Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)

by Michael Watson

  He seemed not to notice her at first, focused on stirring a ground powered herb into a cup of faintly steaming water. It smelled strongly of the Morgwood, though Tyrissa couldn’t place the herb exactly. Liran spoke true, Ferdhan was an easy friend to make and a lifesaver for the trip. Tyrissa tore through Tales in a matter of days, but the old merchant’s stock of books could keep her occupied for months. Granted, most of it was drier stuff, related to economics and guild politics, but there was enough to hold her interest.

  She set the first book she borrowed from him on an empty corner of the fold out table, a collection of mildly heroic stories from the Khalan Federation.

  “Miss Jorensen,” Ferdhan said with a strong voice that bore the rare crack, like the bricks of an old building. “How did you find Men like Griffons?”

  “Fun, but implausible. Half the stories involve the Striking Talons and they seemed a little too…”

  “White-washed.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. The Talons were a mercenary company that served across the old Khalan states. The griffon was their symbol, though it seemed a common mascot for the entire book’s cast of characters.

  “You’re not wrong. That book’s been reprinted a few times now, each time sanding down a few more of the company’s rough edges. Like most of the old mercenary companies, they turned to more legitimate ways, focusing more on the ‘company’ portion, rather than the ‘mercenary’. It’s a bit of a propaganda tool for them, especially since their security services have become more popular in recent years. I would characterize their contributions to that volume as true, if well sanitized versions of excerpts from the company’s record books.”

  “Do you have anything dirtier?”

  Ferdhan paused mid-stir, thinking. “Did I loan out…” he muttered, reaching into the depths of his wagon.

  “Ah. You should read this,” he said, handing her a well-worn book with a faded gold cover. “A King Brought Low. That is required reading if you’re going to live in Khalanheim. Everything you need to know about Khalans is in that book, one way or another. It’s the closest thing we have to a national story.”

  Tyrissa quickly riffled through the pages. “No author?”

  “Too many contributors,” he said. “Half of the fun is figuring out how just how inflated each story or account is, but everything is in there, from the birth of the guild system to the opening of the Rift to the fall of the last king. It’s a blood-spattered history of gold and power.”

  “Perfect, thanks!”

  “Anytime, miss.”

  Book in hand, Tyrissa wandered the ruins toward the riverfront, where the evidence of piers and docks lined the water like broken teeth. She found Liran near the river, standing atop a cargo wagon parked in the shade of the tall trees that lined the waterway. Their first week in the expanse had no shortage of sunlight and she was thankful for any shade she could get. Even the river spoke to a fallen glory, the water levels far below the broad sloping banks on either side.

  The wagon carried one of the caravan’s giant water casks. Between the wagon and the river, two other guild men wrangled with a pump attached to two long hoses. The far end was already submerged into the river, and Liran adjusted the other into an odd, box-like contraption with a wide faucet positioned just above the cask’s hatch. The styling and embellishments along the edges of the device didn’t match anything else she’d seen in the caravan. The Khalans preferred straightforward designs, slapped with identifying logos and emblems. This machine had flowing water motifs etched into the wood, pretty but unnecessary.

  “What’s all this?” Tyrissa asked, climbing atop the wagon to join Liran.

  “It’s a little marvel made in Felarill. They tend to know their water over there, and have created a way of purifying even the most dubious of wild sources. It uses an elchemical filter crafted with water magicks to clean it. Watch how murky river water goes in and…”

  The two other guild members began working the pump. Seconds later a flow of perfectly clear water came through the spout and into the cask.

  Tyrissa grabbed a tin cup perched on the cask and tipped it into the stream of cleaned water. The cup overflowed quickly, the excess water running over her hand. The water was hot, fresh from a kettle that hadn’t enough time to cool, and she drew in a sharp hiss of breath, yanking her hand away.

  “You all right?” Liran asked.

  Tyrissa dropped the cup and rubbed her hand. She expected a minor burn, but her skin was its normal hue, unharmed. A lingering warmth pulsed through in her hand, like her blood was heated. She bent to pick up the cup with her other hand, and found that the metal was cool to the touch.

