"But-!"
"No."
"Subi-"
"No. Nothing you can say will change my mind."
"Not even that I have no choice but to go. That we might never see one another again if-"
Subikahn snapped to sudden attention, hand falling to his hilt.
Alarmed, Saviar grasped his own sword and tipped his head, listening. Hearing nothing, he started, "What's-?" Before he could complete the sentence, a half dozen men wearing scales of armor or links of chain charged toward them.
Saviar's sword whipped out in plenty of time to meet the rush. His blade opened a gash in one man's neck before he thought to tend defense. Blood splattered, and the man collapsed soundlessly. Immediately, Saviar faced another opponent wielding an ax. The blade chopped for him as he spun aside, missing cleanly. Saviar riposted, but not quickly enough. His enemy jerked aside, his weapon not yet in position for another strike. Saviar lunged under his guard, jabbing as he moved. His blade buried deep into the man's gut, striking bone. He toppled, wrenching Saviar's sword from his grip.
"Hey!" Saviar sprang for the hilt. The odor of bowel contents soured the air. Blood slicked his fingers and slathered his hair, but he worried more about lack of respect for his lost weapon. Subikahn fought the other four valiantly, but he clearly needed assistance. Saviar planted a foot on the enemy's flopping body, seized his hilt in both fists, and yanked. The sword eased slightly, then whipped suddenly free, sending him staggering. He regained his balance in an instant, sword raised, howling toward the warriors who menaced his twin.
The men had surrounded Subikahn, who mostly executed broad defensive sweeps to keep all of them at bay. Saviar fell on one from behind, tearing open a chunk of flesh and ripping through a kidney. Knowing no one could survive that injury, Saviar moved on without hesitation. The second man met him sword to sword. Blue eyes, clearly of Northern origin, bored into Saviar's.
"Die, blood-sucking Renshai!"
Saviar did not reply. He only swept in for a chest stroke the other man easily parried. Sword thrown clear, Saviar drew it back swiftly to block an adept attack, followed by a clumsy one. Couldn't wait. Impatience proved his opponent's downfall. The attempt to make two quick attacks opened his defenses, and Saviar's blade sliced through his thigh. An instant later, Subikahn's sword severed his spine.
Saviar whirled to face the next enemy, only to find them all dead. "What in Hel? Northmen?"
"Some," Subikahn said. "Not all." He crinkled his nose at his brother. "You're a sight. Is any of that blood yours?"
Saviar examined his limbs and clothing, stained with blood and speckled with torn flesh. Nothing stung, and he could not remember a single stroke coming close to hitting him. "I'm fine. I just opened a lot of large vessels."
A war cry echoed over the woodlands, "Mooodi!" It was the call of an injured Renshai charging bravely into what might be her last battle. The familiar crash of steel on steel exploded through the forest.
The others. As one, the twins raced toward the main part of the Renshai encampment, the sounds of battle growing louder with every step. Saviar's attention riveted on a blur of activity at the edge of the camp. There a small bundle of energy swirled like a tornado, mowing down everything in its path. Yet, despite the superhuman speed and grace of the combatant, he fell into awkward lapses that seemed stunningly out of place. Calistin, Saviar realized in an instant. And he's hurt.
Without thought, Saviar redirected his advance toward his brother. So many times, he had wanted to kill Calistin, but the world would end in fire before he would allow anyone else to do it. "Modi!" he screamed, not because of wounds, but simply as a battle cry. He wanted to divert as many enemies as possible from Calistin to himself.
As Saviar charged down upon Calistin and his foes, he realized what he had, at first, mistaken for weakness was something altogether different. Calistin fought with his usual ungodly dexterity, holding four enemies at bay while his blade glided toward a fifth. Suddenly, Treysind ran in, shouting, an overlarge sword swinging chaotically in his fist. Forced to redirect or kill his would-be savior, Calistin pulled the stroke with a curse, then buried his blade in another attacker before Saviar even saw him spin. In the same movement, Calistin riposted a killing blow meant for Treysind, then sprang around the boy's wild, unpredictable stabs and weavings.
Two of Calistin's opponents disengaged to attack the new threat bearing down on them. Pressed to his own defense, Saviar lost sight of brother and living annoyance. He met a brutal attack with a parry that opened his opponent's defenses for an instant. Too late, he extracted his weapon. The opportunity was gone, and he found himself defending against the other enemy.
