Cross intended to meet his enemy on equal terms. There would be no surrender here. He would take the chieftain's life, but he would allow him the dignity of dying in combat before his men.
At Cross' direction, his soldiers stripped away his armor, piece by piece, while Magnusson watched, alert but unmoving. When the final piece of armor was removed, the men retrieved Cross' sword. Despite its monstrous size—six feet in length—Cross held the blade in his right hand unaided. Few men could wield such a sword two-handed, much less with only one, and Cross' strength was apparent to all.
The two leaders stood, each bearing his weapon of choice, ready to begin a contest of mighty men. Smells of blood and sweat filled the room, and Cross could still hear the occasional shouts from soldiers outside as they searched through the bodies of the fallen, looking for treasures.
Magnusson grinned. The barbarian lord took several steps forward, pointing his spear at Cross and shouting unintelligibly what was obviously a challenge, probably filled with profanity and several insults. Cross stood still.
Magnusson sped forward at a sprint, bellowing as he did so, holding his spear with both hands in a direct charge. He closed the distance between the two rapidly, yet the general stood his ground. Soldiers backed away as the giant men appeared destined to clash in outrageous fashion.
In the last moment before impact, not yet having moved an inch, Cross stepped deftly to the left, turning his torso as he dodged not only the spear but Magnusson's entire body. The chieftain passed by, missing his mark, and as he did so, Cross' left hand came up and pushed the chieftain's shoulder, throwing him off balance.
The chieftain tumbled forward, the tip of his spearhead catching between two wooden floorboards, wresting itself from his grasp. The entire maneuver took a fraction of a second and showed Cross to have a speed that far outstripped that of the taller, younger man he battled.
Cross took a single step back in line with his opponent, still holding the massive sword in his right hand. His smile invited Magnusson to try again.
The chieftain stood, retrieved his spear, and somewhat more apprehensively mounted another charge. Just before coming in contact with Cross, he slowed instead of continuing at full speed, then thrust forward with his left hand, sending the large sharp spearhead toward Cross' chest.
Cross sidestepped.
Magnusson thrust two more times.
Miss. Miss.
Magnusson swung the spear in a huge arc over his own head, then at Cross, aiming for the general's head. Cross ducked enough to dodge the spearhead, and the attack missed by less than an inch.
To an unskilled bystander, it might have appeared that the blow had come close to hitting its mark, but the men in this room were not fooled. They could see that Cross was so skilled, so in tune with the weapons and bodies in this fight, that every move was planned with no wasted motion or effort. It was a result of years of practiced battle, training, and a talent for death that defied reason.
The battle continued this way, Magnusson thrusting and swinging his spear, missing every time. Sometimes he fell because he overextended himself. Other times, Cross nudged the spear a certain way, or bumped the chieftain's leg, shoulder, or arm, forcing him off target. The bout was working perfectly for Cross' purposes, and he reveled in the action of it. Standing outside a wall for weeks, waiting for people to starve was mind-numbing. The action of this moment, however, was thrilling. It had the additional benefit of providing a reminder to his men of why he was the general and they were his soldiers.
In a demonstration of great endurance, it took nearly ten minutes of assaulting the air near Cross before Magnusson was exhausted, and then Cross decided to end the fight. The chieftain must have known that his end was near; he charged with his remaining strength, directly at Cross, spear aimed at his opponent's midsection.
Cross sidestepped, this time to the right. He twisted his torso as the spear passed by harmlessly, then leaped into the chieftain with his left hand balled into a fist. The thunderous impact of Cross' haymaker hammered the chieftain's head back unnaturally, the rear of his braided skull impacting his upper back, neck snapping. As the man's carcass fell to the ground, the bone crown launched from his head and skittered across the wooden floor to stop on the floorboards near the throne.
Not once in the duel had Cross used the giant sword held in his right hand.
The general walked to his men and directed for his armor and sword to be put away. Victory was complete, and he demanded an update as he made his way through the fortification, heading back to his command tent. "How many did we lose?"
A nearby officer responded. "Eleven infantry dead. And three shieldmen."
"Not bad. Fourteen and a flamer. Time to go home. We should have done this a month ago," Cross said.
Cross departed the scene, wearing only his tunic and trousers, and left the looting of the enemy to his soldiers and commanders. While he enjoyed the visceral thrill of combat, the puzzles of strategy, and the challenge of military leadership, he didn't like this part of war. The raping of defenseless women and beheading of their husbands and fathers held no joy for him, but his men had been obedient and deserved their rewards.
Upon arrival at the rear of the encampment, he entered his command tent and washed his hands and face.
"Letter, sir. Urgent. From Fairmont."
Cross turned to see a young messenger in heraldic garb tossing aside the drab green tent flap, a scroll case in his hand. He grabbed the case and waved a gesture of dismissal while drying his face with a towel. Once he had emptied the case of its contents, he noted a familiar seal on the enclosed scroll. The message inside was unusually brief.
Found her.
Return immediately.
