Priestess of War (The Bowl of Souls Book 10), page 7
Justan didn’t even turn to look at them. The battle between Deathclaw and Cletus had reached a ridiculous speed. The two gifted fighters danced around each other, rushing across the yard. If Justan hadn’t slowed the world, he wouldn’t have been able to keep track of it.
Deathclaw leapt to avoid a low spear-like thrust of the steel ball and Cletus’ weapon struck the side of a large rain-collecting pot that stood near the porch. Half of the pot broke into large shards and water spilled out over the ground.
“Hey!” Beth said at the sound of the broken pottery. “Settle down!”
The two of them weren’t listening. There was no room for anything else in their minds, but each other, both warriors looking for the next possible opening.
Deathclaw finally decided it wasn’t worth dodging attacks anymore. He dove right into Cletus’ wall of whirring chain. His left side took a rib-cracking hit from the heavy ball. The curved blade cut deeply into his thigh. The raptoid ignored the blows and continued forward, but Cletus juked to the side and Deathclaw’s outstretched claws met only air.
Expecting that he would likely miss, Deathclaw twisted and lashed out with his tail as he looked for the next incoming strike of the gnome’s chain. The ball came in quicker than he expected, striking his left side in nearly the same place as the time before, turning one of his cracked ribs into a broken one.
Deathclaw noted the injury, but there was no time to worry about it. He tightened his control over his senses and, slowing the world as much as possible, focused on grabbing that chain. He felt it gliding across his palm. The slivery metal slid through his fingers, but at the last moment his hand clenched, grasping it just above the ball.
Exulting, he yanked back on the chain, expecting to pull the gnome into striking range. However, there was no resistance. Cletus stood still, holding loosely to the far end of the chain, a look of shock on his face.
“You got me,” Cletus said in a stunned voice, his expression wooden. A wide gash crossed his cheek not far under his eye. Deathclaw realized that his tail barb must have caught the gnome across the face when he had spun around.
Cletus reached up to his cheek and touched it, then looked at his bloody fingers. The sudden smile that followed caused the wound to gape. “Death-guy, you got me!”
Breathing heavily, his body aching and tingling as it tried to repair his various wounds, Deathclaw lurched in surprise and pain as the gnome caught him up in an excited hug.
“You did it!” Cletus said with a laugh. He let go quickly and turned to face the others. He pointed at the gash. “Look you guys! Tarah! Look what he did!”
Tarah, who was standing on the porch, her blank stare resting on the broken rain pot, turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open ever so slightly as she noticed the gnome’s injury for the first time. “Oh.”
“I can feel it hurt! Look, I think it’s a deep one!” Cletus added, spreading the wound open with his fingers so that they could see.
Beth winced. “We see it, honey. Now stop messing with it and come here.”
“Okay,” Cletus said and leaned in close so that she could see it up close. “Will it need to be stitched up? I can do it. I know how.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Beth replied firmly, reaching for a pouch tied at her hip. “I will do it, but first let’s put something on it so it doesn’t get infected.”
“Ooh! Will it leave a scar? A mean one?” Cletus asked excitedly. “So I can look scary?”
“Hopefully I’m a better seamstress than that,” Beth replied. While she tugged at the pouch strings with her free hand, Sherl-Ann squealed and reached for the gnome’s wound. Beth pulled her away and held her out to Tarah. “Take her for a moment. Would you, Tarah dear?”
Tarah was still staring in surprise at Cletus’ wound. Blinking as if suddenly waking from a trance, she accepted Sherl-Ann from her mother. “Uh, they broke your pot,” she said, pointing towards the broken rain pot and the muddy ground around it.
“I’m sorry, Pretty Beth! So sorry! I can fix it!” Cletus darted over to the broken pot and picked up the shards, trying to put them back in place.
“Don’t bother, Honey,” Beth said with a sigh.
He managed to put the pot more or less together. He smiled at his success, but when he let go it collapsed instantly. His shoulders slumped. “No, I can’t.”
“I don’t care about the pot, Cletus! Now come back over here.” Beth said.
