It took them several minutes to find the creatures. They were gathered near the center of the thicket, where a tiny clearing opened in the trees. Windrunner could have stood in the middle and touched a tree on either side with outstretched hands, but it was more open than any other place in the grove he’d seen.
It was filled with mazahnen.
They squatted on pillows of air created by their ballooned legs. Their “heads” were leaning to one side or the other, some resting against the body of another. It looked like they were asleep, but Windrunner couldn’t tell for sure. They didn’t have eyes to close, or noses to snore from.
Windrunner tried to count them, but they were piled atop one other haphazardly. Did that head belong to those legs? Had he counted that mazahn twice, or that one at all? He couldn’t tell.
There were a lot. That was as much as he needed to know.
Brinelle stepped up behind him. “Be quick and silent. We do not want to disturb them,” she whispered in his ear.
Windrunner nodded, sidestepping to the right to reach a creature that rested apart from the others.
Where to strike? There wasn’t a conveniently exposed neck or obvious weak spot in their leathery skin. He raised his sword and slashed with all his strength, hoping brute force would do the trick.
It did. The blade sliced through the mazahn, spraying blood and gore across the grove.
Windrunner spun to the others, ready to pick another target. Brinelle had felled a mazahn of her own, the conical body crushed like a paper hat. Apparently they weren’t quite as tough as Windrunner had feared.
Brinelle smacked another mazahn with her staff, and Windrunner sliced another open with his sword. The remaining mazahnen were stirring, disturbed by their companions’ demise.
Windrunner felt a surge of energy surround him, the same bubble that had protected him the last time he’d faced the mazahnen. He remembered what Brinelle had said about the mazahn crushing his skull without it. It didn’t exactly give him a lot of confidence for the coming battle.
Not like he had much choice.
Windrunner and Brinelle leapt into action, attacking any mazahn within reach, trying to kill as many as possible before they woke. They were able to weed out a few, but within seconds the thicket erupted in a mad frenzy. The trees prevented the mazahnen from launching an aerial attack, but Windrunner learned these creatures were not defenseless on the ground. Mazahnen swarmed around them, bashing Windrunner and Brinelle with their strong, barbed legs. He hadn’t expected that to be such a danger—those legs might be short, but they were powerful enough to break bones. Whatever energy Brinelle had put around him blunted the impacts, keeping his bones intact, but he was still limping and bloodied from the attacks.
Windrunner struggled to keep on his feet. If the mazahnen managed to make him fall, he was dead.
Some mazahnen climbed up the bloodwoods and threw themselves off branches, but a sweep of Brinelle’s staff would send them flying into the other mazahnen instead. Several were killed by the open jaws of their fellows.
Windrunner’s legs were bruised and covered in cuts. His balance was precarious at best, his feet slipping on sand and mazahn corpses and blood. His sword was coated with gore. He could taste it, sour and metallic on his tongue.
He swung and stabbed at any beast within reach. His sword-arm felt heavy and slow, and he felt his weariness from the hike more profoundly than ever. He’d lost track of how many he’d slain, or how many times Brinelle had smacked a creature away from him. He’d gotten a few that were threatening her, but he had a feeling Brinelle had saved his life far more than he’d saved hers.
He was about to strike down another mazahn when a prickling sensation crept along Windrunner’s spine. He looked around. Now what? Did the mazahnen have some other trick he hadn’t seen?
He looked to Brinelle. Power, undeniable and indescribable, flowed from her. Windrunner knew this was intense magic, the power of Creation at work. He’d seen Brinelle’s kakutra naan, had felt her magic heal his cheek. This was the same, just … more. A lot more.
“Clear the area around you,” Brinelle shouted. Her voice sounded strained, like she was trying to hold back a flood with her bare hands. “And get back!”
Windrunner swept his blade in a wide arc, slicing through the nearest mazahnen and pushing others away. He backed himself against the trees, fending off any mazahn brave or stupid enough to follow him alone.
He stole a glance at Brinelle. Her face was drained of color, her concentration so intense she ignored the mazahnen clamoring around her. She looked like she was in pain, but there was peace in it, too—like this was hard, hard work that she loved more than anything in the world.
“Windrunner, down!”
He didn’t stop to think. He dropped to a crouch, tucking his head between his knees and praying some mazahn didn’t think he looked like a perfect target.
A concussion of force and heat washed over him. The air turned scorching hot, enough to sear his lungs as he inhaled. His entire body prickled with the sensation of raw magic.
Windrunner had never really understood what “knight-priestess of Evantar” meant before. He did now.
It lasted only a few heartbeats, but Windrunner stayed down for several more breaths. His limbs felt jittery and his gut churned with power so cold it burned. His mind … his mind felt so alive and energized he could burst. He felt as if he had woken up for the first time in his entire life, that the world was so much more vivid than he’d ever dreamed. And it was his for the taking.
A hand touched his shoulder and he lifted his head. The mazahnen were gone. Even most of the corpses had been charred to cinders.
