Bladedancer (The Sword Saint Series Book 4)

by Michael Wallace

  The retreat was too slow. The demons were already emerging from the cloud with whips and clubs in hand, close enough to run down the humans.

  Katalinka turned on her heel and charged at the enemy. She leaped across the leading face of the cloud and slashed into the roiling blackness with her dragon sword. One of the dragon blades met resistance; the other cut a demon’s whip in half. She dodged a clawed hand that snatched at her throat, then turned and sprinted back up the road after her companions while the demons hesitated.

  When she caught up, Miklos was shouting for the panicking ratter and his dog to stop, to stay with the others. And a good thing for Andras and Notch, too. The small party only made it around the next bend before the heavens shook and the bombardment started again. They’d gathered their wits by now, and having already worked together once, managed to raise a sowen shield before anyone else was struck. Smoking rocks bounced off and slammed into the ground all around them. The noise was deafening.

  The cloud of smoke crept up the road behind them, and then a second cloud appeared, this one approaching from above. Demons and demigods, where had that come from? And how were they to get away, being pinned down on both sides?

  Katalinka cast about, desperate for alternatives. They’d climbed well above the lake, to a stretch of the canyon where the river had not yet overrun its banks. The post road followed the canyon via a cut in the mountainside roughly eighty feet above the water. The canyon wall on the opposite side of the river was just as steep.

  The river had formed a series of cascades through the resulting gorge that had made for a pleasant accompanying sound on their journey down the canyon earlier in the day, but was now drowned out by the pounding rocks and the demons and cinder crows approaching from both directions of the road. Some rocks missed the road and struck the water below and threw up steaming spouts.

  “Kozmer, hold the shield,” she ordered.

  “Me, alone?”

  “Yes, you must. Sarika, Miklos. The river. We need the water. It’s too far down for me to do it alone.”

  The firewalker and warbrand seemed to understand exactly what she was getting at and gave her curt nods. They released their hold on the sowen shield, which nearly collapsed as the elder was forced to maintain it alone. Somehow, he regained control in time.

  “Hurry,” he said with a grunt. Already, the shield was beginning to buckle under the strain.

  The three sohns reached for the river below. If it had been closer, it would have been an easy matter to lift water from all of those churning cascades and spray it across the clouds to disperse the heat and weaken whatever magic was binding them so tightly around the demons surging toward them.

  But the water, while swift and cold, was also heavy, and pulling it straight up the hill took effort. They managed to lift a column about ten feet before it began to sag, and they were forced to redouble their effort. The next ten feet came more slowly, and it was clear that while they might be able to lift it another eight or ten feet through sheer willpower, they’d exhaust their sowen while the water was still too far away to throw it across the road.

  “Hold it there,” Katalinka told them. “Keep pulling. Do not let it fall.”

  She relaxed her effort, glanced at the advancing clouds to make sure the companions weren’t yet under attack, then directed her attention downstream from the column of water. Narina had fought like this, they said, heaved the ground beneath the river to kill demons.

  Katalinka fell short of her sister’s power, but she’d been through an ordeal of her own, and could feel the river bottom, the water, and the surrounding gorge in a way that would have been impossible a few short weeks ago. She grabbed the auras running beneath the riverbed and gave them a terrific heave. The earth below seemed eager to obey her will, as if angered by the demonic meddling and anxious to help.

  As the river bottom lifted, the water struck the sudden obstacle and rolled back upstream. Quickly, before the earth could subside, Katalinka threw her sowen in with the other sohns’, grabbed the column of water, and pulled. It shot skyward.

  And stopped just at the lip of the gorge, where it spilled water across the road, but went no farther. It was tantalizingly close, yet they couldn’t quite get it high enough, no matter how much they pulled. Already, her hold on the river bottom was weakening, ready to slump into its channel and let the river resume its course.

  An unexpected sowen joined theirs. It was Kozmer’s deep, steadying presence. He’d abandoned the shield, and Katalinka noted with surprise that the bombardment had ended. It was still so noisy from the demons and cinder crows that she hadn’t noticed.

