The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (27 page)

Krothair's heart sank. To
him that sounded like a terrible idea. He was exhausted, pushed
completely beyond his limits, only sheer force of will was keeping
him going; or so he liked to think. Or perhaps
had
to think.

He felt himself becoming little more than a
beast; thought replaced by instinct in the base desire to simply
survive another day. He hadn't had a chance to find the
red-sheathed sword yet, but it was a mission he now held dearer to
himself than earning a spot on the Kingsguard.

He thought maybe that was a little sad.

He didn't care.

T
i'Shed was silent as they ate at the wooden table. Krothair
sucked the meat out of a crayfish's body and tried to chew, his
cheek wound pulling every time his teeth parted and met. It was
almost time for Ti'Shed's nightly apology. He thought back to
Forstina and her magic, and mused about his own path to power.
Ti'Shed had not spoken another word about Servitors since the last
time, and Krothair hadn't pressed it.

The sword master was rubbing at his
forehead, looking as if he was just shaking off his daily drug
dose, when large hooves thundered outside the small house, stopping
just outside the door. The sound was so loud that Krothair jumped a
little bit.

“Only one man I know rides a horse that
sounds like that,” Ti'Shed said. Krothair couldn't tell if the old
man was happy or dejected about that prospect, but either way
Ti'Shed rose and went to the door. As he reached for the handle,
whoever was on the other side must have decided to matters into his
own hands, as it swung open with a mighty blast.

There, on the other side, stood the largest
man Krothair had ever seen. Krothair had always been tall, but this
man's head scraped the door frame as he came inside. His dark eyes
were sunken deep into his completely bald head. Krothair's arms
were strong, but this man's were like layers of rock, overlapping
with muscles Krothair had never known existed. If Ti'Shed was old,
this man was ancient. He was an oak tree brought to life.

And he wore the colors of the Kingsguard:
purple and silver.

“Hawkethorn,” the giant grated in a voice
slightly higher than Krothair would have expected. A thin smile
crossed his lips.

Ti'Shed extended his hand. “Samsen,” he
replied.

And then Krothair realized
whose presence he was in: Samsen Bashram, more readily known as The
Skull.
I'm in the presence of a
legend.
Krothair was struck totally dumb
to see a man like this standing so nonchalantly in Ti'Shed's
house.

“God and Gustus, you two look like you've
been through a fuckin' war,” Samsen said. “And I should know. This
a new apprentice?” he asked, indicating Krothair.

“Yes,” Ti'Shed said.

“You haven't brought him to the training
yard at the castle, yet,” the giant replied. “Haven't seen you at
all around there lately. They ordered me to check on you, Ti'Shed.
Is everything alright?”

“As well as it might be,” the old man said,
running a hand over his balding head.

“What do you think, apprentice? What's your
name?”

“As well as it might be,” Krothair agreed,
not wanting to be contrary. “My name is . . . um . . .” He'd
suddenly forgotten. “Uh . . . Krothair.”

The giant thought for a moment. “A name I
have heard only once before, many years ago. Unique, not much used.
There are so many damn Samsen's running around it's getting a
little sickening.”

“Yes, sir,” Krothair said, not knowing quite
how to respond.

“Looks like Ti'Shed's been rough on you.
Looks like he needs his edge taken off. Hawkethorn, come with me.
We're goin' drinkin'.” Samsen clapped his hands together as if
approving his own plan. The sound was low and loud.

Ti'Shed let out a small laugh, as if he
almost couldn't believe what was happening. “I can't leave here. We
have much to learn if Krothair is going to survive on the
Vapor.”

The giant smirked. “If you keep this up much
longer, he isn't even going to survive his training. Come on,
Hawkethorn. No man ever wins a battle if he gets killed before it
even happens. Except maybe Trance.” Samsen laughed, a joyous sound
that rattled the room.

“How are Telin and Kelin?” Ti'Shed
asked.

“Still as uppity a couple of fucks as yer
ever like to meet,” Samsen replied.

