Fold Thunder

by Gregory Ashe

Chapter Eight

  Erlandr wiped blood from his lips. Not my own. The first clear thought he had had in days. The man on the ground lay still, blood dribbling from the gaping wound in his neck. That means I fed again. The thought made him sick to his stomach. Erlandr pushed it away and, grabbing the notched sword from the cobblestones, stood.

  A long, deep cut ran down his side, Erlandr realized. Pain flooded back into his mind. He was losing blood fast. Adence was nowhere in sight, but, through the intersection a few hundred paces away, Erlandr saw a giant, coruscating ball of lightning race by, charging the air so that even at that distance, Erlandr felt his hair lift in response. Two soldiers ran toward Erlandr. A man and a woman, both dark-haired and olive-skinned, both wearing armor without insignia. Jaecan, then, Erlandr thought. The man held two swords, and the woman a short blade and a throwing knife.

  Her hand whipped back. The knife flew forward. Erlandr leapt to one side, but the dagger found his shoulder, and the force of the blow spun him halfway around and he hit the ground off-balance, stumbling. Erlandr turned to face the two. They were on him, the man taking the woman’s left side. Both thrust toward him.

  Erlandr parried the man’s thrust even as the woman’s sword struck his wounded side a glancing blow. The skid of metal along the other wound brought tears to Erlandr’s eyes, and he swore. He moved back, sword weaving, feeling the hot blood continue to run down his side. Don’t have a lot of time here, Erlandr thought. Adence, where in Bel’s name are you?

  With a grunt, Erlandr tugged the knife from his shoulder. He continued his slow retreat, trying to keep the two of them in front of him. The man said something to the woman in Jaecan, and they separated, moving to either side of him with measured steps.

  Erlandr spared the knife a glance. Smooth, well-balanced. He spun and let it fly. It caught the woman in her throat, a spray of red filling the air as she tried to cry out in surprise, then crumpled. Erlandr turned, side still protesting, sword raised.

  The man’s dark eyes opened wide, fury and shock mingling. He raced toward Erlandr with a howl. Erlandr parried, catching the blade along the guard of his own sword. With a twist of his wrist, he knocked the other man’s sword aside. Erlandr thrust. His sword plunged into the man’s chest—not the heart side. The dark-haired man dropped to the ground. Bloody froth blossomed at the wound and at the man’s mouth. With a kick, Erlandr freed his blade, ignoring the man’s scream as the jagged edge ripped the wound open.

  The woman gave one last kick, the heel of her boot scraping the paving stone beneath it. Erlandr bent over the man. Dead. Erlandr searched the corpse’s pockets, leather jerkin, even the man’s boots. He came up with a small bag of silver azans. So, he thought. We’re still in Jaegal. Or close. Another explosion echoed behind him, and a wave of heat warmed his back. The man carried nothing to explain the attacks, though. No instructions, no drawings, not even a House insignia. Nothing to point Erlandr back to whoever was hunting him.

  Erlandr checked the intersection ahead as he went over to the woman’s body. A thick cloud of smoke hung in the air, holding together with surprising tenacity. It obscured everything else from sight. Erlandr searched the woman and found nothing. He jerked the knife free and wiped it on her jerkin. Bel knows I’ll have need of it, he thought, tucking the blade behind his belt.

  One hand pressed over the twin wounds across his side, Erlandr walked down the street. His side burning with every step. A wave of dizziness washed over him as he took the first few steps. He had lost a lot of blood. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself forward, toward the motionless dark cloud that wrapped around the buildings ahead, teasing its way to the edge of the stone buildings, but leaving just the faintest gap.

  Magic, then, Erlandr thought with a grimace. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime. Bel take whoever it is that keeps ramming through my wards. He did not know the spell that hung in front of him; it could be an illusion, designed to do nothing more than block sight, or it could be a plague-bearer, or it could suck the air from a man’s lungs—the list went on and on. The street ahead had grown quiet.

  Coming to the edge of the cloud, he called out, “Adence, are you in there?” No answer. A scuffed boot stuck out from under the cloud, and Erlandr prodded it with one foot. The boot dropped back, limp.

