Paladin thought his papá might change his mind again and take the sword back. The others in the room silently observed the impromptu exchange with the solemn manner of folk at a knighting ceremony.
When Rebelde stood before him, Paladin forced his eyes from the handsome scabbard of black leather, embossed with an ornate letter P, and met his papá’s stare. The image of a black, serpentine dragón clutching silver thunderbolts—Rebelde’s totem—appeared in Paladin’s mind as his papá’s pneuma entered his soul and slithered about, probing.
After a moment Rebelde nodded, satisfied. Whatever he had sensed within Paladin met his approval. He released the spirit energy and handed Paladin the sword. “On your birthday I feared you were too foolish to have such a weapon as this. But now I fear House Próspero’s retribution more than your recklessness. It is a manced sword of my own devising, though I am not certain the elemental properties will work.”
Paladin carefully, reverently took the sword from his father.
“Now,” Rebelde said, “We all Speak Steel.”
The first thing Paladin noticed about the sheathed weapon was the encircled Kamau thunderbolt within its simple cross-guard. But his eye was pulled almost immediately to the silver-blue mist swirling within the almazi crystal set in the pommel of the sword’s sculpted metal hilt. He leaned in close to study the tiny crystal and the mist swirling within. It beckoned him to touch it, an unspoken call to his soul he could not help but heed. He moved his finger toward the almazi, transfixed by the mercurial haze inside. It responded with a blinding burst of mance-lightning.
The thunderbolt flashed from the sword, lancing through him with such power it rattled his teeth and dropped him to his knees. Everyone else in the room screamed, blinded, surprised, and afraid. Everyone except Rebelde. His was a roar of pain, greater even than Paladin’s. And even though Paladin could not see the path of the manced thunderbolt, he sensed the energy slamming into Rebelde before returning to the almazi crystal in the sword with enough force to knock him back on his culo.
“Paladin?” Rebelde called in a weak, pained voice. Rebelde grabbed at him clumsily and yanked him to his feet. “Boy! Are you hurt?”
Paladin blinked and tried to rub sight back into his eyes. His body still tingled from the thunderbolt, but he was unharmed. “I am fine, I think.”
“No thanks to that Muumban witchery of your father!” Suki shrieked. “Were you trying to kill the boy, Rebelde? And us with him?”
Paladin rubbed his eyes and squinted at his papá. “What else does it do?”
“Niño,” his mamá said, “perhaps you should put the sword down for now. I would like to speak privately with your papá …”
“Fret not, Walli,” Rebelde said. “That was supposed to happen. I think.”
Paladin chuckled. The bright white afterimages of the lightning began to fade from his vision, and he noticed Walküre glaring at Rebelde, a rebuke on the tip of her tongue, then her expression changed. She rubbed her eyes and moved closer to scrutinize Rebelde, her face a mask of shock. “Rebelde! What has happened to you?”
As his vision cleared, Paladin saw what Walküre had observed and gasped, horrified. His papá was transformed. Diminished. Rebelde’s hair had gone stone gray; his face more creased than it had been moments before. He looked as if he had aged ten years in mere seconds.
Rebelde shrugged. “It has to do with the sword.”
“Of course it has to do with the sword!” Jambiax bellowed. “How exactly did you create it?”
“Trial and error, Baba,” Rebelde said. “Mostly error.” He turned to Paladin, grinning. “Draw it, boy. Draw the sword.”
Paladin hesitated. His body still tingled from the wild bolt of electricity. But it didn’t hurt overly much. His sore ribs pained him more. Besides, curiosity worried his mind like a skinny dog with a meaty bone. And Rebelde stared at him with brow-raised anticipation. What did the sword do? Paladin had to know.
He gripped the sword’s hilt and pulled. It came free of its sheath crackling with azure-tinted silver power.
And thunder came with it.
The weapon growled like a great storm gathering on some distant horizon. The walls shuddered before it. Suki shrieked fearfully. Paladin rolled the blue steel in his hand, relishing its light weight and perfect balance. Engraved along the flat of the blade were the words We Speak Steel.
He slashed the weapon through the empty air, and a trail of quicksilver light followed in its wake, hanging in the ether like ragged, glowing streamers.
