by Ivan Kal
Vin barely had enough time to raise his spear, blocking the attack. His spear, created out of crystallized shadow and hunger ki held by his will cracked from the blow and he was sent flying backward. Vin turned in the air then stabbed his spear in the ground, halting his flight, the force of it breaking the spear, which disappeared in a shower of shards that turned to nothing.
He barely had a chance to feel and notice the burns on his hands. Just proximity to the Arc Commander had been enough to cause the damage. Grimacing, Vin wind-stepped away as the fragment-bearer closed in for another attack. As he reached his destination on the other side of the hill, his net trembled as a man cloaked in fire flew straight in his direction. He was not as fast as the wind step, but it didn’t matter, as Vin needed a moment of respite. Seeing no other choice, he abandoned the lesser movement technique of wind step in favor of something else. They were on a wide open hill, open to the sun and bathed in light—but where there was light, there was always shadow. The tiny strands of grass covering the hill shielded the ground from the sun, creating a blanket of shadow across the hill, in the places that weren’t scorched already at least.
Vin pulled his shadow ki preparing the technique as the heat grew closer. Shadow ki filled him, making him feel different, and for a moment it was as if all the world lost color to his eyes, and only a screen of light and shadow remained, Danir blazing brightest. He executed the technique. It was a movement technique, but it was not Surging, but rather Sculpting. His body turned cold as shadow engulfed him, and he fell into the ground just as Danir extended his sword and barreled through where Vin used to be. An area on the other side of the hill changed as shadow rose from the ground and Vin stepped out of it, devouring the shadow aura around him to fuel his technique. For a moment, the ground around him had no shadow, and the areas that light didn’t touch simply appeared gray. But then the magic of this world filled it up again, and the shadows darkened.
Vin stood and looked across the hill at his opponent, who had just now managed to stop his charge, and was in the process of turning around. Vin glanced down the hill, toward the harbor and saw the Norvus just leaving the dock. It would take them just a little while longer to get enough distance. Ten blades appeared around Vin, then another ten, and ten more. He sent them flying, the first twenty in a rapid-fire manner, and the last ten in group.
Danir recovered and saw the attack coming, his blade flashing impossibly quickly up in the air, destroying his blades. He destroyed the first twenty, but then the last ten arrived and changed direction as Vin controlled them directly with his threads of ki. Danir was caught off guard—he failed to parry the first blade, and it caught him on his shoulder, drawing blood. He parried the next three attacks, but the fourth made a small cut on his thigh. He parried the rest, his blows cracking and destroying Vin’s blades.
Then Vin saw him jump back and bring his sword close to his chest. He put both arms on it and as Vin’s remaining blades followed, he activated a ward. A ball of flame exploded out of him—an explosion with him in the center. The fire engulfed Vin’s blades and he felt his connection with them sever. The sphere of fire didn’t extend more than ten paces beyond Danir, but the shock wave traveled across the hill and rocked Vin for a moment. The fire cleared away and Vin saw Danir standing with his sword behind his body with both hands on it. He roared and swiped the sword forward at Vin, causing a wave of fire to explode outward in a curve, burning the ground and quickly coming at the spirit artist.
Vin put his arms forward and Shaped, pushing his ki out of his core in such amounts that his ki channels burned with the strain. He formed a wall of crystallized black-and-blue ki in front of himself that bent around to encase his body in it. The wall of fire hit, and cracks in his ki spread around the shell he had created, allowing heat inside. The air almost burned, and he did not dare take a breath. Then it passed, and Vin’s shell collapsed, revealing him still standing with steam surrounding him as small wisps of it flew upward from his skin. He stared at Danir, who looked at him in surprise.
Blades formed around Vin and flew at Danir, as Vin pulled his shadow ki and flooded every one of his ki channels and conduits. Black, smoke-like substance curled out of his skin and quickly bent around to cover every area of Vin’s body in it.
Danir destroyed the blades flying at his head only to see a man wrapped in shadow jump toward him.
