Soldier Sword (The Teralin Sword Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Endric glanced at Tresten, who nodded once.

  The two of them started on the stairs before Endric paused and turned back, pulling Senda to him in a quick embrace. She didn't resist, and Endric was thankful she didn't. If everything went well, they would reunite, but there remained a possibility something would go wrong, and she would be harmed. Endric didn't like to think about that and didn't like to think that this could be the last time he would see her.

  Senda pushed her him away. “Go. Let's have this ended.”

  Endric followed Tresten down the stairs, making their way toward the light, where Endric suspected they would reach the priests. The plan to utilize Tresten and reach the priests had already failed, not giving Endric much hope that this other attempt would be any more successful.

  At the bottom of the stair, they both paused at a doorway.

  “Let me lead here.” Tresten started forward, pushing the door open.

  As he did, Endric felt the pressure of the negatively charged teralin. He pushed against it, resisting the sensation as they made their way into the room.

  Tresten raised his hand.

  Endric looked up and saw what had stopped the Mage.

  Nearly a dozen priests, all dressed in heavy robes, stood before them. Each of the priests wore necklaces made of teralin.

  Not only teralin but negatively charged teralin.

  How long had Urik been planning this?

  “The necklaces,” Tresten said.

  “I can feel it.”

  “You would defile the sanctity of the high temple of the Urmahne?” The priest who spoke stood at the center, his head shaven, his eyes sunken deep in his head. He had a wrinkled face, one that was lean and weathered. Rather than the warm and welcoming face of the priests that Endric had normally seen, this man had a look of anger, rage contorting his features. It was more than what Endric would have expected from simply stepping into the temple, especially given the fact that they came with the Magi. This was an unhealthy type of rage.

  There was little question teralin had influenced them.

  Teralin had influenced the Deshmahne as well, but it had seemed different. That was a type of influence they had seemed to welcome. There was something about their tattoos that Endric thought tied to the teralin as well.

  The priests were nothing like the Deshmahne—and very much the same.

  “I am Mage Tresten of Vasha. I am a member of the Council of Elders. I have come to Thealon to—”

  The priest took a step forward. As he did, the dark teralin practically shimmered. “You have come to claim the temple? The Magi abandoned the Urmahne years ago. Do not think that you can appear and take control of it now. The priests serve the gods now.”

  The priest gripped his teralin necklace, and Endric felt a strange pulsing. Were he one of the Deshmahne, Endric would have almost imagined they would have used that pulsing to attack. With the priest, Endric doubted he would attack, but what effect did the teralin have on him?

  “We have been given the gift the Magi have long hidden,” the priest said. His voice began to rise, changing from the angry threat to almost a chant.

  “What secrets do you think the Magi kept from the priests?” Tresten asked.

  “We hear their voice!”

  The priest took a step toward Tresten, and Endric felt a buildup of power from the Mage. Could the priests feel that as well? Was it something related to the teralin, or was it something else?

  Why could Endric feel it? Was it proximity to the Mage, and the fact that he traveled with him, that attuned him somehow? Or was there something else?

  Did Tresten use teralin? Was that how the Magi had their abilities?

  If they did, Endric could see them not wanting to have that revealed to the world. If that were the case, anyone would be able to reach it.

  “What voice do you think that you hear?” Tresten asked

  The priest sneered at him. “What voice? You would dare challenge whether I hear the voice of the gods?” He squeezed the teralin necklace, his knuckles going white as he did. “I can hear them! Can the Magi make such a claim?”

  The priests around the man Endric suspected was the high priest of the Urmahne nodded. They didn't share the same look of rage that the high priest seemed to, but they wore the same expression of devotion, one that was enough to worry Endric. These were men who had passed beyond faith into fanaticism.

  “The teralin you hold does nothing other than change your mind. The metal you listen to does not give you insight to the Maker, but to his undoing. Even the Magi have begun to see that truth.”

  The priest shook his head, trembling with a sort of excited energy. “The Magi have kept the gods from the people. The Magi have prevented us from knowing what you have known. That is the secret you intend to keep to yourself. No longer!”

  The priest took another step toward Tresten. He was close enough that Endric began to worry for Tresten’s safety. He didn't think the priests would actually harm the Mage—didn't know if they were able to harm him—but what if the teralin had changed them so much? What if it had damaged him in a way so that he would attempt violence against one of the Magi?

  Violence went against the core of the Urmahne teachings, but with dark teralin influencing… It would be up to Endric to protect Tresten.

  As the priest took another step, Endric lunged forward, placing himself between Tresten and the priest.

  “Endric—”

  The priest didn't allow Tresten to finish and reached his other hand out, as if he were trying to grab for the Mage. Rather than reaching Tresten, he brushed against Endric, the strange dark, twisted energy that Endric could feel pressing out.

  Endric raised his hand, trying to prevent the priests from harming Tresten. His hand brushed against the teralin necklace. It felt cold, unusual considering teralin was normally hot. He squeezed his hand and pushed through it.

