City of Blaze (The Fireblade Array)

by H. O. Charles

  The assassin would rally soon; it was already pulling his short sword out from its trunk. Beodrin had to move fast to find his sword. He turned to where he thought it had fallen. It was not there! His eyes darted to the right, seeking out any sign of the missing weapon. He caught sight of it glinting fully twenty yards from them. It was too far for him to make it before the eisiel would begin another attack, but he had no choice. He ran to the sword, feeling something cold slam into his back as he did so. Beodrin did not stop. He flew at the sword, caught it and turned, striking his blade straight down. The sword met the soft flesh of the eisiel’s face, splitting it fully into two halves. A terrible scream rose from the thing, and the stone walls of the hallway shook.

  Beodrin fell to his knees. He had survived, though he feared what had happened to his back - mostly because it did not hurt. That usually meant it was bad. He had to get to Marynia; she needed him!

  Running footfalls approached, and he desperately hoped that they belonged to guards who knew enough to remove pinh blades. He could not move too much for fear of sending the poison deeper into his body.

  Two young, recently recruited guards flopped down beside him, and the youngest, sporting a small amount of chin fluff spoke first, “You’ve got a dagger in your back, lieutenant.”

  “I’m very well-aware of that, soldier. Now will you pull the bloody thing out for me?”

  The older one jumped in, “Blazes alight! You’ve gone and killed an eisiel! Only Lord-Lieutenant Forllan has done that before. He’s an ugly sod, isn’t he?”

  Beodrin laughed. “I don’t think Silar would appreciate you talking of him in that manner. But seriously you-” His speech was cut short as the dagger was yanked from his spine. It hurt now. A lot. “You need to alert everyone and check the surrounding halls. It looks like this one took a bite out of someone before he got to me.”

  The older recruit looked at Beodrin’s back with suspicion. “I’ll get some water to wash that out,” he said, and trotted back down the corridor.

  The chin-fluff guard simply stared at Beodrin, bloody dagger in hand.

  “Well, boy? Are you going to warn everyone else or not? I don’t need you minding me. Get on with you!”

  The young man dropped the dagger and ran obediently down the hall, yelling something about eisiels and invaders. That ought to stir things up a bit.

  A moment later the other man had returned with a bucket of water and was roughly washing out Beodrin’s wound. “Sew it up now,” the lieutenant ordered.

  “But it’s not clean yet.” The guard’s protestations fell on deaf ears.

  “I must get to my wife. Just fix it. Now.” Beodrin was satisfied when the young guard did not argue further and gritted his teeth as the stitches went in. He wondered how much time had passed. Please, let Marynia not feel the first movements just yet… The guard finished his handy work and stood, proffering Beodrin’s bloodstained coat. A deep breath was necessary before Beodrin could find his shaky feet. He had been in better shape, but this was good enough. He could make the journey home without aid, though the guard looked doubtful.

  More men began to approach. Silar was among them. “I see you’re trying to equal my score, Beodrin. Not bad work, not bad at all.”

  Beodrin mustered a small smile. “Excuse me, Silar, but I must get to my wife now. She is about to have a baby.”

  Silar’s grin evaporated from his face. “Er. Right. Of course. Are you sure you’re alright to...er? Well, I’ll sort everything out here and tell Morghiad. You go and... do your duty.”

  Beodrin nodded politely and made his way out of the stronghold. The cold air felt good on his sore back and flushed cheeks. He was glad to be out of that dungeon, too.

  The house was not far away, thankfully on the top level of the city. He could see the moon from the street, now in its crescent phase. Beodrin pressed on along the green stone roads, suppressing thoughts of pain with thoughts of his new child. He would name it after Rahake if it was a boy and Marynia wanted to call it Selieni if it was a girl. Both good names. The white door of the house drew close.

  His young son came flying out as he neared. The boy was evidently panicked. “Father, where have you been? Mummy says she needs you RIGHT NOW.” The child did an excellent impression of his mother’s angry voice. Beodrin put an arm around the lad’s shoulder.

