Skysworn (Cradle Book 4)

by Will Wight

  The hand was solid red, as though it had been dipped in blood. With one sharp gesture, the young man made a fist.

  A lance of pain shot through Ren's heart.

  He clapped a hand to his chest, his lungs freezing up, and the break in his concentration made his cloud shudder. An instant later, the script in his armor flashed, breaking off the blood Ruler technique that had almost killed him. The red aura was pushed away from him, his heart relaxed, and he heaved a huge breath.

  This time, he flew as fast as he could. There was no thought in his head besides escape.

  He made it a few more yards before something seized him around his ankle and dragged him off his cloud.

  Before Pai Ren hit the ground, he screamed one last time. No one heard him.

  ***

  Lindon hobbled out into the sunlight to see what the noise was about. He and Gesha had been preparing his new arm when the mountain shook with an overwhelming crash.

  He still hadn't fully recovered from the fight, his body still sore, his madra still weak. Little Blue had cleansed some of his madra channels, but they were still scraped raw.. His body felt as though it was made of clay, and he was pushing it through each step with sheer willpower. Gesha had tried to keep him in his bed, assuring him that he needed his rest, and that she would investigate the noise.

  But Yerin was supposed to arrive today.

  Fisher Gesha held the door open for him, but she was distracted. Her bun of gray hair was in his face as she stared out the door.

  Before he saw anything, he was distracted by the feeling of a huge power to the south. He looked that direction first, and it was as though the sunlight had been filtered through a lens of red glass only a few miles to the south.

  But when he realized what was lying right in front of him, all thoughts about that distant power were pushed from his mind.

  The wreckage of Sky's Mercy was strewn all over the side of the mountain, with dust and smoke rising from the debris. Blue wisps of cloud were still dissolving in the air, and here and there he could see something he recognized: a chair lying upside-down, a twisted piece of what had once been a dragon-headed banister.

  Then he spotted a figure in black robes, and he shot forward, his wounds forgotten. Yerin was lying there on the stone, bloody and broken, with Cassias next to her.

  His spirit told him Orthos was nearby, but only a quick glance assured him the turtle was fine: his limbs and head had been retracted into his shell, and he was sitting at the center of the wreck like a smoldering coal. If Lindon was reading his spiritual sensations correctly, his contracted partner was sleeping.

  But when he looked at Yerin's condition, his throat tightened up. She was lying on her side, blood pooled beneath her head, with her legs twisted around one another. Her arms were limp, her fingertips twitching, her bare sword lying twenty yards away. At least she hadn't fallen on it. Even her belt had come undone, somehow, twisting around her body instead of coiling around her waist.

  He knelt beside her, raising trembling fingers an inch away from her lips to feel for breath.

  An instant later, he felt her exhale, and he released his own breath. As long as she was alive, she could be saved.

  Cassias' corpse was a few steps away. Lindon only looked him over once before knowing he was a lost cause. He didn't need to check for a pulse; the man was covered in wounds and soaked in blood. No one could—

  Cassias stirred, raising a hand to his head. Lindon jolted, hurrying over to the older man to help him sit up.

  “Don't push yourself,” Lindon advised. “We're here.” He had no idea what they would do, but it seemed important to soothe a man who had just survived a violent crash.

  When it seemed Cassias could sit up on his own, Lindon began to walk back to Yerin, but the Arelius seized his arm.

  “Stay away,” Cassias said, voice rough.

  He was shaky from the crash. Lindon had seen this before, back in his clan, on people who had survived battles. He tried to pry himself away gently, but Cassias' grip was like an eagle's talon. He staggered to his feet, pulling Lindon away from Yerin.

  Toward Eithan.

  Eithan had, of course, made it here before Lindon and Fisher Gesha had even made it out of their rooms. But Lindon hadn't noticed until now that the Underlord had made no effort to help his family member or his disciple.

  Instead, he stood on the very edge of the cliff, staring at the red light in the distance.

  Which, now that Lindon thought of it, seemed a little closer than it had been a moment ago.