  There came a sense of a shifting, that of the teralin switching. It was almost like heaving over a massive boulder. When it shifted, there came a release, that of the boulder now tumbling downhill.

  How was it that he could do this?

  Maybe it was something as simple as that he was born to it. Maybe there was more to it, something that he had been attuned to from his time in the mines, but if that were the case, wouldn't Endric have noticed it sooner? Wouldn't Pendin have a similar ability?

  As the boulders tumbled, as that sense of teralin shifted, the teralin heated once more, glowing almost white in his hand.

  The priest staggered back, his eyes going wide. “You would—”

  Endric unsheathed his sword, stepping between the priest and Tresten so that he could block him from reaching the Mage. He would do his duty, and if that meant he would fall on behalf of Tresten, it was something he would gladly do.

  “The metal has tainted you. I don't know what you think you’re doing, but it doesn't let you hear the voice of the gods.” Endric held his sword ready, concerned the priest might lunge at them. In the distance, he heard a rumbling and feared the Ur was coming down the stairs. Had they managed to get past Brohmin and the others? If they had, what sort of attack would they face?

  “What did you do?” the priest asked.

  He grabbed at the teralin necklace, tearing it from his neck. It dropped to the ground, the now positively charged teralin glowing bright white.

  How could Endric have done that?

  “You have been poisoned,” Tresten said. “You allowed another with arcane power to join you, and he has poisoned you. Endric has only freed you from it.”

  “But the gods—”

  “You were not speaking to the gods,” Tresten said. The Mage made his way to two of the other priests, and before they had a chance to react, he grabbed the necklaces. They flashed a bright white.

  Tresten casually made his way along the line of priests, touching each of the necklaces. As he did, each of them changed, shifting from the dark and dangerous teralin to the flash of whit
e that indicated that they were now positively charged.

  With each one, the priest staggered back.

  The teralin along Tresten’s staff began to glow.

  Endric had observed the Magi using their abilities only a few times before. Once had been when he felt the Deshmahne threatening to attack Vasha. Then he had seen light and power glowing in the windows of the palace. That had been a witnessing of their power from a distance. This was closer, and in that respect, much more impressive.

  Tresten himself seemed to grow, straightening his back, becoming the image of the tall and powerful Mage that he was. A flash of light washed out from him, striking Endric as it did, coating him as well as everything else.

  With it came a wave of peace, power he could not deny.

  It hit each of the priests, and their expressions changed.

  The high priest blinked. His gaze went from the teralin necklace on the ground up to Tresten's face. “Most… Most high?”

  Tresten’s face softened, and he smiled. “I am Tresten, Second Eldest of the Mage Council of the Elders. I have come before you to offer my assistance.”

  The high priest looked around, noting the faces of the others and the pile of teralin necklaces on the ground. Now that all of them had been positively charged, they would not be a danger to the priests, but it was a relief to Endric to see them untouched on the ground. Heat radiated from them, and they glowed softly, proof of their now positive charge.

  “What assistance is that?” the high priest asked.

  “There is one who has come to betray you,” Tresten said. His voice thundered and filled the chamber.

  The high priest clasped his hands in front of him, looking from Endric and back to Tresten. “We seek to serve the gods, and the Magi as they serve the gods.”

  Tresten nodded. “Good. There is something we need of you.”

  34

  Tresten, along with Endric, collected the various teralin found throughout the temple. All of it had been negatively charged, and all of it was systematically switched to a positive polarity. It had taken the better part of a day, and Endric was exhausted from the effort of changing the teralin, and still uncertain how he had managed.

  “How is it that I can do this,” he asked Tresten when they had a moment of silence.

  “How is it that any of us are able to do anything that we are able to do? How is it that you can fight as well as you do?”

  Endric held a small orb of teralin. Like the others they had come into contact with, this was negatively charged and had been found in the barracks. There had been dozens of them set around it. Endric didn't understand how it worked and didn't understand the way it influenced others, but there was no questioning that it worked.

  “This is more than gaining skill by practice.”

  Tresten took the orb of teralin from him. “Is it? It seems to me that there are things men are born to do, and things they can learn to do. Often they are similar.”

  “How am I born to change the teralin?” Endric asked.

  “You need to stop considering yourself as somehow less than you are. You have been given many gifts. And one of those appears to be the ability to reach for teralin and change the polarity of it.”

  “It's more than that though, isn't it?”

  Tresten smiled. “It always is. When this is over, you will need to understand yourself before you can help the Denraen.”

  Endric watched him a moment. “You mean the Antrilii.”

  “I mean you should understand who you are. When you do, only then can you lead men. Only then will they follow.”

  Tresten led him to the door of the barracks. They had managed to restore several hundred soldiers from the influence of teralin, not to mention the nearly fifty priests stationed throughout Thealon, most influenced in one way or another. There were others—likely hundreds more of the Ur—they had not managed to stop. They had already been out of the city, led away by Urik before Endric and Tresten had ever reached the priests.

