The Living Sword

by Pemry Janes

  The san cremated the dead, just like Linesans did, but they spread the ashes out over the fields. They felt no need to commemorate their dead like this.

  'I suppose I am human in this. I carry around a blade I don't know how to use, because it belonged to my parents.' He drew Misthell. His eye stared back at him. 'Strange. I never felt a need to visit a grave that was not there, but Misthell somehow brings them closer. It makes me feel connected to them.'

  “Hey Eurik, do you blame me for what's happened?” Misthell asked.

  “Why would I?”

  “Because they're going after you to get to me,” the blade explained. “Even that Broken Fang-girl was interested in me, though she hasn't tried to kill you. Yet.”

  “I can't control what other people want, and you can't either.”

  “I suppose you're right, still ... I'm feeling a little useless here. You're taking all the risk here and I can't even help you out. If only I knew what my power is.”

  “Hmmm, have you ever considered that you might not have a power? Not every living sword has one, you know.”

  “No, no, I'm too awesome not to,” Misthell corrected. “I'm going to find out what it is, and then all our problems will go away. They won't dare to stand against me.”

  Eurik fought to hide his smile. “Then I better hurry with learning how to wield a blade, I wouldn't want to embarrass you while you're being awesome.”

  “Planning on learning from squirrels, like Ygren?”

  He frowned, searching his memory for the name and coming up empty-handed. “I don't know that story.”

  “Ah, well then, start walking.” Eurik did nothing to stop his smile as he returned Misthell to its scabbard. His feet hit the pavement again. “I will regale you with the tale of Ygren of Cosce and the Serpent of...”

  Chapter 6

  Bait

  The sun was on its way down when Eurik heard a galloping horse coming up from behind him. It wasn't the first rider that Eurik had encountered, not even the first who'd ridden hard, but this one slowed down as it got closer. Curious, Eurik stopped and looked back. He did not expect the familiar face looking back at him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked Broken Fang.

  Sliding off the spotted mare, she walked up to Eurik leading her horse by the reins. Another horse, tied to her saddle, followed behind. “Looking for you.”

  He waited for Broken Fang to say more, but all he got was a hard stare. Rolling his shoulders, Eurik tried again. “Okay, but why?”

  “The blooddrinker said he would come after you again. I intend to be there when he does.”

  He blinked. “You want to use me as bait?”

  “Yes.”

  “But... what about your friend, Viper?” Eurik had passed enough graves today to know how important taking care of the body of a loved one was to humans.

  There was a sharp intake of breath as Broken Fang's eyes became hard as emeralds. “Irelith's soul has returned, that is all that matters. The body is now just a body.”

  Not really knowing what to say next, Eurik looked around but found no inspiration. “I suppose I can't stop you.”

  He started to walk again, feeling her eyes on his back. A few moments later, leather creaked and the horses started to walk again.

  Misthell tried to cheer him up. “Well, she still hasn't tried to kill you.”

  “Yet,” Eurik echoed the sword's earlier remark.

  ***

  Letting the stone plates of his shelter slide back into the ground, he looked over at Broken Fang's camping spot. Her own fire smoldered in the damp morning while she took down her tent. The Mochedan had already been up when Eurik woke up.

  She had set up camp in view of Eurik's, but at a distance as if to make clear they were not traveling together. Even though, technically, they were.

  Shaking his head, Eurik retrieved some bread and what the innkeeper had told him was cheese. 'Good thing I thought of buying some food back at the Charging Anauceros or I would have spent half the day looking for food. Still, I should stay on the look out for anything edible to stretch out my supplies.'

  Squatting by her fire, chewing on a strip of dried meat, Broken Fang observed his every move. “Good morning,” he said, wishing he'd gone out to find some water. The bread was drier than he'd expected.

  “Morning,” Broken Fang replied before taking a sip from a water-skin.

  The next bite didn't go down easy. 'Water now,' Eurik resolved.

  Closing his eyes, he let Earth chiri flow into him. He cast his senses out through the chiri, searching for an area where the energy flowed around rather than through it. Eurik had to search far to find a good possibility. Still, the Endria was even farther.

  Letting go of the connection, Eurik eyed his breakfast. 'Might as well finish it while I'm walking to the right spot.' Getting up, he put his pack on and placed Misthell on his back. He wouldn't be returning to this place anyway.

  Feeling a little petty, he gave no explanation to Broken Fang before setting out. She didn't ask either, but got up and gathered her mounts so that she could follow him.

  'The birds here do sound different,' Eurik thought as he navigated the forest.

  Once he'd reached his destination, he reached out and went to work. It wasn't simply a matter of pulling the water up, he couldn't do that. He had to use the earth around it to push it up, while stopping it from leaking away. He began by creating a waist-high hollow pillar of rock, before extending it down to the pocket of water.

  Eurik made a squeezing motion and moments later the water started to bubble up and out of the improvised water pump. Holding his clay water bottle in the stream, he waited until it was filled, before shutting off the stream.

  Then he turned to Broken Fang. “Would you like some?”

  She nodded. “The horses could use a drink.”

