Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

  The Grand Father was fast as a lion. He spun from the path of her strike and in the same motion skewered the woman with his staff, its tip glowing with elemental fury. The woman let out a whisper of surprise before collapsing. A tendril of smoke snaked from the hole where her heart had been.

  The Keeper who’d stood beside the yellow-haired woman gave an anguished cry, catching her lifeless body as it fell from the Grand Father’s staff. She laid the unmoving form on the ground as gently as she could, then rose to face Valdin. Rage smoldered in her violet eyes as she unsheathed a glowing short sword. The elemental steel glistened off her golden armor.

  “Suzahne, no,” coughed Bladesorrow, who had fallen to one knee, clutching his side.

  Jenzara’s mind froze. Suzahne? Mother? Disjointed images of the woman twirling her in outstretched arms, dancing to a band on the Symposium mall, flashed in her head.

  The Grand Father met her mother’s stare with a sort of resigned frustration, as if angry he had to be doing this at all. He didn’t spare a glance for the woman he’d just murdered, though.

  Wordlessly, mother feinted towards the Grand Father’s chest, then backed away, twisting away from the man’s blazing staff. The weapon bit through the air, glowing with elemental power. The smell of burnt hair hit Jenzara’s nostrils as the Grand Father’s blow sizzled past her mother’s head.

  She swept her blade low. Hounds Nip at the Ankles. It sliced into the Grand Father’s leg. He gave a surprised cry, staggering back. Mother never stopped moving. Her low strike transitioned to an arching uppercut.

  The blow landed.

  At least, it should have. Instead, it struck an invisible force a finger’s width from the Grand Father’s body. Jenzara’s mother gave a cry, weapon falling from her fingers. An instant later, she was swept from her feet, suspended in the air, the Grand Father’s eyes locked on her. He took a moment to regain his balance, eyes never leaving her mother, glare full of violence.

  “I’ve no time for this,” he said. “My love needs me.”

  Valdin thrust a hand towards her. One of mother’s legs gave a sharp snap and she cried out. Valdin thrust another hand forward. Mother’s left shoulder popped. She moaned.

  Jenzara’s hands shook so hard she could barely keep her eyes focused on the final blow. Valdin gave a grunt of effort and a bolt of light shot from his fingertips, slamming into mother’s chest. Her eyes turned to the heavens. Then her body slumped, still suspended in the air. With a downward swipe of his hand, Valdin sent her motionless form tumbling to the ground, landing in front of the kneeling Grand Master Keeper. Bladesorrow clutched at her, tears rolling down his face.

  Jenzara looked into the woman’s dead eyes. Her mother’s eyes. Murdered, not at Bladesorrow’s hands, but Valdin’s. He’d robbed her of her whole family. He was the Betrayer.

  The vision didn’t wait for Jenzara’s horrified thoughts to catch up. A Parent cried out at the sight of Valdin’s murders and stepped forward. The air crackled with elemental fury and the man paid for his reflexive sense of justice with his life, dropping dead before he reached the Grand Father.

  “You fools,” cried Valdin. “You can’t unify the North and South. Hope as you might, there is no due process inherent in this excuse of an existence you call life. No fairness. Knowledge, Valor, Equality? Bah!” A fireball erupted from his hand, incinerating a Keeper who’d stepped forward to defend Bladesorrow. “Humanity is a never-ending climb to an illusory top, the mountain they scale built upon the corpses of the less fortunate, the forgotten, the castigated. There is nothing here worth saving. Creation has failed, so I pursue its opposite. Destruction.”

  At that, a nearby house exploded into splinters. Jenzara ducked reflexively to avoid the flying debris, even though the illusion could not physically harm her. But while she couldn’t be physically harmed, her mouth still went dry as bones when she saw what emerged from the dust cloud.

  A figure. Several heights tall. Hooded in a dark cloak. It glided across the ground without sound—not disturbing the debris underfoot—with a deliberate, indomitable purpose that filled her with inexplicable dread. She couldn’t make out any body beneath the cloak, nor legs or feet. But bony, too-long hands extended from the sleeves, each wrapped around the shaft of a crescent-shaped blade.

