The Blood Sigil (The Sigilord Chronicles Book 2) (23 page)

"Go on, crowfeed, get out," Guren said, waving to the far side of the cavern.

"This is my home," Urus said, still biting back the tears. There was no way he was going to let Guren see him cry.

"This stopped being your home the day I burned that mark into your chest, boy," Guren snarled, freeing his sword from the muck. "You were culled, banished. You have no home, no friends, no people here. And you don't have your uncle or the palace around to protect you. So move on, and take your band of outcasts with you—before I cut you down right here."

This was all his fault. He hadn't been able to stop the armies from laying siege to Kest. He hadn't been able to stop the blood mages from using their magic to blast Kest from the desert. All those deaths were on him, and all of the sad, weak faces staring at him now were his fault.
 

"I'm sorry," Urus said. "I just needed to…to apologize."

"Sorry?" Guren said, fuming. With blinding speed he swung his sword, slamming it hilt-first into Urus's face. The excruciating blow sent Urus sprawling backward, blood dripping from his nose. "Sorry doesn't come close, Noellor."

Luse and the radixes reacted immediately, readying their weapons for a charge. The Kestians responded in kind, all drawing their weapons and preparing for a fight. There was no way a fight between the Kestians and the radixes would not end in a bloodbath.

"No!" Urus shouted. "Stand down!" Reluctantly, Luse and the radixes lowered their weapons. Gurney ordered his mud-covered group of Kestians to do the same.

I am so sick of all the fighting
, Urus thought.
All the wars, the hatred, the bloodshed. And for what? Blood mages, sigilords, Kestians, arbiters—everyone is the same underneath. Just stupid people fighting stupid wars.

Urus got to his feet, struggling to keep his balance. He touched his nose and felt loose bones shift under his finger.
 

That can't be good
. "I don't want to fight you, Guren," he said. Instinctively, his mind sought out the power of the sigils. Heat ran from the back of his neck, down his arms, and out his fingers in the form of blue tendrils of glowing smoke. The combination of the rush of power, the dull pain, and the warmth of sigilcraft was intoxicating. Once he drew upon it, he never wanted to let it go. It made him feel more than just powerful, it made him feel invincible.

"Don't want to, or can't?" Guren said, handing his sword off to one of the onlookers.

"I don't want to fight. I don't want to fight you or anyone else, ever again," Urus said.
 

Guren snorted. "Deciding to be a pacifist is a pretty convenient choice for a spoiled brat who doesn't know how to fight."

Still clutching his power, Urus thought about the possibilities. He could control space and time—somewhat. With that power he could easily annihilate Battlemaster Guren. But his power was so unpredictable it could easily destroy everyone else nearby. And he was done fighting. Killing Guren wouldn't prove that Urus was stronger; it would only prove that he was exactly the same as his former battlemaster.

"I don't want to fight," Urus repeated and turned to leave.

Guren jumped in front of him, blocking his retreat.

"What are you going to do, crowfeed?" he taunted. "Turn and run, prove that you deserved to be culled, that you're not a real Kestian? Or stay and fight me and lose like a real Kestian? Which is it, Noellor…man or coward?"

"I don't want to fight you," Urus said again.
 

Battlemaster Guren swung his hammer-sized fist, slamming it into Urus's chest. Urus gasped for air and fell back into the mud. Again both sides readied for battle, but Luse held the radixes back.

Urus struggled to his feet, but slowly managed to stand and look Guren in the eye.
 

I could kill him with a single sigil
.
But then I would be just like him, and that's not going to stop the fighting.

"I'll make you fight me, you bastard!" This time the man unleashed such a flurry of punches, elbow thrusts, and knee strikes that Urus lost count, his body still recoiling from one blow when the next two struck. When the onslaught stopped, Urus hovered a moment, inexplicably still upright, before falling face-first into the black muck.

Hands grabbed him and rolled him over.

"Get up!" Guren yelled, kicking Urus in the sides hard enough to briefly lift him off the ground.

"Urus, we can stop this!" Luse shouted. "Let us fight them!"

Urus met Luse's eyes and shook his head
no
.

"Is this what it's like to be a real Kestian, Battlemaster?" he asked, sputtering his words through blood and broken teeth. "Are you the shining example of what our people should be?"

"Yes! This is Kest!" Guren leapt up and landed on Urus's chest with an elbow strike.
 

At some point Urus lost track of time altogether. Guren punched while everyone watched. The guilt of having caused his people so much harm, of having failed so many people, washed over him, and each blow from the battlemaster felt like punishment he deserved. As he had that night on the palace roof, he wished for death.

Urus forced an eye open to see Guren standing over him, breathing heavily from the effort of delivering the beating. He raised his fist for a blow that would likely end it all, but a pair of dark-skinned hands grabbed Guren's fist and held him back.

A Kestian woman stepped into view and said, "No more."

Others followed, pulling Guren away. The Kestians dragged him off, kicking and screaming.

A pair of Kestians bent to help him to his feet, though he knew he would barely be able to walk.

"Maybe you are more Kestian than all of us," said one of the desert warriors, his eyes wet with held tears.

Luse ran to him, her eyes wide. "Why? Why would you do something so stupid? He could have killed you!"

Urus tried to open his mouth to answer, but one of the Kestians holding him up answered for him. "He showed us what we look like on the inside. Even starving to death underground in the mud, with no home or kingdom, we were still willing to kill someone for not being a good warrior."

Urus tried to protest, but he lacked the energy. He tried to tell them that there had been no selfless plan, no lesson to teach. He hadn't been trying to show the Kestians anything. He had simply wanted to die, to be punished for failing his people, and there seemed no more fitting an instrument of his punishment than the man who had culled him.
 

