by Rachel Aaron
“You know,” Milo said. “You don’t have to go through with this. I meant it when I said you were a good swordsman. Give you a few years and you could very well become the best, but not yet. The Heart won’t let me hold back. You should stop now, while you still can.”
“I told you before,” Josef said. “I never stop. I can’t stop.” He raised his sword. “Guard yourself.”
The words had barely left his mouth when he lunged. He pushed forward, slamming his feet down faster than he ever had before. He would get only once chance. He’d learned the first day that he couldn’t beat the old man in speed, but yesterday he’d proven he could still trick him. He’d seen the strain in Milo as he stood up. The days of fighting had taken their toll on his old body. Now, weighed down with that enormous sword, especially after so long fighting with a stick that weighed nothing, there would be a hesitation in his first swing as his body got used to the weight difference. That was when Josef had to strike.
He rushed forward, boots pounding on the sand, watching the old man’s arm for the moment he lifted the sword to parry. He had to parry. What else could you do with a sword that big? But the old man didn’t move. He just stood there, watching as Josef came closer and closer. When he was one step away, Josef realized he might have been wrong. The old man might be too slow to catch him. There might be no need to wait for the hesitation in the parry. Already his swords were racing for the man’s torso, one high, one low, and for one shining moment, Josef thought he might actually land the blow before Milo could move.
One moment, that’s all it was. And in that moment, Milo Burch attacked.
It happened so fast Josef couldn’t see the blows, but he felt them. There were three in the space of a second. The first shattered his left sword, the second broke his right, and the third hit him dead across the chest. That last blow knocked the breath from his lungs and sent him flying backward. He hit the side of the hill like a stone hurled from a catapult. For a moment, all he could feel was the rough ground on his back and the strange sensation of air against his chest through his sundered shirt, and then pain like he’d never felt before slammed down and he hit the ground with a sound that would have been a scream had he still had breath.
He floundered in the dirt, his whole body convulsing. Somehow, he ended up on his back again. That was when he saw it, though it took him several moments to realize that the bloody mess he was looking at was his own chest.
A deep, perfect cut ran from his left shoulder to his right hip. It was perfectly straight, as though he’d been cut by a razor, but so deep he had to look away. When he turned his head, he saw Milo crouching beside him, leaning on the Heart of War as he bent down to whisper in Josef’s ear.
“Worst pain you’ve ever felt, isn’t it?”
Gasping, Josef could only nod.
“This is the pain of defeat,” the old swordsman said. “You are dying. I have defeated you utterly. Even if I were to bind your wound right now, there’s no saving your life. This is the end. So now I’ll ask you: Was it worth it?”
Josef looked at him and wheezed, “Yes.”
Milo paused. “And if you’d known this was how it ended, would you still have broken the stick?”
“Yes,” Josef said, his voice little more than a grating of breath. “I would rather die trying than ever give up.”
“Is that so?” Milo said. “Then prove it. Take another breath.”
Josef grimaced and looked down at his sundered chest. He tried to talk, but he had no air for the words.
“I can’t,” he mouthed.
“If you can’t, then all your struggles to this point, all the pain you’ve caused, it’s all for nothing,” Milo said, his voice taut. “Take another breath, Josef Liechten.”
Josef closed his eyes and focused on his lungs. For an eternity, nothing happened. His body was going stiff. Nothing would obey him. He concentrated, pouring every speck of his consciousness into that one action. The pain was so intense now he could barely think, but he felt his chest rise and fall, and suddenly he had air again.
His eyes popped open just in time to see Milo’s face break into a grand smile. The old man held out his hand, offering something. Josef blinked, it was dark and heavy and, he could see now, larger than it looked.
“If you walk the path of the swordsman, you will feel this pain hundreds of times,” Milo said. “You will never know a moment’s peace, even if you move to a hill in the middle of the desert. Your life will be brutish, violent, and most likely short but it will also be glorious. This is what it means to live your life on the sword. You said you would rather die trying than give up. Now you must try living, or die. If you want to live, Josef Liechten, then reach out as far as you can and take your sword. Rise a swordsman, the master of the Heart of War, or do not rise at all.”
