A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  She yelled in his ear, “Go! Faster!”

  Vansainté kicked the half-Delkeran hard and the mare lengthened her stride, her head stretched out in line with her back as she shot into a dead run. Anoni spared one thought that the horse was going to do both parents proud. She found herself praying inexplicably as time slipped from her grasp.

  “Our Lady of Peace, Our Lady of Mystery, Our Lady of Silence, Our Lady of Light...” Over and over. Her gaze drifted down to the rusted decking, to the flickering horse shadow legs bunching and driving away the ground. Holding tight to Vansainté’s back, her cheek pressed the fletching of the arrows in his quiver. His bow dug into her chest, strung over his shoulder. She held tighter. “Go. Mishi of the Horses, lend us your speed. Lady of the Moon, protect your son. I am the Scion of the Temple and I ask it. By the last of your grace. Please. Faster.”

  Anoni could see now that the two figures were carrying a third between them. Dread hummed along her muscles. The third figure had curly brown hair. Of the marines, one was black haired and tall, the second short and blond. They wore unmarked sailor’s clothes, but Anoni could tell they were marines from their stance and the number of weapons they carried.

  When the two men looked up and saw them, they dragged the third onto the causeway. They dropped him and he fell like dead weight to the metal. “It’s Corin,” Anoni gasped.

  “And the others are Almacenista’s menaces,” Vansainté said.

  “I should have killed them when I had the chance.”

  “You may still get your chance,” Vansainté answered and let go of the reins. He motioned for her to give him a little room and pulled his bow over his head, took an archer’s stance, and nocked the arrow she passed him. A fast aim, reach and release, and the soft twang of the string as the arrow hit the tall man square in the chest sending him to the ground.

  The looked to her right and saw the rowboats were nearing the causeway.

  “Keep them from landing,” she said in Vansainté’s ear. He nodded and the next moment his arrow stuck in the ground with a thud, between the second man and the boat, cutting short the man’s lunge toward his comrades. Vansainté steered for that gap and she let go of her hold on him, adding a little push to slide off the back of the horse. She landed, rolled to her feet and ran, only peripherally aware of Vansainté pulling his tired horse to a stop and continuing his barrage of the boat.

  Anoni circled the short man, sword drawn at the guard position. He was only as tall as her, and thin for a man. His bulging eyes took her in with a glance. He drew his sword, never even looking at his moaning comrade on the stones. Anoni didn’t look at the pile that was Corin. She couldn’t bear it and keep a clear head.

  “Who are you, girl?” he asked. He went for an intimidating slash at her eyes, which she blocked easily. “They pick you up for some pleasure on the way?” He sneered at her, feinting at her feet and going for her head.

  She ignored the feint, blocked his slash, and snapped her blade out, catching him on the shoulder. “This is my sword. Only one on the continent with a ruby and a dragon. Why are you here, traitor?”

  “Lying whore! I’ve met their idiot of a Dragon,” he jabbed at her center. She dodged his attack and sliced deep into his arm.

  She smiled and said, “No time for you.” She rushed him, locking their blades between them. She kneed him in the groin and punched him with her left hand. He crumpled to the ground with a groan. With a smooth slash, she cut his throat with the tip of her sword. He was silent as his blood splashed from her blade.

  “Anoni!”

  She spun to see Vansainté riding back to her, looking for cover, quiver empty on his back. Behind him the determined marines had made landfall on the island behind a boulder. There were about twenty marines, maybe more. She spared Corin a glance. He was a wreck of blood and bruises. She should have been here. The Dragons were still minutes away down the causeway. Her mind raced, her training allowing her to assess the tactical options while the part of her that cared for Corin was crying in her mind. She took a deep breath and pulled her dagger out to fill her other hand. “Anoni, don’t!” Vansainté shook his head. He had seen that look on her before.

  “Marines!” She addressed the men still hugging the cover of the boulder. “I warn you. You face two graduates of the Oruno Warcollege. I was the apprentice of Master Gurin of Chataqua. Since entering Safiro, I have slain Scalamindara, a thousand-year-old Ozuk. Last chance to turn around.” There was silence from behind the boulder.

