Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (11 page)

Tez looked incredulous and scowled at Rhys. “Care to make a wager on that?”

Rhys shrugged. “Sure. What are you thinking?”

Tez responded immediately. “Three Honors.”

Rhys had already told me about the Berserker tradition of Honor coins – often shortened to just “Honors.”

Living for hundreds of years and having more money than you really know what to do with takes the fun out of acquiring more money and stuff. Since the Berserkers like to compete, they needed something hard to come by that they would value. Thus the Honor coins were born. They minted a limited quantity and Berserkers were awarded them for exceptional feats or acts of bravery. They acted as a sort of Berserker currency and could be traded or bet.

Rhys had shown me one once. It was surprisingly big. Not like a quarter, more like the old silver dollars. It was much heavier and thicker than a normal coin. The coin actually looked like a miniature representation of a Havoc seal – gold with a recessed red handprint in the center.

Typically Honors were only bet one at a time. Some Berserkers might bet two if they were extremely confident they would win, but three was practically unheard of.

Rhys considered it for a minute. “Fine. Three it is, but I chose the weapons.”

“Done.”

I grabbed Rhys’ arm and pulled him to the side. “Hey, wait a second,” I whispered. “Do you think this is a good idea? Shouldn’t we be helping Onaona get rid of the Azark? Besides, how do you know I can beat Tez?”

“Don’t stress,” said Rhys. “We are helping. This will buy her more time to get rid of the Azark or at least get it out of the way. And I have no doubt at all that you can take on Tez with a sword.” He walked over to the wall and pulled off a metal sword. He hefted it, testing its weight, and then gave a nod of satisfaction. “I trained you, after all.”

The rules were simple. First person to score three hits on the other won. Rhys and Miguel moved everything away from the center of the room so Tez and I had plenty of room to spar.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. I really didn’t have that much experience in fighting people, with the obvious exception of Rhys. Aside from that, the vast majority of my other experience had been killing Bringers with my varé.

It wasn’t that I thought I would get hurt. Our Berserker powers would prevent us from seriously hurting each other. I was nervous about the bet. Three Honors was a lot, and I didn’t want to let Rhys down.

Tez and I ‘zerked and brought our swords into position. He gave me a smile, but I could see the intensity in his eyes as he did so. There was no way he was going to take it easy on me. He wanted to win this bet.

Rhys signaled the start. Tez immediately lunged forward, and thrust his sword straight for my chest. Unfortunately for Tez, by the time his sword reached that space, I was no longer occupying it. I spun to the side and easily avoided his strike. He must have been hoping to take me by surprise, because it was a stupid move that left him exposed.

I took advantage of his dumb move and swung at his outstretched arm. Tez had to drop to the floor and roll to avoid my counterstrike. It was a nice move that saved him the embarrassment of getting struck so quickly, but it left him off balance.

I pressed the attack, thrusting and slashing. With each stroke my nerves calmed. I was used to sparring with Rhys who, I was discovering, was
way
better than Tez. With Rhys I had to use my full concentration just to keep up. This time I found myself thinking several moves ahead, anticipating Tez’s strikes before they came. Compared to Rhys, this was easy. Bit by bit, I drove Tez back until he ran out of room.

I patiently waited for an opening and struck when he was late bringing his guard back up. My sword sliced him across the stomach, cutting his shirt, but thanks to his Berserker powers it left him completely unharmed.

Tez glared at me, clearly humiliated. Inwardly I groaned. He was one of
those
kind of guys. The kind that could never lose without getting angry or blaming everything and anything but himself. And my being a girl made it ten times worse. If we kept going this would end one of two ways: I would either win and make an enemy for life – which could be a long time for Berserkers – or I could deliberately choose to lose, which would embarrass Rhys and cost him three honors.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said. If we quit now, there might be a chance to not make an enemy out of Tez. “Let’s just stop here and call it a draw.”

But Tez wouldn’t let it go. “No way,” he said. “We’re just getting started. You got one lucky hit in. It’s not happening again. The bet was first to three strikes.”

