Shadow Walker (The Sword Saint Series Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  And then someone else moved to her left. Another woman, this one armed with the twin swords of the bladedancer temple. Light and shadow in her hands. Demons drag her down, it was Katalinka. Her own sister, turned on her.

  And yet even together, one on either side, they couldn’t take her. Still too slow. She fought one, then the other, driving them back. While she fought, she sent off her sowen to search for where Damanja had crawled off with her belly opened.

  A third figure leaped into the fray. It was Miklos, curse him, and he gripped the massive two-handed sword of the warbrand temple. He was too strong, especially with Katalinka pressing in on her at the same moment. They were too fast, too strong when working together. She fought off the firewalker and the warbrand, and turned on Katalinka to kill her first.

  “You’ve been called,” Narina said between clenched teeth. Multiple blades stabbed and slashed and she evaded them all. “But you’ll never beat me.”

  “Sister, for God’s sake. Listen to me. You don’t have to—”

  Narina silenced her with a blistering attack that forced Katalinka into a fight for her life. Narina almost got through, and would have taken her sister’s power to add it to her own if the warbrand and the firewalker hadn’t renewed their attack, and if the mysterious sowen attack hadn’t struck her again.

  “Kozmer, is that you?” she demanded. “Show yourself, and show me that villain helping you.”

  What the devil was this? Some unholy alliance of sword temples? She fought them off once again, and this time drove Miklos back and nearly got past the man’s defenses to his throat. All three were flagging, as was the twin sowen attack.

  “You’ll die,” Narina said. “All of you. I will devour your lives and feed your sowen to my own.”

  They attacked again. A fourth swordsman hurled himself into the fray, and she almost laughed at how clumsy he was. Oh, it was Gyorgy. That explained matters. The others were yelling at him to get back. It was just a ruse, though. Already she felt Miklos preparing to spring. Narina made a subtle turn of the demon blade; when the warbrand leaped, he’d impale himself on it.

  Crows slammed into her from above. A searing pain went through her right shoulder, and shadows bled from the flesh. She caught a glimpse of a familiar weapon.

  It was Damanja reentering the fight. The others turned, blinking in surprise, mouths agape. They hadn’t known about her, the fools, which meant they’d attacked Narina without realizing she was already in combat. Now they would die.

  Along with Narina. Already she knew it was hopeless. Her right arm had gone weak where the crowlord stabbed her, and she could no longer hold her dragon blade. It fell into the mud, and with horror she looked at her arm as it twisted and shriveled like a snake thrown into a fire. She dropped to one knee, overcome by a wave of dizziness.

  Damanja gave a triumphant cry and swung her shadowy weapon again. Narina lifted her demon blade and caught the enemy’s sword just above her thigh. Shadows hit the edge and dripped onto her leg. They burned where they hit, and that was followed almost immediately by a debilitating weakness. Her leg began to wither. She cried out in pain.

  Gyorgy was the closest of the six who’d ambushed Narina—four with swords, two with a pure sowen attack—and the crowlord had largely ignored the student in order to fight the sohns. One slash would have finished him, but the woman hadn’t yet found the moment.

  Now Gyorgy threw himself at Damanja. The crowlord was so intent on forcing Narina into the mud that she didn’t seem to notice the boy until he was mid-swing. But the crows did. They attacked him in numbers, and he missed his target through the flapping wings and spewing smoke and cinders. Damanja turned on him with her shadowy weapon stretching. Gyorgy spotted the attack and got his swords into a perfect defensive posture to block it, just as he’d been taught.

  Yes, as Narina had taught him. That realization punctured her hardened shell, and even before the weapons clashed she knew that the boy would never be able to block the crowlord’s attack. She tried to regain her feet, but her crippled leg collapsed beneath her. She managed to reach one knee even as a black shaft slammed into Gyorgy’s blades. They shattered upon impact, and the boy staggered backward and fell.

  “No!” Narina cried.

  Damanja straddled Gyorgy with her sword held high, tip pointed down, while the boy lifted his broken blades, little more than hilts, in a futile attempt to defend himself. The others were staggering around, confused, either battered by crows or seemingly blind, and none would be able to reach the boy in time.

