by Amanda Twigg
He hoisted his own blade into horizontal stillness above his head and set his body into a perfect stance. “Do you think the hethra is about muscle mass?”
“Of course.”
“Hardly.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your arms are wider than my legs.”
“Every soldier reaches a limit, Hux. The art of the hethra is to keep the body working longer than the brain believes it’s possible. A soldier’s darkest moments can offer the greatest opportunity against a weak-minded opponent. Accept the pain and focus. I won’t teach you advanced fighting techniques until you have some understanding of this skill.” He closed his eyes and relaxed his body. His aura roamed wide, but its shade settled into a blue pool of calmness.
Landra raised the Collector again to match his stance. “Can this help me qualify for the championships by right?”
“Some things can’t be rushed. Most third-year cadets struggle to make the grade, and you’re a citizen rank. Why the hurry?”
The answer came as easy as her next breath. “I watched Father battle to victory when I was five. I’ve wanted to be like him ever since. Is that an exiling offense?”
“If it is, we’ll both be training in the remote lands tomorrow. You have the heart of a fighter, but you’re pushing too hard in the wrong direction. Save your energy for battles you need to win.”
“This is important. How much respect will direct entry bring me?”
“Your chief elect rank will bring respect.”
Landra wasn’t sure that was true. “Won’t I be a target for any soldier wanting to prove a point?”
“You’re a target anyway. Plenty of soldiers carry grudges against the Hux family. Oppressed priests would destroy you in a breath, and soldier factions believe the chief pays Templers too much consideration. Then there are Warriors who will see you as an obstacle to the chief’s position. Your life may be short once the promotion’s announced.”
Might as well paint a target on my back. Landra’s stance tensed, and her focus broke. Her arm dropped again, and she groaned. The Warrior’s mature frame showed the usual wear associated with fighters in their fifth decade, but if he chose to attack for real, she had no adequate defense. “Are you a risk to me?”
Thisk opened his eyes and met her gaze. “Everyone is a threat. Never think otherwise.” He nudged her arm up but dropped his own sword to his side. “Now, let’s do this. If you want my respect, learn the hethra.”
“It sounds like Jethra.”
“Of course. It’s a homeworld skill.”
He elevated her arm above her head into an even more uncomfortable position. The blade wasn’t heavy, but she was weak enough to feel the strain. Clammy heat suffused her body, and a whiff of sweat rose from her uniform.
The Warrior watched the blade tip, as if waiting for failure. She tried to keep it steady, but pain rocked her body and squeaking noises escaped her throat.
Embarrassing. Don’t fold.
“More angle at the knees.” Thisk clipped the back of her legs with his sword hilt.
A grimace twisted her young features, and beads of moisture broke on her cheeks. It was like he was forcing her to fail, but she sank lower and braced again.
“That’s better. Hold it there.”
The blade’s tip wavered.
Thisk stepped close enough for his breath to brush her cheek. “You’ve weakened quickly, but this is the point where the hethra comes into its own. Now, visualize walking through the midlevel and tell me what you see.”
She wanted to shout at the Warrior, but she wanted to impress him more. “I…”
“Just do it.”
An image of a Central City concourse formed in her thoughts. “I’m looking down a main causeway, watching a unit heading toward the next city.”
“Good.”
Landra settled into her daydream, enjoying the notion of joining the departing soldiers. She submitted to the vision completely, ignoring the obvious expansion of her aura. “The transport station is dark. There’s never enough power to run the pod. It will be a long march for the soldiers through the tunnel beneath the tracks.”
“Can you smell anything?”
“Sweat,” Landra answered. She wrinkled her nose, realizing the odor came from her own reality rather than her visualization. The slip allowed pain to intrude. “No, that’s not the smell,” she added quickly, latching onto elements of her vision again. “The walls stink of varnish. I think they’ve had recent work.”
“You’re doing well. Now, look back.”
Landra turned.
Thisk forced her straight with a firm rap on the cheek. “In your mind.”
