by Will Wight
He could wait.
***
The sun’s last rays were drifting up the canyon as Lindon and Yerin knelt before the Ruler Trial’s tablet.
“Blackflame madra burned the body and the…mind, I’d say, although it could be spirit. Or dreams.” He tapped a picture of a screaming person grasping at his own head. “The point seems clear. Using Blackflame slowly ruins you, building up damage and eroding the soul, destroying your advancement, your sanity, and your lifespan.” He tried not to feel the Blackflame raging inside him, deadly and explosive, instead returning his focus to the ancient symbols.
“That is the price you pay for the…largest hammer? Ah, ‘greatest weapon.’ Blackflames rule by…one man on the battlefield?” He traced his finger between the symbol and a nearby picture of a man standing alone with flames in each of his hands.
“Last man standing,” Yerin said quietly.
Lindon shivered. That was impressively reliable, but somewhat grim for his taste. They ruled by virtue of having killed all their opponents. And this was core enough to their philosophy that they engraved it in their basic training course.
Well, he’d chosen this Path for its ability to win duels, not for its outstanding moral values. And he’d want the biggest weapon he could find if he had to fight the creature destined to attack Sacred Valley.
The next phrase was in more modern language:
The dragon conquers.
He said it aloud, and Yerin nodded along. “Ruler techniques conquer. Fits like a good boot.”
The dragon advances.
The dragon destroys.
The dragon conquers.
Orthos’ core was unsteady and had been for days, but the words resonated with his spirit. He was a sword rather than a shield, a force of destruction, and a jealous king.
That wasn’t a comfortable personality to share a soul with, but it described a weapon that Lindon could use.
Yerin nodded to the rest of the Ruler Trial. “Rather than that…these guys tickle your memory at all?”
Lindon had been trying not to look out at the field of opponents arranged for him in the final Blackflame Trial. There were ninety-nine dark, humanoid figures in the field, each clutching different weapons, and he sensed different madra from each of them. Ninety-nine mannequins with faceless heads.
Ninety-nine dummies, arranged in a circle.
The activation crystal was on a pedestal in the center, and Lindon had to use his Ruler technique to some degree before he could power the course. He wasn’t looking forward to it. The Striker Trial had only taken them ten days to pass, but based on how long it had taken him to fight eighteen dummies, almost a hundred would take…
…very probably the rest of his short life.
Lindon moved on to the technique section. “Dance of the Dragon of Emptiness,” he said.
“Not ‘Fierce’?” Yerin asked. “Nothing fierce about this one?”
Lindon shook his head, trying to remember a story that Orthos had told him months ago.
“Then I like it. Dance of the Dragon of Emptiness…what about Dance of Emptiness? Plain and stable. Doesn’t look like you have to do any dancing, though.”
He searched the characters, trying to figure out how else they could be read, before the memory clicked. “Void Dragon’s Dance.”
Yerin slapped him on the back. “There’s the winner. That’s a name you’d be proud to put in a manual.”
White light flashed in the darkening sky overhead, and they both looked up.
Lindon extended his Jade perception, and was sure Yerin had done the same. He had the brief sense that the light felt cool and sharp, but that was all before it faded.
“A celebration?” he asked. The Wei clan had shone colored lights into the night sky at every festival and most holidays.
Yerin’s face went from distracted and curious to deadly serious in the space of a blink. “Get your pack, bring it here. We should put our backs to an exit.”
Lindon strained his perception, but he didn’t even get a vague sense of the city. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing’s sure yet,” Yerin said, “but it’s not a party.”
He turned to run back to the cave, but stopped before he’d taken a step. To his surprise, he did sense something. Something a lot closer than the city.
Orthos’ core quivered like a bomb on the edge of exploding.
His shock and outrage echoed inside Lindon—he must have felt the same things Yerin did. Whatever that was, it hit the turtle like a gong. His spirit shivered, teetering off balance for an instant.
Then it fell into rage.
