Awakenings

by C. D. Espeseth

  More and more, she pushed into the blade, and soon she felt waves of heat rolling off the blade. Its dark metal began to glow red, then orange, to yellow and then to white, and still, it held its edge, shining with white heat as if this was what it had been forged to do.

  Adel pushed the glowing hot blade into the bronze weapon and watched her sword cut through the thick bronze as if it were no more than frozen butter. There was some resistance, but the blade had soon cut a terrible gash right across the front bell. Adel pushed the blade harder and heard the thud as the front of the weapon fell to the side.

  A long diagonal slash had cloven the enemy’s bronze terror in two, rendering it useless.

  For good measure, Adel pushed another gash down the length of the remaining cylinder just to make sure it couldn’t be fired again.

  A cheer rose from the defenders watching Adel behind the front lines.

  She saluted them with the once-again black blade and then ducked through the doors on the balcony and into Keef’s.

  39 – A Child of Hunsa

  The great sword Hunsa was said to be a gift to the Kings of Navutia from Lady Death herself. Her chosen champions were to reap the souls of great warriors to fill her halls, and the greatest of her champions would only be allowed their final rest when she deemed them finished with their mortal duties.

  The great Rykavin Stonesplitter in some retellings of his story was meant to have been sent back by the Lady an amazing nine times before she finally allowed him into the afterlife.

  - Chronicler Henrietta Martin in A Study of Salucian Mythology

  Kai

  Keef’s Tavern, New Toeron, Bauffin

  “Time to die, boy,” the killer said as he stepped forward.

  Yuna’s strangled gargle roared in her restricted throat.

  Hunsa finished its fall, bouncing strangely off the ground, and its blade fell onto Yuna’s body, cutting shallowly into her arm, and the cut set her free as her bound hand moved to slice the bonds holding her hands.

  She grabbed the pommel of her sword, and blue runes flared to fill the dark room with a burst of light.

  “DIE!” Yuna yelled as she ripped the ropes from her legs and leapt to her feet so fast Kai felt the wind against his face.

  The man who had stepped into the room had his torso separated from his legs in one quick motion.

  Yuna stood blocking the door, Hunsa in her hand and covered in the dead man’s blood.

  “WHERE IS SHE?!” Yuna spoke with Lady Death’s own voice. She grabbed the next stunned assassin right off the ground with one hand as Hunsa’s blue runes spit fire in her other.

  “You’ll never–” the assassin started.

  Bones snapped as Yuna’s hand crushed the man’s head. She threw him across the room like a rag doll, and the dead man struck the wall with a sickening thud. “Wrong answer,” Yuna hissed and looked at the four other men standing outside the door.

  A throwing star whistled through the air.

  The great golden blade knocked it aside. Yuna roared and her return stroke cleaved the man who had thrown the star from pelvis up and through his ribs. He fell to the dirt in two gore-strewn pieces still looking shocked.

  “WHERE IS SHE?!” Yuna’s voice boomed like that of an angry god.

  The remaining assassins attacked together, yet it didn’t matter. Yuna killed them in three lightning-fast moves and then there was silence in the cellar’s hallway.

  It was then Jachem groaned in pain, and Kai nearly wet himself as Yuna stepped towards them, looking like Death herself.

  She grabbed Kai by the shoulder, Hunsa cutting through the bonds holding his hands. She swung Hunsa again, and the chain attached to the hook in Jachem’s leg fell away. Jachem screamed in pain.

  “Don’t pull that out, he’ll bleed to death if you do,” Yuna growled then pointed at Kai. “Get up and help him walk.”

  Kai’s heart nearly stopped as two men covered in black jumped into the room as if from nowhere. He had heard nothing from outside, but Yuna must have.

  Kai would never have believed anything as large as Yuna could move so fast. Yuna’s foot snapped up, catching the first man in the ribs and nearly bending him in half. An elbow found the next man’s head, and he dropped to the floor in a heap beside the first.

  She stabbed both of the downed killers, and the runes on Hunsa flashed almost happily.