The contact reawakened her attention, but she focused on the exercise, obscuring her pain. “That’s toward the City Center and Warrior Hall.” She pictured the tight-curving corridors of ring ten. “I want to travel the cities before I go there, maybe even to the farthest edge of New City.” She buried the thought, recognizing it as yesterday’s desire. Wandering the cities had no place in the life of a chief elect.
“Who else is around?”
“Only strangers.” It wasn’t quite true. She suspected the characters were drawn from memory. “There’s a work detail waiting for entrance to the overlevel.”
“How do you know where they’re going?”
Landra’s eyes wrinkled. “They’re wearing weather protection uniforms and maintenance kits. Maybe the power’s out. One’s wearing a Templer robe, so there could be a problem with the magical power supply.” She tilted her head to a sudden noise.
“Do you hear something?” Thisk asked.
“Music.” She rolled her neck and hummed to the tune, discovering that joining the melody eased her pain. The song filled her awareness, bringing more serenity than she’d known for a while and clarifying her vision.
“Hux. Hux!”
Thisk jabbed his sword hilt beneath her ribs, forcing a gasp to rise from her belly. It exploded in a puff of white vapor before her eyes. She creased forward. The Warrior stood before her, surface blood reddening his cheeks above his beard.
“What was that for?” A burst of agony erupted into her consciousness and stole her breath. “Agh!” In her dream, she’d been enjoying a bubble of stillness. Now, she recognized the bite of the wind and the burn of her limbs. Her stomach heaved, but she swallowed back vomit, refusing to humiliate herself in front the Warrior.
“Humming is against regulations,” Thisk said. “Pull back and find your image again.”
“That’s all I did wrong? Father expects me to break rules, but you hit me for humming?” She yanked the shirt away from her sodden body.
“I never said you won’t be disciplined. Now, resume.”
She glared at Thisk but set back into position, less inclined to please him but more determined to show her strength. It was excruciating, so she sank deeper into her imagination. Dannet and Bexter were wrestling in the armory, and Winton watched. The trainer’s narrow face displayed stiff rebuke.
“That’s good,” Thisk said. “Now, let the magic take you.”
Chapter 9
The Collector slipped from Landra’s grasp, and she danced back from the falling blade. “Magic?”
Agony pressed her to her knees, but it couldn’t overshadow her outrage. She’d worked hard to hide her aura sight, and now Thisk had forced her to indulge the magic. It took three painful breaths before she could repeat her accusation. “You were teaching me magic?”
“No! I was teaching you the hethra.”
“But it’s magic?”
Thisk clenched a fist around his sword hilt. “Not exactly.”
“How can you be so casual?”
“Don’t glare at me, Hux. This old-world skill is still taught in Warrior Hall.”
“It doesn’t matter what they teach back on the home planet,” she said. “In this world, I…”
How could she explain her fear without divulging her visions?
The Warrior’s bea
rd rippled above his grinding teeth. He retrieved the Collector and approached Landra, deep anger glinting in his dark eyes. “I can’t teach you magic because I don’t know how. What I can show you is the Warrior skill of accessing power from Soul-laden artefacts.”
She glowered at her knife hanging from the Warrior’s fist. Its Templar properties weren’t a surprise—she still had the magical rash it had left on her arm—but she’d never intended to use them. “I can’t do this.”
“It was going well before you dropped the knife. I think you can.”
“That’s not what I mean. Earning respect is hard enough. If it gets out that I trained in magic, you can forget my promotion. There’s not a soldier on base who’ll follow me.”
“All Warriors know the nature of elite weapons.” He waved the knife handle toward her face. “Now, resume.”
“Does Chief Hux use Soul magic?” Resentment festered in her gut.
“Shelk! What’s wrong with you, girl? Of course he uses magic, just like you.”
The accusation shifted her world and terrified her to stillness.
