The Way of the Blade (5 page)

Javery pointed toward one building. “Follow me, please.”

Malja opened her mouth again, ready to press further about Harskill, when the ground rumbled. All the townspeople froze, and many looked toward Javery as if he, indeed, would save them simply because he was of the Raxholden family. For his part, Javery inched down to place his hand on the ground. Another rumble. Pebbles and dirt rolled.

Javery shot up and cupped his mouth. “Wellspiker!”

People rushed inside. Others sprinted towards their autoflys and soared into the air. Mothers shouted for their children. Fathers barked commands to anybody who would listen.

Javery looked from Malja to the autofly and back. His lips disappeared as his face screwed up tight. “Damn,” he said, then pointed to the autofly. “I’m sorry. Our tour will have to be postponed. Quickly, now. We have to get in the air.”

“What’s the problem?” Fawbry asked, his speech a bit slurred.

Twenty feet away, the road erupted in a shower of dirt and rock. Malja heard a series of short, deep barks followed by an incessant rattle. She and Tommy stood still, watching a cloud of dust billow around the area of the explosion. Javery attempted to corral Malja and her friends into the autofly, but only managed to get Fawbry to stumble aboard.

“Get back on the autofly. It’s not safe,” Javery said. “All of our guards are up at the Assembly Hall or flying down.”

The barks came again, and then the creature. The wellspiker had a snake body thick as the ropes that held the Assembly Hall in place and nearly as long. Six massive arms poked out its sides — the back four ending in clawed feet and the front two ending in sharp points. Malja didn’t see any eyes, but what need would it have if it spent a lot of time underground? Instead, three enormous tusks grew from its head, curving in front and meeting at the points like a bizarre head-cage. Unlike most animals Malja knew, the wellspiker’s tusks were not smooth. They had jagged bumps and ridges, spikes pointing out at all angles much like the surrounding landscape — good for destroying rocks and loosening dirt as it traveled below.

“Please,” Javery said. “I can’t allow you to get hurt.”

A girl, no more than five years old, clutching a ragged doll and stood by a building, screaming for her mother. The wellspiker turned its thick head towards her and opened its mouth — a slobbering thing filled with flat, grinding teeth. On the opposite side of the street, a woman screamed as well, reaching toward the girl but unable to cross because the beast blocked her way.

Tommy took off after her, never looking back for Malja’s approval of his actions. He raced down the street, muscles pumping and moving fast. Malja brought out Viper and ran after him.

Watching him move with such grace and power, Malja thought he would be able to save the girl by himself, and she even slowed her pace. But then a shudder flowed up the wellspiker’s skin. It swept its head around, sending dirt and dust flowing like a wave, and turned its attention solely on Tommy.

Tommy skidded to a halt, and Malja did the same. The creature could see them both, and she did not want to piss it off by charging in on it.

“Fawbry,” she called without looking. “Protect that girl.”

Keeping his hand low but splaying out his fingers, Tommy signaled for everyone to stop. Malja understood — he set out to save the girl, and he intended to be the one to do it.

“We’re a team,” she said. “You and I can take this thing while Fawbry —”

The wellspiker barked and clicked and lunged at Tommy. Its tusks smashed into the dirt road. The boy leaped away, fell, and rolled backward until he righted on his feet again.

Yelling a war cry, Malja rushed forward and swung Viper at the creature’s tusks. Sparks flew but the damage looked minimal as it lifted its head. It flicked its pointed arm at Malja while searching the road with thick, mucous-filled sniffs. When it locked on Tommy standing in front of a wall, it shot towards him again.

Tommy held his ground as the massive beast stampeded his way. Malja’s heart dropped. She knew she couldn’t reach the boy in time. But she also recognized his stance — her stance. He must have seen her play out this tactic a hundred times, and now he appeared to be pulling it off on his own.

