by eden Hudson
“Last water,” Lysander said, swinging down from behind Koida. His boots crunched on the rocks. “Drink what you can and fill up any vessels you’ve got, because you won’t see water again until we ride into the oasis.”
Koida dismounted and stretched out aching muscles. When she had lived in the palace, she and Pernicious had ridden for miles most nights and often slept out by the twin waterfalls of the Horned Serpent River, but that leisure riding hardly compared to spending all night every night on Pernicious’s back. Her legs and shoulders were stiff as stone rods, and she was very, very careful of how she sat down.
While she, Cold Sun, and Lysander drank, filled, and washed, Hush crushed together a few of the indigo blossoms and something she dug up from the rocky mud in the stream’s bank. When the silent physician was finished, she indicated that it was a paste to soothe saddle soreness. All three of them gladly accepted a share and disappeared into the greenery for a bit.
Like the other mornings, before finding enough shade to rest out the day, Koida studied the Path of the Thunderbird with Hush. As excruciating as it was after a night’s ride, Koida looked forward to the training. It loosened up the muscles that had gone stiff, and they were beginning to learn Ro-less hand and foot techniques. Though she wasn’t advanced enough to execute the wheeling, leaping kicks she had seen Raijin use in his fight with Shingti, she could feel that Hush was building her toward them.
When Koida was sweating and exhausted from repeating a simple, nameless snap kick so many times that she’d lost count, Hush indicated they were finished for the day. Cold Sun took over, and they trained in the Uktena war art. The cautious tribe had a ban against sparring with their living lavaglass, so Cold Sun taught her to spar with her forearm. Koida found the practice a bit silly even though she understood the logic supporting it. Her forearm would be her blade when she fought a real enemy.
No matter how hard Koida tried, however, Cold Sun’s forearm kept opening imaginary slashes across vital veins, spilling her entrails, or chopping through the back of her neck. She followed the familiar stick fighting patterns and dodged as if she were battling with Pernicious, but the hulking Uktena’s stand-in blade found her every time.
Cold Sun called for them to pause. “You either try to leap away from my blade entirely and land too far away to strike me, or you refuse to move at all and take killing blows so you can land a nonlethal strike. Neither is a way to win a battle.” He grabbed her shoulders and twisted her upper body. “You are flexible enough to avoid the blade without sacrificing your proximity. Pull one part of your body out of the way of a strike while you attack with the other.”
“I thought that was what I was doing,” Koida said, swiping her dripping hair out of her face. She’d tied it back in a warrior’s knot like Shingti used to, but the fine hairs around her forehead and temples always seemed to come loose and get in her eyes. She sighed and bowed to Cold Sun, switching to the student to teacher speech tone. “Apologies, teacher. I spoke out of frustration. I am trying to do as you say, but I seem to be misunderstanding. Or perhaps just failing.”
“Blood makes a better teacher than bruises, Cold Sun.” Lysander, who’d been dozing nearby in the shade of a thorny bush, was now sitting up and watching them. “The princess is trained in bo-shan fighting. She can take hits all day. Cut her open a couple times, though, and she’ll start to respect the difference between a stick and a blade.”
Cold Sun gave a shake of his head. “To use a living lavaglass blade against a member of the tribe is to break the law of the Uktena.”
“She’s not a member of your tribe,” Lysander pointed out.
“Koida was promised to my brother Raijin. This makes her my sister. I will not endanger my sister or break Uktena law, even in spirit.”
“I’ll do it, then.” Lysander stood and pulled his burled steel dagger.
Cold Sun stepped between her and the foreigner. “As her brother and teacher, it would be folly to allow that. She is too inexperienced.”
As the Uktena spoke, the night Lysander let her take the glass moon serpent flashed through Koida’s mind, along with his promise to teach her how to use her lavaglass blade if she could get it. Adversity built strength, but indulgence tore it down, as Raijin was so fond of saying.
Koida put her hand on the Uktena’s enormous bicep and stepped around him.
