Crowlord

by Michael Wallace

  Katalinka couldn’t help but catch her breath at the overall impression. The firewalkers were the most isolated of the three temples, with their nearest neighbors being the fishing villages that clung to the wind-blasted western coast, and as firewalkers never married, they relied on recruits to replenish their numbers, which would seem to be a challenge. Seeing their temple for the first time, she understood how they managed. What boy or girl wouldn’t be impressed?

  She spotted fourteen or fifteen firewalkers in total—initiates, sohns, and elders—and all were staring at Abelard and Katalinka. Even the handful pacing the burning coals now seemed to sense that something was amiss. They peeled off their blindfolds and gasped in pain as their sowen slipped and the fire burned them. They jumped out of the coals and stood wincing, shifting from foot to foot, but never taking their eyes from the strangers.

  Suddenly, Abelard drew his swords. His demon glinted in his left hand, his demigod in his right. Black and white. He shifted into a fighting stance. Katalinka stared in alarm. What the hell was he doing?

  She dropped the two packs she’d been laboring under since leaving the post road ten or fifteen minutes earlier, hurried up to him, and grabbed his shoulders.

  “Stop this!” she hissed.

  “Draw your weapons,” he said calmly. “There is going to be a fight.”

  “Are you mad? This isn’t why we came here.”

  “Isn’t it?” Abelard’s sowen still felt wrong, and in fact, the strange, twisting current at its heart had grown. But it didn’t feel out of control. “We were attacked by a firewalker who almost murdered us. It’s time for retribution.”

  The two women who had been sparring on the red sand stepped toward the bladedancers. The younger of the pair had red hair, nearly as bright as the sand itself, cropped close to the skull. The other was taller, more muscular at the arms and shoulders, and with black curly hair pulled into a tight knot behind her head. She looked about thirty-five, and Katalinka instantly sensed from her sowen that she was a sohn to be reckoned with.

  The younger woman with the red hair didn’t seem quite as strong—if the tightness of her sowen was anything to go by—but neither was she a mere initiate. She’d be a formidable opponent in her own right. Both women held swords, although they were still wrapped in cloth bound with cords.

  Katalinka left her swords in their sheaths, stepped in front of Abelard with her back to him, and held out her hands. “Wait! Something is wrong.”

  “We can see that,” the darker of the two women said. “Your companion apparently wants to die.”

  “Step aside, Katalinka,” Abelard commanded. “If you won’t draw your weapons, you can at least keep out of my way.”

  His voice was low and menacing, and the firewalker sowen was humming all around them. The younger of the two women made as if to remove the cloth and thongs binding her weapon, but her dark-haired companion swept out her sword to block her path. “Not yet, Lujza.”

  “There’s no need at all,” Katalinka said. “I’m sure we can we resolve this.” She made a guess, based on what her father had told her about the firewalker temple. “You must be Master Sarika.”

  The dark-haired woman gave a short nod that Katalinka took as acknowledgment. “You can resolve this by sheathing your swords and walking back the way you came.”

  Sarika continued to block the path of the one she’d called Lujza, while Katalinka kept herself in front of Abelard.

  “We’re bladedancer sohns,” Katalinka said. “We were traveling peacefully through the mountains when one of your own attacked us. This was when the demigod passed over. I don’t know if the two things are related.”

  The two firewalkers exchanged glances, but they didn’t speak. Neither did they make any moves. There was hope still to resolve this.

  “Unfortunately, we had trouble at our temple, and we were coming to discuss it,” Katalinka continued. “There was no other reason for our visit, and no reason for your sohn to attack us.”

  None of the others spoke up, and Katalinka pressed on. She’d planned to sit down and have a reasonable discussion, laying out everything that had happened since Captain Miklos’s men murdered her father. But with Abelard’s ill-advised charge into the firewalker temple, and with the two women—not to mention all the other observers—ready to fight, she only wanted to get her story out as quickly as possible.

  “I don’t think she knows,” Lujza said when she’d finished. “Or else she’s lying.”

