Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (15 page)

Gravity returned. 

Was I hallucinating?  Did my mind just shift?  The smell of blood was overwhelming.  Yet, it was not daemon blood.  Crimson with the hint of iron caught my nose.  I felt my eyes flutter as I drew in deep breaths.  The euphoria played with my mind.  Senses became acute.  Intoxication overwhelmed me as the need for battle took hold, and I searched for a target.  Bodies of daemons lay everywhere in twisted shapes and forms.  The corpses were in various stages of damage, from scorched to nearly disintegrated.  Some were piles of ash in different stages of losing their cohesive form.  Their powdered forms drifted away in the gentle wind.

I was not on the ledge or dreaming.

Somehow, I had just been teleported or transported to the scene of a fight and within seconds, realized it was the campsite…our campsite.  The fire pit lay before me smoldering.  Panic rose in me as I survey the area, magic flattened the.  My last memory of the area was from afar.  Fire fell from the heavens consuming a small portion of an incredibly large host.  The evidence that it did not bode well for the host was evident.  I looked around at the carnage with an open mouth.  The very ground was burned so badly there was not even a smell of turned up dirt.

Total devastation surrounded me. 

I was both shocked and impressed at the same time for it extended in every direction for thousands of feet.  Stones melted.  Concern rose as my eyes shifted around the area.  Where was he?  I began to move around the campsite try to find some sort of sign of him.  Emotions swelled for the first time in years.  The proverbial lump began to form as I began to breathe rather labored, fighting my reactions back to their origin. 

Debris littered the area.  Trying to take it all in, I wandered around looking at the remnants of my sleeping mat, the cooking pot, and a small chest with a few of my personal effects.  A pile of debris seemed strange.  What I thought to be a pile of stones with a burnt tree resting on it was in fact not stones at all.  Something was off.  Crossing the wrecked clearing, I raced over and threw the fallen tree off with ease.  Horrified at the mutilated form of my master, I felt my emotions swell, as if ready to explode.  He had fallen where he stood; his robes covered in soil and clotted blood looking like stone.

"The teacher..." my swords spoke aloud...this time in unison.  "How is this possible?"

My knees met the ashen soil.  An inhuman cry escaped my lips.  I pulled him into my lap and fell back on my heels.  Tears flowed.  All the days of his tutelage flooded my memory as I looked upon his broken body.  The lacerations were so horrific that the caked blood had absorbed the dirt kicked up by the battle.  He was unrecognizable, his body limp and lifeless.  Despair took me quickly.  Then I heard a sound.  I looked around the clearing.  Nothing stirred.  It came again.  A slight groan had escaped his lips. 

Somehow, he was alive.

XII

Retribution

No…no…no…no.

This cannot be happening

Fear crept in.  I fought to control the one thing a warrior should be able to master.  Looking down at the broken body of my teacher stirred more emotions than my mind could process.  I was not prepared to deal with this situation.  The very thought that this could happen was unfathomable.  Malnuras often took on hundreds of daemons without breaking a sweat.  His skill with a weapon was exceptional.  The practical application seen in the fire pit allowed me to see situations he could not recreate.  Seeing how he leveled the area with magic brought a completely new depth to my teacher.

Even with my limited knowledge of the arcane, I understood the concept of magical power when referencing a being's ability.  I had studied wizards and sorcerers before.  With raw power and a strong mental fortitude, this kind of devastation was possible.  How it worked did not really matter to me.  The effects of magic on a battlefield convinced me.  Even if the power or abilities employed were minimal, throwing magic around in a battle made enemies falter unless they too had access to the arts.  I paid attention during those lessons, because learning about them was important because the enemy had many tricks. 

With his ability to deftly wield a weapon and use magic in his favor, I concluded that Malnuras must have been some kind of hybrid.  I smiled for a moment, forgetting the pain in my heart.  He was always full of surprises.

His wrist registered a faint pulse.  Hundreds of cuts caked with dirt and blood covered his body.  I gently rubbed the filth from around his eyes.  Unsure of what to do, I decided to use the water skin to clean him up.  Setting him down gently, I searched for the skin.  It took a moment to locate, and, to my surprise, it still contained fluid.  

The scorched outside of the water skin was brittle.  A reminder the entire area experienced holy fire that teacher pulled from the sky.  I tore off a piece of my clothing off, moistened it, and began to wipe away the dirt.  With each wipe of the cloth, his blood flowed again.  Within minutes, I was frustrated because he was bleeding again.  This was not acceptable.  How could I stop him from bleeding out? 

We had herbs for healing that could help stop bleeding.  He had a satchel on him still that contained such items.  It was empty as if it had either been scattered around the camp or used up.  There were a few shavings inside but nothing close to the amount needed.  I had a hard time seeing.  Every few seconds things got blurry.  Was it possible my vision affected by teleporting?  Why were my eyes not working?  I rubbed at them in frustration, and continued feverishly working to clean Malnuras’s wounds.  After a few moments, it was obvious tears made it hard to see.