  “I was caught up in a small tussle. Here now. It’s time for you to go and stay with your aunt. She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. She says you’re an imbecile. What’s an imbecile?”

  Beodrin couldn’t help but crack a smile. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  They stepped into the warm glow of their home, only to be greeted by the stern face of Marynia’s sister. She took one look at Beodrin’s blood-stained coat and sniffed. “Come on, kid. Let’s leave them to it.” Beodrin gave his son a tight hug but did not stay to watch them leave. He ran up the stairs to his wife’s bedroom and threw open the door. Marynia was sat on the bed, looking less than impressed. Her face was pink and she was evidently in considerable discomfort.

  “I’m sorry, my love. I tried to get here as quickly as I could.” It was a futile apology but would have to do.

  “Sorry? You’d better have a bloody good excuse! I thought you’d gone and got yourself killed. Or worse, forgotten! You’ve left it bloody close, this time; bloody close!” she snorted, and then grimaced.

  “Small matter of an assailant. All fixed now.” He kissed his wife and set about removing her shift.

  He knew she hated being larger than her usual self, but she was still beautiful to him. He admired her quietly.

  “Stop grinning like an idiot and help me!”

  Beodrin failed to remove his smile, but succeeded in removing his clothing. Marynia noticed the blood on his shirt and bit her lip; she knew to ask about that later. Soon he had joined her on the bed and was holding her close, so that her back was pressed against his chest. It was a curious thing that women could not birth alone, he thought as he pulled her even closer. Other animals appeared to do it quite independently in the wild, but then they did not heal instantly from an injury. Their bodies would change according to the environment and not immediately revert to their original state. His wife was different: her body had to be coaxed into changing.

  An hour later, Marynia’s breathing slowed and she lifted the baby up to their eye level. They’d had a girl, a handsome daughter.

  “Selieni,” Beodrin said.

  “Selieni,” his wife replied.

  The couple lay with their new child for several hours, marvelling at her presence. Beodrin found it equally marvellous how his wife’s stomach diminished to its previous form almost instantly. He was very much in love with her, and his new daughter. No eisiel could ever tear him from them.

  Chapter 6

  Harsh winds battered the stones of the outer wall and whistled through the gaps in the windows, causing them to shudder noisily. The young kahr rolled up a scrap of parchment and jammed it into one of the casement gaps, momentarily silencing the clatter and whine. The army offices had gone without improvement for some time by the look of them, and similarly, the record keeping had been excellent up until the last century. Rows of folders lined the shelves, each dated and labelled with details of the battles that had been fought.

  Unfortunately, Morghiad’s predecessor had not seen the importance of ordering such records and instead had left piles of documents strewn throughout the rooms. Some of it was intelligence, some comprised reports on loss of life, notes from other army captains and recruiters in Calidell. It had taken him two months to get as far as he had in re-organising the paperwork, and he resented having to do any of it. He was made for fighting, after all, not administrating. Paperwork was so utterly dull.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come,” he responded. A tall, yellow-haired guard walked in. Behind him was the considerably shorter Lieutenant Beodrin. The tall guard bowed and departed.

  Beod
rin smiled at the captain and took a seat opposite his desk. The short man’s eyes were bright given their grey hue. He had clearly spent most of the day grinning.

  “What did you name your child?” Morghiad enquired.

  “Selieni. Thank you for asking, captain.” Beodrin beamed.

  Morghiad did not feel jealous of the man’s happiness or his evident ability to safely sire children. He did, however, feel some sadness at the loss of what could have been. His battle with the enemies of Calidell was far more important - that and his responsibility to the army. They were his family. “Perhaps she will be as good a fighter as her father one day,” Morghiad said.

  Beodrin looked taken aback. “Surely, my captain, you don’t mean to start recruiting women?”

  “Why not? If they want to fight and they are good, why should I not give them the same opportunities?” The kahr straightened the documents in front of him.

  Beodrin’s brow darkened. “I do not want my daughter in any of our battles. They are no place for her.”