  “Nothing? Come and get me then.”

  They came in one mass raising a battle yell that might have been impressive, if she had been in the mood to be impressed. Each had a sword in hand. She dove into the throng and Vansainté followed on horseback.

  Chaos erupted in a ring around her, and her consciousness became one with the blades. There was nothing but the flash of the blades, the snap-cut of slicing off a hand, and the backhanded dagger thrust to exposed bellies. In Oruno, they had been taught a human can only physically fight three people at any given time; it had to do with the angles of attack. Any more than that and assailants get in each other’s way. The marines tried. They really tried. But their fear and eagerness bunched them up, making them a mob instead of a military unit. They hit each other, and she could barely move without hitting enemy flesh. She was distantly aware of Vansainté and his horse laying waste to another group of the men, and the clamor of approaching Dragons. She spun, weaving around the marines and dancing over their bodies, as her blades flashed out faster than they ever had before. She was down to two wary veterans, trading feints when both blossomed with arrows in their chests and sunk to the ground, surprised in death. Turning, she saw the Dragons had arrived.

  Breathing hard, she ran for Corin. He was pulled into a ball. Surprised to find her hands cramped around her hilts, she put the blades down and knelt beside him in the growing blood pool. She carefully turned him over as Yupendra rushed to her side. Her throat clenched. Corin’s face was a mass of bruises and bleeding slashes; one blue eye was swollen shut and the other was drifting open to see her.

  He clasped a blood-soaked bundle in his arms, trying to smile. “Here. For you,” he got out, his voice a broken whisper.

  “Don’t talk. You’ll be okay,” said Anoni. She watched as Yupendra took Corin’s pulse and pulled packets of herbs out of his bag.

  “You’ll be fine,” she cried, taking the bundle and laying it aside. Underneath she could see his gut had been ripped open, intestines escaping like a kitten’s ball of yarn. His shirt was black with blood. “What were you doing out here?” she asked. Yupendra shouted at Anoni to pull off her overshirt and get ready to put pressure on the wound. He put his hands inside Corin, trying to push his guts back inside him. Anoni did as he bid. Around them, the other Dragons were shooting fire arrows at the marine ship, trying to drive the rest of them off.

  “For you. The rose. They were there, an ambush for you,” murmured Corin. His whisper breaking, shivers racking his frame. It was shock, she knew. Corin was papery pale.

  Yupendra slowly took his hands back, giving Anoni a negative shake of the head.

  “No! Yupendra, do something!” She grabbed his shirt in her fist. “Save him, you bastard.”

  He pushed her away. “I can’t, Anoni. They’ve cut the intestines. Even if I could stop the bleeding, he’s lost most of his blood and he’ll be septic from the wound. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Damn you. Damn you, you burning mancer.” She clasped Corin’s hand in her own blood drenched ones.

  “If he hangs on, it’ll just be a slow painful death,” explained Yupendra.

  “Do something! Magic!” she demanded angrily.

  Yupendra gave her a cold stare. “Magic doesn’t work like that. You heal him, if you’re so powerful.”

  Panicking, she shook her head over and over. She could not give up. She turned inward and asked her passenger. Kosei? Can we heal him?

  I don’t do
that, came the Ozuk’s quiet reply. I can only manipulate my own flesh. If you had another Ozuk, we could use their power like we did with Scalamindara. If I was in a different part of the Ozuk life-cycle I could emit power and do it...I’m sorry. I know what it feels like to watch your loved ones die.

  She screamed her frustration to the sky.

  “Anoni, hush,” Corin coughed. “It’s all right...you were right. No char’cter.”

  “No, I was wrong. I’m sorry. Don’t you dare leave me!”

  He squeezed her hand. “I had to show you I could break the rules,” his whisper was getting softer. “I love you.”

  “You didn’t need to. I love you,” she said desperately. “Please...”

  “Beautiful place, Anoni. The roses came alive, fighting...I didn’t leave you this time, Anoni. I didn’t...” She could barely hear him.

  “No no no no no,” she rocked.