Ti'Shed smiled a bit at this. It seemed as
if his rough exterior was being chipped away by this light talk
with Samsen. “The outside world might do me some good,” he said
after a brief silence. “Krothair and I have been holed up for too
long. I . . . can't drink tonight, though I would like to go with
you.”

“Why can't you drink?” Samsen asked, a
mildly quizzical look on his face.

“I'd rather not discuss it,” Ti'Shed said.
“Suffice it to say that you shall drink alone. I would welcome the
company, though.”

“Why can't you drink?” the giant asked
again. “What have you gone and done?”

“Only what I had to,” Ti'Shed answered in a
tone that stopped further questioning cold, even from a man such as
Samsen.

The Kingsguardian's left hand had never left
the hilt of his sword, and it had seemed so natural there that
Krothair hadn't even paid special attention to its placement; now
he did. There was something in Samsen's eyes despite his
friendliness. The giant knew something was wrong about this
situation, and there was a current of dangerous caution running
just beneath his exterior.

Just take him away so I can
look for the sword,
Krothair prayed. This
was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

“You are too tense, old friend,” Samsen
said.

“And you're too ugly.”

Samsen smiled and eased slightly. “Come,
Ti'Shed. It has been too long.”

Ti'Shed looked back at Krothair and slowly
nodded his head, the wounds of their training standing out oddly in
the light of the candles and the moon.

Samsen nodded at Krothair, and without
another word the two deadliest men Krothair had ever met
departed.

Krothair sagged when their
presence was gone, not knowing how nervous and intimidated he had
truly been. His body felt weak and numb, and exhaustion fell onto
him like a heavy blanket. But he had work to do while they were
gone. How long would they be? It looked like it would take Samsen
a
very
long time
to get drunk, so at least Krothair had
that
working to his
advantage.

T
he house wasn't fantastically large, but Krothair was shocked
at all the places he found that he had never been. There was a
cellar, for instance, that he hadn't known about at all, and there
were even closets that surprised him. It was sad how little he had
been able to explore, so set had he been in his routine of
survival.

It had been several hours since Samsen and
Ti'Shed had left, and Krothair was certain he would have to give up
soon. It wasn't the search itself that took so long, it was making
sure that he could leave everything as he had found it that made it
so mind-numbingly slow. Ti'Shed – much as his surname suggested –
had the eyes of a hawk and his attention to detail on the training
field certainly could carry over into everyday life.

The last place Krothair went into was
Ti'Shed's room.

He knew he should have looked there first
but he had hoped to find the sword elsewhere so he could be spared
the journey into the den of the beast.

He opened the door slowly and entered the
darkness, carrying his candle before him to light the way. It
smelled like death inside, not so heavily that Krothair choked, but
strong enough that he was surprised he hadn't been able to smell it
from the other side. Clothes hung all over the place, some soaked
in blood, others in various other weird liquids. The whole place
seemed like a sort of graveyard . . . or perhaps a grotesque
shrine.

The wooden supporting poles of the room had
been carved with symbols from bottom to top and it looked as if it
had been recently done. The scars in the wood were a lighter,
younger color than the rest of the beam, and the curly shavings
were in heaps on the floor.

Krothair padded through the room, cautious
as a mouse in a barn. His eyes scanned for likely hiding places and
he began by gingerly opening the drawers of a nearby dresser. It
contained nothing of interest. The floor creaked as he walked along
it, but digging his fingers at the boards revealed no hidden cubby.
He lay down to search under the bed, but there was nothing under
there except filth.

His candle didn't give him a very big bubble
of sight, but he held it aloft towards the rafters and there his
eye caught the color he had wanted to see.

He needed to drag over a small stool to
reach, but once he did he found the red-sheathed sword resting
parallel on top of a ceiling beam. Small white flowers lay around
the sword, each blossom in a different stage of aging. Ti'Shed must
have picked one each day and laid it up there with the sword in
some sort of ritual. Krothair had never seen that happen, however,
and couldn't imagine when the sword master might have done such a
thing each day.