Emotions this strong rarely plagued me.  Tears occasionally came, but never accompanied by these emotions.  The sensation was very weird and distracting, especially since it obscured my vision.  My frustration grew and the tears flowed even more.  Focus was just outside of my grasp.  I refused to lose my teacher and friend in a battle that he should have been able to win alone.  

My memories slipped back to the day it happened.  The numbers I saw coming that day were way less than the bodies and piles of ash as far as my eyes could see.  He must have faced numbers that were greater than he imagined they would send.  The mass of the horde was as impressive as it was terrifying.  That did not change the outcome of this battle, though.  He was at death’s door.  What could I do?  He was slipping away right in front of me.

Pain from the emotions made my chest hurt.

The air was very stale.  It was as if the oxygen burned away.  There was a taint in the air.  Smoke blanketed the area and made it difficult to look around the camp while attending to Malnuras’s situation.  The answer eluded me.  Hope faded.  The attack obliterated our camp.  Getting mad would not help.  My emotions danced one the edge of undeniable rage.  I put pressure on an area of a particularly nasty cut after cleaning it.  The crimson kept flowing.  Knowing it was his blood shut my lust for battle down right away.  My failure hovered over me like a dark cloud; his life force faded.  His blood further fed the dirt on which he lay.  No more attempts to clean wounds would be wise.  That would only accelerate his death.  The issue settled itself.  I could not save him. 

Memories spilled into my conscious thoughts.  My arrival here in this world opened my eyes to so much.  Earth and Heaven were no longer mysteries to me.  I thought back to my early lessons and how badly Malnuras defeated me, with almost effortless ease.  It was more like getting your ass kicked by a single finger that kept poking holes in your body and actually causing wounds.  Never did I think that such grace and skill could exist in such a dichotomy of a creature.  I knew now he was not fully man.  He neither moved nor behaved like any human.  Nothing could be proven one way or another.  At this moment, his secrets did not matter.  Saving his life was all I had.  With each passing moment, I felt is life force waning.

The blood on my hands mixed with layers of mud and grime.  While the dirt was just a coating on the outside, but my failure was too much to carry.  Why did the pursuing horde target him?  I had to find a way to exonerate myself.  Even though keeping my teacher alive was not my mandate, letting him die would be detrimental.  His absence would do far more damage.  It did not even matter that I made a small dent in the siege works anymore, or that I had first-hand intelligence of Heaven’s plight.  It would all be for nothing if Malnuras fell. 

He stirred.

“Teacher, can you hear me?”  I put my hand on his face to clear away more of the grime.  A moan followed by a cough.  I watched his body tremble.  Was this a ray of hope? 

“Tell me what to do.  Tell me how to fix you.  I do not know how.”  I noticed one of his eyes creep open and the pupil itself rolled back up in his head.  He tried to focus on me but to no avail.  My frustration grew, turning to anger again.  Why did he send me away?  Why did he not let me stand with him even if it meant my end? 

My hand cleaned more dirt and blood away from his face when I felt an irritation on my skin in the area of one of my runes.  It pulsed for several times before I noticed the sensation originated at a specific rune.  The itch turned to pain, and it felt like another rune carving itself into my skin.  Energy flowed from my core and rolled out to my hands in waves.

Bright light almost blinded me as my hand began to glow.  A searing sensation on my healing rune spread over the entire area.  Pain intensified.  Energy continued to flow.  Heat emanated from my hands like the heat rolling off the campfire; my skin began to burn.  The light turned from white to blue.  A void started in my abdomen and began to pull from my other extremities as it headed toward my glowing hand.  Pins and needles hit me everywhere.  I cried out.  The pain got worse.  Everything blurred.

Balance failed.  My knees buckled.  Cold sweat poured from my skin.  Energy siphoned from me, much like the creatures I just met.  Pain gave way to numbness.  My senses reeled.  Serenity took over; my surroundings spun.

The urge to vomit hit me but I kept my food down, probably because there was little to nothing in my stomach.  I had to hold onto my core strength.  My eyelids felt heavy.  They crept down, trying to cover my eyes while I fought to remain conscious.  Limbs shook.  Reality felt like it shifted and becoming something else.

The battle to hold myself up was lost.  My strength failed.  Face down in the dirt I fell. 

Blackness.

*     *     *

Dirt tastes different from all over the realm.  My unique perspective on this qualified as an opinion in my eyes.  When I was younger, dirt got in my mouth often.  It had a unique taste that you cannot identify…although not something that I would recommend personally.  This mud, ripe with the spilled blood of daemons, tasted disgusting.