Justan had closed his eyes and sent his thoughts through the bond to inspect Deathclaw’s injuries. As usual, the raptoid’s regenerative magic was already at work. His bleeding had already slowed. Justan focused on fixing the broken rib. I knew you would do it.
All I did was gash him, Deathclaw replied, but he could not keep the satisfaction out of his thoughts.
Justan smiled. Finished with the rib, he helped to close the gashes in his back and thigh. He then left the raptoid’s body to finish its work.
He opened his eyes to see Beth uncork a small ceramic jar that she had taken out of her pouch and dipped her finger inside. When Cletus returned to her side, she pulled out a dollop of pink waxy substance and reached up to rub it over the gnome’s wound. Justan smelled the unmistakable minty aroma of Jharro Sap.
“Stings a little,” Cletus said with a wince. His nose wrinkled. “Stinks like elf magic and tree blood.”
“Cletus,” Justan said curiously. “When you were fighting with Deathclaw I noticed spirit magic in your chain. Do you have a spirit bound to it?”
“In Chainy?” The gnome thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Yep.” He kissed the weapon. “Good Chainy.”
“Can I touch your, uh, Chainy?” Beth asked, her curiosity piqued. Hesitantly, Cletus nodded and held it out towards her. She ran the fine chain through her fingers, her eyes closed in concentration. Her brow rose in surprise. “It’s . . . a kitten. Or at least it was a kitten when it was bound. The binding spell is very old.”
His chain . . . is a kitty? Gwyrtha sent.
“An odd choice for a weapon’s spirit,” Deathclaw agreed.
“Good Chainy,” Cletus repeated, pulling the weapon out of Beth’s fingers and caressing it gently.
To Justan it made all too much sense. He shook his head in sad disbelief. “So it’s true. I was hoping that was just a story.”
“What story?” Beth asked, frowning at the expression on his face.
Justan folded his arms. “The last time I was in the Mage School library I saw a book about gnome warriors. It was one of the books recently unsealed now that the ban on teaching spirit magic has been lifted.”
It had been a thick volume with an elaborately engraved cover entitled: Deadliest Fighters; The Rearing and Training of Gnome Warriors in Alberri. He had picked it up out of curiosity and had been leafing through the volume when a chapter title had caught his attention. ‘The Barbaric Practice of Bound Weapon Imprinting’.
“It had a section that discussed the way gnome warrior children were raised,” Justan continued. “From the time they are small, the stewards encourage them to interact with different weapons. Once they have grown to a certain age and show a propensity for a particular weapon type, the stewards take the other weapons away. Sometimes, this doesn’t go too well.”
“Why take the other weapons away?” Deathclaw asked. “Is it not good for warriors to know many types?”
“Not for us,” Cletus said, still caressing his chain.
“Right. The way their minds work, finding a focus is very important,” Justan explained. “The narrower the focus, the better their chance to excel. For gnome scholars this means finding a favorite field of study. For warriors, this means specializing in a particular weapon type. Some of the human stewards believe that in order to get the most out of the warrior’s skills it is best if they get the child to focus on one particular weapon.”
Justan sighed. “But, like I was saying, the children didn’t always cooperate. Some of them grew bored when left with only one choice. According to this book, the stewards came up with a way to make sure that the children became attached to their weapon.”
“They gave them a pet,” Tarah replied sadly. Sherl-Ann patted her face in response.
“Yeah,” Justan said. “Then once the child was attached to the pet, the stewards would kill it and bind its soul to the weapon.”
“How horrible!” Beth said, reaching out to pat the gnome’s shoulder. “But how would that work? The requirements for binding-.”
“They left the kitten with him for several days. Until they were sure that he loved it,” Tarah said. “Then they told him that if he did not defeat his teacher, the kitten would die.”
Beth looked to Tarah. “Did you see this last night? Is that what affected you so badly?”
It had only been three days since Tarah had returned from the treaty massacre. The poor thing had been a sobbing mess mourning Djeri’s loss. Tolynn had spent her time with Tarah training her vigorously, trying to shake her from her grief while Beth had tried to convince Tarah that there was still a chance that Djeri could be able to return to her. After all, they knew that he was still alive, even if he was inside the belly of the behemoth.