—Vorick
Cross stuffed the scroll back into its case, then grabbed his travel pack and found a nearby soldier, inflicting orders on him to make rushed preparations. "I leave within the hour."
The army would follow in time, but this was something that required haste. All thoughts of triumph and glory from his victory were banished, inconsequential in comparison to this new task.
He must collect a little girl for his Lord.
17
Kayna
Fairmont
The Estate of Lord Vorick
Kayna sat at the writing desk in her room as she perused her journal, a thick leather-bound tome given to her by Papa on her tenth birthday. Reading seemed like a fitting thing to do on a dreary Sunday evening.
Papa was nowhere to be found; he'd left her to find her own entertainment in this big house. Again. She was surrounded by fine things but no real people. There were just servants about, but according to Papa, they were small folk and didn't matter. They rarely spoke and didn't seem very interesting, so maybe he was right.
Porcelain figures of animals decorated the top of her armoire, perfectly straightened and meticulously polished. Gowns and nightclothes hung in an expansive wardrobe, with fine jewels in a nearby oak cabinet. The estate was grand and opulent, with high columns on the outside and expensive furniture within. She needed nothing, was challenged by little, but was growing increasingly aware that she was meant for something greater. The ambition had grown into a poignant dissatisfaction with her circumstances.
As she read, she relived the record of her thoughts on the thick vellum pages. An account of her life thus far - how odd it must be when compared to that of most young ladies.
"You're different from other people, Kayna," Papa had once said. "Keep those differences to yourself."
It was good advice and had caused her to season her appetites with a dash of caution. The stories about those who became enemies of the church or the throne were known. Stories of being different and standing out from the crowd. Stories that ended in death. Having a father who was in the business of delivering justice made those concerns even more salient, so she learned to keep secrets, even from him. Oh, she would answer his questions about her magic from time to time, absent the d
etails. He took the hint and stopped asking. The distance in their relationship was not just because of magic, however. Although Papa's parents had apparently died years ago, he never mentioned Kayna's mother or any other relatives, and she often wondered why. Not that she needed family. Yet, she was curious, she had asked, and he had avoided the topic.
The only family she had was Papa, who was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the Great Land. When people talked about him, they did so fearfully. At first, she had thought such concerns silly. He made sure she had everything she needed, and she thought him to be a generous person. After a time, she came to believe that his care of her meant no such kindness. He was keeping her as one would keep a treasure. Or a trophy.
But the respect he held in the eyes of others had been earned because Papa was quite powerful. She remembered when they were on a walk one day, and a stray dog charged at them. He killed the animal from twenty feet away with merely a look. She didn't just see the power, she saw it. Papa flared with light, bright and blinding. A bracer on his left forearm, hidden under clothes, dimmed a little after his effort. Magic spent. But magic that could run out.
Kayna needed no such bracer, and this seemed to bother him. It had been apparent in his eyes when she practiced her talents as a little girl. She would throw fire or run quickly, lift something heavy, or summon the air. He would applaud her with his hands, but Papa's eyes held no such praise. Fear dwelled in them, and it was a transformational experience for a child to see that the most powerful man in the world was afraid of her.
Kayna thumbed through more pages, reading the words that once had seemed important enough to write down. Yet the pages had an emptiness about them. Things she could never write down because she had no memory of them. Things only Papa knew.
Her earliest memory was of riding on a wagon. It was a long trip, and it was cold. When it ended, she was in a warm house. That's all she remembered of the experience. Years later, she had asked about the trip, and Papa said it was to visit a dying friend, but Kayna wasn't so sure. It had been more important than that, but he wouldn’t tell, and she might never know.
She moved forward a dozen pages and read some words she had written years later, at age thirteen.
I drained the life out of a tree in the neighbor's yard today. It took longer than I would have liked, but felt good. I hope nobody saw me.
Early on, she had learned that although she required no cepp, using her talents made her weak. Vulnerable. She loathed the feeling and learned to replenish herself by taking the energy from plants, but that was like drinking water through a tiny straw—too little energy and far too slowly. She moved on to small animals. Rats, cats, and a stray dog here and there. The rush of joy that came with the energy invigorated her, producing an emotional and physical high without equal. At first, she would shake uncontrollably after a draining, twitching with strength and fervor. Often, she would drain a creature even when needing no replenishment, merely for the joy it brought. And the drainings served to heal, lessening her headaches better than anything provided by Papa's doctors.
Sucking the life out of animals would be perceived by others as barbaric, so she took pains to absorb them quickly, rather than drawing out the affair to savor the pleasure. A quick death was better, wasn't it? Merciful? It was difficult to judge such things. In her classes, she heard stories about heroes, their trials and struggles, and the inevitable defeat of the villains who opposed them. The stories would depict the enemy as some dark force that preyed on the weak, delighting in suffering or some such nonsense. If anyone witnessed Kayna draining a stray pet, they would surely label her as one of these monsters. But the tales in books told it wrong. Perhaps Kayna's actions seemed villainous, but not like the stories depicted. Kayna didn't wish pain or suffering on others—what could be gained from that? Perhaps the villains in stories didn't feel anything at all; they were simply not hampered by the guilt and fear that plagued others. They shouldn't be despised, but rather envied for their freedom.
