Kings or Pawns (Steps of Power 1)

by Sherwood, J. J.

  Jikun glanced over his shoulder where Nazra had stopped beside Jekum. Kaivervi had climbed from her back and the wolf regarded him expectantly.

  “Come, Nazra,” Jikun shouted as he darted to the left. A shadow formed suddenly above him. He didn’t look up, but threw himself forward, tumbling across the snow and falling to his side. He let the snow around him turn to water, his body dropping into the icy cold like a stone.

  A heavy thud sounded from where he had been and he raised his head above the surface in a painful sputter for air. He saw the thakish raise its body upward, unfazed by the volley of icy spears that had once again lodged into its body. It shook its head angrily, kicking its back legs against the snow and sending a shower of cold across the elves behind it.

  Its eye met Jikun in hatred as its lips curled to reveal yellowed fangs. ‘This is not the beast I remember…!’

  Jikun dug a hand against the side of the pool of water, holding himself up from sinking further into its depths. Wet. Cold. And entirely vulnerable.

  It hunkered down and leapt, crashing through a desperate wall of ice cast by one of the hunters behind it. Its jaws opened to consume Jikun in a single, crushing blow.

  As its face came over the water, Jikun raised a hand in defense. He watched as the water before him shot up in an instant, hardening and piercing through the skull of the thakish in a large, solid stalagmite. At once, the beast flailed and went limp, dangling from the point by its head.

  “Wing me and all things holy… By Lithriella,” Jekum blasphemed as the elves ran toward him. Like a shadow, Lais was directly at his heels, leaving Nalaen to trail behind with Kaivervi.

  Jikun climbed from the icy water, putting a hand to his chest as he did so. With a deliberately casual sweep of his hand, the water was pulled from his clothes and dropped back into the pool.

  The four jerked to a halt at his side, dubious to his cursory motion.

  “Completely dry?” Nalaen demanded, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and jerking him toward her wolf. She gave his hair a sharp tug.

  Jikun pushed her thick hands away, freeing his head with a glare.

  “Your control over water is so… fast,” Lais breathed in awe as he dismounted his wolf in a slow stumble of astonishment. Beneath his mass of silver hair, he blinked his gray eyes balefully, once toward the thakish hanging limp above them in a final salute to its failure.

  Jikun watched as those large, grey eyes shifted to regard him as the others did. Jikun disregarded their admiration and instead gestured toward Nazra. “Kaivervi, go ahead. I will walk.”

  Kaivervi remounted Nazra with a faltering gaze as she glanced past them. Jikun felt a twinge of pain in his chest as he followed her thoughts.

  “Husakai was a good wolf,” Jekum lamented, struggling to break the silence. He looked to Lais for some words of support, but his friend, for once, seemed at a loss to assist.

  Jikun recalled that his mother had said Lais had recently lost his wolf in a hunt several months before. Years ago, such a thing was hardly heard of. He glanced once more to the thakish as the group departed, then his eyes pulled away toward Kaivervale. At their distance, its great wall was merely a shadow against the mountain face.

  The thakish had become excessively aggressive, just as he had been warned at the banquet several nights before, when that howl had torn through their celebration with furious rage.

  Thakish… throwing their own wellbeing aside in the lust for food…? But the tundra had not changed. …Had it?

  His eyes scanned in wary caution with the others as they travelled back across the frozen earth.

  What, then, drove their hunger?

  “I don’t remember you having such control before you left,” Jekum commented, snapping Jikun back to the elves about him. “What else can you do?”

  Jikun’s eyes flicked back to the single face that had dared to take its eyes from the landscape and smiled slightly, remembering the marveling reaction of his soldiers when he had first cast in battle. “Freeze water from anywhere. Even the unseen. As long as there is water in the air, I have something to manipulate.”

  And if he had not been there, what would have happened to Kaivervi, let alone the others?

  Nalaen’s wolf loped several steps ahead and she pulled him to a sudden stop in front of the general. “Teach us!” she begged. “Show me. With that power, we could beat the thakish! You know damn well we would have been in a far worse state if you had not just been with us on that hunt. Things only continue to worsen!”

