Six Celestial Swords (60 page)

The yard in front of the house quickly filled, as though every shadow cast by the flickering torches had suddenly come to life and all were bent on avenging their master’s death. Tristus set to work surviving the upcoming moments, praying that his friends would be able to do the same.

XU LIANG OPENED his eyes, but did not move. He clung to the dream as it left him, thinking of the details deliberately, storing them away before they could escape forever. Much of the nightmare had already fled, and gone to the deeper parts of his mind that he could not summon by will. He held onto what he could, even closing his eyes again to retrace his steps after his forcing back of the dark entity inside of Tristus, that had howled at his touch. He’d been drawn away in those moments the angry spirit had protested, by a vision that terrified him as much as it intrigued him.

Returning to those moments, Xu Liang found himself suddenly in a blackened chamber that felt cold and vast, like a cave. He could not tell if it was a cave. He saw no details beyond the torches just ahead of him, mounted on thick, coarse pillars, carved crudely from rock. He was drawn toward the dim light, toward the uneven surface it scarcely illuminated. It looked like a bed of round stones.

Xu Liang remembered kneeling before the peculiar rocks, placing his hand upon one, feeling heat...and movement. He withdrew, staring with a curious frown. And then he took the object up in both hands and stood, carrying it the nearest torch. He held the stone—which was no stone at all, but a thin casing for something else—against the orange light and gazed upon the silhouette of a curled form within, moving.

“An egg?” he wondered, even as the figure within kicked, showing the claws on its tiny hands and feet, lashing its tail, and weakly flexing its wings. “The shadows are born from eggs?”

Something about that did not seem right. Xu Liang continued to stare at the creature, convinced that it was a demon. He recalled the bat like Keirveshen in the Hollowen. They may have been bat like; he hadn’t really taken a close look at them. They may also have been...dragon like? But those in the Hollowen had been so small. Perhaps they were bats once. And if bats were not immune to the dark affliction, as people were not...then perhaps dragons...

The thought terrified Xu Liang so greatly that he was unable to finish it. He dropped the egg, incidentally smashing it at his feet, where the incomplete form of an infant demon writhed a short time before expiring in a puddle of dark fluid and fragments of the egg’s shell.

Xu Liang felt a presence suddenly behind him. Something great and terrible...filled with so much anger, its body and soul in chaos. Slowly, calm in spite of his fear, Xu Liang turned to face the beast. The dragon bowed its sleek black head to look at Xu Liang through yellow eyes slit with a narrow pupil of utter blackness. From snout to crested forehead, the dragon’s head was twice as tall as Xu Liang stood. Teeth as long and sharp as spears glistened in the torchlight.

Xu Liang should have been afraid, but somehow he was filled with a peculiar reverence—deference perhaps, as he looked upon this ancient and powerful creature, whose demonic eyes gleamed with intelligence. Overcome, Xu Liang pressed his hands together and bowed.

And then he heard a familiar voice, though the strangled tone was nothing he had heard before. “He has the Night Blade!”

The doors to his dreams slammed shut. Xu Liang opened his eyes. He felt sick. Sick with dread, sick with fear, sick with helplessness.

A peculiar sound in the room distracted him from the sudden onslaught. It sounded almost like growling, but then he realized where he had heard the sound before and reminded himself that the only fearsome noise a dwarf produced in his sleep was his snoring. Xu Liang sat up slowly, confirming his suspicions by seeking out Tarfan’s shape in the darkness. He found the curled, squat frame sprawled at the distant foot of the bed and sighed with a helpless note of sentimentality for his small friend.

Shortly afterward, he frowned, noticing another shape closer to him. It was Taya, curled near the edge of the mattress to his right. Xu Liang could have expected the dwarf-maid’s company along with Tarfan, but when he heard a deeper snore than the dwarf’s, one which also sounded out of synch with Tarfan’s breathing, he knew that circumstances were even stranger than he could have ever guessed.

Fu Ran appeared to be sitting on the floor to the left side of the bed, his back to the frame with his head fallen back over the mattress. Xu Liang didn’t have to look to know that his bodyguards were probably nearby as well, sitting rigidly on the floor, sleeping in shifts. Xu Liang felt momentarily peeved at all of this uninvited, unannounced company and at the absurdity of it as well, but then, suddenly he felt touched by their deep concern. He took three of the excess pillows piled at the head of the bed and distributed them to the dwarves and Fu Ran.