  “The water, does the filter heat it?”

  “No,” Liran said, brow furrowed with a careful look. “It’s direct from the river. Should be quite cool.”

  “I thought it felt…” she trailed off. The feeling began to fade as the remaining heat in her hand dissipated.

  “Ty—”

  “It’s nothing, Liran, just my imagination.” She gave him a broad but forced smile. “Too much time in the sun.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tyrissa turned Tsellien’s cloak clasp over in her fingers, feeling the alternating sides, one smooth, the other embossed with the winged shield design. She carried it often, tucked into a pocket or pinned to a sleeve. It was all she had of the second woman to give her life and brought a strange comfort. On restless nights like these she would stare at the symbol in the dark, trying to extract meaning or direction. She never succeeded.

  The night was warm and clear, the stars a dazzling carpet of light over the infinite grasslands of the Vordeum Expanse. With each day the aurora slid further away, its light growing faint. Once nearly close enough to touch, the dancing ribbons were now an indistinct haze on the northern horizon. The constellations of her youth followed and new, unknown stars crept up from the south to replace them. The nights grew darker as the aurora receded, darker than she ever thought possible. The thought of a truly black aurora-less night, every night, brought a small shudder. Tyrissa began to think of nights with trepidation, fearing those idle moments when she had nothing to occupy her thoughts but unanswerable questions. She wrestled nightly with what would come next in Khalanheim. Though still hundreds of miles away, the city loomed ever closer, and Tyrissa had no idea what her next step was. Nothing came of her Pact in those days, neither ability nor a sense of how she would ‘prove herself worthy’. All she had to go on was a rumor, a slim chance half a world away.

  Little fuels insomnia like self-doubt.

  From her perch in the open doorway of their cabin, Tyrissa watched the procession of night. A pair of empty bowls of the evening’s stew sat to one side and her staff on the other, one end protruding into the air with her dangling feet. Below, between the caravan’s camp and the raised surface of the Heartroad, was a ring of man-made light cast by lanterns and those curious glass orbs that emitted a clean white light, like handheld stars. The majority of the night’s guards lounged around the lights, mostly guild men mixed with a handful of mercenaries. A pair of mounted patrolmen would pass by every few minutes, their slow circuit of the caravan’s camp marked by the lights they carried, like twin beacons in the darkness. Sometimes they would exchange places with those sitting in the glow of the lanterns. It seemed armed guards outnumbered the merchants now, though some appeared to be a little of both. The caravan’s mood hardened with the approach of the infamous Vordeum Wastes. Liran said that the options for crossing the Vordeum Expanse and Wastes were either raw numbers or raw speed. Obviously the second wasn’t applicable to the caravan. And so more members of the caravan walked around armed, ready for what might emerge from the shifting grasses or oncoming cracked wastelands.

  The guards had a sparring circle going within the pool of light, filling night air with the intermittent clack of wooden weapons and the shouts and jeers of the audience. Since sleep proved so elusive in recent days, Tyrissa found herself watching the nigh
tly bouts from afar. She had fallen out of practice since the fight with the daemon, dismissing the lethargy as having other things on her mind. That was true, but not a valid excuse. The itch to join in was becoming unbearable.

  Tonight a tall, broad shouldered man dominated the sparring circle. Tyrissa had seen him a few times before, one of the mercenaries hired in Morgale, joining the caravan the day they set out from Tavleorn. He was a class apart from the guild men and other mercenaries. When he fought, he was a whirlwind. His sword and shield were always in the right place to deflect his opponent’s strikes and his footwork had an impeccable swiftness that defied his size. Tyrissa didn’t find the guild men particularly interesting to watch, but this one had that proper quality. That of a man with stories.

  After bowling over yet another opponent wearing Khalan North’s blue and blacks, he spread his arms in triumph shouting, “Is that the best ya’ll have tonight?” his voice thick with a foreign twang and bearing none of the frustrating speed of Khalan speech. The response was inaudible from where Tyrissa watched but no one showed any enthusiasm for another round, preferring to busy themselves with the remnants of their meals or chatting.