These two proved more difficult than Saviar's previous opponents, survivors of Calistin's rabid attacks. He found himself meeting blades in every direction, hard-pressed to tend defense. One slashed his sleeve and another drew a fine line of blood from his calf. Still, Saviar pressed in, driving one aside with his shoulder, to focus on the other. A wicked stop-thrust ended that one's assault, as he skewered himself on Motfrabelonning. Saviar stepped back to face his last opponent, only to see Calistin sitting calmly on a log cleaning his swords.
Saviar vented his irritation against his enemy, his sword whipping in every direction. Forced to defense, his opponent retreated with every step, the crash of blade against blade herding him backward. Then his foot came down on a fallen branch. It snapped beneath his weight, throwing his balance backward and opening his vitals to Saviar's blade. A throat slash ended the battle, and the Northman collapsed onto the limb that had proven his downfall.
Panting, Saviar glanced around the camp. Bodies littered the ground, Renshai and enemy alike. Some Renshai finished final skirmishes while others sorted through the dead, finishing off enemies, dividing out Renshai who had a chance for survival from those who did not. The latter would be given the opportunity to die engaged rather than slowly succumb to fatal wounds.
Saviar waited until he could speak without long pauses to breathe before rounding on his little brother. "Calistin, you know I came to help you."
Calistin glanced up from his polishing; and, beside him, Treysind mimicked the action. "I didn't ask you to."
The response maddened Saviar. A frown scored his features as he lowered his weapon. "You didn't have to ask. I came to your aid because I… love you."
Calistin stared. He was clearly guessing at the proper response, "Thank you?" he tried.
"You're welcome." Saviar responded with all the heartfelt sincerity Calistin lacked. "When you saw me still struggling with your enemies after you had finished, why didn't you do the same for me?"
Calistin indicated the dead men with a foot. "You didn't need me."
"I could have."
"You didn't. You killed them all on your own. You're a man now, Saviar."
Anticipating an argument, Saviar felt as if his brother had just punched him in the gut. "What?"
"You killed a man in combat. More than one, in fact. You're blooded. You're a man whether or not you've passed your tests of manhood."
Saviar continued to stand in stunned silence. His sword remained in his grip. Every instinct screamed for him to honor the weapon his mother had given him, to scrub the blade gleaming before he even considered tending his own wounds.Yet, he found himself unable to speak, unable to think. Calistin's right. I am a man. "I just meant… I just thought you should have…" Knowing he could never win a war of words in his current state, Saviar walked away to tend his sword. The confrontation, the teaching of basic kindness and humanity, would once again have to wait.
CHAPTER 19
Loyalty cannot be commanded, nor respect impelled by force.
-General Santagithi
As usual, Calistin had no idea what was bothering his brother, nor did he waste much thought on wondering. Instead, he wandered out over the camp turned battlefield, glad that Treysind chose not to follow him. Apparently, the Erythanian no longer saw any danger to his hero in the si
tuation and needed some time alone to process all that had happened. The truth never occurred to Calistin: Treysind remained seated on the deadfall, nostrils filled with the reek of blood and open bowel, mind saturated with death, and vomiting every scrap in his gut.
As Calistin wound his way between the corpses, his anger grew. He recognized colleagues and teachers amongst them; and even children had not been spared. They lay in gruesome poses, features locked into determined grimaces and, sometimes, even battle-mad smiles. Swords lay, dishonored, upon the ground, steeped in the entrails of enemies. Blood still oozed from the freshest wounds. At last, he found the one he sought, a young woman of sixteen named Sitari. She sprawled across two other bodies, both Northmen, the portion of scalp over her right ear torn open, trailing a gleaming white hunk of sinew and skull and exposing brain tissue purple with clots and dirt.
Calistin had heard her death cry as he tussled with seven opponents, too far away and too late to come to her aid. She had continued fighting surprisingly long after a wound that could have taken down a mountain lion. He had listened to her high-pitched battle calls in the distance, strange and determined. Now, he stared at her body, so lifelike in death, still shockingly desirable. He had never told her how he felt about her, though he hoped she had known. She had treated him with the same starry-eyed reverence as the others.Yet, there had been so much more to their relationship, at least in his mind. She was the one in most of his adolescent fantasies, though he did not yet have the development, or the social skills, to act on them.