  The gathered Parents and Keepers seemed even more affected by the terrible creature than she. Most just gaped at it, unmoving. A few even lost grip of their weapons. The sound of steel clattering to the cobbles seemed to come from far away. Jenzara wanted desperately to look away, but could not.

  The creature swept past a group of Parents slightly apart from the main assembly that surrounded Valdin and the Grand Master. Without even sparing them a look, it lashed out with one of its sickles, slicing all five men clean in half. Torsos and innards spilled to the ground, while several sets of legs somehow remained standing.

  Jenzara retched.

  The monster continued on, seemingly oblivious to its indiscriminate murder. Valdin struck down the remaining Keepers who surrounded the Grand Master. They put up no resistance, just gaped at the approaching creature, as if their souls had been sucked from their bodies. They slumped to the ground, looks of horror still frozen on their faces. Through it all, the Grand Master remained crouched by her mother’s corpse. He appeared to be grasping her hand in his own.

  The specter stopped several paces from the Grand Master and waited as Valdin butchered the remaining bystanders. Blood splattered the pure white of his robes, covering his face. He shook viscera from his staff as he approached the place where the creature hovered before the Grand Master Keeper.

  “Messorem,” Valdin intoned, addressing the dark specter.

  The thing spoke to Valdin in reply. At least, Jenzara thought it was speaking. The sound was foul; murder wrapped in nightmares and sufferings that crawled on the backs of maggots. Jenzara dropped down as if in prayer, clutching at the sides of her head.

  Valdin spun upon the Grand Master. “Watch your future end,” he spat. The Grand Master was still on one knee, half clutching his side, half shielding the unmoving form of her dead mother.

  More unthinkable sounds issued from the creature, and elemental power spurted from the thing’s hood like black tar, as if it were vomiting a shower of desolation over the Grand Master.

  But the evil sputum didn’t reach him. An aura of light enveloped the man. Even through tear-blurred vision, it was a magnificent sight. Grand Master Keeper Taul Bladesorrow, glowing like a god, light reflecting brilliantly off his gold plate. He’d managed to stand, and at some point he’d picked up mother’s short sword, holding it out before him like a scepter. The monster’s wretched power spilled off the shield of light like rain down a windowpane.

  “Even victorious, evil is but a lie,” Taul Bladesorrow proclaimed through gritted teeth. “In the end, only justice is true.”

  Valdin gaped at the man. “Messorem? What is this?” He held out a shaking arm, pointing at the Grand Master. He was now sweating profusely. “Kill him!”

  The wraith swung a curved blade at the Grand Master. It seemed impossibly large. Unstoppable. A hurricane baring down on a house of sticks. Yet Grand Master Bladesorrow met it with a growl and shoved it away. The creature actually shifted back slightly. It howled like a dozen fathers all mourning the loss of their children at once, then spewed more noxious filth. The Grand Master’s shield intercepted the dread hex—or whatever it was—once more, but he noticeably struggled under its force this time. Several dark droplets seeped through the dome of light, smoking like acid where they contacted the man’s plate. The Grand Master clutched at his wounded side; the shard still protruded from it. He began to stagger away from the monster, across the Unity Bridge.

  “Kill him, kill him! Finish him!” Valdin’s voice was that of a man succumbed to madness. He launched a dread hex of his own at Bladesorrow’s back, but the sanctuary around the Grand Master Keeper reflected it. Valdin bellowed a cry of frustrated rage.

 
Then a third putrid explosion erupted from the creature and the Grand Master’s shield finally gave out. Rather than splatter over him, the blackness all seemed to flow into the stone protruding from his abdomen, like flies to a torch. Grand Master Bladesorrow wheeled forward, somehow keeping his feet, stumbling onward towards the dwarfs at the far shore.

  Valdin let out a cry of glee and let loose a channel of light from his staff. A hex from the crowd of dwarfs seemed to intercept it. The Unity Bridge erupted as the competing bolts—one of light, one of shadow—struck mere paces from the Grand Master’s feet, momentarily blinding Jenzara.