I gave Rhys a pleading look. This whole thing was his fault. He needed to stop it. But much to my annoyance, Rhys ignored my pleading and set us up to start a second match.

 This time, Tez began much more carefully. He kept his strokes short and never left himself exposed for long. Patiently, he tested my defenses, and each time found himself thrust back. His scowl grew deeper and deeper as we continued. I could have struck him several times, but I was hoping for a miracle that would force us to stop if I waited long enough.

It didn't come.

Eventually, I gave up trying to take it easy on Tez. Three strokes later I had sliced his shoulder for the second hit.

The third hit happened thirty seconds after the second one.

Tez threw his sword in disgust. It slid across the floor and clattered against the wall, making a horrible racket. Tez pulled out the three Honors he lost and threw them in Rhys’ general direction before stomping off. Miguel gave us an apologetic shrug and followed him out.

Rhys broke out in a huge grin and tried to give me a hug. I hit him instead. Probably harder than I should have.

"Why didn't you stop that?" I asked.

"Once the bet was made, there was no way he was going to give up," said Rhys.

"But why did you set it up in the first place?"

"Honestly? I was testing him. As the sword master around here, I had been hearing rumors that he had stopped practicing and his skills had dropped. I needed a way to assess that."

"And what did you discover?"

"That you are a truly remarkable fighter." He bent down and picked up the three Honors Tez had thrown. He placed them in my hand and closed my fingers around them. “You earned these. It's hard to judge your progress sometimes when I have been working with you for so long. Seeing you fight someone else gave me a better perspective of your overall progress. You easily outclassed him, and Tez is actually one of the better Berserker fighters."

"But he hates me now," I said, fingering the heavy coins. "Was that really worth it?"

"Don't worry about Tez," Rhys said. "He burns hot, but he'll cool off quickly and everything will be fine.”

I sure hoped he was right.

***

That night I had a strange dream.

It started off normally enough – I was running through a forest chasing after Bringers. Ok, maybe that isn't exactly a normal dream, but it was normal for
me
.

I used my varé to slice through the Bringers, until I destroyed them all but one. Before I could attack the final one, it turned around and spoke to me, its monstrous mouth opening wide and dripping nasty juices.

"Madison, I have a message for you," the Bringer said. The voice was smooth and deep – almost like a radio announcer or audio book narrator. It didn't sound anything like the gross, slimy monster it actually was.

I held my varé at the ready in case this was some sort of trick. "What do you want?"

The Bringer opened its arms wide and actually smiled at me. "I just want to help you," it said. "I come bearing information that may be of use to you."

"Interesting idea, but since I wouldn't trust a single thing you told me, I think I'm just going to stick my varé through your head instead." I took a step toward the Bringer.

"Hey, hey, hey, let's not be so hasty," the Bringer said. It stepped back several paces. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to enter a dream like this?"

"Not my problem." I gave the Bringer a cold smile. "I just want you dead."

"Oh, fine. Maybe this will help." The Bringer's skin began to bubble and slowly melt off its body. I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to help, but it certainly wasn’t helping my appetite. The melted skin ran down the Bringer in rivulets until it revealed a man underneath. He had spiky black hair, bright green eyes, and a smile even more mischievous than Eric's had been.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The man leaned casually back against a tree. He folded his arms and rested one foot against the trunk of the tree. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so let's leave names out of this for now," he said.

“Then what do you want?”

The man rolled his eyes. “I tried to tell you before, but clearly you were too busy threatening to kill me to pay attention. I’m here to help you, Madison. I have information for you.”

“Help me, how?”

“I know how to rebind Thuanar.”

That made me pause. He knew how to rebind Thuanar? How could he possibly know that? If none of the Berserkers or Binders knew, how could this guy?

“Ok, who are you?”

The man let out a sigh and put his face in his hands. He rubbed his temples, as if he were massaging away a bad headache, then looked up and spoke. “There is no time for names. I can’t stay here much longer. I’m going to tell you my information and then you can do with it what you want. It’s just the fate of the world hanging in the balance after all.”