  “I'm going to have to stop the Ur from attacking the Denraen.”

  Tresten nodded. “You will.”

  “Urik will be with them,” Endric said.

  “Undoubtedly he will. He has begun to make his move.”

  “I don't understand why. What does he think he will accomplish?”

  Tresten stuffed several of the now positively charged teralin orbs into his pockets. Endric wondered whether the patterns that were etched along the surface of the orbs mattered, but decided that now wasn't the time to question Tresten.

  “I suspect you moved his timetable forward.”

  “I thought the attack on Listain was his plan.”

  Tresten frowned. “I did as well. Now I do not know.”

  The Mage closed his eyes and remained silent, squeezing his staff, the teralin within it flashing briefly. As it did, Endric had a sense of that power flashing within him. It was something he could almost feel, though he did not know why that should be.

  “What of you?” Endric asked Tresten.

  The Magi opened his eyes. “I will remain in Thealon for a time. The priests will need support, and they will need to return to their faith. Urik's influence has damaged them.”

  “And the Council?”

  “I didn't realize that you were concerned about the operation of the Magi Council,” Tresten said.

  “I’m not accustomed to the Magi remaining out of the city. How will we protect you?”

  Tresten tapped his staff on the ground. It rang out softly. “I think I can manage well enough on my own.”

  “You should have some protection,” he said.

  Tresten tipped his head. “Are you offering to remain and to serve as my protection?” There was a hidden question within there, something that seemed more than what Endric expected.

  “I need to be involved with ending the potential war before it happens. I would be more valuable there.”

  Tresten smiled. “Once again, you underestimate yourself, Endric. But, when you are ready, I will help with whatever you might need.”

  “Ready? Ready for what?

  Tresten shook his head. “Not until you are ready.”

  With that, Tresten tapped his staff, the runes along its side glowing softly, and made his way out of the Ur barracks. Endric watched him leave, feeling confused as he so often did around the Magi.

  He sighed.

  He turned at the sound of boots on the stone and saw Senda coming his way. She wore a slight frown and carried with her a few teralin items. “You look troubled.”

  Endric looked in the direction Tresten had headed. “Troubled is probably the best way you could put it.”

  “I think we found most of the teralin. I worry what will happen if others are found when were not here.”

  Endric shook his head. “Tresten plans to remain in Thealon.”

  Senda arched a brow. “He sits fairly high on the Council, doesn't he?”

  Endric nodded. “He's the Second Eldest. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think that it means that he sits right below the head of the Council.”

  “It's interesting that he's willing to remain in Thealon, then, isn't it?”

  Endric smiled and nodded. “It is interesting.”

  “At least we don't have to worry about the teralin potentially overshadowing the priests once more.”

  Endric shook his head. That wasn’t anything they had to worry about, though there were plenty of other things to focus on.

  “We shouldn't remain in Thealon for much longer,” Senda said. “Especially if Urik plans to attack the Denraen.”

  It still troubled him, not knowing what Urik planned and not knowing why he would think to attack the Denraen. He didn't think Urik wanted to destroy the Denraen, but what was he after?

  “What is it?” Senda asked.

  Endric shook his head. “I can't get beyond what he's doing. If he really wanted vengeance for what happened, why would he cause disruption in the north? If he was
after the Deshmahne, this isn’t the way to go about doing it.”

  “There has to be something for him to gain,” Senda said. “There has to be some reason he would attack. Think about what you know of him. How does this connect?”

  Endric smiled. “You remind me of Listain.”

  Senda hid a sad expression as she looked at him.

  “I don't know how it would all tie together,” he said. “Urik has shown his willingness to use both the Ravers, as well as the priests…”

  Endric frowned, something that Brohmin had noted as they rode into Thealon coming into his mind.

  “What is it?” Senda asked.

  “Well, you asked what connected things. The Ravers came after you, but to draw me away.” Endric thought that was the reason, even if the commander claimed he hadn’t recognized Endric. “If Urik planned this, he would have expected me to bring the commander to Listain.”

  Senda nodded. “He didn't just go after Listain; he wanted to kill him.”

  Endric's frown deepened. “Which forced my father to lead the Denraen sweeping across the north, removing the threat of the Ravers.”

  “Endric, the Ravers won't prove much of a threat to the Denraen. Not in the number the general brought.”

  “What if that was never their intent?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Endric started pacing, looking at the barracks. “How many soldiers do think the Ur can draw?”

  “I don't know. Listain had their numbers pegged in the thousands. They view themselves as a smaller version of the Denraen. The keep all of Thealon protected.”

  Thousands of soldiers, trained. Adding that to the soldiers of the Ravers. And now Urik was in control of both.

  “Everything I've learned tells me that Urik was interested in vengeance for what happened to his family,” Endric said.

  “He lost his family and blamed the Deshmahne. He went to the historian guild to find answers but found knowledge he was forbidden from using, which was why he went to the Denraen.”