At the last second, he pushed off his back foot, propelling forward and to the side, right by the creature. Its momentum kept it from being able to stop and it slammed into the wall, tearing most of the building into pieces. With its back to Malja, she took full advantage. She flipped Viper in her hand and sliced down hard with its outer-crescent. A thick gouge spurted blood, but the wellspiker showed no sign it had even noticed. Then the wound stopped bleeding.

Twice Tommy attempted to concentrate long enough to cast a spell, but each time, the wellspiker attacked, breaking Tommy’s focus and forcing the boy to race off in another direction. Malja tried to cut into the creature again and met with the same results.

As Fawbry dashed by, Malja looked to Javery. “How do we kill this thing?”

Javery stood in the autofly, his face pale, his eyes bulging. She ran right towards him, and grabbed his robe. Yanking him close so that he only saw her raging eyes, she said, “How do we —”

“Don’t worry about the wellspiker. Just get in so we can get away. It’ll leave if we don’t bother it.”

“Tell me how to kill it or I’ll —”

“It’s head! That’s how we’ve taken them down in the past. It has a soft spot on the top of its skull. But that was a long time ago, and we —”

Malja glanced over her shoulder as the creature reared back to lunge for Tommy once more. She sprinted along the road, jumping over chunks of rock and wall that now littered the area, and headed for its tail. When it smacked into the ground again and she saw Tommy dashing to a new position, she got on the thing’s back. Letting momentum guide her, she worked her way up.

The wellspiker let her get about halfway when it shook its body, loosening ages of packed dirt, roots, and rock as well as one angry woman. Malja fell to the ground, hitting it hard enough to knock out her breath. In the distance, she saw Fawbry carrying the girl towards her mother. As he handed the girl over, his eyes roved back towards the autofly.

The autofly!

Malja jumped to her feet and hurried to Javery, the pilot, and the waiting vehicle. “You,” she said, indicating the pilot. “Get me over that thing.”

The pilot looked to Javery who fell back in a seat, upsetting the half-full glasses of alcohol. “I, um, I’m not sure —”

“If you don’t do it,” Malja said. “Then get out of my way. I’ll figure it out myself. I might break your baby, though.”

Rather than let her ruin his precious autofly, the young pilot took the controls. They lifted gently off the ground, and Malja punched the pilot’s shoulder. “This isn’t a pleasure trip. Get this damn ship over that bastard now!” The pilot obliged, pitching the ship back and pouring on the speed. Malja gripped his chair to keep from tumbling back.

Tommy dived to his right, tucked into a forward roll, back up to his feet, and kept running. Dirt stuck to his sweating body, and when he stopped, Malja saw his heavy breathing. He could only dodge for so long. The creature’s lack of sight and brains had been Tommy’s lucky break, but Malja knew even that kind of luck ran out.

“Now what?” the pilot asked as he hovered the autofly over the wellspiker’s head.

Malja stepped to the edge with Viper raised above. “Tommy,” she shouted. “Hold still.”

Tommy looked up at her, tapped his chest twice and brought his hand to his head — an old-style salute. She watched the wellspiker roll its head, trying to sense the boy. It found him and because Tommy did not move, it paused an extra second as it attempted to figure out why the boy had stopped. That was the extra second Malja wanted.

She jumped.

Though she dropped to its head in less than two seconds, she had enough time to feel her stomach rise to her chest. Malja brought Viper down fast with its point making first contact like a hook. Viper hit skull, and the vibrations of cracking through bone shivered straight up Malja’s arm.

The wellspiker reared back, its short barking noise taking on a high-pitched squeal. Malja hung on as the creature flung its head around in an attempt to dislodge her. The action only caused it more damage. Its six extremities shook without control, and the beast flopped to the ground. It rolled to its side, but Malja refused to let go.

She gained purchase on its head and yanked Viper free, sending bits of bone and tissue flying off. Another crying bark erupted as blood gushed out the hole in its skull. Malja hopped off the dying animal and walked to Tommy.

