Cradle: Foundation (Cradle Collected Book 1)

by Will Wight

  Jai Long's red-wrapped head emerged next, spear held low with its point toward the ground. The sect heir, Kral, followed him with a roguish smile.

  “Fan out,” Jai Long ordered. “Spear first, then—”

  He didn’t get the rest of the command out of his mouth.

  Yerin whipped a wave of sword madra at him, her Striker binding thin as a razor but with the fury of a storm. One of the Sandvipers met madra with madra on the edge of his axe, green power eroding her technique. The force still pushed him back a step.

  Before he'd come to a stop, Yerin had raised her sword. The white blade rang like a bell.

  And every blade in the room answered.

  Glass crashed, lights flickered, and the air filled with a storm of splintered wood and shredded paper. Lindon's vision blacked out as something grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back just as the spear's display case exploded.

  The eruption of sword aura from Yerin's Ruler technique might have killed him, crouched as close as he was to the powerful bladed weapon. He struggled to his feet, setting his pack aside, and thanked Eithan in a shaky voice.

  “No trouble at all,” Eithan said, watching shreds of paper drift down around him like an early snowfall. “It's an honor to save the helpless.”

  One of the Sandvipers was bleeding and slumped against the wall, struggling to stand, but before Lindon caught sight of the others, a constellation of stars flashed out of the debris, blasting toward Yerin like a flight of arrows.

  Her sword gathered a shimmering edge as she wove the weapon in a complex knot, knocking the technique from the air, but her robe still gathered another collection of tears as the lights ripped through her loose sleeves. One gouged the looping ribbon of her red belt, and motes of red essence rose like smoke from the wound before it filled in again, sealing itself.

  Lindon dropped back to his knees, scrambling on the floor for his stinger weapon. He considered searching for the Jai ancestor spear, but he’d lost sight of it in the rubble, and he needed something to defend himself while he snuck around the room. Iron he may be, but a fight was out of the question; if he was caught between Jai Long's technique and Yerin's, the only thing left of his Iron body would be his badge.

  But this was an ancient Soulsmith foundry, loaded with all the elements of a secret project. There had to be some construct he could use against the Sandvipers. He gripped his stinger in one hand and crawled along the aisle, scanning the wall for the bladed glaive construct he'd noticed before.

  He wouldn't be able to use it to fight, but a distraction would serve him just as well.

  A boot slammed down on his weapon.

  Lindon's eyes crawled up, past the sable fur lining the boot, over the midnight pelt hanging like a cloak, to Kral's face. The Sandviper heir looked down on him gravely, like an executioner gazing upon a condemned prisoner.

  He hadn't used a technique yet, so he must want to talk. Lindon had something he wanted: the location of the spear, along with its foundational binding. That gave him leverage. If he kept Kral from joining Jai Long, maybe Yerin could hold out long enough for—

  His thoughts were interrupted by the toe of Kral's boot slamming him in the forehead.

  He flipped over and landed on his back, skidding into a table of bronze and polished wood. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it should, but he was still shakier than a struck gong, and he rose to his feet like a newborn fawn. The sight of bright green in the corner of his eye reminded him that he'd maintained his grip on the Remnant weapon. That was something, at least.

  Kral raised one of his eyebrows. “Iron. I thought you were a Copper.”

  Lindon lowered his weapon and spread the other hand, showing it empty. “Nothing more than a humble Iron, honored Highgold. There’s no blood between us, and I see no reason why any should be spilled.”

  Kral nodded along with every word, then flipped his hand as though gesturing for a servant to leave his presence. Three liquid drops of green madra appeared in the air in front of him, splashing toward Lindon. He hastily raised the Remnant part, but the Striker technique still landed on the skin of his arms, burning like liquid fire.

  He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, tightening his knuckles around the weapon and forcing watery eyes on Kral. The bites of the real sandviper had been a hundred times worse than this. He focused on that thought.

  But Kral had disappeared.