  Wind tugged at Eithan's hair, and for once he wore no smile. He stared into the red light like a man contemplating the approach of an advancing army.

  “Her Blood Shadow has awakened,” Cassias reported to Eithan.

  “It's no wonder, considering what's coming,” Eithan said, still looking to the south.

  “We should remove it. We should have removed it before now, I can't imagine what you were thinking.”

  “No, you can't,” Eithan said, pulling out his black iron scissors. With one swift motion, he sliced open the tip of his finger.

  Then, without warning, he turned on his heel and headed for Yerin.

  Yerin's belt stirred and struck like a serpent when Eithan moved closer, which startled Lindon. Fisher Gesha scuttled away on her spider's legs, looking terrified, but neither Cassias nor Eithan seemed surprised. The Underlord simply let the end of the blood-colored rope strike him on the neck, where it did no more damage than a limp string.

  Eithan pulled Yerin's robes apart.

  He tore the cloth easily, exposing about a foot of her belly. There were thin scars even there, though not as many as on the skin of her arms and face. It was just her stomach, but Lindon still thought about looking away.

  But the sight stopped him. The bloody rope that she had always worn like a belt stretched out from her navel, as though it was made of her intestines.

  Or, a more disturbing thought: as though it stretched into her core.

  Eithan sketched in her skin with his blood, writing a circle of symbols around her navel. It must be a script, but Lindon recognized none of it. He took in a breath, and then a gray fire ignited the symbols. Soulfire: the power of an Underlord.

  Lindon still didn't understand it, as Eithan refused to explain, but soulfire was the hallmark and the signature of a Lord. This script used it as power.

  And the red rope crumbled away. It wilted and shriveled like a dying plant, dissolving into what looked like flakes of dried blood before it finally evaporated to red essence.

  Just like that, it was gone. The circle of symbols on Yerin's stomach had been blackened, as though they had been burned into her flesh.

  She woke up only a second later, coughing. She groaned. “Somebody find the ox that trampled me.”

  Lindon hurried over to her, but Eithan had returned his gaze to the south. “You'll feel worse in a moment,” he said. His scissors were still in his hand. “Battle is upon us.”

  Lindon was going to ask what he was talking about, then he saw the wall of red had pressed against the edge of the mountain. His eyes widened.

  Then red light swallowed them all.

  Chapter 9

  It was as though the sun had turned red.

  Even in Lindon's Copper sight, everything was died crimson. His stomach heaved, and bile rose in his throat—this felt like being submerged in a pool of blood.

  He closed his spiritual sight before he lost himself, but what he saw in reality was even more disturbing.

  Where Cassias and Yerin had been lying on the stone, creatures rose from their blood like Remnants from corpses. They were only half the size of a person, with featureless faces, and their bodies had been formed from gelatinous blood.

  There were six of them in an instant, turning their heads toward Lindon and the others as though they could smell living flesh.

  They lurched forward, but Eithan blurred through their ranks, his scissors sweeping through the air
.

  Blood madra sprayed into the air and dissolved into essence, and all six of them deflated.

  Fisher Gesha pointed a trembling finger at the sight. “That! What is that? Hm? Did you bring those back with you?”

  “These are bloodspawn,” Eithan said, shaking the last stains off his scissors as the liquid madra evaporated. “They are the least of the Bleeding Phoenix's creations.”

  Gesha seemed to shrink into herself even more, though she didn't have much size to lose. “The...the Bleeding Phoenix? Did you...are you saying...”

  Cassias grasped at his hip as though feeling for a sword that wasn't there. He frowned at the space, then fumbled at his other hip. Of course, there was still no weapon. The crash had shaken him.

  “What happened here, Eithan?” he asked, finally giving up on his saber.

  “Jai Daishou opened a door he should not have,” Eithan said, moving his head as though watching something move through the air. Something that Lindon couldn't see. “Someone noticed.”

  “Dreadgods,” Fisher Gesha repeated, shaking. “Dreadgods...”