  Erlandr cursed. He did not like revealing the atrophy to his own magic, and whoever had tracked them could very well be watching. Not to mention if Adence were to realize the toll that the curse has taken. He hesitated, but only a moment. If he left, the old man might die, cut down by their hunter. It was, at best, only the echo of an old hope. No, he told himself. I need the old man, and that’s that.

  Erlandr bent forward, drew in a breath, and let it out. The cloud did not shift. Meaning it’s not a cloud. Where are all the other soldiers? The thought was secondary.

  He opened his mind, focusing on his hand. Power is energy with form. The first words a practitioner learned. They were a distant reverberation of the past. Erlandr made a cheiron in the air, one of the arcane gestures passed down through centuries, master to apprentice. Awa, the only cheiron that each school shared. The spell required but a single hepistys to shape the energy. No visible effect accompanied the magic, but Erlandr could feel the sparkle of arcane currents race along the skin, like a thousand unseen pinpricks.

  The cloud parted before his hand, sliding away like smoke before a strong breeze. His Kajan spell unlocked the form behind the cloud, revealing its purpose to Erlandr. He traced a different cheiron, this time tan, the second gateway. Once Erlandr had commanded all five of the cheira; they had opened at his command. Now it was all he could do to hold the second gateway open for a few heartbeats. He spoke the hepisteis quickly.

  The cloud shuddered, once, beneath the assault of Kajan sorcery. It broke apart and solidified, raining down in tiny granules to hit the stones of the street. The granules flared into puffs of smoke and drifted away in the still air. A dozen men stood within the cloud—eleven with swords and shields, the twelfth Adence, the straggly white fringe around his head shiny with sweat. There was a single moment where the twelve men all seemed equally surprised.

  At a single, barked command, the soldiers divided. Eight moved toward Adence. Three broke off to face Erlandr. Erlandr drew a small pebble from his pouch and threw it at the feet of one of the men. A small pebble, but also a parakein, an object that bound form and energy together. An object instilled with power. A circle of paving stones almost a span across exploded up from under the man, throwing him into the air. Blood and flesh rained down as the man’s scream filled the air.

  The scream set everything in motion. Fire and shadow bloomed to Erlandr’s left as Adence attacked. Erlandr spared him no attention. He sent the throwing knife flying through the air to catch one of the soldiers in the thigh. “Bloody Bel,” Erlandr cursed.

  The wounded soldier shifted his stance slightly and pulled out the knife. He raced forward, slowed only slightly by the wound to his leg. None of the soldiers acknowledged their screaming companion who had landed, his lower limbs a mess of shattered bones and flesh, only a few feet away. The other soldier held back, as though waiting for something.

  Erlandr ignored him for a minute and moved to intercept the wounded soldier. Last thing I need is a knife in my own throat. He parried the man’s thrust and grabbed the hand with the knife. Erlandr brought his sword-arm down. A scream followed the crack of broken bone. The soldier slashed at Erlandr with his sword. It was a panicked move, brought own by pain and surprise. Erlandr knocked the blade away and plunged his sword into the man’s neck where it met his shoulder. Not a good cut, Erlandr thought grimly, but kicked the man to the ground and moved to meet the other soldier.

  A wave of blue light, unfolding like petals of a flower, shot from the man’s hand. Erlandr stumbled and tried to spin. The light caught him as he tried to dodge, his wounded side slowing him. Sudden numbness, and pain blossomed along Erlandr’s side. Frost rimed sword and arm alike, burning wors
e than fire. Erlandr tried to drop the sword, to free himself of the ice-cold metal, but his muscles would not respond. Pain. He could think of nothing else.

  The soldier raised his hands again, shouting words of magic. Erlandr could scarcely hear him; the words made no sense to him anyway, they were not the words of Kaj. He staggered, his frozen leg burning so badly that he could put no weight on it. His leg collapsed under him. Erlandr fell and screamed as his frost-burned side hit the stones.

