The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (66 page)

Then they were in the trees at last and she was shouting, “Slow down!” or something like it, and he gently pulled back on the reins.  It took the lathered gelding a good bit to finally come to a walk, and even then he pranced nervously, eyeballs rolling anxiously back behind them.  Ari patted the wet neck with a new sense of appreciation.  He wasn
’t sure he could’ve gotten a stag to turn back and rush right into the face of those monsters.  They came around a corner in the trail, and found everyone milling around under the safety of thick cover. 

Several looks of relief greeted him, Rodge
’s included.  “I lost you,” he said, in Northern-style gratitude.

Dorian strode up to them.  “Archer,” she demanded, though she was staring fixedly and without much pleasure at Ari.

Vashti vaulted lightly off his horse.  “He said he wouldn’t leave without me.”

Dorian cocked her head at him, eyes flashing.  “One of those, are you?  Rox,” she snapped.  That Whiteblade was standing nearby, but courteously wiped the laughter off of her
face when he glanced over at her.  “Got it,” she answered, and then, at Ari’s bewildered look, assured him, “You were raised right.”

Dorian pulled him aside that night.

“Ari, please leave the chance-work to the Followers,” she began.

“If I hadn
’t gone back for Rodge, he could be dead right now,” he protested, knowing exactly what she was going to fuss about.

“There were Followers there that you weren
’t even aware of,” she told him, and he thought guiltily of Atlanta, in the trees.  “It is their pleasure to take care of these things.”

“I
’m tired of just being…babysat,” he said, not very complimentarily.  She looked at him for several seconds before saying, “The courage that will be demanded of you is of a different sort than these…acts of physical bravery.  There are plenty of trials and deeds and challenges ahead of you—just be patient.”

He didn
’t know why, but a cold shiver went down his back.  There was something…meaningful…about the glance she’d just given him, as if…

“What do you know about me?” he asked, very low.

She met his gaze with her own direct one.  “That is not my story to tell.”

“Then whose is it?” he demanded.  “If I am so all-important to this mission, why didn
’t you all come get me years ago, before the Empress…before things got down to the last minute?  Why did you wait for me to get almost killed in my dorm room and then wander all over the Realms before suddenly deciding that I had to be here, right now?”  Frustration sizzled through his voice, made worse, in a way, by her composed and distinctly uninformative face.  He sighed harshly.  “Will I ever find anything out—maybe before I don’t
pass
one of these ‘challenges’ coming my way?”

She let his resentment fade off for a moment before answering.  “She is coming, who has your story.  Were you really that happy to find out that which you do know?”

That made him feel miserable and about five and he apologized and they walked back to camp.  And he spent the rest of the night acting normal and feeling like his insides were being raked up like leaf mould.  Where was this peace Il was supposed to bring?

It was deeply satisfying on a pure frustrated-testosterone level to witness the next afternoon
’s swordplay.  He would’ve felt better if he’d been holding the weapon himself, but, then, he probably wouldn’t have lived to tell about it.

Voral rotated in again, and this time, after grabbing an apple and barely avoiding a hand slap from Yve, happened to glance up and see Kai.

“Kai, Old Man!” she bellowed in delight.  They were lunching in a rather large cleared spot off the trail, and Kai had come in for a bite and a word with Melkin.

He looked up at her alertly, his eyes glittering unreadably in that impassive face.

“You’re skinnier than a diseased courtesan,” she remarked, slouching over and chummily whalloping him on one iron bicep.  “Don’t you eat?”

They stared at each other for a few minutes and then, a smile growing on her strong face, she winked and said softly, “How
‘bout a little practice round?”

You didn
’t have to look very hard to ascertain a touch of interest glittering in Kai’s eyes.  Apparently they were speaking some wordless language unknown to the rest of them.  They stared at each other for another few seconds, Voral chomping that apple with an utter absence of manners.  Then, as if planned, with quick, eager movements they both strode over to an empty spot of ground and turned to face each other, Voral shrugging out of her extra weaponry.