  He wasn’t perfect. Tyrissa could see a few openings in his style, vulnerabilities that could be exploited by someone with a little more reach: an open knee here, too much weight on one side there. It was a fleeting, subtle sloppiness best seen from a distance, impossible to spot when he was in front of you, sword whistling through the night air. It was time to try her luck and shake off the rust. Tyrissa’s hand went to her staff, and she pushed out the doorway, sliding down the slopped skirt of the North Wind to the ground.

  Her entry into the sparring circle provoked murmurs and a few quiet laughs. No one stepped up, and the man she sought to challenge stood back turned at the edge of the circle, his shield resting against his leg. He was handsome in a rugged, life-of-battle sort of way, square-jawed with a crooked, once (or more) broken nose. His arms bore a host of minor scars and his face had the beginnings of a collection of age-lines. Clean shaven though, that threw her off the most with respect to these southern men. What was a man without a beard?

  “Garth, how’s that thing comin’ along?” he said to a seated man that shared his features, though a few years younger. Brothers, if she had to guess. On Garth’s lap, he tinkered with a device bristling with springs and gears that looked to be the heart of a larger machine.

  Garth replied with a series of hand gestures, turning the box and pointing emphatically between signs. Tyrissa then saw the long line of pale scar tissue that ran down Garth’s throat, as if his windpipe had been torn out and rebuilt. He must be mute but given that wound it was remarkable that he lived at all. A large crossbow built of polished, cream colored wood and crowned by an elaborate loading chamber sat at this side.

  The taller one shook his head saying, “Only got about half that. Show me.”

  Garth pointed one end of his device away from the circle and pressed a lever. A spring snapped out, followed by puff of dirt rising from the ground. He then flared the fingers of both hands out, like an explosion.

  “What do you reckon it’ll cost, all told? Couple hundred?”

  Garth shook his head and rubbed thumb to forefinger in the universal sign that needed no translation.

  “Thousand?”

  A hesitant nod.

  “Should be worth it, if only to see it go off proper.”

  Garth’s eyes went to Tyrissa. He motioned in her direction, as if presenting a gift.

  “Ah. How rude of me. A new challenger! Why would ya’ll leave this little lady twistin’ in the breeze?”

  “Well, now it’s entertainment,” said a voice from the crowd.

  “You might be in over your head,” he said to her.

  Tyrissa replied with a few deft swings of her staff and said, “It’s been years since ‘little’ was accurate and believe me, being in over my head is familiar by now.” He only had a few inches over her, at any rate.

  He barked a short laugh and said, “Well, let’s go then. I’ve been surprised by less.” He hefted his shield up and strode to the center of the circle. His every motion was thick with an easy-going relaxation, as if he were out for a stroll. As they squared off, Tyrissa felt that anticipatory tension return, and welcomed it like an old friend. One of the watchers gave a quick countdown.

  He shifted from utterly relaxed to a headlong charge, and Tyrissa couldn’t help but think it like facing down on of the mastodons. The forms and motions of her training came back easily, muscle memory proving more reliable than mental. She deflected his first attacks with ease, but knew he was holding back compared to earlier. They were experimental strikes, feeling out her defense. The thrumming impacts then ramped up, his shield shoved her off balance, and the flat of his blade smacked against her right side and she was dead.

  Well that was quick.

  “One-Oh,” he said “Again?”

  Maybe it was the ease with which he beat her, smiling all the while. Maybe it was the laughs from those watching. A bit of anger flared and Tyrissa gave her staff a twirling flourish and lashed it out, aiming perhaps a little too close to his head for a sparring match. He raised the shield just in time, with a short chuckle. She pressed the attack, letting loose a controlled flurry of strikes, alternating between high and low but avoiding patterns. Always he had the block ready, or danced away from the trip. It was infuriating. An overextended attempt at a trip rewarded her with a firm kick to her staff, the steeloak slipping from her hands. He stepped in and bowled her to the ground with a shove from his shield.

