Broken Soul (The Scholar's Legacy Book 1)

by Joshua Buller

  “Scholar,” it breathed. Hawke tensed at the word, but the figure broke contact with him as its eyes darted to fix on me. My blood froze in my veins.

  “Who is the girl?” came the forced words from the husk. Hawke looked between me and it, confusion etching lines across his face.

  “Micasa? Didn't you tell Samuel to have me bring her?”

  “I assumed Rouge would be with you. I meant her.” The suit of armor rattled as its wearer shifted slightly.

  Hawke's eyes darkened. “Rouge is dead, Uraj.”

  A wisp of noise passed out of the effigy, the barest excuse of a gasp.

  “This…isn't what we planned.” it breathed. A jolt ran through my friend's body.

  “You didn't plan this? Then what DID you plan, Uraj!? What was this all about!?” he screeched at the desiccated remnants of the king. Uraj remained silent for some time. “TELL ME!” Hawke bellowed even louder. The figure sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “Not yet.” Its head tilted to the side. “All would go to waste if I simply told you.”

  “Then what do you want!?” Hawke roared with clenched fists. In response, a low rumbling started to fill the room. The flames danced wildly as if caught in a wind storm, and a cascade of dust rained from the roof. Slowly, so slowly that I thought I was seeing things, the figure of the Forge rose from the throne. The suit of armor clanked noisily against itself, hanging off a frame ill-suited to wear it. The withered face turned to regard Hawke, and its silver eyes sparkled in the flames.

  “I want what's yours.” Those horrible deadened lips pulled back into a mockery of a smile. Hawke's own lip curled in disgust, and in a flash, he was gone.

  Hawke was on Uraj with his sword drawn before I had noticed he had moved. The blade was a reddish blur aimed straight at the Forge's shriveled head, but it stopped short with a crack of thunder. Undeterred, Hawke stepped back and whirled around to bring his sword up towards one of the joints in the loose armor, point first. Again, it jolted to a halt inches from its target with another resounding crash. Hawke's assault was relentless, and yet it was like an invisible wall had been placed all around Uraj that deflected any attack made on him.

  I was so transfixed on their struggle that I gasped when a bead of sweat stung my eyes. I thought the tension was making me perspire, but no – the room had grown unbearably warm during the last few seconds. It was also considerably brighter than I remember when we had entered. Tearing my attention away from the fight, I blanched in horror at the sight of the braziers surrounding the room. Their flames stretched toward the ceiling, fingers of heat twisting and grasping upwards.

  On some unseen cue, the scorching pillars swayed and descended as one, like snakes striking out. Hawke glanced upward a split second before they would engulf him. In a single bound, he catapulted himself backwards and out of harm's way. The combined force of the flames scorched the very stone black, their impact sending a wave of shimmering heat directly towards the both of us. Hawke screamed an obscenity as he put his hands together and swept them apart as he did in Val'Hala.

  It was something like out of a dream, the inferno splitting into two tempests that raged completely around both of us. It dissipated quickly, revealing Uraj still standing right where it had been before. The emaciated visage looked down at the burned dais and let out a dusty chuckle.

  “Close,” was all it had to say. Hawke glanced back at me as if to ascertain my safety, before whirling back on his foe.

  “If you're intentionally trying to hurt Micasa…” he started, letting the venom in his tone finish for him. The Forge's head turned shakily to one side, then the other.

  “Only you,” it insisted. The braziers began to burn fiercely again.

  “Micasa, keep back a bit,” barked Hawke with a wave of his hand. “I can't trust that you'll be safe if you stand this close to him.”

  I scuttled off until I was practically at the door, but I could hear the clap of their attacks already starting again before I had turned around.

  My companion was striking out in a fury of blows, each landing with a louder peal of thunder than the first. They still refused to make contact, but even with his essence shielding him from harm, Uraj was rocked back and forth with every strike. His flames struck individually now, firing from the braziers and lashing out like hellish whips. Hawke paused his charge only to duck or pirouette out of harm's way. The few tongues of fire that did find him rolled away harmlessly thanks to his own essence, but even when dodging, he would flow right back into his strikes the moment he was out of danger. I understood then what the name of his style – “Sword Tempo” – truly signified.