  The pain, the scream, bored a hole through his thoughts. For a moment, everything was clear. With his good hand, Erlandr traced tan. He wanted to scream as he fought to hold the gateway open; the chaos flooding through him threatened to rip him apart. He mouthed the hepistys. The spell was easily countered, if his opponent was paying attention, but it was all Erlandr could do to shape the spell and release it. He didn’t have the strength for anything else.

  The other practitioner, busy tracing an unfamiliar cheiron that bled lines of heat, did not notice until it was too late. His hands stilled in the air suddenly. A cough shook his body and he bent over. Blood dribbled down from his lips as he leaned on his knees. Thick clots of blood came with every cough. The practitioner shook until he fell over, crimson staining his mouth and chin. A single red line traced its way down his cheek to land on the dusty stone beneath.

  Erlandr could not move, could barely breathe. He lay there, every bump in the stone like a knot of pain pressing against his frost-burned skin. Slowly, with a groan muffled by clenched teeth, Erlandr rolled himself over and pushed himself up with his good hand. Three of the men who had attacked Adence lay dead, their skin falling in loose rolls around leather armor like melted candles. Of the other five, two spun in the air, narrow columns of wind whipping their clothes and hair as they rocked up and down. The last three had circled Adence, who held a narrow silver rod—another of his parakein—discolored from heat at its tip. Dark stains marred the old man’s coat, and his lined face was pale.

  With a groan, this one not muffled, Erlandr tried to get to his feet. Cracks of pain tore through his body, and he collapsed back to the ground. The noise distracted one of the soldiers, who turned to look. Adence darted forward, silvered sparks flying from the narrow rod. Fire caught along the man’s clothes, spreading as though the cloth were lamp oil. The soldier screamed and dropped to the ground, arms flapping as he tried to put out the flames. Every movement made the fire spread faster.

  One of the soldiers lunged forward, taking advantage of Adence’s distraction. His blade caught the old man in the hip and knocked Adence to the ground. The soldiers pressed their advantage, only to be met with a withering blast of silver sparks that set fire to steel and leather alike, so that within heartbeats the men, swords and all, blazed like torches.

  The two men swirling in the air fell to the ground with redoubled thuds and the crack of breaking bones. One of the men vomited. The other pulled himself onto his knees. Adence sagged, his face gray. The old man swayed as though barely able to keep his footing.

  Erlandr traced tan and started speaking words of power, but he could not hold the gateway open. It slammed shut, invisible ripples of Kajan chaos evaporating into the air. The soldier drew back his sword for a killing blow.

  The throwing knife glinted in the mid-morning light, just a few feet away. Stretching, reaching toward it, Erlandr tried to ignore the crack of blistered flesh and the shocks of pain that sent flashes of color before his eyes. He felt, more than saw, his hand close over the blade, and with a last burst of strength sent it flying. It caught the soldier in the stomach with a wet thunk.

  The last soldier, the one whose legs had broken in the fall, lay on the ground and moaned, but he made no move to get up.

  Erlandr crawled over to Adence. He could not muster the effort to try to stand again. He collapsed next to the old man and examined his own wounds first. The frost burns had cauterized the two gashes in his side. His good arm still throbbed and was difficult to move from the knife he had taken in the shoulder.

  “Not as bad as it could have been,” he said. “I need a bleeding drink.” Adence’s face blanched, even paler than it should have been. “Not that kind,” Erlandr said. His stomach turned at the thought. Bel take me, I’ll never get used to having someone look at me like that. Like I’m a monster. “Ale, or better, wine, if they have anything decent in this midden-heap of a village.”

  “No time,” Adence said. “We need to move quickly. That practitioner was Trinic. If there’s another one in a hundred miles, he’ll be on us in a matter of hours.” The old man’s face was almost the same color as his hair. Dark stains spread across his coat. He let out a low whistle of pain as he stood, still gripping the silver rod, and almost fell again as he tried to put weight on his wounded hip.

  “How bad are they?” Erlandr asked with a nod.

  “Eh,” Adence grunted, pulling back his coat. “I imagine I’ll live. If not, you can always drain me dry when I stop moving.”

