Bones of the Empire (8 page)

Standing there waiting, Raeln had plenty of time to study these people. They did not have the maniacal look many of the Turessians he had seen in the south. The children appeared as normal as any, aside from the tattoos that marked some of those nearing their teens. Were it not for those markings and the lack of physical contact among anyone—including parents and children old enough to walk—he could have let himself believe they were people of any other land.

Beyond the Turessians, a second ring of “people” kept drawing his eye. These were similarly dressed, though they did not watch him—or anything else, for that matter. They were undead, kept so nearly intact that if he did not look at their eyes, he might not have known they were dead at all. The walking corpses followed families around, and he could see resemblances that hinted at them being the elderly relatives of the still-living people in the circle around him. Each time his eyes drifted back to them, his stomach clenched as he tried to prevent himself from remembering the thousands of undead that had overwhelmed Lantonne. A nearly instinctual urge to attack them forced him to ignore that group.

Farther down the hill, a large group of people were watching in a more disorganized throng. These were not just humans like the Turessians around him, but the group contained halflings, dwarves, elves, and even a few marked Turessians. They were the slaves or slave-caste, as Yiral called them. They came no closer than about fifty feet away, though Yoska and Dalania stood at the front of that group, watching him nervously. A single Turessian stood between them and the main group of humans, acting as some kind of barrier to them approaching farther. Apparently someone had reasoned out that either Raeln might try to go to them or they would try to get to him.

“So how does this work?” Raeln asked, flexing his fingers nervously. His stomach hurt terribly even after days of rest, but the chance to somehow free himself of these people was enticing. If he were very lucky, he might find a way to run with his friends and escape into the woods nearby. Dalania’s magic might hide them from anyone pursuing, giving them time to reach deeper sections of the forest.

“Your challenger will come to you, and the two of you must prove your wisdom. I will be interested to see if there is anything you can manage here. We do not expect you to win, but if you can prove to be capable, there is a chance that someone will take you on as an apprentice. That is unlikely. At best, expect that if you can prove yourself, you will be elevated to caireth, as no one will want to educate a wildling, especially of late.”

“What is a caireth?”

“The most literal way I can say it is ‘house servant.’ As I told you, your options are limited as a wildling. I am already doing more than I likely should by letting you engage in a challenge meant for people.”

Raeln looked over at Yiral for some hint she might be joking, but she was too excited to give him much. She had been practically giddy since he had said he would perform the challenge. That concerned him even more than the large group of enemies around him.

“She’s here!” Yiral exclaimed a moment later, nodding toward the far side of the circle.

Raeln searched the Turessians along that edge of the ring and saw no one new entering the area other than a young girl with shaved scalp, perhaps twelve years old. The robed girl had only a single tattoo between her brows, unlike the adults, with their many runewords that ran down to their cheekbones. That girl walked past the rest of the gathered Turessians and stopped opposite Raeln. She took a deep breath and then bowed to him, watching him nervously.

“Am I supposed to debate her or answer obscure questions or something?” asked Raeln, now thoroughly confused. “She’s not much taller than my waist…surely you don’t want me to fight her.”

“Oh, this is very much a battle,” Yiral told him, laughing. “Prove your wisdom against hers. She will not kill you. Just do your best, Raeln. Bow when you are ready for her to attack.”

Rolling his shoulders and stepping forward, Raeln winced as he met the eyes of the little dark-skinned human girl. This was hardly what he had expected. He was not even certain he could hit her without hating himself for the rest of his life. Turessian or not, she was a child. He would have to subdue her and hope that was enough for these people.

Rising to his full height, Raeln attempted to intimidate the girl in the hope that she might run. She did not back off, though he could see the fear in her eyes. It would have to do. Swallowing nervously, he bowed.

The girl was suddenly a rush of motion as she began forming a spell with overly broad hand gestures that reminded Raeln of his sister’s early days of training in magic. The spell was so obvious in its creation that he easily danced aside as the snow exploded where he had been standing.

Running at the girl, Raeln tightened one hand into a fist, hoping he would not need to hit her, but only jar her to break her concentration. Before he made it another step, invisible ropes snared him, constricting his chest and stomach before slamming him to the ground. As he fell, the girl backed away, wide-eyed and whimpering.

“No physical violence!” Yiral shouted somewhere behind Raeln as the ropes vanished. He was free again, but even more confused about what they wanted from him.

Raeln only had a second to tumble sideways as the Turessian child flung her hands toward him, sending up another spray of snow as magical force tore into the ground. His mind raced, trying to think through his training over the years on how to fight a wizard, though he had to dismiss everything that involved running up and striking them. He would have to defend himself somehow, but without any way to fight back, all he could do was stall and hope the child tired more quickly than he did.

Lunging to get out of the way of another blast, Raeln cried out as something in his stomach tore. His wounds were not as healed as he had thought, and he immediately felt blood cover his side and fur. Gasping for breath, he tried not to show his pain as he watched her for cues of when she would strike next.

The girl did not disappoint him, making obvious motions for the next spell.

Pain was starting to slow Raeln. He knew he had to find some way to work through it or the child might well kill him by accident. He could endure a little while longer, but blood loss would eventually catch up with him.

Raeln’s mind raced through his teachers’ lessons over the years, quickly casting aside all of the ones about weapon usage, training with heavy armor, and ways to kill a foe with minimal effort. He needed something less lethal and more likely to keep him going until the child had exhausted herself and fell over.