  Kai pulled Jachem up, putting his arm over his shoulder. “Come on,” he said to Jachem. He was still in shock, but Yuna was already moving out of the door, and part of his mind registered that they needed to keep up if they wanted to live.

  Footsteps slapped earthen floor from down the hall, and as Kai pulled Jachem around the corner, he saw Yuna already meeting the new attack. The violence she met them with was overwhelming. One man she actually picked up by the head and just smashed it into the wall like she was cracking some gore-filled egg.

  Kai emptied his stomach involuntarily, but he kept moving, kept pulling Jachem with him.

  Yuna bent to one of the dead men and cut a long swathe of cloth from the man’s clothes.

  “Wrap the wound on his leg. Stabilise the hook,” Yuna said, handing them the cloth as she watched the corridor for the next attack.

  Kai’s hands shook as he wrapped the cloth around Jachem’s leg. His friend clenched his teeth, and to his credit, only a few whimpers escaped as Kai stabilised the hook as best he could. “That’s all I can do,” he told Yuna.

  “Stay behind me and keep up,” Yuna said. Ice would have been warmer than the look in those horribly focused eyes.

  Kai nodded. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if they couldn’t keep the pace.

  “They are upstairs. Princess Echinni is still with them, I think. That guy Wan was bragging about it. There is a top floor balcony overlooking the square.” Kai fought to keep his voice steady. “That’s where those explosions seemed to be coming from.”

  Yuna nodded. “Let’s go.”

  They moved up from the bowels of Keef’s Tavern and Kai lost count of how many bodies Yuna left behind, and in truth, it didn’t matter. As they climbed stair after stair Kai could feel an energy building outside.

  A memory of two brothers fighting upon a sand square at the Academy flashed through his mind, and he felt as if he could just make out the hints of a rhythm playing through the chaos all around him.

  The rhythm became clearer. They had come to the top floor, and Yuna was about to kick open the door.

  “Wait.” Kai put his hand on her arm, listening to what only he could hear. “Echinni is on the other side, but ...” he closed his eyes and tried to listen. “She’s not alone, we have to be careful.”

  Yuna nodded, not questioning, as she had seen this strange power before. Echinni could also ‘sense’ a situation before it happened.

  Kai listened, and they all heard a man yell from the other side of the door, “Stay back! You come closer, and she dies!”

  Kai tapped Yuna’s arm to go, and she opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Yuna!” Echinni’s voice rang out. “You’re alive! How?”

  “Quiet!” the man’s voice yelled, and Kai saw it was the leader of the assassins. The man who wore the claws on his hands.

  The rhythm thundered awake in Kai’s mind as he saw the other person in the room. It was the young woman from the attack in the throne room. She faced the assassin and held her strange black blade aloft.

  Yuna’s golden blade sparked as if in greeting and the pulse around them thrummed stronger once again.

  Two of three, the thought came unbidden into Kai’s mind as he looked at the two terrible swords. Two of three. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew the thought was true.

  “I’ll kill her I swear,” the man with the metal-clawed gloves yelled at them all.

  Kai saw Echinni then, the edge of one of the claws already cutting a shallow line of blood on her neck. She was scared, but Kai could see she also heard what he was hear
ing. The rhythm, the pulse, it was rising.

  Lightning flashed outside, and thunder shook the building around them.

  “She is the only thing keeping you alive right now,” the young woman with the black blade said. “You will want to keep her safe as long as possible as your life is tied to hers.”

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “Adel Corbin, now enough stupid questions. Get your blades away from the princess’s neck, and you might walk out of here alive.”

  Yuna took a step closer, and the rhythm clarified a bit further. It was all linked somehow. Kai could almost feel the connections. The swords, Yuna, Adel, himself, Echinni, and others. Outside in the courtyard, there were other pieces just outside, and all of them together were part of this strange song. Part of the rhythm, like different sections of an orchestra, all linked yet different.

  The desperate assassin then looked at Yuna and saw his own death in those cold eyes.