  “Bloodspawn rise from spilled blood,” Eithan said. “When it's still inside you, or on your skin, your madra still has control. The Phoenix's power can't do anything with it until it leaves the influence of your spirit.”

  “Unless the Phoenix itself rises,” Cassias pointed out. He was leaning against the back of an upturned couch that had fallen from Sky's Mercy, and he still didn't look balanced.

  Eithan nodded absently, still watching something in the air. “A Dreadgod doesn't care for the protection of your meager spirit. This isn't its full attention, just a side effect of its awakening.”

  More bloodspawn formed from the drops spilling from Cassias and Yerin, but Eithan dispersed them with a couple of quick blasts of pure madra. Lindon needed to learn that technique.

  “Forgiveness, but we should leave,” Lindon said at last. He felt like he was stating the obvious, but no one else had said it. If the red light was the extent of the Phoenix's influence, they had to escape it.

  Eithan responded without turning. “I could take myself out of here. I could take Yerin with me, and perhaps Cassias. You, with your Thousand-Mile Cloud, could take Fisher Gesha. But what about Jai Long and Jai Chen.”

  Lindon started. They were still here?

  “And what if we have to fight our way out?” Eithan continued. “Do we abandon our charges? If we are to run, we first have to clear some space.”

  Yerin rose unsteadily to her feet, clutching one arm as though it pained her. “Then let's stop jabbering and do it,” she said, hobbling over to her master's sword. Leaning over and picking it up was an agonizing production. “Better than sitting here.”

  “Don't worry. They have come to us.”

  A young man appeared beyond the edge of the cliff, his pale face framed by black hair that stretched down to his waist. He wore a dark, shapeless coat that covered his shoulders, and as he slowly rose up the side of the cliff, Lindon saw that the cloak covered even his feet.

  He was standing on a rising tide of blood.

  The newcomer stepped from his red platform onto the edge of the mountain without a word, his gaze locked on Eithan's. “Underlord,” he said, his voice a whisper. He sounded as though that single word pained him.

  “An emissary of Redmoon Hall, if I'm not mistaken,” Eithan said. His voice was cheery, but he still wore no smile. His scissors were held ready in his right hand.

  “I am Longhook,” the emissary said. A gleaming red hook appeared at the end of his right sleeve, as though it were made of crimson-dyed steel. In that light, everything looked red, so its color could have been nothing more than a trick of the eye.

  Though he doubted it.

  The hook slowly slid to the ground, revealing link after link of red chain. In a moment, the hook hit the ground with a clink.

  Eithan looked from his enemy’s weapon to his own. “Longhook, is it? You can call me Tiny Scissors.”

  Longhook didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. He stood like a statue carved from ice.

  “What does your master want?” Eithan asked, casually strolling away from the other members of the Arelius family.

  “North,” Longhook whispered. “He wants the treasure of the north.”

  “By all means, go around us,” Eithan offered.

  Lindon wondered what Eithan was doing. Why was he trying to make a deal with the enemy? Eithan often preferred to talk his way around problems, but he had already said they would have to fight. And he had dispersed the bloodspawn with no problems. Why didn't he knock this newcomer off the mountain?

  Gingerly, feeling as though he were submerging his arm in sludge, Lindon extended his perception.

  Only an instant later, he understood the truth.

  Longhook blazed with the power of an Underlord.

  “No,” the emissary responded. “A piece of the treasure...here.” His breath rasped, so many words apparently having been too much for him.

  Eithan froze a moment, then his smile reappeared. “Well then, I think we can come to an—”

  In the middle of his own sentence, he exploded into motion. The air clapped behind him when he moved, driving his scissors at his enemy.

  Lindon couldn't follow what happened next, only the explosion of sound, a rush of wind, and a flash of red light.

  A column of stone exploded under Longhook's weapon, the hook having missed Eithan and slammed into the building behind him. Eithan avoided even the chain as though it were red-hot, vaulting over it, and slamming his fist into Longhook's chest. A ripple of colorless power surged out, blasting past the Redmoon Hall emissary.

