A Girl and Her Monster (Rune Breaker) (2 page)

Her nose tingled with the sheer amount of ambient magic around him.

The hounds had been forgotten, but they now made themselves known with a collective effort against the door. It held, but barely; fist sized chunks of stone crumbled around it.

The Rune Breaker stared at her with an inscrutable expression. Anticipation grew in the back of her head. He was waiting for something – but what?

Another slam against the door. More stone fell. His gaze flicked over to it.

“Do you wish for me to kill them, Mistress?”

She reeled. Not at the question, but at the appellation. And when his expression changed to confusion, followed instantly by that same feeling in her head, it became all too clear that the emotional exchange worked both ways. This did nothing to help the paralysis induced by his statement.

The next hit tore the door free of its frame, causing it to fall into the room with a ringing din that echoed again and again within the chamber.

Terrible excitement spread out like an oily film in her head and she looked at him, taken aback. It wasn't showing on his face, but he was giddy with blood-lust.

“It has been decided without you.” He informed her. “The first priority is preventing my master from coming to harm.” His right arm came up and swept her aside as the first hounds to recover came bounding in. It shouldn't have been possible, he was probably only three quarters her weight and not even planted on the ground on top of that.

She forced the shock and confusion down and slid into a sword stance so she could meet the hounds.

That proved unnecessary as the same arm that swept her aside suddenly twisted and the canvas covering it deformed. A trio of black thorns, each some eight inches long, formed on the side facing away from her. With astonishing speed, it reversed direction and, still twisting and growing, slammed into the first hound. Two thorns tore into the animal's throat, the last punched up through its jaw, through the palate and into the brain. It would have been dead even if the surging strength behind the arm hadn't launched it into the far wall hard enough to shatter its ribs.

Even less lucky was the next hound to leap at them, for the Rune Breaker still had a free hand. This one had become some sort of colossal, black cleaver while she wasn't looking and it fell from overhead like a meteor strike, severing the animal's front leg, two ribs, and any number of organs while at the same time hammering it to the stone floor.

All the while, the blood-lust built and rattled around gleefully in her skull. There had been berserkers of a sort in the hailene army. But never something like this. It wasn't so much a rage that drove one to kill, as the joy of an artist whose medium was warfare.

Another beast leapt at him and he brought his arms back across his body as twin war hammers that crushed its shoulders. This time, it wasn't enough and the hound used its hind legs to power through, catching his shoulder with its teeth.

That lasted for the space of a breath before the strange man seemed to melt and flow until a huge, black anaconda was wrapped around the hapless animal, crushing the life from it. A brutal attack, but a wasteful one; in doing so, he left an opening for two more hounds to rush toward his apparent charge.

She met the first as it leapt at her, working her forearm up under its jaw to hold it away from her by the throat. Huge paws tore at her shoulders, but she ignored them, thrusting her broken blade into its belly and emptying its guts onto the floor.

By that time, the second had come around to flank her. It wasn't fast enough. She turned and used the body of the first as a shield, pushing it back while swiping for the newcomer's eyes. The beast evaded losing its eyes, but couldn't save itself when a massive, black dire-wolf hit it from the side, snapping huge jaws at its neck.

The hound's luck held and it scudded sideways from the initial blow, avoiding the lethal follow-through. Two more packmates came to its rescue by leaping onto the great wolf's back.

Dropping her corpse-shield, she darted in, driving her sword into one of the hound's haunches and using it as leverage to pull it off her new ally. Even as she did, the nearby dire wolf was transforming, fur and lean muscle giving way to leathery skin and heavy carapace.

It was a creature she'd never seen before. A heavy knob- and spike-covered shell, like a dragon turtle, and a face combining lizard and bovine features. Most striking was a long, muscular tail ending in a two-knotted club of bone.

The remaining hound couldn't keep a hold on the hard carapace and when it slipped off, it paid by way of being crushed into a smear on the near wall by that same club.