"That is the stupidest plan I have ever heard," Luse said, the grave, concerned look on her face shifting into a forced smile. "But also very brave. My friends in the middle kingdom on the other world I told you about, they would approve, even if it was still a stupid plan."

"My lord, you behave like no sigilord I have ever met," Choein said, stepping in to help support Urus. They carried him to a drier spot further from the shore and laid him against a log. A few of the Kestians turned and raised questioning eyebrows at the mention of the word "sigilord", but said nothing.

"I'm sorry to disappoint," Urus managed to say. "Leave me here. You all need to go find Autar Kelus and save him from the arbiters."

"We need to get you fixed up," said Luse. "I don't know a strong enough healing sigil to fix this, but I know where I can find one."

"Leave me," Urus said.
To die
, he added in his mind.

"Where can we go to heal him?" Choein asked.

Luse stood, her expression determined. "We'll take him to the city of the sigilords, back to Vultura."

Chapter Fifteen

"It's getting dark," Ferret said, slithering back in through the window overlooking the gristmill's giant waterwheel. "But the streets are still crawling with scarabs."

"We should wait before continuing on to the Maelstrom Inn," said Owl, reasserting her position as leader of her little group.

Spider rubbed his stomach. "I'm h-h-hungry."
 

"Whatever provisions we had were lost when we jumped into the bay," Therren said with a shrug.

Goodwyn sat on a crate and studied his companions as though he was seeing them for the first time.

Kids
, he thought. Not Kestian kids, who spent their childhood learning how to kill enemies and defend themselves, but weak, small, lonely kids. Somehow they had managed to fend for themselves and eke out some semblance of a life, but they had no parents, no guidance, and little to no prospects for a decent future.

His first instinct was to return to the streets and make their way to the Maelstrom, hoping his ability could lead them past the scarabs. But it wasn't just his own safety he had to worry about. If one of the kids turned the wrong way, or his ability failed, their fate would be entirely his fault.

"There's nothing our commander can do about Findanar until the morning anyway," Goodwyn said. "Any idea where we might find some food?"

Ferret and Spider beamed, then sprang up and disappeared into the shadows without a word.

Owl flashed her motherly smile. "I think they'll be able to find something."

She's put all of her energy into taking care of those two, but who takes care of her?
Goodwyn thought.
When does she get to be a kid and not a parent?

Owl double-checked to make sure her companions had gone, then crossed the wide room to confront Goodwyn.

"Before they come back, you're going to tell me what's really happening on Findanar," she said. "You owe me that much."

"We owe you our lives," Therren added.

Goodwyn sighed nodding to Therren. "This morning," he began, "someone in the leather quarter was killed; ripped apart by a…wild animal."

"The scarabs were there, keeping everybody away from the body," Therren said. "Apparently they think we're—"

"Desert demons," Owl said. "Their religion talks about the black devils of the desert all the time. Most of the parents in this city get their kids to behave by threatening to send the black devils after them if they don't wash up or keep to their studies. Until we saw you, we thought it was all fairy tales and myth. What does any of this have to do with Findanar?"

"We went to the island to investigate," Goodwyn said. "We found some creatures—big dogs, really—who chased us, and we fell into the bay."

He didn't want to worry her with the real scope of the problem on Findanar, nor did he want to give her information that might make her a pawn in some scarab game. The less the kids knew, the better off they were.

Owl's brow furrowed, and she chewed her lip, clearly deep in thought. She took a seat on a crate across from her former captives.

"What do a couple of boys from a desert halfway across the world care about a single dead body in Niragan?" she asked.

She's quick
, Goodwyn thought.
Clever and alert
,
and
she thinks like a battlemaster.
 

"Sometimes I can see things," Goodwyn said. "Things that haven't happened yet. Something told me that this was more important than just a single dead body. That's why we need to get back and tell our commander what we found on Findanar."

He left out the part of his vision that included the entire city engulfed in flames.

"So you're a witch then?" Owl said. "No wonder the scarabs want you. Actual demons with real witchy powers."

"I'm not a witch," Goodwyn tried to clarify, but gave up and sighed again. "My powers aren't witchy, and I don't control when my visions happen. But given how superstitious everyone is around here, I can see why they might think me a witch. It's complicated."

"It always is," Owl said, her smile returning. "Speaking of complicated…what's the arrangement with you two?"

"What do you mean?" replied Goodwyn, doing his best to feign ignorance.

"I've seen the way you look at each other," Owl said, giving Goodwyn a knowing smile. "Out with it—I want details."

"Food!" came a shout from the mill room below.

The sound of feet trudging up stairs preceded Ferret's arrival, his arms burdened with a polished silver serving tray holding myriad meats piled so high Ferret could barely see over the stack. Steam drifted up from the meat into the cool air of the mill's attic. Spider arrived shortly afterward, balancing three hot pies on two hands. He seemed particularly focused on the blueberry pie nestled carefully atop the pyramid of desserts.

They lay their booty on a wooden box and spread it out. Spider unslung a sack from his shoulders and emptied a pile of warm rolls onto the makeshift table. A few sugar candies landed there too, but the boy quickly snatched them up and shoved them into a pouch hanging from a waist belt.

Owl cheered, appraising the feast. "This is quite the haul! You didn't hit Taggart's, did you? He'll know it was you."

"No," Ferret replied, rolling up his sleeves and sitting crosslegged at the table. "We know better than that. Don't want a repeat of last time."

"Where did all this food come from?" Goodwyn exclaimed. "It's still hot!"

"It's one of our best kept secrets," Owl said, gesturing to the tray of meats. "But we eat pretty well for a ragtag bunch of kids."