The Brightest Shadow, page 69
The leader made a choking sound and stumbled back against the wall, clutching his stomach. He looked down at the injury, grimaced, and looked back up at him with his remaining eye.
"Ah, that fucking hurts... do you know how long it takes to die from wounds like this, kid? At least do the decent thing and finish me off..."
Though Slaten was prepared for it to be a final stratagem and approached cautiously, the leader showed no sign of attacking. Just scratched at his ruined eye and then lowered his hand, closing his other eye and leaving his neck undefended.
Slaten cut through it easily, ending the man's life. For a time, he was the only one standing in the courtyard.
Victory held only the slightest bit of relief, because there would be other opponents who could take advantage of his weakness. Slaten knelt down in the corner of the courtyard and breathed deeply, letting his sein flow through him properly again...
~ ~ ~
Most of the others had scattered when the Catai charged the second time, which suited Veron just fine. It let her focus. They could have won more easily with Narenel there, but he'd been drawn off by some trained warriors along with Tani.
That left Veron and Graenin. They'd be enough. Graenin stayed back, trusting that whenever the Catai came for him, Veron would intercept. Hitting the big fucker felt like attacking a brick wall, but he definitely bled a bit each time she cut him. Though Graenin's direct attacks only staggered him, he was aiming for the eyes, which let him control the Catai's movements considerably. That gave Veron freedom to strike from any angle.
The problem was that the big fucker wasn't stupid. He knew what they were trying to do and he had experience fighting opponents trying exactly the same strategy. In addition to having a shitload of stamina, he was always watching for weaknesses from either of them.
"Die, you monster!"
When Veron heard the voice, it was too late. She had no time to curse, but her mind cursed up a storm as she turned to see the idiot charging in.
It was the kids' kid - Walernel, she thought his name was. The dumb fuck barely knew more than how to hold his spear, yet he was charging in as if he would take down a Catai on his own. And the Catai knew it and turned on him, jagged blade rising.
Veron found herself moving before she was certain what she wanted to do. The smart thing to do would be to let the idiot die for his stupidity, attack while the Catai was killing him. Part of her wanted to save him, but that part was moronic. She might risk her life for Tani or Celivia, but this idiot? Graenin wasn't attacking either, doing the smart thing while she charged in emotionally.
Yet she still found herself grabbing Walernel by the back of his shirt and pulling him away from the overhead swing that would have splattered him.
Only while she was tossing the kid aside did Veron realize that the Catai was looking straight at her. He only had one hand on his sword, the other thrusting out to claw at her. Frozen in place, desperately trying to reverse her momentum, Veron realized that he had assumed she would let the kid die. Had she tried to capitalize on that moment of supposed weakness, he would have grabbed her.
He still almost managed it - the big fucker's body had a ridiculous reach. Veron managed to ward off a second grab with her sword, but then his blade was smashing toward her and she couldn't exchange blows that heavy. She had no choice but to throw herself back, hitting the ground and not quite succeeding in vaulting back to her feet.
The Catai rushed forward, got her pinned against the wall. A burst of green exploded on his back, yet he only grunted, bringing his sword around to slash again.
This time Veron threw herself forward, moving underneath the blow and slashing up at his stomach. She scored a long but superficial hit, spreading blood through all that stupid gold paint but not disabling him. His sword was still out of position, slowly moving back to-
Pain exploded through her chest as the Catai kicked her. Not fully braced on the ground, Veron was sent flying backward and cracked her head on the stones.
Her vision spun and she could barely see the Catai closing in to finish her. She couldn't feel her sword, but thought she had held onto it. Yet the way she was half-lying on the ground, she couldn't muster a good attack or much of a dodge. Oh, hell...
A dark blur moved in from behind, stabbed into the Catai's back. Only when she slowed did Veron see that it was Destrela, digging her dagger deep into his shoulder blades. The Catai roared and propelled himself backward, slamming her in between his body and one of the stone walls. Destrela gave a cry of pain, but the Catai cried out too as his force drove the dagger deeper.
Before he could recover, Veron hopped to her feet and swung. Slowed by the pain, he couldn't get his sword up in time and her blade slashed open his arm.
He roared, tried to claw her with his good arm, but at that moment another burst from Graenin staggered him. Weakened by the injuries and blood loss, this time he couldn't shrug off the raw sein. The next burst knocked him off his feet, and once he fell, Veron and Destrela struck, landing lethal blows on his neck and chest.
They backed away, panting for breath, watching the body just in case the big dead fucker had a little more in him. Veron glanced over and saw that Destrela actually had a nasty cut on her arm.
"Did he have another blade?"
"This was... from earlier." Destrela straightened with a pained grimace. "They had one of those small crazy ones and he took me off guard. Keep fighting here, I have something to deal with."
She moved away, but something about what she said struck Veron the wrong way. Instead of obeying, Veron kept an eye on Destrela while she advanced toward Graenin. He moved closer, looking at her injury in concern, but she waved it away.
"Take care of the stupid little fuck, send him back to the other soldiers. I'm following Destrela."
