by Ivan Kal
Someone entered her tent and Ashara opened her eyes, dropping the technique. Lei stood there dressed in full armor, green and red, with dragons coiling from his back to his chest. It looked intimidating, she had to admit.
“They are ready,” Lei told her.
Ashara took a deep breath and stood up. She walked over to the armor rack and took off her armor. The gold, blue, and white armor used to belong to Vin, and now along with everything else that he used to possess it was hers. It changed shape to fit her body now. Slowly but surely she had started to think of this body as her own. She knew that she had taken, or rather been given, something that hadn’t belonged to her, but if the choice were presented to her again, she would make the same choice she had before. Taking Khalio’s offer had been the best decision she had ever made—it set her free from the circumstances of her birth, of being at the mercy of others.
It made her see just how much Vin and Kyarra had looked down on her. Khalio had been right—she had been almost like a pet to them. How could’ve she been anything else? Ordinary people were nothing to her now, only pebbles in her way. That was all that she had been to them: a pebble.
A part of her still hated them for abandoning her. They had claimed that they loved her, yet neither one of them had even tried to help her grow stronger. They were content to keep their power for themselves, wanting to have a weak little girl around only so that they could lord that power over her.
She finished donning her armor and then grabbed her spear. Ashara walked out of her tent to find Lei standing there, waiting. Without a word, they started walking. She liked Lei. He was a good teacher, and similar to Vin, he was more often than not quiet. While Vin was content to be alone, however, she could feel sadness and loneliness from Lei. He didn’t like to be alone, yet didn’t know how to reach out to others. In that, she felt that they were kindred spirits.
As they walked through the camp she could see Arashan troops in motion, with only the dim lights of the torches to guide them. She glanced at the sky and saw only a gray-black mess of clouds.
She hated this world—it was always cold, and she hadn’t seen the sun for months—and she hated her enemy. The Úlfriir had mostly surrendered. The world had was now under the control of the Arashan, and already the rebuilding had begun. There remained, however, a small portion of the population that had retreated into the largest mountain surface on the world: the place where their legends say they all came from. The mountains were a labyrinth of passes, hidden valleys, and forts built into the rocks. It made it extremely hard for the Arashan troops to go in and find them, let alone battle against them. The Úlfriir used their knowledge of the mountains to their advantage, ambushing the Arashan and using tight passes to negate their numerical disadvantage.
But since Lei and Ashara had arrived, there had been much more progress. They had been able to push through the places where the Úlfriir had been holding up the Arashan troops—and now, after several months of hunting, they had found one of the enemy’s forts.
Ashara looked up at the mountainside. She saw a large fortress built into the rock, high up, with only a small narrow path leading up into it. It was nearly impossible for a force to get up there without being pummeled by arrows and spells from high above, and the Arashan didn’t have any of their siege weapons with them, as they could barely get through the passes themselves. They didn’t even know how many Úlfriir there were up there.
Lei and Ashara arrived at the head of the army, the Commanders glancing at the two of them but not saying anything. The army could do little to mount an assault, not without losing a great deal of troops; and contrary to what they had been forced to do on Orb against the spirit artists, the Arashan rarely sacrificed their troops pointlessly, not unless it was absolutely necessary.
But while the army couldn’t do much, Lei and Ashara could.
“Wait for the signal,” Lei told the commanders, who responded with acknowledgments before walking off.
They ran up the path, Lei in front and Ashara following. Ki sung inside of her body, filling her with power. They gained speed and soon enough they were little more than a blur moving up the narrow path. Soon arrows were flying at them, but even with the little light Ashara’s eyes could see them. Lightning pulsed inside of her veins, and she moved so fast that no arrow struck her. She had been training, attempting to gain more control of what her body did, and now she was up to the point where she could suppress her body’s muscle memory most of the time, allowing her to use what she remembered from Vin with her own thoughts, to move how she wanted. Still, in her sparring with Lei, her body would take over when something unexpected happened and her mind couldn’t process and decide what to do in an instant. It wasn’t really a weakness; it was actually a strength. She hadn’t been a spirit artist for most of her life, and she didn’t know how to react in every situation—but her body did.
They reached nearly the halfway point and Ashara activated a technique, one she had been struggling to learn, or rather relearn. She pulled wind ki from her core pushed it into her conduits and then out of her body, having it surround her. She exerted her will on it and jumped. The wind carried her up, beyond Lei and toward the fortress wall ahead.
She wasn’t as good with maneuvering like this and she couldn’t hold it for long, but it was enough. The Úlfriir fired arrows at her, and their mages fired spells. She was too fast for most of them, but a few arrows hit her armor and broke against it. The spells reached her suit of armor and fell apart as one of her formations—what the spirit artists called wards—activated, breaking them apart. She landed on the wall and whirled her spear around herself, behind her back and then above her head, clearing the area around her as she cut down the Úlfriir trying to attack her.