  Jikun raised his hand out from his side and pulled the water from the air around them until he had formed a perfect sphere of ice. He tossed it to her and watched her eyes widen in amazement.

  “I can’t teach it,” he replied. “I don’t know how I do it or what, exactly, it is that I do. It’s thoughtless. Like a reflex…”

  Nalaen tossed the sphere to Lais with an extra flick of frustration. Her shoulders straightened and she drew her stocky body up. “Nonsense. There must be something you can teach. Something you have learned!”

  Jikun shook his head bitterly. “There is not, Nalaen. I haven’t given it much thought and hardly more practice. I’m a general. My own magical potential is fairly irrelevant when I have a warlord to fight for Sevrigel.” And damn that warlord. Kaivervale needed him.

  Nalaen drew her wolf aside to let him pass, but he could see her disappointment reflected in all of their gazes.

  Back south, his ability was nothing more than a trivial annoyance to Saebellus and his beast.

  There was a sudden series of shrill cries at their backs that split the moment of silence like a blade. Jekum spun round on Susai; his knuckles grew white. His mouth parted but no words left it. His eyes were torn wide in horror.

  Nalaen looked up in a mesmerized gaze of equal terror. “…RUN!” her high voice cracked across the tundra.

  Jikun turned long enough to catch sight of the pack of white thakish in the distance, tearing through the tundra rapidly as their six legs propelled them across the flat plane.

  “A pack?!” Kaivervi cried in disbelief. “Jikun, you must get on a wolf!”

  Jekum’s hand was already outstretched and Jikun mindlessly took hold of it, swinging himself up behind the largest of the wolves.

  Their minds had all centered on one thought, Jikun knew: Thakish did not move in packs, let alone hunt together.

  Their wolves fled to the west, running along the base of the Turmazel, the shrill cries of the thakish rapidly growing louder. Jikun turned slightly, throwing up a field of ice-made stalagmites behind them, causing the thakish to break to the left in a wide circle. The wind at his face was bitter, numbing his senses, cutting through the furs on his body like sharp blades. Still closer the thakish came and Jikun could feel an unsettling exhaustion gaining on him as more ice formed at his command. He caught Jekum’s shoulder to balance himself.

  “Jikun, are you alright?”

  Another shrill cry echoed across the tundra, hardly one hundred feet behind them. The beasts were undaunted! He did not bother to utter a response but reset his focus on the ice at his fingertips—he knew his strength was waning now—hardly a fragment of its former self. He let the snow behind their wolves turn to water, the ground giving out beneath the feet of the first thakish. He refroze it instantly and the beasts’ movement terminated as only their back legs protruded, kicking viciously, from the frozen surface.

  And with that, Jikun’s strength all but vanished. The world abruptly spun and Jikun’s grip loosed from Jekum’s shoulder. He felt a sharp pain shoot through his body as he collided with the earth and tumbled across the hard snow. He heard cries of alarm from ahead and the rapid sounds of feet returning to him.

  “Jikun!” Kaivervi screamed as her feet landed beside him. “Get up! Get up!”

  He heard ice shatter to his left and raised his head in time to see a thakish burst through the quickly formed wall Nalaen and Jekum had created. It leapt forward, jaws snapping short of
Jekum’s arm, ripping the blade from his hand and tossing it carelessly aside.

  Jikun struggled greatly, digging what meager strength he could find within himself to form a solid wall before them. But it had taken everything he had left. He collapsed against the earth just as a distant trumpet call rang out from the north. His mind struggled to clarify the sound.

  “Up ahead!” Lais shouted. “Hunters! They must have heard the thakish!!”

  Jikun could see the beasts hesitate and withdraw slightly as the sounds of snarling wolves grew closer. This was not just the sound of one or two hunting groups, and the tumult of noise led Jikun to believe that there were at least a dozen such contingents approaching.

  The thakish seemed to conclude the same. He saw the creatures turn, tucking their short tails between their hind legs, and flee to the east.

