by Richard Nell
Kale felt no weakness from the effort, no limitation, as if the justice of his cause became bitter fuel, and he almost chanted, it matters why.
He flew forwards, seeing two more pirate guards emerge from the ruins holding swords. He took their bones, and shattered them.
He floated over the iron door feeling energy crackle all around him, gathering more threads of power from the sky as he dragged clouds over the exposed palace, ready to smash back anything and anyone that came too close.
Several warriors stood in the waiting room, and Kale raised his hands to seize them before the door burst open and another man emerged.
“Don’t harm them, Prince Ratama. I am here. It’s me you want.”
Kale blinked as he heard Pyu common. He looked at his enemy, and like the others he was a white-skinned giant, but his head was entirely hairless. His face was darkened as if by dirt or soot. He held his hands raised as if in submission, four fingers on his left. And his eyes, his were yellowed gold.
“You...,” Kale felt the rage inside him falter. “You’re…the giant. You’re Ruka, from my dream.”
‘Ruka’ nodded. He spoke in a foreign tongue to his men, but Kale understood with his spirit.
“Put your weapons down and leave slowly. Do not approach me, and do not approach him. Everything will be fine.”
The men showed concern as if for their leader, but obeyed, and Ruka backed into the throneroom. Kale descended slightly and followed, Asna and Osco close behind him.
“I did not expect you so quickly, and am unprepared. We must speak,” said the giant. “There is much to explain.”
Kale’s faltered rage returned and grew. His dream was irrelevant next to reality.
“Speak? Now you wish to speak? As you wanted to speak on the beach? As you wanted to speak before you attacked this city? Now when you’re at my mercy, now you want to speak?”
Tendrils of power wrapped around the abandoned weapons as if on their own, and Kale bent and twisted the metal apart.
“Your father is alive. He is coming now,” the giant looked at the weapons and winced. “He brings Lani and your son, all your brothers, Kikay. None of them have been harmed, I assure you.”
“Oh very noble,” Kale hissed, unable to process this and anyway not impressed. “You kept your hostages intact. And what of the common people, Ruka? What of the field of graves of children I passed? What of my dead men trampled on the beach? What of the hunger and starvation from the trade you’ve ruined on every coast of the world? Have you harmed them?”
“You’re angry.” The giant continued to withdraw. His tone seemed almost unrepentant, unafraid, the same iron will from Kale’s dream. Less than a day before the man’s advice had been useful, and this alone nearly made Kale rip him apart. “But you do not understand,” the giant continued. “The situation is complex, prince, you must be patient and listen.”
“Be patient? You…lecture me? You think to tell me anything?” Kale saw threads drifting beneath his father’s useless throne, and ripped it to shreds. He lifted guest chairs and broken pillars and flung them just past the giant’s head. “I should kill you.” He grit his teeth. “I should rip you and all your savages apart and leave you as bloody stains in my ancestor’s sea. That would be the justice those children deserve.”
Ruka watched him and at this seemed to show at least a morsel of regret. “Disease knows no justice, Kale. But if you wish vengeance, then take it now. I am a killer, yes that’s true. Every corpse you saw in your ‘dream’ was dead because of me.” The man’s golden eyes moved back and forth as if he were seeing them now. “Many wailed or begged, yet I did not or could not spare them. I have tortured. I have deceived and broken laws which should never be broken. So yes I am a monster, prince, punish me. But my people are blameless. They have come only for a better life. If you destroy them you are the same as me.”
Kale looked on the giant’s ugliness and now felt repulsed. “We are nothing alike. Your people will be allowed to get back on their boats and go back where they came from. That is the mercy I offer them.”
The child-killer’s jaw clenched. “What you offer is not mercy. There are fates worse than death, Prince of Paradise. You would not know.”
Kale said nothing because words would not change what had been done, and he would not change his mind. The giant’s face twisted. Though he was within a single effort from death, still he had the arrogance to speak with anger.
