Six Celestial Swords (29 page)

FU RAN SAW the idiot boy fall beneath one of the ugly winged men with another one coming directly behind the first. He charged across the snow, having removed the enchanted tassel from his two-handed sword, and cut the second monster out of the air before it could attack. It landed in two loosely connected pieces close by, its dark blood melting the snow and sinking its hideous remains into a slushy pool. Fu Ran grimaced, then grabbed the first demon by the back of its neck, and ripped it off the knight’s body.

The younger man seemed surprised to see who had come to help him, but not grateful. He rose instantly with his sword, a look of rash courage in his features. Like Zhen Yu, he was quick, and too close for Fu Ran to do anything but flinch aside and take a less damaging hit. The knight’s armored shoulder slammed into Fu Ran’s arm, shoving him further away while he planted his feet, held his sword in front of him with both hands, and gored another demon—a demon that had intended to attack Fu Ran. The sleek black creature hissed and fell limp. Tristus kicked the corpse off the end of his weapon and stood ready for another.

“Not bad!” Fu Ran laughed to cover his amaze and gratitude—and some relief. He lifted his own sword, then added, “For an idiot!”

Tristus was too panicked and excited to respond.

THE KNIGHT AND the giant stood with their backs to one another, fending off attackers as they dropped out of the blackness. Taya and Bastien fought closely as well, with Tarfan nearby, caving in demon chests and skulls with powerful swings of his war hammer. The bodyguards fought with orderly ferocity, leaving pieces of their victims heaped in the snow around them. The mystic had yet to draw his sword, but used its power, firing bolts of its pale blue magic at assailants with one hand while he held the other in front of his face, touching two fingers to his forehead as if in some manner of prayer. The softly glowing darts of energy lanced through multiple targets at once, dropping demons as effectively as the swords—and in two cases, spears—of the bodyguards.

Alere had emerged from the tent prepared to fend off nearly all of these Keirveshen alone, as he had done their smaller kin in the Hollowen. He was pleasantly surprised to find himself in such capable company. He decided to trust the others to their own battles and concentrated fully on his own, hoping that none of the humans allowed themselves to be bitten.

M
ORNING CAME. The demons were all destroyed or had fled. A grave silence hung in the air, disrupted only by the squawking and flapping of a flock of carrion birds investigating the night’s dead. Seven bodyguards went about their duty, picking up camp, preparing to move on, waiting, as everyone else, for their leader to give the word.

Xu Liang said nothing. He knelt beside the feverish Deng Po, his dark eyes open to absorb the man’s suffering, his thoughts a mystery.

“I’m beginning to worry,” Taya confessed quietly to Tristus. “I told him more than an hour ago that there was nothing to be done. The elf told him last night, but still he sits there, refusing to let the poor man be put out of his misery.”

The knight sat beside her, bent over one raised knee, his sympathetic eyes filling with tears Xu Liang was far too proud to shed. “Perhaps such actions are forbidden in Sheng Fan. Perhaps their religion does not allow it, or maybe just their custom. Whatever the case, it is not our place to question or interfere.”

“But when he...” Taya bit her lip, struggling to form the image, let alone the words. “If Alere is right and he changes, then he’ll…won’t he?”

“Then,” the knight sighed, “if Xu Liang does not, one of us will have to do something.”

“But he looks so sad,” Taya said unhappily.

“I expect he is,” Tristus whispered. “I expect very much that he is.”

TARFAN WATCHED HIS niece inch closer to the human for comfort she’d have sought from her uncle only when sun shone full in the Abyss. He knew better than to think any romantic ideas could seriously form between the two, but the feelings of protection and jealousy could not be helped. She was his family, after all—and just who in hell was this knight anyway? A bleeding heart, ‘woe-is-me’ pup with a suit of armor he either stole or dishonored! Xu Liang had his own reasons for bringing him along, and Tarfan forgave the mystic ignoring both their misgivings where those reasons were concerned, but even Fu Ran, who had lately thrown the boy to the ground on his own suspicions seemed a little too friendly now. No, the boy would have to do more than smile and best a few demons to win Tarfan Fairwind.

I’ve got both eyes on you, knight!

It was with that thought that Deng Po cried out, and Tarfan looked away from Tristus, at the Fanese guard writhing on the pallet that had been kept out for him. His features were contorted with agony, his hands clutching the blankets so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He clenched his jaw, straining the tendons in his neck. A vein burst into view on his forehead. He’d been bitten by the Keirveshen, poisoned with its unholy saliva that burned now through his bloodstream, rotting him from the inside out. Alere called it the ‘dark affliction’, and warned them in his heartless way to kill the man, lest he become one of the shadow folk.

