Preludes to War (Eve of Redemption Book 6)

by Joe Jackson

  She sat in the steamy tub thinking of Seanada. It was amazing how far their relationship had come in such a relatively short span. She was concerned for the half-syrinthian, though her being in the care of an elestram surgeon did relieve some of Kari’s tension. Seanada was so much more than just a bodyguard or acquaintance to Kari now. She had lived with Kari and her family for months, watched over Kari’s children for weeks after Grakin died, and had become someone Kari could trust with the most important things she had in her life. It was chilling to think of the half-syrinthian suddenly being gone from her life, but Kari was content with the care she was receiving and the fact that the woman was a fighter, right down to her core.

  Unfortunately, her injuries left Kari alone for the time being. What exactly would the Wraith expect from Kari now? The goal was still to get to Prince Amnastru, but if Kari was being honest with herself, that might be beyond her capabilities alone. With Seanada, it was like having twice the strength she did alone, but by herself…

  Kari straightened up in the tub. No, she thought. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I have the strength of several gods flowing through me. No demon prince can match that. I’ve got to stop doubting myself – and them – and trust that if this is the path they’ve set before me, it’s one I can walk, either with Seanada or on my own.

  Satisfied as she was with the thoughts, she had an unsettling feeling in the pit of her gut. She turned slowly and looked at the door, and watched as that roiling black substance flowed around its cracks and then congealed on the floor. It rose into a vaguely humanoid shape again, a black cloud with glowing orange eyes fixed squarely upon her. It flowed rather than walking, sweeping across the room slowly and deliberately until it was just beside the tub.

  Kari looked up at the Wraith and blinked slowly. “Don’t you ever knock?”

  A hissing laugh issued forth from the creature, but then it took a more solid form. Soon, the black mass evaporated, leaving behind a handsome elestram male. Tall and lean like most of his kind, he wore darkened goggles over his eyes so Kari couldn’t see their glowing color, and he had a set of leather armor that was as much stylish as protective, and yet covered his most vital areas. He gestured toward the far end of the tub, which was long enough to accommodate two if they weren’t erestram-sized. “May I join you?”

  The demonhunter leaned on her elbow against the side of the tub, and the elestram laughed. “I do not recall you being so prudish when I lived in your home for months,” he said.

  Kari sighed and gestured him in. He got undressed, even taking off the goggles to reveal those glowing orange and yet somehow lifeless-looking eyes. She gave him an appraising look, but found she was getting used to seeing naked beshathans now as well, especially after being on the road and in the tub with Morduri several times. Nudity didn’t faze her as a rir, but there was a curiosity factor when it came to other people. In the end, they were all the same, but it was interesting to see someone different from herself, even just in terms of male and female.

  The Wraith stepped into the tub and settled down, staring across at Kari. She crossed her legs to keep them out of his lap, and he bent his at the knees, which he rested his hands atop. “The loss of Seanada is an unfortunate and unforeseen consequence,” he said with no trace of humor or suggestive tones in either his face or speech. “This will delay my plans considerably, but I have a perfect idea of what to do to fill the time while she recovers from her injuries.”

  Kari hung her wings outside the tub, then spread them in a broad and impressive display. They needed a thorough washing, and she wondered what his reaction would be if she requested he help her with them. “What’s that?” she asked, piercing his sudden silence.

  “I will perfect your training.”

  That was a far more enticing thought than what Kari’d been afraid he was thinking, but that made her scrunch her brow. “How long is it going to take Seanada to heal?”

  “At least a couple of weeks.”

  “And you can…perfect my training that fast?”

  He began clawing at his fur to help the soapy water dig down to the skin. “You are no novice. You take orders even better than you give them, and I believe you will be receptive to my instruction. What it took me years to teach a young Seanada should take me only weeks to teach one of your prowess and ability.”

  “And what’s wrong with my training now?” Kari asked, semi-teasing.