  “Not likely,” the claw-gloved man said. He looked like a trapped animal. He was going to do something stupid.

  “Don’t,” Yuna said in a voice so quiet and scared Kai couldn’t believe it came from the great warrior, but the rhythm around him explained it to him. Echinni was her sister and one of the only reasons Yuna didn’t fall into the darkness within her own mind. The last of her kind, seen as a monster by nearly everyone except the beautiful young woman who called her sister. Yuna’s mind was on a knife-edge. If Echinni died, Kai somehow knew, Yuna wouldn’t be far behind.

  The pulse throbbed around him, demanding to be released, pushing events forward, and he had no idea what to do.

  Then he heard it, another beat, fast, hurried, hiding beneath the massive rhythm pulsing through events around them.

  A heartbeat.

  He grabbed hold of that beat like he had in the Oratorio using the Demon Drum, like he had in the cellar. He held the beat, felt its rhythm.

  Then, he stopped it.

  The claw-gloved man gasped, his legs went limp, and he fell to the ground clutching his chest. “No. How?” He looked at Kai, with a question in his eyes, but Kai held onto the rhythm with an iron grip. It wanted to continue, to keep pumping, but he wouldn’t let it. The man’s heart faltered and, finally, went still. The would-be assassin slumped to the floor, dead.

  Yuna stabbed the crumpled form to make sure, then swept Echinni into a deep one-arm embrace as she scanned the room for any further threats.

  Adel and Jachem both stared at Kai as he looked down at the man he had killed.

  “I stopped his heart,” Kai said in explanation. He felt cold, detached from himself. “There was a beat inside him, and I made it stop. I’ve… I’ve killed two people.” His hand went to his mouth, shaking. What would Sister Maria think? He asked himself in horror. How would all the other orphans back at the church see him now?

  Echinni hugged Yuna, sobbing into the big woman’s chest.

  “We need to go–” Kai started, realising he could still hear a rhythm around them, leading them towards something else.

  “Out to the square,” Echinni finished.

  They shared a look, and Kai knew she felt what he felt. They were all connected to it.

  Yuna pulled in a deep breath and then bent to retrieve her sword. “All right,” she said. “I’ll lead, you three in the middle.” She pointed to Kai, Echinni, and Jachem. “Adel, you have rear-guard. Anything or anyone that gets around me you kill.”

  Adel nodded and took her position. Kai almost pitied the assassin stupid enough to stand against either of these women.

  Thunder boomed once again outside, and they heard voices shouting from outside.

  Yet all thoughts began to disappear as with every step down towards the street, the rhythm and pulse around them grew just a little bit more until it consumed Kai’s every breath. It’s a convergence, he thought, not quite knowing how he knew. It’s another convergence.

  40 - Changing the Game

  I have it! Stole it right from under its spinning red eyes!

  This old man still has tricks, yes, he does. Back doors that he never told anyone about! They think they can tell me what to do just because I’m not as capable as I once was. I’ll show those damned tin-men.

  Raidho is a genius if a machine can be called that. Yet, it never saw its discovery could also be backwards-compatible as I did. Hehe!

  Now I just need to get one of them alone, and I know just who to pick.

  My friend who shares my love for our roc project.

  - Journal of Robert Mannford, Day 152 Year 69

  Thannis

  New Toeren, Xinnish District to the south of Keef’s Tavern

  The city was in chaos, which had been good, as it meant the constabulary had been occupied with the riots and he had slipped by their watchful eyes during the confusion.

  The man in his hands tried to squirm, but Thannis restrained him easily. He drove the butt end of his knife into a nerve cluster at the base of the man’s neck, temporarily paralysing him.

  “Father, I did tell you not to do that. Now, I’ll have to drag you down this alley. Not very dignified for a man of your stature, is it?” Thannis explained in his father’s ear as he pulled the smaller man along with him. He rechecked the pack on his hip, full of the smoking noise-makers Denis had made for him and was content that nothing had been disturbed by his father’s flailing attempt at escape.