The very taint of daemon that was saturating the ground got deep inside.  It was just like rotten food mixed in with food that was not rotten.  You can tell it is there and even taste the foulness or the mold, but you cannot see it directly.  I gagged and tried to breathe without getting more of the vile dirt in my mouth.  My motor functions were not working thus raising my head away from the nastiness was not possible.  I just lay there, trying to minimize my exposure.

Moments passed.  Beyond that, it became difficult to maintain consciousness.  My strength was still gone and showed no signs of returning.  At one point, sleep took me.  When my eyes opened, disorientation made the ground spin beneath me.  I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach repeatedly.  Suddenly I remembered Malnuras and fought to roll myself over.  It took everything to muster enough to force my muscles to cooperate as I dug my hands into the foul earth and forced myself to rise.  Gravity gave me the final boost I needed as my vision cleared.

Malnuras’s was gone!

Did he die?  He was gone.  I could see the print in the dirt where his body used to be.  The camp was silent.  Light ash fell like snow from the clouds.  The sky looked gray.  The land wore it like a blanket.  Unease came over me.  My eyes panned the countryside to see if there was some sign of my teacher.  The thought of something or someone wandering into camp and stealing his body seemed unbearable.  Perhaps his body vanished.  My lessons had shown me this was possible with some creatures of myth.  Looking about at the ashen landscape, I saw no immediate clues.  I tried to imagine what the life of such and individual would have been truly like.  Sure, I had seen the campfire runes that showed me a lot of Malnuras’s involvement.  It did seem odd to me that I did not find him in bear form.  Perhaps he only used that form with the humans he did not wish to frighten.  Maybe he did not have to change into the bear.  Maybe he could not cast magic in that form.  My mind raced in too many directions at once.

I closed my eyes and focused on finding my center.  Failure weighed heavily still.  My mind relaxed, clearing itself of uncertainty.  There had to be something I could have done differently.  It was the typical guilt that a warrior feels when his honor is tainted.  Although this had happened to countless warriors, it did not make it any easier to deal with.

One deep breath…then another…what to do?  Malnuras and my master Mathias were everything to me here.  We had only visited one village.  No one really knew me.  I had no ability to go anywhere other than where my feet cou… 

I caught myself mid-sentence.  It hit me sideways like a sledgehammer swung by a drunken Minotaur.  Somehow, I had teleported myself to this campsite.  Two new runes adorned my body.  One of them brought me here.  My body had somehow created it.  The runic network was adapting..

"Find your master."  How my swords always seemed to speak the obvious as if reading my mind was taking some getting used to.  As if they could read my mind.  Yes, we had a telepathic link, but how is it that my swords gave me logistical advice?  Realization came to me that my swords were not just an extension of my body, but also an extension of my mind.  They could think on their own.  I would never be alone again.

“Do you know what happened?”  I asked aloud, obviously angry at their silence during the loss of my teacher. 

“We also have an unconscious state like you, when our energies are depleted.  We shared in your plight to save you from further harm,” they responded.  “We know nothing of what has befallen the teacher.  Find your master.”

“Then I thank you for your efforts in this.  I apologize if I snapped at you both.”

“Nothing needed.” said the lower voice.  “We share your concern.”

I had to get to Mathias.

Meditation was a skill I had learned early on.  The ability to focus my energy on a singular task, object, or skill had been the aim of much of my training.  It was difficult at first: trying to calm myself and find my center.  Many failures had happened, before I learned to block out the ambient noises of myself.  The smallest sound could derail meditation.

Once I learned to get past myself, the ability to block out the sounds while remaining aware of them was the last step.  No warrior wants to be surprised.  Sneaking up on me was bad for one’s health.  Well in truth, I never really could hurt Malnuras, even if I wanted to.  It was almost like a trigger in my mind.  Even when he found a way past my defenses, it was never as bad as it could have been. 

In return, I just could not hurt him.  He made it a point to try to sneak up on me.  When he was successful, I still acted, for its better to act then to react.  My action was to tap him with a hand, not to strike him hard.  This had been our game for years, and I had finally mastered it.

I had learned to control pain using meditation and focus
,
and every injury was another opportunity to practice this technique.  Malnuras taught me that being able to focus the healing energy while hurt made the healing happen stronger and faster.  I used this focus to execute my next move. 

I sat with my eyes closed, drinking in the surrounding landscape of sounds.  My thoughts came into focus on each individual noise around me and then added it to the list of safe noises that I could ignore.  No creatures moved here as the scorched earth scared them away.  The predominant noise was the fractured earth still shifted due to the amount of magic fired off in the immediate area.  Everything settled.  When destructive magic happens, the soil can heave in protest.  Magic may be normal, but it is still not natural.  Most that wielded it had an affinity for nature magic as well as the true arcane…both equally deadly.