Unseen (First of the Blade Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “You need to get down,” Imogen said.

  “Do you think I fear them?”

  He tapped his foot, a faint rhythm to the way he did. There was something vaguely familiar about it, though she couldn’t quite place what it was or why she would feel that way.

  She regarded him, thinking of his reactions during their journey so far. “I really do think you fear them.”

  He glowered at her. “I don’t. I just know that they have us outnumbered.”

  Outnumbered was only part of the problem, though.

  Imogen looked around them. Lilah sat on the ground near Benji, leaning over and looking as if she wanted to vomit. Her face had paled, and there was a sickly gleam in her eye.

  She nodded to Lilah. “You can stay here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Imogen took a deep breath and raised up on her toes so she could peer over the edge of the rock. She couldn’t see much. Dealing with the branox meant dealing in vagueness, blurring shadows, and the threat of violence, but never anything obvious until she was upon them. Flowing through the patterns, whether traditional or sacred, did seem to help, but it didn’t make it easier for her to see them until they were cut down.

  This was why they had come, though. To defeat the branox and get to the queen.

  And if Timo were involved?

  Imogen didn’t know, but she worried about it. Given what he’d done before, this was the kind of thing he’d try so he could gain additional power—especially if he could use the queen to somehow access the same Sul’toral magic he had been after before.

  “I’m going to have to cut through them,” Imogen said, her voice a whisper. She looked over to Benji, who was still touching the stone. He tapped his foot ever so softly, continuing to make a pattern as if the rhythm could call to the stone and the earth.

  Benji looked over to her and nodded. “It would be best if we can stop them here—”

  A shout rang out.

  The branox were attacking.

  “What do you want to do, Leier?” Benji asked.

  Imogen cast a glance back at Lilah. “We can’t bring her with us.”

  Benji frowned, then with a quick slap on the stone, he caused it to tremble and heave up and around until it formed a barrier around Lilah. She called out, but the stone swallowed the sound of her cries. “This will hold,” he said.

  “What happens if you don’t survive?”

  Benji frowned. “I’d better survive, then.”

  “That’s cruel, you realize.”

  “Cruel? I would think that you know nothing about cruelty.”

  “I know enough,” Imogen said.

  In her time away from these lands, she had seen cruelty. She had seen people acting in ways she could scarcely imagine, and she had seen real violence. Real, horrible things, such as men who were willing to destroy, to harm others. She had known that there was that kind of cruelty in the world, cruelty she could scarcely understand.

  So yes, she did know about it.

  Benji held her gaze. “She will not be trapped,” he said, his voice soft.

  Imogen swallowed, pushing back those thoughts, then peered out over the rock. “I don’t like this.”

  “None of this is for you to like. It is what must be done.”

  “I don’t like that it needs to be done, either.”

  Benji swore softly and began to trace his fingers over the stone. The ground started to tremble.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “They had us at a disadvantage in the forest, and I don’t intend to let them have it here.” The rock shook more violently. “Now go.”

  Imogen took a deep breath, brought the sword in front of her, and focused. In that moment, she meditated. She didn’t need to for long, only long enough for her to feel the power that was there and to use it so that she could find her connection to those patterns. From there, she would be able to draw on that power and prepare herself to fight as needed.

  Behind her, the mountain itself trembled. She had no idea what Benji was doing or why he was summoning that power. He had his own method of attacking.

  His magic might’ve been diminished in the forest, within the stronghold of the branox, but out here… Out here, this was his place. This was where he was powerful, where he could use his connection to the world and his ties to magic. This was where Benji was magic. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.

  She darted forward, sweeping over the stone, already forming one of the patterns. When she’d still been training in the mountains, Petals on the Wind did not work quite as well. It became more useful once she left, when she lived in Yoran and other places where she had been able to work through that pattern—though even when she had, Imogen had never really understood the pattern’s benefit or just how powerful it could be. Now that she was here flowing through it, she could feel the way that pattern guided her and carried her forward. There was definite power within it.

  She used Stream through the Mountains, which was a distinct pattern. It didn’t seem to matter to the pattern which rock she climbed over, or back down. It didn’t seem to matter to the pattern if she found the path or a trail, and it didn’t seem to matter that she had three branox suddenly in front of her.

  Imogen felt the energy within her and the power of the sacred pattern. She could feel the way she was gliding over the mountainside, and how that magic surged within her.

  She was not about to wait.

  Imogen raced forward. She was the river, and it carried her faster than she would’ve expected. When she reached the three branox blurring toward her like flickering insects in the summer breeze, she twisted and carved her blade around, sweeping through her attackers.

  They posed little threat to her.

  Imogen rushed ahead, ignoring the fallen branox as she jumped on top of a boulder. The ground rumbled and she risked a glance back. The earth swallowed the three branox she had carved down.