And where was the elf now? Gone, as usual. Not a care in the world save cutting apart Yvaria’s devils wherever he found them.

Xu Liang spoke to Deng Po in Fanese, his tone quiet but firm. “What’s he saying?” Tarfan whispered to the giant, who was knelt down behind him and still towering over the dwarf’s shoulder.

Fu Ran whispered the translation. “He asks Deng Po for his forgiveness and tells him that he dies this day with honor. He...tells the rest of us to leave.”

At once the large man stood and began tapping shoulders among the attentive audience, gesturing for them to exit the tent. Everyone did, casting looks of sympathy back at Xu Liang and his dying guard. The surviving bodyguards went about their business grimly, knowing that they had lost one of their own, but knowing as well that he had given his life in fulfilling his duty to their master.

DENG PO DID indeed die with honor that day, and he was honored in the silence that followed the caravan through the cold, desolate mountains of Lower Yvaria.

In the end, Xu Liang had taken Deng Po’s life. He could not allow his suffering, nor could he risk the transformation Alere had warned about. Deng Po would have expected nothing less and would have accepted his fate proudly, if he’d been lucid at the time. Still, Xu Liang could not get past the fact that he had buried a son of Sheng Fan in a foreign land and with little ceremony, almost none. Alere advised against a pyre, uncertain yet as to whether or not the group he’d seen and then lost near the river canyon was in pursuit. The guard was buried with his spear. His sword would be brought back to Sheng Fan and given to his wife and son.

The Empress would feel this loss. Xu Liang would not be able to hide it, not completely. He would offer apology and comfort when he meditated next. For much of the day no one had spoken to him. He watched them, lost in their own thoughts, saying nothing, pressing on because they’d come too far to turn back.

I am involving too many innocent people
, Xu Liang thought.
Acting for the benefit of Sheng Fan does not justify it.

“Look,” someone said, and Xu Liang focused on the path ahead of them, which had begun to spread and to flatten out. Mist drifted across the terrain below the mountains, showing patches of dry earth mottled with shrubbery and sparse, leafless trees beneath the stark yellow glow of the midday sun.

“The Flatlands, at last,” Tarfan sighed. He looked up over his shoulder at Xu Liang. “Doesn’t seem much of a place to find a sacred sword.” He shrugged. “But I suppose neither were the mountains.”

“We should cover as much ground as we can before the evening snow,” Alere advised. “In this open land we will leave clear tracks. When the snowfall begins we should hold camp, then begin again in the morning and let the sun melt away any trace of our passage we might make in the night’s leaving.”

“The elf’s right,” Tarfan admitted in his gruff manner. “The weather’s predictable in this region. You can tell the time of day by the amount of white on the ground.”

Xu Liang nodded. “Shall we begin?”

The company proceeded, Tarfan leading the way into the mist as the sun burned it off, with Guang Ci and a fellow guard close behind. Gai Ping, Xu Liang, and Taya and Tristus rode in the middle, flanked by two bodyguards. The last two guards walked with the supply horse directly behind them while Fu Ran and Bastien took up the rear. Alere rode back into the mountains to have a last look at the path behind them.

The sun was setting before Alere returned to report nothing out of the ordinary behind them. They pressed on across the refreshingly even land for another hour before the snow began to fall, beginning as rain and quickly freezing.

Xu Liang had already done his meditating and spent a moment observing the fall of night over the vast wasteland when they stopped. He had given all that remained of his confidence and hope to the Empress. He survived now, like the others, wondering when the Keirveshen would strike next. They were unpredictable, attacking swift and unseen. The only way to fight them was to wait for them and to try not to be caught off guard by their savagery.

“It is our souls that they crave,” Alere said, standing next to him. “Yours especially.”

Xu Liang looked at the elf.

Alere explained, “They see what I see; the brilliance of your overly purified soul. To them it is a brightness glaring in the darkest night, shining constantly in their eyes, keeping them restless. Most often they shred through the bodies to quell souls. It is as putting out a torch, so to speak, only they douse the flame in blood. Sometimes, in their frenzy, they take bites out of their victims, as they did your guard. They attack in number because, as you have seen, they are not invulnerable. The suddenness of their attack—the wind often, and the blacker night—is their only magic, a spell of fear cast down upon their victims, meant to at least make them hesitate and give the Keirveshen the advantage of first strike.”

“It works,” Tristus said when he joined them outside the tent. “The beasts we fought last night were the same as the one I described to you when you found me. The angel I spoke of called it a shade demon. As a child, growing up in Andaria, we had stories of drey demons that I would compare them to. In an older tongue I think the word means kin…kin of demons, I suppose. The angel didn’t mention their bite, but he said that to his kind their touch was poison.”