He looked up and saw Isa and Senka exchanging concerned looks. He raised a pleading hand. “Don’t worry, just haven’t thought of him in a long time. Just brought all those memories back. I was tortured by him, by Terar.” It felt strange to be saying that again, the last person he remembered telling was Walter. Why did you have to die? It should have been me. He blew out his cheeks, stood and nervously laughed, shaking his head. “Sorry. So… you said something about some Milvorian artifact?” Juzo lowered himself and sat. “What does it do?”
Senka marched towards him, and before he could think of what to do, she had her arms around him in a firm hug. He didn’t know what to say. One of his arms was held at his side under her arm, the other over her shoulder. What he did know was that it felt good. He pressed his chin against the side of her head and gave her a squeeze. She stepped away from him, not meeting his eyes and not saying a word.
“Thanks,” was all he could manage.
Senka gave a quick nod and flashed him a smile, holding her hands behind her back.
He thought he saw Isa’s face staunching the beginnings of a scowl. “Not going to lose yourself again?” Isa said with a distrustful glance, tying up a sack.
“I’m sure.” He nodded.
“Not going to try to eat any of us either, are you?” Isa licked his lips.
“That joke is growing tired,” Juzo said, the heat of the sun starting to beat on his back. “Don’t have anything better in that big white skull o’ yours?”
“Never seen your reflection, have you?” Isa countered.
“Not nearly—”
“You can control it though?” Senka asked loud enough to cut off Juzo’s next retort. “The hunger? Your need for it?” Isa gave her an approving nod.
Juzo shrugged then swallowed. “Just like controlling any other need, though it does take much self-control. The truth is, being around the two of you is hard. That’s why I was gone for so long, away from men.” He looked up at the clouds and felt a measure of gratitude at the fat cloud obscuring the sun and providing some shade.
Senka bit her lip then looked at her arms, working her hands opened and closed. “That’s good,” she murmured.
“What did you eat then?” Isa sat in the lotus position. “Almonds?” He offered a parted canvas sack to Senka. “A little too salty for my liking.”
“Be careful. You shouldn’t have too much of that sea salt,” Juzo said, looking into his lap. “Ate animals, mostly. Like eating nothing but broccoli. Not enjoyable, but survivable. I don’t thrive on it, but I live. Imagine every meal without meat, and you’ll start to get the idea.”
“Sounds horrible.” Senka frowned.
“But you can control it now?” Isa asked again, leaning forward.
“I have it controlled,” Juzo assured. “Like I said, just like hunger.”
“I’ve seen men do foolish things for food,” Isa said, his brows drawn. “Especially the hungry.” His voice was as sharp as a knife blade.
“About the testing, Isa. You said something about an artifact?” Juzo asked, eager to change the subject.
Isa nodded and took another glug of water. “Right. If you survive the testing, you’re rewarded by being cut with the Knife of Stones. He lifted his shirt and pointed at a scar over his ribs. “This is what made me into the beautiful, hairless creature you see sitting before you.” He savagely grinned.
“Just makes you hairless?” Senka joined him in the lotus posture.
Juzo tried to join them but failed in getting his second heel into his thigh. “Show offs,” he grumbled.
“Years of stretching. Does more than make the Swiftshades hairless, thankfully. Gives us added strength, reflexes, pain tolerance. Pain tolerance being the most useful, I think. A relic of the Old Magic.”
He nodded. “Pain tolerance is not a gift I share.” That was a lie. One had to keep some things to themselves and not expose weaknesses to friends that may one day become enemies as friends were apt to become.
“Maybe you can try to join us someday.” Isa raised his chin, grinning with confidence as if he already knew his response.
Juzo gravely shook his head, not willing to try playing into his trap. “Not for me. Like the Tower, but not that much. Not enough to be bound to it for life and duty.”
Isa scoffed. “Can leave whenever I want.”
“You can?” Senka leveled her gaze at him.
Isa huffed then half-smiled at the sea. A few minutes passed, and the unsaid answer was clear as the whipping wind. He cleared his throat and spat over the edge of the raft. “Don’t suppose anyone managed to save any weapons? Besides these spears,” he patted one of the two rust-pitted spear hafts.