  Morghiad nodded. He could understand why the man was protective, but someone as reasonable as Beodrin should have been able to see the logic of it. Reforms like this would take time to be accepted. A pity there was not much time. He glanced at the report before him and then back at the stocky lieutenant. “Describe the entire eisiel incident to me.”

  Beodrin looked resigned, but took a deep breath before launching into his commentary. The eisiel had not made it far into the castle, though it had killed several of the guards on the way. Beodrin’s dispatch had been effective and even impressive. He would require several weeks of leave on top of what he had already been promised in order to properly recover from his injury. There was no point in having him fight whilst riddled with pinh.

  “... Lord-Lieutenant Forllan said he would inform you, and I left the rest to him,” Beodrin finished.

  His account had not answered Morghiad’s key question. “And you have no idea who might have been its target?”

  Beodrin thought for a moment. “It did say something. It didn’t seem to make much sense though.”

  “Can you repeat it to me?”

  The grey-eyed man compressed his lips. “I can’t remember the exact words. It was something like: ‘Who is the whore,’ or, ‘Where is the whore?’ It used a word haven’t heard before. Something like kusru or kulu or-”

  “Kusuru?” Morghiad finished.

  Beodrin’s eyes opened wide. “Yes, that’s it. Kusuru. It said, ‘Where is the Kusuru whore?’” He mouthed the word to himself. “What is Kusuru?”

  This was very bad. If Morghiad’s suspicions were right, it had come for Artemi - if, indeed, she had once been a Kusuru Assassin, which seemed likely from his reading. It would not be coincidence that last night was the first time she had wielded. Could eisiels sense Blaze Energy, even through him? The partition was there now – nothing would sense small wields though that. Nothing could. The kahr couldn’t help but feel as if the hill he had planned to climb had turned to a mountain.

  “Kusuru is the name given to a group of assassins that lived about four-thousand years ago. They were deadly. They learned a method of fighting that could best any of our own skills in seconds.”

  Beodrin’s shoulders tensed briefly. “I could have done with one of them last night. Do you think the eisiel had gone mad? I mean, all of those Kusuru people would be dead by now. I’ve never heard of anyone living past two-thousand years.”

  “They were each chosen because they were vanha-sielu. Their training regime was reputed to be so tough that they were killed over and over again before they reached adulthood. Their trainer simply located them when they had been re-born and continued lessons with them before they regained their memories.” Morghiad tried not to think how that might scar a personality.

  The lieutenant shivered. “And the eisiel thought one of those was here? A female one? Perhaps you will get your woman fighter.”

  The kahr rolled up the report. “I will look into this. There is no need to tell the other men just yet. If she doesn’t yet remember what she is then she will be harmless and we’d risk killing an innocent woman. If she does, then it may be foolish to out her or even engage with her in any way. That is, if she is here.”

  Beodrin nodded sagely. “Agreed.” Then he added, “You know, your new ‘rules’ probably saved my life last night.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I was planning to have a few drinks the night before but... what with agreeing to duty the following day I had to abstain. Probably made me a little more... accurate, if you get my meaning captain!” Beodrin chuckled.

  Morghiad nodded and waved that the man may dismiss himself. As the door clicked shut, he sat back in the leather chair to consider his options. He did not have many options in reality. He could not lie to his men, and simultaneously, he could not keep Artemi a secret forever. There was now a chance that keeping her here could actually risk the lives of his men. But potentially those losses would be cancelled out by the sheer number she could save. It was a gamble. However, he did have her promise, and he was sure she would not renege on it. He had to continue along the path he had already set out upon.

  It was high time to meet with the woman in question. Morghiad placed the day’s papers into a neat pile and pulled on his black army coat. It was warm against the draughts of the castle, but not quite the same as his cloak. Thankfully no one had yet noticed its absence from his wardrobe, though it was just the sort of thing Silar had a nose for.

  The kahr headed back towards his rooms through the breezy corridors, stopping at a small, thick-walled room to pick an item up. He jogged the rest of the way to his chambers out of boredom, or perhaps some eagerness to get there.

