Immortal Swordslinger 2

by Dante King

  I sped up and reformed a fresh set of Frozen Armor around myself. Harsh spikes erupted from my shoulder plates, and a mask of thick ice slid around my face as I covered the last of the distance between us.

  I tackled Cadrin like a front-line rugby player and smashed him into the wall beside the door as the Acidic Cloud swarmed around us. My spikes slammed through what little remained of his armor and stabbed deep into his flesh as the acid ate at his skin. Cadrin’s sword clattered to the ground as he twisted and shoved the Sundered Heart from my hand. But that ferret-like speed was gone. I wrenched him away from the wall, broke his jaw with a knee to the head, and clenched my arms around his neck.

  Cadrin screamed and writhed as I pressed myself harder against him and squeezed his face to the spikes of my armored shoulder. His skin bubbled, and the burning intensity of the cloud hissed as it ate away at my armor. Cadrin placed a foot on the wall and shoved in a last-ditch attempt to escape the acid as it clouded around us.

  I dispersed the Acidic Cloud, reeled back, and smashed him through the doors of the hallway. Cadrin’s last gasp left his lungs in a ragged hiss as he collapsed to the tiles of a familiar balcony.

  I disentangled myself from Cadrin and rose to my feet. Half the spikes on my armor had snapped off inside him and left only stumps. His blood streamed over my pale armor as I turned and snatched up Nydarth’s blade from the balcony entrance.

  My own acid had eaten holes and channels in my armor and given it the uneven texture of ancient, rusted steel. But I was still standing, and I had plenty of Vigor still to spare.

  A tall figure stood at the edge of the balcony, clad in his white robes. The prickly hiss of acid filled the courtyard beneath the balcony, but he made no attempt to turn to look at me.

  “Horix!” I called out. “You really know how to put on a show.”

  “You flatter me, Swordslinger.” He turned to face me in a swirl of robes and locked his pale, piercing gaze upon me. “That is what you are, isn’t it? Or what you wish to become. The Immortal Swordslinger. Grandmaster of the Elements. Wielder of the Immense Blades. It is why you have come to the guild house. You want the Depthless Dream. You are not here for the Qihin or even the task Xilarion gave you. The trident is here, so you are here.”

  “I want the trident but not for myself. It belongs to King Beqai and the Qihin.”

  “So noble. So straight. Do you really believe those lies you tell yourself?”

  I raised the Sundered Heart, and fire flared along the blade. “This ends now.”

  “Something will come to an end, yes.” A weapon appeared as he drew his hand out from the folds in his robes.

  I realized with a sinking heart that it was the Depthless Dream. Power flooded from the trident into the air behind Horix, creating ripples and streams of sparkling dust. It was the source of the Toxic Blizzard that had forced us inside during the initial battle for the guild house. The Guildmaster had used the weapon meant to protect the Qihin for their own destruction.

  “We’ve fought our way through the doors,” I said. “Everyone’s inside, and they’re making quick work of your guild. If you don’t end this now, you won’t have a guild left to lead.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Horix said mildly as he looked over the edge of the balcony. “The filthy Wilds proved stronger than I anticipated. Or perhaps my students were simply not equipped to deal with such savages.”

  He smiled without a trace of joy or affection, then slammed the trident against the ground. I was thrown from my feet and almost fell on Cadrin’s body as the guild house trembled around us.

  “Ice buildings always have a shatter point,” Horix said. “A quirk of the architecture. A weak spot where, with the right exertion of force, the whole place can be brought tumbling down with the help of a little acid rain. One strike, and I could topple the entire tower onto itself. Can you guess where it is?”

  He struck the ground, and the guild house shook violently once more. Chunks of ice fell from the ceiling and shattered on the ground around me.

  “I’ve been waiting for the rest of the Qihin to get inside,” he said. “If I’m going to bring my guild house down upon them, then I want to make sure I crush them all. Fat, listless Beqai. His impertinent daughter. His upstart son. All the filthy, misshapen rabble he calls his subjects. But you’re not one of them, are you? You’re a real Augmenter, with real power. Join me in the purity of the Straight Path, Ethan Murphy lo Pashat. Join me, and this whole world can be ours.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “What the fuck is the Straight Path?” I asked.

