by G. D. Penman
Kaius watched her and wondered if this was how her grandfather would fight. He was rewarded for the distracting thought by narrowly avoiding a thrust towards his midsection. She was faster than him and she kept increasing in speed, she was well past the limit of called speed and sacrificing the power of her strikes, intent on getting past his defences and landing a touch, however light.
She was getting frustrated but she focussed that intensity into her tight movements. Kaius leapt away and she charged in once more, giving him no time to think, no time to counter-attack. He made one feinting thrust at her as she charged and she skidded to a halt, making a half dodge to the side, expecting Malius' ridiculous over-extension.
He danced back across the glass, keeping his footing but staying well out of her reach, denying her the contact she was obviously desperate for until she did exactly what he expected of her, bringing her two swords together in a shimmering blur and stripping the steel off her back to extend the blade in a great rippling spike towards him.
He set his feet again and slapped the flat of his blade against the side of the lance. He dashed forward, blade scraping along the side and throwing up a shower of sparks. She was recalling the steel around herself rapidly, trying to remake her weapons and armour, but with speed called, Kaius was faster than the quicksilver. He spun around behind her and playfully smacked the back of her thighs with the flat of his sword.
Echoing out of her helm he heard a squeal of surprise that twisted into a growl of fury.
He took a step away and released everything, taking deep slow breaths. Metharia spun at him with her swords back in hand, she swung them cleanly under his chin one after the other a hair's breadth from his throat.
She released her steel and turned away to spit onto the glass, her eyes were watering and her cheeks were red. She pointed a finger at him and tried to articulate her anger but it just came out as a loud grunt.
He bowed to her politely and watched her hands as they clasped into fists then released. Eventually she bowed back. They heard the Chosen of Vulkas approaching before they saw them and were both in full formal armour and facing towards them as if they had never been fighting.
The first of Vulkas' Chosen came over the dune, their armour had a solid face plate and the decoration seemed to be composed primarily of solid looking spikes, either designed to catch blades or to impale attackers. He bowed to Kaius and Metharia and gestured back across the ash dunes.
The head appeared first, then the shoulder spikes. The body took much longer as it rose up. It was only when its waist drew level with the top of the dune that perspective re-asserted itself.
The second of Vulkas' Chosen was close to nine feet tall and six feet across its shoulders. Its armour seemed to bear marks of its great muscles pressing outwards, curvatures and dips that normal called steel would not produce. It was so tall that the light of the Ivory City glinted off of the top of its helm.
Kaius could not think of it as a he, only as an it, no human was so large. In the Trial of Steel, calling speed and strength were forbidden. This beast would shatter his steel and bisect him with a single blow. This creature could crush him between its thick fingers without calling even a touch of strength.
Both Metharia and the first and smaller of Vulkas’ Chosen released their steel and gave formal greetings. Kaius had never seen the people of Vulkas lands outside of their armour. They had even darker skin than Kaius but their eyes were larger and more rounded. Those eyes reminded him of Lucia's for a moment, then he set all thoughts of her aside. They would not help him now.
***
Lucia barely noticed that Kaius was gone now that she saw the thick cords running across the sky. As he left with the other Chosen, she watched the cords swell and pulse with light, different intensities and patterns played out and she realised that she could replicate them.
These were a simple weaving that she suspected she could create without even conscious thought. It would drain her, as every action she took in this other reality did, but she was still convinced that her new-found power would return in time. It made no sense otherwise. If you ran, you became tired. After rest, you regained your strength.
She lashed together the patterns that she had seen soaring overhead. She learned how to tether them to herself and then she drew on them gently. She looked down at her hands, her strength still draining away in a trickle and she forced the double pupils of her eyes back into their normal shape so she could make out the shape of her own flesh beneath this new pulsing tangle.
Her hand was flexing and twitching spasmodically. As she looked closer she could make out a cloud of dust and ash drifting away from her as her entire body minutely vibrated. Lucia rose to her feet, looked to the glow on the horizon and ran faster than she had ever moved in her life.
She made it over a half dozen dunes before she looked down at her feet for an instant, saw the blur and then tripped over herself. Falling forward and tumbling until she rolled up onto the packed ash of the road's surface.
Still shaking and flailing around she rose to her feet between the wagon tracks. Bit her teeth back together to stop their chattering and ran again. By heat-rise she was in the city. Having finally shattered the new weave before it completely drained her of life, she staggered through the city gates, utterly ignored. She was just another girl from out in the dark, here to see the show.
She found an empty shop on the edge of a slum and collapsed into the doorway to sleep. She gave a quiet prayer to any Eater that was listening that she wouldn't be disturbed until her energy came back, but she wasn't confident that anyone was listening.
The weave was still there. She could feel it burrowing under her flesh like an intrusive vine, but without her power flowing into it there was no more shivering. Just the dull ache of having changed.
