Bladedancer

by Michael Wallace

  Soon the air began to clear, and a glow appeared on the far side of the lake. The canyon narrowed here, and the lake wasn’t very wide—perhaps two or three hundred feet across—and they shortly got an alarming view of the goings-on opposite their position.

  Katalinka had expected to see a few canals of molten lava, as Andras had described, but instead, the demons appeared to have gouged terraces halfway up the canyon wall, almost like the cut of the post road when it edged along the steeper slopes, except that there were a good dozen of them in all. Each one carried a molten stream.

  And while it was true that the lava flow traveled up the canyon, not down, that didn’t mean that the lava itself was flowing uphill. Instead, each of the terraces had a slight downward incline. Manet Tuzzia, many miles away, must have grown its caldera so high that these canals could be carved from its heights, flow downward in channels, and still reach the current elevation.

  That curious detail was forgotten as Katalinka’s eyes adjusted to the fiery glow and she picked out moving objects. Demons worked the terraces. Some were squat, toad-like monsters, others skinny and long-limbed, with larger overseers stalking the terrace banks with glowing white whips in their clawed hands, lashing at the worker demons to spur them on. These overseers were the same hybrids they’d battled near the dragons, and they seemed tasked with driving the work forward.

  But what exactly was that work? The demons scooped lava out of the canals with black, smoking buckets and carried it up the hillside. Some poured their lava onto a twisting, serpentine road that crawled up the mountainside, which kept the path hot enough for the others to make their way up the mountainside without cooling. As for where the rest of the lava was going, the demons had created so much smoke up top that it was still obscure.

  One of the overseer demons spotted them from the other side of the lake. It had been working a canal close to the shore, and now it stomped to the bank with its forked tongue darting out to taste the air. It stared at them from two black slits and flicked its whip across its leg. Finally it shook its horned head and hissed loud enough to be heard across the lake.

  Other demons—both workers and overseers—stopped their labors at the sound of the hiss. A number of the monsters hurried toward the lake, and there was soon a row of twenty or more standing on the opposite bank, staring across at the humans.

  Miklos uttered an oath, and Sarika growled low in her throat. Notch whined, and Andras gave a terrified look back down the hill toward the road. “We have to get out of here,” he said.

  Katalinka couldn’t blame the ratter for being afraid—the line of silent, twitching demons only a couple of hundred feet away gave her an anxious, gnawing feeling as well—and Andras had already bravely come down the canyon on a scouting expedition, which was how they’d known about the latest actions from the underworld. Nevertheless, she didn’t think they were in danger.

  “They can’t jump across,” she said, “and they can’t swim, either. Not without cooling to stone and dying.”

  “The water is almost boiling,” Andras said. “It’s not cold enough to turn them into rocks.”

  “Even the hottest water is still a cold bath compared to molten rock,” Katalinka assured him. “They might make it a little farther, but even if they did reach this side of the lake, they’d be dead or dying by the time they arrived.” Katalinka turned to Kozmer. “Isn’t that right?”

  The elder twisted his staff in his hands. “True, and yet they’ve been over here before.”

  “The river was narrow then. This is different.”

  “They might need to come across again,” Kozmer said. “I don’t think they’d cut themselves off from that possibility. That’s what’s giving me doubts.”

  Sarika had moved to the edge of the hill and drawn her sword. She stared across at the demons and gave her weapon a shake, as if challenging them. Some of the creatures were cooling, and had been forced to retreat up the hillside to their canals of lava, but the ones remaining hissed and shrieked in response to the firewalker’s taunt.

  “We’re only down here to scout, not provoke a battle,” Miklos told her.

  “We can thin their ranks, can’t we?” Sarika said, her tone sharp. “Why let them work in peace? Whatever they’re up to, it’s got to be stopped sooner or later, and we’re here, our sowen is strong, and if a few of them make it across, so much the better.”