Showing their intelligence, the remaining three hounds broke off their attack, regrouping across the chamber. Out of range of that killing club.

The new, strange animal ambled into position between she and them, waving the club menacingly to show its weight.

Wary, the hounds started to fan out. He could only kill one at a time, the swordswoman one more. She could see the logic working in their heads. This was what they were created for: intelligent attrition.

Unfortunately for them, their logic was missing several key facts. And the Rune Breaker was proud to show them their error. Once more, his form shifted, expanding and growing as the carapace split into a pair of massive, leathery wings.

Not for the first time in the battle, she was stunned beyond thought.

There in the chamber, standing between her and the murderous hounds, stood a black dragon, wings unfurled to fill a full quarter of the room.

The itching started again on her arms and down her back. Heat filled her belly; that hateful, hateful heat.

“No!” She shouted, not realizing it was out loud. Her voice bounced around the room like an entity of its own. Nightmares of scales and wings; a throat full of liquid fire, all tore through her mind. Her grip on the broken sword became painful.

And somehow because of this, the dragon before her shivered and its body dissolved into dark mist that sank and spread to cover the ground.

The sight was more than enough to jar her back to reality. What just happened? Was that her doing?

My apologies, Mistress.

“Stop calling me that.” She snarled.

There wasn't any time to argue. All three hounds saw that the way to their target was open and they rushed for her as a single being.

Without warning, the mist erupted. A slick, black stalagmite stabbed up from the floor and impaled one, hoisting it into the air as a grizzly monument. A man-sized talon, like that of a roc, emerged, grabbing the second and hurling it into the chamber ceiling. The third was simply enveloped in the cloying darkness and was gone.

Silence suddenly returned to the chamber.

Slowly, the mist began to rotate around a central point, which began to rise up into human shape.

“My master is no longer in danger of harm. Spell limitations have been reset to safe levels.” The Rune Breaker said as the last wisps of his person returned to his body. This time, he was clothed in dark gray robes and a cloak of the same color. His hair was cropped close.

Grip still tight enough to deform the metal in her hand, she all but growled at him. “I'm no one's master. Don't call me that.”

“The bond requires I speak respectfully to you.” He said, his voice now even, the blood-lust gone. But an underlying anger still in her head and growing at his mention of the bond.

She puzzled at this, but her mind was more on the issue of 'mistresses' and 'masters' at the moment. “You can speak respectfully without using those terms. Call me... “ She wracked her brain for something useful. The hailene
liked
being called 'master' and 'lord' and any of their military titles. Their enemies were less pompous though, and had milder honorifics. “'Miss' will do, I suppose.”

“'Miss' what?” He asked. “I do not know the mis... your name.” He seemed vaguely troubled at this course of action, an emotion she could verify using the bond.

“Taylin.” She said. “And I suppose I'm to call you Rune Breaker?”

“If you wish. Your most recent predecessors did.”

“But is that what you'd like to be called?” Her military training started to kick in and unconsciously, she started cleaning blood from her sword with the tattered hem of her shirt.

This question called up even more uncertainty and unease in the bond. “It doesn't matter. The wielder names their weapon. And I am a weapon.”

Phantoms of the itching in her arms and back haunted her mind for a moment and she abruptly stopped cleaning her sword. Her expression became adamant and angry. “So am I.” Her voice was firm and loud enough to fill the chamber. “And I am tired of it not mattering. Now tell me who you are.”

“Is that an order?” He asked.

“Yes.” And the moment she said that, she felt a very faint, cold chill in the back of her head. It wasn't an emotion, but something about the bond itself... moving or changing... maybe just operating.

The Rune Breaker lowered his head and his voice became emotionless and subdued. “Yes, Miss Taylin. The name of Rune Breaker is a pun, in your modern language, on the ancient name I was born with and a reference to my abilities.”

He straightened up, floating off the ground again until his head was of a height with hers. But his eyes were still downcast. “I am the shape-shifting master. The arcane terror of nations long dead. The weapon bound by the most complex spell structures ever devised in the history of two worlds to serve the strongest of souls.

