He was not fast enough. Not good enough. His father knew it.
That’s when Dendril chose to attack.
It was almost casual. His sword whistled through the air so quickly it was almost a dream. Endric barely blocked it in time. The attack was followed by another. Then another. And another. Each in rapid succession, cascading atop each other. He felt the sharp sting of Trill’s bite across his arm but didn’t bother to look. There was no time.
Endric danced out of range, buying seconds. He had expected his father to be slowed by age and lack of practice. There was no sign of it. Instead, he seemed even faster than Endric ever remembered. It was obvious that Dendril had been simply playing with him from the start.
That thought more than any other brought the rage back to the forefront of his mind. Endric stepped in, slipping under Trill’s streaking blade, and slashed quickly through two quick forms. Dendril grunted, and he knew one must have hit.
Endric slid back, out of Trill’s reach. He was breathing heavily and sweat ran from his brow. His arm stung from where he had been hit, but he dared not look at the injury. He watched his father, keeping his sword at the ready.
Dendril’s left arm was stained with blood. A small splotch grew across his right chest—the second hit he had felt. Other than that, he stood almost casually in his defensive stance again. He breathed easily. It was as if he barely exerted himself.
It was then that Endric truly knew doubt.
His face must have shown it. His father chose that moment to attack. Shifting from his defensive stance to his attack in less than a heartbeat, he slid forward, darting like a snake. Trill sliced out, an angry fang.
Endric stepped to the side, bringing his sword up, but was too late. He felt the collision of blades as the force bounced up his arm. Trill glanced off, then pierced his left shoulder.
Endric cried out. There was a sound behind him. A scream. He briefly wondered who worried for him. Maybe Senda. There was much emotion in that scream.
He shifted his sword, taking a quick, deep breath to silence the pain in his shoulder. He skittered back, trying to keep space between him and his father and the incredible reach of Trill. His shoulder cried out in agony. He pushed away awareness of it, clearing his mind as much as he could.
The speed of his father’s attack had overwhelmed him. Endric had known he was fast with the blade. But Dendril—and his sword Trill—had been a blur. He wouldn’t last long this way. Dendril knew it.
So he attacked. He threw himself forward. It was reckless, but there was no other way he could hope to win. Throw his father off-balance. Maybe he could slow the man and gain the upper hand. It was his only option.
Endric ducked under another slice from the greatsword. He felt it whistle over his head, barely missing him. Stabbing forward, he thought to press through a gap in his father’s defenses, thinking to pierce his thigh. Somehow Trill appeared, blocking his blow and turning it away.
Rather than backing up, he pressed closer. Kicking up, he hoped to catch his father off guard. Dendril caught his heel easily and threw him back with surprising force. Endric landed on his back and rolled, coming to his feet quickly. His breath had been knocked from him, but he couldn’t lie still, else his father could finish him. He held his sword unsteadily in front of him.
Dendril watched the bobbing tip of the sword. “You should never have challenged me.” He didn’t breathe heavily. “You are not yet ready.”
Hot anger surged in Endric with the words and he lunged. His father’s face twisted briefly from a look of sadness to one of resignation. Endric swung his sword, spinning and bringing the blade around. He found nothing but air.
His father had not been where he expected. Suddenly Trill appeared, slicing toward him. Endric felt hot pain and wetness on his legs. He stumbled and swung his sword up wildly. Dendril knocked it away, and the force of the motion knocked Endric’s own sword into his chest. He felt the blade bite into his flesh and screamed again. Hot blood streamed across his chest, creeping with unpleasant warmth.
And he fell. Overhead, the gray sky suddenly thundered. Taunting him. Hated rain would come on the day he died.
A dark shadow fell over him. Through eyes blurred by pain and sweat—maybe some blood—he saw Dendril move to stand over him.
He had been critically hurt. The agony running through the entirety of his body spoke to that. Would his father taunt him again?
“You are still a child,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice.