“Gratitude for your protection, Cold Sun,” she said. “You are a good teacher, and you honor me by calling me your sister. However, I believe Lysander may be right in this matter.”
The corners of the Uktena’s mouth twitched downward.
“He is speaking of intentionally harming you,” Cold Sun said.
“Only a little.” She glanced at Lysander. “Not enough to kill me. Correct?”
The foreigner gave her an agreeing nod.
“If there are any truly grievous strikes, Hush can heal me.” Koida caught Cold Sun’s dark gaze, certain that she knew which argument would sway him. “You were the one who told me that we have to stop thinking of ourselves as crippled to overcome our deficiency. I have been coddled and protected my entire life, and it’s only made me weaker. It may seem irresponsible now to let me suffer the consequences of a misstep, but if it teaches me caution and respect for the blade, then it can only make me a better warrior over time.”
The huge warrior’s face remained stony.
“Better at the hand of an ally bent on teaching than an enemy intent on killing her,” Lysander said. “I’ll at least avoid doling out any lethal wounds.”
Finally, Cold Sun relented. “Be clear, however, that I do not condone this.”
“Gratitude, wise teacher.” Koida bowed to the huge Uktena, then turned to the foreigner. “Shall we begin?”
Lysander turned the dagger so that the blade ran down his forearm.
“Summon your moon broadsword, Princess.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
LAND OF IMMORTALS
“Please, Grandfather Spirit,” Raijin said, bowing his face to the stone once more, “send me back to the mortal world.”
“You have considerably more to contend with on this return, Thunderer. Not only Misuru and the many forces she can turn against you from without, but forces fighting you from within.”
“What do you—”
Water sloshed up onto the stone, soaking Raijin from head to toe as the Grandfather Spirit lunged at him without warning.
Before he realized he had moved, Raijin was on his feet, the guai-ray inside ready to fight the enormous spirit to the death. His left arm hung useless at his side, but the fingers of both hands had bent into claws, and his teeth were bared in a snarl. With the last sliver of rational thought before he attacked, Raijin sensed the Grandfather Spirit’s lack of killing intent and restrained the demon beast. It wrestled against his control, slavering for the kill like a starving predator.
The Grandfather Spirit raised his huge head out of the water and rested it on the stone beside Raijin, holding the edge with his tiny forelimbs.
“The demon beast,” he rumbled. “You have begun to travel its path, caging its fury inside yourself. But a demon is a mouth chewing in both directions, consuming its prey and itself.”
Raijin frowned. “Without embracing it, I would not have made it out of the first cavern.”
“A demon beast is a powerful weapon, Thunderer, relentless, remorseless, and unyielding. You felt it eat through your immortal energy like a hungry akane with every strike, didn’t you? It cared nothing for your life or death, only victory. This is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.”
“If I continue to advance down this path, where might I find the end?” Raijin asked.
“Whether in victory or defeat, all demon beasts end the same way: dead by the teeth of a stronger demon beast.” The Grandfather Spirit chuckled, the movement of his belly splashing water against the rock. “Just as the Great Akane was slain by the teeth of a stronger demon beast today.”
Ra
ijin forced himself to kneel once more. Inside of him, the guai-ray prowled like a captive jaguar at the end of a chain.
“Is there any way to control it?” he asked the Grandfather Spirit.
“Perhaps, but as with any path, every step you take leads you closer to its end. Every time you use the beast, it will grow stronger and harder to control, until eventually it controls you.”
For several long seconds, Raijin considered this, allowing the words to sink into his heartcenter.
“Like the Thunderer, the demon beast isn’t a separate being,” he said finally. “It is me. A part of me.” His mind turned to a conversation he’d had with Master Palgwe in the training courtyard of the School of Darkening Skies. “Through the control of the self, we become strong enough to make ourselves worthy of the great power our path brings. If the demon beast grows stronger every time I use it, then I will fight myself until I am even stronger than that.”
“That is a never-ending circle, Thunderer.”