He set his candle down on the beam and
carefully – with shaking hands – took the sword from its resting
place. It was a surprisingly light weapon, and he could almost
sense its quality and balance, even through the sheath. He grabbed
his candle again and descended from the stool, heart pounding
almost audibly in his chest in the silent room.

He sat on the floor then and slowly
unsheathed the weapon. It came out silently and the candle flame
lit the blade in an orange glow that made it dance. It was as fine
a weapon as Krothair had thought it would be, and for a moment he
marveled. The blade had only one distinguishing mark on it; near
the hilt was inscribed the image of a hawk in flight, his talons
wrapped around a thorny vine.

Hawkethorn.

Why would Ti'Shed's own sword cause him so
much grief? What had Ti'Shed done to lose this sword and how had
its return devastated him? Was it some sort of a death threat?
Krothair had heard of objects being delivered to people which
represented a bounty on their head, but why was Ti'Shed seemingly
worshiping this one with his strange shrines of carvings, flowers,
and clothing?

Krothair felt he would get no more answers
here tonight, but at least he had seen it. He had finally laid eyes
on the thing that had caused his training to be nearly
insufferable. This weapon had snapped something inside of Ti'Shed,
and now that Krothair had seen it he felt as if he at least had
some power again.

He stepped back up on the stool and replaced
the sword atop the horizontal roof beam, being cautious not to
crush or displace any of the white blossoms, even with his
breath.

He returned the stool and looked about,
careful to make sure everything was as he had found it. He closed
the door silently and walked away, the smell of the room fading as
he traversed the hallway. He extinguished the candle, went to his
room, and laid down on the bed.

Ti'Shed had been sicker than he'd thought,
keeping a secret world of grief shut up behind the door of his
room.

Krothair's thoughts drifted as he lay there
alone in the silence. His eyelids fell down and the exhaustion of
his training took him to sleep well before he wanted it to.

K
rothair felt his door open. There was a pressure change in
the room that was so slight he doubted he would have felt it a
month ago. Ti'Shed's training, though incredibly brutal, had
brought about a state of heightened awareness in Krothair that he
now carried constantly.

There was no moon now. The room was pitch
black.

“So you found it,” Ti'Shed said in the utter
darkness.

Krothair lay still in his bed, not wanting
to respond or make any sound at all.

“I suppose I should have expected this,” the
sword master continued. “It is really the only logical conclusion.
If I hadn't been so blind I would have seen this coming . . . and
now you've seen my room . . . that side of my life. You must be
quiet and listen as I speak, although it is my belief that that is
your plan already, so all the better for us here.

“The sword you found belonged to my son. He
fought in the war and then on the Vaporgaard. I trained him myself.
And now he is dead. You are young and so I don't expect you to
fully understand, but he was born of a woman I actually loved. You
may discover, in time, how rare that is. And I loved him as well.
He was one of the best fighters I have ever known. They say
sometimes that the student surpasses the teacher and that was
certainly true in his case. The medals he earned during the war . .
. well, if he had ever worn them all at once he would have been
crushed under their weight. Then again, perhaps not. He was
strength incarnate.”

Here Ti'Shed paused, his torrent of words
pausing. Krothair couldn't smell any alcohol on the air, so could
only assume that Ti'Shed had spoken truth to Samsen. The sword
master was likely as sober as he had been since the first day
Krothair had met him.

“They delivered his sword to me,” Ti'Shed
continued, his voice choked, “to let me know that he had died. I
have lost my only son, Krothair, and I did love him. And he did
love me.” Ti'Shed paused to weep and Krothair still said nothing,
praying this was all a dream.

Ti'Shed mastered himself. “By going into my
room you have seen my weakness first-hand and I am embarrassed to
my very core. You probably want to say something like 'don't be
embarrassed' or 'it's perfectly understandable.' But I am . . . and
it isn't. I know you listen there in the dark and now I am going to
ask something of you that seems like the only course of action for
either of us. And that is this: I don't want to wake up in the
morning and find you here.”