Then another shadow streaked toward his face. Not Trill’s blade, he realized. The hilt of his father’s sword slammed into his forehead.
Then there was blackness.
21
He awoke to the warm taste of blood in his mouth, metallic and oozing over his cracked lips. Working his dry tongue to moisten them, he found a shallow pool of sticky and drying blood. Attempts to open his mouth, however carefully, were met with nothing but more pain. Endric was aware of the rest of his body, but it was a distant sort of sensation, one filled with nothing but agony. He couldn’t remember how he had come to be this way.
He managed to open his eyes. Bright sunlight shot a new torture to the back of his skull, causing him to close them just as quickly. Sunlight, so rare in the city, still pressed through his closed lids and a burned afterimage sent stars across everything.
Slowly he tried again, this time filtering the light carefully through squinted eyes. Long moments passed as his eyes adjusted before he was gradually able to open them completely. There was nothing but blue sky above him. Cloudless and without a hint of gray. It was a sky too beautiful for the city, too beautiful to see while he was feeling the way he did.
Endric turned his head slowly. Tense muscles fought him with the movement. His neck screamed as he moved, and he fought the urge to cry out, though he was not sure he even could, were there the need. He managed to raise his head, turning it the barest amount to each side, and saw nothing but tall grasslands. The ground around him had been patted down, the tall grasses bent and broken, and streaks of blood covered much. Looking farther in the distance, he saw mountains, their peaks obscured in the clouds, and memories came back to him in a flood.
He had challenged his father. He had lost.
And now he was no longer even in the city.
Settling back into the grass, he closed his eyes once more. Taking slow breaths to steady his thudding heart, he considered what had happened. He remembered the challenge, remembered the way his father had toyed with him before defeating him easily and quickly. Had Endric known the level of his skill, he might have…
He sighed deeply. There was nothing he could have done differently. His father did nothing about the threat the Deshmahne posed. Not just to the Denraen, but to people not equipped to face them. What kind of pressure would these dark priests place on unsuspecting nations? Who would protect them if not for the Denraen? Wasn’t that their purpose?
He coughed, feeling stabbing pains across his chest as he did, and pushed the questions from his mind. They were no longer his concern. He had been expelled from the Denraen. Left to die on this grassy plain, staring up at the mountains he had once called home.
He closed his eyes again. He lost track of time as he tried to move something other than his neck. Moments or hours could have passed as he slowly learned that he could move his sword arm again. Amazingly, it felt the least injured. Endric no longer felt throbbing throughout his entire body—it was now a constant ache.
The sun beat down on him with unrelenting heat. He felt his body baking in it, wondered when night would fall. How long had he lain here? Hours? Days? His eyes were closed, but still, light slipped through his lids. No longer fading in and out of consciousness, he was now bombarded with painful questions. He tried to stop them but couldn’t shut his mind down now that it had started up.
How much longer could he last like this? Another cough racked his body, freeing congealed phlegm from his lungs. He tried to spit but di
dn’t have the strength. He didn’t know how badly he had been injured. The pain in his thighs reminded him he had been hurt there, but he remembered still being able to stand after that injury. The pain across his chest was sharper. He was reminded of it with each breath. He should laugh, if he could, at how he had sustained that injury. His own had blade defied him, crashing into his chest under the weighty attack of the sword Trill. That he still lived told him the injury was not too deep. At least not deep enough to puncture lung or heart. And still, he could barely move.
His injuries might not be life-threatening, but exposure to the sun and heat just might be.
How had he gotten here? Was this final punishment for years spent arguing with his father? To be tortured and burned up by the sun, unable even to crawl toward protection? Cruel and beyond what he thought his father capable of, though truly he no longer knew what his father might do. His easy defeat was testament to that. Now he would pay for not knowing the man.
Another cough rolled through him, this time forcing him to surge forward. He still couldn’t work his legs and his left arm was dead to him, but he was upright. His head swam for long moments and dark spots danced across his vision before finally clearing. The change in position did little to change his perspective.
