Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (18 page)

“But no one ever told us sints could be evil. They’re all such benign, helpful gods. How could we possibly have known?”

“I’m open to any ideas you have on the subject of battling a sint, Trio Singer Tala.”

Tala gave him a startled look. “You’re asking
me
?”

He managed a lopsided smile. “Well, in my defense, I have managed to avoid it until now. I thought perhaps your perspective on our running and fleeing and nearly dying was different enough that you had some sage advice.”

Her mouth hung open with a mix of frustration and amusement as if she was unsure whether to say anything at all or simply box his ears. She managed a single, breathless huff. “Well, as you know, no singer is capable of much without her crystals. If you’re going to make me take on a sint today, I’m going to need a
lot
of crystals.”

Calder glanced over his shoulder toward where the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies lay safe amongst the spires of the Spineforest Mountains. He didn’t have time to dash over there and beg for the crystals in their extensive Chantery. His eye fell on the countless sharp black spires that stabbed at the sky. “How many do you need, and how big do you want them?”

Her mouth sagged again, in a manner that suggested she’d forgotten it because she was concentrating so hard. “He is water, so I would need enough crystals to control the entire sea. If I can do that, it would be like what Bayan did with Ignaas witten Oost. Controlling the body without the consent of the mind. Ay, Bhattara.” Her face went slack and pale, and her eyebrows tilted adorably. “I think I understand how Bayan felt during the battle that got him exiled.” Her eyes tightened. “Make me the biggest crystals you can, in a ring that circles the entire Godsmaw. And then we’ll see if I can outsing the sea.”

Calder leapt to his feet and studied the landscape. With every moment, the Godsmaw spread itself thinner and farther. He concentrated. Half his necklace warmed against his chest. A single black crystal appeared in the air before him then stretched until it was a dozen times taller than he was. A second appeared next to it, then two more, then four, until he and Tala were surrounded by a solid, crystalline wall of black. The crystals’ upper points swung down until they hovered horizontally, quivering and humming in the chill wind. He glanced down once more, judging the distance he would need to cover, and spun the crystals into the winds.

They flew away from him in a ring, their notes turning downward in tone like a mystery of hexbirds winging by. Not daring to risk holding the crystals aloft on gusts of air in case the water rose to disrupt them, Calder forced the crystals into their perfect ring with Earth and the sheer force of his will. He nodded toward Tala, and a pair of small black crystals appeared before her.

Tala’s voice rang across the sky. Calder could hear the notes she sang echoing across the wind and sliding across the curve of the world. The crystals crooned back to her like Tala’s own personal full choir. The heavens rippled with the force of her song, and the very air around them snapped to a standstill, ushering in a sudden warmth that spread gooseflesh up Calder’s arms.

The chaotic surface of the Godsmaw trembled, mirroring the tethered winds. A single ripple shot across its entire surface, as if Tala’s voice were a stone dropped into its center. It bounced unevenly off the ragged edges of its basin and the floodwaters, creating concentric rings that sprang across the vast sea until they pressed every drop of water into a perfect mirror. Calder squinted through a quick wind lens and felt his eyes go wide as he spotted his own reflection.

Still singing, Tala glanced over at him, shifted her eyes downward, then met his gaze again as if to say,
Well, I’ve done my part. Now what?

Calder suppressed a shiver
. Now what, indeed? We’ve bloody well caught ourselves a sint. I dinna think it was possible, but there it is. We canna hover here forever. And she canna sing forever. I’d say “sints preserve me,” but I’m not sure they’re up for the task, considering.

How do I tame a god?

Tala had barely left campus with Doc Theo for the Kheerzaal battle when the sky darkened. Odjin glanced up with trepidation, expecting that the campus would be the next logical target, but he saw only a massive mystery of hexbirds, swirling through the air and calling like fury.

Sabella stared up at them with trepidation. “What is that?”