“I am kingmaker. Beast slayer. The foundation of tyranny. The destroyer of armies and the power of ancestral gods. Use me as you will and I will rain oblivion on your enemies. Work your will through me and all barriers before you will be utterly decimated. Direct me in the service of your greatest desires and you will rule nations.”

Without warning, he dropped to a knee, supported by one fist on the smooth, stone floor. “My name is Ru Brakar. And until you breathe your last, I am your servant and weapon. Such was the bargain you struck and sealed in blood.”

Ru's words tore into Taylin's stomach in ways that the hounds would never have accomplished. She stumbled back from him until her back found the wall. Through her threadbare shirt, the cool rock irritated the area around the scars there. Scars that were all that was left of a birthright taken from her by the hailene.

“No!” The statement echoed off the domed roof. “That isn't right. I don't want this.”

From where he'd come to kneel, Ru lifted his head. His face was without emotion, and his eyes, not quite the right shape for a human and amber besides, observed her. In the link, she could feel his measured curiosity overtaking all else.

“You made the bargain, Miss Taylin.”

Taylin's back slid along the wall until she found herself in a crouch. Years of conditioning and berating from taskmasters made it difficult to sit fully. She took notice of just how much of a hold her old masters still had on her and forced herself to sit.

“I didn't know what you were talking about. I didn't know the Rune Breaker was a person.”

Ru laughed and the coldness in the sound came through in the link as well. With little apparent effort, he stood smoothly from kneeling. “I'm not. The man died so long ago that not even his dust remains. All that's left of Ru Brakar are his powers and skill, imprisoned by spellcraft and artifice.”

Taylin bled slowly, but she had a lot of wounds to bleed from. The blood loss was starting to make her lightheaded. “That's not true.” The words came out slurred.

“I can feel... you feel.” That didn't make any sense and she knew it. The minimal combat medicine she'd been taught came back to her. She needed to stop the bleeding.

No bandages. The stiff canvas shirt she wore was in tatters and soaked through with blood; both hers and from others. Her thick wool leggings were also torn and bloodied,on top of being caked in mud and dust. Without the adrenaline of battle, she was starting to doubt she'd be able to tie a bandage properly in her condition anyway.

A sly, smug feeling came from Ru, though his expression didn't change. He floated over to her, feet only inches above the ground so that the charcoal gray robes and cloak dragged across the stone. When he was directly in front of her, he sank down into a cross-legged position.

This close, the height difference and size difference in general were striking. Thought he was tall for a human, Ru was still a head shorter than Taylin. Even slumped as she was, her warrior's frame made two of the taunt whip of his scholarly build.

He stared at her without seeming to see her for the space of a breath. “You are bleeding to death, Miss Taylin.” There wasn't anything to argue with there; she knew as much already. No use wasting her last energy with that. From the link, she could tell that the prospect of her demise didn't concern him one way or another, but he was annoyed that the statement didn't draw a better response.

A moment later, he tried again. “You said before that you did not wish to die here.”

And she had told him that it didn't look like she had a choice.

“And you were wrong.”

That got a start from her. She knew for a fact that she hadn't said those words out loud. She'd only been thinking them.

“Another facet of the link. You can speak with me, issue commands at range with a thought.” Ru explained. “It is a complicated piece of spell structuring with many rules governing it. For example, you can read my thoughts, but I can only hear what comes to the surface of yours.” He leaned forward. “Right now, you still do not want to die.”

Once again, there was no point in arguing. It was obvious from the start. Why bother telling her that when they also both knew these were her last moments?

But Ru kept talking, his voice even and deep and entirely sinister. Now, he put the palm of his hand on her forehead and gently pushed her head back against the wall. Taylin wanted to fight, but couldn't. She didn't like being touched.

“For example, I am required to protect you from harm. But I am not required to stop you from bleeding to death, even though it would be nothing for me to heal you.”