  On his other hip, he wore a horn-shaped relic which his team of Chroniclers had repaired with Jachem Sanders’ help. It sat atop the messenger’s satchel full of paperwork he had raided from his father’s vault at the bank.

  The bank had been the first stop. It had been fairly secure, but with Thannis’s renewed vigour and strength thanks to the new ‘other’ he wore like a second skin, he had forced the banking staff to work with him, rather than against him. One demonstration of his ability to keep a person alive – while he and his new symbiotic friend sampled the delicious assortment of emotions a person exhibited while he cut away at them – was all it took to convince them.

  Thannis’s body quivered as he remembered the taste of the pretentious man whom he had skinned alive. He made the rest of them watch. They soon realised what he already knew: that banks were extremely good at keeping other people out, but once they were in, they served just as effective at keeping people in. In the end, they had been very helpful in finding all of his father’s blackmail.

  He had disposed of them afterwards, feeding off their final energies with a thirst which was proving difficult to satiate.

  His father said something angrily from beneath the gag over his mouth. “Yes, yes. I’m sure you are very angry. You swear to punish me and even kill me for this, now that I can no longer be trusted to play your petty and unimaginative games. Yet again, Father, you simply refuse to change to the fluidity of the world around you. Far too rigid, too eager to bind yourself to the truth you want to see rather than the truth that is in front of you.”

  Thannis checked the street in both directions, searching for any prying eyes, but everyone was either hurrying towards the raging battle a few streets over or running scared in the opposite direction.

  His father squirmed again, and Thannis felt his father push up against him.

  “Ah good, I timed that right. You are regaining the sensation in your legs just in time. Are you going to be a good boy and walk from here?” Thannis asked, grinning. “Because, if you don’t, your next lesson in obedience might leave a bit of a mark.” Thannis let his knife cut shallowly into the piece of skin connecting his father’s earlobe to his neck. “Did you know some people are born with this bit of flesh separated? Not you, however. How far up would you like me to go, I wonder? Would it better to have no ear at all, or to have it dangling from the tiniest bit of skin, just waiting to be torn free? Your choice, I’ll leave it up to you.”

  His father stopped squirming.

  “Good choice.” Thannis pushed his father into the street. “Quick now, only a bit further to
go.”

  He turned the corner and looked down the street to see the battle in the square. He was behind the lines of whom he assumed were his father’s planted soldiers within the angry mob, on the south side of Keef’s Tavern.

  Good, that meant there were a lot of angry people between himself and the metal-clad knights and the constabulary.

  He didn’t know if he was pleased or disappointed to see the mob had a rear-guard checking for flanking manoeuvres. A man with a pole-axe pointed at him, and soon there were several armed soldiers blocking their path.

  “Go back, go back!” the man in charge shouted. “Nothing this way but death!” It was then the man noticed that Thannis was not helping his father along but rather had a prisoner in tow. “What are you playing at?”

  A horrific screech made Thannis, his father and the soldiers nearly jump out of their skin. Thannis turned to see an enormous white bird-of-prey swooping down at them. His instincts kicked in and he pulled his father with him into a sideways roll.

  “What the-!” the man with the pole-axe yelled as he and his companions were bowled out of the way. Two of the men had died instantly as three-foot talons skewered them like kebabs.

  “A roc?” Thannis said in wonder as he watched the bird shake the dead men free of its talons and disappear down the side street. “How strange,” he said reflectively watching it churn a line of chaos with it as it tore through the street to his right.

  He looked forward and found his way no longer barred. “Come along, Father. I want to introduce you to a few people.”

  Thannis dashed forward down the street pulling his reluctant father with him, and before he knew it, he was pushing through the riot heading towards the shield wall in the middle of the battle.

  He heard a boom of thunder overhead and grinned. This was it.

  He pulled his father forward and undid the gag.

  “What the hells do you think you are doing!?” Remus Beau’Chant screamed at him. Spittle flew from his mouth in rage.