  The young chief's black cloak was still dropping like an abandoned shadow, and hadn't yet crumpled onto the floor, but Kral was gone. As Lindon was still registering that fact, something slammed into his back. He crashed into the table across from him, his head smashing through the solid wood.

  A thick shaft of vivid green madra stabbed into his shoulder, and his breath whooshed out at the blazing spike of agony. Only a few hours with a new Iron body, and he'd already ruined it.

  He struggled up, instinctively trying to escape the pain, but a green haze covered his head. When he inhaled, it tasted like metal in his mouth, and burned like fire in his lungs.

  Kral's boots padded away, leaving Lindon face-down in wreckage, pinned to a destroyed table on a spear of Forged Sandviper madra.

  “The Copper's dead,” Kral said lazily. “Actually, I suppose he reached Iron, didn't he?”

  “So he did,” Eithan said. His voice was pleasant, as though he was chatting with a friend. “If he died, then he has only his lack of ability to blame.”

  “I…can only agree. You're more reasonable than I expected.”

  The voices were hazy through the pain and the lack of oxygen, but Lindon found himself listening nonetheless. After the past two weeks, this level of agony was nothing. It was almost familiar.

  In fact, it was fading quickly.

  “Why don't we come to an arrangement?” Kral continued, his words almost swallowed by a thunderous crash behind him. Yerin and Jai Long, no doubt. “I've seen your ability, and I can recommend you directly to my father.” He paused as another crash echoed through the room. “In fact, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I am Kral, Highgold of the Sandvipers. My father is Gokren, Truegold and chief.”

  “My name is Eithan.”

  The Forged spear pinning Lindon's left shoulder to the table had already dissipated significantly, enough that he could push himself up. His head was starting to spin for lack of air, and he staggered to the side, inhaling a breath.

  The burning venom in his veins had already subsided to nothing more than an uncomfortably warm tingle. Even his stab wound didn't scream quite so loudly, though his left arm was still dangling useless and blood dribbled down his side to the ground.

  He was injured enough that he should have been senseless on the ground in pain, but every breath cycled madra through his channels and lessened the pain by another notch. In fact, his madra was entering his flesh and simply...vanishing, as though his blood had devoured it. His Iron core was emptying at an astonishing rate.

  The Bloodforged Iron body. Sandvipers used it to combat their own toxins.

  And Kral didn't know he had it.

  The Sandviper heir was standing with his back to Lindon, an awl in one hand and his fur cloak in the other. Over his shoulder, Jai Long was pacing toward Yerin, who was leaning on her sword to stay upright.

  “If you have no sect, Eithan, a sacred artist of your skill would be welcome among the Sandvipers.”

  Lindon rushed over to the shattered wardrobe, dropping to his knees and gouging them on the debris. He didn't care, wrenching the lid open and dividing his attention between the box and the Sandviper leader. If Kral glanced around, Lindon was dead.

  Eithan leaned casually against the wall, his gentle smile fixed on Kral. “I'm here looking for fresh recruits. I don't intend to be recruited myself.”

  Lindon fumbled one-handed at the pile of garbage next to him, looking for the spear, but he grasped his stinger first. It would have to do. His fingers caught it on the bright green material instead of the hilt he’d wrapped, wh
ich burned his skin like acid, but this pain was just a breeze next to a thunderstorm. He set it aside, using both hands to lift free a scripted box.

  Two white, spiraling bindings waited within. He slipped one into his pocket and picked up the stinger with his other hand.

  “Especially not by a sect as weak as yours,” Eithan added.

  Lindon could practically feel a winter breeze as Kral responded. “I suspect you may have misspoken, my friend.”

  “I'm afraid not. If I belonged to your sect, which I’m proud to say I do not, I would be painfully ashamed of you. What kind of a Highgold fails to kill an Iron?”

  Kral's spine stiffened, and he started to turn.

  Lindon slammed into him with the end of his bright green stinger, the end digging into Kral's ribs. Blood splashed, and Lindon poured all of his remaining madra into his makeshift weapon. The energy was soaked up like rain in the desert, and the binding activated.