“You have no right. You think now you’ve seen suffering?” He laughed a desperate sound. “You who rip apart the great walls built by your forefathers? Who disdains all they have given you? Your safety, your wealth, your words? Do it, then. Use that strength and kill me. But don’t you stand in judgment. Not you, prince of nothing. Make your claim with might. Look into the eyes of those you doom to misery and say ‘I choose life for mine, and death for yours.’ For that is your right, but spare me your indignation.”
Kale twitched, disbelief at the man’s tone. He felt only a white-hot killing rage being prodded by an insect, and that words meant nothing to dead children. Only the man’s help in a strange dream world gave him pause. The giant saw it, and sneered.
“Still a child. Do it, sorcerer. Do it because if you do not I will kill you and end this farce.”
Ruka drew the sword from his back and came forward, and Kale seized threads all around him. Still he felt a strange reluctance, but thought of Osco with a blade to his throat telling him to act, or die.
Despite the confusing, irrelevant words, Kale already knew enough. No ‘complexity’ could justify what had been done. He grabbed the threads hanging all around him to make it brutal, but quick, seized the man’s almost blurry shape as it loomed before him, and pulled.
Chapter 73
Ruka stood in his Grove with his arms out, and waited for death. He knew his tone with Kale had been wrong, even foolish. But since Bukayag had woken on the beach he felt an old part of him renewed—a part that had always wanted to die, perhaps, and in this moment felt relief.
It was finally over. Since Beyla’s death he had always wished to pay a price. Since the day he had dragged a knife through his mother’s throat, he had done many things to raise the cost. All his life he’d been willing to pay, and felt no bitterness.
Kale was angry now, but killing Ruka would sober him. Beneath it all he was no doubt a good man, and with time Farahi would convince and educate him. The alliance would stand. Kale would use his magic to help protect them all and maybe stop Naran, and who knew what else was possible. Ruka had done enough.
The dead crowded around him as he waited, and he could see pleasure in some of their eyes. No doubt they would laugh, if they could. If they could speak they would spit and froth as they wished him eternity in hell for what he’d done. But not all.
Boy-From-Alverel stood before Ruka with tears in his eyes, and Ruka reached out to wipe a drop from his cheek.
“Perhaps there is another place for the dead,” he smiled. “If you have no family, we can live together there and build with wood and iron, stone and clay. You have become a master craftsman, my friend. The greatest smith in all the world.” He felt his own tears and blinked them away. “I am sorry for your death. But…I am so glad you were with me, all these years, right to the end.”
He took the boy in his arms, then looked to Girl-From-Trung’s pit, who waited behind. She smiled and touched his face as he looked to the others. “I am sorry,” he called, voice cracking. “I…tried. I tried to make it worth something, to make our deaths matter. I do not ask for forgiveness, for I know there is none. Goodbye.”
Already he could feel Kale’s power surging into his body, but he did not close his eyes. Ruka opened every sense in awe of the power, wishing only that he could understand it—this, and so many things—before he died.
The world remained so full of potential, and he wished he could have spent his life unraveling its secrets instead of washing it in blood and bringing a people across the sea
. Perhaps I will be re-born, he thought hopefully. Perhaps, after my suffering, Noss will spew me from his mountain to try again. I would like to be a bird, I think.
“Goodbye, brother,” he whispered. Bukayag still lay mostly dormant, yet twisted in rage—a beast trapped behind bars and poked with spears it couldn’t reach. Ruka had overcome him long ago. He faced his death with arms open and head high. Paradise or hell, he was not afraid.
The magic closed around him, searching, crushing, unraveling. The boy’s eyelids narrowed, his face slackened as if in intense concentration. The world changed from storm clouds and tapestries of Alaku silver to red, and Ruka’s face sprayed with his own blood.
But he felt no pain. For a moment the land of the living and the dead seemed equally still, as if both waiting to observe the damage after great disaster. Ruka opened his eyes.
In his Grove he blinked and tasted wet copper. He looked down and saw the mangled, half-exploded corpse of Boy-From-Alverel, who lay on the grass in peaceful repose, more dead than he had ever been.