“We all use magic every day,” Thisk said. “Otherwise our city would be a frozen, dark tomb, and all our people would be dead to the mist. So, yes, Griffin does use magic, but, truthfully, he never had a good connection with the power or a feel for the hethra.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Cold anger formed lines around the Warrior’s eyes, and his fists rolled into balls. “Who are you to call me a liar, Hux? You might have a title, but underneath, you’re just a homebred brat.” He stormed to where Landra stood. She tensed, expecting a blow, but instead of raising a fist, the Warrior lifted her hat flap and rammed the weapon home into its sheath.
“I’m not saying the Collector didn’t come to life in his hand, but he never connected with the magic and the blade burned out of control. Shelking near cindered through Warrior Hall when we trained. Is that enough truth for you, Chief Elect?”
She blanched at the condescension wrapped around her title. She’d been so consumed with her new predicament, she’d forgotten herself. “I never heard that before.”
He glowered but his aura settled. “Griff didn’t like to use the Collector after the incident. I guess he’s relieved to have passed the knife along.”
“To me!”
“Yes, to you, so deal with it, citizen. Now, resume.”
Landra’s hands shook with fatigue. She wanted to apply more salve and go home, but she’d already worn Thisk’s temper ragged.
“Sir?”
He stared, challenge in his brown eyes. “What?”
“I have more bruises than the ones you can see.”
The Warrior’s teeth clamped, and his withering stare tracked up her body. “That happens when you fight illegally. Do it again, and you answer to me, cadet.”
Cadet! Did he really call me cadet?
Yes, sir.”
The Warrior retrieved his cloak. “You came to me exhausted, and the hethra takes a toll. More so up here. We’ll try this again later. Hunker down and get some rest.”
Weariness tugged at Landra, making her body too heavy to remain upright. Shivering rattled her limbs, so she wrapped her cloak around her body and curled up in the shelter of the fence. The few leaves beneath her bottom provided no padding. She wriggled to find comfort that wasn’t there.
Thisk leaned against the fence, his intense stare taking in the expanse, and his large fist gripping his sword. “You know, Hux, soldiers aren’t normally allowed to challenge my orders. That’s another thing you’d have learned in the junior barracks.”
She had questioned him, she knew. Was this place stripping her of all sense? Winton would have had her on report and doing double duty for less.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be.”
Don’t be! What sense does that make? She glanced sideways and lifted her hat flap to check out his expression. Serious lines wrinkled the bridge of his nose, but no hint of jest twinkled in his eyes.
Are you giving me permission to challenge your orders?
This was the Warrior Fourth, but he used magic. He was wild but respected. He had struck her for humming, but she needn’t be sorry for challenging him. Much as she liked puzzles, she doubted he posed a solvable problem.
Where did my ordered life go?
This shabbily dressed Warrior, not fit to pass inspection, had taken her far from her destined path. In their short time together, he’d called her a brat, citizen, chief elect and now cadet. CADET!
That naming showed more respect than Winton had ever sent her way. On this day of pain and new demands, she found a purpose to drive her performance. It grew inside her, pushing out all other thoughts. She feared the Warrior’s unpredictability, but his small recognition had fed her hunger for approval.
Her head sagged to her knees. The spot wasn’t warm nor restful, but the sleep that had eluded her in the night found her immediately, as did her dreams.
A clacking sound disturbed her strange rest. She was fending off a worm-headed animal in the nightmare, and her weakness condemned Mother to death. She recognized her mother’s ill-defined form by a feeling rather than by her blurry features, heightening the emotional trauma of the loss. Now, an image of the beast with a frozen limb hanging from its mouth set in her memory. It crunched down on the bone in time with the sounds.
A hand clamped her mouth, and panic from her nightmare bled over into reality. Her eyes widened, her heart raced, and her hand grabbed for the Collector. All weariness had fled, and she was ready to fight.
Chapter 10
“Felland!” Thisk hissed in Landra’s ear.
She stilled against his touch and glanced out. A hefty four-legged beast lumbered along a far fence, snuffling through leaves. Its dappled fur resembled Thisk’s cloak and its powerful legs culminated in fat paws, but when a terrified rodent scuttled away, the beast extend a long claw from its soft pad. One swat speared the escaping rat, and the felland curled around its prey, sinking pointed teeth into its flesh.
