Soldier Saved

by D. K. Holmberg

  Urik, on the other hand, had a level of creativity that created movements that forced Endric to react. That was a different kind of challenge, the kind that he needed if he were to get better. And the purpose of sparring was for him to get better as well.

  “I’ve learned about you at the same time.”

  Urik tipped his head. “Have you? What have you learned?”

  It was an interesting question. What had he learned? “You’re a gifted swordsman. You know the patterns, and even those you don’t know, you manage to see a way to counter when confronted by them. You think in a different way than any other man I’ve faced. You’re not afraid to take risks”—that had surprised Endric, though it should not have. Urik had taken many risks with the Denraen, so why would he be surprised that he’d take them while working with the sword?—”and you think as you fight, not simply reacting. You plan ahead. It might not always work out, but you try it.”

  Urik rubbed his neck. Endric’s makeshift practice stave had connected on the back of his neck at least once, sending him tumbling forward. “Yes. They don’t always work out would be an understatement.” He watched Endric for a long moment. “You gather quite a lot from a man when sparring with him.”

  “You can’t hide when you’re holding a sword. You’re exposed. That’s one of the benefits of sparring.”

  Urik grinned. “And you have changed your approach. When I first knew you, and when you challenged your father, you had an eagerness to your approach. You would lunge forward, knowing that you were faster than almost any other man. It served you well, for the most part.”

  “Until I faced my father.”

  “There aren’t many men who can face Dendril and do well,” Urik said. “But since then, you’ve gained a measure of something I would call calculating. Your skill has improved, but that was a given considering how much time you have spent sparring with your father. He told me that you’d taken to working with him daily. That alone would make you more skilled. But it’s more than that. You have a way about you that Dendril does not. That’s how you were able to beat me.”

  “I beat you because I risked myself with the teralin.”

  Urik shrugged. “And that. I wonder, though, whether you would have beaten me regardless. Would you have managed to overpower me even with the teralin sword?”

  Endric didn’t think so. He remembered the helpless feeling that he’d had while facing Urik. There had been the knowledge that Urik was better than him. He shouldn’t have been—and now that they had sparred as often as they did, Endric knew that Urik wasn’t better than him—but with the teralin sword and the dark powers that it allowed, he was.

  “Maybe not then,” Endric said. Now was a different matter. He’d gained even more skill working with the Antrilii. His technique was better and he knew catahs that he had not before. Most of that was from training with the Antrilii, but some came from necessity and facing the groeliin.

  “Hmm. Maybe not then, but I suspect you would now.” Urik stood and tapped the ground with the kindling stave. “Maybe I shouldn’t work with you. It’s making you all too aware of the fact that you can defeat me.”

  Urik turned away, leaving Endric standing alone by the fire they’d set for the night. Smoke billowed from it and it crackled softly.

  A strange thought came to Endric. He’d been thinking that Urik had been challenging him as best as he could, but what if he wasn’t? What if Urik intentionally held back, not wanting to expose the extent of his talent?

  It would be the kind of thing Endric would expect of him. Urik would do something like that, and likely would refrain from displaying the full extent of his abilities, especially if he thought that Endric might face him again. That way he could spring an unexpected attack on him.

  But Endric didn’t think he’d done that. Urik was clever, but he’d demonstrated creativity as a way to defeat Endric, a way also to try and test him. Could he have held back while doing that?

  He had to admit that it was possible.

  What did he really know about Urik? He knew the man had a willingness to do whatever he thought necessary to achieve his objectives.

  Endric would have to be more careful, especially if they continued to spar.

  And he wanted to continue sparring with Urik. He did challenge him, and made it so that Endric had to push himself. That was the kind of thing that would make him better… if he could manage to stay ahead of Urik.

  He smiled to himself. Working with Urik forced him to try and think like the other man, much as Elizabeth had warned him that he needed to, telling him that it was the only way that he would be able to defeat the man. Strange that Urik himself would be the one to teach him those lessons.

  A mournful howl split the night and Endric looked up.

  “It’s only a wolf,” Urik said.

  He had heard plenty of wolves during his travels, but that sounded more like one of the merahl than any wolf he’d ever heard. When he’d traveled through the north, making his way beyond the edge of the mountains until he reached the Antrilii flatlands, he had heard the merahl howl often enough that he recognized the sound. This was close enough that it seemed as if it had to be merahl.

  He said nothing. Had Tresten been there with him, he would have asked the Mage. He had a sense that Tresten would have known what he’d heard, or would have known whether it was a merahl. If it was one of the merahl, there would have to be some reason for it to be here, something that would explain why they had ventured so far south. Would any of the Antrilii have come with it? If they had, that might mean there had been a groeliin attack. There shouldn’t be. The Antrilii kept them confined within the mountains. Another escape would mean that the groeliin moved in numbers again.

  Endric remained on edge, listening to the night, but the sound didn’t come again.

