Awakenings

by C. D. Espeseth

  “I completely agree,” High King Ronaston said and slowly stood, reaching his full height nearly a head taller than any man in the room.

  Yuna of course still stood taller, and Adel saw Yuna had unstrapped the great golden sword from her back and now held the massive weapon at the ready, though thankfully had not yet drawn the blade.

  The High King picked up his great warhammer beside the throne and casually swung it up into his hand, tapping the head against his other hand idly. “Somewhat rude of you, Lady Buika. Would you care to explain yourself?” The malice in his words was akin to a wolf baring his teeth.

  “Did you not think to invite a representative of the Faith to deliberate on a matter such as this, Your Majesty? It seems a very egregious slight on your part. I’m sure this must all be a terrible misunderstanding.” Lady Buika smiled, yet her body was poised like that of a panther, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.

  “I’ll ask you one more time before I start crushing skulls.” The giant man’s voice went quiet, and Adel saw a hint of a smirk on the High Kings face as if he welcomed the fight. “What are you playing at?”

  The intruders took a step back at the cold detachment in the voice of the High King, and it was then Adel noticed a few Hafaza step from behind the pillars to her right. They had been in the room all along but were hidden somehow. They were looking confused but were standing with glaives ready and had taken positions within the High King’s ranks.

  “Yes, you see? I did invite representatives of the Faith, ones which I can trust. Your answer had better be a good one.” The giant hammer, began to spit sparks as the santsi globes in the High King’s armour flashed from dark to nearly white, in a display of just how much power he could siphon almost instantly.

  Adel had backed away from both parties with Matoh, yet the great doors had been closed behind them.

  Lady Buika had hesitated when the rival Hafaza had stepped from the shadows to join the High King. Apparently, her control over the religious warriors was not complete.

  “Adel Corbin is the rightful heir to the Bauffish throne. Her true name is Adel Mercurio, daughter of Tabitha Mercurio. She is the sole survivor of the assassinations carried out by those who called themselves the True Faith, the same Singer faction who joined you in the Union Wars. Adel’s family was killed by the True Faith during the Navutian raid of New Toeron, and the ugly truth of it was buried in the confusion.” Lady Buika still stood ready to strike, but her tone had changed to that of frustration and a touch of desperation.

  The answer halted the High King’s advance, as he had begun to step towards the intruders looking ready to deal with them all single-handedly if need be. The head of his warhammer had begun to crackle with the energy he was holding, small arcs of power curling around the head as if it was the centre of a miniature lightning storm.

  “So, this is the plan then, the plot Senior Prefect Stonebridge warned me about. To replace me with this girl. Supplant me with a leader of the Faith and the State all at once.

  “No different than the plan you have for your own daughter, except Adel Mercurio is the rightful heir to the Bauffish throne, not a usurper.”

  “And what of the Nine Nations? Are they meant to fall in line behind your new puppet simply because she has a blood tie to the people who used to sit there?” The High King pointed to the throne he had just left with the crackling end of the war hammer. A small tendril of electricity skipped onto the throne and back as he pointed.

  “Most of the other rulers would be happy to see the end of the warlord who presumes to rule us all. Your efforts in the Unification Wars will never be forgotten, but it is time to step aside. It serves no one’s interests to have a killer attempting to govern us.”

  “Does it not? I think this ‘killer’ knows how to handle a few things well. Treason, for instance. I know exactly how to deal with that.” Ronaston Mihane’s voice was colder than ice, and it was then Adel saw what the High King had seen. One of Lady Buika’s Hafaza hadn’t come in with the rest of her entourage, but through a servant’s door and had been creeping up in the High King’s blind spot, or so the would-be assassin thought.

  “Your High-” Adel tried to warn.

  She need not have worried.

  The High King spun so fast it beggared belief. With two-hands on the elongated hilt, he swung the war hammer in a sideways arc. All anyone saw was the burning afterimage of the swing.

  CRACK!

