Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2)

by Frances Smith

  "Thank you," Amy said, picking him up again and throwing him down the corridor. He rolled along the ground until he stopped, groaning softly but not moving.

  I hope you realise I do not devour souls.

  I know that, I just wanted to scare him.

  Good. I would hate to think I had so misjudged you that you might desire such a weapon.

  "You're enough for what I need to do," Amy said, running in the direction indicated.

  "Why do you keep talking to your sword?" Wyrrin asked.

  "Because it's talking back, why else?" Amy replied with a laugh.

  They ran through several dark corridors, noting that they seemed to be getting lighter all the time until she could actually see windows, at which point she shortly after rounded a corridor to encounter four more guardsman standing at the crossroads of two intersecting corridors.

  The sergeant had a whistle upon a silver chain and he blew on it furiously, the tinny, high-pitched noise echoing off the walls. "Enemies! Intruders in the Palace! To arms!"

  The four guards all discarded their spears and locked shields, presenting a single line to Amy and Wyrrin as they bore down upon them.

  You do not wish to kill them, Magnus Alba said.

  I'd rather not, Amy acknowledged. They are on our side after all. Sort of.

  Then repeat after me, Magnus Alba instructed, and Amy repeated his words as the runes engraved upon her sword began to glow, the swirling letters lighting up in brilliant ocean blue and green, the colours of her mismatched eyes.

  "Almighty Turo, hear my call. Sweep my foes away as if by a mighty wave!" Amy yelled in naiad, swinging her sword in a wide arc that connected with no one. The light from her sword burned bright and a shockwave leapt from it, striking the four guards like a wave striking a sandcastle, knocking them down and bearing them backwards far away.

  Wyrrin surveyed the damage. "Impressive. I didn't know you could do that."

  "I couldn't, until just now," Amy said. "Come on.

  They ran on, though more yelling echoed through the corridors.

  "Intruders in the palace! Sound the drums! To arms!"

  I suppose I was never going to be stealthy in all this armour, Amy thought.

  The palace began to echo to the sound of drums, the panicked shouting of moments before being replaced with the confident shout of hundreds of soldiers responding to a command. Drums, drums from all directions beating the same staccato rhythm, and pounding feet that almost struck the floor in time to the beat that mustered them.

  Amy had to give them credit, it had to have been hundreds of years since Eternal Pantheia had been threatened by enemies and yet by the sounds of it they still knew exactly what to do. She couldn't help but wonder if the defenders of Ocean's Heart would react with such commendable discipline and fortitude if an undine host were to suddenly descend upon it.

  As she dashed through the corridors, Amy noticed that very few of the guardsmen now flooding through the palace - how many guards did this place have? - seemed to actually be in search of her. In fact, as long as she kept out of their way, hardly any stopped to engage her and those that did she swatted aside thanks to Magnus Alba's sorcery, with Wyrrin getting the chance to help out occasionally when someone closed with her from one of her blind spots. The guards were all moving inwards, towards the centre of the palace, even as the slaves and servants seemed to be fleeing outwards with far less cohesion than the guards were displaying. It seemed that she would have to put herself right up in their faces before the Emperor's guards would fight the intruder who had put them all in such a state.

  The Emperor, she realised. They're protecting the Emperor. They would make safe the centre of the palace, where their sovereign was, and then move outwards again to drive any intruders outside the palace where, presumably, the army and city guard would mop them up. It was a good plan, if she was out to kill the Emperor. As things stood though, they had just handed her an opportunity.

  They ran though the increasingly deserted - often deserted in a hurry, judging by the state of things - parts of the palace, until Amy found an abandoned drummer boy, standing by himself at a corridor crossroad, single-mindedly beating on his drum though there was no one left to hear him. He looked to be about ten.

  "Hey!" Amy yelled, advancing upon him.

  He didn't answer; he just kept beating his drum.

  Amy loomed over him. "Hey, boy!"

  The boy kept beating his drum.

  Amy snatched the sticks away from him. "Stop that!"

  The drummer boy gasped, looking up and appearing to spot Amy for the first time. He took a step backwards, ending up against a wall.