  Sarita gestured over Katalinka’s shoulder at Abelard. “No, but he does. Don’t you, bladedancer?”

  Katalinka glanced back at Abelard, who wore a dark expression. His swords were still in hand. She looked back at the firewalkers. “Know what?”

  “This Captain Miklos,” Sarita said, “was he a tall man, broad-shouldered, with a warbrand falchion?

  “I never saw him—it was my sister Narina who confronted him. But yes, she said he had one of their weapons. Why?”

  “Think about it,” Lujza said sarcastically.

  “The man had a falchion from the warbrands,” Sarita said. Unlike her companion, her tone remained calm and conciliatory. “And he somehow escaped when most of the rest had been cut down. Did he fight with it? I don’t think he did, or you’d surely understand.”

  Katalinka frowned. “Are you implying that Miklos is a warbrand sohn? It wasn’t a master sword, though. My sister was clear on that part.”

  “It didn’t appear to be a master sword,” Sarita said. “That isn’t necessarily the same thing. There are ways to disguise its aura, and if nobody actually fought the man. . .”

  “Apparently bladedancers are unable to see through obvious deceptions,” Lujza said. This was ostensibly to her older companion, but there was a sarcastic note in her voice that brought heat to Katalinka’s face.

  She forced herself not to snap back an angry retort. “What are you saying?”

  “This Miklos is surely the same man who attacked our temple,” Sarita said. “We drove him off—he wasn’t strong enough to take us—but not before he did damage.” Here there were grim looks among all of the gathered firewalkers. “We lost two sohns that day—Tankred and Volfram.”

  “Volfram isn’t dead,” Katalinka protested. “He’s the villain who set upon us in the cave.”

  “I didn’t say he was dead. I said we lost him. Like you lost this one.” She pointed with her sword tip at Abelard. “It’s the same curse.”

  “Move aside,” Abelard said in a low voice. “I’ll teach these two a lesson.”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Katalinka told him, “but we can cure it. I’ll take you home. You can bathe in the sacred springs. We’ll meditate together until we find whatever is corrupting your sowen and draw it out.”

  “We tried that already,” Sarita said. “Tankred swallowed a burning brand. Volfram lay down on the fire while we heaped coals over him. Later, when he felt the curse coming on, he stuck his right hand into the smithy’s fire while we pumped the bellows. Even a firewalker can’t stand that kind of heat. We meant to burn it out of him—it didn’t work.”

  “No effect?”

  “None whatsoever. The curse only grew worse until it had taken him entirely. The same thing seems to have happened to your companion.”

  The two women were unbinding their swords and casting aside the cords and cloths. Their swords were narrower, more elegant in appearance than the heavy, crushing falchions of the warbrands. The center of the blades gleamed with polished steel, but the edges themselves were smooth and black, and gleamed like obsidian as they turned in the sunlight. Katalinka had caught glimpses of Volfram’s similar sword during the fight in the cave, but here, in the open light of day, the effect was glorious.

  Even more than the exposing of the weapons, it was the murmur that went through the initiates and elder sohns that told her that Sarita and Lujza meant to attack. Katalinka unclasped her cape and let it fall to the ground. She put her hands on her sword
hilts, but didn’t draw them yet, desperate to make one final attempt to stop this.

  Against the bright, hard sowen of the firewalker sohns, she could feel Abelard’s churning behind her. He was struggling. Whatever internal battle he was fighting hadn’t yet been lost. She had to believe that or she would give in to despair.

  “Please, I’m begging you. We don’t have to do this.” She said this as much to her companion as to the two women. “Just help me get him out of here. I’ll take him home—once I’ve seen him safely to the temple I’ll return and we can discuss this reasonably. If there’s some conflict spilling up from the plains, something that is putting the temples at war, we can resolve it. It’s not too late.”