"Good-bye Sitari," Calistin whispered, then looked up toward the heavens. In the morning, she would awaken in Valhalla to the first of an eternity of battles. All day, she would fight the other souls of the bravest and most worthy of the dead. In the evenings, the "survivors" feasted, and they all came back to life in the morning to battle again. It was the fate every Renshai desired. Someday, he knew, he would see her there.
Calistin glanced around for Sitari's sword, planning to honor it, only to find it partially jutting from the abdomen of a Northman. The man still had enough energy to paw at it aimlessly, like a turtle turned on its back so long its feet continue to paddle long after it already believes itself dead. With a single step, Calistin came to his side and jerked the blade free.
A rush of filthy-looking blood followed. The Northman hissed in agony.
Calistin pointed at Sitari with the blade. "Did you kill this woman?"
The Northman took a ragged breath, and scarlet trickled through his teeth. "I killed… her." He sucked in more air. "And the bitch… killed me. It would seem… we're even."
Calistin kicked him. Blood dripped from the blade in his hand to mingle with the stream leaking from the dying man. "You're not going to Valhalla."
"I believe…" A glaze covered the blue eyes, and he did not meet Calistin's gaze. "… I am."
"Not after I dismember you." It was a forbidden act, Calistin knew, the one that had first gotten the Renshai banished from the North. At the time, all Northmen believed only the soul of an intact corpse could ever reach Valhalla. The Renshai had cut apart enemies as a means to dishonor them as well as to demoralize their fellows. In the last century, however, it had become common knowledge that missing a body part did not bar a brave warrior from Valhalla.
"Do it, Renshai," the Northman gurgled. "End this."
Calistin hated the Northman's defiance. He wanted a show of cowardice, anything to prove the man unworthy of a warrior's greatest reward. "You'll scream like the craven you are. And, missing pieces, you won't find Valhalla."
The Northman gasped for his last breaths. "Not… true."
"Are you sure?" Calistin dropped to a crouch beside him. "Are you quite sure? Because you're risking your eternal soul." He preyed upon that last shred of doubt that exists in every mind. No matter how fervent a man's certainty about magic, about the supernatural, he always carried a shred of doubt buried somewhere deep in his psyche. There, and only there, be monsters. "I'm a Renshai, remember? Demons, you call us."
Something sparked briefly through the dying man's eyes.
Was that a hint of fear? Calistin allowed himself a smile. "And demons know how to damn."
The Northman's lids slid closed, and he managed only four more words: "I am not afraid." As the last left his lips, his entire body suddenly relaxed, releasing a wash of blood.
Abruptly angrier than he could ever remember, Calistin hacked at the corpse's neck until bone cracked beneath the blows. He did not quit until every last tendon and shred of flesh separated, and the head rolled free of the body. Only then, he felt a presence behind him and whirled, still clutching Sitari's sword. A Valkyrie stood in front of him.
The figure towered over Calistin, enormous, swathed in armor, yet still oddly and desirably feminine. A shield lay strapped across her left arm, a sword swung at her hip, and a spear lay thrust through her belt. She stepped uncomfortably close, seeming not to notice Calistin at all.
"No!" Calistin shouted.
The Valkyrie stopped, glanced around them, then back at Calistin. Then, apparently believing he addressed someone else, she started toward the corpse again.
Calistin stepped solidly between them, stuffing Sitari's sword into his belt near the left sheath that held the weapon his mother had given him. The gesture smeared fresh Northman's blood across his tunic, but he would not allow Sitari's blade to touch the ground again, to further dishonor it. "You cannot have him."
The Valkyrie blinked. She stared at Calistin.
Calistin met her gaze directly and with level violence.
"Human child, you have no right to interfere with Valkyries. The battlefield souls are ours to take as we see fit."
"This one," Calistin said firmly, "you may not have."
The Valkyrie roared, "Get out of my way!" She tried to step around him, but Calistin moved with her. In a blink, he had freed both of his swords and held them at her throat.
Surprise flashed through her eyes, then disappeared. She seemed not to notice the bared steel at her neck. "Little man, you have pluck. But you are braver than you are wise." She studied him over his swords, ignoring them as she might twigs in a child's grubby fists. She raised a hand to bat them away, but Calistin only tightened his attack and hoped she would not force him to draw blood. "What a pity and a waste you have no soul."
