series of high passes that led from there into Dalridia were little more than goat tracks, totally unsuitable for trade or anything other than the fittest of foot traffic.

We climbed higher and higher, now edging our way along the narrowest of tracks, now skirting huge drops, now scrabbling up one of the many short vertical climbs that punctuated the trail. Often, as we negotiated a particularly difficult stretch, I thought back to my last passage this way hauling three badly injured comrades and wondered how we had made it at all.

It snowed twice. Both falls were light enough, but a reminder that we needed to hurry if we wanted to get through the mountains to the temple before winter closed the passes on the west. We were midway through the month of Harvestide, which meant summer was winding down, and the western road that led down into the Kvanas lay at the far end of Dalridia. Though travel usually continued well into Talewynd, early blizzards had been known to shut the passes down before Harvestide’s end.

By the time we descended into the mountain valley that held the kingdom of Dalridia we were all pretty ragged and grimy. Fortunately, the royal castle Jax’s brother had set aside for her and Loris and their students was on the south end of the kingdom, and we didn’t have to pass through any heavily populated areas to get there.

When we reached a point on the road where the castle was visible high on the slopes of the mountains ahead, I waved our little group to a stop. “I think it might be best if Kelos and Chomarr waited here in the wood below the village, while Siri and Faran and I go on ahead.”

It was a cold afternoon with a fine rain falling, and waiting in the evergreen forest wasn’t going to be much fun, but Kelos nodded. “That’s probably the wisest course, given the time Jax spent with the inquisitors of the Hand, and Loris’s death. I don’t think she’ll be at all happy to see either of us.”

“Neither will her students,” said Faran. “Most of them would kill you both given the chance.”

Chomarr pointed back up the road. “Perhaps we should meet you above the western pass? We could wait for you at Riada on the lake.”

It was tempting for a number of reasons, not least that it would give the rest of us the option of simply skipping over the part where we picked them up, but I shook my head. “No. We have plans to make with Jax and her students and we’ll need you both close for that. I just want to warn them that I’m bringing you in so that no one does anything hasty.”

“Premeditated, on the other hand . . .” said Faran.

I shot her a look, but she ignored me. And that kind of closed the conversation down. With a sigh, I turned toward the castle and started walking. Siri and Faran fell in behind me.

An hour later, as we finished climbing the steep series of switchbacks that led up to the castle’s main entrance, the drawbridge came down to let us pass. It was a rough-looking old fort built heavy both for defense and to withstand the terrible mountain storms. Like the mountains behind, it was carved of some rough gray stone, but I knew the inside was comfortable enough, having been retrofitted as a luxurious royal retreat and then later converted for Jax’s use. Though she had surrendered the title when she was inducted into Namara’s service, Jax had been born a princess of Dalridia, and her brother now sat the throne.

A trio of figures was waiting for us at the far end of the plank bridge. Jax stood in the middle, looking ridiculously tiny between Maryam, a tall slender woman with black hair and beautiful eyes, and Roric, who was shaped like a bog troll—deep chested, long armed, and preposterously broad of shoulder.

As I got closer I couldn’t help but focus on what the Hand had done to them, and what I was about to ask. Jax’s entire skin was threaded with fine scars, like intricate lace, and she was missing about half her left hand, including her pinky and ring fingers. She hadn’t brought her cane, but I expected that she could tell the weather from the aftereffects of a leg
broken in four places. Maryam had a huge burn scar across her right cheek and neck from the fall of the temple, and she’d lost the ear above it to the events that had brought Jax and I back into contact two years before.

Roric had fared the best, with only his missing right ear to mark his time in the dungeons of the Hand. Well, that and the fine scars across his cheekbones, but then Maryam and Faran and I all shared those, as did Javan, who was elsewhere at the moment. Roric was Avarsi. As was the custom of his people, he’d sliced those lines into his cheeks himself, both as a way of mourning for Loris and in promise of avenging him. The moment had been full of blood and rage and madness, and the rest of us had joined him in marking our pain on our flesh.

When we got close enough to speak without shouting, Siri extended her right hand and forearm to Jax. “Sister, it’s been too long.”

“SIRI!” replied Jax, leaping past the hand to wrap her arms around Siri’s neck and, literally, hang there—Siri being more than a foot taller than her old friend. “What on earth have you done with your hair?” Jax ran a finger through Siri’s smoking braids.

“That’s a very long story,” replied Siri. “I promise you all of it, but not till later.”

“Master Aral,” said Roric.