He narrowly avoided another spell, this one grazing his leg and numbing his knee. Swearing softly, he stumbled as he tried to regain his balance. His thoughts darted to On’esquin’s brief training sessions almost a month earlier. The man had cracked Raeln on the same knee with his spear.

The thought of On’esquin brought Raeln’s thoughts to a conversation they had near the end of their journey together. On’esquin had been adamant that Raeln regain his calm, and that had led them toward discussing Raeln’s various teachers…and one in particular.

The elderly teacher had been crazy and a lecherous drunk, but he had always babbled about fighting in a relaxed state, moving fluidly to avoid the attacks of others, largely to preserve his own strength until he was ready to strike. That filthy old man had a reputation for his ability to cripple even the finest warrior without much effort, and had claimed he was untouchable by the greatest of wizards. Or rather, he had made those claims when he had not been preaching about how the people of Raeln’s village should spend more time worshipping the old gods. Raeln had given that training little thought, despite On’esquin’s interest in it, but now he fought to reclaim as much as he could of the man’s teachings before the next spell went off.

Here, conservation of movement would allow Raeln to keep going far longer, and any chance of dealing with a spellcaster that did not involve punching the girl would be worth a try. Most of the old man’s training had focused on avoiding getting speared, but he was certainly willing to try against spells. He needed to minimize his movement if he were going to keep the fight going, and doing so might stall long enough for the Turessian child to wear herself down. This would become a fight of endurance.

The principle was simple. Be somewhere else when the spear—or spell—reached you, but not far from where you began. Minimal movement preserved one’s strength. Use the enemy’s strength against them…though against magic, things were never that simple. There was no physical weapon to react to. He had done this enough times against Liris without thinking about it that he knew it was possible. He just needed to find a way to do it in a prolonged way without fighting back.

Raeln held his position across from the child, knowing he had to be precise with his timing or he would be doing little more than throwing the fight. He watched the ground, keeping his mind empty as he waited for the child to begin casting her next spell. Seconds later, he saw her fingers go through the motions of tying together the strands of magic she intended to use on him. The girl was patient but predictable, using the same spell repeatedly to try and bruise him into submission.

Waiting for the telltale pressure at the back of his mind that always preceded a spell erupting near him, Raeln turned sideways, instinctually making a deflecting motion as though the spell were a physical thing, the way he had been taught to defend against a spear. He felt the spell numb the pads of his hands, but he avoided it and the spell crashed into the snow again. The next spell came at him before he had recovered from the last, forcing him to dig his toes into the snow for balance as he tried again to escape the spell. This time he felt as though a club had slammed into his arms as he narrowly avoided it, but the spell went wide again, spraying snow into the crowd. If anything, the spell had wound up farther from him than the previous one, despite less movement on his part.

The pain in Raeln’s shoulders from barely avoiding the spells made him think. He had side-stepped spells and a few magically thrown objects dozens if not hundreds of times growing up with a mischievous sister. Most of her magic had revolved around flames, making it something he wanted far from his fur, but this little girl was using a different type of magic. It had weight and substance, as evidenced by the bruises he felt on his arms and hands. Where there was something solid, there was the chance to use it as a weapon against a foe, as he had shown his sister when she made the mistake of throwing a chair at him when they were young. To the day of her death, Ilarra had sported a scar on her collarbone from that tussle.

Panting and trying to stay on his feet, Raeln dug in as the little girl wove her next spell. He had no intention of going anywhere this time. He would act on his hunch or lose the fight in the process. Odds were that he would not last long without doing something. His strength was fading fast as the pain in his side dwarfed his ability to ignore it. Warmth had spread down his side to his hip, the wound bleeding freely. Another minute or two and he would become dizzy, and that would be the end of the fight.

The spell went off, blurring the space between the Turessian girl and Raeln, the air thickening with force that would likely take him off his feet or possibly break bones. He reacted to it the way he had been taught, treating it little differently than a swung club, though he had to defend against it as much with his mind as his arms, given that it was virtually invisible.

Magical force slammed into Raeln’s arms, and he swept it aside, turning it the way he would twist a foe’s arm to divert their momentum. Pain flared across his arms and shoulders with the strain of holding on to the magic, and he cried out as he released his hold on the spell, intending to hurl it into the crowd in the hope that it would create enough of a distraction that he could run. To his surprise, the girl he had been facing went flying and crashed to the ground at the feet of several scowling Turessians. She groaned and tried to get up, but fell onto her back with her lip and nose bloodied.

Weakened to the point of collapse, Raeln wanted to run while attention was on the girl, but the ring of people never opened. He looked out toward Dalania and Yoska and realized both were gesturing frantically for him to stop. His momentum gone, he dropped to his knees as the girl’s parents carried her away. To Raeln’s surprise, they did not appear even remotely angry with him, though there was a sternness directed toward the unconscious girl he remembered from his own mother’s firm scolding. She was going to be lectured for losing the fight.

People in the ring gradually scattered, some gathering over near Yiral. Others left the area, taking some of the slaves with them. Soon only a handful of men and women remained near Yiral, and only Yoska and Dalania remained down the hillside. Why they had not run, Raeln could not imagine. They just stood there, with Dalania wringing her hands nervously and Yoska tapping a foot as though he had any right or ability to hurry the Turessians or Raeln along.