  It was a valid point. Katalinka turned to her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “What was it Narina did? Send a spout of river water into the demons? We can do the same thing, at least blast those fools on the shoreline.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Kozmer began, his tone hesitant. “But we should figure out what they’re up to, first.”

  “I agree with the old man,” Miklos said. “Scouting first, fighting second. If we can do both, so much the better.”

  With the relaxing of their sowen, the smoke and steam were already clouding the lakeshore and the enclosing hillside, but as soon as the sohns returned to their state of meditation, they managed to drive it back again. From there, it was a struggle to pull enough air from up top to make additional progress. Kozmer pushed his sowen into the struggle once again, harder than Katalinka had felt since they’d intervened in Narina’s fight with the crowlord. The breeze turned into a strong wind and scoured the mountainside clean.

  It worked, but only at the cost of Katalinka’s sowen, which emerged from the work tattered. She joined the others in bending over, hands on knees, breathing heavily. She’d called too much of it, too quickly, and would need time to recover before she’d be up to any more effort. Maybe today was not the day to fight demons after all.

  When Katalinka raised herself to see the results of her work, she couldn’t help but gasp. The far ridge was now visible, as was a glowing protrusion on top of it that looked eerily like a small volcanic cone. The demons trudging up the hillside with their buckets climbed to the top of the cone and poured in their contents. Some of them came back down the hillside, while others disappeared into the hole in the top.

  “What are they. . .?” Katalinka began. She shook her head, realizing the question of what was too obvious to voice. “Why would they build a volcano? Why not just send up an eruption?”

  Everyone turned to Kozmer for answers, but he didn’t have an immediate response. He leaned into his staff, looking old and tired from the exertion.

  “Maybe they can’t,” he said at last. “Not directly. If there’s no lava easily available beneath the surface, they couldn’t just burst up from below. Too much solid rock to get through, and the auras resist. Maybe they’re trying to dig down from above, instead.”

  “And the cone?” Miklos asked. “How would that help?”

  “Shelter,” Katalinka said, after a moment of thought. “The rock dome keeps them hot while they work. Some are inside, digging down. Others are pouring lava on top of the workers so they don’t cool.”

  “And once they dig deep enough and hit lava,” Kozmer said, “the cone gives a convenient outlet to build a true volcano.”

  “But why dig a new volcano in the first place?” Katalinka asked. “The mountain range is studded with them. Are they short of places where they can erupt? I wouldn’t think so.”

  “It’s not a question of being short of places to erupt,” the elder said. “I’d say it’s more a case of location. The volcanoes mostly ring the edge of the range. They want to get closer to the dragons in their lakes. They have to work their way closer if they want to take the battle to their enemies.”

  Miklos turned toward Kozmer with eyebrows drawn into a frown. “If that’s their plan, if they’ve pushed the dragons back to their lakes and mean to attack them there, it means the demons are winning the war.”

  Katalinka still wasn’t satisfied with this theory. “Be that as it may, there are other volcanoes higher in the mountains than Manet Tuzzia. They could have started their push from a position closer to the dragons. So why here?”
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  “Oh, that?” Sarika said. She’d been staring across the lake with a hostile expression, as if daring the demons to enter the water, but now glanced at Katalinka. “That’s the easiest part to understand. Take it from someone whose temple was built on top of an old caldera.”

  The sweat trickling down the small of Katalinka’s back suddenly felt chill, as she realized what the firewalker was saying. The firewalker temple had disappeared beneath a boiling lake of lava, their terraced gardens swallowed. The work of generations had vanished in a matter of hours, leaving the firewalkers homeless.

  “Are you saying they mean to attack the bladedancer temple?” she asked.

  “We’re the dragons’ allies,” Sarika said. “That’s how they see us—that’s how they imagine Narina, anyway. The sword saint. We stand in their way. We must be destroyed.”

  “Um, masters?” Andras said. There was a tremble in the ratter’s voice. “I’m not sure, but I think the demons are up to something.”