Either this man had some critically important information, or he had a serious flare for the overdramatic – I still wasn’t sure which. “Ok, let’s pretend I’m going to believe you,” I said. “What’s the secret?”

“The Havoc bonds are starting to corrupt and become unstable,” the man said.

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

The man continued on as if he hadn’t heard me. “The bonds contain large amounts of energy. As the bonds weaken, some of that energy will start to be released. Earthquakes, fires, disruptions in weather patterns, and gravitational fluctuations are all possible outcomes. If the bonds completely break, well, it wouldn’t be good. Releasing that much energy at once would be extremely destructive.”

“Why is it any different than when a Berserker gets sacrificed? The bond breaks then but there’s no other destruction.”

I thought I saw just a hint of a smile on the man’s face before he answered me. “I don’t have time to go into it now, but think of it this way – if you cut a balloon that isn’t inflated you just get a hole in the balloon. If you do the same thing to one that’s inflated, the whole thing pops. As the bindings weaken, the tension on the magic increases. If that tension gets to be too much...”

“It pops,” I finished.

“Exactly. The magic on Thuanar’s binding is weakening and the binding is under tension. You need to sever the binding before it breaks on its own. Then you can safely rebind Thuanar.”

I didn’t like the implications of what he was saying. I had to die or else Thuanar’s binding was going to cause an explosion? “What do you mean ‘sever’ the binding? There’s only one way I know of to do that, and if I’m dead there’s no one to rebind him.”

“The binding is weak,” the man replied. “You won’t need much blood to free him. Once he is free, you can then re-forge the binding. But you must hurry, the binding is already starting to break. There isn’t much time.”

Before I could ask any more questions, the color drained out of the man and he turned to dust or ash – something dry and gritty. A strong wind came from nowhere and began blowing directly on the man, causing him to quickly dissolve into particles and float away.

***

When I woke up the next morning, I still remembered the dream. A talking Bringer that morphed into a man who told me how to rebind Thuanar, how could I forget? At the time I remembered it feeling very real, but in the harsh light of day the entire thing just seemed kind of silly, so I kept it to myself. 

There were plenty of yawns and sleepy expressions that morning as Dad, Rhys, Shing, Josiah, Miguel, Onaona, and myself all hopped on an early flight to Mexico. I promptly fell into a dreamless sleep after the flight took off and slept through most of the first leg of the trip. By the time we arrived in Los Angeles I felt more rested and was ready to get out and move around.

We had a two hour layover in LA so Onaona and I decided to browse through some of the stores. I hadn't been alone with her since she left with the Azark yesterday so this was the first time we had a chance to catch up.

“Did you get rid of it?” I asked.

Onaona nodded. “It took me several hours, but eventually I got the Azark to disappear. Or maybe it just disappeared on its own – I’m not entirely sure. Either way it’s gone now.”

That made me feel much better.

We continued to browse through the stores looking at overpriced souvenirs and electronics, but nothing seemed to stand out for me. It was strange to think that I could purchase anything in the airport without making a dent in my bank account. Back when I didn’t have money – really only a few months ago – I would look around a store and fantasize about one day having the money to buy the dozens of things I wanted, but couldn’t afford. Now that I could afford to buy whatever I wanted, the idea of buying all those things had somehow lost its appeal.

The first few weeks had been fun. I had bought a lot of clothes and jewelry that I didn’t really need. Most of it was still in my room with the price tags on – never worn or used. Part of it was the fact that we had been traveling in search of Margil for much of that time, but I was also discovering I seemed to like having a lot of things more in theory than in actual practice.

Why was that? I was starting to understand what Rhys had meant when he said that having all the money you wanted lost its thrill after a while.

When you could have anything you wanted, nothing was special.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man watching us. He had dark curly hair, a full beard, and a mustache. He wore a black zip up hoodie and was doing his best to not let us know he was watching.