***
Each step that Kaius' colossal opponent took made a clanging and clattering sound. He had not even made the pretence of conversation, he just watched as it walked along beside him. It had no fault in its balance, its movements were free and easy, unhindered by any old wound he could exploit. He appreciated the simplicity of its tactics.
It did not even look at him. It did not acknowledge his existence, much less that he could be a threat. It would be overwhelmingly demoralising if he had not already lost all hope. His only real chance would be for one of the other Chosen in the trial to fight this mountainous creature and kill it in the first round. The odds were not in favour of that particular outcome. So they walked and he watched and after several hours they began to gently call speed to get them to the city by cold-fall.
Atius greeted them on the plain before the city gates. He was chewing on a thick strip of dried meat, possibly some sort of proof that Negrath's servants were better fed. He bowed deeply to the visitors but his eyes only left the giant for a moment as he nervously sized up Kaius in comparison.
They were about to pass through the city gates, formalities fulfilled when Kaius and Metharia both sensed something wrong and came to a standstill, both cocking their heads from side to side before calling their weapons. Kaius shouted out to the circle of curious onlookers,
“Get inside or get on the ground. Now!”
Most just looked confused, a few, more educated, more scarred and more obedient subjects fell to the ground dragging their families and neighbours down with them as the piercing, all enveloping screech echoed off the city walls and across the plains.
Kaius and Metharia dropped into low crouches, eyes darting around the pitch-black sky, seeking their attacker.
Before they were even spotted, the owls fluttered down to land amongst the prostate crowd. Their great talons carved up the cobblestones of the road and drew blood from those unfortunate enough to have been beneath them when they landed.
With their wings spread, the owls cast shadows out across the farmlands. The people from out in the dark, far from civilisations safety, cowered in terror at the gigantic apex predators looming over them with their
huge golden eyes and their dusky feathers.
Kaius moved to put himself between the pair of owls and the mass of people pushing past towards the safety of the city.
Metharia was circling around behind them, seeking a better position to strike from. One of the owl's heads swivelled to follow her as she moved until it was facing directly behind itself.
Kaius turned to look for Atius and found him bowing politely to the owls. A pair of women dismounted from the complex looking saddles attached to the owls’ backs. They wore tattered grey robes in the cut of choice for the Chosen, the colour, or lack of colour, marked them as servants of Walpurgan, the Witch Queen. They both had pallid skin and eyes like ice. They were so similar that Kaius would have gambled that they were twins.
One made a clicking sound with her tongue and the owls spread their wings wide once more and launched themselves into the air. They came to roost atop one of the towers spaced around the city walls and then were forgotten in the cavalcade of greetings and politeness that followed as each of the Chosen was introduced to each of the others.
Kaius groaned internally at both the endless prattle of it all and the depressing knowledge that he would have to do it all over again when the Chosen of Ochress finally arrived. He cast a longing glance first out into the dark then up towards the central spire of the city.
He had never been so far from home. He nervously hummed a tune to himself before he noticed the attention that it drew to him and stopped abruptly.
They marched through the city together, all eyeing each other carefully as they went, with the exception of the gigantic Chosen of Vulkas, who strode on as if the streets were empty. They arrived at the great courtyard in front of the city's central spire. Up on his balcony, Valerius looked no larger than a flea, a distant dark mark on the side of the ivory.
Through some trick of acoustics or called power, his voice echoed and resonated through the city. “Chosen servants of the Eaters of the Gods. I welcome you to our city. When heat rises next on this world, you will prove your master's strength in the strength imparted to you. You will prove their wisdom for choosing you to represent them in these trials. And of the four Chosen in each contest one of you will prove that your master deserves our respect for that choice. Die well, Chosen, and bring glory to your Eater and their Beloved.”
Kaius was certain that Valerius was looking at him as he said the final line of his well-practiced speech.
Through the cold cycle Kaius was essentially confined to his quarters, followed around by the other Chosen of Negrath to ensure that no mischief befell him. He moved restlessly from that room out to his courtyard and ran through the forms of Bone over and over and over. He thought that he should probably be in steel, moving through those forms. But that didn't calm him and it was peace of mind that he required. The clarity to think when heat-rise came.
At one point, he heard Valerius’ voice echoing through the throbbing streets once more and he knew that Malius had returned with the Chosen of Ochress. They were all here now, there would be no delay. Only the public drawing of lots while he was confined in the gladiator's cells, and the inevitable Trial of Steel.
Chapter 7- The Bloody Circle
Lucia woke twice in the night, startled by a booming voice that she took to be another hallucination. She was still feeble and aching all over, so she drifted away again soon enough.
When the first heat came, she was nearly blinded by the crackling blue lights bursting to life all around her. She saw a pattern within the lightning, similar to the one she called in flame.
She wondered where the power came from, enough to light a city. It would kill her to light a quarter of these lanterns. The power that she had found inside her was not returning. It was finite and she had squandered so much of it in her fever and madness, both down in the dark and rushing to the city for nothing.