  “Is that a joke?” Erlandr asked. “First time for everything.”

  “It’s a reality,” Adence said, his voice hard. “I know you for what you are.”

  The old man traced a cheiron in the air. Even without training in Cemilian sorcery, Erlandr knew it was a powerful one. Fourth gateway. Maybe fifth. It leaked blue-white energy into the air. Adence spoke the hepisteis clearly and slowly. The wound in his hip, visible through the torn cloth of his trousers, mended into white, wrinkled flesh before Erlandr’s eyes. A moment later his hand was on Erlandr’s shoulder.

  The energy of the spell, chaos given form, slammed into Erlandr and knocked the breath from him. For a moment he could not think, and everything was blotted out by a brilliant flash of light. The energy dissipated in a last burst and Erlandr sucked air into his raw throat.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thought I was dead there,” Adence said. His eyes were fixed down the street, away from Erlandr. “You were handy with that knife.”

  And an unspoken question, Erlandr thought. The same one we ask each other every time: why did you save me? He knew part of the answer. Mutual need. A perverse desire to live in spite of everything, even hatred. Revenge. That insatiable thirst to see each other suffer. Part of the reason, but not all. The dream. Seeing her face, night after night, as I kill her—Erlandr jerked his mind away. The vision had been so clear; he had never remembered the dream before. What did it mean?

  Bad enough to see it every night. But what are your reasons, Adence? Why do you stay with me, when my presence is a threat to your life? Is it only to see your punishment enacted, drawn out every day into that thin, razor wire of pain that I call existence? Erlandr saw it in the other man’s eyes, even now, mixed with the pain of his wounds—hatred that ran through him like blood.

  Words that could not be spoken, though, that fell into the cold silence between them. “Give me your arm,” Erlandr said. “We need to move on, as best we can.”

  Supporting the old man. Erlandr staggered forward. For whatever reason, Adence had not taken away his fatigue. Perhaps he is too exhausted himself. Perhaps it is just one more small punishment.

  A lone child cried, in one of the many homes around them, but that was the only other noise beside the wounded soldier. The people on the street had quickly disappeared when the fighting began. No one had dared to emerge from hiding yet. Ruined, melted bodies, ash, long streaks of scorched stone. Our legacy to these people, Erlandr thought. The heroes of Apsia.

  “East is no longer an option,” Erlandr said as they walked. “This is the third attack since we started toward the Heart, and we won’t survive another like this. Especially not if they have another practitioner.”

  Face drawn with weariness, Adence said, “No, not east. Not east, not north, not even west, to Cania.”

  “South,” Erlandr said. “Always they drive us south.”

  “Apsia,” Adence said. “My thoughts circle that city like vultures; must I return there in body as well?”
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  Erlandr said, “In body, in mind, what difference does it make? We are bound to that place, you and I. If it must be south, then we go south.”

  “If only we could reach the Heart,” Adence said. “We could go anywhere.” He was rambling, Erlandr realized. The old man’s dark eyes were glazed over, his mouth hung open, with a narrow thread of saliva hanging from his chin.

  Erlandr spied a cart, horses still in the harness, a few paces up the street. The cart sat in the middle of the road, the back still loaded with bushels of vegetables—tomatoes, corn, the red peppers that the Jaecan loved so much—and had clearly been abandoned when the fighting began. When they reached it, Erlandr helped Adence into the back among the vegetables. Erlandr climbed into the seat and flicked the reins.

  The shrieks of lapwings broke out to fill the silence; the birds, at least, were willing to resume their normal activities. South. It left a bad taste in his mouth. Nothing good comes from the south. He could not name the reason behind that thought; his memories of Apsia were muddled, splintered—an after effect, perhaps, of the enchantment sustaining his life. For all his words to Adence, he shared the other man’s discomfort. Like vultures, yes, an apt simile. But why do our thoughts circle that city? Why are we bound to it? And why does someone want us to go there so badly? Splinters of light and color, fragments of memories without meaning or pattern. Questions.

  Part II—The Storm