  They might have fought for hours. In the heat of the moment, literal and figurative, there was no telling how long their powers would hold out. It seemed that Hawke was gaining the upper hand, though, as Uraj staggered more and more with each deflected blow. Its conjured flames began to sputter as if sensing their master's predicament.

  With a mighty swing, Hawke brought his sword into the breastplate of the burnished armor where it finally made contact, burying deep into the steelwork. Uraj slumped to his knees and the living fire receded until the braziers were left with little more than glowing coals that filled the room with shadows. Without hesitation, Hawke lashed out his free hand straight towards Uraj's cadaverous, unprotected face.

  There was a snap, and a lobstered gauntlet met Hawke's grasp. Uraj's arm bent at the elbow in the wrong direction. Their fingers entwined, steel on flesh. Hawke grimaced, pulling back like he was trying to break the grip, but Uraj somehow managed to hold firm.

  A sucking sound emanated from the hollow that was the Forge's mouth, and his mailed hand began to glow an angry orange. Smoke curled from between their hands, a heartbeat before Hawke's hand burst into flame.

  I shrieked at the same time as Hawke. Their grip released, and my guardian went stumbling backwards off the dais while holding his burning hand over his head. Uraj was staggering to its feet, a steady hiss still emitting from its frozen mouth, Symphony still lodged in its plate. I watched on, horrified, as the flames consuming Hawke's arm slowly crept towards his shoulder. Uraj's focus was fixed on that flame, the air warping around him as he bade the fire to engulf my friend.

  Hawke finally recovered from his surprise and held the arm in front of himself, concentrating intensely. The flames stopped climbing, but still burned fiercely. Hawke grimaced and knit his brow in effort. The smell of cooked flesh was filling the room and making my stomach lurch. Finally, the fire began to flicker and sputter, and then at last die down completely.

  The relief was short lived when I saw why the flames had vanished: there was simply nothing else to burn. Hawke's arm had been completely incinerated, to the point where even the bone had been reduced to ash. Hawke panted, sweat and tears streaming down his face, as he surveyed the blackened stump that remained.

  The sight was enough to curdle my blood, but before I had a chance to grieve, the stump twitched. A tangled mess of flesh, muscle, and bone sprouted from the wound and writhed. Like some morbid artist at work, the shape twisted and folded until landing on the shape of an arm, where it tightened and lay still.

  Hawke took a few seconds to flex the fingers of his new appendage. His breathing slowed, and his body relaxed as the last of the pain subsided. For all that had happened in those couple minutes, the worst he had been left off with was a missing sleeve from his robe.

  Then Uraj laughed.

  Chapter 21: The King of Men

  It was like someone was sawing through green wood. The hollow man threw its head back and the sound poured out, echoing against the stonework walls. Then came the choking noise. Its whole body began to convulse and shudder. The armor rattled like it was alive. Even so, the thing that was Uraj continued to laugh its macabre laugh.

  Then its face began to swell. The greyed, leathery flesh brightened, the eyes rose from their sunken sockets. Teeth erupted from desiccated gums. Platinum hair burst forth from its scalp to join
with what wiry remnants had been there before. Its broken arm jolted and snapped back into proper shape.

  The suit of plate that had before been hanging limply ballooned outwards, filling with bulging arms and stocky legs and a barrel chest. No more did the figure slump with the weighty steel's encumbrance. It stretched upwards to a height akin to Hawke's, and still it laughed. Now, though, there was music to this laughter. It sang a song of feelings long forgotten and warmly remembered.

  When at last all grew quiet, a man stood where before was only an abomination. He lowered his head, loose strands of his newly grown hair falling around his shoulders. His eyes, more alive than they had been in decades, danced over us. Stout fingers caressed the side of his face that once held a scar, vanished with the last traces of the husk we had met. He let out a throaty chuckle and held out his arms as if to welcome us for the first time.