She felt like weeping, damned her foolish hopes and let rage settle into the base of her stomach. She made it to her feet although she seemed to be carrying a leaden weight on every limb.
She shambled along with the crowd, following them through the packed streets and crushing bodies. There was an unfamiliar structure ahead that they were dragging her into. A great round building made up of ivory arches with no roof. Inside the moving tide of bodies, she twisted around, taking in the knotted bands of light all around.
Throbbing veins of power burst up from the packed sand floor of the arena, coiling off over the distant horizons. But as she watched, being jostled along towards the cheap wooden seats, a dark coil wrapped its way around each one of them, dragging them together and constricting them until only a faint silvery thread was left.
The seats up here in the stands, so far from the ring, were practically splinters. She saw some man in robes at the centre of the arena, calling out the names of the Eaters in pairs in the same bone rattling voice that she had heard rolling over the city through the cold time. She had no idea of its meaning until she saw steel-clad men emerging from either side of the arena.
They ran at each other. From up in the stands it was hard to make out the exact action taking place but one of them seemed to be a woman and the other seemed to be a man wielding a spear. Lucia was distracted again by the silvery threads leading away from the contenders, she could make out the patterns and pulses that covered the contenders in steel. As she watched one fluttered and then snapped back over the horizon, untethered from the man in the ring. She did not know how much time had passed but the crowd around her had screamed itself hoarse.
One woman was weeping openly, another a few rows down from her was handing out little bags of silver talents to grinning gamblers. There was blood on the packed sand and the victor was walking in a wide circle around the corpse.
She held her red tinted daggers up to the empty sky then released her steel. She was as bald as all the other Chosen, but it was hard to notice under the complex patterns of floral tattoos that covered her head and exposed arms.
Lucia's vision snapped back to normal and she staggered back and landed on the bench. Exhausted beyond reason, aching and confused by the visions that haunted every moment she was awake, she tilted her head back and open her eyes to the peaceful sky. Here in the city it was a flat black colour with none of the depth of the stars.
It all spun around her and when she looked back down she knew that some part of her mind must have broken because instead of two men entering the circle there was only one. Entering from the other side was a creature from the oldest songs. She started humming the Giant's Lament and the crowd around her soon picked up the tune.
Music in the upper classes of the city was a complex affair of discordant notes and overwhelming complexity but the common people had close ties to the farmers and traders. They knew the old songs and the Giant's Lament was one of the oldest.
***
If there was no hope then all that mattered now was for Kaius to die well as Valerius had so passively requested in his speech. He still held some hope. If the beast was slow or stupid he may find his way around it. It was a small hope, you were not Chosen if you were slow or stupid, no matter your size and strength. Vulkas' Chosen had already called a great-sword and was waiting for him to come with the massive slab of metal slung casually over its shoulder.
Kaius called his steel, trying to ignore the hundreds of faces staring down at him, trying to take deep breaths and relax. He cleared his mind as if he was about to go through the forms. Kaius called out his simple curved sword and took his stance.
Nothing so huge had any right to move so swiftly. No sooner had Kaius called his blade then the great-sword was already lashing down towards him. He stepped to the side, out of the forms of steel, already off balance. He didn't have time to regain his footing before the sword was already coming back across at his head. He ducked underneath then let his perspective shift.
He fell into the Forms of Bone where attacks were avoided, not countered with force. It gave him enough control to dance around the next
three mighty, impossible swings. His breath was already coming hard and ragged, echoing strangely in his helmet, deafening him.
He released steel and without the armour's weight the next strikes seemed to slow. With the power of the weapon being swung at him his armour wouldn't save him anyway. The attacks seemed effortless, the giant's strength was so overwhelming that he could handle that great slab of steel like it was weightless.
Kaius watched closely as the blade swept past his face again, the broad centre tapering to a razor edge. Step by step, strike by strike, the giant drove Kaius back over half the length of the arena, almost to the gate by which he had entered.
One last overhead hack came down at Kaius and he sidestepped. When the blade stopped a hair's breadth above the packed sand, he knew for certain. He kicked the side of the blade as it was rising up and stepped inside the reach of the sword. His face pressed against the jagged front of the giant's armour.
He called his own steel as the Chosen of Vulkas back-handed him away casually. He heard the hollow metal echoing in his ears. The front row of the crowd saw his head snap back, his body fly and a savage grin appear on his face before his helm reformed over it.
He rolled to his feet and side-stepped another vertical slice. In his left hand he formed a sword-catcher, a sort of two-pronged fork. In his right he formed a hammer. His armour trickled away and thinned as he added more and more mass to the hammer.
He leapt back out of reach of another slice then stepped forward as the gigantic blade swept down towards him. He caught it with the sword-catcher and the impact rattled up his arm. Then he swung the hammer and snapped the hollow sword in half.