Around him was nothing but open plains. The mountains were far in the distance, far enough that he knew it would be a day’s ride or more to reach the lowest foothills. From there, it would be another day. More, in his current condition. And of course, that depended on finding a horse.
He coughed again and fell backward. Unable to stop the movement, he hit his head on the hard dirt, cushioned only by the trampled grass around him. Spots swam across his vision again, and his head pounded. Closing his eyes, he questioned why he even considered returning to the city. There was nothing there other than his friends.
He worried about what would happen to Pendin. Senda should be fine; her ties to Listain kept her secure. The spymaster’s absence probably made her role even more important, though Endric had no idea how many people worked with Listain the way Senda did. Still, he worried for her and hoped his father was decent enough to leave his friends out of their dispute. They had suffered enough for their friendship with him over the years. Maybe they were even better off with him gone.
Overhead, a hawk circled, cawing harshly each time it made a tentative dive before pulling up and circling again. It was only time before it dove for real. There was little he could do to fend it off if it attacked. His arms didn’t have strength enough to shoo the flies pestering him, let alone something larger. The gods protect him if anything larger than the hawk prowled nearby. Thankfully, the wolves that hunted the mountains rarely came this far down in the plains. Too hot for them.
He let his eyes close. Time passed. He might have slipped in and out of consciousness or simply slept. He no longer cared. The sun crawled across the sky, though it grew no cooler for it. He had no more sweat in his body, and his lips had cracked while he was unconscious. His tongue was sticky and he couldn’t manage to moisten his mouth, let alone his lips. Breaths came slowly and raggedly, the pain across his chest still sharp. It was the only pain that still bothered him much. That should have worried him, but it didn’t.
Visions affected him. He saw his brother’s face. Once so vibrant and full of life, he instead saw it as he had the last time—caked in blood and with huge chunks of flesh missing. In the vision, the mouth worked as if trying to speak, but nothing came out. A sense of sorrow surrounded Andril, not the anger Endric expected. Andril had rarely been one to become angry—not like Endric, who so easily grew enraged—and even in death he had not found rage. Dull eyes haunted Endric, almost an accusation, condemning him for daring to challenge their father. Endric couldn’t make his own mouth work to speak, and the vision passed.
He saw Olin, his quiet friend, now gone, killed by the same bastards who’d taken his brother from him. Endric hadn’t taken the time to mourn him as he should have, and now didn’t have the energy to do so.
He saw Pendin. Sadness haunted him. His friend, so physically strong, had weathered much in his life. Endric didn’t know all the details of what he had been through. The miner rebellion had challenged him. There had been a hint of understanding as he had explained the motivation behind the revolt. Endric felt a pang of regret for not being more supportive when his friend needed him and hoped again that he was not punished for their friendship. Pendin was a skilled soldier and could accomplish much. In the vision, his face wore nothing but a frown, his eyes soft and troubled.
The vision passed and was replaced by Senda. Endric moaned as her face swam into view, almost as if she were right above him. Her hair flowed free in waves down her back though she rarely wore it that way. She carried a look of concern. Her dark eyes were penetrating, as if she could actually see him. Hers was the hardest face to see. He had been surprised at his feelings for her. Always they had been friends, never more, but the past week had shown him how much he cared for her. Now she was lost to him. Perhaps it was better for her that he was.
Endric forced his eyes open and used the bright sunlight to burn away the remnants of the visions. He couldn’t shake the sadness he felt at seeing his brother, Olin, Pendin, and Senda. In spite of the sunlight, the image of his father’s disappointed face threatened to swim forward and join the other visions, but he focused on his pain, the heat, his surroundings, and ignored it.
Time continued to pass. He was aware of it as a vague thing—a shifting of shadows, the changing gusts of wind, and the steady throbbing pain in his chest, pounding rhythmically like a drum. The pain pounded, out of sync with his heartbeat, an annoying staccato pulsing. Focusing on that kept his mind off the visions that still swam in his mind.
