The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (34 page)

Ti'Shed was gone.

Krothair had stopped looking at him for only
a few moments and he was gone. Behind where Ti'Shed had been
sitting was a small door that must have led to the alley in the
back.

“What'll ya be wantin', sir?” the bartender
asked Krothair, suddenly blocking his view. He was an entirely
different man than he had been a few moments ago, mouth in a wide
smile.

It's an
act
.

“Was meeting a friend here,” Krothair said.
“He didn't show.”

“A shame, sir. Ale on the house?”

Krothair didn't know what to say, so he
simply headed for the door.

“We sure get 'em in here sometimes,” he
heard the bartender say.

Then Krothair was out the door and into the
stormy night.

K
rothair made his way to the back of The Meeting Place. Rain
splashed off the eaves in waterfalls. Lightning periodically lit
the world. Flash.

Flash. Nothing.

Flash. Nothing.

“You stupid old bastard!”

Flash. Katya flew through the air towards
Ti'Shed, landing a powerful roundhouse kick into the sword master's
gut. Ti'Shed let out as much of a sound as he was probably capable
of at that moment and he sunk to one knee with an audible squelch
of mud.

“Katya!” Krothair yelled through the
rain.

Flash. His sword was in his hand, the dull
blade coming out of the soaked sheath with a disgusting sucking
sound. He saw Katya turn towards him. She took her eyes off
Ti'Shed. The old sword master swept his leg out, but it must have
gone slower than he would have liked, perhaps getting stuck in the
mud. Katya jumped over the move and did a handspring, landing
directly behind the old man, who fell over sideways.

Flash. Suddenly, something red was in
Katya's hands and she drew a weapon that was dazzling even in the
darkness. Krothair's throat choked. It was Ti'Shed's son's sword.
The old man must have brought it with him and now Katya had it. She
charged through the rain as Ti'Shed struggled to get back to his
knees.

“I should be calling you The Nadless
Soldier!” she yelled.

“I'll save you the trouble of thinking of a
more clever name than that,” Krothair said, “and kill you right
now.”

Flash. They came together and everything
Krothair had learned in his month of training kicked in. Katya's
blade whirled through the air with vicious quickness and Krothair
immediately fell into a stance more befitting this type of a fight.
One on one with questionable footing; he had done that before.

Flash. The blades rang together in the rain,
beautiful weapon pounding terrible practice blade. Krothair gave
ground because he had to, waiting for the right opportunity to
strike. Katya's hair whirled around her, heavy and wet with rain,
and just when it slapped her across the face Krothair lunged. His
sword darted out like the tongue of a viper, aimed at the shoulder
of her sword arm, the only opening he had.

Flash. Krothair stumbled back, his sword
feeling lighter in his hand. He glanced down to see the blade a
good foot and a half shorter than it had just been. His shoulder
blow had been deflected, and his weapon had been broken. The end of
it was no longer pointed, but rather a blunt, worthless thing. A
crack ran vertically through it.

Flash. Katya was on him
again, faster than before.
Don't let her
use her magic
, he prayed.
Don't let the Servitor kill me
. He switched his thoughts, then. He wasn't a sword fighter
anymore, as Ti'Shed had told him he never truly would be. Now he
was a broken-sword fighter, and he fell into a dagger stance. He
was an urchin now. He began to parry blows with the hand-guard
instead of the blade, feeling the cuts get closer and closer to
landing.

Flash. Her sword was coming down through the
air in a powerful two-handed grip. A slice meant to cleave the
skull. Krothair attempted to dodge but his foot slipped in the
muck, and in a last attempt to live he raised his sword above his
head. Katya's beautiful sword slipped into the vertical crack in
Krothair's broken sword and the boy twisted with all his might,
praying his weapon didn't betray him. Katya's weapon went flying
off into the darkness, while Krothair's fell out of his grip.