Juzo licked his teeth, wanted to say his weapons were hard to drop. “Dropped them all during the swim. Didn’t know how long we’d be out there.”
“Saved a few needles, blowgun, my father’s daggers.” She pointed at the pair of sheathed Dragon headed daggers nestled between pieces of her armor.
Juzo blinked, unsure of how exactly, but turned on his magical vision. It was much like moving a limb. Her daggers glowed bright as the sun then, and he had to shield his eyes from it. Weak objects glowed with a dull blue, more powerful objects were brighter and a lighter blue. The most powerful almost pure white. Bonesnapper, also known as the Chains of the North was the brightest object he’d ever seen. He looked over the rest of their supplies, Isa, himself and nothing else had the distinctive glow of magic.
“Explains why you were sinking like a rock,” Isa snickered at her. “Value those things more than your life, do you?”
Juzo let his magic vision fade and saw that Senka was blushing. When he used his magic vision, the rest of the world became sheets of grays, made it hard to distinguish depth and distance. Everything had a price.
“Sorry, I couldn’t let them go. I realize it was foolish, but it’s all I have of him, of my past life.”
“I think I understand.” Isa nodded, his eyes going distant, not looking at either of them.
“Powerful weapons you have.” Juzo gestured at the daggers.
Senka took a mouthful of water from the barrel. “Forged in the Black Furnaces. Their edges never dull, the metal unbreakable. Their weight perfectly balanced.”
“I’ve seen weapons from the Black Furnaces before. Chains of the North, for one. I can see the strength of magically infused objects, part of my gift, my curse, and these are no trifle. You may want to experiment with them. I think they might be capable of much more than a tireless edge.”
Senka scratched her neck and frowned at him. “How?” Perhaps she already knew and was hiding their true power. She had to have known.
Juzo shrugged, saw Senka lean towards him with her head tilted. “I’m not sure. It seems like every magical object works quite differently. I had a sword that could talk to me, sometimes even make me do things. Maybe you need to push it a certain way, think a certain thing, say a particular word.” Given the way they both reacted without hardly a blink, they must have already heard about Blackout.
Isa extended one leg and folded his heel against his ass to stretch his quadriceps. “When we get back, if you bring them to the Tower, there are wizards who specialize in that sort of research. I’m sure they could help.”
Senka started rubbing one of the Dragon-hilt blades. “Not sure I could ever let them leave my sight. They’re priceless.”
“Could go with them,” Isa offered.
“You manage to save any weapons, Isa?” Juzo asked.
His brow rose up. “Just my favorite, though it has more use than just for cracking bones.” He grabbed a heavy hammer from the pile of supplies and hefted it in his grip.
Senka gave the hammer a disdainful scowl. “Odd choice for a weapon. Surprised you didn’t lose it when the croc attacked. How’d you learn it?”
Isa eyed the hammer’s head, dented with what looked to be thousands of strikes. “All Swiftshades learn the hammer, the axe, dagger, sword, and bow. I like bows and the ha
mmer. Then you pick your favorite and specialize. Blades tend to ricochet off steel armor, inflicting only glancing blows. Milvorian armor is impenetrable, but hammers still work on the wearer under the armor. The hammer can crush the metal beneath, penetrating the wearer. Even if it doesn’t break the armor, it can transmit force well through even the thickest of steel. Even if a struck helm doesn’t bend or break, still smashes it against your skull, sometimes enough to knock out the most battle hardened warriors. Does nasty things to joints, flattens fingers, good against horses…” He trailed off and started tossing it in his hand.
Senka held her hand out for his hammer, and he placed it in her calloused palm. “Too blunt a weapon for me. I prefer the finesse of the dagger, the swiftness of the needle.” She hefted it, then handed it back to Isa.
“Poisoned needles,” Isa added.
“Yes, and…?” Senka folded her arms, regarding Isa. “Have something against poison?”