  “We’ve got it,” Miklos said between gasps. “Choose your target. Which one?”

  “The uphill cloud,” she said. “Open the way to escape.”

  They worked as one, carrying the water overhead and throwing it into the swirling cloud as it was about to overrun their position. The cloud broke apart. Crows shrieked and fell spiraling to the ground, where they dissolved into puddles of ash. The demons within flinched from the onslaught, then tried to break free and attack. Water sprayed them in their faces and slowed them. Some ground to a halt, step by creaking step, before they hardened into blackened, steaming shells.

  A few others made it through as the column of water faltered and ended in a final, cold spray that rained down on the heads of the humans as well, drenching them. Sarika charged the survivors, sword pulled back for a powerful attack, with Katalinka and Miklos close behind.

  The firewalker seemed possessed as she swung her sword, ducked blows, and thrust her sword tip up through the groin of a demon and dragged the blade out through its belly. It fell backward, gushing molten guts, but others attacked her flanks and would have overwhelmed her if the water hadn’t cooled their skin and frozen their joints and weapons. Even so, it was only the timely intervention from the bladedancer and warbrand that saved Sarika.

  The demons, so difficult to defeat earlier, were helpless now as the sohns hacked off immobile arms, came in from behind before the monsters could wheel to face them, and shoved swords through backs and bellies. The cold river water continued to steam off their skin, and together with the loss of the superheated cloud, the demons grew weaker by the moment. Soon, a pile of black, smoking bodies surrounded them, more than fifteen in all.

  Notch was barking furiously again, with Kozmer calling for help by the time the trio of sohns finished off the last of the demons and turned about again. The second cloud was upon the elder, the ratter, and the terrier, and it began to disgorge its demons.

  These ones were not weakened by cold river water, and they emerged glowing so fiercely it hurt Katalinka’s eyes to look at them. The ones in front were the larger hybrid demons, the overseers, but there were a number of the smaller bony or toad-like demons lurking behind them. These ones carried granite buckets filled with molten rock, and held back as if ready to drench their masters with lava should they cool. There were eight overseers in all, and about a dozen slave demons. In addition, some twenty or more of the strange crows circled overhead, cinders falling from their wings and smoke leaking from open beaks.

  Katalinka groped for her companions. Kozmer could barely hold himself up, even with the aid of his staff, and his sowen was a mess that he was anxiously trying to rebuild. Miklos and Sarika were stronger physically, but their sowen was equally tattered, with the firewalker’s in slightly worse condition than that of the warbrand.

  Katalinka had enough sowen left that her swords were itching in her hands, ready to be used, but she was in no shape to face the new wave of demons. Unlike the cooling, dying enemies they’d cut down and left in a heap behind them, these demons were at the height of their power. She waved one of her swords to issue the retreat, and they backed away, ready to turn and run as soon as Kozmer’s sowen was strong enough to keep him upright.

  But it wasn’t going to be so easy. As soon as they set in motion, the demonic crows flew screaming up the road thirty or for
ty feet, came down to swarm the road, and spewed plumes of smoke. The smoke coalesced into a thick barrier, impenetrable to sight, and when Katalinka reached out to find the road to see what it might be hiding, she was alarmed to discover that the cloud blocked her sowen. They’d enter the cloud blind, and whether or not it hid more demons, the ones behind could charge them, biting and slashing, whipping and clubbing.

  And then, as if that weren’t bad enough, a fresh arc of black lightning split the clouds overhead. Smoking rock came hurtling anew from the sky, and there was no longer enough sowen among the battered party to hold it back.

  Chapter Six

  Narina came at Lady Damanja with a war cry on her lips and her swords poised to strike. The crowlord lifted her shadowy blade, prepared to meet the bladedancer weapons, and probably to bend shadows and land one of her corrosive blows against Narina’s shoulder or chest.