  She was already waiting when he arrived, seated upright upon his desk chair. Soft waves of auburn hair hung loose to her waist and glowed deep red in the light of the fire. She really had no idea of the way she looked. It was almost comical that a servant could sit on his least comfortable chair, look grumpy and still do a very good impression of an empress. The kahr opened his coat and placed the item he had brought onto the chest of drawers, then seated himself in the armchair opposite Artemi. She was not going to react well to his news. “I have reason to believe an eisiel came for you last night.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?” She rapidly caught control of herself. She was learning quickly. “It must be dead or you’d be out looking for it. It would have no way of knowing I was here unless you’d told someone. Otherwise it must have felt... How do you know it was looking for me?”

  Morghiad gazed though the window behind her; the peaks of the towers seemed to be shivering in the winds. “One of the lieutenants stopped it before it reached the core of the castle. Silar is the only other man who knows of you and he would not whisper a word of it to anyone. I believe it must have felt a change in the balance of Blaze last night. I doubt it is a matter of coincidence.”

  Artemi remained stern. “You haven’t answered my question: how do you know it wanted me?”

  “Because it asked for you,” he said.

  She looked away to the fire. If she felt fear she did not show it. “But if an eisiel felt... what we were doing then who is to say that one of your kanaala friends could not?”

  “One of them would have contacted me today if they had. Or I would have heard from... other sources.” A royal intelligence network was not the most subtle of beasts, but it was trustworthy on matters of dangerous women, at least.

  She continued to stare at the fire. “And what if more come?”

  Morghiad rubbed at his jaw. At least it was smooth this time. He really ought to put more effort into shaving. “I am going to teach you how to use a sword and I’m going to see that you do it with skill. You will need to be able to defend yourself when I am not around.”

  Artemi laughed aloud at his suggestion, golden hair bouncing as she shook her head. “Me? I am about as well-coordinated as a damp log and weak with it. Do you really think
an ordinary, average-sized woman like me could fight off a thing of nightmares? Swordsmen are supposed to look like you.” Her laughter began to subside. “I think all that Blaze has sent you mad, my kahr.”

  He suppressed a very strong urge to grab her and tell her precisely how mad she had made him. “I’ve seen smaller women than you haul entire trees up mountains and besides, it is not just brute strength you need. Speed is key. Coordination can be learned. The eisiel’s most deadly feature is its speed. Beat that and you could defeat one.”

  The kahr stood and went over to the item he had brought with him. He unwrapped it from the plain fabric and held it out with his arm straight. The balance was good: no knocks, warping or scrapes. He spun it in his hand and held the hilt out to Artemi.

  “A wooden sword? I’m honoured,” she said dryly, stepping towards it.

  “You’ll get a proper one when you’re ready.” Fire rushed down his arm as she took it from him. “But it is less basic than it appears. Its core is made of iron so that the weight is similar to that of a true sword. The wood is of good-enough quality to provide a sharp edge. And...” he rearranged her fingers on the hilt. “…it is the perfect size for someone with smaller hands.”

  She smiled as she looked down at her new acquisition, then looked back up at him. “Perhaps there is some sentiment in that pile of rocks you call a body, after all.”

  Morghiad ignored her inflammatory comment and watched her walk to the middle of the room. She turned the sword over in her hand and then looked over at him. “Are you going to show me how to use this or not?”

  He approached her to placed a hand at her waist, the other at her jaw. “Your posture is good, but it could be better.” He pulled her midriff back towards him, and raised her chin gently. Next, he adjusted her shoulders slightly. They were not too bad. “You must learn the basic forms first. There are twenty-three of these. Practise them every day and your skill will progress much faster. The first is like cutting a veil from the top, straight down. You start with your blade up here, arm straight. Keep some flexibility in the wrist. This is always your leading edge. Then you cut down like this.” He guided her hand through the entirety of the form, vibrations of Blaze Energy tearing through his body the whole time. He managed to push it to the back of his mind in the same way he dealt with pain. Artemi seemed to have adjusted to the sensation immediately; perhaps her several millennia on this Earth had given her an advantage in that respect.