Isa looked at her for what felt like minutes, blinking, seeming to weigh his answer. “Poison is effective, no doubt. Fair? Well, what’s fair in a battle? In war? But the pain… well, the pain of poison is something else, something I’m intimately familiar with. Nothing like a regular weapon, far worse.” Isa seemed to shudder, though the day only seemed to be getting warmer.
“Poison is an equalizer.” Senka lowered her chin at Isa and folded her arms under her perky breasts. “It allows someone like me a fighting chance against Death Spawn, a rogue wizard, you, him.” She pointed her head at Juzo. “Poison is natural, it grows all around us, provided by the land itself. To not use poison is to not use the sun to blind your opponent, to not use the Dragon’s blessing, to not throw sand in her eyes, to not use the higher ground against him, to not—”
“I get it,” Isa cut her off with a raised palm. “I get it, alright?”
“You do?” Senka genuinely asked. “Something bothering you?”
“No,” Isa said harshly, making it abundantly clear something was bothering him.
Juzo couldn’t help but find himself snickering at their squabbling, hoping they’d go on. This was starting to become entertaining. He finally gave in and choked down some water, wishing it had more of an iron tang. The middle of his back was already coated in sweat and dehydration was not a beast he wanted to tangle with.
He swept his eye over the water, and the sight of a dark smudge made him gasp. “Is that… land?”
“Land!” Senka sprang to her feet, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “Where?”
“There.” Juzo pointed.
“By the Dragon, think it is.” Isa was up too, staring out.
They started paddling for it with their hands, quickly realizing the fruitlessness of their efforts. “Come, let’s push it. Get in and swim,” Juzo gruffed, dropped into the water at one side of the raft and started kicking. He felt a surge of excitement at the prospect of his feet back on solid earth.
“Have you lost your faculties? What about the sea beasts?” Senka stared at him wide-eyed, hands on her hips. “Haven’t you learned anything? Not going in there.”
Isa dropped in next to him after stripping off everything but his smallclothes, Juzo now wishing he’d done the same. “Going to be a long swim, we should pace ourselves,” Isa said with the biggest smile Juzo had ever seen on the man, maybe the first true smile.
“Not going to join us, Senka? There’re no beasts here, long gone now,” Juzo said between breaths now that his chest was starting to work. He didn’t know if that was true, but a third pair of legs would certainly help.
Senka swept her eyes over the horizon, always scanning. They paddled and kicked for another hour or so and eventually Senka joined them. Isa was right to slow them down because it seemed all that work had been for naught. The tiny smear of land looked just the same hours later. Juzo was starting to wonder if they were caught in some subtle current they couldn’t detect, effectively remaining in the same place.
“We are moving, aren’t we?” he asked. He needed to know they were getting closer. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up. Perhaps the celebrations were premature.
“Hard to say,” Isa huffed and kicked.
“We’re moving,” Senka said confidently. “I know we are, can’t say how exactly, but I can feel it. Not to worry.”
“Yeah? Alright, well, what should we talk about. Should do something to kill the time, eh?” Juzo said.
“How many others are there like you?” Senka asked.
“Me or him?” Juzo said. “Others like me,” he mouthed the words.
“Both,” she said with a smile.
They started to talk over each other at the same time, but Isa relented. “Go ahead.”
Juzo dragged his fingers through his hair, pushing wet tendrils back over his neck. “Well, Walter killed most of my kind, the last I knew of anyway. I turned Malek, one of the Wretched, into a Blood Eater. He made more surrogate Blood Eaters, those under his control. Walter found him in the Tigerian Bluffs after having taken over Terar’s old lair, torched them all to cinders.”
“Most of your kind?” Isa gave him a challenging stare. “There are still others?”
“There were others. I helped the Arch Wizard hunt down and kill the rest. It was easy to do, as they were mine.” Juzo’s jaw locked down tight, making it more difficult to speak. “We got them all, so now there’s only one. At least as far as we know.”
“Why did she let you live?” Isa asked, the words measured, regarding him with a flinty gaze.