  The enemy Hafaza raised his metal-clad spear to block, but the hammer shattered the reinforced spear as if it were a twig. Energy exploded into the man from the head of the Warhammer, and everyone else had to shield their eyes. It was as if a sun had just burst to life in front of them.

  Adel saw the High King’s attacker fly backwards to smack against a pillar on the far side of the room. The man had hit with so much force his spine had shattered, and there was nothing but a smoking hole where most of the man’s chest had one been.

  Lady Buika looked shocked and horrified.

  Yuna had Hunsa drawn and had crouched into a defensive stance as had the group of intruders.

  The High King held up a hand to Yuna. “Stay by my daughter’s side, Yuna. I’ll handle this.” He turned back to Lady Buika. “You never fought with me in the field during the Union Wars, did you?”

  Somehow the High King’s santsi globes were already back to full capacity. Adel marvelled at the demonstration of siphoning power she was witnessing in front of her. It shouldn’t be possible to pull that much in so fast.

  The High King took two more steps towards the intruders in his throne room and once again the head of his war hammer was spitting arcs of electricity.

  “You fought on the Paleschurian front, my Lady, did you not? I suppose I can forgive you some naiveite. You probably never believed the stories others told you of what I could do to those who wanted to put us back under their heel.”

  He took another step forward.

  “Keep pushing,” the High King’s smile was now feral, and his eyes gleamed with anticipation, “let me show you.”

  One of the Syklan’s Lady Buika had brought with her stepped into the High King’s path, his blade already drawn and his own pauldrons glowing with siphoned energy.

  The Syklan slashed forward in an attempt to protect Lady Buika.

  “TRAITOR!” The High King bellowed as he stepped inside the man’s swing and smashed his elbow into the traitorous Syklan’s face, the electrical energy cracked through the metal elbow guard staggering his second attacker backwards.

  The High King grunted as he swung the war hammer overhead.

  The staggered Syklan tried to raise his weapon, but as the hammer swung down, they all felt the whoosh as the High King siphoned in akin to an Orcanus herself breathing in. The very air began to snap as all of the heat within a dozen paces was pulled into the High King’s trisk. Snow and ice formed almost instantaneously around the enemy Syklan and the head of the descending war hammer.

  The man’s raised sword shattered in the deadly cold’s onslaught, as did his helmet, face, head, gorget and most of the man’s upper chest.

  The war hammer arrested its movement around the dead Syklan’s mid sternum.

  “The Hammer of Orcanus,” Matoh whispered in awe, “I thought that attack was only a legend.”

  Echinni covered her mouth in horror at the shocking violence of it as the sudden silence choked the room.

  “Now you see why my people could not stand against him,” Yuna said in grim reflection.

  The High King’s siphoned energy from his cold-strike sizzled across his armour. He thrust the weapon forward, and the dead man’s icy remains flew from the hammer’s head with another immense blast of electrical energy.

  Ronaston eyed the weapon and then looked down at his sparkling trisk showing just beneath his gorget with a satisfied nod. “Tell your father I am very pleased with his new design, Matoh Spierling. He has outdone himself this time.”

  The High King
took two more slow steps forward and stopped a few paces from Lady Buika and tilted his head in curiosity.

  “Would you like to see if a Hafaza’s Presence can take me down, and what I can do to counter that? Or are we done here?”

  Everyone in the room could feel the High King’s eagerness to continue fighting.

  “No…we are done, Your Highness,” Lady Buika said in horror as she held out a hand for her followers to stand down.

  Silence filled the room for a heartbeat.

  Every story Adel had ever heard about the High King she knew now to be true, yet during the High King’s demonstration of power, the immense power he had wielded around them had affected her also. The flow of energy within her had begun to rise again, and the pain of too much flow was coursing through her once again. Her hands were shaking with the effort of holding it in.

  “Adel?” Matoh asked. His voice and note of concern broke the silence. “You need your sword. Damn it, Sir Garrick! Please!” Matoh called across the room.

  Sir Garrick, of course, had his own sword out and was eying the intruders warily. “What is it, Matoh? I’m a bit busy.”

