by Pemry Janes
The Living Sword 3
The Burden of Legacy
Pemry Janes
Published by Pemry Janes on Amazon
Copyright © 2021 by Pemry Janes
All rights reserved
First Edition 2021
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious matter. Any resemblance to persons, alive or dead, is completely coincidental.
Cover design by:
humblenations.com
Edited by:
Lynda Dietz at easyreaderediting.com
Map made by:
Tiffany Munro at feedthemultiverse.com
For my father,
who always put his family first.
Chapter 1
Ghosts of the Past
“… and so I looked the demon in its eyes,” Misthell said, using his magic to create a vapory image of the draconic demon’s head staring down at the listeners. The hearths at either end of the hall were dying down now that dinner was over. The doors and windows of the lodge were thrown wide open to let a cool breeze blow through.
Misthell’s illusion opened its jaws wide. “Pure hatred tried to strip me to the tang, but my steely resolve protected me and Silver Fang. We were all that stood between it and the helpless people of Glinfell. On my mark, Eurik launched his attack. And as it plummeted to the ground, I swung up to behead the creature!”
In Misthell’s mirage, the creature fell apart, a hazy head rolling along an imaginary ground until it came to a stop before the living sword. Misthell rested against the frame of one of the cold hearths, the summer’s heat more than enough to keep the room cozy.
A miniature army on horseback stepped into view. “But there was still the army of Duke Griffenhart. They advanced, but I sensed the fear in their hearts. So I told Silver Fang to lift my bloodied, battered self up high and I unleashed all my power upon them!” A small Misthell hung in the air, beams of light striking the army, which dissolved much like the demon had.
“And that, my friends, is how I and my friends saved the good city of Glinfell. You may have heard rumors already, but this is the truth.”
One of the Chained Hunters grunted and blew out a bit of smoke before pulling his curved pipe out to point it at the living sword. “Don’t know about all that. Ways I heard, it was a dragon. And methinks more praise should go to the warrior wielding the sword than the sword itself, however much it talks.”
He got up, plucking at the mustache hanging from his upper lip. He wore no armor and his shirt was half-unbuttoned. When he got closer, the lingering scent of burnt dreamweed tickled Leraine’s nose. “But fair’s fair, it was a story well told.” He gestured for her and Rock to follow him. “I’ll show you to the armory.”
Rock looked puzzled; his grasp of Irelian was poor and the Hunter’s accent was quite thick.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Karrel,” Leraine answered. She inclined her head as well, which Rock copied. “We’ll leave Misthell here to keep your people entertained.”
“Just so you know, you break it, you pay for the replacement. We don’t run a charity here,” Lieutenant Karrel said as he led them outside and across the yard to a small, stout building with a heavy lock on its door.
He left them standing outside while he retrieved the agreed items. The wooden swords weren’t quite a match for their real weapons, the guard too big, the blade too broad. And the balance was off. But it would do.
Bidding them to have fun, Lieutenant Karrel went back inside. Given that it was still summer, the sun hadn’t dipped below the horizon yet, even at this late hour. Still, the shadows were long as she and Rock squared off.
“I’m still surprised how quickly rumor spreads,” Rock said, holding the sword in a high guard.
She mirrored his stance. “It may have had a helping hand. Do you not think it curious that it was the story most favorable to Griffenhart which we have heard these past few days?”
He frowned. “You mean?”
Leraine sprang forward, sword dipping down. Rock took the bait and left himself open for a stab straight to the chest. She jumped back out of his reach. “Concentrate. Not on the conversation, not on the weapon. On me. The weapon doesn’t move, the wielder moves it.” She switched to Thelauk. “You only need a few people to plant the seed, human nature will take care of the rest.” One of Mother’s sayings. It curled her tongue to agree with it, but their journey since Glinfell had proven her right. Again.
Rock furrowed his brow as he struggled to reply in the same language. “So … Rozenbruk was right. Did he know?”
She shrugged. “Probably not the extent.” Forward, again she raised her sword but this time followed through with the overhead strike. Rock caught it with a block, and Leraine pressed her lips together. His training with that stone magic left him with a certain mentality. Rather than deflecting, he sought to put his blade in the way of a threat as if it were a shield. Misthell would not appreciate that abuse if Rock ever tried to use the living sword like this.
The overhead strike spun around into a rising slice, block, cut to his left, block, cut right, block. “How did you know?” Rock didn’t retreat when she relented, but moved in for a simple chop of his own.
She deflected the blow. Even without powering it with his magic, Rock could put some force behind his attacks. It left him open, though, and a moment later she laid the end of her sword in the crook of his neck. “No daughter of Raven Eye is allowed to be a mere warrior.”
Leraine continued quickly, removing her blade. “Now, you need to be more fluid. I’ve seen you fight, I know you can do that. Don’t simply be that mountain.” She jabbed, and Rock struggled with a deflect. “A warrior can’t afford to let some of her weapons rest.” Jab. “The dead complain about a fair fight.” Rock fell back. “Observe, adapt.” She accompanied each word with another jab, and at last there was a change.
