Six Celestial Swords (22 page)

ALERE RETURNED TO the forest and waited. As expected, his quarry came to him.

There were two men, one of them quite tall and strongly built. He could not hide his thick form beneath the heavy cloak he wore. The other had nothing to hide. He was neither tall nor short and possessed a lean frame. Both men were armed. Alere had spied them leaving the town of Nidwohlen during his scout of the woods surrounding it. They departed shortly after Xu Liang’s caravan and kept a telltale distance, wanting to keep up and also to escape detection.

They had succeeded in neither. Alere had detected them and when the company’s lanterns went out, the pair became disoriented in the dark and fell back to what they considered a safe location to wait for dawn’s light. In that they must have been successful, since the shadow folk had not left them in unsightly shreds throughout the area. Unfortunate for them. Now that task would fall to another hunter.

When the two humans came into view, Alere drew
Aerkiren
and guided his strong mare Breigh onto their path. He forewent charging and calling out his war cry, decided instead to give these pitiful brigands one chance at escaping with their lives.

The cloaked strangers saw him and stopped. They said nothing and for a moment, neither did Alere. He studied them at this nearer distance, and saw nothing of particular interest. The strong man emanated resilience and stubbornness, which among humans was often interchangeable with stupidity. The other seemed simply quiet, withdrawn.

Finally, Alere said, “I know that you are following a caravan that passed through here last night. I advise you to turn back.”

The strong man grew instantly rigid and took a step forward.

Alere didn’t so much as twitch, eyeing him coldly, prepared to do what he must.

The other man stopped his companion. It took both hands and stepping in front of him, but the strong man eventually came to reason and drew back. The smarter one turned back to face Alere and drew down his hood, revealing a sun-browned human face with stark Yvarian features. He’d cropped his dark hair short and somehow earned a wide scar across his narrow chin.

Alere wondered if the injury had been acquired before he left his caravan, or after. Gypsies weren’t known as seafarers and these men stunk of brine, something Alere had breathed in too much of on his brief journey across Windra’s Channel getting from Upper Yvaria to Lower. He could almost see the grains of salt embedded in the man’s hardened skin. Without question these two had spent a great deal of their lives on ships.

“We intend no harm,” the former Yvarian said. “We seek only passage through these woods.”

“You’re a terrible liar, for a gypsy,” Alere informed him, speaking in tones that would sound even, if not indifferent. It did not matter to him personally, whether or not the man was lying. “It is my best guess that you are acting as the large one’s guide through territory you recall from your childhood. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what lurks in the Hollowen Forest. You dared the wrath of the shadow folk because you could not risk losing the caravan that left Nidwohlen ahead of you.”

“And just what is it to you?” the strong man demanded, and the other reached back his hand reflexively to stop him coming forward again.

Alere had nothing to conceal and said truthfully, “I have pledged myself an ally of the man you have been clumsily following. I will let you go no further. Try, if you dare.”

And that, in spite of his companion’s urging, was as much as the strong man was willing to take. He threw back his hood and reached more swiftly than Alere would have expected for the weapon hidden at his back. He freed the immense blade and dropped it down in front of him, his peculiar foreign features distorted worse with a wide, demonic grin. “I’ve got ten thousand hells in store for you! Choose which one you’d like to see first!”

A small frown came to Alere’s lips. And then he spurred Breigh forward, raised his sword, and cried out. “
Ellum lathar Aerkiren!
”

The strong man seemed somewhat taken aback by the sudden, stark words, but he showed no fear and stared eagerly at his charging opponent. He waited until Alere was almost upon him, then predictably lifted his huge sword to unseat him. Alere gave Breigh the slightest command, which the well-bred mare responded to automatically and agilely, taking him away from the strong man’s reach. He would turn her about quicker than the overgrown human could right the awkward blade in his grip. That was Alere’s intent, but he was struck from his saddle after all, taken out of his seat by a blade he could feel but that he could not see, and which didn’t cut him.

He had the wind knocked out of him twice—once as the invisible force struck him and again as he hit the ground on his back—but he managed to roll onto his knees to block the next attack. The blades hissed and threw sparks as they connected. And now Alere gave a little smile himself. Unbeknownst to his opponent,
Aerkiren
negated all other enchantments belonging to any weapon brought against it. The blow was still heavy, but Alere managed to push the giant back and rolled out of range. He rose to his feet, secure in knowing that there would be no invisible extension of the large sword to be concerned with for the remainder of this battle.

Alere and the giant stalked each other, gradually closing the gap between them.

“Is that all you’ve got?” The strong man laughed. “A few tricks and quick feet? That’s no way to enforce your bold tongue!”

The giant hefted his great sword above his head and swung down.

Alere darted beneath the death arc and slashed at the giant’s side as he ran past him. He felt
Aerkiren
bite, but didn’t let the blade linger, moving quickly out of range of the sword that was almost as tall as him. He spun about to face the giant, who was readying his powerful weapon again, unconcerned with whatever damage had been done.

“I can do this all day!” the giant boasted.

Alere didn’t doubt it, and he didn’t have time for this. He glared coldly. A moment was spent in concentration, then he swung his blade out horizontally and watched an arc of twilight glow leap off the edge of the sleek blade, racing across the open space between him and the giant, who didn’t rely on his disenchanted weapon to save him.

The man hurled his great body out of the magic’s path, slamming into the forest floor. His cloak trailed him in two pieces. The shortened garment fell against his back, the edges still glowing hot as the severed fabric fluttered smoldering to the ground. Now a look of shock came to the giant’s features. And then, slowly, he began to laugh.