“Journeyman Roric.” I grinned and clasped forearms with him while Maryam did the same with Faran. Then we switched, while shadows mixed and mingled around our feet with a susuration of Shade voices. Next, I turned to Jax, who had finally let go of Siri, and bent to hug her. “Hey there.”

“You’re late,” she said into my ear while poking me in the ribs. “Clever, but still late.”

I let her go. “I . . . wait, what?”

“It’s been nearly two years since you said you’d come back to help me with the school once you killed the Son of Heaven. Don’t think I didn’t notice when you sent a letter to Faran asking her to meet you in Tien instead of coming
to collect her yourself. You
knew
I wouldn’t let you leave so easy. Coward.”

I grinned at her. “First, I didn’t say I would come back, I said that I
might
. Second, the Son of Heaven isn’t dead yet, so even if I had said what you’re claiming I did, I’m still not in violation of my word.”

“Technicalities,” humphed Jax.

“Well, you did say I was clever, though I still haven’t figured out why.”

“Because of this.” She grabbed hold of Siri, who had just finished greeting the other two and pulled her up between us. “You brought me a Siri! Which means I’m not allowed to be mad at you for at least a day and a night.”

“Is that binding?” I asked.

“Of course, why do you even mention it?”

“Because of what else I brought you.”

“You can’t mean Faran. She’s a delight.” She put out her other hand and dragged Faran in for a hug as well. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the swords on your back, girl. I’m going to want the whole story on that. So . . .” She turned back to me. “What else did you bring me?”

I decided there was no way to sweeten it.

“Kelos.”

H
ate
looked at me out of eyes that once held love. All that I had said was a name, but it was enough to transform the smile on an old lover’s face into the merciless stare of an angry killer. The warm raucous sounds of reunion went utterly cold and silent.

“The whole, living, breathing Kelos, you mean? Not just his head or his heart?” Jax’s tone was quiet, almost joking, but I didn’t for an instant make the mistake of thinking she was anything but furious. “I presume that’s what you mean from the way you said it, but it seems so unlikely that you’d let him live. . . .”

“It’s not really Aral’s fault,” said Siri.

“Yours?” Jax turned hard eyes on Siri.

Siri held up her one hand. “No. Nor Faran’s either. You should know that Kelos is always and only ever Kelos’s own damn fault.”

“That, yes.” Jax nodded. “It’s the allowing him to live thing I’m having trouble with. . . .”

“Well,
I
wanted to kill him,” mumbled Faran. “But nobody would let me.”

“That’s not strictly true either,” said the shadowy phoenix who now formed herself from the shadows at Faran’s feet. “Aral said very clearly that he wasn’t going to stop you ever again.”

Jax reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can see this ugly little story is going to require time for the telling. We’d better take this inside, where the Shades can talk out of the light and I can get a nice cup of efik.”

For the first time in ages, I heard the name of the drug without twitching. That felt almost unspeakably good.

I nodded to Jax. “You might want to brew up a whole pot. It gets worse.”

“Worse than Kelos? I don’t even . . .”

“Well, more
in addition to
than
worse
exactly,” I said, “but yeah. Inside is good.”

Jax took a deep breath. “Come on then, Javan’s waiting in the council room with Inaya and Xin, and they’ll want to hear this as well.”

Along with Maryam and Roric, Javan, Inaya, and Xin were the seniormost of the surviving journeymen from the temple. The first three I knew well from the abbey raid where Jax, Faran, and I freed them from the Hand. The latter two had been left in charge of the castle while all that was going on, and I had only had minor dealings with them in the time I had been here between the abbey and my previous visit to the Son of Heaven. Together, the five made up the council Jax and Loris had formed to help them run their school and refuge. With Loris dead, their influence had only increased.

“How’s Javan’s leg?” Faran asked Jax as we headed across the stone mosaic floor that centered the castle’s entrance—a hunting scene with turbaned lancers surrounding a wounded chimera. Javan had lost the leg from the knee down during that same abbey raid.

Jax sighed. “The flesh has healed well enough, but he’s still trying to come up with a peg that doesn’t thump when he walks or a magical construct that won’t shine through
his shroud. I don’t think he’ll ever be able to do proper fieldwork again.”

“Has he tried the Durkoth?” asked Faran.

Jax raised an eyebrow. “There’s a thought. They don’t come cheap, but the Durkoth can do some very fancy things with locks and toys. They might be able to do a working foot as well. So”—she turned back to me as we passed down a short hall lined with tapestries depicting a variety of scenes from the history of Dalridia—“did you bring me any
good
news?”