  He settled in near the fire, resting his head on the ground, and stared up at the sky. Clouds blocked most of the stars, though there were a few that twinkled through. Not enough for him to count, not as he had on the other nights and certainly not enough to make it seem as if the gods watched over him. What shone down now were only a few, as if the hundreds of gods had been reduced to something less, so that only a few of the gods looked down on them, watching from above.

  He awoke to a hand on his shoulder.

  Endric jumped up, unsheathing in a single motion, and spun to face whoever had grabbed him. Tresten stood in front of him and his eyes locked onto Endric’s.

  “Good. You will need that. Be ready.”

  “For what?” Endric asked.

  The fire had burned down and left very little light for him to see. Strangely, even in the darkness, he managed to see well enough and could make out gradations of shadows, enough that he could tell where to find Tresten and that Urik remained motionless, sleeping soundly.

  How could he sleep through an attack?

  Could Endric allow him to sleep, or did he have an obligation to wake him and get his help? If there was an attack, Urik might be needed. Tresten certainly wouldn’t fight. Though he carried a staff much like Novan did, it was more decorative and would be good for nothing more than pushing back any attackers, not disabling them. Sometimes, they would need a firmer hand. It might require others to die. Tresten likely wouldn’t be ready for that.

  A low howl came again, this time close enough that Endric could tell that it was a merahl. He turned to the sound, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and listened.

  “That’s a merahl,” he said to Tresten.

  “Most likely,” the Mage said.

  “That means groeliin.”

  Tresten shook his head. “That means they hunt. They do not only hunt groeliin.”

  That was the first Endric had heard of that. The merahl were creatures of the north, massive cats with incredible intelligence that were particularly suited to stopping the groeliin. If there were no groeliin, there would be no reason for them to have made it here.

  “What are you expec
ting, Tresten?” he asked. “Is this why you needed me?”

  “Not expecting. Worried that I might find might be a better way of framing it.”

  “You worried that you might find groeliin here? We’re nearly to Gomald. If they reached this far south, they would have destroyed half the countryside getting here.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  Endric looked over at the Mage. He stood with his hand resting casually on his staff, his posture rigid as it had been during their entire journey. He had always stood stiffly, but this was even more than usual for him.

  Something troubled Tresten.

  Was it the merahl? If they were here—and if it didn’t mean the groeliin were here—Endric would need to find them and see why they had come. There might be something that he could do—some way of communicating with the merahl, even though he was not fully Antrilii and he’d not mastered that part of speaking to them when he had been in their lands.

  The sound came again, but it had veered to the south.

  “I’m going to check on what they’re hunting. Will you be safe with Urik?”

  He expected Tresten to argue with him or tell him that he needed to remain near them, but the Mage didn’t. Tresten nodded. “Be careful, Endric. I don’t know what you will encounter.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Tresten looked at him, his eyes carrying a haunted expression. Shadows stretched over his face, leaving his features almost harrowed. “I have searched for answers, but I don’t have them. Something moves through here. Whatever it is possesses power. It is why I needed an escort. It is why I thought to have you here.”

  His breath caught. “Deshmahne?”

  “This is not Deshmahne. They have remained in the south. And this is not their priest. That man would not risk confronting us so directly.”

  “The Deshmahne priest?”

  Tresten nodded. “He’s a man we know all too well. He would not confront us openly, though he would do so in the shadows. Still, I don’t think this is him.”

  “How do you know it’s power?”

  Tresten stared into the darkness, his face taking on that faraway look that it had when he’d been staring out at the sea. He was quiet for a moment. “I can feel it. The sense of it fills the air. Can’t you detect it?”

  Endric listened, focusing on the sounds around him, but heard only the crashing of the sea. Moisture dampened the air and there was a distant sound of thunder, that of the storm that had seemed to chase them since they left Thealon, though they had so far managed to stay ahead of it. Was there anything else to it that he could pick up on?

  Endric didn’t think so. If there was, he wasn’t attuned to what it might be.

  “I can’t detect anything.”

  The merahl howled again, now to the west. It was moving quickly now, enough that they wouldn’t run into it if they stayed where they were.

  Was that what they needed to do? Should he remain, or should he chase after whatever was out there and find what the merahl hunted?

  It wasn’t really even a question. If there were merahl—and if it meant that Antrilii had come—he needed to find out why, even if it meant that there were no groeliin.

  Perhaps especially then.

  “You’ll be fine with Urik?”

  Tresten smiled. Surprisingly, there was a hint of menace in the smile, an expression that Endric would never have expected to see from one of the Magi. “Should I fear what he’s been learning from you?”

  Endric shook his head. “Not fear, but I don’t want you to be in any danger because I left you alone with a man who has betrayed so much.”

  “There is no danger to me. I think Urik has questions of me, but he cannot harm me any more than you could harm me.”

  It seemed a strange way of phrasing it. Endric suspected that were he to attack Tresten—something he couldn’t imagine doing—he would have little trouble subduing him.

