by Dante King
“Why don’t you give up now?” I asked. “We’ve already proven that you won’t win.”
“That was then,” Hamon said, his voice crackling like a thousand flames. “Now, I know your tricks.”
“I have more of them,” I said. “And I have my sword.”
“A sword?” He picked up his own swords, and flames spread out along them to form two great, glowing scimitars. “And you think you can make me bleed?”
He flashed a devilish grin, and the parting of his lips revealed an even brighter blaze inside him.
For all my play at confidence, I feared that he was right. Fighting him would be like fighting fire itself. I couldn’t cut a part off, couldn’t make it bleed. Did he even still have organs that I could damage? Would he grow weary or could he fight forever?
But I’d faced fire beasts in the past. I’d beaten them on their own turf. I could do it again. As long as I was master of my own skills and my own body, I was willing to take on the world.
“Bring it on,” I said.
Hamon strode across the arena and picked up speed as he went. With each step, he left a little ash behind him as the fire burned up whatever was fueling it.
He broke into a charge as he ran straight at me with weapons raised. I brought up Flame Shield, large enough to catch both swords as they came down, though the force of their hits knocked me back a couple of steps and threw off my planned counter-attack.
Still as agile as he had been in a body of flesh, Hamon whirled around my shield and swung one sword high, the other low. I parried one and jumped over the other, then battered him with my shield. It caught him in the face, and he staggered back but laughed as he did so.
“You think you can beat me with such cheap tricks?” he asked. “There are no fragile bones to break here, foreigner. No weak flesh for you to stab with your hidden blades. I am the fire, and you are the fuel. You cannot stop me.”
More ash fell from him as he spoke, like a drift of black snow across the ground.
Perhaps I couldn’t beat him the way I had before, but I had other options.
I took a step back as he advanced and let him take the offensive. He came at me with reckless abandon as he struck to left and right, high and low, stabbing at my center and slashing at my sides. With every blow that came in, I took a step back and remained on the defensive. It went against every instinct, against everything I had learned about how best to fight, but this wasn’t a normal fight. I ignored the urge to attack and kept moving.
As he followed me around the arena, Hamon left a trail of ash in his wake. The more furiously he attacked, the faster it fell, as his body of fuel and flames consumed itself. The fire grew dimmer as the flames drew back from his blades, but if he noticed, he didn’t care. He just kept coming while he lashed out at me with all his strength.
My confidence grew. If he kept this up, he would burn down to nothing. I didn’t need to beat him; he would beat himself.
I retreated faster, and he was forced to take more steps to keep up. I goaded him into increasingly frantic attacks as more ash fell away. The flames of his left arm flickered and died before his sword fell to the ground.
“I’ll kill you,” he said, ignoring the clang of metal on close-packed dirt.
“I doubt it.” I backed up another step. “But keep trying.”
Another chunk of ash fell away, and he sank to his knees, then forced himself back up on slimmer, trembling legs.
“You,” he muttered as one side of his face fell away. “I’ll kill you.”
“Of course,” I grinned as I stepped back again.
He dropped onto a single knee, and I drove my sword into his chest. The blade plunged out of his back, and his torso started to disassemble as though it was the remnants of a charred log.
Suddenly, there was a humming in the air. My head throbbed, and my stomach churned.
“What now?” I asked, the words barely more than a groan. I was battered and exhausted, my thoughts were a swirling mess, and now, some fresh threat had arrived. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
The air between me and Hamon shimmered. He froze.
The sight was uncanny. It wasn’t only that he stopped walking and talking. It was as if he was frozen in time. The fires that made up his body no longer flickered or flared. His torso no longer crumbled into ash. The embers drifting from him were now as still as a photo.
Confused, I looked around.
Xilarion stood behind me, his hands raised.
“An elemental prison,” he said. “It will hold young initiate Wysaro as he is, stopping him from doing any harm. It will also stop him from disintegrating completely while I decide how to deal with him.”
He moved his hands around each other as if tying off a knot. The shimmering in front of Hamon solidified and became bars of something crystalline, a cage all around him.
“Did you kill Lord Wysaro?” I asked.
“I dealt with him,” Xilarion said. “That is enough, for the time being.”
“And what happens now?”
“Now?” Xilarion looked at the wounded warriors and ruined seating. “The fighting is over. Now, the real work begins.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
By evening, most of the guild’s members had returned from pursuing the Wysaro retreat. The clan members had taken refuge inside Jiven’s fortress, and their numbers had dwindled to the point that they were no longer a threat for retaliation. As each guild member returned, they were checked over by Faryn and a group of servants. Their wounds were bandaged and they were given herbs to help them recover, along with food and water. Fighting was thirsty work.
Some returned bone weary, exhausted from the first real fight of their lives. These stumbled into bed as soon as their wounds had been tended. For once, it didn’t matter who snored or how loudly. The inhabitants of the dormitories were too exhausted to be kept awake by such small things.
Those of us who still had some energy went to work setting the guild house straight. First, we handled the wounded and took them to Faryn’s team for triage. Then came the grisly business of clearing up the dead.