  This exchange of blows was still too fast for Lindon to follow, but the emissary didn't seem slowed down by Eithan's attack at all. It ended in Eithan leaping backwards, and Longhook with one arm extended. It stuck out from his coat, and his arm was sheathed in solid red.

  Was that his Goldsign? Or was he covered in one of those bloodspawn?

  He'd hauled his hook back to himself, and now he whipped it at Eithan. It struck with an impact that hurt Lindon's ears, carrying the sound of steel-on-steel as Eithan blocked with his scissors.

  The impact sent him flying back toward the building on the mountain, and Longhook was after him in an instant.

  From start to finish, the whole exchange took perhaps two seconds.

  Lindon stared after the crashes and explosions coming from inside the building. He shivered.

  He couldn't have blocked a single one of those strikes. He would have died in an instant.

  He'd started to think of Jai Long as close to Eithan's level, but the first step toward Underlord was nothing compared to the real thing.

  “I say we leave,” Lindon said, moving to help Yerin walk. She waved him away, though she winced at the motion and her arm was starting to swell. He stayed next to her, just in case.

  Cassias was in even worse shape, his eyes distant. Fisher Gesha nodded to Lindon's words, scuttling off to the side entrance of the building—the sounds from Eithan's fight had already grown distant, but she was still careful.

  Slowly, Cassias shook his head. “Not yet. There are more coming.”

  Lindon scanned the ground, but no new bloodspawn had risen. It looked as though the blood from Yerin and Cassias' injuries had been exhausted.

  “Not ours,” Cassias said, and pointed to the edge of the cliff.

  Where Longhook had first appeared, there were now a host of featureless heads popping over the edge. They clambered up with their malformed arms, but these seemed somehow different from the ones before.

  The others had been slightly angular, with sharp features and long limbs. These were still made of blood madra, and still had no faces, but their bodies were twisted and gnarled. As though there were a skeleton of wood underneath. There was even a pattern in the flow of their crimson “skin,” where Lindon caught an impression of fluttering leaves.

  His guess was confirmed an ins
tant later, when one of the bloodspawn exploded into a branch of crimson vines covered in scarlet leaves. The vines rushed across the ground for them, like a nest of hungry snakes.

  Next to him, Yerin shuddered. Her skin was even paler than usual—although that might have been the blood loss—and she clutched her master's sword in both hands. He had never seen her so panicked before.

  “No, no, no,” she said. “Not this time.”

  With a desperate shout, she slashed her white blade at the grasping vines. Lindon heard a sound like a bell, and something sliced at the edges of his robes.

  The vines splattered to liquid madra, which quickly began to dissolve.

  So did the ranks of the bloodspawn.

  Lindon caught her with his left hand as she sagged, exhausted, but his sudden motion pulled loose the scripted band around the stump of his right arm. Pain flared back again, dull but immediate, and his eyes lost focus.

  He fell to his knees, taking her with him.

  She shook for a moment, then her eyes fastened on the space where his right hand had once been. “Your arm,” she said, looking up to him with wide eyes.

  He forced a smile. “Better than my life, isn't it?”

  “Doesn't make it smiles and rainbows just because you lived,” Yerin said. “Heavens know, I’m sorry. I’m just…” She looked back to the splashes of blood and shuddered again. “I am sorry.”

  In mortal danger they may have been, but her sympathy warmed him even as it caught him unprepared. He thought she would say he should just bear it and stop complaining.

  “I've been down that road,” she said, rolling her sleeve up to reveal a scar around her left elbow. “Lost both of them, to tell you true.” Another scar ringed her right wrist. “And chunks out of both legs so they hung there, useless as rust on a blade. It's no joke. Nothing worse than an itch on a limb you’ve already lost.”

  “How did you get them back?” Lindon asked. As interested as he was in the powers of a Remnant arm, if he could get his own arm back...

  “Master had a pill for everything. He could regrow a limb faster than a flower. Expensive, though, so he always made me work for it.”