  “Tumureldi taught you well, but he was a defender, a cautious and calculating fighter who sought first to stymie his opponents with his tactical brilliance. When he trained you, did you ever figure out how to stymie his own style?”

  Kari blinked, considering her sparring with King Koursturaux the prior year. “If you don’t attack, his style doesn’t lend itself all that well to offense. If an opponent doesn’t come at me, I have to taunt or heckle them to prod them to attack.”

  “Yes. When I trained him, he took only the defensive portion of it as his preferred style.”

  “When you trained him?” Kari balked.

  “Through his nightmare, yes.”

  “You…but why?”

  There was so little emotion in the Wraith’s impassive stare or his speech, no clue in his mannerisms that he might be lying or toying with her in some way. “I now question that as well. That he trained you, and you died, and were resurrected, and are now sitting in this tub with me, discussing your training…clearly there is a divine omnipotence behind the orders I received so many years ago.”

  “Whose orders? I thought you were in charge of the Ashen Fangs? Are you actually working for a demon king?”

  The Wraith shook his head. “I am lord of the Ashen Fangs, but I take orders as much as I give them. Though I cannot explain to you the source of those orders any more than I can explain the source of the power that lets me assume the demonic form you have now witnessed several times.”

  “So you’re not taking orders from, say, King Koursturaux?”

  “Certainly not,” he answered, just shy of snapping at her. “I have long suspected it may be a remnant of the Dreaming Queen, but it lacks in personality or distinctive mannerisms, such that I have had little luck deducing the truth of the matter. But its omnipotence, as I said, points to something…divine.”

  “You think it may be Be’shatha?” she asked, and the Wraith nodded. “What does she look like when you see her?”

  “Most often, a being of light that speaks only in basic whispers, directing me here or there to do its will. I am, however, not a slave by any means. When I questions its orders, I simply refrain from doing as asked. I find most often, however, that its interests align with mine and those of my people, and I see them through even when I do not understand – such as when I was told to train Suler Tumureldi. This present turn of events…I find astonishing, to understate things.”

  “A being of light? Like a little hovering ball that sometimes takes a winged, humanoid form?” Kari asked hesitantly, and she grimaced when he nodded again. She looked down and away. She’d been sure that little ball of light was Grakin, guiding and protecting her even past the threshold of death. But if the Wraith had been serving it for hundreds of years or more, that clearly wasn’t the case.

  Was it an angel, then? she wondered, looking back to him. It changed nothing about her feelings regarding either the being or Grakin, though she was a little disappointed that it never corrected her about its identity. She thought of the vision the kwarrasti oracle, Kimlerin, had given her, specifically the form Gori Sensullu – also called Arakiel – had taken before he came to speak with her. Could this divine being of light be Arakiel?

  That didn’t make any more sense; Arakiel was technically dead, though a piece of him lived on in Kari as Salvation’s Dawn. If it had been him, the orders would’ve ceased years ago. But that still left a few other deities, Be’shatha herself not the least of them. The thought of the mallasti goddess saving Kari from Zaliskower’s fanged maw and the attacks of the vampires put a wa
rmth in her soul. These worlds and their peoples were all connected, and it would take a concerted effort to free both worlds – all three, if she counted Irrathmor – from the threat of the demon kings.

  Kari suddenly felt very tired, but wondered how long she had been daydreaming when the Wraith began scrubbing the outsides of her wings. She hadn’t even noticed him leaving the tub, but she took advantage of his unsolicited help and began washing the insides. Together they completed the task quickly, and then they got dried off. Kari washed her undergarments and armor, and hung them all to dry about the room.

  Kari approached the bed, expecting him to get dressed and then assume his wraith-like form to leave, but he stood across the bed from her and pulled down the fur blankets on his side. She tried not to dwell on it and slipped under the covers. He got in beside her, though he made no move to touch her.