“Stand back,” Rebelde said to the others. He went to the hearth, grabbed a stick of firewood, and tossed it, shouting, “Defend!”
Paladin reacted in accordance with his training. He shifted his weight to one side and parried. The steel touched wood and detonated, blasting it to splinters.
“Muumba’s Lute!” Jambiax said breathlessly.
Rebelde howled with laughter, tears of joy spilling down his dark brown cheeks. “It works! Blood and Thunder, I cannot believe it works!”
Walküre eyed him with a mixture of astonishment and worry.
Suki hissed, “Filthy Muumban magic! You witches will kill us all before you are done!”
They ignored her.
Jambiax shook his head, utterly amazed, eyes as wide as gold coronas, chin dropped to his chest. He tried to speak twice, but no words came from his mouth. On the third attempt he managed, “How?”
Rebelde said, “The theory for controllable, self-generating mance-lighting came to me during my studies in Mji a Dhahabu. I often daydreamed about containing such power within a sword or spear. On the night of Paladin’s birth, I decided to put the theory to the test. What better weapon for a patriarch of House Kamau? I prayed it would work. But I could not be sure until Paladin touched the sword with his own hand.”
“Kibwana,” Jambiax said, “my son, I do not believe there has ever been anything like this weapon you have created, not in all the long years of the Thirteen. You should present it to the Caucus of Eight. With your skill over the five elements, this creation would be enough to elevate you to full elemancer status. You would be Daktari!”
Rebelde shrugged. “Only death waits for me in Mji a Dhahabu.”
“I could fly you in.” There was excitement in Jambiax’s voice. “The regulations governing Wind Riders are atrociously lax. I could smuggle you right up to the palace and no one would notice. It will be nothing to get you before the Caucus. You could finish your animancy trials in an afternoon and present the weapon that night. You would be Daktari by morning and we would be on my rug and out of the city by evenfall.”
“Come with us, Papá,” Paladin said. “You too, Mamá! We could all go to the Nchi ya Kusini.”
Rebelde and Walküre gave him a decisive lack of enthusiasm. Walküre shrugged. “We will see, niño.”
Jambiax extended his hand for the sword. “May I?”
After an affirmative nod from Rebelde, Paladin flipped the sword in his grip and handed the hilt to Jambiax. The instant the weapon left Paladin’s hand, its eerie, charged light winked out. Its grumbling thunder silenced.
“This sword is linked to you, Mjukuu,” Jambiax said. “Your father has somehow fused the lightning elements of the sword to your specific pneuma signature. Those properties would work for no one else. This is a process that could have only been executed parent to child because of the shared soul components.” He looked up from the sword. “At least that is my theory.”
Rebelde nodded. “You have the right of it, Baba. Though I doubt I could repeat the process.”
“I doubt you would survive the process a second time even if you could repeat it,” Jambiax said. “You have secured a regenerating formula for mance-lighting within the sword and bound that power to Paladin, elemancy I would have thought impossible, but your greatest feat is how you have succeeded in powering the weapon. I sense a shred of your living soul in this weapon, Rebelde.”
“Your theory is correct, Baba,” Rebel
de said with a grin.
Jambiax handed Paladin the weapon. The second Paladin touched it, the sword crackled with silver-blue lightning.
“Astounding,” Jambiax whispered. “Rebelde, I am so proud of you.” Rebelde dipped his head respectfully. “Asante sana, Baba.”
“Storm,” Paladin declared, eyes fixed on the magnificent weapon. “Her name is Storm.”
Jambiax scowled. “Mjukuu, this may be the most exceptional weapon ever created by mortal hands, and the best you can think to name her is Storm?” He chuckled. “I fear you show far less inspiration in the naming than your father did in the making. Such lack of imagination must be the result of the Shimabito blood in your veins.”
“Storm,” Paladin insisted, and, as if in approval, the sword rumbled thunder.
“Storm it is,” Jambiax conceded, stepping away from the spark-spitting weapon.
PART III
Judgment. Condemnation. Vengeance.
Make war on evil without cessation or mercy.