There was a graveyard outside the south walls of the guild and we took the bodies of our own side there. Master Kyu set out offerings of incense and gave prayers to the gods while we lowered our companions, one by one, into their graves. Some of them I had talked to around the guild, others I had barely seen before that day, but as each one was covered with dirt, I felt my sadness swell. By the end, we were all weeping. I felt stronger for it, the sorrow no longer tearing at me from the inside. The grief and I became one for as long as I stood by those graves.
The bodies of the Wysaro warriors were another matter. Rutmonlir disappeared for an hour down into the valley and returned with an ox-drawn wagon he had hired from a farmer. We piled the bodies up in the back and Rutmonlir led it out through the front gate.
“You’re taking them home?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
“Isn’t that dangerous? If you go into Wysaro territory with those bodies, surely the clan will attack you.”
“I don’t reckon so,” he said. “Folks understand how these things have to go.”
“But if someone doesn’t…”
“That’s why I’m going alone. We don’t need to lose more than we have to.”
And with that he trudged down the hill as the wagon rumbled along behind him.
By the time we’d dealt with the bodies, the fire around the arena had gone out, leaving ashes and embers amid the remains of fallen timbers. Night had fallen, but I found myself driven to keep up the work, to clear away whatever I could. The more I did now, the less ruin I would have to face the next morning. It gave me hope for a bright new day.
I wasn’t alone. As they’d come back from the pursuit, Vesma and Kegohr had joined me, helping in whatever task I set myself. Other initiates formed an improvised work crew that began piling up broken planks and splintered pillars before they swep
t away ashes and spread embers out to die.
“Thank you, all of you,” Master Xilarion said after he appeared at the side of the arena. “You have done great work in difficult circumstances. Now come inside, dinner is prepared.”
We set down our tools and headed toward the main guild hall. But as we passed him, Master Xilarion stopped me, Vesma, and Kegohr.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t keep you for long.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kegohr said. “I’m starving. Could eat a whole ox, even if it was still moving.”
“I wanted to thank you all personally,” Xilarion said. “I must praise your heroic efforts, both in your own fighting and in your leadership of the other initiates. Your presence made the difference between victory and defeat. I am proud of you all and of how you have developed here at the guild. You should be proud of who you have become.”
“Thank you, master,” we said. It was more words of praise than we had seen him bestow on anyone. Despite my weariness and aches, I smiled in response.
“Kneel before me,” he said.
We shared confused looks before we obeyed.
“You are now outer disciples of Radiant Dragon,” he said as he laid a hand on each of our heads.
I expected a big ceremony, but this was probably better. While a celebration might have lifted the guild’s spirits, it seemed in poor form. In fact, I preferred this quiet and isolated way to rank up after the previous day’s excitement.
“Stand,” Xilarion said. “You are now allowed to leave the guild on missions in our interest.”
Pride swelled in my chest, and I wondered what specific missions Xilarion would give me. I wanted to see all of the Seven Realms, if possible. Not only to experience the different cultures and people, but also to acquire new elemental techniques.
“You may go and eat now,” Xilarion finished. “But Ethan Murphy, please come to my study once you are done.”
“Yes, master,” I said.
Normally, dinner was a lively time of day. With our daily duties done and food giving us a fresh burst of energy, we would talk excitedly about Augmenting, about fighting, about food, about our lives back home, about anything that came to mind. But tonight, the hall was a subdued place. Initiates ate in silence, accompanied only by the clatter of cutlery.
Vesma, Kegohr, and I had more than our victory to celebrate, but none of the initiates knew about how ascension to outer disciples. It seemed a poor time to inform them about it, so I kept my mouth shut while I filled my stomach with a noodle soup.
“Anyone would think we’d lost,” Vesma whispered as she looked around.
I shrugged. “They’re tired. A lot of them have lost friends. That’ll take it out of you.”
Kegohr grunted, then stood up. Everybody turned to look as he clambered noisily up onto the table, a cup in his hand.
“Hey, hey, hey!” His voice filled the room. “I know why you’re all quiet. I get it. We’ve had a tough day. We’ve taken some knocks. It’s easy to feel down.
“But screw that. We won today. We were outnumbered, we were caught by surprise, and we still won. We’re tougher and better than we ever knew we were. Sure, we’ve lost some people, and it’s right to mourn for them. But it’s right to celebrate too. Because we’ve saved ourselves, saved each other, saved this guild. We’re big damn heroes. And if the only prize we get for that is getting to feel good about it then let’s not throw that prize away.
“Tomorrow, we’ve got more shit to clean up. But tonight we should celebrate. So raise your cups.”
Around the room, people did as they were told. Some rose to their feet and smiled enthusiastically. Others managed little more than a weary nod of acknowledgement. But everybody’s cup went up.
“To the best guild there is,” Kegohr called out. “Here’s to the Radiant Dragon!”
“To the Radiant Dragon!” we all replied.
Vesma and I knocked our cups together, then I downed my goats milk. It wasn’t the same as toasting with beer, but it felt good. It felt even better to look around the room and see how a few words had lifted people’s spirits. A wave of chatter was now rising as the survivors of the battle talked about what they’d been through.
