Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy)

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “. . . Renshai practiced until the techniques became instinct. Work to get your strokes smooth and easy, and speed will come with time.”

  Colbey stepped from the shadows of his cottage. “I like that. I’ve never heard it put quite that way before.”

  All four teens spun to face Colbey. The eldest flushed. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were there. I hope I didn’t offend.” Although Pudar did not have the moratorium on the word “Renshai” that some of the farm towns did, it was generally not something mentioned in polite company. Colbey’s obvious Northern features compounded the potential error. In the past, no one had hated Renshai more than their closest neighbors.

  Colbey waved off the apology.

  “Are you a soldier?” the youngest asked.

  “A warrior, yes.” Colbey preferred the term that implied fighting as a way of life rather than a job.

  A chunky youth of about fifteen spoke next, his voice that of the one who had lost the spar. “Did you fight in the War?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which army?” the same one asked.

  “Pudar’s.” Colbey did not clarify by stating his rank. Better the boys did not know they chatted with the Golden Prince of Demons.

  “Did you ever fight Renshai?” the shirtless one asked unabashedly, though the eldest tried to wave him silent. Colbey recognized his voice as belonging to the one who had explained the “shield gap” attack, the winner of the contest.

  “Yes, I did.” Colbey did not explain further, that he did so only in spar, with the intent to teach, not harm. He changed the subject quickly. He had intended to encourage, not interfere with, the training. “Would you like to know a more important flaw in your attack?”

  Colbey waited expectantly for the answer. He had rarely chosen to teach anything to non-Renshai, and the boy’s interest would tell him in an instant whether he should bother wasting his time.

  The bare-chested one considered for less than an instant. “Sure. I’d be honored.”

  The envious looks the teen’s companions gave him told Colbey he had made the right decision. Excitement trickled through him at the prospect of aiding eager students, his first interest in teaching since long before he had passed his title of torke to Mitrian. Even the realization of more lost sleep did not faze him much. A few hours of rest after the practice would serve him well enough.

  Colbey waited until the boy stepped into the open, away from his companions. He accepted a shield from the youngest, and the weight felt awkward and heavy in his grip, the ultimate symbol of cowardice. Yet, without it, he could not make his point. He strapped it to his right arm. He nodded, indicating that the boy should take the first attack.

  The youth slashed low. Though he felt unbalanced, Colbey blocked with the shield, as expected. He executed the anticipated overhand stroke. The boy recovered quickly, drawing momentum to slash for a gap that was not there. With the shield in his right hand and sword in his left, Colbey could continue the swing without hampering his defense at all. The boy’s sword slammed against Colbey’s shield. The Renshai completed his attack, the blade gently parting the other’s hair.

  “Killing stroke.” The boy’s previous opponent smiled, obviously glad to see the trick fail miserably this once. He shook back a curtain of dark hair to reveal pale brown irises.

  Colbey lowered the shield to the ground and flipped Harval to his other fist. “About one in eight opponents will fight left-handed.”

  The youth nodded. “I’ll need something else for him.”

  “Lots of something elses.” Colbey hooked the shield with his foot and rolled it aside, glad to be free of its encumbrance. “Rely on only a few maneuvers, and one of those will cause your death. Deliver every blow with the confidence that it will kill, yet always assume your opponent can deflect you. For every attack, there’re multiple dodges, parries, and counterattacks. Draw him into patterns, then catch him off-guard with change.”

  “He’s gotten me with that trick twelve times now,” the chunky one said. “I’d like to see a few of those defenses.” Then realizing enthusiasm had made him rude, he added appreciatively, “If you would, sir.”

  Colbey demonstrated half a dozen, including a disarming stroke that sent the sword flying and left his student counting fingers. The Renshai caught the hilt in his free hand and waited for the boy to realize he still had the full complement of appendages.