  Narina made a lunge. She landed just short. Damanja plunged her weapon downward, and shadow exploded into Gyorgy’s chest. He collapsed without a sound, and shadow enveloped him. There was a glowing reddish light, and then his body dissolved into cinders and roiling smoke.

  With a snarl, Narina heaved herself forward with her good leg and swung her demon blade. She caught the woman at the right knee, and the blade slid through like a scythe in a rice paddy. Damanja screamed and fell. Blood spurted. Narina had taken the woman’s leg off at the knee.

  She went after Damanja, intent on finishing her. But with only one good arm, and a leg numb and withering, she couldn’t catch the woman as she crawled away ahead of the bladedancer, dragging her sword. More crows attacked Narina, and the landscape seemed to curve away from her, as if someone had taken the earth in hand and was stretching it. Damanja vanished.

  Someone gave a cry. “There she is! Grab her.”

  A rough voice, familiar. Kozmer. The leader of this cowardly attack, the old villain. She made an ineffective swing as he approached, but the others threw their sowen at her. They were going to capture her if she didn’t do something.

  It was Narina’s turn to bend her surroundings. She collapsed her sowen in on herself, sheathed her remaining sword, and crawled toward her dragon blade where it had fallen in the mud. Get away, that was all she could think, and find a way to heal herself.

  The others were groping about, injured and exhausted, but it was only a matter of time until they found her. Kozmer touched her with his sowen, and then Skinny Lad came at her, barking. She recovered the demon and sheathed it, then somehow got to her feet.

  Her right arm had shriveled away, and her leg was dying, but she couldn’t use her sowen to try to heal herself. Not yet. She fell once again, and could only drag herself away with her two good limbs, while the other temple warriors continued their search, using Skinny Lad as a lead. It was harder to put the dog off her trail, but she managed to send him in the wrong direction and buy a few seconds. When she reached the brook and the fallen mill wheel, she threw herself into the water and struggled across to the other side.

  Finally, she withdrew some of her sowen from the act of hiding and used it to heal her wounds. Or tried to. The rot and weakness continued to spread in spite of her efforts. It was creeping down her shoulder and she could scarcely catch her breath.

  I’m dying, she thought.

  Damanja had been too strong, her command of sowen too powerful. She had her demonic crows and her shadowy sword, and was quick enough to negate most of Narina’s superiority in combat. And now, when Narina died, the woman would steal her power and go on to rule the land.

  With that last thought, she collapsed facedown in the mud.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kozmer pointed his staff toward the stream and the ruined mill wheel. “Narina went that way. Quickly!”

  Katalinka was the only one of the three sohns in condition to obey, and she sprang into action. Miklos lay bent over, grimacing as he clenched at his side, which seemed to be oozing black tar. Sarika had dropped her sword and held one arm against her body. They were both fighting to halt the spread of whatever was destroying them—some sort of shadow rot—and were no good at the moment.

  At least they’d survived. Gyorgy hadn’t been so fortunate. The way the shadow sword had penetrated the boy’s chest and dissolved him into ash and cinder would haunt Katalinka’s nightmares.

>   Poor Gyorgy. Why hadn’t he retreated to the mill with Andras and Skinny Lad like he’d been ordered? Except that his intervention may have saved Narina’s life, as Damanja had been on the point of killing her when he’d charged into the battle and sacrificed himself.

  Katalinka had also taken a wound when the strange warrior with her shadow sword emerged from a flock of crows, sparred with her, and sent a lance of shadow into her shoulder. By then Damanja had already wounded the other sohns, and Katalinka had recognized the danger at once. She’d fallen back from the battle to throw the force of her sowen into stopping and reversing the damage. Her sowen had cleansed the wound before it had a chance to spread.

  All the same, she was exhausted, and her sowen had nearly collapsed from overuse. She felt blind as she staggered in the direction Kozmer was indicating, following a trail he pushed through the rain. When she got to the mill and the fallen mill wheel, she had to stop, lost and confused. Unfortunately, both Kozmer and Drazul had been forced to stop the search and help the two injured sohns.