—From El Libro Sagrado de Verdades, “The One God’s Truth”
Translation by Vicente Santo
Chapter Thirty
A King’s Dozen
Paladin sat on the bench, staring at the dusty floor of the dragón’s den. He ignored the Shimabito dancers performing “Hanashi no Torakiba,” though the eastern-style dance dramas were his favorite type of theater, and “Torakiba’s Tale” was his favorite story, whether it was danced, sung, acted, or read. Torakiba Kame of Tatsu-No had been the youngest of Blackspear’s paladíns. She had single-handedly slain an entire covey of banes while wearing a black cloak, manced by some long-forgotten process to render her invisible under darkness of night.
But Paladin could not concentrate on the show. Strategies, forms, and tactics trooped through his mind like soldiers on the march. He wanted nothing to distract him from his meditations, and luckily, the Shimabito’s performance this morning sounded as flat and gray as a hunk of slate, easy to ignore. Drud, propped against the wall next to him, also seemed bored by the show. Although it probably wasn’t the dancers’ fault. Any performer would seem lacking when compared to Zacarías the Bard.
Paladin deliberated on the most commonly used Ashi-Kobushi forms, the strikes he had seen the Runt favor in the past, the attacks best suited to the Nordling’s small stature, speed, and strengths. Then he considered the counters to those attacks, blocks, parries, and evasive moves of all four fighting forms, and then catalogued it all in his mind. The Nordling was deadly with fists, feet, and weapons, but it was the Runt’s sharp intellect that made him truly dangerous.
The Runt was a master strategist, remaining two or three maneuvers ahead of his opponents. He was cunning enough to anticipate an attack, and fast enough to punish his adversary when his presumptions proved correct. But if the Runt would be thinking three moves ahead, Paladin would strategize five. Paladin was an improvisational fighter, not tied to any one form or way of thinking. To beat the Runt, he would adapt in and of the moment should things go differently than he expected.
“Vato,” Drud said. He nudged Paladin with his elbow, rousing him from his schemes.
Isooba stood a few feet away, his expression as grim as the grave. Paladin rose to his feet and nodded a curt greeting. “Isooba.”
“I know what you did to Esmeralda.”
Confusion pushed one of Paladin’s eyebrows—and both of Drud’s—skyward.
Isooba scowled. “There’s no use denying it, Paladin. She told me how you tried to force yourself on her.”
“What?” Paladin could not believe his ears. “That is a damned lie! She kissed me. She was trying to turn me Vile—”
“Santosian!” Isooba shouted, and the other Prosperidad younglings in the narrow shelter turned toward his angry voice. Isooba continued in quieter tones, “It is blasphemy to call the faithful by that name. Esmeralda and I are in love. And we follow The One God. I will not abide your slanders.”
“You are a fool, Isooba. And I pity you.”
“Keep your pity,” Isooba snapped. “I only wanted to give you fair warning. You may be an infidel and a scoundrel, but I would not like to speed your soul’s flight with Golanv the Death Raven. You may still find redemption before la Guerra de la Condenación.” He lifted his wrist and jangled Esmeralda’s cheap bracelet of glass rubies. “Best you yield now. Go on home and save yourself a beating. With The One God on my side, I cannot be defeated. I will punish you for your mistreatment of Esmeralda. I fight for her honor.”
“Then you fight for a steaming pile.”
Isooba narrowed his eyes at Paladin as if he would attack him right there. Paladin’s smile dared him to do so.
“Death to evil,” Isooba growled. He turned and walked as far away from Paladin as the narrow dragón’s den would allow.
Paladin put the fool out of his mind. As far as he was concerned, Isooba was but a single stone in the paved path he had to walk to get to the Runt. He fingered the now-blunted bifurcated arrowhead he wore on a leather thong around his neck, a reminder of the Runt’s capacity for treachery.
“It’s time, Paladin,” Drud said, pointing to the Red Cloaks calling the younglings to prepare for battle.
Maga Cabróna stood at the entry to the dragón’s den, summoning the Oestelings. She shot Paladin and Drud a sour look as they passed her to join the river of armored young people spilling onto the game field.
“Should we join a King’s Dozen or start our own?” Drud asked, eyeing the younglings already separating themselves into groups of thirteen.