“Besides Siri and Faran? Isn’t that a little greedy?” Before she could answer, I held up my hands. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. But, actually, I have. Maybe. It depends on how things work out with Faran’s swords and . . . dammit, there’s so much to tell you and I’ve no idea where to start.”

Siri interjected, “I do. We made Aral First Blade.”

Jax turned. “You what?”

“Made Aral First Blade.”

“On whose authority?” she asked. “The goddess is dead, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Siri’s face went as cold as Jax’s. “On
my
authority, as the last First Blade personally named by Namara. Aral was First Blade before I was, and the only other living person to hold that title besides me and Kelos. I thought it only fit and proper that he reassume the role, and that’s why I asked him to do it when I stepped down. Do you have a problem with that?”

And now it was Jax’s turn to put up her hands. “No. Sorry. It was just startling is all. Do you mind if I ask why?”

“I was no longer able to do the job, and with only we three left of the true Blades, it was him or you.”

A flash of pain burned its way across Jax’s eyes. “That does narrow it down a bit, doesn’t it?” She opened the door to the council chamber. “Given that I missed the meeting, I guess I got off light. I’m just as glad that you didn’t pick me.”

“I’m not.” Maryam’s voice came out flat and hard.

“Not what?” Javan asked from within.

The young man was sitting at a long wooden table with his amputated leg up on a small stool beside him. The flesh ended just below the knee, giving way to a glossy black calf and a foot of glazed ceramic—golemite clay if I was any judge. Whatever it was, it registered as an intense shining green in my magesight. His familiar, Thiess, who generally took the form of an enormous horned owl, perched on the back of his chair. Like Maryam and Roric, Javan was missing an ear, and for the same reason. A previous Signet had delivered them all to Jax in a sack once upon a time.

Inaya and Xin were sitting across the table from Javan. The former was a short, muscular young woman with long dark hair that was nearly as curly as Siri’s and skin the color of strong tea. Her Shade, Ssayath, took the form of a tuft-eared lynx. Xin was a typical northern Zhani, with fine black hair, a round face, and a slender build. Alone of all the people in the room he carried a pair of short axes instead of any kind of sword. His Shade, Gulthiss assumed the shape of a hump-backed camelopard.

Maryam jerked a thumb at Siri and me as she crossed the threshold and went to stand beside Javan’s chair. “I’m not happy that these two decided to make Aral First Blade over Jax. She’s the one who gathered us all up from the various corners of the eleven kingdoms and brought us here. Her and Loris. She’s the one who has trained us and sheltered us and done what she could to re-create the order while Aral was playing the shadow jack in Tien. I think that if there’s going to be a new First Blade it ought to be Jax.”

Maryam turned back to me. “I owe you my life after what you did for us at the abbey, but while you were tucked away in Tien, Jax was rebuilding the order.” She bowed formally now. “No offense meant, Master Aral, but that’s how I see it.”

I returned her bow. “None taken, Journeyman Maryam. You make a good case for Jax’s dedication to the order, and for her dedication to its lost children, though I have never doubted either. That’s why, if the order continues and if I continue as First Blade, I intend to make Jax chancellor of
our school and chief of my council. Rebuilding will start with you and your generation. Jax is the bridge between us.”

Siri spoke now, quietly, but with a cold and deadly precision. “I can’t speak to the matter of the order, but while I live and unless he voluntarily relinquishes the title, Aral
is
First Blade.”

Faran didn’t say a word, but she stepped up to stand with Siri and nodded.

Javan rose then to stand beside Maryam, and Roric joined him there. Across the table, Xin and Inaya backed them.

That’s when Jax moved between the two factions. “I. Don’t. Want. The. Job.”

“What?” Maryam looked shocked. “But . . .”

“But me no buts, Maryam. I have no interest. Even if I did, I would accept Siri’s word in this. She was the goddess’s final choice, and, as far as I am concerned, in this matter Siri speaks for Namara.”

Maryam continued to bristle, but Roric and the others visibly relaxed. Jax turned and knelt before me then, placing her swords at my feet. “First Blade Aral, I am yours to command.” She had rehilted her swords as a way of concealing them, and she wore them on her hip in the Dalridian style, but once they were unsheathed, the black steel of the goddess was unmistakable.

When Jax spoke, Triss emerged from my shadow and took his place beside me, as was right and proper.
I am having real trouble getting used to hearing that oath again.

Tough. If I have to live with being First Blade, you can suck it up, too.

Sshayar formed himself out of Jax’s shadow, taking the shape of a great tiger and kneeling before us as well. “I am likewise at your command, First Blade. Yours and Resshath-ra Triss’s.”

