Shadow Walker (The Sword Saint Series Book 3)

by Michael Wallace

  “Now it’s your turn,” Katalinka added, “only this time you’re making master blades. You’ll use my cores, because you’re right, I’m better at it than you are.”

  “I’m not capable of master blades, and you know it. I wasn’t capable before, when I had full concentration and confidence. Look at me now.” Narina held up her right hand. It trembled. “It will be wasted effort.”

  “Which is why I have all these cores. You will work them, fail, work them again. Fail again. That’s how you’ll gain back your strength and relearn how to master your sowen now that the crutch of your bloodlust and corruption has been kicked out from under you.”

  Katalinka reached across and undid Narina’s belt, together with her swords. Father’s swords, that was. Katalinka draped the belt over one of the iron hooks on the edge of the smithy shed.

  “I don’t need new weapons,” Narina protested. “Father’s have served me well. More than well enough, in fact.” She swallowed hard. “I slaughtered my way across the plains. I killed peasants, soldiers, sohns, a crowlord. Is that your point? They’re too blood-drenched to use any longer?”

  Katalinka put a hand on her arm. “They’re tools. They only did what you told them to.”

  “They’re more than tools. Father imbued them with power, and now I’ve corrupted his blades with misuse.”

  “You did nothing of the kind, Narina. There’s nothing wrong with the blades.”

  “Then why do I need new ones? Why can’t I practice at the forge until I get my strength back, but keep using Father’s weapons?”

  “You will be using Father’s weapons,” her sister said. “And your own. Because you need two sets. One will be Father’s. The other, your own.”

  “What are you talking about?” Narina said. “I’m not going into battle carrying four swords.”

  “No, you’re going to carry two, just like always. Only this time it will be two of a kind. Two demons or two dragons. Depending on the enemy.”

  With this, Katalinka cast her gaze skyward, and Narina followed her gaze. A blue hole had opened in the overcast sky, but the rest of the sky was dim. To the west, higher into the mountains, masses of dark storm clouds hovered around the highest peaks, pummeling them with snow, while the eastern horizon, down the canyon above the plains, lay heavy with smoke and ash.

  “Are you suggesting I fight demons and dragons?”

  “We’ve fought them before.”

  “No we haven’t,” Narina protested. “We’ve battled a few demons, but not the mass of them. Not even close. And the dragons. . .sure, if by fighting, you mean you cowered in terror while they buried you in ice and snow. You can’t kill them—they’re demigods. Invincible.”

  “I know what they are, Narina.” Katalinka bit at her lower lip, and when she spoke again sounded uncertain. “The elders think there’s a chance. We’ve seen dragon blades cut down demons, so why shouldn’t demon blades harm a dragon?”

  “Because a dragon is bigger than the temple shrine, that’s why. Because it’s covered in plates of ice. Because when it opens its mouth, snow and ice will bury you. Oh, and there’s three of them, each one bigger than the last. And you’ve only seen the two smaller ones so far. What happens when the Great Drake appears?”

  “It seems hopeless. Of course it does.”

  “In that case. . .?”

  “Forget that for a moment,” Katalinka said. “We have two critical problems facing us, even apart from the fight between demons and dragons. You can help us with them.”

  “Go on,” Narina said.

  “First is Luzja. She’s strong, and she’s cunning. So long as she’s still out there, the curse continues, together with the possibility that she outstrips us all in power. The rest of us have hunted her, and we haven’t brought her in yet. You can do that.”

  “I don’t know, maybe. I can see farther than before, that’s true enough.” Narina nodded. “And the other problem?”

  “Lady Damanja.”

  “I take it she survived.”

  “Not only survived, but is thriving. You took off her leg, and that drove her to ground, but she’s already recovered.”

  “How does one recover from a missing leg?”

  “The same way one recovers from withered limbs, I suppose,” Katalinka said. “Point is, she’s stronger than ever. The hill country is full of peasants fleeing the fighting and the brigands preying on them. The hills have burned, and there are still volcanoes everywhere. That tells you how desperate things are below that the peasants would brave that.”