As soon as she had some room, she swiped with her spear, activating a formation and sending a gust of wind forward, pushing Úlfriir back and some even off the wall on both sides. It was far easier for her to activate the formations on her blessed armaments than to actually use the techniques herself in combat, but she was getting there, if slowly. As the Úlfriir toppled down, she heard them scream, but didn’t pay them any attention. One of the Úlfriir snarled at her, his powerful jaws opening to show predatory teeth as he lunged at her with only his claws. She sidestepped away, still in control of her body, and slammed her spear across his head, cutting through his helmet and ripping it open from the ear down to the bottom of his snout. She had been training to master the movements of spirit arts with Lei, and she felt confident in her skill. It wasn’t like she was learning everything from scratch; instead it was as if she were remembering what she had forgotten.
Her body could also somehow feel what was happening in her immediate surroundings. It wasn’t like she could see what was happening inside of her head—it was more something like an instinct. She stepped to the side just as a bolt of fire flashed through where she used to be, and she whirled around, seeing the group of mages preparing more attacks. There was one lesson that Lei and Vin’s memories hammered into her, and that was to never let mages finish their spells if she could stop them. Her ki flowed from her core to her feet and she Wind Stepped forward. She reached the mages before they finished their casting and stabbed one with her spear, then pulled it out of him to swipe across the face of another. She let go of her spear with one hand before stepping closer to the last mage, backhanding him in the chest. She felt his ribcage collapse from the force of her strike and he flew off the wall.
Even now, after having her new body for a while, she was surprised at just how much stronger she was.
A large crack sounded then, and the wall shook as debris exploded into the courtyard of the fortress. Ashara glanced to see that Lei had finally reached the top and the gate, his attack shattering it and a portion of the wall. She immediately took a small device from her waist, pointed it at the sky, and channeled a small amount of ki into it. A small ball of light flew upward and then exploded into a shower of white sparks, illuminating the s
ky for a few moments.
Down below, the Arashan army charged.
Ashara continued fighting on the wall, her spear moving quickly and efficiently as she made her way across the curve of the battlements. She reached a tower and smashed her foot against the wooden and metal doors, sending them crashing inside. She entered and fought her way through to the top of the tower, killing Úlfriir along the way.
On top she saw a group of archers getting ready to fire at the charging Arashan, and she attacked them from behind. She had been splattered and soaked in blood, almost from the beginning of the battle. It felt warm on her face, but it also made her feel alive. For the first time, she had control of her life.
She looked down the tower at the next section of the wall, and then jumped down, continuing the slaughter. While she was in battle there were no worries, no pain, no fear—she was strong, and there was nothing that could touch her.
Down in the courtyard, Lei was doing the same. Hundreds of Úlfriir were spilling down the stairs that led to the openings in the mountains and deeper into the fortress, but Lei stood his ground. His fists glowed softly in a greenish color, and every one of his punches sent waves of ki outward that rippled through the Úlfriir.
She didn’t know for how long she had been fighting, but then the Arashan troops arrived. The army spilled inside and the Úlfriir started retreating deeper into their mountain, but Ashara knew that there was nowhere they could run.
She also knew that they wouldn’t surrender, that they wouldn’t bow to the new rulers of this world. A part of her was sad—not because they would die, but because they would not see the glory that would come to their world. The Arashan would rebuild this world and make it great, like she had seen in the visions that Khalio showed her.
But they had made their choice. She didn’t feel sorry for them or their deaths; they couldn’t be allowed to remain free. She knew that they had been attacking Arashan positions at every opportunity, even going far enough to slaughter their own people who had surrendered or agreed to work for the Arashan. War was not pretty or fair—she had known that even before she joined the Arashan.
As she cleared the last of the Úlfriir on the walls, and the army moved to secure the courtyard, Ashara allowed herself a moment to look out into the small valley. This was not the last of the rebel Úlfriir. There were more valleys hidden inside of these mountains, more fortresses, and it was her and Lei’s job to find them and take care of them all.
From her vantage point, she could see the high peaks of the surrounding mountains, the snow that covered everything here. The cold seeped into her, and she tried to remember what Lei taught her about using her ki to stave off the elements.
She really hated this world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LEI
Present
Xhao Wa Lei walked on an open plain covered in snow. Bodies surrounded him, the blood mixing with the snow painting the entire field crimson.
A warrior bellowed and raised his sword in a large clawed hand. A wolf walking on two legs glared with hate at Lei, and he felt the already familiar pang of regret and shame at his actions. But even though he felt this way, Lei still raised his hands in response, sending a touch of ki to his blessed armaments and making the script on his gauntlets glow faintly.
“Curse you, invader!” the warrior spat at him. “May your soul never find its place on the plains, and may you never find your spot in the great pack of Vanagandr.”
Lei winced. Having others refer to him as an invader, as he had once done to the Arashan, was not a pleasant experience. With an effort, Lei pushed all of his feelings aside and studied the warrior. He knew little about the man’s people—the Úlfriir, as they called themselves—other than their being the first race different from his own that Lei had seen, other than the Arashan themselves. He was on their world—another place, just like his own home, which the Arashan had decided to invade. Lei had been sent to fight, to break the last resistance of a people, and he had done as he was asked to do. No matter how much he regretted betraying his own, he had made a decision, and he would see it through. He was part of the Arashan Host now.