  "Don't worry boy, I don't eat drummer boys, only buglers," Amy said dryly. "Now are we on the right path for the dungeons?"

  The drummer boy nodded wordlessly.

  Amy grinned, reaching out to tousle his hair. "Thank you. You're the friendliest person I've met here today."

  Amy and Wyrrin ran through corridors deserted by fleeing guardsmen. Well, perhaps fleeing was a harsh word. They weren't running away so much as...redeploying? It was probably the right thing to do, cleverer than all rushing to where they thought she was. For all they knew, after all, she was just a diversion while someone else sneaked in to try and kill the Emperor or something. That probably made more sense to them than that she was trying to rescue three prisoners.

  Whatever the guards were doing, the corridors were empty, which was all to the good. The slaves and servants had also made themselves scarce. Had Amy cared to, she could have had a grand old time prising gems out of the walls, or defacing the monuments to glories past. Of course she didn't have time for nonsense like that, but it wasn't as if there was anyone around to stop her.

  They kept on going. As the palace became a duller, grimmer, more bare place Amy knew that they were heading in the right direction. The dungeons of Seafire Peak had been the drabbest part of the fortress too, and the same for Kraken Tower. Wherever you went, lordly seats were all the same deep down.

  She heard the thumping of footsteps on the ground before she saw the stone giant step out in front of her from around a bend. Amy skidded to a halt as she saw how completely it blocked the way.

  "What in God's name are you?" Amy murmured as she stared at it. It was so large that it barely fit into the corridor, its head brushing the ceiling and its shoulders scraping against the walls. Its hands were the size of anvils. It looked as though it had been carved, not birthed. A statue was what it most resembled, a giant, walking, and crudely carved statue. Amy had never seen the like before.

  "Is that a troll?" she asked Magnus Alba.

  Really?

  "Well I don't know, I've never seen a troll before, and this is made of rock," Amy said.

  Trolls are not made of rock, any more than you are made of water.

  "Oh, right, of course." Amy cleared her throat loudly. "So...giant stone man, I don't suppose you want to get out of my way?"

  The giant did not move. If it had a voice it was declining to exercise it.

  Amy hefted Magnus Alba over her shoulder. "Right then, suit yourself." She roared as she slashed crossways with her great blade, Magnus Alba splintering the giant's stony hide and carving a line through it diagonally across the midriff. The stone creation's upper body fell backwards onto the floor, leaving its legs standing like a tree stump after the trunk is felled.

  Amy smirked. "Big, but not really very-"

  A giant stone fist slammed into her midriff, hurling her backwards down the corridor, only stopping when she slammed into a wall so hard the stonework cracked beneath her weight. She fell onto her face and belly with a thud.

  Amy groaned as she climbed onto her hands and knees, just in time to see Wyrrin slash across the stone face with both his black blades. They barely scratched the grey stone. Wyrrin stood there, looking dumbfounded, before the giant used one hand to pick him up and toss him down the corridor. He moaned where he lay on the ground, his claws scraping at th
e mosaic tiles beneath them.

  Amy saw that the stone giant's upper body had picked itself up off the ground and used one fist to push itself up while punching her with the other. And now its legs were skittering towards her, making the palace floor shake with its tread.

  "Oh, that's cheating, that is," Amy muttered, a moment before the trunk less legs reached her and kicked her in the face with a foot the size of a table.

  Amy's head rang as she was thrown up into the air before landing again with a hard thwack, rolling across the tiled floor as Magnus Alba slipped from her grasp and skidded away. She heard thudding and scraping, and saw the legs coming after again even as the body dragged itself along behind.

  This time Amy caught the kick with one hand, her arm straining to withstand the blow as the stone legs pushed against her. It was strong, but she could be stronger, would be stronger. Her boy was relying on her.

  Snarling through gritted teeth, Amy used her free hand to push herself up into a crouch before grabbing the stone legs with both hands and rising to her feet to pick them bodily off the ground, flailing and kicking. With a roar of triumph, Amy lifted them over her head and threw them at the stone torso crawling its way up the corridor towards her.