Ari and Loren shot each other one excited look of disbelief and jumped up to watch. 

“Ah, smoking ruins, here we go,” Rodge moaned.  “I’ll be hearing about this for weeks.”  But he got up with Traive and Melkin and Banion.

“Watch closely,” Traive said quietly to the boys, rugged face smiling broadly.  “It
’ll be the only time you’ll ever see a Dra on defense.”

“You don
’t need to encourage them,” Rodge told him.  “They’ll probably tear their retinas out, they’ll be staring so hard.”

Kai, very carefully, drew one of his double-hipped swords.  They didn
’t even see Voral draw.  The steel was just in her hand.  She was still noisily munching her apple.  She brought the tip up, testing Kai with a flick of her wrist, and his blade jumped almost a foot before he could stop it.  They began exchanging thrusts, quick, small, fine movements of beautiful control and shocking strength.  They grew faster, a flurry of strokes that the eye could hardly follow—one caught Kai off guard and knocked his blade out again before he could control it.  The speed increased still more, a blinding flash of blade on blade, the movements only a little wider, the feet hardly moving, the apple still, amazingly, going into the mouth.  It was breathtaking, such superb control.  Ari felt his heart pounding.  One slip, one miss, and there was enough force there to shear an arm off.  Finally, breathlessly, it came to an end, Voral grinning pleasurably and Kai breathing as deeply as if he’d taken a sprint around the meadow.

The boys laughed, shaking their heads.   “That was incredible,” Loren murmured happily.  They
’d been ardent observers of every sword ring at every festival that ever passed through Harthunters, and never had they seen such finesse.  Granted, what they were used to were back country affairs, but still…

Traive chuckled at them.  “That was the warm-up.”

Voral threw her apple core away.

There was a moment of perfect stillness.  An unbearable tension began to mount.  Kai poised as sleek and alert as a hound on the hunt, she like a dancer.  All her slouching, sloppy, thoughtless-youth thing was gone, replaced by a terrible, imminent force.

She lunged, surprising everybody.  Even Kai’s lightning fast reflexes barely carried him out of the way, and then he had to parry a beautiful back-hand swipe.  As still and finely controlled as the previous few moments had been, so the next were broad and sweeping.  She used her body like a man, with none of the instinctive frontal protection that you usually see with women, using it to dominate space, to block and hurl and throw her opponent off balance.  Within seconds, Ari realized this was no hand-on-your-hip, feet-in-the-right-position tournament match. She whirled and darted, the sword arcing in impossible angles and spirals through the air—Kai was being attacked by a whirlwind.  The speed was every bit as fast as before—it just involved her whole body—and the blade in her hand was a blur of steel impossibly agile, as if it had a mind of its own.

Ari, heart in his mouth, watched in growing fascination.  She followed NO rules.  The grace, the rapidity…it was like a deadly, inescapable dance.  She
’d be denounced as a street fighter at any tournament, but she wasn’t fighting dirty so much as…
pragmatically
, like someone who knew what it meant to trade blows for real.  She wasn’t working to gather points on technique, she was assaulting—! 

A cold chill traced down his back.  
Assaulting…
  He glanced at the rest of the group.  Neither Melkin nor Banion were smiling.  They stood grim, shocked, eyes narrowed at the unlikely scene playing out in front of them. 

He knew what was so unsettling about it, knew it instinctively, down in his gut. It wasn
’t just that he’d never seen a street fighter so good or with such ‘independent style.’  It wasn’t her ‘technique’ or ‘signature moves’ or any other tournament jargon; she was fighting…to kill.  Like she knew what it meant.  This wasn’t a matter of learning skills in a ring; she fought with
experience. 

“Enough!” a sharp voice cut through his thoughts, and he jumped, he was so on edge.  Instantly, Voral leaped away from her onslaught and the two stared at each other warily through their hot blood, talking with their eyes until they both, slowly, sheathed blade.