Landra’s chest heaved from the scene’s similarity to her nightmare. The beast’s orange aura rippled with satisfaction as it devoured the prize, but each of its breaths sucked the fur tight around its bony frame. Even from this distance, the definition of its ribs showed starvation that the small rodent wouldn’t redress.
The wind direction shifted and the beast raised its head, blood-stained teeth bared. It sniffed the air, and the rumble from its throat carried on the breeze.
“Shelk, it’s caught our scent,” Thisk said. “Stay here.”
He jumped up, sword in hand, and ran down the fence. Once he’d left Landra a good way behind, he faced the felland and waved his arms. “Yah, yah.”
The animal turned on the warrior and pressed into a hunting crouch.
“Yah, yah!” Thisk shouted again, but now he raised his sword in readiness.
Landra watched in horror. Thisk looked focused, but no matter how he controlled his features to calmness, his buried emotions fluctuated his aura in an anxious display of thrashing azure hues. His uncertainty compounded her own terror. She huddled in a ball to watch the scene, like a wind-frozen statue.
The felland crawled toward Thisk, its belly dragging along the city roof. It paused a short distance away, eyes fixed on its prey. The Warrior’s equally intent stare matched the focusing of his aura, and his raised blade held firm. Landra gasped, realizing his calmness came from the hethra. She couldn’t begrudge him the magic for this.
The cat’s swift spring erupted without warning. Thisk’s sword met the animal’s leaping form and squealing carried loud on the wind, but the felland didn’t stop its attack. It was small, Landra realized, difficult to spear, and had sneaked inside the Warrior’s defenses. His blade had pierced its shoulder, but the injury only enraged the animal to a more desperate attack. It wrapped its body around Thisk’s trunk, its teeth bared and its raking claws slashing through his cloak and shirt to t
he flesh beneath.
Landra’s body moved before her brain engaged, and she squeezed the Collector. Pain masked by terror, she climbed to standing, not knowing whether Thisk would expect her to remain still, join the fight, or run. The beast might be hurt, but its strong aura burned with plenty of fight.
“I’m coming!” She burst into a run as she charged toward the battle. By the time she reached Thisk, a frenzy of fur, teeth, and claws had enveloped him. His unwieldy sword couldn’t touch the animal now it was hugging his chest, but he gripped it in a tight squeeze to stem its attack.
The Collector of Souls hung in Landra’s hand, and she made the final charge with it thrust forward.
“Agh!” she screamed, as she plunged the knife into the fight. The frantic battle made targeting the animal difficult, so she stilled for a moment, tracked the felland’s movements, and then struck. Her blade hit the beast more by luck than skill, and its yelp of fury carried on the wind. The felland twisted in her direction, and she saw into its green eyes. Their auras touched, and the shock of its predatory spirit, desperate hunger, and terror overwhelmed her own thoughts. She snarled and crouched, ready to battle like a beast, but Thisk intervened.
He slashed his sword again, this time swiping the felland from Landra’s path. The animal’s raw, uncensored fury pierced her, but another knife-sweep from the Warrior sent it sprawling. She recognized surrender in the animal’s aura before it ran. As it scampered away, blood trailing in its wake, Thisk sank to a knee and clutched his chest. She bent to attend to him.
“Kill it,” Thisk hissed.
“What?”
“Kill the felland. Quick, before it gets away.”
“It’s bolting. We’re safe.”
Thisk’s insistent, dark gaze backed up his order, so she stood and set her stance for a throw. She lifted her knife and stalled at the sight of blood staining the pink blade. She’d not registered fear during the fight, but now her fingers trembled. Her breathing stilled as she targeted the animal. Reluctant to kill a fleeing beast, she froze in position, and the felland limped away. Its aura had dimmed, and she recalled its emotions. Its wild, ruthless nature drove its actions and it needed to eat. How could she blame it for that?