Kipri answered her. “It’s only hexbirds. They live here on our campus. Legend says that they used to be crows, but too much exposure to magic changed them, made them smarter.”

The look on Sabella’s face seemed more than curiosity, and Odjin gave her a longer look. She seemed almost… jealous?

Diantha backed toward the Chantery doors. “If there’s nothing further, I’ll return to work. With Doc off to battle like a crazy young man, I’m responsible for all the students on campus.”

Sivutma took a few steps forward, neck craning to study the bird cloud overhead. “Something’s wrong. I think—” She hastily backed up again. “Have hexbirds ever attacked anyone?”

Odjin snorted. “Only when they refused to hand over the food they were hiding.” But the mystery had indeed begun to swirl downward, directly toward where he and the others stood on the Chantery steps. “Just in case, though, maybe we should go back inside too. Maybe the battle is upsetting them. Sints only know. The birds really are a mystery.”

No one smiled at his pun as they collectively turned toward the Chantery doors, but when Odjin glanced over his shoulder, he was stunned at how fast the hexbirds had caught up. They had descended to a level even with the second story of the Chantery. He had lain in one of those rooms up there on his last day as a student. The bitter memory flashed through his mind, then gave way to uncertainty and not a small amount of fear. “Run!” He bolted forward, shoving Sivutma ahead of him, but before he could reach the Chantery’s open double doors, hundreds of hexbirds swirled around him, a tight, black cyclone of feathers and raspy voices.

The world stretched. He was still running, wasn’t he? Why hadn’t he reached the Chantery doors yet? He felt Sivutma’s back under his palm—or was she above him? Suddenly, he wasn’t sure. The world seemed in flux. The birds continued to swirl past him, and he wondered where they were going. Were they filling the Chantery? Had something happened inside? A flurry of emotions pressed against him, and he called to them, holding to his even center, calming the heat in his beads.

That even center shattered in utter confusion as the birds finally dissipated, leaving him in bright, angled sunlight much different than the daylight he had just been standing in. Only a narrow strip of light reached him from between the tall buildings. He fell against Sivutma, who had tripped over Kipri, who lay next to Sabella. Just past the Corona girl, Diantha lay sprawled in the dust. And crouched against one side of a nearby building was a wiry, grizzled man: Odjin’s anima taskmaster and the bane of his existence for a full season. Iulan of the Treinfhir. The Tuathi had given Odjin ample opportunity to practice magic using his anger and frustration beads.

Feathers rained around them all like a dust storm, swirling like snow. Uncertain what had just occurred, he idly caught one in his open palm and studied it. The Tuathi leapt to his feet, his seamed face wreathed in smiles, and grasped Odjin by the shoulders. “Blessed be all the gods and may their eyes never cease! The little beastie brought help! My son, my son, he’s out there. I dinna see what happened, but someone is very angry with the duel den up the street. I sent the bird for help. He brought ye. Can ye? Help?”

Odjin blinked.
“Where am I?”

“Katacha.”

“And someone attacked the duel den?”

“My son and I were inside. Aleida just left to fight at the Kheerzaal. Then all the air disappeared, and we nearly choked to death. My son… I don’t know if… And then there was fire.” He pointed out into the main street. “Ye see? Just noo it happened.”

Odjin took in the sight of the burning rubble that edged the streets and shops along the street. He turned and looked at the small group of people the hexbirds had somehow moved a thousand leagues in the space of a few panicked breaths.
One Avatar Duelist, one mutant Corona magic dancer, one chanter, and a political liaison with not even a scrap of magic in him. Perhaps I should compose my epitaph now.

He opened his mouth to wish for at least enough elemental duelists to fill out a full hex, but he got a mouthful of feathers instead as another burst of magic filled the alley. And then another, and another. Odjin’s jaw dropped, and his spirit simultaneously rose as the narrow space filled with a dozen of the strongest Potioneers Savant he had trained. Hetta, Bas, and Jorn were all there. A smile split his face, and he pushed his way over to embrace them all.

