Six Sacred Swords

Six Sacred Swords Page 20

by Andrew Rowe

Or the next. Or the next.

  All in all, it took us just over two weeks to reach the spot where the shrine was marked on the map. There was no sign of Lydia, Landen, Velas, or anyone else from my homeland during that time.

  Worse than that, though?

  There wasn’t any sign of the shrine at our destination, either.

  ***

  “It’s definitely supposed to be here.” Reika was visibly flustered, stomping around on the ground. “The book says it’s right here.”

  “It’s a pretty large ‘X’ on the map,” I pointed out. “I mean, if the ‘X’ is to scale, it would have to be a shrine that’s several miles long in each direction. And also ‘X’ shaped.”

  “You’re not helping.”

 

  “Thank you, Dawn.”

  Reika glared at the sword. “I don’t even know what you’re saying, but you’re clearly a traitor.”

 

  I frowned at the sword. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about at this point.”

 

  I sighed, turning back to Reika. “Okay. The shrine could be anywhere within a few miles. We have a very vague physical description, involving two goddess statues standing outside, as well as a giant stone tablet. Those sound large enough that they might be visible from the air.”

  “You’re just looking for excuses to have me carry you around again. You’re always like, ‘Waah, Reika. My weak human legs can’t carry me a hundred miles in one day. Boo hoo, Reika. I’m critically injured from swords stabbing me and can’t walk anymore.’”

  “You know, I don’t sound anything like that, but those are pretty reasonable arguments.”

  “I know! I’m just working through some frustration here, okay! Books are supposed to be reliable! Ugh.”

  I leaned up against a nearby rock. “I get it. Dealing with prophecies and all that nonsense can be really frustrating. If it helps, you don’t need to carry me. You can just go fly around on your own for a little bit and scout.”

  “I don’t like it.” Reika shook her head. “What if you get eaten by something while I’m gone? Like another cockatrice? Or a squirrel?”

  “Squirrels are very, very small, Reika.”

  “They are? I saw a picture of one once, but I admit the scale was pretty unclear. It looked terrifying. Not as bad as that cockatrice, mind you.”

  “That was definitely a duck.”

  “Cockatrice. Petrifying gaze. I know what I saw.”

  I sighed. “Fine. Reika, will you please transform into your majestic dragon form and carry me into the vast and beautiful skies?”

  “...You think my dragon form is majestic?”

  “Yes. You’re a lovely dragon, Reika. Can we please fly now?”

  “...Okay... I mean, I guess, if it’s really important to you.”

  Yes, Sera. In retrospect, I’m aware that absolutely came across as flattering her, and possibly flirting with her. Thank you for pointing that out to the Keras of now, and not the naïve Keras of the past who was simply exhausted and working on his elementary dragon management skills.

 

  At least someone was excited.

  ***

  Imagine that you’re sitting on top of a large vehicle, like a carriage or an automobile. No, not inside. Right on top.

  Then imagine that the vehicle can move in three dimensions, and rapidly pitch from side-to-side, or even upside down.

  There’s no seat. There’s no saddle, or anything else designed for passengers.

  Doesn’t sound like that’s a very good mode of transportation, does it?

  Welcome to trying to ride on a dragon.

  Emphasis on trying.

  quickly gave way to

  As I thudded to the ground, the first thing I did was question my life choices.

  Fortunately, we hadn’t managed to get up very far before I slid off. We’d barely left the ground. The impact wasn’t too bad, but my previous injuries hadn’t completely healed, so they screamed pretty loudly when we hit.

  I laid there for a minute, then pulled myself back up.

  Reika’s “majestic” form took a few seconds to even notice that I’d fallen down, then landed in front of me. She lowered her head. “Do I need to go slower?”

  I groaned, pulling myself off the ground. “I don’t think that’s the main problem. I hadn’t thought enough about the logistics of this. How’d you fly with me before?”

  She stood up on her hind legs — or her only legs, I wasn’t really clear on if I should call her front appendages arms — and made a hugging gesture with her front limbs. “I carried you under me.”

  That did explain a lot of the soreness I’d felt when I’d woken up afterward. She’d probably been crushing me a bit. I was grateful for the evacuation, but I wasn’t keen to repeat it. Especially because I didn’t think I’d have a good view of the area that way. If she carried me facing upward, I’d be looking at her. If she carried me facing down...well, I’d probably just throw up. Neither was a good prospect.

