The Blood Sigil (The Sigilord Chronicles Book 2) (16 page)

"The arbiters are meticulous about cataloguing their plunder, the stuff they stole from our kind and every other world they kept their
vigil
over," Lu said, her brow furrowed and fists clenched. "Your sword will be with all the others they've taken from the Emys natives."

She led him through the hoard, but Urus found it hard to stay focused. He was surrounded by the most amazing collection of weapons he had ever seen, devices of lethal cunning, brutal efficiency, and many he simply could not identify.

After sifting through the first two levels of equipment, Urus finally saw some weapons he recognized on the third floor. He stood before a rack that held Kestian weapons—two suzurs and a pair of swords clearly made by expert Kestian smiths. The suzurs had smaller chains and blades than Goodwyn's, and the metal had discolored and rusted with age, but they were unmistakably suzurs.

Fascinated by a set of ornamental daggers that caught his eye on a nearby table, Urus lost track of time. When he did manage to shake himself free of the lure of the shiny weapons and look up, Lu was nowhere to be found.

His heart skipped a beat. He suddenly felt horribly alone. Until that moment he hadn't truly appreciated how much her presence had been keeping him sane, keeping him from going back to that dark place he had been that day so long ago on the rooftop of the Kestian palace.

Something soft hit the back of his head.

Urus turned to see Lu waving at him from the far corner of the room. She had found a pair of folded ceremonial fans and slung them from her belt.
Why would she need fans? For more of her morning dance rituals?

"You need to teach me to sign," she said as he approached. "That way you don't have to rely on sigilord abilities to read my lips."

"Sigilord abilities?" Urus asked, getting used to feeling confused and two steps behind Lu's every thought.

Lu tilted her head to the side and grinned. "You didn't think you were just naturally that good at reading lips, did you?"

"Well, yes, actually…" Urus said, his mind racing, recalling the countless times throughout his childhood when he had been able to read lips. It had never occurred to him that he was
too
good at it, or better than he should have been.

"The translation effect covering Almoryll, that's an artifact that houses a sigilord ability. As sigilords, we can read people's surface thoughts, like skimming the good stuff off the top of a piece of crumble pie. It's actually a side effect of how we influence our sigils," said Lu. "Anyway, I think it would be fun to know your signs. It would be like talking in sigils. How fun does that sound? Oh, but now I'm craving a big piece of crumble pie!"

Other than Goodwyn and Uncle Aegaz, no one had ever wanted to know how to speak with him using sign language.

"I've never thought of signing as fun," Urus said aloud as he signed the sentence. Lu immediately signed it back to him in a flawless imitation. "But I'd be happy to teach you."

Lu flipped open the lid on a massive chest, revealing a pile of swords. "Anything look familiar about these?"

Urus knelt and riffled through the first few. They had different hilts, different compositions of metals, different shaped blades. They had been made by smiths of varied skill levels. But as he flipped a few of the swords over, he noticed something they all had in common.

"They all have sigils on the blade, like Hugo," he said.

Lu clapped as quietly as she could manage, barely able to contain her excitement. "These bumbling arbiters think the sigils are harmless because they think sigilords are extinct, except for this Autar person they're hunting on Emys. They don't know that an avatar knight blade can be activated by a radix, or maybe they don't care since all the radixes here are wearing the control collars."

Urus's eyes widened. "So we can give these blades to the radixes, and they can summon a magic fighter like Hugo?"

Lu was practically bouncing now. "If we take their collars off, yes! The arbiters just left these here like they were a pile of scrap metal, not even displaying them in a case. If a radix activates the avatar knight, it won't last as long or be as strong as if we had activated it, but it will defend the radix just as loyally as if it had been summoned by a full sigilord."

"Let's find something we can bundle these up in. We need to get them away from the arbiters. My uncle is a radix and would love one of these."

They spent the next few minutes quietly wrapping swords in cloth bundles. When they got to the bottom of the chest, Urus spotted a sword that stood out among the others, its blade broader and longer, its hilt thicker. It was Hugo.