  “It’s too late to stop it for any of us,” Sarita said. “The demigods are awake in the mountains. I can feel demons rumbling beneath the surface—they’re tearing up the auras of the rocks, soil, and roots. Every volcano in the land will soon erupt. First the conflict will be between temples, then within the temples. Eventually, there will be only one champion. It will come to the point where you’ll fight your own sister, if either of you are still alive.”

  “Wait, are you talking about the sword saint?” Katalinka asked. “Is that what this is? I can’t believe that.” She spoke to Abelard, who was crowding her. “Please, just back up. Leave, go back to the woods. I’ll follow you out and guard your back.”

  But at that moment, the conflict started. To her surprise, it wasn’t Abelard who did it, nor was it Sarita, who had seemed to be in command of the temple. Instead, the younger woman with the red hair—Lujza—gave a mighty leap toward them. She was six feet in the air before Katalinka had time to register that the fight had started.

  As Lujza jumped, she lifted her sword overhead and brought it down at Katalinka’s head with a mighty swing.

  Chapter Ten

  Narina held out her hand to stop Gyorgy, who was huffing for air, his arms a heap of clothes and weapons as he approached at a run.

  “Narina!”

  “No, stop. The first thing you need to do is calm yourself.”

  He dumped his load and grabbed for his pant legs, gasping. “But the riders—”

  “I heard what you said the first time, there’s no need to repeat yourself. I can feel them now. They’re some distance off yet. We have time. Don’t panic—that’s the worst thing you could do.”

  “Not as far. . .as they seem,” he said. He drew in a deep breath. “They’re disguising their auras somehow. Don’t know how.”

  “There’s a sohn in their midst,” Narina said. “Probably the one we felt in Riverrun. Some of them have the ability to disguise auras.”

  “By all the fiery demons of the underworld,” Gyorgy cursed.

  “We still have a few minutes.” She took him by the shoulders with a firm grip. “Look at Kozmer. Is he panicking? No, he is not. Neither am I, and neither will you. Now listen to me. We fought already, and we won. There were two hundred men at the farmhouse, and we emerged practically unscathed.”

  “That’s true,” Gyorgy said.

  “Although the farmhouse walls were a better defensive position than this bare hill,” Kozmer said dryly. “And Lord Zoltan was no master sohn from a rival temple. I think we’re in a fair bit more trouble than we were that time.”

  “You’re not helping, you know,” she told him.

  “I was only observing the situation as it faces us.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You know what would have helped? If you’d bothered to either bring or acquire weapons.”

  “I’m an old man, Narina.”

  “An old man who suspected all along that we would stumble into danger. That matters on the plains were spiraling out of control. But since you aren’t armed, maybe you could trouble yourself to assist those who will be shortly fighting for their lives.”

  Kozmer looked more solemn, and twisted his walking staff in hand. “Right. What would you like me to do?”

  “Take my student and get him ready. I need Gyorgy dressed. I need Gyorgy armed. I need Gyorgy’s sowen under control so he’s ready to stand by my side and face whoever it is coming up that hillside. I’m going to see if I can have a look at them before they’re on top of us.”

  Narina made her way to the far edge of the hill. There, the trail had been partially blocked by a fallen tree. The tree’s dislodged root had left a hollow at its base. In the hollow lay two weathered horse skulls, a broken spear, and a rusting, half-buried helmet with a wide visor and a crest. More evidence of the ancient battle that had left this hill’s auras permanently disturbed. She stood behind the trunk of the fallen tree, using it for shelter, and looked down the hillside.

  The men coming up the trail in single file were riding harder than advisable given the precipitous terrain. There were forty or fifty in all, still a mile or so away, but the horses were trotting at a pace that would leave them exhausted by the time they reached the hilltop. Whoever was down there driving them hoped to catch her unawares, that much was clear.

  Good thing Andras had departed in the opposite direction. In spite of her still-simmering anger, she was glad he wouldn’t face the consequences of his treachery. His loyalty to Lord Balint wouldn’t get him anywhere when those riders came charging up the hillside with swords and spears at the ready. And if not for Andras’s sake, then for Ruven’s.