  “You are disappointed and lonely,” he said quietly. “I expect you saw the being I spoke of, and incorrectly assumed it might be your departed mate? You have my condolences, Kari, but likewise I am sorry to tell you that it was not your mate.” She clutched the blankets a little tighter but didn’t bother to look at him or reply. “If it is simply comfort and companionship you need, I will mate with you if you wish it. My wife will not take offense.”

  Kari perked up at that, but she still didn’t turn over to face him. “Your wife?”

  “Do not be fooled. The Wraith is a character, a role I play. I have never been caught or discovered because it is not me, nor even a part of me. When the kings see me, they see only a weak, unassuming elestram male. They do not see their potential downfall until I come in the form of the black shadow.”

  Kari turned her head to look at him, but found herself at a loss for words.

  “Rest you well,” he said. “Tomorrow, we begin perfecting you.”

  Chapter IX – Perfection

  No matter what she did, he wouldn’t attack. She used Tumureldi’s taunting attacks, the most annoyingly persistent jabs she could manage, and even turned and shook her rear end at him at one point. That certainly got a reaction out of him – was he wondering about the tall tales regarding her foray into Sorelizar? – but still he ignored her, standing his ground. It was exactly as they’d discussed the night before: Tumureldi’s style was predicated on defense first, using parries and ripostes to completely open an opponent’s defenses and then destroy them.

  Just as when Annabelle stole her paluric armor, Kari got to see things from others’ point of view. She thought of how frustrating it must be to fight her, to have your attacks stymied – and embarrassingly so – and then, to top it off, to have any that slipped through be ineffective against that paluric armor most of the time. It gave her insight into her old master, his strength as a fighter and a tactician, and a better feel for why he was so successful in the arena and as a duelist. Tumureldi, by comparison, had never benefited from having paluric armor.

  Kari had always considered his style nearly perfect, but now she saw the drawbacks more poignantly. A patient fighter could stalemate Kari, leaving her useless in a broader fight. That is, if she only fought using Tumureldi’s style. Over a dozen years of hunting, fighting, and participating in the War caused Kari’s style to evolve. She was primarily a defensive fighter, but she had learned so much over the years from others. She thought of her sparring sessions with her brothers-in-law, of her training sessions with the young cadets learning Tumureldi’s style, of the martial training she’d undergone with Aeligos and his own teachers. She was no longer solely a student of Suler Tumureldi.

  She took stock of the long, ghostly shadow blades that came forth from the Wraith’s bracers. They weren’t weapons she’d ever seen the like of before, but she gauged their length and the potential motions of his arms. They were long and deadly, but he couldn’t adjust his grip on them; on the surface, it seemed he would be limited in his attack motions. She made mental notes of the best angles to cut in and strike.

  That led her to take stock of his armor. Like Turillia or Seanada, he wore a basic set of hardened leather that covered his vitals. His trunk was the most completely protected, with hard patches over his thighs and layered, shell-like pieces over the shoulders. His upper arms were bare, but he had the bracers his weapons appeared to extend from, and hardened leather bits on his shins, both for attack and defense, Kari mused.

  She picked her path then, and stepped in and to the side, her scimitars already in motion to sweep aside the expected counterattacks. She thought perhaps she’d surprised him; he made no motion to counterstrike at first, hardly moving at all. As she bore down on him, though, she nearly hesitated – she was using her scimitars, not some practice blades that were dull or made of wood. If she caught him cleanly, it was quite possible she would inadvertently end the rebellion she’d come to aid.

  She missed him by the breadth of a few of those tan fur fibers. He hardly turned, but cut sideways just enough that her blade missed him cleanly, and she found herself nearly face to face with him. She started to spin back, but he stayed with her, close enough that she could feel his wispy breath on the end of her snout, and he moved in tandem with her as though they were dancing and not fighting. In that harmony, she realized what he’d said the night before had been no lie: he was moving with her the same way Tumureldi had when teaching her his style.