Then she would think of how much joy it brought her to drain living things and would become conflicted. Perhaps she was a dark thing after all, but if so, she carried no guilt in it. She hadn't created herself and therefore bore no responsibility for her nature.
But oh, how she differed from others. When other children had fallen and skinned their knees, they had cried or gotten angry. When Kayna incurred injury as a child, she experienced only pain, not anger. Although she hadn't enjoyed the pain and took measures to prevent it from happening again, she experienced little emotion about it. If another child tormented her, she simply made them stop. That may have meant causing them pain in return, but it wasn't to delight in their suffering, merely to bring an end to her own.
Kayna came to a section in the journal where she had written about an argument with Papa. About how he had called her dull. That was the word that bothered her.
Papa said something today. I didn't like it.
"You're dull, Kayna. Try harder to get along with people. They expect it of you. I expect it of you."
Dull. How cruel a word that was. It implied a lack of importance. A lack of passion. A lack of life.
But was he was right? She sometimes felt dull, as if she were a weak candle, with little flame, little power of her own.
Papa didn’t want a dull daughter. He expected her to fit in with her peers and to advance among those in his social circles. He wanted her to rub elbows with elite friends and their children. There were indeed advantages to having people admire her and want to be around her, so she had complied with his wishes, if for no other purpose than to avoid being dull.
Learning how to be likable presented difficulties, however. She had to learn the many subtle hints and implications young ladies weaved into their conversations. She learned body language and noted how it often conflicted with the content of the words people spoke. And the power she held over boys. Oh, not every girl carried such power, but Kayna was beautiful, and the boys came around early and often. When a boy took a fancy to her, she could make many errors and still not lose his affection. She enjoyed having such power over people. It provided a sense of security. A sense of calm. It paled in comparison to her magic but was notable, nonetheless.
Kayna's dispassionate manner soon became an asset rather than a liability as it was easy to control herself. She never betrayed her feelings unintentionally because they simply didn't bubble to the surface uncontrolled. She experienced them from time to time, but like fish hiding at the bottom of a quiet lake, they rarely broke the surface.
A lack of passion would not suffice for Papa's ambitions, so from her early teens, she practiced her emotional reactions every day in a mirror. She learned to feign surprise, bashfulness, admiration, or outrage. She mastered delight, frustration, and sadness, and could soon cry on command, shedding as many tears as she liked.
Soon her reputation for being the witty, beautiful, charming daughter of Lord Minister Nikolas Vorick began to grow. Her influence grew along with it, and she received invitations to tea, to lavish parties, and to ride about the countryside with young noblemen bewitched by her beauty and charm.
Darin was just such a fool.
Albion Ripowski, the Earl of Katch, was an old man waiting to die far away in the southeastern part of the Great Land. Albion was a crafty man who rose from street rat to powerful merchant, then purchased enough land and bribed enough churchmen and government officials to become an earl. At the age of sixty, he acquired himself a young bride from the queen's court and produced a handsome young heir, Darin Ripowski.
Darin loved riding, hunting, and spending money on pretty girls. It made him an easy mark. They met at a spring social held by a new baron in the outskirts of Fairmont who wanted to make a name for himself. It was a lavish party with a juggler, a grand orchestra, games of croquet, and a card tournament.
Kayna had seen Darin playing croquet badly and poked fun at his failures while sipping sweetberry punch. After he abandoned the gam
e and came to her side, he attempted to charm her with good looks and fancy clothes. Tall, blond, with a strong jaw and broad shoulders, he cut an impressive figure, even for a nobleman. Although only a few years older, he towered over her in height, yet despite his imposing physique, he was putty in her hands. She teased him and refused his overt advances, but eventually sat and had tea with him. Her coyness emboldened him, and following the event, he became relentless.
The flowers and expensive gifts arrived without ceasing. He invited her to countless gatherings, and she almost always refused. From time to time, she would bow to his request and attend a party, but would never be alone with him and would leave after a short time, hiring a carriage to take her home. Darin had recently invited her to a lavish ball, and she had accepted. She had dyed her hair black in an effort to look more mysterious. It suited her.
When the night of the ball arrived, she showed up in a beautiful but modest gown, her straight dark hair down to the middle of her back, a blue forget-me-not flower in her hair. She was stunning, and Darin had surely fallen in love. Yet she only danced with him once, then wandered about, talking briefly with others, including young men she knew to be his rivals.
Leading Darin on was entertaining. A growing cadre of lady friends encouraged her to refuse his advances most of the time but accept invitations often enough to keep him interested. Accompanying him to court functions, she had recently even managed to meet and charm the aging queen.
But in the end, nothing held the priority in her heart reserved for her true love, her magic. As she got older, she discovered more abilities but hadn't acquired much skill with their use and didn't know how to improve. There was no book that could help her with this so she remained alone in her efforts.
The Godseeker Duet Page 13