  “Adel needs her sword, if she doesn’t get it, things are going to go very badly for everyone here,” Matoh said as calmly as he could.

  “Threats are not helping, young Spierling,” Sir Garrick said through gritted teeth.

  “Sir, I mean no–” Matoh started, but then all eyes turned to Princess Echinni, who had been forgotten in the violence around them. Her face was pale with the shock of her father’s display of strength, but she somehow maintained an air of calm as she began to slowly walk down the steps towards the palace guard who still held Adel’s sword. Yuna trailed like a great shadow of death, and the look on her face spoke of just what would happen to anyone who stepped in the princess’s way.

  “Give that to me,” Echinni said, and the stern note of authority in her words straightened more than a few backs in the room, but in surprise rather than defiance.

  Sir Garrick did as he was told.

  Echinni tilted her head thankfully and held the black scabbard and blade gently in her manicured hands. Her brightly painted nails conflicting horribly with the lethal weapon in her hands as she slowly walked down the stairs to where Adel was now visibly grimacing and contorting under the pain pulsing through her body.

  “I think you need this,” Echinni said almost distractedly.

  Adel looked up in surprise, as her attention had been completely focused inwards as she tried to master the pain burning through every fibre of her body. She saw the princess’s eyes were distant, and it looked as if she too could somehow feel what was happening, listening to something only she could hear.

  Adel’s hand sought the blade, but her eyes met Yuna’s gaze. In that instant, Adel felt such a strong connection to the giant woman it was like she had known her all her life. She couldn’t explain it. It was as if everything had been leading to this moment, and Adel saw the understanding mirrored in Yuna’s eyes.

  The swords. They both wanted to be drawn. The gold and the black. Pulled free, so they could battle.

  Yuna’s hand slipped to her hilt, and Adel saw the same hunger for the clash, saw the same urge to scream and attack with everything she was.

  The swords were calling to each other.

  “Whatever you two are doing,” Matoh said, looking down at his hands in wonder, “stop it, because I’m feeling odd again, I can hear a storm in the distance, and my arms have gone all tingly.”

  As if in answer, came a thunderous boom from the heavens outside.

  “He’s right,” Echinni’s distant voice said. “Now is not the time for this. The Will is alive around us, this is important, but you two are not meant to fight.”

  Adel and Yuna looked at each other. “I feel it, but I have learned to trust my Princess’s instincts on these matters,” Yuna said to Adel. “We must resist the whispers of our blades.”

  Adel nodded, for even though her strange dark blade wanted Yuna to be her enemy, Adel trusted the giant woman and saw a kindred spirit in her.

  “I don’t need to draw it,” Adel said through a spasm of pain. “I just need to touch it.”

  Yuna nodded. “Do it, but know if any part of the blade clears your scabbard, I will end you. I cannot touch that sword, so I cannot give it to you, but my Princess stands too close for anything other than placing your open hand on the pommel. Close your grip, and you die.” It was not a threat. It was a fact.

  Adel gritted her teeth against the pain and nodded her understanding.

  Her open palm touched the pommel of her black blade and the energy coursing through her flowed into the sword.

  Relief, but only for an instant.

  Whatever had grown around them had changed the normal constant pressure she felt into a torrent, it was too much for her, too much even for the blade.

  “Matoh!” Adel screamed, not knowing why she called for him.

  “I feel it!” he yelled back, and he closed his eyes.

  How they coordinated, Adel would never know, but she felt something just then, something connecting them all, flowing between them as Matoh’s hand touched hers. They harmonised, and the vast chasm of Matoh’s depth opened to her, cooling her down enough to allow Adel to breath.

  “Thank you,” Adel gasped, but even as she said it, she knew even with Matoh and Sword it would not be enough.

  “What in the hells is happening?” The High King growled from his position upon the throne’s dais.

  “A convergence,” Echinni whispered, “of the same sort we saw when the brother’s Spierling fought each other. I can hear it again, Halom’s Will, but changed, magnified somehow.”