  Her foot nearly connected with the side of his head as she spun again, but his arm came up and deflected the blow. He was surprised, but only for a moment as he changed direction to move right and establish proper distance. Her left foot came up in that same kick she had landed on Turillia, but he caught it and kicked out her other knee underneath. She felt the cold of that shadowy blade resting underneath her jaw, and knew he had bested her.

  The Wraith backed away and put a hand to his chin, which looked amusing with one of those long, shadowy blades still protruding from his bracer. “My, you have already evolved from what Tumureldi taught you. You are tentative to attack, but you have little reason to be. Even if your style failed you, that armor would protect you from all but the most perfect blows. One wonders how well you would fight if you cast your inhibitions to the wind and let yourself be an instrument of death.”

  Kari shrugged, not wanting to sound arrogant but hardly able to help herself. “You speak as if I have a hard time winning fights.”

  “Perhaps not to date, but you have yet to fight a prince or a king, Kari. A true prince, that is, not the young one you so famously slew several years ago.” He lifted his goggles so they could look each other in the eye. “Perhaps a wager would entice you to stretch your limits?”

  Kari shook her head and cracked a smirk. “One of the first things I learned coming here is never make a bet with an elestram.”

  He made a gesture of partial agreement. “I suppose my people do have a reputation for swindling others when it comes to gambling. Our grasp of mathematics and calculating odds does give us quite the advantage in most situations. But perhaps I could offer you something that would override your hesitation.”

  “Such as?”

  “A pair of these,” he said, reaching up to tap the goggles resting on his brow.

  “I have to admit, I’ve never found them very stylish,” Kari teased.

  The Wraith shook his head. “They are far from a fashion accessory. See for yourself.”

  He tossed them over to her, and Kari adjusted the band so they rested comfortably over her eyes. She gasped. The world through them was not the world she normally saw with her own two eyes, but a shadowy representation of it. Some of the normal light spectrum was there, but she no longer saw the Wraith as the tan-furred elestram. Instead, she could see his heartbeat, follow the pulsing flow of blood and heat through his body, and every vital place she could make a strike showed clearly.

  Kari looked around the rest of the field where they were sparring, and even the tiniest forms of life stood out to the goggles’ enhanced vision. She could see earthworms digging in the soil below them. Inse
cts popped out at her, not as brightly as the Wraith’s heart and pulse, but it appeared no living thing, no matter how miniscule, escaped her notice. Even a glance back at the village showed that she could now see partially through walls.

  “Concentrate on going unseen,” he said. “Think of yourself as invisible, a part of the shadows, and you will…ah, there you go.”

  “There I go what?” she asked, still enraptured with looking around at everything. Her stare lingered on a bush near the closest home, wherein there was a little bird in a nest. Even from this distance, with a bird in the nest, the goggles let Kari detect the eggs and the spark of life within them. “By the gods…”

  “Invisible,” he said.

  Kari turned to face him, but he was glancing slightly side to side, and she could see his heartbeat speed up a little. He’s nervous, she thought. He can’t see where I am, and he’s afraid I’ll hit him. “Where did you get these?” she asked, taking them off. She assumed she came back into sight, as his stare settled back upon her.

  “I am not certain where they came from; I received them from my father ages ago when I took up a position among the Ashen Fangs. I do, however, still have his own back at my home, and would be willing to impart them to you should you win our wager.”

  “What’s the wager?”

  “Best me in a true contest of martial prowess, and they are yours.”

  “Right, and if I lose?”

  “Then you serve me as a member of the Ashen Fangs for a specified period of time.”

  Kari shook her head. “I’ve missed enough of my children’s lives as it is. I can’t be under someone else’s orders, especially when you’re going to want me doing things for you here.”

  “When did I say such?” he countered. “I told you, through Vakt, that we are not simply an assassins’ guild. There are many among our number of various roles. No, I have something quite specific in mind where you would be concerned, something that you could accomplish in your day-to-day life home on Citaria. It would not require any more significant time away from your family than your position of Avatar already does.”