  Three acid-green echoes of the stinger flashed into existence, stabbing into Kral from three different angles. They didn't penetrate far, only scratching him before dissipating, but that was enough to release their venom. Lindon knew that from experience.

  Not that it mattered.

  Kral had an Iron body of his own, and Lindon had hoped to find a better opportunity to attack than this. Eithan had rushed him, threatening to expose him with words, so he’d taken the angle he could get.

  As a result, Kral steadied himself in an instant. His jaw was set in pain, but he was barely scratched. Madra gathered around his fist, and he started to turn and deliver the technique that would reduce Lindon to a pile of smoking bones.

  With the desperation of a cornered animal, Lindon tore the drill-shaped white binding from his pocket and stabbed down.

  The white spiral flashed as it touched blood, blinding bright, and drew Lindon’s Iron core dry like an alcoholic pulling at a bottle. Sandviper madra rushed out from the wound in Kral’s back, visible as bright green lines running up the drill, but Kral himself did not move. He stiffened like a man in the grip of a seizure, eyes peeled unnaturally wide. The technique withered and died on his fist.

  The madra flowed into the binding…but not into Lindon. He’d wondered about that. The binding simply drew out the power, but it took the script on the spear to draw it into himself. The white drill rippled green, brighter and richer with every passing instant. It grew more solid, less like an object painted into existence and more real. In only a breath of time, it was so detailed that it looked as solid as a poisonous green seashell.

  Then it exploded.

  Lindon released the binding just in time to avoid losing a hand, but green light burst like a dying star, and he was launched backward. At the same time, something spattered him that burned like acid.

  His vision blurred in the overwhelming sensation of being devoured by insects, and his mind couldn't keep up. He thought he blacked out for a moment, but he couldn't be sure.

  When he came to, nothing had changed except the pain lessening slightly. His skin was red and tender, but as the last dregs of his madra vanished, healthy skin crawled into place.

  He didn't have the strength to stand, and his spirit felt like a rag that someone had squeezed too many times, and he finally stopped healing when his madra was completely exhausted.

  All he could move were his eyes, and he craned them to their limit, searching for Kral.

  The Sandviper heir lay in a bloody, crumpled heap on the ground. His feet twitched, and Lindon couldn't tell if they were the last throes of death or if he was about to stand up and end Lindon once and for all.

  Yellow hair fell over his vision, and Eithan frowned at him. “That was a very expensive robe.” He lifted a scrap of burned pink cloth lying next to Lindon, which dissolved even as Eithan lifted it.

  Lindon croaked an apology.

  Eithan produced another robe—this one was sky blue, with a pattern of violet birds spreading their plumage—and draped it over him. “This is why I always carry a spare.”

  Spear-wielding members of the Jai clan had surrounded them by now, shouting demands, even as a pair of Sandvipers crashed to their knees next to Kral. Some Fishers loomed over Lindon, hooks in hand, but they didn't look any friendlier.

  A flash of starlight, and Yerin flew backwards like a ballista bolt. Jai Long stalked toward her, spear readied, but his red-wrapped head turned as though he'd caught a scent of something.

  His figure vanished, and then he was vaulting over the members of the Jai clan, landing next to Kral. He shoved the Sandvipers out of the way, placing his palm against the fallen heir's core.

  When Jai Long's hand dropped away and his shoulders slumped, Lindon desperately wished for the strength to run away.

  The man in the red mask rose like a Remnant, spear clutched in one hand, and his eyes focused on Lindon.

  Chapter 18

  Jai Long's weapon crept so close to Lindon's eye that the gleaming spearhead filled his vision with light.

  “His core is shattered. He won't even leave a Remnant. What did you do to him?”

  Every word shook with barely restrained rage.

  Lindon's eyes were stuck to the point of light inches from his head. “If I tell you...” he began, but his voice failed him.