  When her sight returned, she was in the Senate chamber once more. Her throat ached and she was on her hands and knees, screaming, tears leaking from her eyes. And she wasn’t the only one. People were wailing all over the chamber. A mad rush of bodies was pushing towards the exits. Several men around her were still seated, weeping into their hands.

  The Grand Master Keeper remained at the witness stand. He was bent over the podium, breathing hard. Ferrin remained chained where she’d last seen him. He was wide eyed, but pretty well off compared to most others in the room, almost as if he’d seen such a monster before. She wanted desperately to go to him, but how could she after what she’d done? For a moment she had a fantasy of Ferrin ripping off his chains and rushing to console her. But he didn’t even look in her direction, eyes plastered to Grand Master Bladesorrow.

  The lawyer, or whoever he was, Devan, was down on both knees, a twisted expression of angst and rage contorting his face. He stared up at the central column where Valdin still stood, looking down upon the pandemonium.

  “Tell me you didn’t, old friend.” Devan said, almost as if he were pleading. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  In reply, Valdin screamed for guards to secure the prisoners. Then, hefting his staff, he launched it at Devan’s kneeling form like a spear.

  Devan disappeared, the staff splitting the tile where he’d knelt a second before, vibrating like a hornet’s nest. Parents swarmed over Ferrin and the Grand Master, blocking them from view.

  Head spinning, Jenzara somehow managed to stand. What she’d just witnessed had been Grand Master Bladesorrow’s memory of that fateful day. She didn’t understand how it had happened, but she had no doubt of it. No doubt that it had showed the truth. Erem—Taul—had been the honorable man he’d seemed to be all along. All her fears. All her ignorant hatred. Based on a terrible lie. She was disgusted. Wanted to collapse once more and give up.

  Instead, she turned and began to push through the throng of people towards the exit. She knew what she must do, felt decisiveness for the first time since Valdin—the true Betrayer—had shown up at Ral Mok. It wouldn’t make up for her own betrayal, but perhaps it would be a start to finding the right path.

  Once through the crowd, she sprinted towards the Symposium.

  49

  Ferrin

  The Leveande fled Sykt to escape the monarchy’s oppression, perpetuated through its restriction of elemental knowledge. They suffered through the Mad King’s fiery rain, an elemental barrage that killed thousands as they sailed north from the capital’s harbor, seeking freedom.

  For a time, the Leveande achieved the unity they sought in their new land, united in the common purpose of creating a new home. But after the Great War, as the memories of Sykt began to fade, faction and division festered, perpetuating through the centuries. The founders’ dream was never fully realized.

  - From the preface to the Millennial Printing of Tragnè’s Oral Histories, written by Rikar Bladesong

  FERRIN FAILED ONCE more to rub at his ribs. The Parents had been none too gentle when they’d shoved him back into the cell, and with his hands chained behind his back he’d been unable to cushion the impact.

  But the ache was only a far-away annoyance for the moment. His head was still whirling with the flurry of revelations, though he seemed to have had a different reaction than most to the testimony... projection... whatever that had been back at the Senate. It was plain enough that the Angel had somehow displayed Bladesorrow’s memory of that day for all to see. And it had been too vivid to be a lie. But though it might have shown that Bladesorrow was innocent of selling the South out for some dark purpose, it had hardly vindicated the man as far as he was concerned.

  “How could you have trusted him?”

  “What?” Bladesorrow stood against the cell’s far wall, forehead resting on the illuminated bedrock, legs apparently too stiff to sit. He turned now towards Ferrin, eyes narrowed. The Parents hadn’t returned his spectacles, but even Bladesorrow’s unreadable black eyes betrayed the anger the question stoked in him.

  “Valdin. How could you have been so stupid? The whole country was depending on your judgment.”

  The man reddened, which really told Ferrin all he needed to know.

  “It’s not as if I knew what he was back then, boy. We—Rikar and I—had been searching for an ally like him for years. There’d never been enough support in the Senate for true change. I jumped at what had appeared to be an opportunity.”

  “The Symposium made a mistake selecting you.”

  Ferrin expected the man to explode at that remark. Instead, he sank to the floor of the prison, leaning his head against the wall, eyes shut, legs splayed out before him.