His words fluttered against Josef’s ears. The world felt very far away now. Even the pain was going, but Josef could still see the black shape of the sword hovering high above him. With the last of his will, he lifted his arm. He saw his hand moving above him, his fingers stretching up to clutch the wrapped handle. The moment his fingers made contact, a voice deeper and broader than any voice he’d ever heard spoke through him.
Welcome to your rebirth, swordsman. The words were more vibration than sound, but they were clear as carvings in his mind. As you gave your life to become a swordsman, so did I give my life to become a sword. We are the same, you and I. Will you fight with me?
Josef could not speak, but the answer echoed in his mind.
I will.
It is done, the voice said. Welcome to your mountain, master of the Heart of War.
As the voice faded from his mind, so did the pain. Strength like Josef had never felt flowed into his body. All at once he could breathe again. His eyes were clear and open to the world. His arms moved without pain, and he was able to stand enough to let Milo guide him back to the cave and wrap him in the blankets, all the while dragging the massive black blade behind him.
He fell asleep the moment Milo lay him flat, the Heart of War clutched to his chest. How long he slept, Josef never knew, but when he woke it was night and Milo Burch was gone. The cave was empty except for the bloody blankets Josef lay on, the water barrel, and a large supply of food. A loaf of bread and a water skin lay on the ground beside his head, and Josef ate greedily before falling asleep again. When he woke next, it was evening. This time he was strong enough to stand. He went looking for Milo, but the old swordsman was gone. There was, however, a message scratched in soot on the cave wall.
After fifty years as a swordsman, it read, I think I’ve earned the right to live my last few as just a man. Remember why you fight, Josef Liechten, and the Heart of War will never forsake you.
That was it. No name, no date, no direction. Josef smiled. Nothing else was needed. He read the note twice and then rubbed it out with his palm. He gathered the food and as much water as he could carry. Then, tying the great black blade across his back with strips torn from the blood-ruined blankets, Josef Liechten, master of the Heart of War, set off into the desert to become the world’s greatest swordsman.
CHAPTER
1
Den the Warlord, unknowing owner of the highest bounty the Council of Thrones had ever issued, was bashing his way through a jungle. He ripped out the waxy green plants in wet handfuls, kicking the rotten ground whenever it tried to trip him. Insects whizzed by in the humid air above his head, flying at his eyes whenever they dared, biting and stinging and all the while buzzing, “Go away! Go away!”
Den smacked them out of the air and kept going.
He knew by this point that the jungle was another dead end, but he had nowhere else to go but through it. So through it he went, smashing the undergrowth with mechanical efficiency until he spotted something white through the trees. Den slowed at once, sliding into a stance as he pushed the last of the broad leaves back. There, hanging directly in his path between two large trees, was a hole in the world. The ho
le was rectangular, an inch taller than himself, which was to say very tall indeed, and easily wide enough for him to walk through. Its edges were smooth and white, and they shone brighter than the noon sun reflected off water, which explained the flash he’d seen earlier. But strangest of all was that the jungle he saw through the opening was not the one he stood in. It was as thick as his jungle, just as green and overgrown, but the wind that drifted through the white-edged hole was hotter than the humid air around him. The soil on the other side was sandier, the trees denser and older. Though he’d been following a ridge in this jungle, the new jungle was flat, the land unremarkable save for a knot of trees directly ahead, their roots tangled around the entrance of what looked to be a small dirt cave.
Den frowned and took a moment to consider. He’d seen such a portal once before, the only time he’d ever managed to corner a League man. His face broke into a grin at the memory. That had been a good fight.