  The would-be swordsmen pressed forward then, all speaking at once, each begging a countermaneuver or situational attack. The attention meant nothing to Colbey, but the youngsters’ raw and genuine zeal delighted him. He would have loved to spend the hours until the market opened guiding responsive students to the way of the sword, but his own need had to take precedence now. Without sleep, his wounds would not finish healing, and he might have to face the world’s most powerful enemies weighted by exhaustion.

  “I’ll show one thing more, then we all need some sleep. Many fights have been lost to a well-rested though inferior enemy. Your enemies are still hypothetical, mine all too real.” Colbey returned the captured sword to its owner, then gestured the oldest lad to him. The boy’s dark blond hair probably came from having the blood of Renshai conquerors distantly in his line.

  The youth came forward, shield hovering defensively before him, the sword solidly gripped and balanced. Colbey wielded only Harval in his right hand. He gestured to the youth to attack.

  Obediently, Colbey’s opponent drove forward. Instead of dodging and retreating, Colbey lunged simultaneously. His sword locked with the other, parrying it aside. He completed the momentum with a stop-thrust to the head, a maneuver that combined attack and defense in the same movement. The teen reversed, raising the shield to block. Colbey pulled the feint before point touched shield, thrusting Harval beneath the youth’s guard instead. The blade poked abdomen then slapped hip before the other could reposition his shield, two effortless fatal strokes. The force of the second blow sent the boy tumbling to the ground.

  Colbey sheathed his weapon and assisted the youth to his feet. The teen favored his left leg; a bruise would remind him of this lesson for a long time. Colbey could have spared him the pain, but he had chosen to show that he had gathered the appropriate momentum without leaving any doubt. In a real fight, that stroke would have killed.

  “I didn’t see . . .” the blond started.

  “Of course you didn’t see.” Colbey kept his gaze fully on the eldest, though all watched with rapt attention. “You had a shield in your face.” Colbey detailed one of the reasons for the Renshai prejudice. “If you must have something in your off-hand, take up dagger or shortsword. Shields are bulky and slowing. They teach you to take blows instead of to dodge. And used right, they steal your vision.”

  Colbey sheathed his sword, a blond lock tickling his forehead. “Thank you for an exhilarating night.” He shook his head, and his hair fell back into its natural feathering. “Keep practicing in your free time, and the East won’t dare attack us again.”

  The youths exchanged noises of approval and encouragement. Colbey left amid a chorus of thanks, never having given his name. He returned to his cottage with confidence in Pudar’s future warriors. Five years ago . . . Colbey amended the thought as he placed the swords back on the floor beside his bedding. Five hours ago, I wouldn’t have taken the time to teach even those basic techniques to non-Renshai. The significance of the knowledge went deep. About this, at least, Shadimar had spoken well. Colbey was becoming the guardian of the West as well as of the Renshai, and the process had started even before he mustered farm towns and became King Gasir’s lieutenant in the Great War. Perhaps from the moment Tokar made me his successor. The idea bothered Colbey only briefly. He knew no magic or divinity had forced him to cast his lot with the West; he had chosen the alliance willingly and with vast consideration.

  This time, sleep came easily.

  * * *

  Colbey awakened to a sudden sensation of movement. His eyes snapped open. Moonli
ght flashed from a dagger speeding toward his throat. With no time for anything but a dodge, he rolled, flinging an arm protectively between the weapon and his vitals. Cold steel slit the skin of his forearm, and his fist met something solid with enough force to thrust it backward.

  Colbey snatched up Harval as he rose, not wasting the moment grabbing the second hilt would cost him. His gaze carved a staggering figure from the near darkness, female by its size and proportions. He circled, placing himself between his enemy and the door. Warm blood trailed down his arm. The wound burned with an agony that went far beyond the familiar tear of sharpened steel.

  The woman crouched, knife clutched in her fist, attention riveted on Colbey.

  The aristiri screeched a warning that had come too late. Apparently, the intruder’s silent approach had caught Colbey’s guardian, too, by surprise.