  “Of course, you wouldn’t know,” Horix said with a look of disdain. “Xilarion is a great warrior and Augmenter, but his views of the world are absurdly skewed. His obsession with peace would prevent him from showing his students other, better paths.”

  “Let me guess. Your path is the shortest distance between two points to reach power.”

  “Indeed.” Horix nodded. “The Straight Path is the path of purity and righteousness. It is unbending adherence to the superiority of Augmentation and of those who learn it in a studious, disciplined fashion. It is the purging of corruption and aberration from our world, to make it clean once more.”

  “You mean getting rid of the Wilds,” I said. “People like the fishfolk who don’t fit your ideal model. Or those who hold to other paths that emphasize peace. Or different forms of learning.”

  “You are a testament to the superiority of traditional Augmentation,”Horix said as he gestured to his dead disciple at my feet. “Our paths converge, Ethan. You must see that.”

  “I’m doing the Swordslinger thing,” I said. “The one that protects people and opposes those who would wield their power to destroy others. People exactly like you. ”

  Horix laughed. “There hasn’t been a Swordslinger in centuries. Every time a young hopeful sets out along that journey, those of the Straight Path recruit or eradicate them. We have a better world to build, and your meddling simply slows the process.”

  “So, academically, you’ll be surprised when I kick you off this balcony and into the ocean?”

  I turned my attention inward to the Vigor flowing through my body. I called forth the power of water and let it rise to the surface. My Frozen Armor repaired its own cracks and dents, smoothed off the broken stubs of spikes, and reinforced the plates that had been weakened by Cadrin.

  “Well, well.” Horix raised an eyebrow. “You’ve taken to our arts faster than any I’ve seen. And yet you are only scraping the surface of your powers. Think on it, Ethan. With the Depthless Dream in our hands, all of the Diamond Coast will finally find peace and prosperity. And then we can look beyond this small part of the world.”

  “You been down there lately?” I asked as Sunlight Ichor ran into the joints of the ice armor and joined the plates into a sealed, flexible exoskeleton. “You brought war on these people. This is what you wanted. You can stand there all day and talk to me about prosperity and learning, but you’re just a maniac with delusions of grandeur.”

  I extended the ice and sap all the way down my hands to the tips of my fingers to create jointed gauntlets. The ichor sealed the suit, and a slight relief eased the wounds and scrapes from the battle below. It gave the joints of the Frozen Armor more flexibility.

  Horix observed me for a long moment and raised his hand. Ice crackled into being around his hand as fire flared between his fingertips. Both elements worked together, the fire not melting the ice, and the ice not dousing the flames. It was a different way of combining elements, not into something new but to complement each other.

  “Do you really wish to strike me down, Ethan?” he asked. “I’m not just another Augmenter like the ones you have faced. Like you, I am an elementalist. And unlike you, I have decades of experience bending them to my will. You’re outmatched.”

  I wasn’t going to be intimidated by a show of force, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t pay attention. The powers running across his hand
were a reminder that by combining fire and water, he could create acid. My additional powers of wood and sap would only get me so far against a guy that could probably melt flesh like wax.

  I dug into another of my sources of power and called forth a layer of ash underneath my armor. Fire Immunity wouldn’t stop pure acid, but it would slow the process. It took a lot of Vigor and left my reserves dangerously depleted, but I didn’t want to be left vulnerable to anything this asshole could throw at me.

  “Thanks for the invitation to join your little club,” I said. “But my answer remains what you’d expect from a simple disciple of Xilarion. My path might not be the straight one, but it’s taking me where I want to go.”

  I advanced cautiously and raised the Sundered Heart.

  “The Depthless Dream. Has he activated it?” I thought to Nydarth.

  “He’s simply using it as a conduit for his power,” she whispered urgently. “He outmatches you, sweet man, but he still requires time. His little speech was simply a ruse.”