  He looked at her and tried a little smile. It was horrible. “I always loved you.” Anoni watched as his eye went unfocused and a small sigh came out of his lips. She fumbled for a pulse, unable to see through the water in her eyes. No pulse. He was dead. She tried breathing into his soft, cooling lips, counting pushes on his chest.

  Nothing.

  “He’s gone, Anoni,” Yupendra said, his hand on her shoulder.

  She shrugged him off, screaming, rocking over his body; she once again keened her pain to sky. Vansainté tried to get her to release Corin but she refused, batting at him. The rest of the Dragons were there now; the ship was gone, back out to sea. Kindly, he tried to reach her. “Anoni, look at me. He’s dead. I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

  “NO!” She had been denied one man because he had not loved her, and the other because she had said careless words. She had not taken the time to take them back, now she never would. She dove for her dagger on the ground, and the Dragons ducked out of the way. But she turned it on herself, scrambling with one hand to lift her chainmail enough so she could get at her heart.

  “Whoa! No!” Vansainté lunged for her with Wix and Arjent leaping into action just a moment later. They wrestled the dagger from her hand. She screamed her frustration from a raw throat and when they wouldn’t get off her, fell into heartbroken weeping. They pinned her silently. They did not know what to do with a crying woman. After a long time, she quieted.

  “Are you going to hurt yourself?” Arjent asked cautiously.

  She shook her head and Vansainté helped her to sit up. Her eyes fell on Corin’s body. It was an empty shell, the skin already graying with death. Everything that had been him had gone to the Lady. She looked over at the corpses of Shaiso’s men. The causeway and island’s edge looked like a charnel house. They had done this and died for it. But Markham Shaiso and his father had once again blown apart her life.

  Vansainté felt her shoulders straighten under his hands, tighten, and harden like her face. “I have to live so he can die.” Arjent and Vansainté backed off a little at the look she gave them. Her eyes were hard and empty amber gems. “The Shaisos will die for this. No more secrets, no more lies. No more politics and proof. They die with my blade at their neck.”

  Carefully Wix put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you still with us, boss?”

  Anoni blinked slowly, a ruby light gleaming in her left eye. Her lips fumbled and another voice came out. It was full of echoes, like it came from the bottom of a very deep well. “This is Koseichiro. Anoni is resting right now. How can I be of assistance?”

  Wix and the others scrambled to their feet, eyes wild. Vansainté demanded, “What happened to Anoni?”

  “She is deep in a corner of my darkness, thinking thoughts that make my mouth water for blood. Such an imagination...”

  Vansainté fisted a hand in her shirt. “Bring her back!”

  “Uh uh, she doesn’t want to,” Koseichiro protested smugly.

  Vansainté hauled back and slapped her hard across the mouth. She coughed and looked at him, startled.

  “What?” It was her voice again.

  Vansainté let her go, searching her eyes. “Are you back?”

  Coughing she asked, “Was I gone?”

  “The Ozuk said hello,” Arjent said from a safe distance.

  She shook her head, distantly shocked it had been so easy for Koseichiro to take over her body.

  “What do you want to do?” Vansainté asked.

  Like a sleepwalker, she took up the bundle Corin had brought with him. She picked it up and unwrapped it. Inside was two feet of silvery barked tree branch. One white rose bloom and six buds adorned it. It was the branch of the moonrose. It was the token that the Dragons had come to find for their prince. Corin had gotten it for her. Her face contorted in grief.

  “I can’t take this back,” she said numbly. “You take it,” she said, on the verge of tears again, and thrust the branch at Vansainté. “Tell them I died in the battle. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Anoni...You’re abandoning Corinado?”

  She picked up her sword, eyes searching and wild, and studied the blade so caked with blood. Vansainté stared her down. He knew her. She turned the blade around and thrust it hilt first at him. Startled, he took it. “Yours now,” she said in a tired voice. “I’m going to bury Corin and then I’m going to go to Aquillion ahead of you. After the ball, Corinado will have no enemies left.”