Kai had been bladed, Ari saw with alarm, and was immediately grateful he hadn’t had worse.  His ridged torso was sleek with sweat and a couple lines of red were starting to show up.

“Bring her over here.”  It was Dorian
’s voice, as commanding as Ari had ever heard it.  He’d forgotten everything but the spectacle before him even after it had been interrupted.  Turning around now, a scene that took even the recent fight out of his mind met his eyes. 

Irise had been wounded.  Tiny, exquisite, sapphire-eyed Irise, who had come panting up the trail days ago to tell them two of the Whiteblades were trapped in the Swamps, was now being carefully carried into the clearing by Rhoda and Roxarta.  Her fine little head with its masses of black curls hung limply, and across her back in horrible obscenity a great, gaping slash through the leathers surged with blood.  Ari saw the sickening flash of rib as they lowered her to the ground.  Yve dashed over, wadding cloth into the wound.

“Healer,” Dorian said with low-voiced intensity, to a Jordan that had whirled and gone moments ago.

“Irise,” Rhoda said worriedly, kneeling in front of her.  She gently slapped her, rather tricky since she was face down, and used one of the cloths to prop the tiny nose up out of the dirt.  “IRISE!”

“What happened?” Dorian said crisply.

Rhoda stood, readjusting her weaponry.  She was dirty, her face streaked with sweat and reddish dust, her tunic soaked crimson with blood.  But she reported calmly, “Tarq.  Half-dozen.  They were on to our trail.”

Dorian looked down her nose at her.  “You couldn’t handle six Sheelmen?”  Her tone was completely neutral, strongly discouraging of excuses.

Irise stirred at their feet, not moaning in pain, which is what Ari thought he
’d be doing, but saying with clear exasperation, “Tricky devils.”

Rhoda looked glum.  “Things got complicated.”

Rowena came flying, soft and swift as a dove on the wing, ignoring everybody and everything but the little prone figure.  “Hot water, please, Yve,” she said quietly, even as her fingers flew, capable as Voral’s steel, over the horrible wounds.

The boys
turned away as she lifted shredded leather and shredded flesh, revealing all sorts of internal parts that just, really, shouldn’t see the light of day.  Rodge gagged.

Tense silence filled the clearing, then Rowena sat back from her examination, adeptly extracting wads of bleached cotton bandaging—shockingly white next to all their worn clothing—from a bag at her side
.  She used it to wash and then pack the gash.

“How long?” Dorian asked curtly.

“Two weeks,” Rowena answered professionally.  “And she should not be moved for a week of it.”

“We do not have that kind of time, Healer, and she should not have gotten herself bladed to begin with.”

“I am completely unappreciated,” Irise was heard to observe.

“Don
’t talk,” Rowena told her without any evidence of compassion.  “You’ll make the bleeding worse.”

Atlanta came streaming with liquid Dra grace into the clearing.  She was breathing hard but not desperately, her great bow and an arrow held ready in one hand.  Dorian turned to her sharply.

“Clear,” she panted.  Her eyes were almost black, beautiful and bewitching in their alertness.  “Isolated patrol.”

Ari realized their camp was almost completely
deserted.  There was no sign of Voral or Kai; even Yve was gone from the fire.

Voral came briefly back in later, gathering up the pile of weapons she
’d dropped before the bladeplay.  She looked blatantly disappointed.  She walked over to where Irise lay unmoving and face down, which Ari thought looked terrible, like she was dead.  The northern group sat a little ways from her, doubly subdued by the day, and glancing unhappily over at her once in a while.

They were definitely close enough to hear Voral
’s big voice say.  “You’re pathetic.  What were you
thinking
?”

Irise turned her head and regarded the large foot a few inches from her face.  “I really felt it was my best option at the time,” she said thoughtfully.  Ari wondered if she
’d had something for the pain.  She was awfully calm.

“That is because you are a suffocating idiot, and your head is full of cotton,” Voral said, enunciating clearly.