  “Better create a trough then.” Securing his water bottle, Eurik went back to work, forming a stone basin from the bedrock under their feet before lifting it to the surface in front of his water pump. It took a while before the trough was filled and he could shut off the water. And since Broken Fang had expressed no desire to make use of it herself, Eurik lowered the pillar again and erased his handiwork.

  “It is a useful magic,” she commented as her horses started to drink greedily.

  “It is useful,” Eurik agreed having no desire to threaten this tentative friendliness by correcting her.

  ***

  The rabbit roasting over the open fire smelled quite good from where Eurik sat. He wondered where Broken Fang had found the time to catch it without losing track of him. All he'd found to enliven his dinner were some unripe gooseberries.

  He was about to start preparing the food when Broken Fang called him over. “There's enough rabbit for two people, and too much for one,” she explained as Eurik took a seat at her campfire.

  “Thank you,” he said before letting the clearing lapse into silence again. A drop of fat fell into the flames, puncturing that silence.

  “Viper,” Eurik started causing Broken Fang to look up at him. “What was she to you? Was she ... family?”

  She shook her head. “No, she was my teacher.”

  Eurik's jaw tensed at the revelation. 'Her teacher. Now that is a loss I can imagine.' Something occurred to Eurik, and hoping it would distract him from his own dark thoughts, he blurted it out. “You introduced her as Viper, but you called her Irelith the other day.”

  She looked back down into the fire. “Viper was her,” Broken Fang seemed to have trouble finding the right words. “It was the name she earned, the name her enemies would know her by. She was the quickest. She could draw her sword so fast her opponent would be dead by the time she realized Viper had done so. Irelith is the name of her soul, the name you are born with. You do not share your soul name with everybody, only with those you trust. To do otherwise invites bad luck,” she finished as she stared once again at Eurik.

  'But that no longer applies once y
ou're dead, I suppose.' Something dawned on him. “So that is why you reacted like you did when I introduced myself.”

  Broken Fang nodded. “Yes. I should have kept my distance then. Should have ignored my curiosity.”

  Eurik could only shrug. “I have no other name.”

  “Rock,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Rock, I will call you Rock from now on. That should keep bad luck away from me.”

  “Uh,” was all Eurik could say. He honestly didn't know what to think of his new name. He supposed it fit, though it was a little simple.

  “Rock, because you are as ignorant as one,” Broken Fang explained as she sliced off a leg from the rabbit.

  “Hey! I'll let you know I'm well-read,” he told her before copying her actions. It smelled too good not to.

  “Didn't read the right books then,” she shot back around a mouthful of rabbit.

  “Apparently not,” he muttered between bites. “How about your own name,” Eurik tried, wanting to get off of the subject of his new name.

  “There was a training accident when I was younger,” Broken Fang bared her teeth, showing off the silver canine on her left side. “My mother hired a dwarven crafter to make a replacement, but … Your name is what others call you.”

  “You would have chosen something else?”

  “Yes. But it does not matter if others chose not to use it.” She ripped another strip of meat from her rabbit's leg.

  'I guess that means I'm stuck with Rock,' Eurik concluded.

  ***

  Leraine let Spot set her own pace as she wanted to maintain a good distance between herself and Rock. A trap did a huntress no good if she hovered nearby.

  Irelith's horse followed easily enough, carrying most of her and Irelith's belongings, including her sword. She hadn't been entirely accurate with Rock, that Irelith's soul rejoining Ghisa was all that mattered. If they'd been close enough, Leraine would have brought her body back so her family could bury her. Now, they would have to do with Irelith's sword.

  'And one of the blooddrinker's fangs,' she added.

  Of course, there was no danger of that creature attacking now. Not with the sun out and them in the open. No, the blooddrinker would come at night and where there were buildings to hide in.

  But Broken Fang did not let that weaken her vigilance. The blooddrinker's remarks had indicated he was working for someone else. Someone that probably had others working for him that could brave the sunlight. And it wouldn't do if these others killed Rock before Leraine had her battle with Rik.

  Her gaze passed over a group of Linesan shoulders marching down the middle of the road in one of those patterns the soulless were fond of. Their yellow shields and identical armor gave them the appearance of game pieces, to the Mochedan's eyes. 'Of course, you are playing a game too. It's just with one piece,' her conscience prodded.

  Leraine ignored it, instead she pulled something out of her pouch. She'd found it amongst Irelith's belongings. A small piece of curved silver that resembled a snake's fang. 'I told her my goal, but I did not know she believed in it.' Her hand closed around the silver fang. 'And maybe she was wrong to. If not for my mistake, she would still be alive.'

  Fighting back tears, she put the piece back in her pouch.

  ***

  Eurik had barely set out that day when the first dollops of rain fell from the sky. Looking up and into the distance, he saw that this raincloud would not pass quickly, so he left the road again to make a shelter in which he could wait it out. He had the time after all.

  There wasn't much room; the wooden fences that screened every field and orchard he'd seen so far had been placed pretty close to the road here; so Eurik settled for a lean-to.

  He was only a little surprised when Broken Fang chose to take shelter with him. Without being asked, Eurik slapped the floor to raise a short pillar out of the ground that she could tie the horses to.