A shift in his gaze, his posture. Leraine felt the air stir even as she called upon Ghisa to quicken her own limbs. Their training swords blurred, filling the air with the clack-clack-clack of wood striking wood.
“Better,” Leraine said with a grin as Rock pressed her. “But all you did”—cut, riposte, deflect—“was change approach.” She stepped in, her body pressed against his, her hand blocked his elbow and stalled his strike. Leraine kicked one foot out from under him, unbalancing Rock enough that she could push him over. She planted the tip of her sword on his belly before his back hit the dirt.
He took a moment to regain his breath before taking the hand she offered. “You must use everything you have. In a real battle, when your life is on the line, it is foolish to do anything less.”
Rock shook his head. “I would like to. I do not know how to use two kinds of chiri. Not at the same time. Not without paying a price. Crippling me to win one fight is a good way to die in the next one.”
“Myself,” Leraine said. “It is ‘myself.’ And I’m not saying to do that. But I know you can use the fighting style without the magic.” She stepped back and brought up her blade. “Do that.”
“I see.” Rock frowned, looking down at himself as he shifted his posture and stance. “I have question. A question. You are … at ease with the, uh, Chain Hunters. Not worried about leaving Misthell alone. Why?”
They crossed blades, their movements slow now. This was about figuring out how to move; ingraining them came after that. “You mean you don’t know about the Chained Hunters? It’s not in one of your books?”
He shrugged. “There was a little. About what they did, how the group came to be.”
“The punishm
ent for stealing under their roof is that they take the thief and stake him out in the Land of the Chained.” Rock’s eyes grew wide. “They use them as bait and they do free their soul afterward. It is half the reason why they continue to exist. Safest place to stay the night on the entire Road.”
“That is … harsh.”
It was her turn to shrug. “It works. Now, from here you can turn the blade in. It is above mine and I will have a hard time defending against the strike. Yes, just like that.” They pulled apart again. “However, we’ll cross the Grosster tomorrow. From there, the journey will get more dangerous.”
“How so? Are we not getting closer to Mochedan lands?”
“That is the problem. The horse people here will look at us with suspicion and hostility. They may think us spies, or thieves. We will have to be vigilant.”
Rock lifted an eyebrow. “I may not have read much about the Chained Hunters. But a lot about the People and the horse people fighting one another. Especially along the Urumac.”
“And much of that raiding is done by Falcon and Boar People. But horse people don’t care to distinguish one of the People from another. Or admit that they give as much as they get.” She pressed her blade and Rock teetered. “Too loose.”
Rock regained his footing. “Have you ever gone on a raid?”
Leraine shook her head. “No, a warrior of Snake isn’t allowed to until she has a child at least a year old. That was why I was in Linese.”
“Looking for a child?”
She chuckled. “Now there’s a thought. No, a mate. Someone to father the child. It is a tradition among my people. Not all do it. And very few travel as far as I have to find someone.” She sighed and looked around, but they were alone. “In truth, I used it as an excuse to see the world. I thought there was nothing Irelith and I couldn’t handle. She should have told me to grow up.”
Rock was silent. A nightingale sang in the gloom. “You told me she’d seen little of the world before. Perhaps she, too, wanted to see more?”
Leraine froze and got a painful strike along her arm for her trouble. She hissed and forestalled his apology while rubbing out the pain. “Perhaps.”
***
Eurik found that Silver Fang had undersold the hostility as they neared the Urumac. The Head Hunters were nice enough, but they wouldn’t let them train any longer, and their guests kept their distance.
Other soldiers they met on the Road kept a wary eye on them as well. At least the neutrality of the Road held, and nobody tried to attack them. But it was strange to be looked at like that, not as an individual but as part of a group he had only the most tenuous connection to. It made him feel strange. Uncomfortable.
So it was with relief that Eurik crossed the broad river flowing underneath the Road. The Urumac had carved steep banks out of the landscape. There weren’t a lot of other travelers on the Road and almost all of them had gathered in well-guarded groups.
A few of them were Irelians, dwarves, and even a group of lizarians. Their long heads bobbed back and forth with every step and they tugged along giant, long-legged birds with massive beaks. The birds, their wings too small to let them fly, were laden with goods.
But even the lizarians got less attention from the Mochedan on the Road than Eurik himself. Some of them spoke to each other in hushed tones. Maybe if his mastery of Dance of the Whirlwind had been greater, he could have eavesdropped. It took longer for him to figure out that their attention was on his sword as much as on him.
“Yes,” Silver Fang said, guiding the horse by the reins. “I’m afraid you will have to get used to this.”
“I can’t look that odd to people.” He would have preferred to speak Linese, but Leraine had used her native tongue.
“You think so?” The left corner of her mouth slid up. “It’s true, there are those who don’t follow our ways or forsake them. But they tend to leave our lands, instead of coming to them. And they wouldn’t carry a blade like Misthell. He is … unique.”
