Bones of the Empire (71 page)

Mairlee grinned up at him. “Your last teacher in Hyeth…the one with the vast claims of being faster than magic, who believed that strength could not win a battle. He taught you to avoid being hit when others claimed that magic never misses? He was the one who saved you during the Turessian trials, if I’m not mistaken?”

“He did. Saved me a few times since leaving Hyeth. Wait…how do you know that? My father paid him quietly, as his advice was considered nonsense. No one wanted an old drunk teaching them to fight.”

“Let us just say that your old master learned his tricks from one of the few people I truly respect,” she explained, smirking at Raeln. “We may not have believed the stories Turess told us, but dragons do not live this long without planning ahead, even for things we refuse to accept will happen. Remember the four rules of fighting, as my sire taught to your master. We must leave this fight to mortals while we deal with the larger problems Eldvar faces. Be our weapon, Raeln. My sire wanted to help you here himself, but he is busy saving the rest of our allies on the far side of the temple. When he finishes there, he may well have to fight the mists by himself if we fail.”

“I am not fighting this for you, Mairlee. I am fighting for my friends…my family.”

“Oh…do you not understand by now, Raeln? My people do not care about such emotional matters. You are fighting for us whether you know it or not. Today, you fight for every living creatures on Eldvar. You may wish to calm yourself, Raeln. You will need your training more than you will need my help against Liris.”

Raeln stared at her in disbelief. He had received that training as almost an afterthought from a crazy teacher during his childhood nearly twenty years earlier. That she knew of it was strange enough, but Mairlee might have influenced the direction of Raeln’s life was beyond his ability to think through. So many people had died, and it all could have been changed with Mairlee’s help. He was angry, frustrated, and confused, but he also knew that would not help him fight Liris. Mairlee was right. He needed to calm himself. Only the quiet of his mind would give him any hope of surviving.

Slowing his breathing, Raeln struggled to get his heart to stop pounding so painfully in his chest after fighting up to the temple. Gradually, breath by breath, he brought his body back under his control and stopped the trembling of his muscles. Absolute control over himself was needed to ensure an absolute victory over a foe.

“I’m actually surprised you’re doing this,” Raeln said as he advanced. “I would have thought you’d fight to keep the army out of the temple. Mairlee and I are the only ones you’ve managed to stop.”

Liris laughed and shrugged. “Dorralt made me promise not to let you, Estin, or Feanne inside if I saw any of you. I’m upholding my word. He also told me that he would reduce me to ash if any of the dragons set foot inside. For once I am more concerned about her than killing you.”

“So my friends are still alive,” Raeln said, smiling. He twirled his sword once and then raised his shield as he prepared for Liris to strike.

“Not for long from what I hear,” Liris replied, tapping her temple with a gloved finger. “So many whispers. I may have lied about killing them before, but Dorralt is tracking them within the temple now. Be careless out here and you won’t be able to help them. I do promise to let you know when I see them die. I’ll be happy to describe it in detail.”

They approached until a good lunge could have brought them together. Far off to the west on the far side of the temple, Raeln could hear the echoes of another fearsome battle. He let everything else in the world fade away as he and Liris studied each other.

“Have you spent all these years making up stories to frighten wildlings?” Raeln asked, flicking his tail to see if she would take it as a hint of him starting an attack.

She did not budge. “Consider it a hobby.” Liris tensed her leg muscles suddenly, likely to try to trick him the same way he had tried with her. “I intended to be a poet before my parents died to your kind.”

“Hundreds of years as a corpse, one would think you’d have found time.”

Liris’s grin widened as she stepped forward.

Raeln tightened his grip on his sword and raised his shield as he and Liris neared each other. He refused to let her goad him into attacking first. He would only get one chance like this before the mists swept them all away. And if Estin and Feanne were alive, he had to believe they could fend for themselves…and likely find a way to stop the mists from killing everyone. They would have to be strong enough to make a difference, and Raeln would keep Liris from reaching them. The dragons might be kept out of the temple, but they appeared to be occupied in the sky, keeping the swirling mists away, so he was less concerned about getting Mairlee inside.

Slowly, Raeln and Liris circled, both their swords at the ready. Even a few feet away, Raeln could feel the warmth of Liris’s magical weapon as it crackled and hissed. A few snowflakes drifted past, reminding Raeln that time was of the essence after seeing the mists descending earlier. They might be safer so close to the temple, but he knew better than to assume it would last. Even dragons could not survive the mists from what he had seen back in Lantonne. He needed to deal with Liris, or he would doom at least himself and Mairlee.

Liris was the first to strike, dancing in with speed that Raeln had trouble following with his eyes, let alone his muscles. He parried clumsily with his sword, and by the time he countered, she was gone again, grinning wickedly from the depths of her hood as she backed away, staying far from Mairlee.

Tilting his sword, Raeln watched as a divot in the metal faded from a warm red to its regular sheen. Liris’s weapon had nearly cut his in half with a wild swing. A well-aimed one might go right through it or his shield.

Raeln glanced to his side and saw Mairlee with her hand pressed to a faint blue wall of light—the barrier that she had mentioned. So long as Liris lived, that wall might keep Mairlee from helping.

“Remember your lessons,” Mairlee said, sounding annoyed. “If you die at this point, my sire will likely punish me for your failure, as I talked him into that plan.”