“I’ll go back later,” Lindon said, worrying for the Riverseed. “Right now, we need to—”
A roar shook their little valley. Dirt trembled, and the walls shivered.
Yerin’s sword was in her hand, and her Goldsign buzzed with sword aura. “That’s your turtle?”
“Not at the moment,” Lindon said. Blackflame madra swirled within him in furious, explosive bursts, ready to be used.
A deafening series of crashes filled the canyon, and gray smoke rose between them and the Enforcer Trial. The stone pillars were collapsing as Orthos got closer.
He was crashing straight through the forest of columns on his way to them.
“Yerin,” Lindon asked, his voice surprisingly calm. “Where would you put Orthos’ strength, if you had to rate him?”
She leaned on the balls of her feet, ready to dash into battle. “Hard to weigh sacred beasts, but I’d call him Truegold.”
“That’s what I thought.” He swallowed. “Gratitude, Yerin. I would never have made it out of Sacred Valley if not for you.”
Her spirit flared, and silver aura condensed around her like a shell. “Wouldn’t make it out of this valley without me, either. Talk when the fight’s over. Eyes up.”
Lindon had never taken his gaze away from the approaching sacred beast, but he still almost missed it when the huge black bulk hurled itself through the arch of their Trial, body blazing with the Burning Cloak, red eyes shining with madness. If Lindon had been any less than fully focused, he wouldn’t have made it in time.
But a Burning Cloak of his own sprung up around him, and he dashed off to the side, kicking up a spray of dirt, everything from his ankles to knees screaming at the strain. His Bloodforged Iron body kicked in instantly, stealing more of his madra and sending it to his legs.
Yerin ducked so low she looked like she’d plastered herself against the ground, slashing up with her Goldsign and her white sword both.
Orthos kicked out, and both of her attacks met burning claws.
Then the turtle’s momentum carried him over her body, and he slammed into the earth, roaring and turning in an instant. Yerin was back on him, slamming an aura-assisted blade at his neck.
They traded six blows while Lindon took stock of his options.
He could go back to the cave and get the Sylvan Riverseed to try and cleanse Orthos. It might not work, but he’d intended to try whenever Orthos showed up sane again. But the pack was all the way back in the cave, and by the time he returned, Yerin could be dead.
He could try to lure Orthos out the exit. He could probably get the turtle to follow him, and then Yerin could knock him through the aura barrier to the outside. If he was trapped, he’d be harmless until Lindon could bring the Riverseed to heal him.
Of course, that was assuming he couldn’t just drill a hole with Blackflame straight through the stone and come right back inside.
Or…Lindon patted his belt, feeling the weight there. He’d brought his halfsilver dagger along to the unknown Trial. He gripped the hilt in a sweaty hand, flared his Burning Cloak, and dashed into battle.
One cut. If he could stab Orthos at all, the halfsilver would disperse his madra, and Yerin would have an instant to stop him. It might even be enough to relieve the pressure on his spirit and make him sane again.
When Yerin rolled in the air over his shell and came dow
n behind him, Orthos turned to face her.
And Lindon leaped in, striking at the turtle’s tail. He could cut anywhere, with a halfsilver blade, and it would work just as well. The important part was that the metal contacted the madra.
He stabbed Orthos in the tail, and his blade snapped in half.
Halfsilver was a brittle metal, and the turtle’s skin was thick as leather armor. He should have seen it coming.
Lindon cursed himself as he tumbled backwards, having been sent flying by Orthos’ tail. He eventually rolled to a stop, but hopped straight up to his feet—he’d been hurt worse than that in the Enforcer Trial.
If Orthos was in full command of his powers, they would both have been dead by now. Lindon could feel that in the power echoing through their contract. But fueled entirely by blind rage, the turtle could hardly string two thoughts together.
That was their only chance.
Clutching that possibility, Lindon dashed back into the fight.
Chapter 18
In Yerin’s view, you never got used to the fear of death, but you could ignore it. It didn’t go away, but when you’d spent more nights in swordfights than in soft beds, you learned to shove the fear into the dark corner where it belonged.