  Uraj Kuznetsov, the Old King, the Forge, had been revived.

  “It's more than I had dreamed,” his voice rumbled in a polished baritone. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, swung his arms, twisted his neck. Each little move made him titter like a child. “I never thought I'd feel this good again.”

  Hawke's face was aghast. He looked mutely from his arm to the man before him.

  “This was what you wanted all along,” he said.

  Uraj smiled amicably at him. The look came across as patronizing on his face. “Of course. You think I enjoyed being a shriveled prune of a person? I thought observation was supposed to be your expertise, 'Scholar.' ” He chuckled a little. Hawke bristled, his fists clenching until his knuckles turned white.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” the Forge added. He held up his left hand asking for patience while his right reached underneath his breastplate and rummaged a bit. With a tug, he dislodged the largest shinestone I had ever seen from the depths of his armor. Large as a grapefruit, it pulsed a dark purple in his grip.

  “Catch,” he called out, tossing the stone underhand to my companion. Hawke snatched it out of the air with both hands. Light flooded the room, and even with my prior experience with the phenomena, I was caught unaware and rendered blind. My eyes watered, and I desperately blinked to try and clear my vision. When at last it returned, Hawke was standing where he had been before.

  He looked no different than usual, and at the same time, it felt like I was seeing him for the first time. When he looked back at me, I saw I was only partly right about his unchanged appearance, for where he once had pale blue eyes, they had turned a glittering silver.

  “I'm sure it's felt like ages since you've felt whole, Hawke,” Uraj said. His own eyes had changed too, deepening to a hazel so dark they were almost black. He wrenched Symphony from where it still lodged in his armor and tossed it across the floor. It slid until it struck Hawke's foot. My friend made no move to pick it up.

  The Forge shrugged and took his seat on the throne again, arms curling around their rests. Seeing him sitting there, resplendent in his battle raiment and hardened features regarding us, I could understand why people would bow their head to him as their king.

  “I assume an explanation is in order,” he said after some time.

  “Damn right,” Hawke snapped. He turned his eyes of quicksilver on his former colleague, boiling with anger.

  “Long story short, I made a plan where Rouge would help me gain your power of rejuvenation. Things went horribly wrong,” Uraj summed up quickly. Hawke narrowed his eyes.

  “Uh, I want the long version, jackass,” was his reply. Uraj leaned his forehead on steepled fingers.

  “Yes, of course you would,” Uraj mumbled. If I didn't know better, I would have said he looked embarrassed. He cleared his throat.

  “Hawke, we've been trying to scrape together some semblance of life for humanity for over four centuries. That's a long time.” Uraj raised an eyebrow, “Honestly, longer than either of us have any right to living. And yet how far have we really gotten? We've eked out this meager existence on our little pile of dirt we call Astra, yet the grinel still hold the only remaining continent on the planet; one almost thrice the size of our island. Their resources far outstrip ours, their numbers are greater, and their average citizen could be a match for ten of our greatest warriors.”

  “What's this have to do with my situation?” Hawke said impatiently. Uraj bared his teeth.

  “Think about something other than yourself for once!” he snarled. “Why are we allowed to continue to live here? These aren't the days of old. The grinel have ships now. They could easily sail here and overwhelm us, wreaking havoc the likes of which we haven't seen since the Pilgrimage. What's to stop them?”

  Uraj seemed to be waiting for an answer, but when none came, he sighed.

  “We're here, Hawke. The grinel still fear us, they fear what we did to the grinel who were here before. They might be able to conquer us with their full force, but the damage they sustain would be catastrophic. They don't want to risk it.”

  “Okay, I can see where you're coming from,” Hawke acquiesced. “So you wanted my healing was because you feared that if you died, we'd lose half our bargaining power.”

  “Basically,” Uraj said. “I may be able to resurrect myself, but it takes far too long for me to regain my strength afterwards. Time that the grinel could use to undo all our work. If I could gain your healing, though, that would never be an issue again.”

