Fallen Blade 04 - Blade Reforged (18 page)

For a decade she was the pride of Namara, a demigoddess of death in the name of justice.
But then something went wrong. No one knows what or why, but one day Nuriko had come
away from the island of the goddess in a cold fury. She had gone straight to the stone
orb that held our holy kila, the daggers that symbolize our bond with our goddess,
and struck the hilt off of hers with her great dark sword.

Then she had left the temple never to return. For many years no one heard anything
more from her. Then, one day, the high lord of Dan Eyre, a just and merciful ruler,
was killed while addressing her people, struck down by living shadow. A dagger was
left in the heart of the high lord, a dagger inscribed with the emblem of the nine-tailed
fox. Nuriko had returned, as a true assassin, killing for money.

Namara condemned her to death the same day. For almost a century Nuriko and the order
played a game of knives in the dark that ended time and again with a fallen Blade
left with the dagger bearing a nine-tailed fox. Finally, Master Kelos had tracked
her down and ended her killing spree, bringing her sword back to lay at the feet of
the goddess. It was considered the greatest feat of Kelos the Deathwalker.

Do you think it was all a lie?
I sent as we slipped out of the palace.
Do you think Kelos conspired with the Shadowfox to let her live?
It hurt me to even be able to contemplate such a thing about the man who had made
me what I was today. But then, as I had so recently learned, much of what I had believed
about my former master was a lie.
When did he first betray Namara? Could it have been so long ago?

It’s possible. He carried that severed finger for nearly
eighty years before the fall of the temple, and that was a betrayal of Namara, too.

Point. What the fuck is going on here? Why is the Kitsune involved? And what was Master
Kelos thinking to let her live?

I don’t know, and we can’t be sure that’s what happened. He did bring her sword back
to the temple, after all. And she
is
a legendary trickster. He might have believed he killed her. There’s no way to know
what’s true and what’s a lie where she is concerned.

You sound almost frightened, Triss.
We had reached the outer wall of the palace complex by then, speaking to each other
only in brief bursts as we avoided the various guards and wards.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound this worried about anything but me drinking
myself to death. Why does the idea of the Kitsune frighten you?

Thiussus,
he whispered into my mind.

What?
It was a Shade word, but not one I recognized.

The Kitsune’s bond-mate. Have you never wondered why her Shade is almost never named?
Thiussus wasn’t…quite sane. At least, that’s what the stories that were told after
all the humans had gone to sleep said. The elders said that Nuriko should never have
been chosen, that no right-minded Shade would ever have tied their soul to hers.

I slid between two sets of patrolling soldiers and rolled over the parapet to begin
climbing down the outer wall. We were almost clear of the palace, but I couldn’t shake
the feeling that things had gone suddenly and horribly wrong.
I’ve never heard of a mad Shade before.

Nor should you have. It’s always been a rarity among my kind, and great care was taken
to prevent any such from making their way into this world, even before Thiussus and
Nuriko. Afterward, the thoroughness of those measures was examined and they were tightened,
but none of the elders who knew Thiussus was ever convinced anything would have stopped
her.

I don’t understand. I know how careful Shades can be, what’s so special about Thiussus?

Power. Both of soul and of mind. Thiussus had it all, smart, strong, clever, a natural
leader. She was not the sort of Shade that normally expresses any interest in crossing
over between the worlds.
Triss paused, and I felt an uncertainty coming through our link that felt wholly
unlike him.

Triss?

How can I put this so as not to hurt you…? The Shades that choose to leave the everdark
and companion your people are not…well thought of by our people. It is not a thing
done by the mighty among us, not normally. We are, all of us who cross over, outcasts
and considered a bit less than normal. Usually, that disregard starts well before
we’ve made our choice. Thiussus could easily have become a…I suppose “ruler” is close
enough. That such a one chose to pass between the worlds was considered a high honor
by the Shades who had chosen to join with your people, and she had the force of mind
to push aside almost any possible objections that might have arisen. Knowing that
she still lives is…troubling.
Triss’s mental voice fell silent, and I could feel that he wanted time alone.

We had reached the bottom of the wall by then, and I started to lope east toward the
road that would take me across the river and back into the northern half of the city
where most of my fallbacks lay. I didn’t want to return to Maylien right away. Not
until I’d had time to think about things a bit more and make certain no one had followed
me.

A flicker of light, like a skipping stone briefly reflecting the moon. That was all
the warning I got. If I were still the Aral of even a year before, the dagger would
have found my heart and ended my life. That it didn’t, I owed to Maylien for pulling
me out of the gutter, to Faran for pushing me to practice and practice and practice
until I was worthy to teach her, to Jax for putting me in the place that burned away
the last softness of my soul, and most of all to Triss for never giving up on me.
I didn’t have time to draw a blade or dodge, and only barely enough to block the blow
with the inner side of my forearm. The steel of my own knife in its wrist sheath
deflected the blow a scant few inches as I twisted my torso back and sideways.

Instead of sinking into my chest, the blade drew a line of blood and pain across the
front of my left shoulder. The follow-up came almost as fast, but I expected that.
I was able to crow-hop back and out of the way, drawing my left-hand sword with the
flapping motion of my arm.

“Very good.” The voice spoke out of shadow. A lacuna of night created an impenetrable
blot in the unvision I had borrowed from Triss, a void of nothingness in front and
to my right somehow deeper and darker than any shroud ought to be. “I’m impressed,
Kingslayer.” It was a woman’s voice, clear and low, yet secret, like dark water.