  “I don’t think I can hold out at this level for long,” Matoh said through gritted teeth. “How the hells are you standing Adel?”

  “They need more help!” Echinni cried. “Yuna do something.”

  “I cannot, you will be left defenceless, and I dare not touch that sword. I will lose myself,” Yuna hissed.

  “Sir Garrick, you are a Syklan, lend your strength to them. I am more than capable of dealing with any further aggression from these conspirators,” the High King ordered as he thrust his jaw at Lady Buika and her entourage.

  “Please…hurry,” Adel said, finding it hard to breathe once more as a wave of energy hit her and the whispered call from the black blade to draw it against Hunsa increased in intensity.

  Sir Garrick reached them quickly, and Adel saw he wore conductive gloves, a trisk under-layer and several santsi set into sockets upon his armour. Her body already ached for release from the onslaught rushing through her.

  Sir Garrick placed a hand atop Matoh’s, yet relief did not come.

  The Syklan’s santsi shattered within their sockets, sparks shot across his armour, and smoke burst from the man’s trisk. He cried out and fell back, holding his arm in shock as he tore his gauntlet off and saw the burned flesh of his hand beneath.

  “Halom save us,” Lady Buika whispered in a mixture of wonder and horror as she witnessed the power Adel siphoned. “She should be dead.”

  “We are all going to be if someone doesn’t figure out how to stop this!” Matoh yelled.

  Adel could feel Matoh’s flesh beginning to smoke, and he once again gritted his teeth against the pain he was now also feeling through his link to her.

  “Lady take all of you! I’ll bloody do it myself! Echinni stay there, Yuna guard my back.”

  Echinni and Yuna did as they were told and retreated to the far side of the room.

  The High King didn’t hesitate, he stepped down the stairs from his throne and grabbed Adel and Matoh’s hands in his own.

  Adel gasped as it felt like she had just been thrown into a wonderfully crystal cool lake. The relief from the pressure and pain was instantaneous, and she began to shiver with the reverse of energy flow.

  Matoh gasped as his eyes widened in awe at the display of power. The High King was drinking it in, and both Ad
el and Matoh could feel how much more he could still take.

  The High King’s santsi glowed and the lines of covellite in the trisk he wore glowed blue beneath his armour. The head of the High Kings war hammer crackled, and it was then Matoh could feel the tendrils of electric power reaching from the ground into the sky. He concentrated and felt for the right one.

  “Sir, if you’ll trust me, I think I can disperse all of this,” Matoh said as he felt the currents of the storm wanting to build, “Safely this time. Not like at the initiation ceremony.”

  Adel could feel it too, through the link they shared, and as Matoh’s hand searched the feel of the air around him, she too could feel the storm as he did. “Yes,” she said, “he can do it.”

  “Hmmm.” The High King thought for a moment. “Seems a shame to waste all of this. I can think of a few outlets for it myself.” The High King looked once again at Lady Buika but then shook his head and turned Matoh in curiosity. “All right, do it.” Ronaston Mihane grinned as he remembered a line which he had used so many times in the past with this boy’s mother. “I trust you, Spierling.”

  “Sir,” Matoh said and closed his eyes to concentrate, his fingers touched the piece of polished glass he wore on a leather chord around his neck and then Adel felt him direct the energy into one of the tendrils as it reached up into the sky.

  The air in the room felt close, ready to burst. Matoh thrust his hand towards a window and the energy lanced through the stained glass with a deafening crack!

  Lightning sizzled in a huge spidery bolt out of the room and into the night sky.

  Adel and Matoh dropped to a knee.

  The High King still stood and rolled his shoulders, looking somewhat regretfully at letting all that energy go.

  The High King offered a hand to help Matoh up.

  “What was that?” the High King asked, shaking his head in wonder.

  “Well, sir,” Matoh said somewhat shakily, “believe it or not, I’ve been having some very strange things happen to me recently. Most of them involve flinging lightning around.” Matoh was looking at the High King in wonder. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, how can you siphon so much so quickly? It was so much easier to control with your help.”