  But instead of swinging, Narina leaped high, as if she were vaulting over a fifteen-foot stone wall. She didn’t swing though, too wary of the shadow blade and its lancing, withering attack. Instead, she reached down with her sowen and grabbed at the bed of pine needles on which the crowlord stood.

  The ground shifted beneath the woman’s feet, and needles swirled in a stinging mass around her face. The crowlord had mastered her own twisted version of sowen since the last battle, and she blasted apart the attack as nothing but a nuisance. Narina had already landed, however, and she slid in underneath Damanja’s blind, sweeping strike and thrust her demon blade into the woman’s thigh.

  Damanja screamed in pain and nearly fell. She gave a push with her sowen, and Narina flew backward as if struck by a hammer. It felt as if her head had been clapped between two millstones. She lay on her back where she fell, stunned, but somehow held onto her swords, with the demon blade still dripping with the crowlord’s blood. Damanja tried to come forward, but took one step and staggered from the wound in her thigh. She made as if to thrust her sword from where she stood and let shadows do the killing.

  However, the first of the fraters entered the fray, with Bartal in the lead and a small knot of elders at the rear, strengthening the fraters with their sowens. It was this support by the elders that saved them as Damanja whirled about under the threat and lashed out wildly with her own sowen. It broke against the combined might of the elders, but they, in turn, staggered back from its strength, forced to regroup.

  Narina regained her feet. Her ears still rang from the sowen assault, but she knew she’d struck a blow of her own. And the instant she’d cut her enemy’s leg, the aerial bombardment had ceased, and with it the black lightning and associated thunderclaps. She needed to close the distance and finish the woman off while she was wounded, but the crowlord was already using her abilities—no doubt stolen from fallen enemies—to heal the wound on her thigh. The blood stopped flowing, and as Damanja clenched one hand against the cut, the muscle and skin seemed to be stitching together.

  And now came a new surprise, crows dropping from the sky and through the branches of trees. Half came for Narina, and the other half dove at the crowd of fraters and elders still trying to recover from the crowlord’s sowen attack. Narina’s swords blurred into motion, cutting them from the sky before they could swarm her face.

  These were no ordinary crows. As her weapons struck, they dissolved into stinking, choking ash, and Narina was forced to expend her sowen to clear the air enough to breathe. Gasps and cries from her companions drew her attention; the crows had mobbed one poor soul and were spewing an oily smoke into her face while she twitched and writhed. The fraters had killed a few, but were unable to disperse the exploding ash and cinders, and these were causing troubles of their own, inflicting burns and setting clothes on fire.

  Narina was still fighting her own crows while trying to make her way to her companions, when fresh thunder sounded overhead, and the aerial bombardment started anew. She dodged birds and scalding, rocky hail, and was fortunate to spot Damanja moving in from her flank, her shadow sword ready to strike.

  Narina raised her demon blade up in time, blocked the enemy’s sword, and swept underneath with her dragon blade. The tip caught the crowlord along her forearm, and a back slash cut the woman’s ribs. But the cursed shadow blade bent around her demon at the same time and dripped onto her hand from its leading edge. Narina hissed in pain and was forced to disengage. She ducked an attempt to take off her head, and retreated toward the blacksmith shed.

  Fortunately, her blades had slowed Damanja as well, and the hail of smoking stone ended. The crowlord was calling it somehow, but pain or injury broke the spell. The crows seemed to be acting of their own accord, however, and kept up the fight. Narina managed to sheathe her demon before her withering hand dropped it, and she joined the fraters and the elders to break apart the last of the crow attack.

  Narina must have cut Damanja deeper than she’d thought, because the other woman had also retreated, with the surviving crows swirling about her, concealing her in a stinking black cloud spewed from their mouths. When Narina pushed her sowen through and groped for the enemy, she was relieved to find Damanja pulled inward, trying to contain her wounds, even as the deeper cut in her thigh remained only partially healed.

  Narina was in no condition to take advantage of the crowlord’s weakness, unfortunately. She clenched her withered hand against her chest and fought to contain the spread of the debilitating weakness creeping from it up her arm. Bartal and two elders had been trying to revive the frater attacked by the crows, but to no avail. The woman was already gone, shriveled into a withered husk.