Calistin had no idea what she meant, but it sounded like an insult. "You cannot have him," the Renshai repeated.
Apparently, the blades finally bothered the Valkyrie, because she back stepped and drew her own enormous sword.
Excitement rushed through Calistin. Even tired from his recent battles, even enraged by her taunts, he relished the chance to fight a creature of such stature. He withdrew just enough to make the battle a fair one, to give her a chance to strike first.
The Valkyrie obliged, taking a sweep that showed remarkable speed for such an oversized blade. Calistin dodged it gracefully, then bore in for an attack of his own. To his surprise, size seemed not to hamper her at all. She moved with the dexterity of a Renshai, avoiding his attack and returning one of her own with lightning speed.
Calistin laughed, thrilled to finally find an opponent with skill rivaling his own. He caught the attack on one blade, only to find it stronger than he anticipated. Driven a step backward, he twisted to bring himself out of line with the corpse. Bad footing had turned many a battle tide.
Pressing her advantage, the Valkyrie struck again. This time Calistin parried, managing a crisp riposte with his mother's sword that the Valkyrie redirected. Again, she bore at him. Calistin dodged, lunged, and drove for another furious, two-bladed assault that the Valkyrie met with a flurry of defense.
Joy suffused Calistin as he fought the first real battle for his life. He could die; she might actually best him, and that realization brought an excitement he could barely fathom. The Valkyrie went on the offensive now, jabbing and sweeping with remarkable speed and skill. Calistin dodged and parried, avoiding blocks, with the
memory of her strength still strong in his mind. He drove in relentlessly, with one sword, then the other, drawing the combat closer, trying to take advantage of his smaller size and shorter weapons. Clearly anticipating his intentions, the Valkyrie kept her steps always sideways and backward, mindful, like Calistin, of the many obstacles around them.
At last, Calistin managed a studied cut beneath the left sleeve of her byrnie that sliced undertunic and flesh. Blood trickled from the opening, winding down her wrist, between her fingers. The Valkyrie stiffened, clearly startled by the wound, opening herself to another attack that she barely remembered to defend.
"Who are you?" she demanded, batting aside both of his weaving blades. "Who in darkest, dampest, coldest Hel are you?"
Calistin wove a bold web of attack. "Calistin Ra-khirsson of the tribe of Renshai."
The Valkyrie blocked the sword in his right hand, Kevral's, the one with which he had injured her. She seemed less concerned with the other, which scratched harmlessly across the links of her byrnie. "Renshai," she said, without the hatred that seemed to drip from the word when others spoke it. "Your death will be a pity."
"Yours more so," Calistin returned as he fought. Renshai training taught him never to converse in battle; it interfered with concentration. That small lapse had also turned the tides of battles. "I do not intend to lose." He dove for an opening, more interested in bringing the fight in close than in actually scoring a hit. He became suddenly aware of another presence, but his instincts told him the second bore him no threat.Yet.
A female voice cut over the din of combat, obsessively compelling. "Calistin Raskasson, stop immediately!"
Calistin nearly had a seizure in an effort to fight the compulsion. If he went still, he died.
The Valkyrie lowered her sword.
Only then, Calistin ceased his own assault, retreated to a safe distance, and turned to face the speaker. Habit drove him to correct her mispronunciation of his father's name, but the sight of her struck him dumb. Long, honey-blonde hair fell to her shoulders in thick, burnished waves, outlining a perfect face. Every feature seemed chiseled by an artist so loving he spent years on every cut. Usually, art sought the beauty no reality could ever capture. Here, it seemed certain, no man could improve upon her, no mere craft of mortal making could ever capture such breathtaking exquisiteness. Lashes, dark despite her pallor, curled from large eyes the color of brilliant sky. Her nose was perfectly straight and of just the right size. Her lips were full, moist, and red as berries. Her neck was delicate, white, and lineless, and enhanced by a choker of fluid gold incised with twisting, weaving patterns. She had strangely powerful shoulders that suited her. Generous, vivacious breasts began a series of curves that precisely defined proper female proportions. Long, shapely legs completed the picture. The simple dress she wore seemed unworthy of her, and the sword at her hip only made him desire her more.
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