Without waking them, he managed to convince them to accept the cushions. Taya moaned incoherently and simply hugged hers, while Tarfan rolled onto his stomach on top of his. In Fu Ran’s case, Xu Liang simply nudged the pillow against the man’s bald head until he lifted it enough for the cushion to be slid beneath, to support his neck, lest he awake with an immobilizing cramp.

Finally, Xu Liang lay himself back down, convinced even as he drifted into a dreamless slumber that he would be unable to sleep listening to Fu Ran and Tarfan’s snoring.

T
RISTUS HAD NEVER considered himself proficient fighting with a halberd, or any other pole-mounted weapon, but somehow each strike he made with the platinum spear currently in his grasp came smoothly and almost naturally. He slid his grip nearly effortlessly from one part of the shaft to the next to compensate for the ever-changing reach required for each opponent as they came in droves, one immediately after the other with no pause between one’s departure and another’s arrival.

They swarmed at him, oblivious to fear, even as their fellows fell beneath the glowing blade. Tristus was aware of their nearness—their claws narrowly missing his face as they lashed out at him, their wings beating the air as they fluttered about for position—none willing to wait for the one before it to either die or claim victory. Somehow Tristus didn’t panic. He fought with poise he’d never had in any battle prior to it, even as his heart thundered in his chest and his muscles ached with the effort required. He felt confident, not necessarily that he would live, but that he would fight well before he died. It was a strange, foreign sensation, but one he welcomed while he continued to fend off the demons.

And it was in this unnaturally collected state, that Tristus suddenly, finally came to understand
Dawnfire
. Almost as an instinctive reaction to the swarm of demons charging through an opening that was created in the melee, he lifted one hand off the shaft and spun it once in the other, creating a brief disk of energy with a circumference equal to the length of the spear. The spinning, golden light made a deep, ringing sound when several demons collided upon it and were promptly thrown back. In the freer space he’d created, Tristus was able to kill three of the beasts, rather than simply slicing at them without hope of delivering enough mortal blows. He felt his strength renew itself and added the newfound tactic to the battle wherever it seemed appropriate.

Above him, Shirisae sent bolts of crackling silver light racing toward the demons, burning holes through their wings and through their bodies, eliminating several opponents at once. The others were promptly dealt with on a closer level. Her phenomenal skill and careful balance between magical and physical attacks allowed no demon to touch her.

Alere typically had no trouble slicing through victims with blade as well as magic, though he was forced to cover more ground in his maneuvers in order to keep the demons away from him and to keep the projectile light flowing from
Aerkiren
.

Knowing both of them were there with him gave Tristus hope, as did recognizing the manner in which Guang Ci had taken up the weapon available to him. He fought as one inspired or guided by his master. It was probable that he was both.

GUANG CI WAS scarcely aware of the weapon he had picked up, that he wielded with enthusiasm against multiple attackers. He was loosely alert to the fact that the blade was not his own, that it was heavier and that a bruised, vaporous light trailed each strike. He heard a voice in his mind, telling him that the demons were no match for him, that they feared him, and he believed that voice. He fought with more efficiency and accuracy than he’d ever exhibited in battle before, and when it was over, he felt a deep satisfaction course through him, a strength that troubled him as much as it had excited him during the battle. He contemplated this, staring at the strange weapon, and then at the dead bodies surrounding him.

He heard his name and looked away from the blanket of demon corpses at his feet, at the man with blue eyes, whom he currently protected as he would have Lord Xu Liang. He recalled the instructions his master had given the others, about protecting the dwarves as they would him, and he had carried those instructions through to each new ally Lord Xu Liang acquired, so long as they didn’t threaten Lord Xu Liang.

Guang Ci assumed when the blue-eyed man began to speak, grinning with appreciation and praise, that he was commending him for carrying out his duties well and honorably. He bowed humbly.

“HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND you,” Alere said in a quiet, irritated tone.

Tristus didn’t believe anything was truly bothering the elf—after all, they’d won the battle against terrible odds after surviving horrendous manipulative nightmares within a haunted manor house—but he regarded him seriously, even as his own excitement scarcely kept the smile from his lips.

“You’re wasting your breath when you should be recovering it,” Alere continued.

“You realize he’s taken up the Night Blade,” Tristus said, disliking the elf’s continued frown, but still managing to smile. He sighed patiently afterward. “Don’t you understand? Not only have we discovered the Night Blade, but it appears that we’ve also discovered its bearer.”

“To what purpose?” Alere asked, malcontent edging his voice. And then he turned, walking away while Tristus stared after him.