  Somewhere in front of her, shouts continued to ring out. The cries tore at her—the sounds of those fighting and dying. Imogen had known those calls when she was younger. They were the sounds of violence and bloodshed and warfare, the sounds of what she had trained for her entire life. She had learned to fight, to kill, and to be ready to defend her homeland. She had never thought that she would try to defend her enemy. But now that she was here, she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

  As she ran, she felt resistance pushing against her. Was that the branox?

  Benji glided up to her and managed to slip through whatever barrier pushed on Imogen.

  “I can’t move forward,” she said. “There’s something blocking me.”

  Benji scrambled up the rock in front of them, creating his own path, a trail she could not see. He paused as he tapped on the stone. “Come!” he shouted.

  She tried again. The barrier that had been pushing back against her had eased, and Imogen was able to keep going.

  “Sorcery,” Benji said. “Surprising sorcery, in fact. I didn’t expect them to be here.”

  “You think this is the Society?”

  Benji cocked his head to the side, focusing mostly on the rocks, then stared up at the sky. “The Society would not have done that. I don’t know what it is.”

  Imogen frowned. “If it wasn’t the Society, then—”

  A horde of branox swarmed and surrounded them—then headed straight toward Benji.

  When he’d been in the forest, Benji had struggled against the branox. His limitations had been tied to whatever power and connection the branox had over the forest, the fact that they had fed and thrived there, influencing it. Out here in the mountains, they didn’t have the same advantage.

  They weren’t moving nearly as quickly as they had among the trees. Benji pressed his hand against the stone, which trembled and swallowed the creatures.

  But not all of them.

  Imogen stayed light on her feet, and she danced as boulders tumbled down the stone. S
he formed the patterns and carved through the remaining branox.

  When she was done, she turned to face Benji. “We might be able to do this.”

  “It might not matter,” he said softly.

  He nodded to the distance, and Imogen paused long enough to stare. She couldn’t see the Koral but knew they were out there. She had seen them before, had heard them shouting.

  She didn’t see any more branox.

  “They’re hiding,” she said.

  “Are they hiding, or are they preparing?”

  “Do you think creatures like that prepare?”

  Benji huffed out a sigh. He had been that way since discovering the bones of the giants in the forest, but it was more than just that. She could see it when she looked into his silver eyes: he didn’t know what was going on. He couldn’t see it. That worried him more than anything else. She could tell, even if she didn’t know any way to help him.

  Imogen stayed alongside Benji and let him be the guide. She tried to maintain one of the sacred patterns, but doing so in the mountains proved to be far more of a challenge than she would’ve anticipated.

  They reached a small ridgeline, and beneath them were dozens of Koral. They were lined up with swords and spears angled outward. Some had bows and arrows, but all of their gleaming metal mail was useless against the onslaught of the branox.

  Imogen had only a moment to process what was taking place.

  Why would the branox be attacking armed Koral?

  These could be the shamans, but she didn’t believe that any of the shamans carried weapons. They would be protected by the armed Koral, wouldn’t they?

  Then again, Imogen knew so little about the people. There had been no reason to know about them other than to attack them. And given that they were her people’s ancient enemies, there had been little contact between them.

  She looked over to Benji, but he didn’t say anything. There was nothing but the blurring movement of the branox, the crackle in the air that suggested they were preparing their attack, and the unease that left her stomach nauseated.

  The branox converged.

  “No,” Benji whispered.

  Imogen didn’t listen and lunged forward. She had no idea how many Koral were here, but it looked like hundreds. All of them were expecting the branox to attack, so when she stood on a ridge above them, they shouted out, scared or surprised or worried about the sudden appearance of one of their traditional enemies revealing themselves.

  Imogen didn’t think about that. Instead, she jumped down, and when somebody tried to step in her path, she spun out of the way. She blocked one blow, then another as she rushed ahead.

  Then she was among the branox. They were moving so quickly that she could scarcely track them, though she could feel that crackle in the air. That had to be magic, but she couldn’t tell why she was able to determine it.

  Imogen looked over to the Koral and frowned for just a moment, but then she had to move. She spun her blade, twisting and flowing through the sacred patterns. At least she was on a level surface in a clearing, and she could use that. She brought the blade around as quickly as she could to form Petals on the Wind, Stream through the Trees, and then Axe Falling.

  Imogen used a combination of patterns, mixing the speed and precision of the traditional with the power of the sacred. She moved as swiftly and fluidly as she could, feeling something in the air as the branox came close to her. The metallic stink of their blood filled her nostrils, and her arms shook each time she cut through them. Even though she trained with these patterns and knew the traditional patterns as well as she knew her own name, she slowed with exhaustion.

  She stumbled and shifted, instinctively switching to Petals on the Wind. Normally, it would not be a powerful pattern to use, and certainly not against something like these, but she had used it in the forest and found that repeating it here seemed to make a difference.

  She carved through the branox, her blade slicing through flesh and severing limbs easier than any of the traditional patterns allowed. Every time she cut one of the creatures down, another replaced it.

  There were too many.