But facing the hulking, burning, armored beast that loomed over her and struck with a fury that singed her skin, that fear was creeping out of its corner and showing its ugly face.
Orthos was overwhelming her with the sheer power of his madra. He would smash down with an Enforced paw that cracked the ground, cough up a tongue of abyssal flames, and rush forward to crush her with his body weight, all in the space of a breath. She dodged what she could, but some attacks had to be turned, and it took everything she had to shove one of his blows to the side.
Her master’s voice was finally starting to scrape her nerves. She’d learned so much from the instincts bubbling up from his Remnant that she couldn’t believe Eithan had ever told her to get rid of him, but now he was starting to feel like a burden. Her Goldsign twitched like her master wanted her to cut the turtle in half; well, that would be just fine, if it weren’t a turtle. There was a big mound of shell in the way.
The Sword Sage didn’t see the problem. That was a stable enough move if it were him in the flesh; he could cut a mountain in half without a sword in his hand. But she was still a Gold, ten leagues and two oceans behind his stage of advancement. She couldn’t cut through that shell if Orthos stood quietly and let her…but her Goldsign was still pulling her to try it.
If not for Lindon, she’d be dead already; when she saw him catch a gap in Orthos’ defense and rush in to hammer it, she was prouder than a hen with six eggs. Good thing he was there, because he could take hits from Blackflame madra without dissolving like salt in water.
Orthos hadn’t gathered himself for a big show like that Striker technique that had pierced the clouds—and a good thing too, or he’d bring the canyon walls down—because he didn’t have the presence of mind for it. Best he could manage was belching a few black flames, which Lindon could swat away with his own madra and keep fighting. She had to meet each of those techniques with her sword, or risk losing an arm.
But every time Lindon did that, his power dimmed like a dying light. He was faltering, that was plain to see.
If she didn’t win this fight in the next two breaths, he wouldn’t get a third.
Smoke and red-tinged light rose from Orthos’ shell as he stomped around, swiveling his head to point at Lindon. The turtle’s jaw gaped, and his eyes blazed with what she’d call hatred.
There was a mountain of shell between her and Lindon, but there was one last thing she could try.
With all the strength of her Steelborn Iron body, Yerin hurled the sword between Orthos’ legs. It stuck into the earth beneath the turtle, buried up to the hilt, and Orthos didn’t notice.
Dead on target.
Yerin gathered all the sword aura she could pull onto her Goldsign, and even the edge of her fingernails. Sword aura showed its power in motion; when she swung them all forward, she struck with the Endless Sword technique.
Her Goldsign rang like a bell. Her fingernails echoed, tiny chimes, as they popped and sprayed blood into the air.
All the sword aura resonated in a twenty-foot radius around her, the technique spreading out in a wave and looking for other swords. When it hit her master’s blade, the ringing sounded like the gong that announced victory or failure in the Blackflame Trials.
Sword aura burst out of the buried weapon, a wave of dirt spraying everywhere, and blasted the turtle’s underbelly. She had been hoping to split Orthos from bottom to top, but she could feel when the aura didn’t bite. It slammed into his belly, lifting him six inches off the ground and making him roar…but it barely cut him. She’d gotten worse from sharp twigs.
In that half-second while all four paws were off the ground, she saw one more chance, but she didn’t have the strength to follow up on it. If she had her sword, sure. But she was unarmed, bleeding from all ten fingernails, and low on madra to top it off.
She opened her mouth to shout, hoping Lindon would catch this chance before it passed.
Before a sound left her lips, Lindon moved.
The months of training together finally showed their worth. Lindon, heavens bless him, saw the opportunity. He slid closer to Orthos and reached down, fist flaring with the black-and-red light of the Burning Cloak.
His uppercut caught the turtle on the edge of his shell, sending Orthos flipping upside-down.