Ruka looked on the Sorcerer-Prince in the land of the living and saw confusion. The handsome young man’s eyes twitched, and his hands balled to fists. The air in Ruka’s Grove shimmered with heat, and two more dead men ripped apart.
Bukayag woke. As if his cage had been smashed by whatever the prince had done, he burst from his shackles screaming like Noss, ready to fight and kill anything and everything.
In both worlds the sky roiled and descended as a mighty storm approached. Ruka did not know how or why he was still alive. But it made no difference. He walked to his armory and lifted a metal club. He thought of the moment after he had killed Priestess Kunla, thinking to let a boy strike him down and end it there. But then, too, the fool hadn’t been up to the task. Ruka would not stand idle and die to incompetence.
“Protect yourselves,” he spoke to the dead, “make ready and get to the fortress, the river, and the estate. Whatever comes.” He felt his pulse race—the same as it had when he’d sailed North to an unknown sea. He had always thought to face a god with his own two hands, and die as some legend of old.
“Stop me,” snarled Bukayag, his voice hoarse from disuse, “and you deserve to.”
* * *
Kale tried again to rip the giant apart. As he pulled at the threads and forces attaching him to the world, the man’s body shimmered. A darkness seemed buried beneath his skin, flickering with black patches that soaked up Kale’s threads of power. Now the darkness emerged, a shape the same size as the giant, pulling forward with difficulty, as if trapped in chains.
Claws extended from the huge warrior’s gnarled hands. His golden eyes mixed with red blotches, his thick lips and angled teeth sprouting into a maw of fangs. The shadow sprang forward, consuming the threads of power around it—a shadow seen only with Kale’s spirit, a shadow like the one that spoke to Master Lo outside the Batonian temple. As it came free, it howled.
Kale had no time to think. He seized more threads and didn’t try to be precise, or cautious, or humane. He simply gathered as much power as he could reach quickly, trying to shatter the giant and everything around him.
The shadow hissed and growled, but just as before, the energy entered it, and simply vanished. Ruka charged forward. A weapon grew from the shadow’s fingers until it rested in the man’s hand.
Kale watched the armored frame of the foreigner loom ever closer. A part of his mind told him he could fly, that he could destroy the palace beneath their feet, or do something else entirely—but for that single deadly moment, his body froze in fear, an animal staring as a predator struck.
He blinked as metal clanged against metal and a wheezed breath followed. Kale twitched and fell back, and the giant staggered a pace as Osco’s shield slammed against his chest. The Mesanite’s shorter blade knocked the killing blow swinging away, and the high-pitched ring lingered in the air.
Stopped you, said the Mesanite’s eyebrows. He rolled his shoulders, and moved between them.
Rain pattered on stone from the open ceiling, and Asna drew his blade and cracked his neck. Ruka breathed as he stood to his full height. He breathed the wet air as if he had not smelled it in a decade. Then, incredibly, he grinned.
Kale’s spirit watched as threads of power sucked into the man’s shadow and vanished entirely. Ruka’s body wreathed in flames, then sheathed in iron. It grew up his arm until it formed a shield, and watching the process, Kale could only imagine it as the shadow eating the world.
In two huge steps Ruka crossed the distance, his sword slashing with such strength and speed the air hissed with the blade. Osco sidestepped and deflected it, returning with his own hit against the giant’s shield. They sprang apart, taking a similar stance, almost mirrored for a moment—though the Mesanite was two thirds the size of his opponent.
“Kill him, islander. And do it quickly.” Osco didn’t take his eyes from the giant.
Kale breathed and stepped away until his back was to the wall. He tried to eject as much fear and frustration as he could, summoning his beach, darkness, and a calming fire by the sea. “I’ll need a moment.”
Asna snorted as he circled Ruka’s flank. “This next moment is very long moment,” he said, and even Osco’s eyebrows smiled a little.
Kale looked at his friends and saw something like pleasure in their eyes—as if this were some glorious moment to be glad for. Not for the first time, spirits help him, he thanked fate he’d befriended warriors.