“And may you find peace in death,” Lei replied.
The Úlfriir roared and jumped forward. The warrior was no spirit artist, nor was he a mage. He was just an ordinary person; but his kind were strong, and faster than an ordinary human. But Lei was not ordinary—he was a spirit artist of the sixth step, a master of his art, and a thousand Úlfriir warriors were not his equal.
The Úlfriir swung his sword and Lei allowed it to reach him. The metal blade struck his neck and shattered into a thousand slivers against his skin as Lei activated his most basic Surging technique—Pillar of Stone—from the Way of Stone-Heart. The warrior stumbled forward and Lei punched with his left hand. His armored hand made contact and a loud clap echoed across the valley as the upper portion of the Úlfriir warrior exploded backward in a shower of gore and blood. The warrior’s legs, still attached by the waist, tumbled down to the ground, and Lei bowed over his fist to the dead warrior, honoring his last act of courage. Then he looked at the carnage he had wrought: there were only a few pieces of flesh left from the warrior’s upper half. The rest was only a bloody streak that stretched for at least fifty paces in front of Lei.
He glanced at his arms and slowly opened his fists. He had not meant to make such a gruesome attack. He had not controlled his strength as well as a spirit artist of his step should.
This was not the first time he had this issue. His acceptance of the Arashan came with a gift, a tether of power from the Arashan god himself—a way to supply him with a great amount of pure aura, and Lei had used it, drawn on this tether and filled his core with it, converted it to his own ki. It gave him something that he never had on his world: an abundance of aura. It allowed him to fuel his advancement and increase his rate of growth. Lei knew that in rushing himself he had failed to truly understand and master his new power. It was not a difficult issue to correct, and Lei had in fact already begun working on remedying his mistake—but loss of control still happened from time to time.
A loud crack of thunder echoed from somewhere ahead behind a small hill, and the earth shook. Lei made his way across the battlefield, walking over the corpses of Úlfriir warriors and mages. He walked up to the top of the hill, and then looked down it, watching the scene in front of him.
A warrior wearing a resplendent armor of gold and blue, holding a spear that gave off a faint golden light, stood there upon a mountain of corpses. In front of her were seven Úlfriir mages and four warriors, all glaring with hate and contempt. They would not yield, Lei knew, as they were the last of the true believers, those who had refused to bow down to the Arashan Host. The mages raised their hands and Lei felt their magic swirl around them, but they did not have the chance to finish their spells. The warrior flashed across the distance, leaving an imprint of lightning between her position and the place she had been standing just a moment before. Her spear flew through the air and took the mages’ heads off in less than a blink of an eye. The last remaining warriors turned around and charged her, but they too had no chance. Their attacks found only air, as they were blinded by the lightning left from her Surging movement technique, and a moment later they were dead as her spear sung through the air and took their heads.
Lei made his way down as the woman stabbed her spear into the ground and took her helmet off, revealing a mane of long golden hair. Lei reached her and stopped a few paces away, looking at her. Her face still surprised him, even after all that he had seen since he joined the Arashan. Her features were familiar to his own; after all, a part of them was the body of Kai Zhao Vin—or rather, his original body. Lei did not know much about the woman now standing before him, only that the Arashan god had given her the body of the greatest spirit artist ever to live, somehow molding the original body to suit her. She did not really look like Kai Zhao Vin had—there were only echoes in her face—but the feel of her ki was u
nmistakable. It was his power, given to another.
“You are slow,” Lei told her.
She turned around to glare at him. “They couldn’t even see me coming,” she argued.
Lei had heard this argument many times before, but still he had been given a task by Khalio, and he would see it done. “You have such power in your body, but you do not use it as well as you should. Your body remembers the movements, but your mind interferes. You are wasteful.”
“I can’t help it,” she complained. “You have no idea what it is like to have all of his memories playing around in your head. A gray dream that tells me to do one thing, when I want to do something else.”
She was right, Lei had no idea what that was like. When her soul had been taken from her old body by Khalio and put inside Vin’s, when her old body had been broken down and added to Vin’s to shape it in her image, she had inherited all of Vin’s power, and an echo of his memories. A bastardization of them, at least. She had spoken with him at length about it, about how the memories did not feel like her own. They were colorless, emotionless, only images playing out inside her head. They came to her most often in battle, when her body reacted with reflexes built up with years of combat. Her muscles remembered all of Vin’s techniques, as his body remembered everything. It was easy for her to use his skills once Lei guided her through it all. The more he spoke, the more she discovered of Vin’s memories, and gained insight on how to do things.
But in battle she had issues. Her mind was in control, but in battle the body reacted based on its old owners Way. Sometimes she did things without even realizing it. The two had been working on getting that under control, and they were making progress, but what concerned Lei the most was that he believed that there was something wrong with the way her soul had been placed inside of Vin’s body. She had only ever been able to access power on the level of the sixth step.