  Katalinka took the steel core from Narina and turned it over in her hands before continuing. “If Damanja wins, then she’s the sword saint, or whatever the demon champion is called. Once she’s finished down there, she’ll come into the mountains to kill us.”

  “Then someone has to stop her.”

  “That someone has to be you, Narina.”

  Narina closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky. The breeze was growing colder, and also cleaner smelling, like the harbinger of a snowstorm. For the moment it seemed the dragons were winning their war against the demons, and pushing the smoke and volcanic ash back down the canyon.

  She shivered, wishing she had a cloak or even a wool blanket to drape over her shoulders. Well, there was one sure way to warm up.

  “Heat up the forge,” she said. “Let’s see what we can do with this lump of steel.”

  #

  The first few minutes were hard, almost impossible. Katalinka gripped the glowing core with a pair of tongs and held it in place on the anvil, while her free hand tapped a rhythm on the horn with a small hammer.

  Narina used the bigger hammer and banged at it clumsily. Sweat stood out on her forehead, and her arm muscles quivered from gripping it too hard. Once, the hammer slipped loose and flew toward Katalinka, who ducked to one side and narrowly avoided having her forehead caved in. The hammer landed with a thud against the shed.

  “I’m sorry,” Narina said. “It’s this palsied hand.”

  “Get the hammer and start again. You’ll do better.”

  There didn’t seem a point to it at first, but Katalinka was right. The act itself of swinging the hammer strengthened her. Her sowen tightened and directed into her arm. Rather than growing more tired as she worked, she seemed to be growing stronger, and with that, her confidence returned.

  The core went in and out of the coals several times before Katalinka turned it over with the tongs to give it a closer look. “There, you’ve made a thorough mess of this one. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such a clumsy attempt. You were just flailing away there, weren’t you?”

  Narina took the comments with good humor, knowing her sister wouldn’t have made them if she hadn’t seen improvement toward the end. She set the hammer carefully onto the anvil and flexed her hand.

  “While we’re offering criticism,” Narina said, “you were keeping ragged time, and your inexpert flipping the core over led to half my missed blows.”

  “I guess you’re not the only one out of practice. Maybe we both need to work on our concentration.”

  “You were sending your sowen out while we worked,” Narina said. “Always looking for the firewalker. That’s the problem.”

  “You’re right about that, too. I suppose I should trust the others to keep vigil while we’re working.”

  The sky had closed overhead, with storm clouds giving it a twilight feel, though it was only late morning, perhaps approaching noon. The breeze had felt good while Narina worked, but now it dried her sweat and left her shivering. She’d better get back to work before she cooled too much to carry on.

  “How about we try again,” Narina said, “this time for real?”

  “A master blade? Which one?”

  “Find me a good core—the best you’ve got—and we’ll make that decision once we start.”

  Katalinka grinned and hurried back into the blacksmith shed. There was the sound of clinking steel, then the huff of be
llows. Narina flexed her arm, picked up her hammer, and rolled it back and forth between her hands.

  Snow drifted in lazy flakes from the sky. The first landed on her upturned face and melted. Only a bit of a flurry so far, but who was to say they wouldn’t be sitting beneath three feet of snow by morning? Or maybe the demons would reassert themselves, and morning would find a film of ash coating their roofs instead.

  Katalinka stepped back outside with a block of glowing steel clenched between her tongs. Even as she set it on top of the anvil, Narina felt this one was different. The first core had been for practice, but this one already carried real power in it. To work it inexpertly would be to throw out many hours of careful work. There could be no more messing around.

  Katalinka picked up the smaller hammer with her free hand and brought it to the anvil horn: tink, tink, tink. The timing was perfect this time. Narina let it go for a good forty or fifty seconds before she felt the rhythm of it matched by her own heartbeat. Her breathing settled into a slow, even rhythm. She closed her eyes, picked up her hammer, then opened them again as she landed her first blow against the glowing piece of steel.

  All around them the snow continued to fall.

  -end-

  THE STORY ISN’T OVER. . .

  Book Four: Bladedancer

  To receive notice when my next book is released, visit my web page to sign up for my new releases list, and get a free copy of the first book of my fantasy series, The Dark Citadel, as a welcome. This mailing list is not used for any other purpose, and your email will never be sold or distributed.