  Her mind went blank, and in that moment, she felt herself become one with those patterns. Master Liu had believed that all sword masters eventually reached that point. A unity, he called it, when the mind and the body and the pattern all became one.

  When she had used the sacred patterns before, she had barely felt that unity. The only time she thought she had truly touched it was when she had faced the Sul’toral, and it was her own fear of death that had driven her.

  Now she flowed as the branox swarmed her. She continued to carve through the creatures, her blade a blur, her mind blank, and her body filled with power, telling her what she needed to do.

  The unity.

  Imogen lost herself in the flow, not keeping track of which of the sacred patterns she used. She brought her blade through branox after branox. Distantly, her mind processed what was around her. Two branox to her left. She glided toward them with Stream through the Trees. Then Petals on the Wind guided her as she cleaved through the three behind her. A single branox up ahead. Lightning Strikes in a Storm. One behind her again. She spun, Petals on the Wind once more. She didn’t have to master all the sacred patterns. She had enough, and soon the creatures were all down.

  She stopped and took in the scene around her, breathing deeply.

  The branox were defeated. But none of the Koral had survived. The branox had fed on them, and she had failed them.

  Imogen hadn’t been concerned about the reaction from the Koral when she’d been fighting the branox, but they were her people’s enemy. If any of them had survived, how would they view her?

  “Impressive,” Benji said, scrambling down the rock. “Unnecessary, but impressive.”

  Imogen let out a heavy sigh, but didn’t have much of an answer. Fallen Koral were gathered in a pile as if they had trampled themselves in an effort to flee. She could imagine their fear at wanting to escape these unseen creatures and being unable to do so. She could imagine the terror within them, the overwhelming realization that they would die, the helplessness.

  All of these thoughts plagued her and left her tormented.

  “You could’ve helped,” she said, looking over to Benji. She hadn’t detected any magic from him.

  “Faster than you?” He watched her, the deep silver in his eyes meeting hers. “You moved faster than I could have.”

  The unity.

  She had felt it. A union of her mind, body, and pattern.

  Not just any pattern, though. The sacred ones.

  Imogen had come close to finding the unity with the traditional patterns before. She had touched it from time to time, but nothing like what she had felt here. Now.

  She breathed out heavily. “You could have helped.” She swept her gaze around and turned to the fallen Koral. “This was more than we faced before. There has to be something here, some reason for it. None of them were as strong as sorcerers.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’ve faced the Koral before. They don’t have sorcerers among their ranks. Their shamans have some magic, but not as much as sorcerers do.” At least, they never had before. It was possible they used enchantments, though. Imogen started to pick through them, looking at the fallen bodies. Most of them were carved through with strange wounds—arms missing, bellies ripped out, the metal armor that should’ve protected them rent and torn.

  How had Imogen survived when so many others had failed?

  The sacred patterns.

  But even with them, it seemed impossible for her to believe that she would be able to withstand this kind of fight when no others could. How could she do this, when others struggled?

  She looked up at Benji, the question burning in her eyes, but she didn’t think she would get an answer.

  “We should keep moving,” he said.

  “We need to gather Lilah first. And I need for you to keep tracking the bra
nox. If I’m right, my brother’s going to be involved in this in some way, and we need to know what he’s intending. Whether the creatures are guiding him or he’s guiding the creatures, either way we need to chase them down.”

  Benji nodded, his gaze distant again. “They are still here,” he whispered.

  “And the queen?”

  He tipped his head back, inhaling slowly and deeply. “There is something unpleasant up ahead. I cannot see it, though.”

  “I will go with you,” she said.

  Imogen didn’t know if the look in his eyes was relief or simply acknowledgment that he had anticipated that she would offer. Rather than answering, he looked away, tapped on the stone, scrambled up the rocks.

  She glanced around at the branox, unable to understand why they would have come here, unless they were pushed. Driven.

  When Benji finally poked his head over the rocks, Lilah was following him.

  “Why did they come this way rather than going to the south toward the Society?” Imogen asked him.

  “As I’ve said, it’s likely the queen is near. She has different protections than the other branox do. If the queen falls, the rest can be slaughtered. They cannot create another.”

  “Why did they target the soldiers?” Imogen poked her blade into a branox. “Could they have magic?”

  There had to be some reason the creatures attacked the soldiers. As far as Imogen knew, the Koral didn’t all have magic. Only the shamans. What if that had been wrong?

  It might explain why the branox had come this way.

  “We should keep moving,” she said.

  Benji’s gaze went distant again. He had been doing that more often. He was trying to see but failing, she suspected.

  They crawled across the rocks for a while, none of them speaking. It felt strange to leave the bodies of the Koral behind, though Benji had tumbled rock over the branox so that they did not draw others to them. Not that it mattered—the creatures were already out there.

  They came across another small ridgeline, and Imogen looked down. In the distance, she noticed more branox slithering along the rocky terrain, far too many for her to count or make out clearly.