  Lying on her back, Tyrissa sighed and let the jeers and laughter from the spectators wash over her. Let them have their ‘entertainment’. She was the only one up here fighting him.

  “I like your determination, kid. Or your stubbornness. Kexal Rawlins,” he said, extending a hand to help her up.

  “Tyrissa Jorensen,” she said, accepting. “Again?”

  “I’m always willin’ to deal out more punishment.”

  Kexal never gave her a chance. He only got better with each round, those openings she thought she saw from the barge were nowhere to be seen. Tyrissa thought she was good, knew she was the best among her fellow trainees back in Morgale. That was pure youthful cockiness and as phantasmal as Kexal’s weaknesses. Kexal’s ability wasn’t just skill: it was art, like a dance only he knew the moves to. She would be in awe if she wasn’t constantly defending, failing attacks, or getting knocked over. After five more rounds, Tyrissa rested on the ground staring up at the stars and catching her breath. The laughter and taunts had ceased. Either it stopped being so damn funny or they realized that she was doing better than they could.

  This has been a learning experience. There is always someone better.

  Kexal leaned over her and said, “I’ll hand it to you kid, most people give up against a Weapon Master after three rounds.”

  “Weapon Master?”

  “Sealed and Certified. Academy of Tillmoore, class of ‘45.”

  “Well, that explains it.” Tyrissa just went seven rounds against a champion of the fabled martial academies of the southern nations, places that have spawned heroes for centuries. The ‘mistakes’ she thought she saw earlier weren’t openings at all. He was taking it easy on the other guards. He had little of the looks of, say, the golden-haired exemplar from The Crossed Blades tales, but actions speak louder.

  Tillmoore. She rummaged through the stories she’d read and came up with Kexal’s homeland: Jalarn, a coastal nation northwest of the Khalan Federation. Their heroes always, to a one, were riders, their horses often an equal part of the story.

  “Gotta say, you’re not bad, kid. Better than some of these guild jokers. Doubly so for a blushin’ flower of a lady.”

  “Not as great as I like to think I am.”

  “No one is,” he said. “I’ll tell you what, you keep comin’ back each night we’re out here and I’ll keep knockin’ you on your ass until you
get better. Deal?”

  He extended a hand to help her up one last time for the night. It was near time to turn in, she needed rest for the next day’s mastodon tending.

  “Deal,” Tyrissa said.

  The nights passed easier after that, Tyrissa too tired from days of tending the mastodons and evenings of sparring to let the worries in her mind be a barrier to sleep.

  The ancient road crested a ridge to reveal a wide valley of bright green, geometric farm plots separated by irrigation channels and dotted by farmhouses. Orchards dominated swaths of the farmland, trees arranged in long, neat rows. Harvesting crews worked among them, gathering a rainbow haul of produce. A dam made of the tell-tale stonework of Vordeum blocked a river in the middle of the valley and formed a large reservoir. White flows of water poured from the base of the dam, collecting in a smaller, lower lake before flowing in an outflow river that snaked into ever-drier lands. Boats bopped on the surface of both lakes and drifted downriver. A town clung to both sides of lake, crowned in dozens of places by the ubiquitous stone columns of a fallen empire. There were two constants for the last month of travel: the road below their feet and wheels, and the ruins of Vordeum, those gray and white ghosts that accompanied their journey. Thus far, the world beyond Morgale was more ruins and empty space than civilization. If they traveled the Heartroad, where was the heart?

  Gone, no doubt. Like near everything else along this road.

  Just as Tyrissa was about to ask the name of this place, Anton said, “This is Roduun, one of the few places where the work of the ancient builders of Vordeum still functions. We’ll be stopping early here. Prep the lines.”

  They stopped in an open field near the edge of town. Once the mastodons were settled, Tyrissa found Liran overseeing the North Wind’s crane as it lowered the largest of the caravan’s water casks into a wagon fronted by a team of six horses. Similar scenes played out across the caravan in addition to the customary deploying of traveling shops for the locals. Already some of the townsfolk made their way towards the caravan bearing woven baskets, some empty, others with brightly colored fruits to sell to the travelers.