Ki on Vin’s hands hardened and crystallized into dark blue gauntlets with sharp, claw-like tips on his fingers. A moment later he reached Danir and swiped at him with his right hand. The Arc Commander blocked with his sword, but Vin felt the pure aura of the fragment flow from his gauntlet directly into Vin’s channels as he devoured it, his hunger ki latching on to any aura around his gauntlet and dragging it back.
Danir’s flames intensified, but Vin’s shadow cloak protected him. Although the heat was causing damage to the cloak, Vin simply replenished his ki to the cloak constantly, pulling power from his core. They exchanged several blows, both attacking and defending in turn. Vin was fighting with his claws, and occasionally Shaping a few blades to distract the man. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the fragment-bearer—he was an ordinary person, his power only coming from the fragment and its bond with him, as well as the wards placed on the weapon. Whoever had made it had been incredibly skilled, but it was the man himself who surprised him. He had learned to use his weapon to such a level that he could stand against a spirit artist of Vin’s caliber.
The man’s fighting style could use some work, but he had the speed and reflexes to match Vin. Then he activated another ward and his cloak of fire changed color, from red fire to blue. Vin had barely a moment of notice before Danir surged into motion, doubling his speed. His blade flew through the air, heading for Vin’s neck, who he had just enough time to move at the last moment. The blade caught him on the shoulder, cutting through the cloak of shadows and biting deep into his skin, scorching the wound closed afterward.
Vin fought the instinct to scream and jumped back, pushing a wasteful amount of ki out of his core to speed up his technique. He collapsed into shadow and appeared on the other side of the hill, rising up from the shadows on the ground. He glared at the man, whose flames had returned to their ordinary red color and Vin saw him breathing heavily. The battle had taken a toll on the man, and one on Vin, too.
He glanced at his shoulder. The wound was closed, but he couldn’t move his arm much from the pain. He grimaced and then looked back at the man, keeping his eyes on him he extended his net down to the town and over the water, searching for the Norvus. He found it a fair distance away, enough such that he didn’t think that the man could follow, if what he had seen of his abilities was all that the man could do.
Danir raised his blade and Vin felt a massive amount of aura flow from the fragment and into the wards along the blade. Vin released his shadow cloak and focused as much of his ki in his legs. He jumped to the side, just as the man swiped down. A red crescent left the blade, biting into the ground and cracking the air as it shot past where he used to be. The hill shook and ground shifted as the crescent split the hill in half, gouging deep into the ground and continuing on beyond it into the mountains. Everything in its path was swallowed, and anything close enough erupted into flames. The side of a mountain was cut clean and caused the rocks to shatter and rain down on into the forest. The hill they were standing on trembled as a landslide was triggered, and Vin wind-stepped away to an area that was safe. Danir watched him and raised his sword, preparing the same attack again. There was no safe ground on the hill for him to jump to—everywhere else was unstable, collapsing as the landslide took more and more of the dirt away.
Vin reached inside of himself, beyond his core, looking deeper. A piece of him reached down into the plane of his soul and pulled. He disengaged his net and two threads of shadow and hunger ki extended from his upper back, thickening quickly until they became visible to the naked eye as two tendrils of black and dark blue smoke curling over his hea
d. At their tips, space bent, and two massive blades emerged, each covered in glowing white Engravings and golden glowing glyphs. Each blade was as tall as Vin himself and as thick as his torso—they looked more like slabs of polished black metal with silver edges than anything else.
Danir released his attack, and Vin stabbed the two blades into the ground before him. The crescent arrived and slammed against his blades. The glyphs and engraving he and Kyarra developed together activated, and a resounding crack was heard across the land. The force of the strike pushed Vin back, his feet biting into the ground as the blades and he himself moved back, the ground curling and cracking from the force around him. Vin saw nothing but red, hidden behind his blades as he was, the engravings and glyphs pulling from his ki in impressive amounts, dropping him down to barely a quarter of his reserves.