Quickly, he summed up what Iulan had told him then added, “We need more details. Half of you spread out, and see what you can find.”

The scouts threaded through the narrow alleys, heading in the direction of the burning arena. Odjin returned to Iulan, bringing Sabella and Sivutma with him. “Any idea why they would attack this town?”

The older man offered palms of uncertainty. “I’ve heard tell of sudden strikes along the border with Tuathi lands. Some reports say the Tuathi are attacking, but I know that canna be. Whoever is raiding strikes only small targets. We have nae singers, nae hexmages.” He shrugged. “Maybe they want my wife’s stew recipes. Caith makes a vicious iceblood curry.”

Odjin grinned. “If we survive this, I might look into that. Stirring beakers for a living has given me an interest in dependable dishes.”

Odjin gathered his hex and prepared to leap onto the nearest roof and advance on whoever had set fire to the arena. Kipri tapped him on the shoulder. “And what should I do?”

Odjin looked at Iulan, then back at Kipri. “This is the center of town. See if you can find any survivors, and lead them away from the battle. You’re good with people, and I don’t think anyone in Aeolis really knows what a Raqtaaq looks like.”

Kipri gave him an overly sweet smile and patted his beaded purple wig. “Yes, I’m sure that’s the first thing they’ll be concerned about.” He hurried down the alleyway, stopping to look in the side doors, before vanishing around a corner.

Odjin gave a nod to his makeshift hex, and with much less coordination than the greenest of elemental student hexes, they floated up to the rim of the roof behind them. Odjin crafted an air shield, protecting them from the fervent heat in the distance. The duel den wasn’t flaming so much as melting. The arena wall formed a molten puddle around the lip of the crater where the sandy floor had once been.

He exchanged glances with Sivutma, whose dark brows drew together in sharp concern. “I’ve never seen magic like that,” she said. “A single spell melting all that stone? That should be filthing impossible for anyone but a hexmage or a full hex of avatar duelists.”

Odjin scanned the area around the building. City-bound duel dens were constructed with a wide swath of clear, grassy area around them, and it was easy to determine that there had been no survivors. “Aleida’s denmates were all older, set in their ways. She never tried to teach them any of the forgotten lore. They wouldn’t have been strong enough or fast enough to fight back. We have to assume they’re dead.”

Sabella spoke, her eyes locked onto the distant conflagration. “We can use our magic more freely if we do not need to worry about preserving life.”

Odjin nodded. “Have you ever linked with other casters, Sabella?”

She nodded. “With Bayan, many times. He taught me much of your elementalism.”

“Then everyone, lend me your Wind and Water casting after we bond. Sivutma, can you take the wind disc?”

Sivutma formed an air disc beneath everyone’s individual platforms, and everyone spread out. They rose into the sky, and everyone performed their bonding magic. Once Odjin was in control of everyone’s bonded magics, he copied the initial attack and pulled the air away from the fire, smothering it. Then he hexed Water and Wind magic together to form an icy tornado that pulled all the heat from what was left of the arena’s molten shell. The air turned bitterly cold for several blocks, bringing gooseflesh to Odjin’s skin.

Sivutma dropped the air disc lower. All that remained were white ash-coated bricks and glassy sand, fused into tortured sheets.

Jorn’s anima avatar, a tiny pink bird, popped into existence in front of Odjin’s face. The bird opened its tiny beak and cried in a tinny voice. “It was a diversion! Look to the west!”

Alarmed, Odjin spun and stared westward. Sivutma directed the air disc after his gaze. That side of Katacha was littered with a patchwork of fields lined by hedgerows, and beyond that, a shallow, wide river ravine wandered northward to the sea.