  ‘Damn it…’ he muttered wearily to himself and his eyes slid closed beneath heavy lids.

  “General Jikun,” came a voice from above him moments later. It was foggy—muffled by the cloud that hung across his mind.

  He felt hands pull him up.

  “General Jikun has expended himself, I’m afraid,” came Kaivervi’s reply.

  “Did you see the thakish, Captain Resul?” Lais demanded. “A damn pack of thakish!”

  There was silence for a moment, then a bitter reply, “I saw them. Are you all alright?”

  Jikun blearily opened his eyes in silent response.

  “More or less.” Nalaen rose merely to Jikun’s breast, but still, she helped him forward, wrapping a firm arm around his chest. “Can you stand?”

  Jikun shook his head once, humiliated to have to express his weakness so plainly before Kaivervale’s new captain. “No, I don’t think so…” he muttered.

  “Let’s get the general back to the city,” Captain Resul spoke up, as though Jikun’s state was inconsequential. “Daiki, Sesul, take the general to his home.”

  *

  By the time Jikun was assisted into his mansion, his strength had returned somewhat—albeit pitifully—but it was enough to allow him a somewhat dignified stumble to the living room. He sank into the couch beside the fireplace, wearily resting his head against the cushions. As Daiki and Sesul left, Kaivervi vanished into the kitchen.

  Captain Resul lingered in the doorway, his lips parted as though aching to speak. Yet he merely watched Nalaen, Jekum, and Lais settle in beside the general.

  “Can I help you, Captain?” Jikun muttered, closing his eyes.

  Captain Resul cleared his throat. “I apologize for this untimely summons, but Elvorium has demanded your immediate return to the capital. It seems you are wanted on the warfront.”

  Jikun raised his head sharply, feeling a wave of nausea rush over him. “What news? Has Saebellus moved?”

  Resul stepped forward, extending a parchment toward Jikun. “The letter did not say.”

  Jikun let Nalaen accept it for him as his arm faltered its extension. She unfolded the parchment, holding it level to his eyes to allow him to scan it.

  Resul hesitated to interrupt his reading. “Good evening, General. May Lithriella bless your recovery. You saved their lives today.”

  Jikun nodded his thank-you curtly, his mood growing sour as the captain’s footsteps faded down the hall.

  “Here, Jikun. Eat. Drink.” Kaivervi had reappeared from the dining hall and laid a tray across his lap. “Did I hear that right? You are to return to Elvorium already? You’ve hardly been here four days.”

  Jikun reached down and raised the cup of hot tea unsteadily to his lips, aware of its proximity to his groin, and shifted his arms to the side in the event that his grip faltered. He could hear the concern in Kaivervi’s voice as she came to stop beside him. “Yes.”

  Lais crouched back as the fire started in the hearth. He pushed off his knees as he stood, dropping the iron rod against the stone wall. “Is there anything else you need, Jikun?” he asked after a moment of silence.

  Jikun shook his head wearily, wishing the fire would rise more quickly. What he wouldn’t trade for the fiery magic of the Malravi instead.

  “Well then, Nalaen, Jekum, and I will give you a tundra’s length. I will take Nazra back to rest, if you like.”

  Jikun shook his head solidly, setting his cup aside. “Leave Nazra,” he commanded quietly.

  Nalaen strode to the edge of the room in her short, solid strides, and paused in the doorway. “Thank you,” she spoke softly. “The thakish would have surely taken us.”

  Jikun flinched slightly at the praise. Damn Saebellus! He should be in Darival for at least weeks longer to help his own people! He raised a hand slightly to stop them. “When I return to Elvorium, I shall send what I can to assist Darival in the purging of the thakish. You can expect significant aid within a few weeks. Elvorium cannot let this matter go unchecked.”

  He saw the four of them exchange smiles.

  “Come, Kaivervi,” Jekum nodded toward her as he stepped through the doorway. “Let the general—”

  Jikun caught Kaivervi’s hand as she stepped away. “Wait.”

  Kaivervi hesitated, her eyes meeting his anxiously. She turned her head slightly to the side to call after them, though her eyes remained locked with his. “Go on ahead. I will catch up.”