  They turned back toward the lake to see the overseer demons whipping on a number of smaller workers, who came down to the lakeshore carrying buckets of lava. They poured the lava on the edge of the water, where it quickly dimmed and hardened into a crust, extending the shoreline. It was slow work, but the demons were relentless, and the nearest canal was close enough to supply a steady flow of fresh lava.

  Miklos let out a low whistle. “It’s a good thing they’re too stupid to pass their buckets instead of carrying them down one by one.”

  “Let them waste their time,” Katalinka said. “What are they trying to do, build a bridge without any support? It will get halfway out and collapse.”

  “They’re not so stupid as that,” Kozmer said. “Look.”

  The demons, working relentlessly to extend the cooling ledge of lava, soon extended it about thirty feet into the lake, where it began to sag, just as Katalinka had guessed. Some of the demons now worked to shore up the ledge’s grip to the shore.

  It seemed more like a floating pontoon than a bridge, lighter weight than she’d thought, and several of the overseer demons came hissing and clawing out onto the ledge, as far out as they could get. The smaller demons with the buckets poured lava over their masters, and as soon as they were as hot and glowing as possible, the larger ones jumped into the water.

  The already scalding water boiled when they hit and sent jets of steam into the sky. The steam continued spurting as they swam across, drawing closer to the far side, where the temple warriors waited. Incredibly, the demons seemed to be surviving the shortened crossing, fortified by the buckets of lava poured over their heads before entering the water.

  While Katalinka gaped, disbelieving, one of the demons crawled onto the shore at the base of the hill. Its skin was black and its movements slow and creaky, but then it flexed, a shell of hardened stone shattered from its skin with a crack, and it flared with new light from the fiery core underneath. Its tail lashed, and a club of molten stone appeared in one clawed fist. Notch barked furiously, and Andras grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and dragged her back before she did something foolish.

  Katalinka leaped forward, her swords in hand. One was her master dragon blade, the other a lesser dragon taken from the armory. She’d been practicing over the past few days to work out the balance, but it still felt strange to wield a second dragon instead of a demon blade.

  Her first blow sliced through the monster’s club as it swung at her head. Her second aimed to take off its head, but it raised one of its knobby forearms in defense. She cut it deep, but didn’t sever the limb, and was forced to duck away as it dropped the club and reached for her throat. It was so close she felt the scalding heat on her skin.

  Miklos charged in from behind and struck the demon with his falchion, a blow so strong that the creature’s shoulder gave an audible crack and caved in. It roared and lashed with its tail, catching Miklos across the leg.

  Sarika joined the attack, but before the firewalker could make her presence known, Katalinka recovered her balance and shoved one of her dragon blades through the demon’s chest. It fell hissing and smoking at her feet.

  Two more demons were already climbing up from the lakeshore. Unlike the first time one had appeared, Katalinka wasn’t stunned into inaction, and she made to rush in and deal damage before they had a chance to break out of their blackened shells and summon fiery weapons. Kozmer whipped out his staff and blocked her path.

  “No, not here. Look!”

  There was so much steam rising that she’d lost her view of the lake again, but the elder hadn’t meant for her to look with her eyes. She felt with her sowen, and it seemed the entire lake was boiling. So many demons were in the water, swimming across, that they’d turned it into a cauldron. By the time they all crossed there would be a small army to face.

  What’s more, the temple warriors’ sowens were still weakened from the effort to clear the canyon of smoke and haze. They didn’t have enough strength to make a full battle of it.

  There was a loud boom, and a moment later a smoking hunk of black stone slammed into the ground a few feet away. Another boom, and this time she could feel the volcanic rock coming right for her head. She ducked to one side just in time. More explosions, as if somehow the demons were launching a bombardment from the far side of the lake.

  She made a quick decision. It seemed the only one possible.

  “Run!”

  Chapter Four

  “Pick up the pace,” Narina told Bartal. “Faster.”

  Sweat beaded down the man’s temples as his hammer swung against the anvil horn to keep time for her work on the piece of glowing steel. His breathing was labored, and she could feel his sowen flagging. Another few minutes and it would collapse, and then he’d lose his pace and be forced to drop out. She had another task for him then, but not yet.