Flash. Katya landed wrong and her feet flew
out from under her. Krothair scrambled on top of her as fast as he
could, managing to catch hold of her legs. She fought ferociously,
and she was slippery with mud and rain, her body an impossibility
to hold onto. He tried to grab her waist but she changed the
direction she was moving and instead of trying to slide up and out
of his grip she slithered down towards his feet.

Krothair squeezed his arms together with all
his might. He heard something crack and Katya yelped. It could have
been one of her ribs or an arm breaking. Her fingers dug into him
then in a very unfortunate place. It was his turn to yelp.

Krothair suddenly remembered one night of
his training very vividly. Ti'Shed had told him there were theories
that women were overall better combatants than men because they had
one glorious advantage: a woman's genitals were mostly on the
inside.

Krothair pushed away as hard as he could and
managed to free himself.

“Damn you stupid men!” Katya screamed at the
top of her lungs.

Mud blurred Krothair's vision, but the last
thing he saw was Katya running away. She was holding her side with
one hand, her long red hair slapping wetly back and forth. There
was a red sheath in her hand, the hilt of a sword protruding from
it.

“Bring that back, Katya!”
Krothair yelled as he righted himself. But he knew it was no use
even if she had heard him. She had picked up the sword – it had
become
The
Sword,
Krothair realized – and had made off with it. Even though Krothair
had won the fight, he had lost something he hadn't bargained
on.

It was getting lighter, but it couldn't be
morning already. Silver and purple lights danced in the back alley
and Krothair looked around to see where they were coming from.

They radiated from his forearm.

The boy tried to back away,
in horror of what he saw. There, on his own arm, just below the
skin, was a glowing symbol that looked like a broken sword. The
hilt glowed silver and the two almost-connected pieces of the blade
glowed purple.
Purple and silver. The
colors of the Kingsguard.

Ti'Shed groaned and coughed. Krothair turned
around, brandishing his forearm. “There's something wrong with me,”
the boy said, his voice shaking.

“On the contrary,” Ti'Shed
said. “There is something exceedingly
right
with you.”

And there, in the rain, Ti'Shed bowed in the
mud at Krothair's feet.

Then the old man collapsed.

F
ortunately it was night and Krothair now knew the
less-traveled paths of the city rather well. Even so, it took him a
long time to carry Ti'Shed back to his house. Katya's kick had
brought the powerful sword master low.
She
attacked him when he was drunk.

Krothair laid the old man, still wet and
muddy, onto the bed in his old room. He didn't want go back into
Ti'Shed's shrine, feeling that that area still held a terrible
power.

“You look like shit,” Ti'Shed said, his eyes
still closed.

Krothair laughed a little, the pain of the
past not affecting him as much. Perhaps his finding The Sword, his
leaving, had wiped things away more fully than anything else could.
The symbol on his arm glowed bright in the darkness of the room.
“I've been through a lot,” he said.

“Haven't we all,” Ti'Shed said. “You are
marked, you know.”

“Is this some kind of magic?” Krothair
asked, indicating his arm.

“Oh, yes. That of God Himself.”

Krothair knelt by the bed
now and looked – really
looked
– into the face of his former teacher. It showed
an age that Krothair had never seen during his time in training.
Ti'Shed looked so, so tired.

“I must sleep soon,” the old man said, “but
what you must do now is clear to me. No more wandering. No more
running away. That symbol means a few things. One thing it means is
that you are a Servitor.”

Krothair's heart dropped, not with sadness
but with joy and fear. “I am?” he managed to say.

“Yes,” Ti'Shed said. “I am old, Krothair. I
know my fair share of things, but there is little I know of these
marks, save that they are only given to mages. It may be that when
you saved my life you awakened something within yourself. I wish
there was time to train you in your new powers.”

“Why isn't there?”

“Because you must travel. You are used to
that, are you not? Only one Servitor gets a mark like that, and you
are he, Chosen of God for better or worse. You must travel to the
Temple of Sin'ra.”

“Where is that?” Krothair asked, suddenly
scared. “Can you come with me?”