  There was a surge of energy, and Horix stood coated in his own elegant set of curved Frozen Armor. He flung pale green Ice Spears toward me. I cut one out of the air, and the shards hissed as they touched the frosted marble beneath my feet. Another hissed past my cheek as I pulled up a Flame Shield to deflect the last one.

  My armor held true against his attacks, but I knew that the Guildmaster was toying with me. I needed an advantage that gave me an edge against him. My environment had some promise, so I melted acidic Ice Spears with Untamed Torch as I soaked in my surroundings.

  We stood on a wide, open balcony formed of rough-surfaced ice edged with a well-carved balustrade. The ocean stood out to our left, and to our right, the green haze of Horix’s Toxic Blizzard began to fade as he turned his attention entirely toward me.

  Horix pointed the Depthless Dream and formed a green haze that stung my face, melted my armor, and burned with each indrawn breath. An Acidic Cloud. I had never been on the receiving end of an Acidic Cloud before, but I’d beaten an acid spirit with a simple-enough process.

  I flung up a Smothering Mist around me. It mixed with the acid, and the weight of the two together turned into droplets that fell like acid rain on the ground. The acid ate into the ice and changed the floor from a stable surface into a slurry mess.

  Horix hurled more Ice Spears at me. I ducked and weaved as I advanced closer without getting skewered. Some of the projectiles sailed past me. Others hit, but their impact was absorbed by my armor. It held strong despite the acidic splashes of the Guildmaster’s techniques.

  I countered with a small Untamed Torch. The fireball hit the ground under the elf’s feet and forced him to readjust his stance. Horix formed a frozen whip. It was longer and more robust than the ones Cadrin had used, and its tip slithered into an ugly cluster of points and hooks. There was a crack as it whipped through the air and took a chunk out of the armor on my right shoulder. Horix aimed a blow for my head, but I flung myself sideways to avoid it and grabbed hold of the whip as it snapped past.

  Now, it was my turn to try a different trick. I called on ash again and created a cloud of it around Horix to buy myself some time and space. He let go of the lash and dissipated the choking cloud with a burst of Smothering Mist. Black water ran in rivulets over his armor as he shook his head and flicked the trident. A burst of boiling flame rippled toward me, and I dived to the left and skidded across the slippery floor as my armor steamed from the force of his attack.

  “Your grasp of technique is impressive for one so young and untrained,” Horix said. “But you lack the subtlety and power that comes with extended study. Ambidexterity is useful, but you cannot rely on its shock value forever.”

  “Shame,” I panted. “It’s worked great so far.”

  The pools of water beneath my feet surged as I used Crashing Wave. Slim streams of water hammered against Horix’s armor, and he pushed away from the balustrade to keep his footing. He vaporized the water into steam with a brief flash of Untamed Torch and gave me the space I needed to close in on the guildmaster. I obscured the air around me with a Smothering Mist and drove the Sundered Heart for a weak point in the armor of his shoulder.

  But he was skilled in combat as well as Augmenting. The trident flashed up, blocked my blade, and swung around in a strike that gouged a hole through the armor on my thigh and knocked me back a step.

  Horix’s expression became grim as the two of us battled. We darted back and forth, cut, slashed and hacked. His superior reach with the trident worked to his advantage as he sought to puncture my experimental suit of armor. The elf’s body was still agile after decades of experience, and he repeatedly managed to pin me against a wall or section of balustrade and score a hit, while I could seldom keep him in one place.

  My Vigor fizzled dangerous as I fired another blast of Untamed Torch from the palm of my free hand. Horix leaped back so that the fire shot past him and melted a section of the wall. He laughed, took another step back, and pointed the trident at me.

  The air above my head suddenly swirled with green clouds as I was swept up in a miniature whirlwind. Tiny acidic daggers whipped at me, and my armor started to dissolve at the intense acid’s touch.

  Half-blinded by the swirling swarm of acid, I dropped to the floor and kicked off against the edge of the balcony. The corrupted blizzard followed me at a gesture from Horix. The acid ate at my armor and burned the skin of my face. I created a Flame Shield and turned the hail of tiny daggers into liquid that slithered over the Sunlight Ichor on my armor and threatened to puncture through it. I cast Flame Empowerment onto my shield and expanded its flat disk shield into a flaming nova. I expected it to consume the entire blizzard, but it ebbed like a gutted candle.