  “Over here,” said a quiet voice to one side. It was Andras, who’d come up beside her with his dog. He laid a hand on the animal’s head. “Skinny Lad can find her.”

  The dog was already sniffing and whining. He looked back at his master, who gave a short whistle that apparently meant to hold still. Andras, in turn, looked at Katalinka, as if waiting for her permission. His expression was glum, and his wet, matted hair and the rain trickling down his face like tears only added to the effect.

  “Let him lead the way, but hold him by the scruff,” she said. “My sister is a killer—I don’t even trust her with a dog.”

  Her stomach clenched as she remembered the look on Gyorgy’s face as the unknown attacker thrust a shadowy blade through his chest. Shock, disbelief. And guilt. Yes, guilt; Katalinka had seen it clearly. Yes, he’d given his life to save his teacher, yet he’d died blaming himself.

  Why? Was it only because he’d disobeyed orders to stay out of the fight? Or had he somehow assumed responsibility for losing his master to the curse that had taken so many others? Neither made any sense.

  Skinny Lad led them through the knee-deep water of the brook next to the millrace. The water was swift, and Katalinka used her sowen to hold up the ratter and his dog so they wouldn’t lose their footing. The trio struggled up the opposite bank, wetter and muddier than ever.

  Narina had vanished; Katalinka’s sowen gave her nothing. She’d have sworn the dog was wrong, but the grass was smashed flat and torn up, as if someone had dragged themselves through on their belly. Narina was weak if she’d been unable to walk, perhaps she was even dying, yet she’d still used her remaining strength to conceal herself.

  Skinny Lad jerked free with a bark. Andras lunged after him, but the dog slipped his grasp and bounded into the rain. Katalinka and Andras gave pursuit, and found the dog sniffing over a muddy puddle on the hillside. Katalinka split the air with her sowen and discovered her sister facedown in the mud, not breathing.

  She rolled her sister over. “Narina!”

  Narina coughed and spit mud. She took a ragged breath without opening her eyes. “Leave me,” she wheezed. “Let me die.”

  Her right arm was a twisted, withered remnant. One of her legs had a similar look to it, and when Katalinka pulled aside Narina’s cloak, the rot creeping up her torso with pale, streaking roots was revealed.

  Narina gasped again, and with that breath came a renewed fight. Her sowen was still pushing back. She might yet survive, if she got help.

  Katalinka turned and shouted into the rain. “I’ve found her! Hurry!” When she turned back to her sister, she reached down with her sowen.

  Narina lashed out. A shock of nausea washed over Katalinka and threw her backward. Skinny Lad tucked his tail, yelped, and shot away toward the mill, while Andras dropped to his knees, slapped his hands over his ears, and groaned in pain.

  “What are you doing?” Katalinka said. “Demons and demigods, will you stop?”

  Narina propped herself up with her good arm. “You killed Gyorgy.”

  “Me, what? No—”

  “You attacked me. I was going to defeat Damanja, and you stopped it. I was going to kill that blasted crowlord. Now look at me. This is all your fault.” She struck again with her sowen.

  Katalinka might have collapsed under the attack a few weeks ago, but she’d been through her own trial: the curse of the demigods, followed by the torture devised by the firewalkers to boil it out of her. With that ordeal, her own abilities had grown stronger. She pushed back, and for a moment held her own.

  Narina cackled. “I’m stronger than you, sister. I’ve got you.”

  Katalinka gritted her teeth and held on. Where the hell were the others? She couldn’t do this alone.

  Incredibly, her sister was too strong, even with the rot from the shadow weapon still trying to kill her. Katalinka needed to wound her sister again, to weaken her, then hope they could stabilize her before she died. There was no other choice.

  She pulled out her dragon blade, fought as Narina tried to wrestle it from her grasp, and came at her sister with a swing at the chest. Narina, incredibly, still had her demon blade; she lifted it, and the two swords clashed in a burst of light and shadow. Narina forced her hand back.