Sensation slowly returned to his leg, first as a twitch, but gradually as something more. He was able to flex his leg. Strength had not returned to his arms. He could raise them—and that for only a moment—but little else. Coughing fits came and went. None were as strong as the one that sat him up. He wondered whether that was important.
The daytime had been punctuated by the calling of the hawk circling overhead. There had been other sounds—buzzing of insects, a strange humming he had not been able to locate, the rustling of the grass in the wind—but little else other than the hawk. He watched it periodically, its pattern a slow spiral that swooped low every so often. He couldn’t help but flinch as it did. It had finally given up as it watched him regain movement, flying off to stalk different prey. Only part of him had been thankful, knowing he didn’t wish to be picked to death by a hungry predator bird. Another part simply sought release. He could rejoin his brother in the afterlife. It was strange that he felt closer to the gods as he lay dying, his hazy mind seeking the reassurance of a faith he had not thought he had. Prayers came easier to him than they had since he was a child, and he offered a silent one to the gods for peace.
After the hawk left, he heard a faint scratching nearby. The sound was, likely as not, an animal scurrying across the plains. Hopefully something small. A mouse or rabbit. The sound grew more frequent and he looked around, struggling to see if there was anything nearby. The long grass hid everything. So instead he watched for movement.
He saw the grasses bend at the corner of his vision and turned slowly to watch. A dark ear was the only thing visible through the grass. The rest of the creature was hidden. Endric didn’t need to see more. He recognized the laca by the dark striping on its ear, typical of its kind. The wild, predatory dogs were common on the plains but typically hunted small game. Unless they were hungry. Or ill. Then they were known to scavenge.
The laca moved slowly through the grass, stalking him. He barely had enough strength to move his arms, let alone fend off a starving animal. Lacas were fierce fighters and had been known to bring down prey as large as deer, though that was, likely as not, the work of a pack. Only, lacas were never seen in packs. They were rarely seen at all, their movements stealthy.
Endric imagined the dog’s sharp teeth tearing into his flesh and shuddered. That was not the end he wanted. He could do nothing to appear threatening—he was barely able to sit upright—and had no weapon nearby. All he could do was hope the laca would grow bored and think he was too large to be easy prey. That he had not moved more than his arms or his head made that unlikely.
The laca continued to circle. The only way Endric knew it was still there was by the sound it made moving through the grass. Even that was hard to hear. He saw a flash of brown fur at one point, but then it was gone. Moments later, he heard movement from the opposite side. There was no way the laca moved that quickly. Was there another?
The heat of the day finally eased as the sun settled into the horizon. Endric’s heart beat rapidly as he strained to listen for sounds of the laca. He had not seen the beast in nearly an hour. Occasional gusts of wind kicked up, stronger than they had throughout the day, stinging his flesh and making it difficult to hear the sounds of the predator. With the fading light, he knew it unlikely he would see signs of the animal before an attack. The chill air made his cracked skin burn. His flesh pimpled, but he didn’t know whether that was the cool air or fear.
During the day, he’d cursed the warm clothing he wore. Now he realized he didn’t wear enough. Not that it mattered. He wouldn’t last long in his current condition. His mind was clouding, thinking of things that were unimportant, but he couldn’t shake the thought that perhaps more clothing would have better hidden him from the laca.
It was still out there. Circling. Waiting.
What other predators hunted the plains? There were worse things than the laca.
Dying was bad enough, but the slow death that would come by teeth and claws might be worse.
The moon had come up, first as a pale crescent barely peaking above the mountains, but it grew steadier as it rose higher in the sky. Darkness came but was not absolute because of the bright moon, so different here than in the mountain city. Clouds dotted the sky but seemed wispier and not the thick blankets that so often smothered the city. The sound of the swishing of grass—the slow movement of the laca—continued into the night. After a while, he could hear its breathing as a slow panting. A soft whine whispered into the night, and Endric shivered again.
Soldier Son (The Teralin Sword Book 1) Page 18