“Glad you noticed,” the living sword said.
She indicated a path of hard, backed dirt heading west. “I was referring to your design. Though I must admit, your personality is also weird.”
“Well, thanks, I— Hey, what’s weird about me?”
“You are a weapon that doesn’t want to be used. A sword afraid of blood.” They crossed the Road after a group of Irelian merchants, protected by Mochedan carrying large round shields and long-hafted axes, passed them by.
“Blood is very corrosive. I don’t see you taking baths in acid.” Misthell sniffed.
“You are exaggerating.” She glanced over at the living sword. “And I cleaned you even while my own wounds were being tended to. Eurik has checked you every night since. You are fine.”
“You don’t know that. That demon blood could be a poison, waiting like a spider in its web. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike!”
Eurik and Silver Fang looked at each other and wisely kept their mouths shut while Misthell rambled on.
Chapter 2
Homecoming
Eurik took a deep breath and half-closed his eyes to better enjoy the world. The sun’s light easily burned through the few scattered clouds, and a stiff breeze came in from the southwest. The Road had been stifling on several levels, confining.
Sure, they’d stayed the nights off the Road; nobody with any sense would sleep on it. But most of those hours he’d spent asleep or busy doing something. Here, now, he could simply be and feel the world around him.
He didn’t merely see the men—and a few women—in the fields reaping barley and the like, he felt them through the earth. He sensed mice scurrying through the stalks while snakes slithered after them. Worms and moles buried their way through the dirt beneath. Eurik felt a cart, heavily laden, move along the road, a herd of goats or sheep on the other side of the hill to the north. The world was full.
But this awareness of everything only served to blind him. He took a mental step back and opened his eyes again. Eurik studied the people they passed with more interest. What he saw didn’t differ so much from what he’d seen so far. The fields along the road had hedges and banks to stop travelers from wandering onto them, much like they had down west. The crops in those fields were the same as well. Scarecrows were different, a tube of fabric tied to the end of a pole painted to resemble a snake.
The people, though, they did look different. The men didn’t have beards or mustaches, their hair was as dark as his if not darker, and they wore it longer. They had the same coppery tan as Eurik. Their clothes were different, too: pants and sleeveless vests that had patterns stitched into them with colorful yarn and beads. There weren’t many women in the fields, but they were dressed very much like the men.
After spending so much time with Silver Fang, he’d pictured a people of warriors, all of them wearing armor and weapons while going through day-to-day business. But that had been silly, of course, and he would have realized that if he’d thought it through. All of that would only get in the way if one was trying to milk a cow or thresh grain.
A group of young children ran past, bare legs and feet, swinging sticks and wooden swords. He noted with interest that none of them wore that braid the adults had. They barely looked at Silver Fang, but pointed at him and Misthell and talked to each other in hushed whispers.
They passed the settlement itself, which wasn’t on the road directly. Instead, it stood off about a bowshot away on a low hill, squatting behind a thick wall of large stone blocks. Sharpened stakes stuck out at an angle at the foot of the walls, but others near the entrance stood straight up, and a couple of them had a lump of something stuck on top.
With a start, he realized he was looking at decomposed heads, human probably. Could be elf, orc, or dwarf—hard to tell from this distance—but all of them lived too far away to attack this place.
“Are those … rule breakers?” He’d seen displays like this on his travels. Eurik could still remember the first tim
e he’d seen a corpse hanging from a tree near Pons Vorce. He’d read about it all. But reading how they dealt with people who broke the law on the mainland was different from actually seeing it. Smelling it.
“Hmm?” Silver Fang’s eyes had been on the road, about five steps ahead and a thousand years in the future. “Rule breakers? Oh, if you are trying to say criminal, drop the voy. But where are you seeing one?”
Eurik indicated the settlement and the stakes. Silver Fang shook her head. “No, those are pochudanogic.”
They were talking Thelauk, but the last word he’d never heard before. “Pochudanog? Something to do with war, and spirits?”
“They are warder spirits. It was more common before the Truce. Those are enemies of the sept, their spirits have been captured, and now they serve that sept to ward off evil. And to warn other enemies of the danger of facing that particular sept.”
Eurik frowned and looked at the heads again. “Didn’t you disapprove of the Boudicians’ use of spirits to protect their homes? How is this different?”
“How could it not be?” She looked to the south. Past the fields ran the Urumac, and beyond lay the Ghostland. “They used their own ancestors as if they were enemies, never letting go. Without a body, a spirit can’t recuperate. Like a man you don’t feed, they can only work so much before they falter. The shaman will keep an eye on the warder spirits and release them when their strength is spent. That is how it should be.”
“And how do you know they’re not criminals?”
Silver Fang gave a bark of laughter. “Who would honor scum in that way? Criminals, if their crime is such they are to be killed, their death is quick. Then their body is disposed of so that they can’t be infested by a demon.”