  The other stiffened, but she did not seek the source of the sound. Either she knew Colbey traveled with a hawk, or she would allow no noise to distract her.

  Colbey poised, blocking the exit, awaiting a second attack. Patience had won him many battles. So far, he knew only that his enemy could move silently. Her method of offense face-to-face would tell him much about her general strengths and weaknesses. He assessed what he could in an instant. She stood slightly on the shorter side of average for a woman, and her stance revealed more natural grace than training. Taut sinews hinted of an active lifestyle, though her grip on the weapon told him she had little direct experience with combat. Her black hair and dusky appearance suggested Eastern heritage. Though shadow obscured her features, Colbey believed he faced the same woman who had tried to seduce him in the Dun Stag Inn.

  The intruder remained still, saying nothing. Either she shared his patience, or she had reason to believe time would work to her advantage.

  The wound in Colbey’s arm felt on fire, and its dull throbbing made him switch his sword to the opposite hand. Understanding struck with violence. Poison! Rage flared, as hot as the pain in his forearm. He could think of nothing less honorable than to let chemicals take the place of skill in battle. Poison. Now that he knew of its presence, he could almost feel the killer substance coursing through his body, his heart pumping it to every organ with his blood. Soon enough, it would take him down. But she would die with him. Raising his sword, Colbey charged.

  The woman dodged, attempting to parry with her shorter blade. The sword tip met the knife’s hilt, and Colbey sliced it from her grip. The knife thumped against the wall, then plummeted, lost amid the straw. Dizziness swam down on Colbey, and he swung with a wild incaution scarcely tempered by skill. She flung herself back, but not far enough. The blade caught her a glancing blow that slammed her to her knees. Colbey’s kick sprawled her. He jabbed for the final, killing stroke.

  The woman did not flinch. She met his blue-gray eyes with brown ones blazing with a familiar madness, one he had not seen in her the previous night. The sword raced toward her throat.

  A thought wafted clearly from her, at the volume of a scream: “Move, Khita! Roll now and grab! His other sword is at your left elbow!” Though the words came from the woman’s mind, the sentiment was clearly not her own.

  A reply welled from the central core of the woman’s being, clutching at law and honor like a drowning man at a rope. “No! I was wrong! Now that I understand what you really are, I’d rather die than bond with you.”

  Colbey pulled the blow, the blade tip plowing through straw, though he managed to save it from contact with the stone floor. A mass of chaos blasted him, slamming the woman’s consciousness beneath a wild wave of madness. She screamed as she had not for her life or his attack.

  Acid seemed to run through Colbey’s veins, and his arm ached to its depths. Yet the presence of his familiar enemy fanned a deeper fire. He had faced chaos too many times before. He had lost Episte to it once, and the grief of that memory only added to his rage now. He had faced it in Frost Reaver’s mind and met a stalemate. Yet he had defeated it once as well, in the form of insanity-touched Wizards in his own mind. Certain of his own death, Colbey paid self-defense no heed. Unhesitatingly, he gathered his mental will and dove into the battle.

  The formless chaos-stuff seethed and boiled around him, its focus central. Always before, Colbey had faced only picture-concepts in another’s mind. Emotion had come to him as sensation and thought as flashes of image or words. This time, the entity that belonged in this mind crouched behind a shield of human basics: structure, law, and all that memory made familiar while the tide of chaos whittled toward the core in a self-satisfied frenzy. She appeared to Colbey’s senses as a black silhouette, drab and stagnant so close to chaos’ grandeur. Color winked and splashed through the periphery, sending multihued sparks arching from every contact.

  Quickly, Colbey drew himself into the picture, stretching his mental being into place between chaos and the woman’s defenses. He entered the war less to aid her then to face and destroy a too-familiar enemy.

  Surprise filled the mind like a blanket, its source both of the entities that occupied this mind. At first, Colbey feared that fusion had already occurred between them. Then chaos turned to wrath and the woman to both doubt and hope. “You? But I tried to kill you. Why?”