  I pondered. “Okay. I think the main problem is I need something to hold onto. Normally, when riding something, I’d wear a saddle.”

  “I’m not a horse.” Reika pouted. “But I guess that makes sense. Can we make one?”

  “Eventually, maybe. But you’re much larger than a horse, and we don’t have the materials. I could try to grab onto your scales?”

  Reika shook her larger, now horn-covered head. “Ick, no. That’d hurt. And you might tear one off!”

  I glanced upward to meet her gaze, and a more obvious answer came to me. “What if I grabbed onto your horns?”

  “I...uh...”

  Dragon scales don’t change colors when a dragon is embarrassed, but with the way she stammered and turned her head aside, I got the distinct feeling she was blushing.

  From the color Marissa is blushing right now, I can tell she figured out the problem a little faster than I did.

  I was confused at first, until I thought back to some of Reika’s books that I’d read. I’d skipped over most of the ones that were purely romance driven, but a few of the action-oriented ones that I liked still had some scenes of a more risqué variety.

  I’d assumed the implications of grabbing a dragon by their tail or horns in the Swords and Scales series had been purely fictitious fluff. Maybe they were, but I had to remember that Reika had been influenced by that content, even if it wasn’t strictly accurate.

  “That’s...okay, I guess...” She stammered. “I mean, if you really want to...”

  “I was just suggesting it as a practical option, nothing...uh, more lurid?” Now I was embarrassed. “Hey, maybe it’d be easier if you just did the aerial scouting on your own? I could just, uh, wait here a little while.”

  “Uh, yeah! I guess I could do that.” She took a couple steps back, still looking awkward. “OkayI’llseeyoulaterbye!”

  Then Reika ran — and eventually flew — away.

  I stared after her.

 

  I glowered down at the sword. “We were not flirting.”

 

  “It was an honest mistake! And that would not help with flying!”

 

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re just teasing me because you wanted to fly.”

 

  “I guess that’s fair.” I looked up at the sky. Reika was already far enough away that she’d practically disappeared from sight. “You want to play cards or something?”

  ’ll just use my hands, which I definitely have, to select the cards to play against you.>

  “You don’t have to be so snippy. There are games where both players can see all the cards, and it’s just about choosing which you want to play next. You could tell me what card you want to play. Or there are board games that are similar, like Crowns.”

 

  “Hm?”

 

  “No, but I’m sure I could cobble something together. Give me a few minutes.”

  <...Okay.>

  ***

  When Reika landed, she looked a little perplexed at the flattened patch of ground that had been split into grid squares, about half of which had tiny figures on them. After a moment, she shifted back into her human form, but she still looked perplexed.

  “Are those Crowns...no, Valor pieces?”

  I nodded. “Making a full Crowns board would have taken too long, but Valor was quicker and easier.”

  “Who are you playing against? ...And are you losing?”

  I grimaced. “I’m playing against Dawn...and look, I’ve been going easy on her, because she’s new at this.”

 

  I had been going easy on her at first. It was about mid-way through the second game before I’d realized my error.

  No, not because she was an immensely skilled tactician who had simply never played the game before. She was quite intelligent, and had some familiarity with the game from books Reika had read to her, but that wasn’t the problem.

  No, the problem was I was playing Valor against someone who could read my mind.

  She’d been speaking to me telepathically since we’d met, but I’d been speaking out loud to her. Since the vast majority of her communication involved teasing me, I hadn’t really conceptualized the fact that she might actually know what I was thinking.

  I’d won our first game, but that was because she was acclimating to the rules. By the second game, she understood enough to start reading the plans in my head for future moves, and threw counters to interfere with me.

  In the third game, I’d started to try to take countermeasures. I didn’t know how her mind-reading worked, and I hadn’t asked her about it. I figured it would be more fun to experiment.

  So, I tried to consider several possible moves without actually making any decisions, and then let my mind wander to something unrelated.

  Unfortunately, she was able to figure that out almost immediately, because planning countermeasures to mind reading required thinking about them. If I’d bothered to set the sword down while I was thinking about it I could have probably avoided that, but I didn’t want to upset her. Contact seemed important to her.

 

  “Testing is more fun. How deep into my mind can you get?”

 

  I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “I just enjoy fighting. You’re the one who is making something lewd out of it.”