  My Vigor was running out. But, at least, I’d managed to dissipate the clinging cloud of green hail.

  I launched a wide, thin blast of fire at the frozen floor of the balcony beneath our feet. Whatever remained of rough ice vanished as I burned away the last of it and turned the entire area into the pristine surface of a skating rink.

  I skidded across the balcony and slashed at Horix. He stumbled as he parried my blow and tried to puncture my armor with the trident. His strike went wide, and I scored my first hit on his upper thigh. The Sundered Heart hissed in a cloud of steam as I boiled away a chunk of his armor and bared his robes beneath.

  Horix pushed to his feet and hit me with a kick. I slid and slammed my sword into the floor to serve as an anchor point. Horix found his footing and attacked me with a frozen whip. I ripped my blade free and slashed at the barbed tip of the whip. The elf twisted his wrist and snapped his whip back at me. I rolled over, and tiny shards of ice sparked off the floor an inch away from where my face had been. I darted out to one side, and the ground added to my speed as I slipped clear of yet another attack.

  “You continue to surprise me,” Horix said quietly. “But it won’t save you. Your tenacity and your fixation on meddling must be removed. For the good of all who follow the Straight Path and its precepts.”

  He cracked his whip, but I ducked and slid. The slippery ice carried me under Horix’s whip and past him to the far side of the balcony. He spun around as the lash swirled behind him. Horix cursed softly as he struggled to steady himself.

  “You must be a terrible guildmaster,” I said. “Because there’s no way I would have lasted this long against Xilarion.”

  “You’d have been my greatest student, Ethan Murphy lo Pashat,” Horix said. “Disciplined, focused, and talented. It’s a waste of your talent to hold to such a wandering path.”

  “I just don’t go in for recreational genocide. Don’t take it personally, though.”

  He summoned a huge Ice Spear with a jagged tip and threw it at me. I rolled aside, and the spear hit the corner of the balustrade. The two chunks of ice exploded in a shower of frozen fragments that fell away through the fading Toxic Blizzard and into the courtyard below.

  I got to my feet and charged Horix. I let my m
omentum take hold instead of stopping as I reached him. I slid past him across the ice and swung the Sundered Heart as I went. He parried the blow with the trident but wasn’t able to stop my off-hand attack. A wavering spray of thorns took a chunk out of his leg armor.

  I cast a small Acidic Cloud around Horix’s head just before I hit the wall beside the door and hauled myself to my feet. Horix dismissed my attempt at a distraction with a simple snap of his armored fingers and focused concentration of Smothering Mist. The elf turned to glare at me as he raised the trident. I ran for him, and he lowered the weapon to chest-height, ready to counter my attack or deliver one of his own.

  I smacked his trident aside, dropped to my knees and slid beneath his weapon. Horix dropped his arm to defend himself, but he was too late. I slashed my flaming sword across his gut and slid out of range over the floor.

  Pieces of broken ice armor tumbled to the ground in front of Horix. Blood dripped over his gauntlet. The elf’s body went tight as he held out his hand, and fire flared along it. He pressed it to his stomach, and there was a hiss and a stink of burning flesh as he cauterized the wound.

  “I’ve led armies,” he said. “Stormed castles. Fought an usurper emperor on a mountainside while his followers boiled in acid rain. It will take more than that to stop me.”

  I got to my feet and raised my hand to summon forth another cloud of acid. But my head spun, and my feet threatened to drop me to the ground again.

  “Be careful, sweet man,” Nydarth said in my head. “You’re almost out of Vigor. If you keep pushing like this, the magic will devour you instead.”

  The green cloud between my fingers dwindled and died. I raised my sword. Fire no longer flickered along its blade.

  Horix shook his head almost sadly. “Again you show your inexperience. The enthusiasm of youth flares too powerfully within you, disciple. It leaves you before me defenseless.”