Raeln raised his shield slightly and inched toward Liris, only to have her back away. She was watching the temple from the edge of her vision. He had no doubt she was stalling. That told him someone was alive inside and Dorralt was afraid, if he was having his troops delay.

Thinking over his childhood, Raeln struggled to separate the lessons of one teacher from another. He had trained with so many in his first decade that they were a blur of sometimes contradictory statements about how best to fight different types of foes. Most of them had been adamant that Raeln should avoid spellcasters, and if he could not, he would die. Only the one had lectured for weeks about how to confront a wizard and walk away intact.

The crazy old man had been quick for his age, often flinging Raeln ten or fifteen feet with little more than a well-timed push from his thin arms. He had never once been sober in the time Raeln had known him and explained his drunkenness away by saying, “If you have seen what I have, boy, you would drink every day too.” It made so much more sense now.

“The only weapon and armor a warrior requires are those he was born with,” Raeln remembered out loud, struggling to get the phrasing right. “Begin with this lesson and you will never be helpless.”

An abrupt charge by Liris took Raeln off guard. He ducked her swing and slid past her, slamming his shield into her side. She stumbled and still managed to get away before his sword passed harmlessly by her.

Giggling madly, Liris asked, “Do you somehow feel more complete, knowing that dragons have put their lives on the line to give you a chance at this? More and more lives will end because of your failures, wolf. One god died while you were impotent at your lover’s side. Two more may die at any moment. Thousands will be lost before I let you stop breathing.”

Raeln attacked, sweeping his sword around Liris’s to keep her guessing at where he would strike and opening her defenses. Using the momentary opportunity, Raeln stabbed at Liris’s stomach, only to have her knock aside his sword with a burst of magic from her free hand. The simple spell numbed Raeln’s hand and forced him to backpedal, narrowly deflecting her sword with his shield. Heat washed across his left arm as the metal shield warmed abruptly.

He found himself circling again, and one more of the man’s babbling lectures came to him. “The strongest opponent has the most to lose. They will use might against you, and you will use their might to destroy them. Even magic is nothing more than a weapon to be cast aside.”

“This is as absurd as Turess’s stories,” Liris said, rolling her eyes as she moved with him. “Keep talking to yourself, wolf. Your friends die as we delay.”

“Pride will ensure that you will fail dramatically. A wise warrior is humble and accepts that he can die. He will die when he is no longer ready for his foes,” Raeln replied, citing the third lesson he old man had impressed on him.

Liris lunged, but this time Raeln was ready. He parried with his shield and spun to increase the speed of his blade. The metal sliced across Liris’s leg, cutting nearly to the bone. She winced and stumbled away, her leg healing as she moved.

“The fourth lesson,” Raeln continued, glancing toward Mairlee, who smiled back at him, “is that a wizard depends on their magic as much as a warrior depends on his weapons. Deprive your enemy any advantage and you can endure forever. A warrior without a weapon is helpless if they do not know what you do.”

Throwing down his sword and shield, Raeln stepped into Liris’s next charge. Hooking her arm, he locked her shoulder using her arm as a brace. Shifting his grip, he held her wrist as he applied pressure to her elbow. The joint snapped loudly, and Raeln released her.

She came around screaming, her sword far from hitting him. “Damned flea-bitten beast!” she screamed, cringing as her elbow righted itself with another pop. Flexing her arm as she circled him, she added, “Just because I feel pain does not mean you can ever win! I can heal from anything. My master has made me a god!”

Raeln waited patiently, keeping his eyes on the ground at Liris’s feet. He would know how she would attack before she did, if he was careful. Sure enough, he watched her weight shift to her lead foot as she prepared to attack, and he moved first, simply pushing her over backward.

She hit the ground hard before rolling onto her hands and knees and scrambling out of his reach. “Nice tricks, dog,” she spat, raising her sword and taking it in both hands. “Embarrassing me does not win you the battle. Sooner or later, you will tire and make a mistake, or I will see your friends die in my mind and receive my master’s order to incinerate you where you stand.”

“If you thought you could, you would have already,” Raeln said, smiling.

A distant howl that sent shivers down Raeln’s spine came from the depths of the temple. Faintly, he could hear the sound of weapons hitting one another and the occasional boom of magic going off. He forced himself to ignore the noises, knowing his own sense of guilt would cost him if he listened too long.

Liris lifted one hand to begin a spell, but Raeln was ready. He closed the gap between them and grabbed the hand she intended to use to point at him. Yanking it by the fingers, Raeln twisted and broke her wrist and all four fingers. Her pained, momentarily dazed expression let Raeln know she had lost the spell she was concentrating on. That was all he needed to know to fight her. She was as weak as any other wizard once all of Dorralt’s aid was mitigated.

Raeln saw the sword coming at him as Liris recovered. Not wanting to lose his advantage, he sought absolute calm within himself, like he had when fighting the Turessian child months before. The blade was no different than any other spell. It had weight and could be stopped the same way as any other weapon.

Knocking aside the sword with his forearm, Raeln raked Liris’s throat with his other hand, tearing open her skin with his claws.

Liris choked and put both hands to her throat, the sword vanishing with a puff as her concentration broke.

Steam floated past his nose, bringing him the scent of burning fur, but he had done what he had hoped. He eyed his arm where he had blocked the weapon and saw the skin was blistered and burned, though that was the worst of it.

Recovering, Liris took a swing at Raeln’s head with her empty hand.