“You okay?” she asked, pulling a cloth from her long coat. As she wiped Viper clean, Tommy nodded. “Good,” she said. He looked at her longer, as if expecting something else, but she turned away.

Javery had returned to the ground, and she wanted a few answers.

“That was a marvel. Thank you,” he said.

Several townspeople emerged from the buildings — cautious, at first, then smiling, and finally breaking out into laughter. Three young women surrounded Fawbry, much to his delight. Malja whistled for his attention. He laughed with one lady, hugged the second, and kissed the third on the cheek before jogging back over.

“You have some lovely people in this town,” he said.

Javery nodded with a forced smile. His eyes scanned the ground as if he expected another attack. Malja followed his gaze but saw no sign that anything else would be popping out of the ground.

“I am so sorry about this,” Javery said. “It’s very odd for them to come into the town. In the old days, generations ago, it happened. But after we killed a few, they realized they’d be better off going after the wells buried elsewhere.”

“The wells?” Fawbry asked.

“That’s what they want. We just happen to be in the way. Come. I’ll show you.”

Javery led the way, though his legs seemed a bit looser to Malja. Fawbry waved at the adoring coos of the women as they headed away from the wellspiker’s corpse. At a low, red door with a single guard, Javery stopped. He gestured for the group to duck and enter.

Inside, Malja found a small room — cool air, one narrow window, and a wooden door in the back corner flush in the stone floor. Etchings ran along the top of each wall, apparently depicting the story of Carsite, Scarite, and the love that tore them apart — Pali. Javery grabbed a torch from a pile in the opposite corner. Malja had missed that. He lifted the door to reveal a staircase. As they climbed down, he lit the torch.

“This is the lifeblood of our people. Without the Great Well, we could never have ... well, we could not live here.”

They entered a warm, oval-shaped cavern. In the center, she saw a rough pool with a glittering greenish-blue light from within. Steam lifted off the surface of the pool.

No, that’s not a liquid.
“What is that?” she asked.

Javery beamed and flourished his hand toward the pool. “This is the Great Well, a source of powerful magic.”

Tommy perked up even as Malja felt her heart sink. “Magic,” she said with cold finality.

“Oh, yes. We’ve had control over this well for many generations now, but we’ve only begun to understand it. From the start, we knew that basic metals like iron could be dipped in the well and receive the ability to float. We also learned quickly that those giant creatures, the wellspikers, lived off of absorbing the magical energies in the Well.”

Malja nodded. “That’s why it came into the town. For your well.”

“It shouldn’t have, though. There are other wells to be found underground, most of which are too deep for us to reach easily. Once we killed a few wellspikers, they stopped coming. And when they would attack in the past, the battles happened below ground. I’ve only heard stories of them breaching the surface like this one. It was strange.”

“But they’re attracted to magic,” Malja said, glancing at Tommy. The wellspiker had fixated on him. Except he had lost most of his magic before they left the world of Corlin. Hadn’t he? Malja frowned. Though she could tell he sensed her watching, Tommy kept his eyes on Javery.

Their guide’s enthusiasm for the Great Well grew. “What’s more,” he said, “when we dip ropes of various kinds in the well, they emerge thicker and stronger. That’s how we anchor our floating islands.”

Fawbry leaned on one leg and rubbed his chin as if he were a great thinker. “I suppose it’s because of the wellspikers that your farms are all in the sky, then.”

“Absolutely. If we could afford the cost of putting the entire town in the air, we would do so, but each farm took us years to build. It’s not easy getting all the metals down here to dip in the well, then back up to be shaped and connected with other metals, then filled with soil, and finally positioned in the air and planted. It took two generations to build the Assembly Hall.”

Fawbry offered a sage nod. “Looks like you’ve got a real problem with these wellspikers.”

“This was an aberration,” Javery said. “And there aren’t many wellspikers, anyway. They are solitary, so with this one here, any others are most likely far away. We won’t see any again.”

“But you didn’t expect one in the town, did you?” Fawbry said. Malja caught his surreptitious glance at Tommy.