Though he frowned at that, he understood that time was limited. Veron slipped into the alleyway after Destrela, barely caught a glimpse of her around a corner and had to scramble to catch up. Maybe this was all useless, but her instincts didn't like something. She supposed it wasn't generous to be suspicious of the woman who had saved her life, but...
When Veron followed Destrela into a building, she saw that she had been right.
Two Deathspawn corpses lay over the desk, stab wounds in their backs. A purplish Deathspawn body lay on the ground, separated from its head with two sprays of blood across it. One was Destrela's, so she must have been even more injured than she let on. Over her shoulder, Veron could see the street outside and understood how Destrela had witnessed their fight and came to help.
But what she was doing here was not helping. Destrela stood over what appeared to be a heavy oak chest, looking back at Veron with a sour expression. "There's not a lot of time. Help me with this."
"Help you with what?" Veron stepped forward to answer her own question, opening the chest. The lock on it had been broken earlier, no doubt by Destrela. When it opened, Veron whistled. "That's a lot of coin."
"The Deathspawn here have been extorting money from human merchants for protection. I got word that Aryabaus had sent them a shipment of Eastern Crowns, apparently to broker some kind of agreement. Whatever the purpose was, it's ours now."
"What does 'ours' mean? The resistance? You didn't seem to want anyone to know..."
Destrela stared back at her, then sighed. "Alright, fine. I saved your life back there, but you saved mine right back. I don't mind sharing some of it. But if you dare tell anyone else..."
"Relax." Veron smiled and sheathed her sword. "Here, let me help you with this chest of ordinary rations."
After staring at her briefly, Destrela gave a small smile. "For the resistance."
~ ~ ~
She was down to four knives, but hadn't taken any injuries and her movements were still quick. Tani forced herself to stay focused, but she remained confident.
A few warriors with some sein training had come up against her, but she had been able to kill them without sacrificing too much. Curving her knives in midair was a trick that few expected, and that often let her land a blow before the conflict had fully engaged. The few times she had run into someone more dangerous, Hanfel or Narenel had been nearby and they worked together.
She was alone now, though, separated by a rush of new soldiers. The mansthein might be running out of trained warriors, but they did have a large force here. Even considering how many had fallen in the initial assault, the resistance needed to be cautious to avoid being overwhelmed.
Tani slipped through an alleyway, wondering if she was getting too far away from the fighting... only to see two Coran men fall to the ground at the other end of the alley.
They were on fire. Flames licked at the clothes of the men, yet both were already dead. As she approached cautiously, Tani spotted unusual blades in the center of their foreheads. Short, but heavily curved.
When Tani emerged from the alley, she immediately saw the source. A tall mansthein man stood not far away, a wheel of flaming knives spinning before him. She could barely keep track of the way his hands moved, much less the sein that flowed through his knives. No, it was as though their entire movement was part of his flow. It would have impressed her, if it hadn't been such a threat.
She had barely emerged when he spotted her. One of his blades shot outward instead of upward, straight toward her forehead. Fast, but she was faster. Tani dodged to the side and felt the heat pass by her face. On instinct she hurled a knife back, but it was deflected by one of the spinning knives.
Three throwing knives left, then. Her sickle knife might be good for defense, but she knew she would never get close enough to the mansthein man to use it to attack. His fighting style might seem extravagant, but if he had survived this long, he must be familiar with warriors trying to close the distance and kill him.
There was a bigger problem, though: the mansthein troops at the end of the street behind her. From her quick glance over her shoulder, she thought they were ordinary soldiers, wearing no armor and wielding only simple spears. The problem was, only some of them were engaging with resistance fighters, others were beginning to come up the street toward her. Given their lack of speed, she had time to fight, but that time was running out...
Another flaming knife hurtled toward her. Tani leapt aside, much more than would be necessary in case there was another trick to it. She drew two knives and threw them in quick succession.
The first was easily deflected by a spinning knife in midair... and the second curved upward, avoiding the deflection and flying directly for her opponent's face. She saw the mansthein man's eyes widen in shock, yet he managed to jerk his head back and to the side, the blade only cutting across his cheek.
When he straightened up, somehow still juggling his knives, there was a smile on his face. She wondered if he was trying to distract or delay her so the soldiers could attack from behind, yet his expression seemed honest. He was impressed and not afraid to show it. Tani's instinct was to smile back, despite standing in the middle of a battlefield.
Just as she tried to count how many knives he had, three of them burst from his hands toward her. Tani dodged the first, deflected the second with her sickle knife... and realized too late that the third was coming in at a different angle.
She panicked and pulled her hand back. The blade hit her sickle wrong, sending the knife flying from her hands. That meant she had only one throwing knife left and it had to count.
Yet her opponent seemed determined not to give her a free moment, grinning as he launched a storm of flaming knives toward her. All she could do was desperately dodge them, straining her speed training to the very limit to twist and dodge away from the assault. Several times she felt the flames singe her, and one cut through her jacket as she dodged, yet she managed to avoid them.
Though she wanted to concentrate sein in her last knife and counterattack as soon as he ran out, Tani was too hard-pressed to manage it. When the storm of knives finally ended, her opponent was left with three, which he lazily juggled in front of him in a small circle.