“Why not?” Juzo blurted, rage boiling up in his chest, fighting to relax his aching jaw. He mastered himself with a slow breath. “I don’t know. Maybe because I can control it, maybe because she trusts me. Maybe because I survived the Shadow Realm longer than anyone else ever had.” An image hissed across his mind of an endless lake of blood. He remembered dropping onto his knees, plunging his head into it and ravenously drinking. It gave him the strength to run from the demons at his back. It gave him the courage to run and run until time expanded for what felt like tens of years. His bare feet had worn down to bone every day, the flesh fighting to patch it over as it healed anew. “I saw her die, saw all the Death Spawn fall at the Tower. I don’t know why I’m still here.”
He looked over at Isa and Senka and saw them exchanging glances he couldn’t, nor wanted to make out. “Nyset says there might be a cure. She seems to think it’s not the Shadow’s touch, but a disease, a sickness of the mind. But I’m not so sure. The powers it gives me, my strength, it’s surely not a natural origin.” He had to hope there was a future for him.
“You’ve made it this long. It’s a good sign.” Senka smiled warmly at him. Her cheeks seemed to be growing paler by the hour as if all the darkness to her skin was being washed away in the sea.
“Feel that?” Isa said with a laugh.
“What is it? Sea creatures?” Her voice rose up in a note of panic.
“No, no. Relax. The current. We’re in a current taking us for the landmass.”
“I feel it,” Juzo said, noting the subtle pull around his legs and against his shirt. “How can you be sure it’s taking us where we want?”
“Currents flow around land. It will get us close, if not at their shores by morning.”
“We can stop kicking then?” Senka grinned.
“Seems like that’d be the wise course,” Isa groaned and dragged himself onto the raft. He helped Senka up, then they both reached out and took his hands to help him on.
“Thanks,” Juzo muttered. They laid down and caught their breath, drying quickly under the wind and sun. The clouds whirled around overhead as day became twilight and twilight became night. The smear of land did seem to have grown closer, but they were still far off. How far he couldn’t say.
With night came the cold and they had no choice but to huddle up to stay warm. Juzo found being so close to them was too much of a temptation so he chose to shiver by himself at the edge of the raft, the occasional wave sending
icy droplets against his face and side. Even there, he could smell their blood, hear the gentle beating of their hearts urging him to sink his teeth into their arteries. He learned to like the water’s icy slap because it made him angry and uncomfortable which gave him something to focus on that wasn’t his hunger. He wondered what they’d find in Tigeria and invariably his mind questioned what he would eat. He eventually slipped into sleep, thankful for its numbing embrace.
NINE
Tigeria
“Imagination is the ultimate weapon.” – The diaries of Nyset Camfield
Senka’s head throbbed like it was being struck with hundreds of Isa’s hammers. She wanted to smile, to feel genuine happiness at observing the new land ahead, but all she could think about was whether or not she could find Angel’s Moss there. There had to be some, or something that produced an equal effect. There had to be something to ease her pain, something to quench its unwavering call.
The need for it almost felt as urgent as a hand around her throat, slowly squeezing down to throttle the life out of her. She had her hands wedged firmly in her pockets against her thighs to hide their uncontrollable trembling. She couldn’t bear the shame if the others saw her in this state. She was supposed to be strong, a feared killer, master of poisons. She wasn’t supposed to be the one caught in their snares.
Her father would’ve beaten her half to death if he knew she’d succumbed to her own chemicals. She might have even been ousted from the Scorpions, left with nothing but a cold blade to drain the blood from her body. Maybe if she clung on long enough, the feeling would pass. But how long would it take?
The three of them stood in the middle of their precious band of splinted and warped wood, bare feet shriveled from the water that always splashed up through the cracks. It seemed Isa was right about the current. The land ahead was an endless stretch of green teeming with what must have been the tallest forest in the world. It looked as though the trees were fighting each other for sunlight, blotting out the struggling limbs of their brothers below. Tall grasses and shrubs of all shapes and sizes clung onto every part of the earth, the only part seeming unclaimed by vegetation was a strip of beach running all around. A flock of enormous birds swirled over the treetops, their feathers bright with bands of red, orange, and green. At this distance, their wingspans must have been at least six feet across, she guessed.
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