If he hadn’t already decided his jungle was a dead end, that thought alone was enough to decide for him. Smiling in anticipation, Den stepped forward, ducking through the portal. When his feet hit the ground on the other side, he took up a defensive position, looking for his opponent. But the new jungle was as empty as the old one had been, its trees tossing in the lonely wind. Feeling cheated, Den turned back only to find that the portal was gone, leaving nothing but a fading white line in the baking air.
Den snarled. It wasn’t that he was angry to leave the first jungle. When you were searching blindly as he was, one place was as good as the next. But he didn’t like unknowns, and he certainly didn’t like having fights taken from him. He closed his eyes and listened, ears straining, just on the off chance the League man was waiting for an opening, but it was no use. If the League had been here, they were long gone. Den was working himself into a foul mood over this when he caught a faint sound on the wind, almost like a sob.
All at once, Den’s smile returned. Seemed this jungle wasn’t so empty after all.
He turned on his heel until he was facing the dirt cave below the tree roots. It was a wretched thing, a black hole in the mud held together by tree roots. The entrance crumbled a little as Den pushed his way in. The inside of the cave was dim and low, forcing Den to stoop almost double until he’d climbed down to the bed of mud and leaves that served as the cave floor. When he reached the bottom, he straightened as best he could and gazed through the dark at the woman hunched against the cave’s far wall. Den’s smile split into a toothy grin. Not a League man, true, but a better prize, the one he’d been walking through jungles for almost ten years now in search of.
Despite his noisy entrance, the woman didn’t appear to notice Den for several seconds. Finally, she shifted against the mud, glancing at him through slitted eyes.
“Oh,” she said, looking away again. “It’s you.”
Den crossed his arms. “It’s me.”
The woman didn’t answer, and Den, tired of crouching, sat down. Normally, he would have just knocked the roof out, but he’d been looking for her a long time and, much as it irked him, a little tolerance was a small thing compared to the hassle it would take to find her again if she ran, miraculous portals notwithstanding.
When it was clear Den wasn’t leaving, the woman pressed her face against the cool dirt as though she could somehow ignore him. It was a futile effort, for the cave was very small and Den was a large, large man.
“What do you want?” she grumbled at last.
“What you promised me,” Den said.
The woman laughed, a harsh, joyless bark. “Is your life so dull you’d search all across the Empire to collect a bad debt?”
“You promised me a war,” Den answered calmly. “I crossed half the world for that promise. Does it really surprise you that I would cross the other half to hold you to it?”
She glanced sideways at him, her dark eyes sharp and almost as he remembered them. “I suppose it doesn’t,” she said. “My apologies, Bloody Den, but you’ll have to find someone else to stage your fights.” She turned away, pulling herself against the wall again. “I have no more care to rule.”
“No!” Den’s shout rattled the earthen walls. The woman jumped, flinching as Den leaned in, towering over her despite his seated position.
“You promised me,” he whispered, low and deadly. “Twenty-six years ago you promised me a war. Twenty-six years I’ve waited, fought your warriors, and prepared your troops. I’ve held up my end of the deal tenfold, and you owe me. If you want to lie in the mud and feel sorry for yourself, do it on your own time, but right now you need to finish what you started. You will honor your pledge, or I will test your famous immortality for myself, Nara.” The name rolled off his tongue like a curse.
The woman leaped up from the mud and turned to face him, staring him down like he was a cockroach. “You will not speak so informally to me, barbarian.”
Den leaned back against the cool mud. “I’ll treat you like an empress when you start acting like one.”
For a moment, the rage burned in her eyes, and she was nearly herself again. Her authority radiated through her mud-stained rags, dismissing her long, matted hair and wretched surroundings until he could almost see the Empress he remembered, tall and dark and terrible in her rage. But then, between one second and the next, it crumbled, and she sank to the mud floor in a broken heap.
“What does it matter?” she whispered, letting the dirty mass of her dark hair fall over her face. “The Shepherdess has abandoned me. Everything I did, my entire life, it was all for her. I gave her everything—my soul, my love, my service—but she doesn’t even look at me anymore. All she cares about is that boy.”