  She looked the slab of stone over. “Very useful.” Broken Fang tilted her head. “This power, what sort of magic is it? Where did you learn it?”

  Deciding to answer the easier question first, Eurik started with, “I learned it where I grew up, on San.”

  “The plant-men?”

  He nodded. “I learned this Way there, the Rise of the Mountain. It's not magic, it's a way of thinking,” Eurik finished with a smile.

  Broken Fang's eyebrows climbed up. “There must be more,” she protested. “You cannot lift stones up simply by thinking it.”

  “No, you can't,” he agreed. “It takes more than that, but the first step, the most important one, is to think the right way. To manipulate an element, you must understand it.”

  “So, you do think like a rock.” Broken Fang sounded quite pleased.

  “I suppose. The Way of Earth is about standing your ground, until you decide to move.”

  “The san you fought, he used fire. And wind,” she added.

  Growing a little uncomfortable, Eurik shifted. “Those are two of the other Ways. Path of the Sun and Dance of the Whirlwind. You're supposed to learn one Way after another and if you can master them all, you are a Master. I have only begun to learn my second Way.”

  “It's Wind, isn't it? Irelith noted you gained speed at one time, but that it cost you.”

  “Using two Ways at once is not easy,” Eurik admitted. “Especially when they are so different.”

  “In what way?”

  “Wind is always moving. When Wind encounters an obstacle, it goes around it, or over it, or back the way it came. If Wind stops, it dies. Earth, however, is always there and only moves at its own pace.”

  “So when you threw up those defenses, the plant-man never considered you wouldn't actually use them. That you would move out of the way.”

  “Yes,” Eurik sighed as he remembered Chizuho's death. “He should have known better,” he told himself as much as his fellow traveler. “He'd seen me use Wind, Chizuho should have known what it meant.”

  “You knew him?” Broken Fang asked.

  “I knew of him,” Eurik admitted. “Apparently, I didn't know enough. I would never have stepped into that arena if I'd known it was going to end with death.”

  “Do your Ways show you the future?”

  Eurik frowned. “No.”

  Broken Fang rolled her eyes. “Then you should not be so ... sorry? You did not know what would happen. Learn and do better.”

  “Because it's all we can do,” Eurik considered as he looked out over the fields on the other side of the road. In the distance, he could just see the Endria.

  “Yes, it's all we can do.”

  ***

  They entered Campan together, passing the watchtower they'd seen from afar. Up close, it was clear it had once been part of a wall that ringed the city. Now, only this single structure remained, surrounded by houses.

  This town was the first Eurik had encountered that the road didn't pass by, but ran straight through. He couldn't see why that was; it didn't look any different from all the other communities he'd seen.

  “We, I stayed in this town not too long ago,” Broken Fang said. “I know an inn that won't try to trick us simply because we are not Linesan.”

  “That is a problem?” Eurik asked looking back.

  She nodded. “Yes, my people, they are not well liked here. They know little of us, but think they do. And to them, you are close enough to be treated the same.”

  Eurik shrugged. “Lead the way.”

  He followed her through the town to a blue-painted wooden building with the same red shingles he'd seen on every other building. Writing on the front proclaimed it was Sartorios' Inn, while some more words painted next to the door proudly proclaimed that Barteos Sartorios supported Nevos is-Odeon for aedile. Scratched beneath it, a group calling themselves the 'late drinkers' endorsed is-Odeon as well.

  Eurik entered the inn, while Broken Fang took care of her horses by arranging their stay in the stables next door. The inside was surprisingly simila
r to the Charging Anauceros and he wondered if there was some approved design that all Linesan inns had to follow. Under the watchful eye of the people scattered across the room, Eurik made his way to the innkeeper.

  'I'll get Broken Fang a room too. At least that way the money I won through Chizuho's death isn't going to waste.'

  ***

  Leraine took another spoonful of soup, making sure to scoop up a piece of mushroom as she did so. It was very good soup, another reason she'd suggested this inn. 'Irelith thought so too,' she recalled.

  Not wanting to dwell on thoughts of Irelith right now, she turned to her dinner companion. “Do you take that sword everywhere?” Leraine asked, indicating Misthell, who was propped up against one of the legs of their table.

  “Pretty much. It seems wrong to deprive him of the experience.”

  The sword spoke up. “Hey now, there are some things I have no desire to experience. Don't forget that!”

  “I haven't,” Rock assured him with a smile.

  Broken Fang's attention lingered on the living sword's markings and she finally asked the question she'd been avoiding ever since Irelith had paid the price for her curiosity. “You said your parents made him, but you never told me who they were.”

  “Ah, is it alright if I use both of their names?”

  “If you must.”

  “Misthell told me he was made by Eurik One Claw and Kaite the Ardent. Have you ever heard of them?”

  Leraine mouthed the names to herself, translating them to her own tongue, but it sparked no recognition. “No. But the reason I asked, your sword has the markings of both the Puma tribe and the Snake tribe.”

  “I had noticed the symbols on your blade,” Rock told her. “I read they are part of Mochedan magic?”