Alere gave a quick glance to the man’s companion, who had at some point found a tree to stand beside, and deemed him no immediate threat. He glared at the giant as the man was standing up, hefting his sword over his back as if to put it away. If they wanted to leave, Alere would let them, but he only granted mercy once to an opponent not of demon origin. If they persisted with their tracking of Xu Liang and the others, however ineffective, he would kill them.

The giant arranged his sword in its harness, still chuckling. “Xu Liang acquires two things in this world; hell-bent enemies or avid devotees.”

“You’re wrong,” Alere informed him, relaxing his stance, but keeping his blade out. “I am neither.”

The giant shrugged. “Give it time.”

“I find you strange and annoying,” Alere told him. “Whatever your relation to the Fanese sorcerer, you seem to me to pose a future problem. I may have to do away with you after all.”

“I don’t like you either, sprite, but...”

“I am an elf. And you are doing very little to appeal to any sense of mercy I may have had toward you.”

The giant’s all but forgotten companion intervened, stepping away from his tree. “He’s Fanese by birth and Aeran by adoption. You’ll have to forgive him his lacking grasp of the languages of this region.” He took another step. “I say again; we intend no harm. Xu Liang was recently aboard our ship. We have a message for him.”

“Then why do you skulk behind like rats instead of presenting him with this message?”

“There hasn’t been—”

Alere showed the man his sword as he came closer.

The gypsy stopped and Alere summoned Breigh to him with a click of his tongue.

He said to the strangers, “I do not trust you. However, since you are unskilled assassins whom I will have no trouble dispatching, I will allow you to make your way to Xu Liang to present this supposed message.”

When the mare arrived, he sheathed
Aerkiren
, then swung himself swiftly into the saddle, looking down upon the humans with impersonal disdain. Their foolishness was a fault of birth first. “I suggest, however, that you hurry. The camp is not far from here, but I sense we will be leaving shortly.”

WHEN FU RAN arrived, understandably he was not in the best of moods. After Alere explained his altercation with the peculiar strangers and gave his description of the ‘giant’, Xu Liang decided to wait for him. It was clear when the elf and giant saw one another again that there was no favor between them whatsoever, nor was it likely that anything resembling it would develop. The forthright elf showed no signs of being truly offended or threatened by the larger human, but he watched him with distrust in his eyes. It would have been unacceptable to Xu Liang, but for the Twilight Blade and the fact that Alere had cleared their path of demons the night before.

“Why didn’t you announce yourself at Nidwohlen?” Xu Liang inquired of Fu Ran, finishing up a painting of the upcoming mountains that he had begun while waiting for the elf to return.

Fu Ran paced behind him, stomping off the anger. “We wanted to keep an eye on that rabble at the inn without them knowing it. If we’d have caught up with you in the woods...but that sudden wind. We lost you when the lanterns went out.”

“And this message that you have for me?”

“Bastien and I have been tracking you from Nelayne,” Fu Ran sighed. “The day after
Pride
docked we noticed the ship that pursued us from Sheng Fan coming in. It left in a few hours, but not before letting off a small troop of men, maybe a dozen. I recognized one of them...from Ti Lao.”

Xu Liang lowered his brush, frowning. “And the others?”

“There were two men evidently of some rank or station. The rest were common fighters. Bandits, I suppose. Assassins. Don’t ask me how we managed to overshoot them.”

Xu Liang ignored the last statement and asked quietly, “One of them was large with a proud face, wearing blue?”

“Yeah,” Fu Ran answered. “Do you know who he is?”

“He is the man who ambushed us at the village on the Tunghui River. Our disagreement began there, and we discussed our differences again when those pirates boarded the
Pride of Celestia
. I would not say that we came to a comfortable resolution.”

“He’s the one that injured you,” Fu Ran guessed. Xu Liang heard the big man’s fist hitting his open palm. “Bastard!”

“Perhaps they have given up by now,” Xu Liang suggested, though he recalled the determination in Xiadao Lu and doubted it. For Fu Ran’s sake, he said, “I have encountered no one unexpected from Sheng Fan, other than you. Once we get into the mountains, it is unlikely that anyone will be capable of easily tracking us.”

“The Dragon’s spine,” Fu Ran said suddenly, and somewhat wistfully.

Xu Liang glanced back to see him gazing at the Alabaster Range.

The former guard looked at the brush painting next and sighed, “I guess your theory turned out to be correct.”

“The elf carries the Twilight Blade,” Xu Liang confirmed, feeling strangely happy and depressed at the same time. In a moment, he added, “It seems like I have already been gone for so long, Fu Ran. I have only to find three more, and then I can return, but then there will be a worse struggle as I rush to understand what I know so very little about.”

Fu Ran knelt down, not to bow but to rest a hand upon Xu Liang’s shoulder in friendship. He said gently, “You’re doing all that you can, more than I think even Emperor Song Bao would have asked of you. I know why you’ve come this far, but no one, nor any blade can truly stop a god. I don’t care what the legends say.”

Xu Liang agreed. “History is written in eras, and this may be a dark one. The Dragon is a symbol of that darkness. I think the Swords will help to unify the people against it, as they are symbols of balance and protection. That is why I must find them, and bring them to our…to my Empress.”

Fu Ran broke a smile and effectively lightened the mood by saying, “It’s probably better that the elf can’t speak Fanese, then.”