  Bartal was pale when he regained his feet, and he cast a frightened look over Narina’s shoulder to where the crowlord was hiding in her black cloud.

  “I’m sorry, master. I did as you said. We tried to help.”

  “You did help. You’re still helping. You drew the crows, forced the enemy to divide her strength. Keep hold of your sowen, don’t relent.” When he nodded, looking slightly more confident, she continued without taking her eyes from the cloud concealing the crowlord, “Where is Drazul?”

  “Here.” The elder firewalker pushed through a small knot of armed men and women. “Tell me what to do.”

  Drazul was perhaps eight or ten years younger than Kozmer, but still an older man, and the short, sharp battle against the demonic crows and the rocks pounding from overhead had taken something out of him, because he held himself steady with visible effort, and his eyes were red, with a trickle of blood at one nostril.

  “Put up a sowen shield,” she told him. “I need her slowed down.”

  Drazul and Bartal both glanced at her hand, and she couldn’t help but follow their gaze. It had curled into a fist and gone almost entirely numb.

  “I’m going to the shrine,” she said. “I need you to hold her here as long as possible.”

  “Demons and demigods,” Bartal said. “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “Only a minute, two if you can. Use your sowen, throw things in her face. Pine needles, gravel, whatever. Slow her movements. If she tries to change, to become a crow or a shadow, stop her. But listen to me. Do not sacrifice yourselves. Only delay her as long as you safely can.”

  “And then fall back to the shrine to join you?” Bartal asked.

  “And then your work is done. Run for your lives.”

  “We can help,” Drazul said.

  “You are helping. I told you already. You will help. If you do your best, you’ll be spent, and nothing good will come of keeping yourself in harm’s way.” She remembered Gyorgy, who’d pointlessly thrown himself onto Damanja’s sword, and swore it wouldn’t happen again. “Hide in the woods. Make for the high meadows. If I win, I’ll call you back. If I lose”—she took a deep breath—“then you’ll know that, too.”

  She left them wondering what she meant by that last part. She wasn’t sure herself, although it would surely involve fire and heat and destruction. Would the aerial bombardment continue until the shrine and the outbuildings and th
e woods lay in splintered piles? Or would crows and demons and Damanja herself set fire to the temple and its surrounding forest to obliterate them from the face of the earth?

  The crowlord was already stirring from her stinking black cloud by the time Narina ascended the hillside trail with one hand tucked against her chest and her other holding the dragon sword. Bartal and Drazul gave orders, and the surviving elders, students, and fraters took position and raised their sowens. There were good men and women in that group, strong and dedicated, and she spared them a final, desperate wish for success before she turned inward to confront her own troubled situation.

  The immediate concern was healing the withering injury so that hand could hold a sword again, and her sowen was already hard at work. She raised the poison to the surface and sweated it off in black droplets from her pores. Her face flushed with the effort, and she fought down a wave of dizziness and nausea. By the time she passed the mill, she could flex her hand again, and the numbness had begun to dissipate.

  Shouts and cries sounded from her rear, but she resisted the urge to turn around, even though it felt like cowardice to leave her companions to face the wrath of the crowlord. They had no hope of defeating the woman, and even slowing her for a spell would be a challenge.

  The more critical problem, in fact, even more pressing than healing her injured hand, was that Narina wasn’t strong enough to defeat Damanja either. At least not how the battle had played out so far.

  They’d been closely matched when facing off on the plains, shortly after Narina had cut down Radolf, the warbrand sohn. There, the bladedancer had enjoyed a slight advantage over the crowlord, due in large part to more fighting experience and greater mastery of her sohn. But Damanja seemed to have honed her skills in the past few weeks, and she’d apparently murdered Lujza as well, which gave her another boost of power, including the additional abilities that she was calling on now. Based on their initial clash, an extended fight would only lead to an ultimate victory for Damanja.