Urus lifted Hugo, appraising the weapon victoriously, feeling as though he had recovered a part of himself. He was more whole now, more solid. He gave Hugo a few test swings to make sure the blade hadn't been warped. Satisfied, he slipped it into its sheath and slung it over his back.

"You wield a two-handed sword with one hand? Why does that not surprise me," Lu commented. She opened her mouth to speak again but stopped, pressing a finger to her lips. She spun to the right, then pointed.

"They're coming," she whispered.
 

"Are we still invisible?" Urus asked.

"I keep forgetting how little you know about sigilcraft," Lu said. "Yes, we still have the shield. Even with your blue sigils, I didn't expect it to last this long."

Urus ran to the railing that overlooked the central area of the armory. Lu followed and looked down, nodding in agreement to his unvoiced plan.
 

They stood watch over the museum showcases as a stream of heavily armed radixes made their way into the room. The radix slaves spread out, searching the far corners of the first floor. Two arbiters strode into view, standing in the center of the room while they waited for their slaves to finish the search.

Stupid
, Urus thought.
Worst possible room-clearing tactic
.
These idiots really do think no one can harm them. Overconfident and careless. Oh well, that just makes our job easier.

He signaled to Lu, who drew her bladed fans and nodded. Urus still couldn't get over the idea of a fan being used as a weapon, but he'd once seen a Kestian battlemaster remove a glove and use it to defeat six armed opponents, so anything was possible.

Urus freed Hugo from its sheath, and they leapt over the bannister and dropped to the ground a few feet from the arbiters. He bent his knees and rolled to absorb the impact of the high fall. Momentum carried him back to his feet, and he stood facing a tall, robed emissary of the council of balance.

One swing of his massive weapon removed the tall man's head. Scanning for the next target, Urus watched Lu standing over an arbiter as the man slumped to his knees, then fell backward, blood streaming from his neck.
 

Without the arbiters to give them orders, the radixes, six in all, simply stood their ground, a haunted, blank look on their faces. They were alive, but they looked to have no souls, as though they were just hollow bodies. Urus hoped that was just a side effect of the collar control and they would return to normal once released.

"Go behind," Urus signed. Lu nodded in agreement, despite not knowing those signs. Urus wasn't sure how the radixes would react so he decided to play it safe. Together they crept up behind the first radix.
 

Lu drew a tiny sigil with her fingers on the back of the collar. It glowed green; then a crack in the metal appeared. The device bent and the seam widened, eventually falling to the ground.

Now within the light shield, the radix turned to face Luse and Urus.

"Sigilords? Inside Almoryll?" he gasped. He stood for a moment, silently taking in the two people who had just freed him from slavery at the hands of the arbiters.
 

"We aim to escape to Emys," Luse said.

"I suppose you will require that I take the binding oath, then?" the radix replied, dropping to one knee.

"Binding oath?" Urus asked.

"The binding oath is part of the radix initiation ceremony," Luse told Urus. "I doubt a sigilord has taken an oath from a radix in a thousand years. Rise, radix, we require no oath from you," she said. "If you wish to accompany us to Emys, that is your choice."

It took only a few more minutes for them to make their way around the room, freeing the other radixes. They gathered in the center around a table that looked to have been made from a single cut of an enormous tree.

A few of the radixes, overwhelmed with emotion, let tears escape their eyes. The vacant, hollow look left their countenances, replaced by the depth of individuals, each bearing the weight of a lifetime of oppression and servitude at the hands of the arbiters. Lu explained that all of them had fought in the Fulcrum War, captured by the arbiters as living keys to unlock the treasures and the artifacts plundered from the sigilords.

"What are we to call you, my lords?" asked one of the radixes, scratching his neck with the ferocity of someone who had endured the same itch for centuries.

"My name is Urus," Urus said.
 

"And I am Luse Lingxiu," said Lu. "It means green leader."