  But Katalinka had another weapon, and her sister couldn’t get her other blade free with her withered hand. Katalinka whipped her dragon sword from its sheath, brought it in at an angle, and sliced Narina across the ribs. Narina fell backward with a cry and her sword—Father’s sword—went sliding away down the wet, muddy hill.

  Finally, Miklos and Sarika came up the hillside, followed by Kozmer and Drazul. The elders threw out their sowen and caught Narina fast, while Miklos and Sarika helped Katalinka physically hold her down. It wasn’t hard; the fight had gone out of her, and she was dying.

  “Quickly,” Katalinka said. “We don’t have much time.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Narina fought a limp as she approached the forge. She’d strapped on her swords for the first time in nearly a month, and they felt strange resting against her hips. Her hands had been shaking as she tightened the belts, both from nerves and from the palsy that lingered in her right hand after it had withered away. At least the pain was finally gone, and the flesh was whole again.

  The air was clear, and the sun cast a golden, diffused light onto the temple grounds. It was cold, though, and that morning a thick frost had coated the cottages, the shrine, and the mill.

  This time of year the canyon walls were usually awash with colors as maple and oak leaves turned red, orange, and yellow, while the pine-covered upper slopes remained green. This year, however, the out-of-season snowfalls, killing frosts, and subsequent blasts of hot air from below had destroyed the normal patterns. The pines remained green, but the hardwood forests had lost their leaves in a few depressing shades of brown and tan.

  Yet it was unclear if winter would come. Narina supposed it depended on if the dragons won or lost. If winter did come, it would be a winter such as they’d never known before, of that she was sure.

  Smoke trickled from the roof of the blacksmith shed, but it was otherwise quiet. The fraters maintained vigilance around the perimeter of their lands, with Kozmer strengthening their sowens, while Miklos and Sarika had left the temple grounds to hunt for Luzja, the missing firewalker. She was lurking about, but nobody had been able to force a confrontation.

  Narina stopped short of the blacksmith shed to catch her breath, and glanced in at the smoldering coals at the forge. Katalinka was there, back turned, picking up steel cores from a basket and investigating them one at a time. Most she returned, but a half dozen or so she carefully laid end to end on the table.

  “I feel you watching,” Katalinka said without turning.

  “I know you do,” Narina said. “I can feel your sowen clumsily groping about.”

  Katalinka turned with her eyebrows bent downward and a frown on her lips that only gr
adually eased. “I think that’s a joke. Is it?”

  “My attempt at banter, yes. Awkward, given the circumstances, I suppose. What is this all about?”

  “Come, choose a core.”

  “You want me to bang around in my present condition? I’m not sure I can even lift a hammer.”

  “Fine, I’ll choose one for you,” Katalinka said. “Do you want a demon or a dragon?”

  “A demon. I can hammer with my left hand for a stretch.”

  “You’ll hammer with the right,” Katalinka said. “It’s the only way to strengthen it.”

  Narina grunted, unhappy. Nevertheless, she took her position at the anvil and picked up the hammer. It felt strange and awkward, and she had to keep adjusting her grip. The last time she’d been at the forge was the day her father died. She’d stood over Gyorgy’s shoulder, tapping a small hammer against the horn to help her student time his blows.

  He was gone now, and an ache settled into her stomach at the thought. They’d also lost Sohn Abelard. The other temples had suffered losses of their own. The landscape was battered by demigods and demons. The heat and cold and wars spread war and famine across the land.

  She set down the hammer. “I can’t. I’m too weak.”

  “You haven’t even looked at the core.”

  “I feel it. I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “Go ahead,” Katalinka urged. “Pick it up.”

  Narina wrapped her good hand around the cool steel. It tingled, and hairs rose on the back of her hand. “You’ve been at this one already. Folded in auras, and returned it to this shape. It’s good work,” she added grudgingly. “You’re better at it than I am.”

  “I’ve been doing almost nothing but work the cores since we came back. I had my own corruption, you know.”

  Katalinka shuddered as if considering an unpleasant memory. Narina had heard bits of it. There had been something about boiling water to purge her after Volfram cut her. Katalinka hadn’t shared much more than that, and Narina hadn’t pushed for a detailed account.