  The legs shattered into a thousand fragments, but the body kept on crawling, its face only cracked and shipped by the impact.

  Growling in frustration, Amy felt her armour where she had been punched the first time. There were small cracks along the breastplate, but nothing too serious. It would grow itself back together in hours, at most. Assuming it didn't get damaged too much more in this fight.

  The stone torso was picking up speed as it got closer to her. Amy glanced at Magnus Alba. She could make a grab for it, but she might get caught trying to pick it up, and that wouldn't be good.

  No, Amy thought as she assumed a boxing stance, it would have to be armoured fists here.

  The torso dragged itself towards her at increasing speed. Amy charged with a bellow of anger. The stone giant readied one fist to pummel her. Amy jumped over the fist, and brought her own hand down upon the stone head with all the strength at her command. The stone face broke apart like a vase dropped to the ground, even as the stone fists groped for her. Amy kept pummelling, screaming as she punched at it again and again, shattering the unnatural creation beneath her hands, turning the stone to splinters and shards, until she plucked a ruby the size of a duck's egg from the centre of its ruined stone chest and crushed it in her palm. The arms stopped groping and, at last, fell lifeless to the floor.

  Amy dashed back to where she'd left her ancestral blade and picked it up. "Do you have any idea what that was?"

  No. But it was clearly nothing alive.

  "How can something that isn't alive be moving around and fighting?" Amy asked.

  Before her sword could so much as suggest an answer, another of the wretched things had stepped out in front of her. This time it did not wait for her to cut it in half, but advanced straightway.

  "Do you know a way I can kill this one quicker than the first," Amy said. "I really don't have time for this."

  Magnus Alba sounded a little smug as it said, I thought you'd never ask. Now, repeat after me:

  "Lord of the Oceans, Master of Sea and Storm, stretch forth thy power and crush my foe!" Amy yelled in the naiad tongue as she pointed at her stone opponent with her blade. A ray of sea-blue light erupted from Magnus Alba's point, and when it strung the stone giant it exploded into pebble sized fragments.

  Amy's cry of triumph was cut off as two more of the things appeared.

  Amy rolled her eyes. "Can't you just leave me alone!" she repeated the incantation Magnus Alba had taught her. Again the blue light sped towards her stone foes- until it stopped, halted in its tracks by some invisible force, held there until it guttered and died before her eyes.

  "What under the ocean?" Amy muttered.

  "Nothing under the ocean, just me here on land," Miranda Callistus said as she stepped out behind one of the two stone warriors, trailed by a winged woman with a sword slung across her back that it took Amy a few moments to recognise as that girl Octavia who had visited their camp. Miranda looked a lot like Amy had expected she would: her face had become leaner now that the baby fat was gone, she was taller, stronger looking. What did surprise Amy was how well looked after she seemed. She didn't look much like any prisoner Amy had ever seen.

  "Miranda?" Amy demanded. "You're the one who's been sending these things to kill me? I thought Quirian was holding you captive? Octavia was telling the truth?"

  Miranda frowned. "That voice...Amy?"

  Amy tore off her helmet. "Well of course it's me, who else would be risking their life trying to rescue Michael?" She hesitated. "That sounded quite unkind, didn't it?"

  "And yet very true at the same time," Miranda observed.

  Amy gestured at the stone giants. "Do you know what these things are?"

  "Golems, I made them," Miranda said.

  "But you're supposed to be a prisoner!"

  Miranda rolled her eyes. "Why does everybody think that I need rescuing? No, I'm not a captive. Yes, I am helping Quirian of my own free will. No, I don't need anyone to rescue me; please will you all just go away!"

  "Oh, please, I didn't come here to save you," Amy said derisively. "You know they've got Michael locked up somewhere in here?"

  "Oh, really. I had no idea."

  "Well, he-"

  "That was sarcasm!"

  Amy rested her sword point first upon the floor as she glared at Miranda. "You know, after seven years away I'd nearly forgotten how annoying you are, but now it's all coming back to me like a song. You may have come into the magic of the Aurelians but you're still a crab of the first order."