“It is in the mountains to the north of this
city. And no, I cannot. I am in no condition to travel. I will be
able to take care of myself well enough, but I would only slow you
down. No, you must go quickly and alone. Tonight would be a
fantastic time to leave.”

“But I just got back,” Krothair whispered,
tears forming hot in his eyes.

“Our paths may cross many times, Krothair,”
Ti'Shed said. “Never underestimate life's ability to surprise and
trick. Don't weep here. Go and fulfill whatever duty you have been
Chosen for. The symbol on your arm – that of the broken blade – is
as ancient and rare a thing that is ever whispered about in
rumors.”

“How do I find this Temple?”

“Go into my room. Yes, you have permission
this time. Go into my dresser and fetch a piece of paper with a
black ribbon tied around it. It is one of the only maps I have ever
kept. It will give you the best notion of how to get where you are
going.”

Krothair stood up and bowed to his master in
the dark, then he turned to go, though his legs were exhausted.

Just as he was leaving the room Ti'Shed
said, “That bitch got my sword didn't she?”

“She did. But I will return it to you.”

“Oh, no, Krothair. You must abandon that
path.”

“A wise man once told me that you should
never underestimate life's ability to surprise and trick.”

Ti'Shed chuckled a little, and coughed. “Do
what you must do, Krothair. Your life is about to change in
innumerable ways. You may find you have little time to give me
another passing thought.”

“I assure you, that will not be true.”

“Take a sword with you,” Ti'Shed said, as if
it weren't the most obvious thing in the world. “And get some
supplies to take care of it.”

Krothair took a brief moment to gather
things for his journey, grabbing whetstone and oil cloth and food
that would keep. Then he went to Ti'Shed's room and rummaged
through the drawers until he found what he was looking for. He
tucked the map into the same pocket as his Kingsguard paper (his
most sacred artifact, still undamaged even after the past few
weeks), grabbed a sword he remembered well from the training yard,
and left the house; not with shame, but with purpose.

One hope burned in his mind, brighter than
the symbol on his arm.

He was a Servitor. The magic was alive
within him.

And with it, the chance to one day become a
Kingsguardian.

G
etting out of Haroma wasn't problematic at this late hour,
but Krothair felt like he should at least cover up his glowing
forearm. He'd had to wrap his cloak around his arm three times to
fully cover the glow. He supposed he sort of looked like an idiot,
but sometimes he had seen people wearing their cloaks this way. Was
it for some sort of ritual? It didn't matter. His symbol was
hidden.

The sword he had taken from Ti'Shed's house
wasn't fantastically good, and not much of an upgrade from his
practice sword, but at least it was sharp. He drew it now to
inspect the blade. It was ably-made, with a curving hand-guard and
a longer than average blade.

Krothair sheathed the sword
and exited Haroma through its north-western gate, following the
stars he had so often followed as a youth.
From place to place. From life to life.

The mountains loomed large
after only a few days of travel, and he studied the map furiously
to try and maintain a proper course.

The map was an aged thing, scrawled on
yellowing paper by Ti'Shed himself.

Landmarks were circled and
had their names scrawled next to them. There were some places he
had never heard of: Night Hill, The Undergrul, Toxic Mill.
Sound like fun places to visit
, he thought. There was Haroma. Here were the mountains just
above it. And drawn in large bold ink was the Temple of Sin'ra, its
name scribbled next to it. There was nothing to distinguish its
exact location.

“That's not the most helpful thing I've ever
seen,” Krothair said to the map. “What am I doing?” He unwrapped
his arm then and stared at the symbol glowing there. “What are
you?” he asked it. “And where exactly are you taking me?”

T
he days of riding were getting to Halimaldie. Long hours on a
horse had worn his muscles to the bone, if such a thing were
possible. The Kingsguardians, however, seemed tireless, and it was
merely Halimaldie's desire not to disappoint them that kept him in
the saddle.