 

  “Wait. Is that why you started screaming when I broke that halberd during the fight with the Tails of Orochi? When I commanded the halberd to break, did you think I was trying to break you?”

 

  I winced. “Sorry. I didn’t realize the experience would be like that for you.”

 

  “It’s not about wanting to break things, Dawn. It’s about tactics. Is it going to be a problem if I do something like that again?”

 

  I picked Dawn up. “I don’t really have any good targets.”

 

  I sighed. “Never mind.” I pulled out the knife that Reika had loaned me and set it down, then pressed Dawnbringer against it. “Ready?”

 

  Break.

  The knife blade snapped in half.

  Dawnbringer went silent for a moment.

  I knelt down, stuck the knife blade pieces back together, and then concentrated.

  Merge.

  The knife reassembled.

 

  “Nope. This thing is useful, I’m not going to waste it. Besides,” I pressed Dawnbringer against the knife again, “we’re not done practicing.”

 

  We bantered and practiced for a while longer, then got back to playing Valor until Reika arrived.

  I had ways I probably could have stopped Dawn from reading my mind, but attempting to play against a mind reader was a more interesting exercise. And I think the ego boost was probably good for Dawn, too.

  I didn’t bother explaining all that to Reika, though. She almost certainly already knew about Dawn’s mind-reading abilities. I was interested in asking if they’d tested her mind-reading range, as well as her general sensory range, but I was more interested in finding out about the shrine first.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Reika beamed. “Yep! I think I found it. Do you want me to carry you there?”

  “How far is it?”

  She frowned, glancing back in the direction she’d come from, then pondered. “Maybe...fifteen miles or so?”

  That’d be a solid day of walking, or, if I had to guess, a half hour by flight.

  <...Can we please?>

  I patted Dawn on the hilt. “Dawn wants to fly. So, let’s fly.”

  “Okay. Let me take a break first, though. I am so hungry, I could eat a whole cow. Multiple cows. All of the cows.”

  We didn’t have multiple cows for Reika to eat, but we did manage a snack of some of the remaining venison we’d packed away after finding the deer.

  I picked up the Valor pieces that I’d made and packed them in my bag. I had a feeling we’d probably end up wanting to play the game again at some point, and while I could make more in the same way — using stone shaping on nearby rocks — it had taken a considerable amount of time and effort to make enough pieces for a game.

  After that, Reika transformed again, then carried me to the shrine.

  No, I didn’t grab onto her by the horns. She carried me in her arms, just like when I’d been unconscious.

  It wasn’t exactly comfortable. She had to cradle me uncomfortably tightly to make sure I didn’t slip, and I still felt like I might fall at any given time.

  But it was more comfortable than asking that embarrassing question about the horns again, especially now that I had an idea of what she was probably associating it with.

  Maybe I’ll ask her again eventually, when I get to know her better.

 

  Has anyone ever told you that reading private thoughts can be a little intrusive?

 

  You know, if this connection is two ways, I’ll probably eventually figure out how to read your thoughts. The ones you’re not sending me deliberately. The
private ones, that you find embarrassing.

 

  You seem to have an awfully strong fixation on my supposed ‘inappropriate’ thoughts. That kind of protestation means you’re the one hiding something.

 

  Just out of sheer curiosity, I tried to extend my thoughts toward the sword, focusing on the feeling that I experienced when she was “speaking” into my mind.

 

  Hm. Yeah, definitely hiding something.

 

  I’ll figure it out eventually. And when I do, I’m going to tease you mercilessly.

  She paused.

  Guess that means I’m not bound to any contract, then. I suppose I should destroy contract-inscribed objects more often.

 

  Hm, I guess I’d consult the rules to see if you’re right...but I destroyed them, so I can’t. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one, and in conclusion, if you can break into my mind I can break into yours.

 

  We continued bantering a little more after that. In spite of Dawn’s protestations, I could tell she was enjoying getting teased in return for a change.

  By bantering with her, I was validating her. I was acknowledging her as a worthy opponent, rather than just a passenger inside my mind.

  I don’t think that kind of rapport would have worked for everyone, but as a swordsman, having a friendly challenger inside my mind gave me a whole new battlefield to explore. I liked that.

  Chapter X – Dungeon Magic

  After the initial rush of being taken into the sky, my experience with flying was mostly hyper-awareness of how much it hurt to be squeezed while injured.

 

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