“It’s what has to be done if I remain on this path,” Raijin said.
“Then I wish you good fortune,” the Grandfather Spirit rumbled. “In overcoming the beast as well as rescuing your wife. Are you ready to return to the mortal realm, Thunderer?”
“Yes.”
“Then climb into my mouth,” the enormous spirit said.
Raijin’s brows lurched upward, pulling at the ragged wounds of his empty eye sockets.
“Your mouth?”
Waves lapped at Raijin’s knees as the Grandfather Spirit nodded his enormous head. “I cannot send you to a new body while your last mortal body yet lives. Your immortal soul seems to have become attached to it—and with its unbroken heartcenter, that is no surprise. So, instead of sending you to be reborn, I will return your immortal soul to the body you left behind.”
Raijin hadn’t considered having to be reborn, retrained, and regrown before he found Koida. Whatever had preserved his mortal body was a stroke of luck that would save years he couldn’t afford to waste. Not to mention, he would be beyond grateful to have his sight back.
“Gratitude, esteemed Grandfather Spirit.”
“Stop the Whisperer before I am lost to her corruption again, and cleanse the rest of my spirit brethren of her sickness. I will count that as all the thanks I require.”
Raijin smiled. “That is a very small request. Are you certain you don’t want anything bigger?”
“You have spent too much time around white foxes, Thunderer,” the Grandfather Spirit muttered. “Leave off the frivolity and climb into my mouth.”
Raijin bowed his face to the stone a final time, then stood. The guai-ray senses prodded at the maw before him. Scratchy, toothless gums like those of a mudcat, a cavernous mouth large enough to walk into, and at the back of the throat, a series of needle-studded jaws ready to bite him in half.
This could all be a trap. Revenge for the failure the spirit had claimed to forgive him for. Or worse to the guai-ray, a way for the spirit to reassert its dominance after having been beaten.
His only other option, however, was to spend centuries or even millennia climbing the tiers and leave Koida to fend for herself. The Grandfather Spirit’s warning that she wouldn’t survive another cycle of destruction felt like it was burning deep in his bones, pushing him forward. Whether this was a trap or not, his only way back to her was through this immortal guardian’s mouth.
Steeling himself, Raijin stepped over the creature’s rough gums, onto its tongue, and began feeling his way toward the needle-filled jaws.
Chapter Thirty
MORTAL LANDS
Thunderbird training with Hush was focused on repetition and stamina, and it always left Koida exhausted to her bones. Training with Cold Son in the Stone Soul was filled with sudden stops and starts punctuated by bone-crushing blows.
Training with Lysander was fast and brutal, and the fighting didn’t stop when her blood started to pour.
“Keep moving,” Lysander snapped when she faltered, grabbing at the slice across her ribs. “If I came to kill you, I’ll only be encouraged by the sight of your blood, Princess. Demons and animals fight harder when they’re in pain. If you want to survive, so should you.”
True to his word, he never cut her anywhere vital. Each slice was shallow and methodical, more painful than bloody. After feeling the sting of the blade a few times, Koida finally began to rely more heavily on evasion. She knew she was still landing too far away to fight back, but rather than tell her not to give him so much space, Lysander shifted his stance and fought her into the corner of a steep-banked draw.
Koida saw what he was doing, but wasn’t able to stop him. Each time she tried to sidestep or duck under his attacks, he was already there to herd her back. She even tried running up the rocky bank and vaulting over him.
Once more, Lysander appeared in front of her, pushing her back into the draw.
“You can’t handspring your way out of this.” He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Fight your way out. Blade, tooth, nail, whatever it takes. If you draw blood on your way past, I’ll call our training to a close for the day.”
Tantalized by the potential for rest, Koida found a renewed energy. She darted at Lysander, feinting and slicing. He knocked the moon broadsword aside with a slash of his dagger. At the same moment, her head rocked back on her shoulders, pain blossoming in her cheek.
She stumbled backward into the narrowest part of the draw, putting her broadsword between them to hold him off and grabbing her face with her hand.