The combination of Tolynn’s exhaustive training and Beth’s mothering had seemed to be working. She had even made progress in her ability to control her magic. Just the day before, Tarah had been determined to find a way to rescue the dwarf. Then Beth had told her to try her powers on Cletus. That had caused another collapse. One she was just now seeming to wake up from.
“Of course, defeating his teacher was an impossible task,” Tarah said, but she wasn’t speaking to Beth. Her mind was still on what she had seen in Cletus’ memories. “But they had him convinced. He fought hard and when he failed, the kitten died. This fulfilled the requirement that he be the one responsible for its death. Then they did something with the chain. I think it must have been prepared in advance, like my staff was, to absorb the kitten’s blood.”
Justan grimaced, “They made him eat it?”
“No!” said Cletus. “I wouldn’t eat Chainy!”
“The stewards must have tricked him into it somehow,” Tarah replied. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed, realizing that it was an oily mess. She really needed a bath. “Anyway, they told him that the cat could live in his chain. All he had to do was call out to it and, well, it worked. It’s the only weapon he’s cared about since.”
“How long ago was that?” Justan wondered.
“It is hard to tell with him,” Tarah said. “He doesn’t think of time like the rest of us.”
“Sometimes I think this world is a horrible place.” Beth said with a shake of her head. She pulled a needle and some thread out of her pouch and beckoned at Cletus to come closer. “Alright, Honey, now bend down so I can do this at eye level.”
“Like this?” Cletus said, bending his narrow seven foot frame and leaning in close to her.
She grabbed the gnome’s floppy ear and moved him where she wanted him. “Now stand still while I do this. It might sting, but the sap will keep it from hurting too much.”
Hilt comes, Gwyrtha sent.
Esmine reappeared suddenly, the elf child sitting on Gwyrtha’s back. “Hilt’s coming,” she said, pointing to the trees beyond the guest house.
Moments later, Hilt walked around the edge of the building carrying a bulging bag over his shoulder. He frowned. “Hey! Who broke the rain pot?”
“Sorry!” Cletus said.
“I told you to hold still!” Beth snapped, tweaking the gnome’s ear. She raised her voice. “Cletus and Deathclaw were fighting, Dear!”
Sir Hilt came up to the porch. The named warrior’s eyebrows shot up when he saw what Beth was doing. He glanced at Deathclaw. “You hit him?”
“I did,” the raptoid said.
“No need to be so proud about it, Scaley,” Beth grumped.
“But he should be,” Hilt said, grinning approvingly as he set the bag down gently on the porch. “I’ve sparred with Cletus many times and I never managed it.”
“Da!” cried Sherl-Ann, twisting in Tarah’s arms and reaching for her adoptive father.
“Sherl-Girl!” Hilt replied, taking the baby in his arms. He planted a kiss on her cheek and looked back at Justan. “Didn’t know you’d be down here. Saw Jhonate leaving her mother’s rooms back at the Palace. I figured you would be with her.”
“Oh,” said Justan. Beth’s house was just far enough from the palace that he couldn’t make out Jhonate’s emotions through the Jharro ring on his finger, but he knew she was probably irritated that he wasn’t there. “Actually, the reason we are here is that I wanted to talk to you. I thought you would be back from that last meeting a while ago.”
Ever since the army had returned from the treaty disaster, Xedrion had been in constant meetings. There was so much to decide with the dual threats of the Troll Mother and the Mer-Dan Collective to worry about. Justan and Hilt had been taking shifts as the Protector’s “Outsider Representative” in these meetings and in Justan’s mind they were just wasting too much time. Action was needed and the Roo-Tan were nowhere near ready to act.
“I stopped at the market on the way home,” Hilt explained, gesturing to the bag. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“It’s about my swords,” Justan said. “Ever since we returned to Roo-Tan’lan, I can’t get them to work right.”
Chapter Five
“Your swords don’t . . . work right?” Hilt said, one eyebrow raised. Sherl-Ann, focused on her father’s face, tried to duplicate his expression but just ended up blinking weirdly.