  Colbey did not waste strength on an answer. Already, he had lost track of his body, and fever blunted his ability to think. The staff channeled its thoughts to the barest edge of the link between Colbey’s mind and body; true to its vows it did not cross that line. *Don’t be a fool! Kill her. You need your energy to fight the poison.*

  Colbey ignored the staff as well. He fought like a Renshai, relentless because of, not despite, the certainty of his own death.

  The chaos oozed into a single lump, its voice massive and echoing. “She is mine.”

  Colbey channeled all of his own mental energy together. “You cannot have her.”

  The energy of the staff writhed at Colbey’s back, as eager as he to join the fight. It remained behind him, a mass of force ready to do battle the instant Colbey gave the word. Yet he kept it in place. He had never let anyone assist in his battles, and he would not start now, no matter the stakes.

  “She’s mine. She pledged herself to me.” Chaos warped and twisted.

  “Influenced by chaos, her vows have no more meaning than yours.”

  “She’s mine!” Chaos took the form of an eight-legged creature the size of an ox, its head like a man’s but hairless and broader.

  Weaponless in thought form, Colbey held his ground. He had never faced an enemy directly in another’s mind and could not begin to guess formalities, if any existed. One thing seemed certain. Exertion and the poison ate at the edges of his consciousness, and he could not allow chaos to delay him into oblivion. Without set rules of honor, Colbey had little choice but to make his own. “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re the Master,” chaos answered without hesitation. “But you don’t rule me. Surely you won’t risk oblivion for the soul of a single mortal.”

  “Clearly,” Colbey replied, “I would.” He could feel his body trembling now, and even his mental consciousness began to flicker. The urge to call upon the power at his back was strong, but he resisted. He delved for second wind. One way or another, this confrontation would end soon.

  Chaos hesitated, torn between anger and fear. Ensconced in the mind it filled, Colbey could read it easily, though it obviously had no inkling of his own state. If it had, it would have known how easily it could defeat him now. Apparently realizing that it could not hide its reactions, chaos explained. “It’s not you I fear. I cower from no man. It’s what hovers behind you.”

  “I speak for what hovers behind me. And the Wizards would call that force your ally.” The simple effort of speaking made his thoughts seem dim and hazy. Each word sent him to the edge of collapse, the breaths between scarcely enough to haul him back.

  “The Wizards are fools, but you cannot bluff me. I see beyond structure to what is real.”

  Colbey hesitated
to gather his thoughts, though the seconds cost him dearly. He felt the paralyzing poison clutch at his mind, holding ideas in place so that he could not move to a higher level. He crawled for the words he needed, knowing he might soon lose both battles. Already, he had little hope for his body or soul. All that remained was to cast out chaos. To fail meant letting chaos run rampant, opposed only by three Wizards who seemed already to have taken leave of their senses. If he could salvage this woman, she might have the fortitude to take up his cause. Given time, this was not the successor he would have chosen, but their brief conversation had revealed a competence of body and he sensed a solid moral foundation as well. She had let it crack once; he could only hope she would not do so again. “You will not have her.” Colbey’s mind would not give him the words to say more.

  The woman’s mental presence rose where Colbey’s had failed. “The deal was that we would bond when I killed him.” Her words seemed to echo, their placement far more natural than these strangers in her mind.

  “Indeed,” chaos sent back.

  “But he’s alive.”

  “For the moment. I can remedy that.”

  “If you do that, then I won’t have killed him. You will. I’ll owe you nothing.”

  The demon recoiled, taken aback.

  In its moment of hesitation, the staff slammed home a message. *Banish it.*

  Darkness filled Colbey’s vision, and he could see nothing. He had to ponder each syllable to make sense of the words.

  “You had a cunning teacher, Khitajrah Harrsha’s-widow.”

  “Yes. And I am finished with him.”

  *Banish it!* The staff sent again. *You’re the Master. Send it away.*