"You have a legion, then?" asked another radix. "Where are the rest of the sigilords? Bring your army down upon this foul place and lay waste to the usurpers."

Urus sighed as Lu delivered the blow. "I'm afraid we're all there is. There is another sigilord on Emys, and I'm sure you've heard the arbiters are heading there now to kill him."

"You mean you are all there is right now?" asked another radix. "The others are delayed?"

Luse gave the man a grave look. "We are all who remain, of everyone. No sigilords remain but the two of us, and the one being pursued by the arbiters."

The news hit the men like a blow to the chest.

"There is nothing more to it, then," said one of the radixes. "Without an army to storm this place, you might as well have left us enslaved. At least then, we didn't know that…that…" He trailed off, so overcome with emotion that he couldn't finish.

"We are leaving for Emys," Luse said. "You are all free to do as you wish, but we could certainly use the help."

Urus unfurled the bundle of sigil-etched swords and said, "We found these in the armory. Whatever your choice, you are welcome to them, as they were likely stolen from radixes like you."

"My lord, these are avatar knight blades," said one of the radixes, bowing slightly. "Only battalion leaders may wield such sacred blades."
 

Urus found that he did not like people bowing to him or calling him "my lord," despite dreaming of such for most of his childhood.
 

"Do you see a battalion, soldier?" asked Lu, the look on her face unusually stern. "There are no battalions, no legions, no army, and as far as we know, only three sigilords. I think we can dispense with ancient ranks and rules, don't you?"

"My lady," the radix said with a bow. "I am called Enoch. I served in the fourth battalion, in Kezog's brigade."

The radixes each introduced themselves: Plith and Tol had served in the third battalion of Kezog's brigade, Muir and Feth had served in the first battalion of Tormic's brigade, and Choein had been a lieutenant colonel in command of his own brigade.

"Now that we are free and we have the might of two sigilords to lead us, we can storm this place and rid it of the pests who have infested it," said Plith as he tested the balance of his new blade.

"There will be plenty of time for vengeance, Plith," said Choein, taking a stance between the radixes and Urus and Lu, asserting his rank in the group. "The arbiters are going to kill a sigilord. We cannot let that happen," he said. "I am assuming you have a plan to save him?"

"We're it," said Urus. "If we can get to the portal room before they do, we can get to Emys to save him."

"I was going to take Urus up through one of the servant's access tunnels," Luse said.

"That'll be blocked," said Choein. "When they sent us to search the armory, they sent another group to block all the halls leading to the portal room."

"I know a way," said Feth, stepping forward. "We can go up the outside of the tower. No one will see us coming."

"Why can't we just travel? Are we not among sigilords?" asked Muir.
 

Luse explained the situation as they made for the single window that led to the outside of the castle from the armory. Feth led the way, taking the group up from the armory and around to the tower using a series of skewed bricks and window arches as climbing holds. Urus struggled to hold fast to the stone against the buffeting winds, but he had climbed worse.

This route is taking too long
, he thought.
The arbiters have probably already set up their ambush!

Moments later they reached their target. With the grace and dexterity of a thief, Feth eased the window open and slid through the narrow opening. He beckoned for the others to do the same.

Urus followed Luse through the window, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room.

They were not alone.

Ten radixes stood at attention, weapons drawn, encircling the chamber. Urus reached for Hugo, but Lu grabbed his hand. She pointed to her eyes and closed them, repeating the gesture for the benefit of their six new companions.
 

We're still invisible!
Urus thought.
The light shield has been working the whole time!

"They've already set up their ambush," Urus signed to Lu while silently mouthing the words, hoping the 'surface thoughts' sigilcraft ability would help her understand. "Where are the arbiters?"
 

Lu shrugged, then issued some basic hand signals—military, not tradesign—to the radixes.
No weapons
, she indicated.

Urus chose a radix at random and leapt for him. Unable to see Urus coming, the radix had no warning when the light shield enveloped him. Urus had mimicked Luse's unlocking sigil and opened the radix's collar before the man had a chance to swing his blade.