“Okay, that didn’t quite come out right,” Justan said, chuckling at himself. “What I mean to say is that, when we were back at the valley, I was able to do things with the magic of my swords that I haven’t been able to replicate since we came back.”
“Ow-ow-ow!” complained Cletus, jerking back from Beth and pulling the needle and thread out of her hand, leaving them to dangle from the gash on his cheek. She had only been partway finished with the second stitch. “You said ‘sting’, Pretty Beth. That’s an ouch!”
“Shush and be still!” Beth reprimanded. She smacked the top of his head and grasped his ear, pulling the tall gnome’s face back in close again. “If you keep moving, there will be many more ouches.” She picked up the needle and went back to work, mumbling under her breath, “Blasted warriors become babies when a wound needs tended to!”
Sherl-Ann yawned and Hilt shifted the baby in his arms. “What haven’t you been able to do, Edge? I’ll see if I can help you work it out.”
Justan hesitated. “It’s complicated. Look, I think the thing that would help me the most is if you could tell me how you are able to control the magic in your swords.”
“That’s a bit of an odd question coming from you,” Hilt said. “Your magic is much more complicated than mine.”
“But maybe it isn’t,” Justan replied. “The thing I am trying to understand is this. You don’t have any magical talent of your own, right?”
“Correct,” said Hilt, wondering where Justan was going with this.
“Then how do you make your swords work the way you do? Lenny told me that there are limits when making magical weapons. He said that once he set the magic in the runes, it couldn’t be changed. For instance, Lenny runed Fist’s mace to speed up the movement of whoever is holding it. The downside is it’s tiring and he can’t turn that magic off. He has to wear a glove when holding the mace if he doesn’t want to be sped up.”
Hilt nodded. “I think I understand what you mean. Lenui explained the same thing to me the day I asked him to make my swords. But I would think the answer would be obvious to you.” He turned to Tarah. “Could you take Sherl-Ann, please?”
“Sure,” Tarah replied, but when she reached for the baby, Sherl-Ann complained, crying out and reaching for Hilt as he placed her in Tarah’s arms. Tarah stuck out her bottom lip. “Hey, what’s wrong? It’s me. ‘Rah-Rah’, remember?”
Sherl-Ann’s cries only increased as she stepped away from Hilt. Beth rolled her eyes, knowing how this would go. “Sherl-Ann. Shh, baby girl! Listen. Do you want to go to Deathclaw?”
The child’s bawling ceased suddenly. “Caw-Caw?” She said, looking around with red-rimmed eyes.
Giving Beth an irritated hiss, the raptoid trudged over to Tarah and held out his hands. “Very well. Come, Sherl-Ann.”
“Caw-Caw!”
Much to Tarah’s chagrin, the baby went to him happily. “Fine,” Tarah said. “See if I share my food with you later.”
Ignoring her, Sherl-Ann placed a sloppy kiss on the side of Deathclaw’s scaly face before laying her head contentedly on his shoulder.
Babies, Deathclaw grumbled through the bond.
Smiling at his daughter’s attachment to the raptoid, Hilt returned his attention to Justan. “Lenui made Northwind and Southwind with the same limitations any other magical weapons have.”
The named warrior drew his swords from the sheaths at his hips and spun them with his wrists. To the casual eye, it would have seemed that he had regained full mobility of the hand that had been severed, but Justan noticed that the movement of the left sword was slightly behind that of the right. He also knew that Hilt still struggled with his grip. It was possible that he would never regain full strength with that hand again.
“When I first received them, they had but one ability. You should be able to see it using your, uh, mage sight. Watch,” he said and spun the swords again, slowly.
As they moved through the air, Justan’s mage sight showed him a yellow blade of air magic extending from the tips of the swords about two inches past the metal.
“The way Lenui designed them, the air blades get longer the harder the swords are swung.” Hilt raised his right sword and swiped downwards sharply. This time the air magic extended further. “If I swing as hard as I can, I can get the air blade to extend a full foot from the tip.”
“Deadly for an enemy who does not know it is coming,” Deathclaw observed.