Brinelle was crouched beside him, concern and interest on her face. He could sense her magic, wafting from her like steam. “Windrunner? Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he replied. He stood, leaning a bit on the tree behind him for support. He felt dizzy, his mind spinning. “Yeah. I’m good.”
He looked back to Brinelle. She was still watching him, noting his every move and reaction. She didn’t seem surprised.
“You knew I would react like this,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he was accusing her, or asking her.
“I suspected.”
He took a few breaths to clear his head. He felt weak and lightheaded, like he hadn’t eaten in a day. “What does it mean?”
“That,” she said, pride evident in her tone, “was your introduction to magic.”
5
Windrunner knew he should try to get some sleep, but that seemed impossible. His entire body was alive with so much energy he couldn’t even sit. He had to keep moving. He paced around the tiny clearing, rubbing his hands together, touching the trees he passed, muttering to himself.
It was all too much to take in. The flood of power that had overtaken him … it had been more intense than anything he’d ever experienced before. He hadn’t even known it was possible for something like that to happen.
He glanced back at Brinelle. She was sitting on the opposite side of the clearing, stripping leaves from the bloodwoods around her and dropping them into a small pot. The movements reminded him of his mother and the way she used to shell beans for dinner. She seemed calm, though her eyes tracked Windrunner like a hound.
“Of course,” he whispered. “‘There is no hill without treasure beneath.’ That’s what you meant when you said I was the hill. You saw the magic inside of me, didn’t you?”
“You could not have activated the portal without some magic in your blood. Nor could you have activated whatever power was in the map. Anyone with a small amount of skill can see it flowing through you.”
He forced himself to sit, facing her from across the pot. She looked at him but did not stop stripping leaves.
“Teach me,” he said. He hoped his tone and posture conveyed how desperately he wanted this. “I want to understand.”
She studied him for a moment. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
He met her eyes. “Everything.”
“Then I shall start at the beginning.” She paused for a moment. “There are two basic magics in the world—the power to Create, and the power to Destroy. While they may manifest themselves in different ways, they can always be segregated in this manner.”
As she spoke of Creation magic, she summoned her kakutra naan again. Windrunner stared at the globe of water, mesmerized. She let it hang there a moment before dumping it into the pot. Handy trick, especially out here. At least they didn’t have to worry about having enough water.
“So you used Destruction magic on the mazahnen?”
“No. I Created fire, which I then used to defeat the mazahnen. Had I used true Destruction magic, I would have needed nothing but my own power. The mazahnen would have ceased to be.” Windrunner’s skin grew cold at the thought. Not that there was magic governing Destruction—but that it sounded so interesting.
His expression must have looked like confusion, because Brinelle scooted closer and explained. “The act of magic was not destroying the mazahnen. It was Creating the fire. What I did with it once I summoned it was up to me. I chose to destroy, yes, but it was not my magic that did so. My magic Created.”
“All right. I get that.”
“These two magics used to be one. That is the way they’re supposed to be—together, balancing one another.”
“So how do the Shahadán fit into all this? And these Remnants we’re collecting?”
“Ages ago, those who practiced the darker parts of magic grew greedy, as they always do. They tried to capture the magic for themselves.” She stirred the bloodwood stew simmering in the pot. “They took a stone from Ziah, the Isle of the Gods, where all magic originates. They had devised a ritual to extract the power from the stone and imbue it into themselves.”
“Let me guess. Something went wrong.”
“Catastrophically,” Brinelle said. “When they were stripping it of its Destruction power, the stone shattered. Its Creation power was diminished, splintered into parts too small to be effective, while the dark magic escaped.” She shuddered and seemed to have trouble continuing the story. “That magic congealed into what we call the Shahadán. They are the embodiment of Destruction and death, all the ugliest parts of the magic.”
“Which is why they’re so hard to kill. They’re not creatures, they’re magic—and their entire essence is death.”
Brinelle nodded. “And that’s why we’re collecting the Remnants. They’re pieces of the stone of Ziah. Pure Creation magic—the antithesis of the Shahadán. We hope they’ll give us enough pure magic to drive away the Shahadán.”
Windrunner paused. “You hope.”
“The last, and only other time, the Shahadán came into our world, we still had complete magic. It was that power that was able to contain the Shahadán and create the separate reality to contain them in. Now all we have is Creation. None of us know whether it will be enough. We believe so, we hope so, but we cannot know.”
“Isn’t there anything else we can do? There has got to be some other way we can fight the Shahadán.”
Brinelle stirred the stew. “There is one possibility …”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know if it’ll work, Windrunner. It could be a waste of time.”
“Anything that might help is better than nothing. Besides,” he gestured to the trees, “not much to do around here.”
“You must train. Chatana drosand is an exercise you cannot afford to skip.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “How long until we reach Ta’ranq?”
“A week, perhaps more.”
“And then who knows how long to find the first piece of the Remnant, let alone the other two. We’ve got plenty of time.”
Brinelle seemed to consider this. Then she nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.” She glanced to her side, where her white staff rested against a tree. “It is possible to imbue weapons with the magic of the user.”
Windrunner’s eyes were drawn to the staff now, too. Is that why it felt so intimidating? That piece of wood had some of Brinelle’s magic inside it?