“You punched me!”
“I said to fight your way out however you had to. Your blade’s not the only weapon at your disposal, Princess. You’ve got a hand and two feet just going to waste.”
And a bo-shan stick she already knew how to fight with, she realized.
With an effort of will, Koida sent amethyst Ro clawing its way down the inside of her arm. It manifested in her right hand, off-balance as always, but it gave her twice the weaponry and reach Lysander had. She could block with one and attack with the other.
Focused on her new strategy, Koida shot toward Lysander again. When he sliced with the dagger, she cracked him on the wrist with the bo-shan. She had taken a number of hits like that over the years from Master Lao, and she knew Lysander’s wrist bones had to feel as if they’d been splintered. But the foreigner didn’t even acknowledge that she’d touched him. He stood his ground and fought back without faltering. They traded blow for blow, stick for dagger.
Suddenly, Lysander was an inch from her face, one elbow thrown up over his head, the other wrapped around her bo-shan arm. As she struggled to backpedal, his elbow came down, trapping her moon broadsword against his side.
Lysander slammed her backward into the rocky bank. “Too focused on your stick. You forgot about your blade. I gave you an opening the size of a Uktena to run me through—”
“You would’ve been killed!” Koida half shouted, half panted.
“Instead you’ve been killed,” he said, looking down pointedly.
Koida followed his icy gaze. His burled steel dagger was planted in her stomach. She gasped at the sensation of cold metal invading, penetrating. A disturbing shaking took hold of her body, and her bo-shan shattered. The amethyst light reached toward Lysander, then retreated into Koida’s heartcenter. Her moon broadsword wavered, the lavaglass uncertain whether to remain or recede. Agony radiated from the dagger wound in waves, making her knees buckle.
Lysander eased her to the ground, then pulled his dagger out.
No blood dripped from its blade. The pain disappeared with the dagger. Lysander’s hand was empty.
Koida grabbed at her stomach with trembling hands. “What in blade and death...”
“Never take your eyes off the weapon most likely to kill you,” he said. “You were so focused on attacking with the bo-shan that you lost track of my dagger and didn’t even use your broadsword.”
Mind racing, Koida felt for the other cuts and slices Lysander’
s dagger had opened up during their training—across her ear, her upper arm, her ribs, the outside of her thigh. All gone.
“How did you do that?” she demanded, getting to her feet.
“If you give your opponent the opportunity to deceive you, he will.”
“Has the knife been false this whole time?” she asked. “An illusion?”
“No.” Lysander handed it to her. “Only the cuts.”
Koida inspected the burled patterns of light and dark steel folded into its steel blade and squeezed its leather-wrapped handle. She chopped into a nearby prairie hen button plant, parting the waxy leaves with a wet crunch.
“Now, remanifest your stick.” Lysander held out his hand for his dagger. “We’ll start again from—”
Koida tossed the dagger into the brush and swung her moon broadsword at Lysander’s chest as she sprinted past. He turned his upper body, twisting with the slash and covering his head and throat with one arm while the other darted down toward his hip to cover his stomach and vitals. The lavaglass blade raked across his lowered forearm.
When Koida made it past him, she skidded to a stop in the sand and grinned at the trickle of blood wetting Lysander’s arm hair.
“I believe that signals the end of our training for the day,” she said.
Lysander threw back his head and laughed. “Well done, Princess. Well done. This means we won’t have to have a talk about attacking when your opponent’s guard is down. Do you have any idea how long it took me to explain to Raijin that he couldn’t play by rules when there were none?”
Koida’s smile froze. She worried that the mention of Raijin would turn the foreigner’s good mood sour, but Lysander only stared into the nothing between them for a moment, then muttered “noble sensha’s son” under his breath.
Certain the comment wasn’t meant for her ears, Koida pretended she hadn’t heard.
“Gratitude, though I’m not certain cheating is worthy of a compliment,” Koida said, though her heartcenter warmed at the rare bit of praise.