  ***

  Isle of Asteri

  Anoni

  In the end, all the Dragons helped her dig the graves. Tevix also still needed to be buried. They bushwhacked onto the island, pressing through thick overgrowth to the ruins at the center. Some of the ruins looked like the parts of buildings, levels of floor clinging to the edges. Metal arches and rusted spires delineated a great pointed dome. Everything was metal and glass. At the center of the ruins, great thorny rose bushes grew. The bushes stretched their branches high toward the sky. They improvised shovels, digging near the rose bushes. Vansainté toiled knee-deep beside Anoni on Corin’s grave, scooping earth up with a broken bit of sheet metal from the ruins. Not far away, Wix, Yupendra, and Nekobashi worked on Tevix’s grave. A twitch of movement out of the corner of his eye caught Vansainté’s attention. He looked closer. The rose bushes were drifting in the breeze. It took him a moment to realize the breeze was coming from the opposite direction.

  “Arjent, could you take a look at those bushes. Carefully,” Vansainté said, turning his back to the bushes. They were not his primary concern right now. He glanced at Anoni, but she didn’t notice anything; she just kept digging with mindless determination.

  Arjent circled one of the bushes. There was a snap, a yowl, and he was back in front of Vansainté. “Two swords, boots partially buried under the roots. There’s blood on the branches. One of the ‘em tried to take a chunk out of me.” He wiped blood off his cheek.

  “The other marines then. How did Corin get a branch?”

  “He said they fought.” The words came from behind him; it was Anoni sounding half asleep.

  Vansainté exchanged a silent shake of the head with Arjent. “All right. Stay away from them.”

  Night had fallen before they were done. The moon rose over them and the men stopped, stunned as the roses bloomed a glowing silver. They began to sing like clear bells in a chord. The leaves of the bushes shook with the sound and a rumbling began to rise under their feet.

  Anoni patted down the dirt on top of Corins body, her back to the swaying and barbed plants. She did not believe they would harm her, or she just didn’t care. She had buried her last moonpearls with him and put his sword at the head of his grave, stuck into the dirt. She rose and stood at the foot.

  “Lady take him into your fields. He was innocent and pure of heart. Grant him rest.” She stopped, too choked to say more. The rumbling under her feet became more pronounced. Suddenly she saw a silver shoot break through the ground at the head of the grave. It sprang upward, growing in a few heartbeats from seedling to full-blown rose bush. The branches wrapped themselves around Corin’
s sword, and wove themselves upward. Three blooms burst forth and began humming part of the harmony of the ruins.

  Tevix’s grave was strangely silent.

  “This is a holy place,” Vansainté put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I know. The Goddess has taken him home. Time we headed home also.” Without another look, she walked out of the ruins. Vansainté and the Dragons had no choice but to follow.

  On the beach in the morning, Yupendra summoned another Ozuk at Anoni’s request. She did not ask that he call a light-minded Ozuk, only that it be powerful enough to roam. Meanwhile, she said stilted goodbyes to her men, finding it hard to feel anything, to say anything. They might have thought she was deserting them, but they gave no sign of bitterness. Through her fog of grief and rage, she spared one thought that these men had been working as hard as she for at least three years to stop the Shaisos. Perhaps they considered her methods one with the cause. Yupendra gave his last call and sank down to wait for the Ozuk to arrive.

  She gave Vansainté a stiff hug. “It has to end with him. They have to die.”

  “I know,” he replied, pulling back to look her in the eye.

  “You’re their leader now,” she said, “Take care of the prince for me. Take care of them all...”

  “I can’t take this,” he protested, and held out the Dragon blade she had given him the night before. He tried to give her back the sword. She wouldn’t close her hand around it.

  “I take a different path. I can’t worry about them now.” She turned away. “You won’t see me in Aquillion.” He didn’t try to stop her when she approached the fire as acid green light filled the circle. When it faded, she faced what Yupendra had summoned. He was a ravening mess of teeth and boar horns with six arms.

  “Do you know who I am?” asked Anoni. Koseichiro whispered the Ozuk’s true name into her mind.

  “Why would I know the name of a meatsack?” it hissed. She jumped into the fire and he was all too happy to grab her, but the dagger, bloody from her own hand, at his neck and her hissing his true name gave him pause.