“Start our own,” Paladin said.
The rules of Melee had remained the same since the days of King Blackspear, for youngling and adults alike. Each combatant joined a King’s Dozen, a group of thirteen fighters from his or her kingdom. Each group would then battle the other King’s Dozens of its kingdom until a single team remained. Those warriors would then fight amongst themselves, producing a champion, a paladín, to represent his or her kingdom in the final battle to be named Black Spear, the greatest warrior in the Thirteen.
Two thousand seasons before, King Blackspear himself had competed in Torneo, believing he must prove his martial skill along with the other warriors. He defeated all the combatants from Prosperidad to serve his kingdom as its paladín and liege. He had agreed to battle the other twelve champions in a final contest that would decide leadership of the thirteen paladíns, but when the time came, none would challenge Blackspear, the hero who had united them. The other twelve paladíns knelt at the king’s feet, laid down their weapons, and yielded. Unfortunately, such cooperation between nations had died with Blackspear. It had been the only time in history when not a single kingdom was at war with another.
Paladin set his mind to the task of choosing teammates and studied the younglings milling around the arena. Two things struck him as potentially advantageous. First, the other young warriors were separating themselves according to gods worshipped and disciplines practiced. Second, the pura-sangre refused to allow any of the blended younglings into their King’s Dozens. The snobbiest among them would only team with pura-sangre from the Oeste Verdadero section of Westgate, turning their noses up at the purebloods so poor they must live among the híbridos of Ciudad Vieja. Paladin smiled as he realized that these were silly biases he and Drud could exploit.
Drud tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to an anxious-eyed group of blended younglings surrounding them. “I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble choosing a King’s Dozen.”
A blended boy with strident red hair asked, “Is it true you’ve been kicked out of every temple in the city for beating up the other disciples?”
“No,” Paladin said. “Well, not exactly. I—”
“I heard it was the monks he beat up,” a half-Oestean, half–Kusini Watu girl said. “Nearly crippled Sensei Quicksteel from Temple Seisakusha!”
“My mamá says you’re loco,” said a big and brawny half-Nord, half-Oestean boy, “but I don’t care. Urbano
Del Spicebringer and his vatos híbrido-bashed my brother last year. Anyone with the cojones to punch that pura-sangre cabrón in the mouth is someone I want to team up with. I know I can’t beat you, but together we’ll shed some pura-sangre blood before it’s all over.”
The rest of the enthusiastic blended younglings shared that sentiment. They cheered Paladin, all of them eager for payback against the pura-sangre.
Drud laughed and patted Paladin on the back. “It’s good you are famous, vato. We’ll have our pick of the blended fighters.”
Paladin quickly explained to Drud his plan to include fighters schooled in each of the four disciplines when choosing their team. He fought with a combination of the four disciplines, though for Suki’s sake, he would adhere to Ashi-Kobushi, at least until he faced Fox the Runt. Drud was physically strong and well studied in Eisenfaust. That left eleven empty slots in their King’s Dozen. They would avoid what Paladin saw as a flawed strategy of building teams of the same discipline, which would also mean the same strengths and weaknesses. Their King’s Dozen would be made up of a varied group of fighters who could compensate for each other’s shortcomings and enhance each other’s strengths. They split up and quickly interviewed the blended Oestelings vying for positions on their team.
It took only a few minutes for Paladin and Drud to assemble a full and well-balanced King’s Dozen. They had four burly Eisenfaust fighters, including Drud, and three small but quick Ashi-Kobushi. Most of the hopefuls were el Combatedanza–trained warriors, so he took on four to make up for the lack of Ngoma ya Kifo fighters. They could only get two warriors to represent Muumba’s fighting style.
There were quick introductions made all around and Paladin shared his strategy with the group. They all nodded at his reasoning when he talked about the weaknesses and strengths inherent to each fighting system. He was vehement about their need to work together, even as Blackspear’s paladíns had done a score of centuries before.
When he was done, Drud looked over the team, a strong balance of power, speed, and agility. He grinned, nodding respectfully. “Schöpfer’s Teat, vato. You are as shrewd as old Blackspear himself.”
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