  The merahl howled again, now farther away and faint.

  “You should go or you will miss your opportunity.”

  27

  The night surrounded Endric, an oppressive sense. There was no sound other than his feet across the ground and the steady sound of his breathing as he jogged. He’d run rather than taking the horse, preferring to be on foot. It was better to sneak this way, though he might not be fast enough to catch the merahl. If he was not, they could track them in the daylight.

  Too much time had been spent talking to Tresten, debating what he would do about the merahl. Their howl occasionally split the night, but it was less frequent than before. Had he missed his opportunity? He didn’t think so, but he would need to hurry to catch them.

  Thunder continued to rumble, and now it had an urgency to it, one that matched his pounding heart. The air was thick with moisture and damp enough that he didn’t have to sweat for his face to be sopping wet. Dew stained his boots as well.

  Endric lost track of how long he’d been running. Hours. Long enough that his legs burned with the effort. Even when he did catch up to the merahl, he wouldn’t be of any use. They continued west and the howls grew louder, subtly so, to the point that he was nearly upon them by the time he realized he had neared them.

  Reflection off eyes in the darkness caught his attention.

  Endric froze.

  Would the merahl be any that he recognized?

  When he’d been in the Antrilii lands, he had met a dozen or so, but there were many others that he hadn’t met. Would the merahl recognize that he was connected to the Antrilii?

  The creature stalked forward.

  Like all of the merahl, this one was enormous, larger than any wolf. It had striped fur and a long snout. Pointed ears swiveled, likely allowing the creature to hear everything around it.

  As it approached, it sniffed Endric.

  He tipped his head forward. “I’m Endric Verilan, son of Dendril, descendant of the Antrilii.”

  It no longer felt strange speaking to the merahl as if it could understand him. Endric knew they could. He might not be able to know what this one was telling him—but he hoped the creature would have some way of sharing what it wanted of him.

  The merahl snarled and lunged at him.

  Endric remained motionless. If this creature were like the others in the north, it wouldn’t want to attack. They had partnered with the Antrilii; they never attacked them.

  The merahl circled around him. As it did, another merahl howled.

  This one was close.

  The hackles on the merahl circling him raised and the creature snarled.

  There was something off about this merahl.

  When he’d been around them before, he had experienced the ferocity with which they attacked, and had known the keen intelligence they displayed. A single merahl could handle many groeliin, enough that Endric had hunted with them and had felt confident in the ability to take on an entire brood. This creature watched him with a predatory intent, one that none of the merahl had ever focused on him directly.

  It made his heart race.

  Tresten had mentioned another power. Could this other power have coopted the merahl somehow? Could they have trained them and turned them, much like teralin had turned the Deshmahne—and the Ravers?

  Was there some connection to teralin?

  That would be the hardest to imagine. The merahl wouldn’t be able to use negatively charged teralin, but there definitely was something off about the creature that he couldn’t quite put words to.

  The nearby howl came again.

  The merahl across from him snarled. Its ears swiveled, listening into the night.

  Endric shivered.

  Slowly—moving carefully so that he didn’t draw the merahl’s attention too quickly—he reached for his sword.

  The merahl lunged.

  Endric had been watching the creature, needing to anticipate what it might do no differently than when he’d faced groeliin. It was only because he had that he noticed the twitch of muscle beneath the
creature’s fur alerting him to the attack.

  He rolled to the side, unsheathing his sword.

  Conflicted emotions rolled through him. When he faced the groeliin, he wanted only to stop them, and doing so required that he use all the force and technique that he could summon. With the merahl, he didn’t want to hurt the creature. They were allies. Whatever had happened to it needed to be reversed.

  If only he could discover what it might have been.

  Could it be teralin?

  The metal certainly could influence others, which meant that it could be responsible for what he had encountered, but he didn’t think that was likely. There was no teralin here.

  Was there another way to influence the merahl?

  There were many powers in the world that he didn’t understand, so he could easily imagine that there were some powers that might be responsible, but what would they be? What could turn an intelligent creature that was an ally to the Antrilii into one that would attack him?

  He had no answers.

  The merahl lunged at him again.

  Endric rolled, ducking off to the side, trying to keep from getting injured. Somehow, he would have to engage the merahl and stop its attack, but he didn’t know how. What could he do to stop it?

  The merahl snapped at him, and on instinct, Endric swung his sword toward it.

  Fear lurched through him. The blade seemed to glow, likely reflecting the faint light of the moon, though it was positively charged teralin so it was possible there was another explanation.

  The merahl cowered away from his sword.

  Endric’s gaze flicked from the sword to the merahl.

  Was it afraid of the teralin blade?

  When he’d been with the Antrilii, the merahl had never feared his sword. Most seemed drawn to it, likely having something to do with the way they mated near positively charged teralin.

  Why would the merahl shrink back from it?

  He would have to use it to keep himself safe.