A portal, round and white, hovered just at the edge of the near riverbank, and through it rode, two at a time, copper-and-green–armored soldiers on horseback bearing bright steel blades. Their bay mounts thundered up the edge of the ravine and trampled their way across the crops, headed for town. At least a hundred horsemen were already pounding his way.
Steelwielder horselords. It’s an unholy marriage of the empire’s two most powerful enemies. Wait.
Odjin formed a wind lens.
Those horses aren’t Tuathi stock. Their legs are way too long. Aleida went on and on about the shaggy little horse Iulan got her for her birthday. This must be a Corona trick!

He looked for the other potioneer hex, but he spotted only their first attack, which ripped the ground out from under the double column of horse and dumped it back on top of them, burying them alive. Odjin took control of everyone’s Flame casting and hurled a Firenado spell directly across the portal’s aperture. Four horses, their riders, and their helpless screams whirled into the air. Then, to his horror, the air discs supporting him and his makeshift hex vanished, and the ground tilted and rushed upward.

No sooner had Odjin caught everyone in a Wind net than the hex bond between him and the others vanished as well.

He veered toward the ground and tumbled everyone off into the soft soil of the field.

“What’s going on?” Hetta asked.

Odjin made sure his hex casting of his missing lower right leg was still firmly in place. “The Corona has come disguised as Tuathi to fool us. They must have Corona casters hiding out there somewhere. It’s not safe for us to go airborne until we know where they are. And if we try to link again, they’ll just sever it. I think that, for the moment, we’re on our own.”

Sivutma ran a few steps toward the distant horsemen then stopped, her body language shouting of rage. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I have some steelwielders to kill.” Before anyone could respond, Sivutma leapt atop a wind disc and zoomed away, barely clearing the ground.

Odjin nodded at the others. “Good fortune to you.” He made his own wind disc and zoomed closer to the portal. If he could find the caster who created it and force it closed, the army would stop advancing, at least temporarily. His Firenado had been snuffed out nearly as soon as it began.
Time for the big avatars.
He jerked down in a hollow at the edge of the field, between two newly leafed, woody shrubs in the hedgerow, and grew others up around him for camouflage.
This won’t hide me from Lifeseeker. I hope they don’t know anima.

Concentrating deeply, Odjin pulled his Earth and Flame avatars into existence. Boiler’s bright blue flame coalesced from the cool air, while Pestle spiraled up out of the edge of the ravine and rolled his cylindrical length down the slope to the bottom. Odjin fingered the collection of small metal pebbles in his pocket, no more than mere detritus, easily cast onto any floor or street without drawing attention. He’d never needed them before, but it was for such days that he kept the fragments close to hand.

Together, Flame and Earth rushed the portal, Pestle rolling his heavy length across the flat muddy floor of the ravine, and Boiler spiraling through the air, making his eerie shrieking noise, like a log whistling its doom in a campfire.

The horsemen’s helmets turned as one toward the avatars as they continued to ride through the portal, but they simply galloped faster. Out of the corner of Odjin’s eye, he saw several more avatars converge on the portal.

Odjin felt the earth tremble and shake, and a great spray of soil exploded into the air somewhere to the north of the horsemen. Sivutma and Sabella had their magics full, it seemed.

Pestle stampeded over several horses and riders before stopping directly in front of the portal, blocking the way. Odjin fused Boiler with the length of stone, hexing them into a new lava avatar that rose from the ground like a double-sided sliver carved from the heart of a volcano, spewing molten rock after the horsemen and back through the portal.
I shall name you Rebellion
, he thought with bitter glee.

But as his lava burst through to the other side of the portal, his magic brushed against its origin source.
This is songwork. Unmistakable.
Outrage mixed with confusion.
Where did the Corona casters find a singer willing to betray the empire?

Odjin shrank Rebellion and sent him through the portal and set off the biggest Lava Blast spell he’d ever crafted. Molten lava swallowed everything he could see.
I guess this marks the first attack on foreign soil in some while. I wonder if Instructor de Rood will let it count, considering I’m a potioneer.
The portal winked shut, leaving Odjin controlling Rebellion through magic alone. Without any visual cues, he had no idea if any enemies remained—