“When a person with Creation magic makes a weapon with their own sweat and blood, a portion of their power is reserved inside the weapon.”
“You mean, it’s infused with the power of Creation.” Windrunner couldn’t help but grin. “And the Shahadán are creatures of Destruction. They would be opposites.”
“Correct. However, I don’t know if it will make much of a difference. The Shahadán are vastly more powerful than any one person. Whether the magic infused into a weapon will be enough to injure them is yet to be seen.”
He paused, tracing designs in the sand. “If we got into a fight with the Shahadán, and that weapon ended up being useless …”
“Your death would be all but guaranteed.”
Windrunner glared at Brinelle. “Thanks.”
He continued drawing random designs, thinking. Could he accept the risk of going into battle with an unreliable weapon? If it worked, it could save their lives and countless others. If not, he’d charge in like a brave little moron and sacrifice himself to the Shahadán. His quest to destroy them would be over before he could do any damage. Sticking with the Remnants was the safer bet by far.
But Brinelle had said they wouldn’t have time to collect all the Remnants before the Shahadán arrived. Which meant they were almost certain to have at least one encounter with the beasts. If he went into that battle with an ineffectual staff, he’d be dead. But his odds of survival wouldn’t be any better if he went in unarmed. It wasn’t like he would save himself with his stellar swordsmanship or anything.
His gaze traveled to the somewhat straight bloodwoods at the center of the thicket. “You fought the mazahnen with your staff. Could you teach me?”
She nodded. “We can use your chatana drosand training to teach this, yes.”
Windrunner rummaged through his pack, pulling out his hatchet. A few strokes felled a sapling that looked about the right size. Blood poured from its severed trunk, but Windrunner paid it no mind. The ground was already drenched in blood from the dead mazahnen. A little more wouldn’t make a difference. He settled himself back in his place and began cutting branches from the trunk.
The rhythmic motion helped calm his thoughts. He’d spent many hours doing this kind of work back home, whether making furniture or for something to do with his hands. It had always been soothing to him, helping him calm the frustration of monotony and bullying and anger. It was a trick he’d learned from his father.
The pang in his heart caught him off guard. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to think about home. He’d thought about it a lot since getting stuck here, but he hadn’t felt genuine homesickness until now.
He glanced up at Brinelle. Did she feel the same way about the monastery? “How hard was it?” Windrunner asked into the silence.
Brinelle glanced up at him, the question clear in her eyes.
“Leaving Evantar.”
BRINELLE KNEW he meant no harm, but the question hit her like a physical blow. “I haven’t left Evantar. I’ve simply … taken my leave for a time.”
“They let you do that?”
She didn’t respond. Silence answered the question better than words could have.
Windrunner flung a long curl of bark into the fire. Wisps of dark smoke dissipated into the treetops. He didn’t say anything, either.
Silence didn’t usually bother her. But now, she found herself scrambling to fill it. “The Godspeaker has been ignoring the founding principles of the Evantar knighthood for years. More than a decade has passed since the last hunt was condoned. He’s making a mockery of us and allowing evil to parade through the world unchecked. I could no longer sit by and wait for his blessing to do what I have been called to do.”
“You keep mentioning things like that. Hunting … what was it?”
“Varyah.” Just saying the word made her want to hit something.
&n
bsp; “That’s what the Godspeaker accused me of being,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“We who possess Creation magic are Evantar. Those with Destruction magic are Varyah.”
“So they’re like your opposites?”
“‘Nemesis’ would be more accurate. They are a blight. Their magic is capable of nothing but massacre and mutilation. It’s our responsibility to see them wiped from the face of the world.”
“No mercy, eh?”
Brinelle met his eyes. The smile vanished from his face. “Varyah do not deserve mercy.”
Windrunner cleared his throat, looked down, and furiously stripped more bark from his future staff.
Brinelle closed her eyes and breathed. She knew she shouldn’t allow herself to get so angry. But the thought of Varyah stirred so much within her. So much hatred. So much pain. It wasn’t fair for her to spew all that at Windrunner because he asked.
“What can they do? I’m guessing since you hate them so much it’s more than blowing stuff up.”
“They are masters of Destruction, just as we are masters of Creation. What good can be done by Destroying what already exists?”
Windrunner shrugged. “You could Destroy hunger, or war, or death.”
Brinelle shook her head. This was easier to discuss. “There are two principles for the working of magic: the first is the more ethereal the concept, the harder it is to enact. Creating water or fire is easy, because they are real objects. We know what they look like, smell like, how they work, what they’re supposed to be able to do. Concepts like hunger are much more complex. What exactly is hunger? Are you speaking of physical hunger, emotional hunger, spiritual hunger? How does that particular hunger feel to that particular person? Is it severe, life threatening, or a simple ache? Each question such as this makes the magic more difficult to work, and it does not take many questions to make it too complex for a person to do.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“The second concept is that of absence. I cannot Create darkness—there is no such thing as darkness, only the absence of light. Similarly, I cannot Create cold, the absence of heat, or death, the absence of life.”
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