“Nicely done, Kegohr,” I said as he sat back down.
Kegohr grinned. “Someone else got a chance to be the hero for once.”
I winked at him. “Well, you can’t say I never do anything for you.”
“What does Xilarion want to talk to you about?” Vesma asked me.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I’ve got a few questions for him.”
Half an hour later, a servant let me into Xilarion’s study. It was still as minimalist as before, a small, simply decorated place, oriented to function over comfort.
Master Xilarion sat at his desk as he went over a pile of papers. He seemed to be writing letters, and I wondered if they were to the parents of our lost comrades. It seemed like the sort of thing Xilarion would do.
“Take a seat, Ethan Murphy,” he said.
I settled down across from him. “You wanted to see me, master?”
“Indeed.” Xilarion set aside his papers. “I have three things to say, but I will try to be quick about them. We all need our rest.”
I nodded.
“Firstly, I want to thank you again for your extraordinary action against the Wysaro. Not for the first time, you have shown your incredible value to the guild. I hope that you will work with us for a long time to come.”
“Thank you, master,” I said. “I hope so, too.”
I was surprised to realize that it was true. These days, I hardly ever thought about returning to Earth. My life here was too rich, my studies with the guild too fascinating, for me to want to go back.
“Secondly, I want to talk with you about Hamon. Many guild masters would execute one of their members if he betrayed them the way Hamon did. But this is not my way. Responsibility for today’s carnage lies on the shoulders of Lord Wysaro, and the son should not suffer for his father’s sin.”
“Hamon attacked us too,” I said. “That was his choice.”
“It was, and he will be punished for it. Once I have found a way to stabilise his condition, to give him some sort of body that can survive in the world, he will be cast out. Dishonored and guildless, he will lose the status that he has always felt entitled to. No guild will train him, no court offer him shelter. For a man like Hamon, that will be a great punishment indeed.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I’d seen enough movies to know how that sort of act would end. After what had come between us, Hamon would be a thorn in my side for as long as he lived, a wound that risked becoming rank with infection and killing me. The angry rival was sure to return for his revenge, no matter what mercy or help any of us gave him.
“Master Xilarion, I understand that peace is important to you. Surely saving Hamon will only bring more violence later?”
“The Path of Peace does not allow us to pick and choose who we save. When your choice came, did you leave the Wysaro injured to die”
“No, master.”
“Then do not let your history with Hamon poison your heart. If you do that, then your victory today grows smaller.”
“Yes, master.”
I knew that I wouldn’t win this argument, and in a way, I didn’t want to. Giving in to the urge for vengeance would make me more like the Wysaros, and Xilarion was right—becoming like them wasn’t winning, however the fight went. Except pragmatism had to have its place. Hamon was deadly alive, but I could do nothing to end his life while Xilarion wished to spare it.
“You said there were three things?” I asked.
“Indeed. And given what I have just said about your value here, this may seem the strangest. But I have decided to send you away.”
“To send me away?” I frowned. “What about my training? What about rebuilding the guild?”
“This is to help with the rebuilding of the guild. Or rather, to help with it
s long term survival.
“The defeat of the Wysaros creates an opportunity for us. While they are leaderless, we can increase our own influence, to strengthen our position against whatever challenge comes next. I need someone I can trust to go on a mission, someone with the skills, the intelligence, and the determination to see it through no matter the odds. I can think of no-one better than you. Will you do this for me?”
I was torn. I felt honored just to be asked and excited to see more of this world. But at the guild I could train, could learn, could spend time with my friends. It would be a shame to leave that behind.
Just as it would be a shame not to seize the opportunities I was given.
I bowed my head. “Yes, master.”
“You will go to the Diamond Coast. I wish for you to deliver a letter to Guildmaster Horix of Resplendent Tears. I have a second letter for King Beqai of the Qihin Clan. They are both old friends of mine, and they are currently at odds with each other. I wish to prevent what happened here from occurring between them.”
“So, you want me to be a negotiator between them?”
“Yes,” Xilarion said. “Although I am troubled by their conflict. I believe something more sinister may be at the root of it.”
“Sinister?”
Xilarion nodded. “I will prepare the letters. You will leave at dawnbreak.”
Being a glorified messenger wasn’t exactly my dream job, but the Seven Realms had so much to offer that I doubted it would be quite as simple as that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dawn came quickly, and I bathed before venturing outside the guild house. The smell of ashes hung in the morning air. The evening’s rainfall had doused the last embers of the arena fires and turned the charred ground to a gray sludge. Yet there was a sense of excitement about the guild. Servants were up early to clear the debris and prepare for the day’s work ahead. Master Kyu was out with a measuring string and something akin to a theodolite as she assessed the work that would be needed to make everything right.
Though the servants were up, most of the guild members were still asleep. No one greeted me or asked where I was going as I walked across the courtyard, the Sundered Heart Sword at my back, a rolled blanket over my shoulder, and a satchel of provisions hanging by my side. The two letters Xilarion had penned were tucked safely in my pack, unopened and containing messages I was forbidden to read.