Tani realized that he had been prepared for her counterattack during the rain of knives, perhaps had even tried to tempt her to throw her last knife. It had been an accident, but she looked like she was too smart for the trick. To her surprise, the mansthein man switched to juggling the remaining knives with one hand while he raised two fingers to his forehead in a gesture of respect.
She found herself doing the same, raising her knife to her head. They might be enemies, and she would need to decide the battle in the next throw before the soldiers arrived, but there was no hatred between them. It was a strange feeling that she struggled not to let influence her.
And then light blazed so brightly that she had to throw up her free hand.
Peering through, Tani saw Melal behind the mansthein man, his sword through the man's chest. The juggler stared down in pained shock, his remaining knives clattering to the ground and fizzling out.
Melal kicked the man off of his sword and spat on the corpse. Tani noticed that his blade was untouched by the blood, shimmering more than she would have thought possible. It wasn't a shining light like Graenin used, this was something else, something untouchable. When she extended her sein senses toward him, Melal became a point of heavy weight, yet that weight wanted to fall toward the sky.
Disoriented by the sensation, Tani could only stumble away from the soldiers she remembered must be close. Melal seemed to see them for the first time and let out a loud cry, throwing himself into combat.
Though he launched himself directly into the wall of spears, somehow none of them impaled him. Instead he crashed into the group of soldiers, grabbing spear shafts with one hand to throw his opponents aside while his blade cut through others. He seemed to put all of his strength into each and every blow, yet he didn't weaken in the slightest.
Should she go after and help him? Even if he needed the help, she wasn't sure that she wanted to. Tani found her gaze wandering back to the mansthein man. He would have killed her if he could, yet...
Tani rubbed her forehead, forcing herself to focus. With Melal fighting the soldiers, she took stock of the battle as far as she could see it. There were no more sounds of large scale combat. She glimpsed Narenel running down another street and started to move in his direction, but at that moment Hanfel jumped from a nearby building to land in front of her.
"We've taken out their main force and we have everything we need. Get your things and retreat."
"We won?"
He gave her a small smile before he moved away. "We didn't lose many of our own and we ended the occupation of Gerant. I'd call that winning."
Then he rushed away. Tani looked back to the soldiers, but found only corpses. Melal was nowhere to be seen, though she heard his voice shouting about killing all the Deathspawn. If the battle wasn't completely over now, it would be soon.
Exhausted, Tani limped to retrieve her knives from where they had fallen. After a moment of hesitation, she took two of the mansthein man's knives as well.
Chapter 52
-
"Beyond uniting Corah, what paths does the Legend offer us? The stories are quite clear that in the final battle, the Deathspawn will be opposed by people from the entire world, which means that Corah cannot stand alone. We should be open to treaties from other nations that have not been deceived."
- excerpt from a letter written by Lady Karerela of East Corah
-
Slaten stared down into his cup, watching the reflection of the celebration around him. If he held the cup still enough, he could see a dark image on the surface of his wine. The resistance could barely contain its joy, eating and drinking and laughing. Many of them still wore bandages, as their healers had been overtaxed, but that didn't seem to inhibit them.
He didn't know why he felt so numb. Though Tani shared his concerns overall, he'd seen her enjoying herself, especially when they broke out all the special food stores they had available to celebrate. His injuries had been fully healed on the way back and the ache was mostly gone, so he didn't think the source of the numbness was physical. The battle itself had gone well, and though he had many self-criticisms, he had done well enough to survive against the four mansthein soldiers.
And yet he found himself utterly separated from the celebration around himself. Perhaps it was the way Melal laughed and drank in the center of it, filled with a charisma he had never held before. Fighting at the front of the main army had done a great deal for his reputation. Could it be simple jealousy? Slaten liked to think better of himself, but he admitted that it might be true.
Abruptly his arm jolted, shattering the dark reflection. Teren was looking up at him, tugging on his arm. "Slaten! Slaten! Can I have a drink?"
"Sorry, but this drink is only for adults." He had barely drunk any of the wine and couldn't really taste it. Had the same cup been in his hand the entire night?
"Aww, that's not fair. Everyone else gets to drink special things, I don't want to just drink water!"
"I believe I saw squeezed fruit juice on one of the tables."
Teren's eyes grew wide. "Really? What fruits? Can I have some?"
"I don't remember, but we can go look." Slaten set down his wine and wearily got to his feet. Teren grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the center of the feasting chamber, so he had no choice but to follow along after her.
Since he had last focused on it, the celebration had become more relaxed. He'd spotted a few couples disappearing into the tunnels, obviously not going to sleep. In the center of the chamber, Balunel played a cheerful tune on his harp, which seemed to be tuned correctly for once. Elima leaned closer to him to lift a cup to his lips and he drank it down without missing a note.
Was there something between the two of them? It had nothing to do with him, so Slaten let it go. But he didn't particularly like that he was getting more attention while Teren led him in search of juice. Usually taking care of children was a good excuse to stay out of celebrations and be left alone. Yet he saw several people smiling at her eagerness and also smiling at him.