  Now, how about the situation at hand? The hard-riding horses was good. They’d arrive on the hilltop too exhausted to charge her, cavalry-style. The fallen tree could be used for defensive purposes. It would make it hard for her enemies to surround her.

  The problem was that blasted sohn. He’d surely felt the bladedancer sowen by now, and had a good idea of what he’d be facing.

  She observed carefully until the riders were three or four minutes distant, then sat down cross-legged with her back to the fallen tree. She untied the thongs around her leggings and retied them with a fresh, tighter binding. She drew her swords and crossed them on her lap, with the demon blade on the bottom and the dragon blade on top, then closed her eyes.

  She imagined herself in the sacred springs above the temple shrine. She pictured washing her body with a brush and a hard bar of soap. Finally, she imagined dunking her head in the water, and could almost feel the cold shock. Once she’d taken a dreamlike bath, she emerged from the short meditation. Eyes still closed, she felt the auras radiating from her surroundings: the grassy hill, the fallen tree, the breeze, even the dead men and horses buried in the hillside.

  Finally, she remembered her father. Remembered how he’d trained her, and how he’d placed a hand on her wrist to guide its position as she turned a sword this way or that. She heard his voice in her head.

  You are the sum of your training, your own physical and mental gifts, and your sowen. Master them all and you cannot be defeated.

  Narina waited until the sound of pounding hooves grew too much to ignore before rising slowly to her feet. Sometime during her brief meditation, she’d felt Gyorgy coming up beside her, and was not surprised to open her eyes and see the boy standing by her side with swords in hand. He’d pulled his hair into a short ponytail, and his amber-colored eyes reflected hints of gold where they caught the afternoon sun. His face was pale and very serious looking.

  “How does your sowen feel?” she asked.

  “As good as can be expected.”

  She reached for it, felt the edges, and was satisfied with what she discovered. “That will do fine.”

  Narina glanced over the trunk of the fallen tree. The riders had disappeared out of view as the trail curved around the hillside, but would be reappearing in thirty or forty seconds as they reached the tree and were forced to detour around it.

  “The horses will be too tired to charge, so the enemy only has two choices if they wish to attack. Either they will stay mounted, and move on us in a ragged line, or they’ll dismount and fight on foot. We’ll use the fallen tree as defense, but be careful not to get pinned against the trunk.”
/>   “Understood,” Gyorgy said.

  “I want you positioned behind my left shoulder, when possible.”

  He looked nervously past her. “Why?”

  “Because you’re more skilled with the demon blade, so I’ll let enemies through on that side whenever they get too much for me. No more than you can handle—at least, that’s my plan. But our first blow comes from atop the tree trunk itself. You understand why?”

  Gyorgy scrunched his brow, then nodded. “Yes.”

  The horses had been growing louder, until even their snorts and wheezes could be heard. Suddenly, they slowed, and Narina gave the signal. Together, the bladedancers jumped onto the trunk of the fallen tree. Ahead of them, the horses were spilling off the trail onto the open hillside while their riders slid from the saddles, weapons in hand.

  And here Narina was forced to confront the first change to her battle plan. She’d assumed it would go much like the battle in the farm compound, with men either on foot or leaning from saddles to slash at her while she used her superior speed and reflexes to prevent them from massing. She would control the flow of battle, cut down enemies as they threatened. Her sowen would refresh her stamina and heal minor wounds, while her enemies grew more tired and discouraged with every passing minute.

  But none of these men carried swords. They were spearmen, and as they dismounted, they quickly formed ranks to present a wall of six-foot shafts tipped with sharpened steel. If they came at her in a disciplined charge, with a second rank backing the first, she’d be hard pressed to get under, over, or through their spears.

  And with a shock she felt the aura coming off their spears and realized that Lord Balint was using her own weapons against her. These were the very points forged in the Divine School of the Twinned Blades. She’d made several of them herself, and folded them with auras, using all the mastery endowed in her from years of training under her father’s tutelage.