  Hawke flopped onto the ground and crossed his legs. Leaning his cheek against a hand, he stared at the ground lost in thought. “So why take my Scholar power? Why not just take my healing and be done with it?”

  “Hawke, whatever disagreements we have, I would never want you dead or irreparably injured,” the Forge said. For a man with such a hardened face, I wouldn't have thought it possible to see tears streaking down his face. Yet there they were, tracing shining lines along the old soldier's face. He didn't strike me as the type who could fake something like that.

  “I didn't want to steal the power from you,” he elaborated. “If I had just taken a shinestone with your healing, I'd have to keep it. No, I wanted to copy it.”

  Hawke nodded. “And the only way to do that was the power of the Scholar.”

  “Exactly.” Uraj idly drummed his fingers on his knee, twirled a lock of his hair, and fidgeted incessantly as he talked. He was clearly uncomfortable with where the story was leading. He took a deep breath to steady himself and pressed on.

  “The plan seemed simple. Rouge would give me your power of the Scholar; I give you some minor injury when you come back to take it. Then you heal, I copy it, and I give you back the Scholar's power.”

  “When did you even have time to plan this?” Hawke interjected.

  Uraj looked at him as if he were joking for a second. “You don't remember? Those seven odd years ago when Rouge and you came to Damkarei for a short visit?” When Hawke shook his head, Uraj's brow furrowed. “I thought all your memories were together.”

  “They were. Some slave owner had them. He had me working for him too.” Hawke's glare returned. “You still haven't explained how that happened.”

  “Well,” Uraj dragged the word out, “there was a complication when Rouge tried to pull the power of the Scholar out of you. Turns out that your other powers were tied to it, so to speak. When she broke that one piece of your essence away, your entire soul fragmented.

  “Rouge wasn't expecting that, and in her panic, she did her best to contain what pieces she could. Unfortunately, the core of your essence escaped. Without that, she couldn't put the fragments she had caught back in you. She came to me in hysterics, begging me to help. That was the second big mistake, though, because she left you alone in the rooms you two were sharing. By the time we came back to check on you, you were gone.”

  “She left me like that?” Hawke's voice was choked with disbelief.

  “Rouge wasn't thinking logically at that point, Hawke. She assumed in your condition, you couldn't get yourself into any trouble. We're not sure whether your soull
ess body wandered away on its own or if you were abducted, but we found out soon after that you had fallen into the clutches of slave traders.

  “Rouge left me the power of the Scholar and rushed off to find you. I would have come too, but you saw the state I was in just a short while ago. Even seven years ago, I was long past any shape for extended travel.”

  Uraj's knees were jittering now. “I didn't hear from her again for over three years. Finally, she returned one day, looking as if she had hardly rested since her departure. She had found you in the clutches of the slave owner you mentioned. She tried to fix you there, but your core was still missing. Try as she might, she couldn't put your essence back in you. She feared that if she tried to steal you away, you would be killed, whether by your captor or on the journey home.

  “In a last desperate effort to try and fix the problem, she left you there and placed your memories in the care of the man, threatening dire consequences if either were harmed. You know how much people fear the wrath of the gypsies; it was that fear she bet on to keep him compliant. Nobody wishing you harm would think to look for you serving under some lowly plantation owner, or at least that's what she hoped.

  “She couldn't trust him enough to keep all your power, though, lest he use it for himself. Instead, she bestowed the others to the protection of people who had been indebted to you through your endeavors abroad: 'a young former student, an ex-soldier once saved on the battlefield, and an old caretaker,' as well as Char, Luke, and Lady Lheona, she told me. The only chance she saw was if your core could find its way back to your body on its own, and once done, you would be able to recollect your essence bit by bit.”

  All throughout the rest of Uraj's tale, Hawke listened with rapt attention. The Forge paused, looking to his old friend for some sort of reaction. Silent as stone, Hawke stood from the ground and popped the kinks in his neck.

  “You knew I would return,” Hawke stated at last. I wasn't sure if he was asking Uraj or confirming a thought. Either way, the Old King leaned forward and nodded.