  “That may very well be, boy. I was idyllic and had no stomach for politics. But I tried to do what was right, which was more than most of my comrades at the time could have claimed.” Bladesorrow let out a deep sigh.

  Ferrin glowered. Was disastrous action any better than apathy in the face of a known wrong?

  “People seem to have funny notions about leaders,” Bladesorrow went on. “As if being elected somehow bestows upon them infallible insight. A figurehead with all the answers. But in reality, they’re no different than anyone else. They look at the facts available to them, choose what they think is best, and hope.”

  Ferrin shook his head. The man might be sincere. Maybe. But that didn’t make him right. Agarsfar deserved better than this. How could he ever have thought himself capable of leading with such weakness? A leader needed to be decisive, willing to sacrifice anything, do whatever it took, to achieve his objectives. This man was speaking of best guesses and prayers. While Bladesorrow had entertained vague dreams of unity, Valdin had been plotting an overthrow of the whole country. And he hadn’t hesitated to do all that was necessary to achieve his objectives.

  “What is it with you wanting so desperately to unite everyone? Sure, it’s noble and all. But there are plenty of people who recognize the unfairness of it all yet do nothing. And you were a light attuned before your... well, whatever happened to you. What’s in it for you?”

  Bladesorrow didn’t open his eyes as he spoke. “That’s surprisingly insightful of you.”

  Ferrin was relatively certain there was an insult in those words, but he spent too long trying to think up a suitable retort. Bladesorrow went on.

  “As far back as I remember, I’ve always been skeptical of the idea of a strict division between North and South. I don’t remember my mother or father, but I suspect the sentiment must have originated from them. Feelings as strong as mine are often inherited.

  “Then came my years of study following the—” his voice cracked, “—arena.” He hurried on. “I read on all sorts of subjects, almost never left the library. But more than any other I tried to find a suitable, logical answer for the South’s disdain of the North. In the naivety of youth, I just assumed there was a reasonable explanation. Why else would there be so much vitriol between two peoples of the same land, who all have common origins?

  “But despite years of research, I never found one. A single unfortunate event, the Ebon Affair, led to millennia of fear and castigation. Even if there was evidence that the North had any suspicion of the effect ebon would have on non-shadow attuned—and there isn’t—such hate was—is—unwarranted. Did you know most of the histories simply omit that there were nearly as many fatal
ities in the North as the South caused by ebon? I just couldn’t understand that, people letting angst and ignorance overcome good sense.”

  He paused, as if there was more to say, but uncertain how to continue. Finally, he added, “And then there was my adopted family.”

  Ferrin studied Bladesorrow, his head hanging, staring into the ground between his knees. Sincere was certainly an apt description of him. Perhaps he was an idiot, not fit for the title he’d been given. But he was authentic. Without malice.

  “You mean Grand Master Bladesong?”

  “Aye,” Bladesorrow said. “Rikar. And his son, Atux. Like a younger brother to me.”

  “What about them?”

  Bladesorrow gave a resigned shrug. “I suppose there’s no harm in saying it now. Atux? My adopted brother? He was shadow attuned.”

  Ferrin cocked an eyebrow. He’d never heard that before.

  “We kept that a secret. Even I only discovered it by chance, when I healed Atux that day on the Quadrangle.” He paused, brow creasing.

  “It was actually quite the source of tension between myself and Rikar. The injustice of it ate at me. Atux should’ve just been free to be who he was. And it was so hard for him. He hid it, but I saw all the same. Expectations had been so high for him, being Rikar’s son, but no one knew that he in fact possessed great talent. He just couldn’t show it.”

  Ferrin mulled that over. He’d felt a certain emptiness before learning of his own shadow attunement, as if something important to his very being had been hidden just beneath the surface, like fish underwater. You know they’re floating just out of sight but can’t see them. Even now, after discovering the truth, Ferrin wasn’t completely satisfied, still felt a certain void between himself and satisfaction. And yet Atux’s situation had been far worse. He’d been able to see those fish but couldn’t tell anyone. Ferrin felt anger just imagining it.