And then it was done.
He raised his blades and looked around. The crescent had broken itself against his blades and the ground in front of him was nearly gone. A chasm separated him and Danir, cracks spread in every direction, and the landslide thundered as it extended nearly to where they were now standing.
Danir looked at Vin in disbelief.
Vin pointed his blades at the man and activated his engraving. Ki flew from his core through his channels, and then into his two tendrils to arrive finally to the blades. They glowed with eerie white light, and then two beams of pure shadow ki exploded outward, cutting in the ground as Vin adjusted his aim. Danir had a moment to react and he activated a ward. The explosion that followed sent a shockwave of sound spreading outward.
Vin didn’t wait to see if he was successful. Instead, he turned around and shadow-stepped several times in a quick succession, causing his shadow ki supplies to dip dangerously low. He arrived at the base of the hill and he rose from the shadow of a tree, then glanced back to the hill, now nearly a league away. Behind him was carnage and destruction. Being close and engrossed in the fighting didn’t really give him the exact picture of what the two of them had done. The hill was gone; half of it was a rolling tide of dirt and rock that was swallowing an entire forest, while the rest was on fire, the forest surrounding it having been set ablaze, and dark smoke covered the entire area. The mountain to the side was still collapsing, thunderous sounds reaching all the way to where Vin was standing. The ground was split apart and turned in on itself, the image showing a place of battle as if giants had stomped at each other.
He turned around and ran toward the town, sparing just a bit more of his already dangerously low ki to activate his sensory net and cover the hill. He found Danir somewhere there, though he couldn’t tell much other than that he was alive and wasn’t yet moving. Taking that as a good sign, he kept his focus on running forward. He was nearly out of ki, and if the man still had a few tricks in his bag Vin would not be able to fight him for much longer.
He reached the town and saw soldiers on the walls and the gate barred. He saw fear in their eyes as they saw him, and he nearly chuckled at what he imagined they were seeing. A man with two blades hanging over his head, running at them faster than a horse at full gallop. As he neared the gate, he sent ki to his legs and jumped, soaring over the gate and over their heads. They looked at him in shock and disbelief as he landed in the streets, cracking the stone. Vin ran to the harbor, doing his best to avoid people as they ran and screamed out of his way. He reached one of the stone piers, and he ran its length, never even slowing down.
Vin reached the end and bent his knees, sending a burst of ki into his feet, and then he jumped. The pier beneath him cracked into pieces, exploding into a shower of stone that fell into the water as the pier collapsed and dropped beneath the waves. He soared over the sea and toward a ship in the distance. The wind filled his hair and he closed his eyes, remembering a time when his core had been filled with ki of lightning and wind, when he was able to fly. He opened his eyes and saw the ship getting closer, but he could see that he was going to miss it. He cursed and pulled wind aura around him, sacrificing the last of his supplies to convert it into ki, then he expelled it out of his body in a Sculpting technique—Falling Swallow—and the wind grabbed hold of him, pushing him forward and toward the ship.
Still, he could tell that he would still not make it, and his ki supplies were nearly empty. He slammed his two blades together over his head, and then swiped with them to the side, using them as a single wing. He pushed himself to the right and closer to his target. He fell with no way to slow himself down. He dropped onto the deck of the ship with such force that he shifted the entire boat, dipping its side deeper into the water. The planks beneath his feet cracked and one of his feet fell through to the knee, scraping his skin and drawing blood. He caught himself with his blades, stabbing them into the deck and preventing himself from falling further.
Finally safe, he pulled himself out, steam rising from his body, blood spilling from his leg and a large gash on his shoulder. He pulled his blades out of the deck and looked around. The crew looked at him with fear, while Solun regarded him with a blank expression on his face, almost thoughtful. Corvo had his eyes narrowed, and the two mercenaries in Vin’s employ, Teressa and Jirross, wore their shock openly. Vin looked back at the town in the distance, seeing a glowing form standing at the docks. For a moment he thought that he could feel the heat of the flames, but he knew that it was just in his head. He turned around and looked at the people assembled there.