I didn’t answer. I turned my left side toward the void, lifting that sword to point
at its center while I drew my other and brought it into a low guard.

“Steel first, words after?” asked the voice, and this time it held a note of playfulness
like a slink with a wounded bird. “I can respect that, though it might mean the words
never blossom, and that
would
be a pity. Ah, well—”

Aral!
Triss shouted into my mind.

The flicker came again, this time from behind and to my right. I threw myself forward
as the dagger sliced through the place the back of my neck would have been. I touched
down briefly on the knuckles of my closed hands before vaulting into a sort of handspring
to land on my feet again. It hurt, and I cracked a pinky on the stone of the road,
but it was that or let my swords go. As I landed, I spun in place, bringing my swords
into a crossguard, but the Kitsune hadn’t advanced.

She stood just where she had been when she took a swing at the back of my neck, and
about nine feet from the false shroud her familiar had created to focus my attention
on the wrong place. She was tall like most of the islanders, taller than me, and there
was something wrong with her skin. It gleamed gold in the moonlight, like the metal,
not the more normal brown gold typical of Kanjuri. The hilt of a greatsword stuck
out over her left shoulder, a greatsword whose
guard shone blue in the moonlight with the Unblinking Eye of Namara…. But I didn’t
have time to think about what that meant right now.

I don’t know where she came from,
Triss sent, his mental voice sounding more than half frantic.
It’s like she simply appeared there, behind us.

“Nice trick,” I said. “And throwing your voice like a puppeteer, too. Very clever.”

“Hardly that, child. Merely another test. You passed, by the way.”

“Oh, what do I get?”

Careful, Aral,
Triss whispered into my mind.
Careful.

“Why, I would have thought it would be obvious,” she replied. “You get to live, of
course. For now.”

The false shroud suddenly collapsed into the shadow of a huge nine-tailed fox, throwing
its head back in silent laughter.

I opened my mouth to answer her, or tried to anyway. My lips didn’t respond. Neither
did any of my other muscles.

Triss!
I cried with my mind.

A paralytic poison on the dagger. She…
Triss’s mental voice trailed off, or perhaps, I did.

E
very
Blade knows their career will end in the coffin. It’s the stuff my nightmares are
made of, the feel of the winding cloth on your bare skin, the narrow box, the smells
of earth and mold and death, the darkness of the tomb, the silence of the grave. It’s
part of the price you expect to pay for justice.

It’s horror to dream about going into the tomb, but even worse to wake up and find
yourself buried. Before I opened my eyes, before I even knew I was awake, I understood
in my bones that someone had put me in the grave. I felt a scream bubble up from somewhere
below conscious thought rising slowly to…nothing. I was still paralyzed, though consciousness
was slowly returning.

Triss?

Long seconds slid past before his mind voice answered from faint and far away.
I’m here, Aral. It will be all right.

Where are we? What happened?

I’m…not sure. After you fell, Thiussus swooped down on top of me and forced me into
stillness while Nuriko
poured something in your wound. They said it was an antidote to the poison she’d just
given you, that you had fought well and deserved to live, and that Kelos would be
angry if she killed you. Then she laughed and Thiussus did something to my mind. I
went away for a while after that, wandering the quiet everdark of a youngling’s memory,
and only came back when you called me a moment ago.

I tried to stretch. This time my muscles responded reluctantly, but something more
kept me from moving more than a few fractions of an inch.
Is this really a winding cloth?

Yes. You’re laid out as for burial, and I think we’re in a coffin of some sort. The
edges of the lid are sealed with lead. Hold on a moment…there!

I heard a sharp pop, and found it suddenly easier to breathe, though I hadn’t realized
until then that it was growing steadily more difficult.
It’s a good thing I woke when I did. I might have suffocated otherwise.

I don’t think so,
Triss sent as he started cutting away the swaths of silk that bound me.
I can’t quite remember what’s happened while I’ve been away, but I feel that you were
safe. I don’t think they could have sent me so far from myself if you were not, but
I don’t know how I know that.

I guess I’ll take your word for it.
As Triss cut my arms free, I reached up and pushed on the lid of the coffin. It didn’t
move.
This is a heavy bastard.

Wait, I’ll help.

Once he finished freeing me, I rolled over in the tight space and got onto elbows
and knees. Then, as Triss levered at the edges of the coffin lid, I braced my back
against it and pushed with my whole body. With a harsh grinding of stone on stone,
the lid began to move. By tipping it to the side, I was able to shift it a few inches
farther. A dim flickering light filtered in through the cracks. That, in conjunction
with the stone coffin, really made me wonder where the hell I was. Four or five more
rounds of lifting and tipping, and I finally had a big enough gap to slip through.

A moment later, I was standing in a small boxlike room
entirely faced with expensive marble. The coffin lay atop a low marble platform, and
it was easy to see both why the lid had been so heavy and who it actually belonged
to.

“Ashvik!” I put a hand on the chest of the life-sized figure sculpted atop the thick
stone lid of the coffin. “She buried me in fucking Ashvik’s tomb?” That explained
the light, too; the eternal flame was part of the traditional burial of Zhan’s kings
and peers.

So it would seem,
Triss sent. He’d been speaking aloud less and less when he addressed me.

I took a half step back and stumbled when my foot came down on something that crunched
softly.
I just stepped on Ashvik himself, didn’t I?

Yes, the crunch was one of the long bones in his right leg.