The sacred beast slammed into the earth a moment later, spraying Blackflame madra from its mouth and roaring. Yerin clambered closer, snatching the hilt of her sword away—only luck had stopped him from landing right on the blade.
Another benefit of working with Lindon: she knew exactly where he’d be without looking.
She tossed the white sword into the air over Orthos, and Lindon—already at the height of a jump—snatched it out of the air.
His thoughts were the same as hers, she knew. They didn’t want to kill Orthos, because they’d have to fight his Remnant, but heaven strike her down if she could see a better way. Besides, Lindon could adopt the Remnant; he might not have been instructed through that process, and he may not have been quite ready for it, but that would be better than another fight to the death.
Lindon landed on Orthos’ belly, swaying like a man on the deck of a ship. He reversed the sword, raised it in both hands…
…and he switched cores.
His presence went from a fiercely burning fire to a calm, almost invisible lake. He was a Jade on a different Path.
And before he killed the sacred beast, something caught her attention.
When did he have full strength in both his cores?
She’d never noticed much of a difference, since he’d grown so slowly, and he only switched to his Twin Stars madra once in a blue moon. But he used to feel like half a Jade. Now, she’d never know he had a split core without scanning his spirit closely.
His core still wasn’t the deepest, but compared to how he was before, the difference was like heaven and earth. Just the core he was showing now wouldn’t embarrass a Jade back in Sacred Valley, and she’d eat her sword if his Blackflame core wasn’t a notch wider.
His cycling technique. Eithan taught it to him.
Lindon had never made a secret of that, but Yerin hadn’t given it two thoughts before. It was just a cycling technique; every Path had one. Lindon had complained about how difficult his Heavenly Whatever Wheel was, but he was new to the sacred arts. Everything was difficult to him.
She’d been jealous of the personal attention Eithan had paid him, but if she was honest, he needed it more than she did. But Yerin had never thought Eithan was teaching him anything great because—to cut right down to the bone—Eithan wasn’t treating them like real disciples. He hadn’t even told them the name of his Path.
But…what if he did think of Lindon as a disciple? What if he was actually passing along his
sacred arts to Lindon?
Because if that cycling technique had made up for his lack of madra, it wasn’t some half-baked technique that Lindon had found in an old scroll. It was on the same stage as the cycling technique his master had passed to her.
She expected a fresh surge of envy, but what passed through her instead was relief. A large slice of a sacred artist’s future could be told from the quality of their Path.
You could get to Truegold without a perfect Iron body, but then your flesh wouldn’t survive the advancement to Underlord. Same story for spirits: without a solid Jade cycling technique, your soul would get shakier and shakier at each stage until you couldn’t advance any further.
The more solid your foundation, the further you could go.
When Eithan told them he wanted to take them all the way to the end, he hadn’t just been spitting in the wind.
Of course, they wouldn’t take one step out of the valley if Orthos’ Remnant killed them both. The fight wasn’t over.
Lindon pulled his free hand back for a strike and drove an Empty Palm down into the turtle’s midsection, and Yerin could feel the creature’s madra going wild. It screamed like an earthquake, so loud she had to cycle madra to her ears to stop her eardrums from bursting. It bucked like a ship in a storm, trying to shake Lindon off.
But it couldn’t Enforce its body anymore. Orthos’ quick, graceful movements were gone, and he was just a big turtle.
Lindon raised the Sword Sage’s blade and threw it to one side.
Yerin gaped at him. Every rosy thing she’d thought about him flew away and died.
Lindon’s knees almost buckled when he hopped off the turtle and hit the ground, and he braced himself against the side of Orthos’ shell for balance. “Forgiveness, but he doesn’t deserve to die here. And the Sylvan might help him.”
For once, the three voices in her head were all in agreement. Her unwelcome guest, her master’s Remnant, and Yerin all told her to kill the enemy before this idiot could ruin everything.
“I’m not saying to gut him for the thrill of it. You kill enemies, you hear me? If you don’t, they come up behind you and stab you in the back.”