Fireborn Champion
Chapter Four - Before the Fire
Chapter Six - Thyra and the Coins
Chapter Eight - Death on the Horizon
Chapter Nine - Brother Caspran
Chapter Thirteen - The Mother's Gift
Chapter Fourteen - Celebration
Chapter Fifteen - Beasts of the Sea
Chapter Sixteen - Seeing Scarlet
Chapter Seventeen - From Chaos
Chapter Nineteen - Nephele Catrona
Chapter Twenty-One - The Goshgonoi Drums
Chapter Twenty-Two - Hail to the Chief
Chapter Twenty-Three - Enshrined
Chapter Twenty-Four - Reunited
Chapter Twenty-Five - Gentle Dance
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Sermon at the Arch
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Batbayar Opani
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Swiftly Now
Chapter Thirty - Simmer Go the Sands
Chapter Thirty-One - Heartfelt
Chapter Thirty-Two - Shining Step
Chapter Thirty-Three - Sigrid Ostergaard
Chapter Thirty-Four - Broken Circle
Chapter Thirty-Five - Curious Count
Chapter Thirty-Seven - The Loyal One
Chapter Thirty-Eight - Spoken Words
Chapter Thirty-Nine - Shattered Glass
To all those whose circle is broken.
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Ice and Steel
A silver shard sliced through thick bands of snow twisting in the mountain winds, hungry for a taste of flesh. Iron twisted from his master’s blade. Its jagged tip ripped through his shirt—another fresh chink in his cloth armor for winter’s frigid bite.
Iron liked the bite. He
loved
the fight.
“Just because your name’s Iron, doesn’t mean you have to move like it.” His master’s happy hoot filtered through the flurries as he danced around Iron’s swing. “You’re stiffer than a board and so slow, you’ll rust before you get another good swing in!”
“Is that a sword or a cane you’re holding, old man?” Iron brought his blade up, twisting his feet into the pliable stance of Shade Stride. He stepped back, and his foot sunk into a deep snow drift.
“Sinking in snow?” his master asked. “
Tsk
,
tsk
. I taught you better.” Sander’s voice came from all directions. The cursed mountain weather toyed with Iron’s hearing. Was Sander there? Or over there?
Iron feinted as sharpened steel whistled in a deadly arc where he’d stood just a heartbeat before. His breath was hot and burned his lungs, the sweat rolling down his back and coating his palms wrought into icy rivers by the wind.
He breathed in, summoning the Sinner’s power from his heart. The shadow god ’s magic rippled through him with a satisfying shudder, and his feet rose to the downy snow’s topmost layer.
Sander’s blade sheered the curtain of frost twisting before Iron. It would skewer his heart easily as it skewered a roasted elk’s thigh before tearing it from the spit. Iron grinned, and the blade sunk into his chest.
“Sinner save me!” Sander’s voice lost its haughty tone after the weapon actually met its mark. A shadow appeared through the snow, the wavering form of a man holding the weapon in Iron’s ribs. “Iron, are you—”
The illusion that looked like Iron exploded into inky mist while the Iron of flesh and blood reappeared as a swirling, ghostly figure, swinging a spectral sword at his master in a lethal arc. Their weapons clanged, and sparks showered Iron’s knuckles.
Magic roared through his veins. He inhaled, and his ghostly form solidified. He twisted on his heel and kicked Sander back, bringing the weapon behind him for a strike meant to shear an arm clean from the shoulder.
The howling storm abated. Snow framed his master’s wide eyes and slack jaw, the man looked like a deer with a mouthful of grass staring down a hunter’s arrow.
Iron twisted his wrist and clenched his jaw, the blade swinging furiously through his master’s chest. “Got you now, old man. Guess I—”
His voice caught as his master’s body dissolved with a sigh, a mound of black sand quickly carried into the blinding white by the mountain’s howl.
Iron seized. He spun around, his feet once again sliding into Shade Stride.
A fist burst through the storm. A flash blinded Iron. The rippling force of the Sinner’s magic made the air rush from his lungs. His feet sunk and he flew backward. The snow he once stood on exploded against his back, encasing him like a chilly coffin.
He slammed his palms against the ground and lurched forward. A steely tip pricked the base of his neck just where his collar met his windpipe. Iron winced. A warm line oozed from the flesh and flattened into a crimson stain on his shirt.
“You get one chance to use a decoy like that,” Sander said. “Make sure it counts. Smart enemies will adjust to your strategy, so make sure it’s not one little fart of smoke after another. Those same enemies will find a way to catch you, so you must always find a way to slip through their fingers like smoke and shadow. Launching yourself at their blade is certainly not that way. I mean really, you can’t still be that much of an amateur?”
Iron shivered. His master’s sword slid from his skin. As if the mountain new their duel had ended, the flurries slackened. Instead of snowy sheets, now only fat flakes twisted in lazy lines around them. A wind once furious in its rage dissipated, and an eerie silence fell upon the high forest.
His master smirked. As always, the man wore black head to toe. Snow covered his knee-high boots. His chest heaved with the exertion of their duel. A black hood hid his weary eyes, yet even then those eyes glimmered with the youthful hunger and irreverence that Iron both loved and hated about the man who’d raised him since his earliest memories. Sander’s salt and pepper stubble almost hid the scar running from his lip to his jaw but didn’t quite hide the asymmetry of Sander’s face, much to his master’s irritation.