  "Better a crab than a tease," Miranda replied venomously.

  Amy's eyebrows rose as she advanced on Miranda. "Do you honestly believe a tease would be storming the palace to rescue Michael? Besides, those two are like my brothers."

  "They've already got a sister," Miranda's voice was ice.

  "A sister who never cared about them half so much as I did," Amy replied.

  "There is more to caring than indulging all of a person's whims and worst qualities," Miranda spat. "You coddled all of Michael and Felix's flaws, I tried to-"

  "Make them miserable?" Amy asked.

  "Help them to improve."

  "Make them more like you, you mean?" Amy said. "Because you couldn't possibly have any flaws of your own, could you?”

  "I've never lied, or stole," Miranda said.

  "You've never had any fun either," Amy said. "The fact is, if you care so much about your brothers why are you trying to stop me from rescuing Michael?"

  Miranda hesitated. "I wanted to see who it was. And then I...I suppose we're a bit old for this kind of bickering, aren't we?"

  Amy laughed. "I suppose so. How old are you now? Seventeen?"

  "Nineteen."

  "Really? I could have sworn I was older than you," Amy said. "How have you been, Miranda?"

  Miranda shrugged. "Fine, I suppose." She looked Amy up and down. "What are you supposed to be nowadays?"

  "I am a knight of the Oceanhost and a naiad descended from God himself," Amy said proudly. "And you're the white champion, aren't you?"

  Miranda nodded. A smirk crossed her lips. "I believe my magic is stronger than your sword."

  "Maybe, but I doubt you've anything to wear as impressive as this armour," Amy replied.

  "That I will concede," Miranda said. She sighed, and her tone verged on melancholy as she said, "Why do they like you more than me?"

  "Because I understand them," Amy said. "You don't, and you get annoyed about it."

  "I just want them both to live in the real world instead of the world they've created in their heads."

  "Real is this wall, real is that golem looming over you, real is flesh and blood, real is what you can touch," Amy said. "Everything else is a choice. If Michael wants to dedicate his life to the ser
vice of an ungrateful nation, then I wish him all the best, that sort of devotion is too rare these days. If he wants to live according to an old-fashioned code, then why should you care? He isn't trying to get himself killed any more and he isn't hurting anyone who doesn't oppose him in battle. Why should he have to act the way you do, or even the way you want him too?"

  "He shouldn't feel like he has to pretend to be someone he isn't, some hero out of old stories," Miranda insisted.

  "He is a hero out of the old stories," Amy said. "He may not realise it, he may not admit it, but that's exactly who he is. He came back from the dead to save my life. He talks to gods in his dreams, he can fight with the strength of a hundred men when the need arises, he inspired a whole town of frightened people to defend themselves, he feels the pain of his friends like a blow to the heart. He's bloody Gabriel come again, and if that comes with an old-fashioned way of speaking and some kissing hands then I don't think that's a steep price to pay for all the good stuff." She took a step back. "Now, are you going to let me through so I can save him, or not?"

  Miranda stepped aside. "Make way for Amy." Her two golems cleared a path for her.

  Behind Amy, Wyrrin groaned.

  Amy looked back. "I don't suppose you could look after him? He's a friend, but I don't think he's up to anything else today."

  Miranda nodded. "I'll keep him safe. I'd tell you to look after Michael, but frankly you're as much a fool as he is. Is there anyone with any sense in your little gang?"

  "Yes," Amy replied, putting her helmet back on. "But we never pay any attention to him."

  "God help you," Miranda muttered, as Amy ran on.

  She kept on running, found a few guards still maintaining their vigil over the cells, and left them moaning in an unconscious heap on the ground. Then, because it would be more impressive that way, she punched a hole in the wall and stepped through it.

  "Look sharp lads, the rescue is-" the words died on Amy's tongue as she took in the scene beyond the iron barred door. Gideon lying against the wall, his life's blood pooling around him, not moving, not breathing. Michael knelt over him, sobbing softly.

  "Oh, God," Amy murmured. "Is he..."