Jax didn’t look over her shoulder at the journeymen, but neither did she make any move to get up or retrieve her swords. She just waited.

Roric joined her a moment later. “I have no swords to lay
at your feet, but if I may serve the order through you, First Blade Aral, I will.”

His Shade, an enormous six-legged badger named Ssolvey, emerged then and silently touched his forehead to the ground in front of my feet. Javan and Thiess followed next, and I marveled at how well his golemite leg worked. Xin, Gulthiss, Inaya, and Ssayath quickly joined him there, crowding the space in front of me.

Finally, after several long beats, Maryam knelt as well. “If it is Jax’s will that we accept you as First Blade, Master Aral, I will follow you into hell itself.” Not quite the traditional phrasing, but it was hard to fault the sentiment.

The many-headed hydra that formed Maryam’s shadow slid forward. “First Blade Aral, I am yours to command.”

“Thank you, Vrass. I hope to be worthy of all of you. Now, will you please get up and take your places around the table? We have many things to discuss before I drag Master Kelos in here—”

“Kelos! That—” Javan snapped, then cut himself off and took a deep breath. “Sorry, I can see there’s much to hear.” Rising, he returned to his chair.

Once everyone had taken a seat I nodded to Javan. “There is, and much of it you’re all going to hate. Kelos is probably the worst of it, but he’s not alone in the woods. There’s a Hand named Chomarr with him.”

A low murmur arose at that, but only Jax spoke. “Kelos and a Hand. Why does that not surprise me?”

“For what it’s worth, we picked them up in two different places,” said Triss—as was traditional in a meeting of the order he had taken a place on the wall behind me where he could easily see and be seen. “Kelos has been with us since the rising of the Smoldering Flame some months ago. The Hand only for a few weeks. He is the last member of a delegation led by the now deceased Signet Toragana.”

Jax nodded approvingly. “You’ve killed another Signet then, Aral?”

“No. Sorry to disappoint, but I rather liked this one.” More quiet murmurs. “I know, I’m not making anyone happy with
that, but there it is. Toragana came to ask me to help her kill the Son of Heaven.”

“Finally, something we can approve of,” Maryam growled. Then she flushed. “I’m sorry, First Blade, it’s just . . .”

I smiled rather grimly. “That I am not your choice for this role and I keep giving you bad news.”

Gently,
sent Triss.

I nodded to his unspoken prompt and continued. “I understand that, and I pardon the interruption. Also, the next one, but do try to save it for something big. This is going to be a very hard story to tell, and I can’t fault anyone for not liking it much. I know that I hate having to tell it, but we’ll get through it much faster if we save our outbursts for my most truly egregious faults.”

Maryam chuckled. “Thank you for that, First Blade, and again my apologies.”

I wanted to tell her to drop the First Blade nonsense, but I knew that if I really wished to have my authority respected here, I was going to need to get used to hearing it—at least in formal settings like this council.

“That being the case,” I continued, “why don’t I give you the better news first as something of a cushion. I know that none of you will have failed to notice these.” I reached over and touched the sword hilt that jutted over Faran’s right shoulder. “They belonged to Master Parsi—given to her by the goddess—and Faran claimed them from her corpse. One of the better reasons Kelos is still alive is that Malthiss thinks he can help us to properly seal them to Faran so that we can make her the first new Blade the order has seen since the temple fell.”

“Is that possible?” asked Xin. “I mean, without Namara’s personal blessing?”

“Malthiss thinks so. My own swords belonged to Alinthide Poisonhand before they came to me, just as Jax’s and Siri’s swords came to them after other masters. Malthiss says that we must go to the ruins of the temple to attempt it. If we
can
do this thing, I intend to proceed directly from Faran’s investiture to a search for the place where Namara
kept those swords that were not currently sealed to a living master. If I can find them, I will induct all of you who are of the proper age.”

There were tears on Roric’s scarred cheeks as he choked out, “I . . . that would be . . . I mean: Thank you!”

“I hope that I will be your First Blade for some years to come, but I believe the next thing I must attempt after the visit to the temple, is to address the problem of the Son of Heaven.” I still had very serious misgivings about whether that was the right path, especially given the cautions of the goddess and Toragana’s visions of war, but the idea of it would help to unite the order I hoped to build. “Without the aid of Kelos, I can’t see any way to succeed there—another reason he lives yet. There is no guarantee that I will survive the experience. If I die in Heaven’s Reach, I want those of you who are left behind in the best shape to continue the order that I can manage.”