He burned his thoughts and focused on his breathing. His spirit rose up into the roiling sky he’d summoned, and reached for every thread of power. He gathered it around him like armor, swimming in it, abandoning himself to it. He already had his reason, and he no longer needed tricks or even a spirit-house. He gave himself to the power and danced amongst the threads, ready to direct, or to command.
He could tell he’d hurt the shadow before, though it seemed it could absorb power similar to Kale. No doubt it weakened like he did, too.
So be it, he thought. You’ve come to the wrong place.
All around him energy seethed and twisted—brought by the rains, dwelling in the seas and beneath the earth. Even if Kale had to pull it all apart, he’d fill this dark ‘spirit’ to bursting.
Let’s just see how much you can take.
* * *
Ruka’s brother ignored the flanker, shield-charging the man between him and his goal. The steel of his heavy round-shield clashed with wood and bronze and cracked it as he pushed. It seemed near impossible for the smaller man to resist, and yet he did. The prince’s little bodyguard jerked and pushed with his whole weight, angled and straight like an oak beam.
Bukayag snarled, abandoning his charge and striking, but the warrior ducked and swiped at his feet and pushed him away in reflex. As he stepped back his enemy shield-charged in return and sent him staggering to keep his balance.
The other warrior—’Dog-Nose’—leapt and tried to pierce his side. Ruka took one look at the light blade of shoddy iron and ignored him entirely. It struck mail, then again before the warrior leapt away. Bukayag almost laughed.
The heavens above them both flared and roared with light and sound. In his Grove, the gentle fog had condensed, the space above them consumed with thick, dark cloud so heavy even Ruka’s eyes couldn’t pierce it. Wind howled through the world like baying wolves. Lightning struck the earth, igniting fires in the grass and gardens and the raised wooden infrastructure of the mine. The dead ran to the river, gathering brackish water in pails to fight the flames, even as they ripped apart or jerked and spasmed, their bones seeming to try and escape their bodies.
“We have to stop him,” Ruka shouted over the noise, “and quickly.” He ran to his armory and stood before a hundred tools of war, letting his brother understand. Anything you need, he thought, looking at Beyla’s house as the foundations shook. He must be stopped.
Bukayag growled, maybe this time in pleasure. He had waited a long time for such a moment. He seized a ja
velin first, stepped back from the warrior in his path, and threw.
The hardened spike sailed on target, but the bodyguard spun and slashed his sword in a perfect strike, deflecting the spear enough it pierced the stone wall by Kale’s arm.
Bukayag snarled and seized a war-pick—two feet of steel spike made to punch through shields, or armor, or almost anything. He spun first to thrash his shield against Dog-nose, who still hacked increasingly painful blows against his back. The man danced away, throwing a red, silk cloth in the air as if to cover his retreat. Bukayag blinked in confusion, and barely turned aside as two knives flew through the fabric and narrowly missed his face.
He flinched as lightning struck the earth near his feet, a thunder crack knocking him to a knee and throwing over several tables lined with weapons. It hurt his opponents more—both flew away and cried out as they sprawled.
Bukayag rose first, throwing another javelin. This time it somehow bent in the air and missed as if blown by the wind. He snarled and charged, but the air itself seemed to hold him back like deep water. The bodyguard leapt before him again, and Bukayag sunk his pick straight through the pitiful shield.
The warrior grunted and pulled away as Bukayag thrashed and tore the protection from his arm, seeing blood stain the grip. He threw the pick aside and pushed on, ignoring the man’s sword as it bounced off the chain guarding his neck.
He dropped his own shield and seized the bodyguard’s throat, lifting him and carrying him forward into the harsh, unnatural winds as he squeezed.
“Spear,” squawked the warrior in Naranian, both his hands now on Ruka’s, trying desperately just to stop his life from being crushed. But Bukayag was too strong. He raised him high, then reached for another javelin as he turned his gaze to Kale.
Ruka heard a voice calling over the storm, and kept his brother still. It was Farahi.
“My son! Stop! Stop this, Kale!”