  Jikun dropped her hand and waited until he heard the soft tap of the door against the icy frame. He raised the cup once more to his lips and sipped the tea silently for a moment.

  “What—”

  “Nazra needs a master. The battlefront is no place for her.” He looked up, catching the tears forming in her eyes.

  She looked away sharply, determined to hide her anguish.

  “I would be honored if you were that master.”

  He could see her swallow, as though taking her tears with it. She turned back, forcing a smile across her dark lips. “Thank you. I would be honored to be hers…” She wiped a hand quickly across her cheek and shook her head fiercely. “I’m sorry. Husakai and I were together since The Wailing. You start to grow invincible, you know? After you have seen that much, you start to think you and he will just continue on and time will just… slide past you.”

  Jikun smiled weakly. No, he did not know what she meant. War had taught him that life was fleeting and time was a cruel master. He sipped the tea as she turned to watch the flicker of flames in the hearth before them. For a long time, they sat in silence.

  “I suppose I should get home. Are you alright now? You seem stronger.” She stood, moving the tray from his lap to the table.

  “Stay.” He caught her hand again, softly this time.

  Kaivervi smiled faintly. “If I stay, does that mean you will return to Elvorium and paid women will be forgotten? If I stay, will I become the lady of single importance to you?”

  Jikun released her hand, his smile faltering.

  Her eyes met his, piercing through his barriers with the ease of long familiarity. “You will return home. I know what you are thinking. But that does not mean that I wish to wait here loyally for you while you squander your affections on other females. You can’t expect me to wait here for you when you don’t wait out there for me.”

  Jikun remained silent, his face hard and emotionless, pushing her insight away. He would not let her see him vulnerable.

  “Are you afraid?” she suddenly whispered, moving to sit beside him, leaning forward and resting a hand against his chest as though she was reaching past his mask. “Even when the thakish bore down on you, I saw no fear in your eyes. What drives your fear now?”

  Jikun scoffed, setting his cup on the table and pushing her hand away.

  She caught his wrist, squeezing it firmly. “What drives your fear now, General Taemrin?”

  Jikun pursed his lips tightly in silence.

  “Are you afraid that you will leave this place and spend your years in fervent loyalty to me, only to die and have it all be wasted?”

  “Dying benefits us nothing,” Jikun muttered.

  He saw her e
yes flash, her grip tightening on his wrist. “Does loving me prevent you from living?”

  Jikun opened his mouth but she leaned forward sharply, locking lips with his, drawing her body tightly against his and pressing her breasts against his chest. And for the briefest moment, they were inseparable.

  “Or do I help you live?”

  Jikun tried to kiss her back, but she pulled away just as fiercely, standing in resolution.

  She laughed. “I know what the answer is, Jikun. You do not need to tell me. You would be willing to die for any of your soldiers. And for your country. But… you cannot live for me.” She smiled and turned. “Good evening, Jikun. May your journey to Elvorium be blessed by the goddess.”

  And to Jikun’s shame, he said nothing, and the door to his estate closed with a hollow snap.

  Chapter Seven

  Jikun tossed his head, shifting slightly. His eyes opened into thin slits for a moment, confused as to why he would be awake so early after last night’s escapades. It felt early, at least.

  He lay there a moment, blearily, before he settled once more into his bed, closing his eyes with a grunt.

  There was a sudden knock on the room door, causing him to jerk sharply. “General? Are you awake? I have a message from the king.”

  Damn Hairem. Jikun groaned in protest and opened his eyes.

  There was a knock once again. “General?”

  “Yes, I—” He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. “Yes, I am awake. Slip it under the door.”

  “Yes, General,” the servant replied.

  Jikun sat up slowly, drawing his legs up so that he could rest an arm across his knees. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and tried to shake the grogginess from his head. Damn Sel’varian wines. Even after his welcoming in Darival, he had not awoken with such a heavy cloud over his mind.

  “Why are you awake, My Lord?” came a sultry voice beside him. Jikun felt a slender hand slide up his inner thigh.