The man flicked Iron’s blood from the tip of his blade and sheathed the nicked and frosted steel. He reached down, swiping Iron’s collar and yanking him to his feet. He towered over Iron; the Sinner’s magic hadn’t left the man like it did when Iron fell, and so his master stood atop the snow as if it were built from granite blocks and not a foundation of loose flakes.
“You’re cocky, Iron,” he said.
“I’m cocky? You practically cock-a-doodle-do when you see the sunrise.”
“You’ve never even heard a rooster before. Besides, that’s not where the word comes from.”
“Well sorry if you haven’t taught me everything about every word of Common already.”
“Watch that temper. It’s okay not to know everything all the time, okay? A lesson for another day. Study extra texts on etymology tonight. Maybe you’ll come across the answer.” He grinned and patted Iron on the back. “I know you’re smart enough to know where to look.”
Iron groaned and used his magic to hop atop the snow. He nearly came to Sander’s height now. He liked that, even though the prospect of studying extra linguistics made his heart sink. “I nearly had you that time.”
“You’re not a full-fledged Sinner’s man yet, not by a long shot.” Sander rested his fists on his hips and puckered his lips, warping the scar along his jaw. “Why, you know how long it took me to—”
“Ten years, eighteen days, ten hours. And by then, you could cut a hundred men down with that sword. Blindfolded. One hand tied behind your back with seven damsels in distress cheering you on.”
“Well, at least you listen. You get too confident—I’ve told you this countless times. Sinner knows I’m a cocky bastard, but you’ve got to put that crap aside in a duel. Arrogant men charge into battle. They die first. Smarter men, they stay behind and tell the stories about how they saved the day. The poor bastards bleeding out on the battlefield are lucky if they get a mention. They definitely won’t if they’re better looking than the survivors. Lucky for you you’ve got a face like an elk’s ass.”
“You
are
an elk’s ass.” Iron tested the cut on his neck. He grimaced, trotting after his master as they made their way back home. “Besides, in the books you make me read, history glorifies the brave.”
“There’s a fine line between arrogance and bravery.” Sander looked to the sky, tapping his chin. “Scratch that. How’s that saying go? ‘Arrogance and greed are selfish in deed, but…ah, but…’” His nose squished into a red-tipped arrow. “Screw it, I don’t remember. It’s been too long since I’ve been around anyone with half an ounce of wisdom.”
“Hey!” Iron swatted the man.
“Eh, you’re just a kid. And we’ve already determined you’re arrogant. Although, I suppose arrogance and wisdom could potentially go hand in hand.
Hmmm
…”
He pondered the thought while they made their way over the rolling pillows of snow. Dressed in only the loose black tunic of a Slippery Sinner’s apprentice, Iron shivered from the sweat and snow soaking him to the bone. He’d already lost most feeling in his toes and wiggled them so they wouldn’t turn black from winter’s bite.
They reached a long foothill that sloped toward their valley home. Trees coated with soft white had a tired look about them. Skaard’s endless snows weighed more than just their branches; they weighed their spirits. Still, the trees rose like serrated knifes above the ground, stubbornly refusing to let the frigid skies bury them.
Iron glanced behind him. The tall peaks of the Everfrosts thrust skyward like the jagged, broken teeth of an old man. Snow trailed from their summits in long, curling wisps, leaving patches of unforgiving granite exposed to the elements.
The Everfrosts layered one behind another until the farthest peaks became the horizon. Sander told Iron no one knew what creatures might have lived beyond the first peaks because no man could survive the journey. Some believed they’d find corpses of frozen titans. Others believed they’d find ruins of the demons from the Second Sun. In Sander’s opinion—he always had one—they’d probably find bird droppings and a frozen rat or two. No small part of Iron longed to see who guessed right.
“Daydreaming again?” Sander asked bemusedly.
Iron started, turning from the peaks. His master stood a few yards away, arms folded and fingers tapping a layered tunic much warmer than his own. Iron rubbed the back of his neck and stalked forward. “No, I just…well, yes.”
“The Everfrosts are not for you. They’re not for anyone. They’re the
Ever
frosts, Iron. Maybe if they were the Land of Tits and Gin or something, but the Six made a no-man’s land for a reason. They want no men prowling around those summits. We’re not made to tread everywhere, else you’d have fins and fur.”
“You’re no fun,” Iron said. It wasn’t true. He loved Sander like a father even though he knew the man wasn’t his real one. His master had never hidden that fact from his apprentice. Everything else? Different story.
A howl long and wild coming from the peaks broke the tranquil calm. Iron paused, his stomach fluttering. He and Sander locked gazes. They stood as two black statues against the white and muted grey. Another howl answered the first and rolled into a long echo that washed from peak to peak.
Two glory hawks burst from nearby pines. They spread their long, black-tipped wings and ascended into the clouds of rolling mists and soft snows. Iron narrowed his eyes. Glory hawks didn’t spook easily. Aside from Iron and Sander, they ruled the lower reaches of the Everfrosts.
“What was that?” Iron asked.
“Sounded a bit like wolves.” Sander turned toward the sound, the impish glitter in his eyes now replaced with something harder. “Not sure if I can tell the breed from the howl. They shouldn’t be in this part of the range, though. There aren’t enough elk and greyhorn to sustain them, and they have no good defenses from the thundersnows.”
“Wolves?” Iron had never seen the beasts. He’d read about them in one of the many books on the creatures of Urum Sander supplied him. Wolves were hardy hunters. Intelligent. Hungry. Numerous, save hot deserts and frigid peaks. Most folk feared them, but most folk didn’t live in complete isolation from everything and everyone else in the world. For Iron, boredom had an odd habit of transforming fear into courage.