The ragged, naked hatred that trembled through her voice when she said the word boy shocked even Den, and he seized his chance. “Of course she doesn’t want to look at you,” he said. “I can hardly stand to see what you’ve let yourself become.”
The woman hissed and turned on him, lashing out with her fist. Den caught the blow with one hand. “Who could love such a self-pitying, wretched hag?” he said, letting his disgust ring clear through the words. “You were the favorite of creation. The unquestioned ruler of half the world for twelve generations. Now look at you, a rat hiding in a cave, and all because your White Lady found a new pet.”
She snarled and the ground began to rumble, but Den held on, pulling her forward until they were eye to eye. “If you want your Shepherdess to love you again, become something worth loving. Even if her boy died tomorrow, she’d never look at you while you’re like this. Who would? No one loves a failure, Nara.”
Her eyes went wide and she wrenched herself free. Den let her go, watching her with a sneer as she stumbled back to her rut in the mud. She stayed there for a long time, not speaking, not moving. Den matched her silence, waiting to see if his gambit played true. If it didn’t, he was in for another long walk. But it seemed he was in luck, for at last she sat up.
“You are a horrible man, Den,” she whispered, pushing the filthy hair out of her face. “But you are also a keen one. Fine. My years of begging have earned me nothing. Perhaps it is time to see what action can do. We shall see who is called favorite when I rule all the world. After all…”
She closed her eyes, and the air in the cave rippled like water. Den flinched as her spirit opened over him. It rolled out of her, a roaring wave of power, and everywhere it touched, the world began to change. The cave walls shook like leaves, the spirits crying in obedient awe as they reshaped themselves to please her.
The roof of the cave vanished, replaced by clear, blue sky. The mud Den sat on flattened, drying and hardening and spreading until he sat in the middle of a court pressed with spiraling patterns of impossible beauty. At the edge of the clay circle, the jungle trees lifted their roots and began retangling them into walls of beautifully knotted shapes. Then, as quickly as it had started, the changes stopped, and Den found himself sitting in a beautiful open court as grand as any he’d ever seen. At its center, seated on
a raised throne of living wood, was the Immortal Empress. The dirt had fallen from her skin and hair, leaving her radiant, her body almost glowing beneath a sheath of beautifully patterned silk, the ends of which were just finishing weaving themselves from the remnants of her rags. Her glossy black hair was piled on her head, each hair holding itself of its own accord in an impossible arrangement that seemed to float over her ageless face, now as stern and as proud as he remembered it.
“After all,” she said again, leaning back on her throne, “I am the Immortal Empress still, a star of the Shepherdess, and I will be victorious.”
She held out her hand, and a white line appeared in the air. Den blinked in recognition as it sank silently through the empty space, glowing like the full moon. Through it, Den could see the interior of the throne room at Istalirin, her war palace, and the chaos of the panicking staff as they realized what that glowing line meant.
A wide grin broke over Den’s face and he hopped to his feet. “So it was you then,” he said. “Suits me. Let’s go.”
“I have no idea what you’re babbling about,” the Empress said. “But this is for me. You’re walking.”
“What?” Den roared.
“You were very disrespectful toward your Empress,” she said with a cutting look. “Your punishment is that you must walk back to Istalirin. Your commission will be ready when you arrive.”
Den frowned. “And you will honor your promise at last?”
The Empress gave him a cruel smile. “Beyond your wildest dreams, Bloody Den.”
And with that, she was gone. The white line shimmered and faded, leaving Den alone in the beautiful court under the sky. He stood a moment, grinding his teeth until he could feel the pain shooting down his neck. Finally, he turned and stomped out. That had been petty, even for her, but he should have expected it. The Empress was a woman, and women were always petty, especially when their pride was bruised. Still, it didn’t matter. He’d just spent almost fifteen years walking the breadth and width of her cursed land, what was another few weeks? What mattered was that he’d done it. He’d found her, and better, he’d won. He would have his war.