  “I will not let you live,” Jai Long said evenly. “I won't even kill you more quickly. You'll answer my questions now, or you'll answer them later, and it won't change your fate even slightly. You killed my friend.” He nodded to some Sandvipers on the side. “Bag him.”

  Lindon squirmed, but that did nothing but make him feel as though nettles were scraping along his skin. He'd run out of madra before his Bloodforged body had finished healing him, so the venom still lingered in his veins and on his skin. His shoulder had settled into a numb sort of distant agony, as though someone had packed the wound with snow.

  His imagination chewed on everything they could do to him once they had him in the bag, and Yerin still hadn't risen from where she'd fallen. Had she died? Her Remnant hadn't risen, but she would be in no shape to help him. Nor could he help her.

  He only had one hope left.

  Eithan stepped in front of Lindon in a rustle of white and blue cloth. “Under other circumstances, I'd let you kill him. I'm a firm believer in self-sufficiency. But this seems just a tad unfair.”

  Jai Long shifted his gaze to Eithan, and even the aura responded to his intensity. Lindon didn’t have to open his Copper senses to see a halo of light surrounding the Highgold, and invisible blades gouged lines from the floor around his feet. “I am Jai Long, Highgold formerly of the Jai clan. I suspect you are a Highgold yourself, maybe even Truegold, but know this. If you stand before me now, you will make yourself an enemy of the Sandviper sect and the entire Jai clan.”

  “They care so much for an exile?” Eithan asked. He sounded curious.

  Jai Long did not pause a beat. “For me? No. For their reputation? Everything. You will have stood before a clansman for the sake of an Iron, and they will only save face by killing you. Stand aside, or we will water your home with blood and sow the ground with salt.”

  The worst part was how each of his words was delivered flat and absolute. The Jai clansmen behind Jai Long shifted and looked at each other, but they didn't put down their spears. The Sandvipers looked ready to draw blood with their teeth, and even the Fishers glowered.

  Meanwhile, Eithan rummaged around in the pockets of his outer robe.

  “I don't disagree with you on any particular point,” he said, “and certainly I don't wish to impugn the honor of the famous Jai clan.” He bowed to the spearmen in blue. “Having said that...in truth, this was my fault. I didn't introduce myself properly earlier.”

  From his outer robe, he withdrew an intricately filigreed golden badge. It was bigger than the badges used in Sacred Valley, and far more ornate. There was no ribbon of silk threaded through it, as though it were meant to be displayed by hand.

  Lindon couldn't see what was printed on
the front, but it made the Jai clan go pale and throw their weapons aside. Even the Sandvipers backed up a step as though pushed back by a heavy wind.

  “My name is Eithan Arelius, heir to the Arelius family, Underlord in service of the Blackflame Empire, and the greatest janitor alive. This young man is an agent of my clan, working under my aegis and my protection, and any action against him will be considered action against me.”

  Eithan relaxed and tucked the golden badge back into his robe, but not before Lindon caught a glimpse of a black crescent moon on white, set deeply into the badge, with sapphires playing around the edges.

  Lindon finally started breathing again, and he couldn't quite remember when he'd stopped. There would be no bag for him after all.

  But Jai Long's spear didn't waver.

  “The Arelius family is still a day out,” he said, his voice flat as a lake and cold as steel. “No Underlord moves ahead of his clan, and they have no reason to move in secret. The Arelius Underlord would have taken control of the whole Five Factions Alliance and commanded whatever he wanted.”

  With a clear lack of concern, Eithan strolled over to the wreckage nearby and bent down. He emerged with a gleaming white spear, which shone like condensed starlight in his hands.

  “What I want,” Eithan said, “cannot be commanded.”

  Like a man throwing an undergrown fish back into a lake, he tossed the spear into the debris from which it came.

  While every eye followed the arc of the Jai ancestor's spear, Eithan moved to face Jai Long.

  And something pressed down on Lindon's soul.

  It was like the feeling of having his spirit searched, but ten thousand times stronger. A thousand-pound weight pushed down on his core, weighing his madra, making him feel as though he were being pressed into the ground. He gasped for breath.