  Narina, on the other hand, had grown stronger throughout the morning. She’d stayed at the forge all night, and something had changed within her at roughly the same time she felt her sister and the others leaving the temple grounds. It was a breakthrough, something she’d been working toward for years. And now it was here at last.

  The piece of dragon steel in front of her was giving up its secrets. It conformed to her will, and as she hammered, every fold of its auras came slowly but surely into alignment. The blade was a thing of beauty, perfect in shape and function. Another few minutes, if the frater could help maintain her pace, and she would have it.

  She hammered furiously, not wanting to send it back to the forge for another heating, and finally felt the last line snap into position just as the steel grew too cool to work. She lifted the steel with the tongs and plunged it into a bucket of water, where it hissed. Triumphantly, Narina pulled it out of the water and set it across the top of the anvil.

  Bartal collapsed to the ground, dropped the hammer he’d been using to mark time, and flopped back with a groan. For a long moment he lay there wheezing for air, while Narina continued admiring the piece of steel in front of her. She still needed to shape the tang so it could be fit into the hilt, and the entire blade needed polish, shine, and additional fine work before it would be ready. But the hardest part was done.

  “Stand up and take a look at my work,” she said. “Our work.”

  Bartal rose slowly to his feet and stood next to her with a slight tremble, his chest visibly rising and falling. He tugged on the heavy leather apron he’d put on to keep from getting hit by sparks and cinders. His eyes widened as he stared at the long, finely hammered piece of steel in front of him. It shimmered with heat even after its plunge.

  “Demons and demigods,” he said between gasps. “You’ve done it.”

  “So you can feel it?” she asked, pleased.

  “Yes. The auras, they’re different. Like, I don’t know, you took a pile of stones and formed them into a perfect wall. Everything is in place.”

  “Not everyone can sense that. See, you have abilities, they’re just latent. Maybe you need more t
raining, is all.”

  It sounded perhaps more encouraging than she’d meant it. Her old student, Gyorgy, had been just as limited in his way as the frater, but he’d been young and growing into his power. Nobody knew what the boy’s limits would prove to be, whereas Bartal had obviously hit his at some point, and there he’d stayed. Even if those limits had been mental, they’d been very real. Anyway, there was no shame in being a temple frater, as Katalinka had helpfully pointed out.

  “You played a part,” Narina said. “An important one. Keeping time helped me meditate, gather my sowen, stay focused to the end.”

  “Is that why you never tire? My god, you’re relentless.”

  “Are you ready for the next step?”

  “I thought the next step was a long soak in the baths,” Bartal said. “I could keep working, but I should get my sowen under control before we polish, hone, set it in the hilt, and all that.”

  “The hilt can wait, and I don’t need you for that, anyway. There’s plenty of fraters and elders to help.”

  “I see.” He took another deep breath, then nodded. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Carry this blade inside and set it on the shelf. Start the bellows and get the coals good and hot. I’ve got another core to pick out.”

  She set her hammer across the anvil, picked up the smaller one Bartal been using, and placed it alongside before following him into the shed, where he heaped the coals and started at the bellows. While the bellows wheezed behind her like the lungs of some great beast, and heat emanated in waves from the coals, Narina turned to the shelves on the opposite side of the room.

  Some held newly worked swords, practice spear points, maul heads, and the like, created by others from the temple. A partially finished falchion blade—this the work of warbrands, of course—shared a shelf with pieces of steel selected by firewalkers, who needed to keep up their own craft. Eventually they’d construct a smithy of their own.

  Another shelf held a handful of partially worked dragon cores left from Narina’s efforts these past few weeks. They were a flawed jumble, especially the first few that she’d bungled while shuffling half-dead in the camp, partially healed after her battle with Lady Damanja. They would eventually be melted down and remixed until the auras returned to a chaotic state, from there to be poured once more into molds.