“Set a course for Tourran,” Vin said as he pulled his blades back inside his soul plane and his tendrils dissipated.
Corvo opened his mouth to speak, but Vin didn’t hear anything. Darkness came upon him, and he fell down to the floor, losing consciousness from the exhaustion.
CHAPTER FIVE
ASHARA
Five Years Ago
Ashara walked the streets of Tourran alone. The people who saw her and recognized her bowed and gave their respect, but she ignored them for the most part. Her mind was somewhere else.
In many ways, she had gotten everything that she ever could wish for. She had a noble title, had an estate, was an adviser to a Queen. But she didn’t feel complete; something was missing. She might have titles and a grand position, but she wasn’t really doing anything. At most she contributed when Kyarra was asking for advice about trade, but there were other nobles and merchants more experienced than Ashara in those matters who could give better answers than her.
She was useless.
She couldn’t defend herself, let alone help in any kind of a fight, and her knowledge was not nearly as valuable as that of others. It made her feel small, unworthy of standing in the presence of a Queen. In the aftermath of the fighting, and Kyarra’s ascent to the throne, Ashara had been mostly forgotten. Kyarra had spoken to her often in that time, but as she built up a group of advisers Ashara’s opinion became less and less important. She knew that Kyarra hadn’t done it on purpose. She likely didn’t even realize that she was doing it.
Which only served to make Ashara feel worse.
She had no friends here, no family, aside from Kyarra and Vin, and the two of them were far too busy to pay attention to Ashara’s feelings. The two of them had the weight of the entire world on their shoulders. They were the ones that were attempting to warn the world nations about the Arashan, they were the ones dealing with matters so beyond Ashara’s understanding that the only thing she could do was sit quietly in the corner and listen.
She reached her destination, and regarded the large building for a moment. Debating whether to enter or not. Finally she sighed and took a step forward.
Walking inside, she approached a group of people and asked for directions, hoping that they knew where she was supposed to go. One of the apprentices escorted her through the building until they entered the backyard, where there were several large barn-like buildings placed on each side. A few were closed, but most were open. Ashara winced from the sounds of hammers hitting metal. She was led through the yard toward the back, where there were more closed shops, and at the
end was one that was open, separated from the others in a small private space.
The apprentice left her, and she walked over alone. She entered the smithy, and saw Vin standing over a large anvil, with a massive hammer that was unlike anything she had ever seen a smith use. He smashed it down on a large slab of metal, far too large for any kind of blade. It was taller than her, and wider.
Ashara stood there for a while, just watching him work. She noticed that the hot metal didn’t behave how she thought it would. With every strike of his hammer, a wave of something passed from Vin’s hands over the hammer to the metal, seeping into it so fast that she could barely see it. She realized that he was using his power in the forging process. At last he seemed to have finished, and just as she thought that he was going to quench the metal, he put the hammer aside and placed both of his hands over the still-glowing metal.
Something passed from him and into it, and she saw the metal change, harden, and then sparks flew as things were expelled from it. As black morsels jumped out, the glow of the metal slowly disappeared until it darkened to an almost pure black. It had been cooled somehow, Ashara realized. Soon after, she saw him create strange tools out of thin air, and place them against the edge. He started moving them along it, leaving silver and sharp edges all around the metal. Now she saw that it really did resemble a blade, or an oversized one at least.
When he was finished, Ashara realized that the sun had moved down the horizon and that she had stood there watching for a while. Seeing her opportunity, she took a step closer and spoke.
“I didn’t know that you knew how to forge as well.” She tried to keep her voice free of any accusation, but the more she learned about Vin, the more she felt unworthy.
Vin glanced back and gave her a genuine smile, making her relax a bit. “I am—was—a spirit artist of the seventh step. I had mastered every school of the spirit arts, and forging is a great part of the Engraving school. I do not claim any kind of true mastery, but I would say that I am competent.”
