The Hidden Relic (The Evermen Saga, Book Two) (12 page)

Once the way forward was clear, the second nightshade followed, the great trunk swaying as it moved across the scattered trees and branches, water streaming from its base as it moved through the river.

Miro looked again at his zenblade. The slightly curved sword shone silver in the afternoon sunlight. He held the hilt in both hands and ran his eyes across the symbols that covered it from one end to the other.

Ella had made this zenblade, just as she had made his armoursilk, soon after the battle at the Sutanesta where she had astonished even master enchanters with her skill. There was no one Miro would trust more with his life.

And, Ella being Ella, she had added some new matrices to the zenblade and given Miro's armoursilk new properties. A bladesinger's song was complex, and Miro had been fearful to add so many activations, but he now felt that this was the time to try the new abilities out.

Miro opened his mouth and started his chant. Rather than building up to it, he pushed himself to direct his song straight to the most powerful sequences of all, where he would turn the zenblade blue and his armoursilk would blaze like lightning.

As the light of the runes lit up the forest the bigger nightshade's malevolent eyes turned. The creature's arms came out, the fingers clacking together, and Miro knew the nightshade had seen him.

Fear hit him with sudden force. Miro voice shook and his song faltered, until with a croak he stopped, and it was gone altogether.

The armoursilk went dead, leaving Miro as defenceless as a newborn babe. The zenblade was now just a sharp sword. Against the nightshade it would be like chopping wood with a bread knife.

The nightshade moved forward, reaching the bank where Miro stood paralysed and pushing itself up to its full height, towering over Miro even as its base stood in the water below him. An arm came at him, faster than he would have thought possible, and Miro ducked and rolled, feeling the horrible fingers pluck at his armoursilk and tear at his long hair.

The movement kicked Miro into action. Suddenly he remembered the basic song of his zenblade, the core activations of his armoursilk. Ella's complex sequences were beyond him, but the next time the nightshade came at him he swung at one of the fingers, taking it off half-way.

The nightshade reared up and for the first time Miro saw the appendages at its base leave the ground, water spilling and the ground heaving as it smashed back to the ground with the force of an earthquake.

Miro decided to buy himself some time and jumped onto a half-fallen trunk, leaping to a second log and then a third, heading deeper into the thick forest. He finally paused in the crook of a huge tree and turned back.

The great arm came at him and Miro dropped, the nightshade's hand smashing into where he had been just a moment before. He fell heavily to the ground, and rolled onto his back.

The nightshade loomed over him; the creature could move with a speed that belied its size. Miro hurriedly picked himself up and for the first time faced up to the massive living tree. He added to the song of his zenblade, leaving only lightness and agility in the armoursilk, and the shining sword shifted hue from red to violet. Miro sang as he leapt forward, climbing the creepers surrounding the nightshade with a bladesinger's agility. The zenblade turned blue.

Miro held onto a vine with one hand. He sensed the nightshade's clawing hands coming at him and knew he had just this one stroke. He held his zenblade with the other hand and thrust at the torso with all the strength of his honed muscles.

The zenblade bit into the bark, piercing no more than a few inches into the trunk. The blow was inconsequential, and Miro realised he was a dead man.

The two gnarled hands wrapped around him, yanking Miro away from the nightshade's body and holding him high in the air while the glaring eyes regarded him. Miro felt the hands begin to squeeze and pull. The nightshade was tearing him in two.

Miro's song faltered and then stopped, the light of the armoursilk's runes slowly fading until it was completely dark. He had never felt such unbelievable strength; the nightshade squeezed at his body with a grip of iron, crushing his ribs and pulling his legs until Miro could almost feel them come out of their sockets.

Miro thought of his sister, and of Amber, both somewhere far from home. Ella had always told him he was too reckless.

Suddenly, Miro remembered.

"
O-lunara-o-sumara. Na-tumara-kan
," he choked the new sequence his sister had built into his armoursilk.

Miro's green armoursilk lit up with shimmering blue lines, sizzling with lightning. Even insulated as he was he felt the numbing jolt and his teeth smashed together, biting through his lip. The metallic taste of blood instantly suffused his mouth.

What the nightshade felt would be much, much worse.

The charge seared the bark of the nightshade's hands black. Smoke rose in a thick cloud and the nightshade screamed, a terrible sound that reverberated throughout the forest.

In an instant it let Miro go, dropping him to the earth.

Gasping, Miro checked his body for broken bones, but aside from the pain in his ribs and legs, he still seemed to be in one piece. He picked himself up and looked up at the nightshade, lurching from side to side in anguish.

Miro checked his armoursilk; using the lightning effect had taken much of its power. He looked around for his zenblade and found it a few paces away.

Miro was ready, and he now had a plan.

He commenced his song, ignoring the pain of his body, adding the core sequences to both his armoursilk and his zenblade. Again he leaped at the nightshade, climbing up its body, but this time keeping an eye out for the sweeping arms. When a limb came at him, he was ready, and Miro put his whole song into the zenblade, turning the blade blue, giving his weapon an incredible searing sharpness.

He swung at the arm with the same strength he had put into his blow at the nightshade's torso, and cut the hand off at the wrist.

As the creature tossed and turned with pain, Miro held on with all his strength. The other arm came at him, and this time he cut the other arm off at the elbow. He continued higher, clambering up the vines until he was high enough to see where the limbs branched at the trunk. Miro cut the nightshade's left arm off, and then the right, before letting go and dropping gracefully to the ground.

The nightshade raised a root-covered appendage to stamp on the bladesinger, but Miro cut again, leaving the nightshade unstable and filled with pain.

With a mighty crash, the nightshade fell to the earth.

Miro leapt atop the trunk and stood with his legs apart, his face grim as he stared down into the dark sunken eyes. He held up his zenblade and activated the new sequence Ella had built into it.

The blade flamed like a burning torch. There was no enhancement of its strength, or its lightness, or its sharpness; this was simply pure heat.

Miro looked at the burning blade and touched it to the thick trunk, between the creature's eyes. He held the weapon to the bark long enough to set it afire before continuing further, slowly moving down the nightshade's body, running the searing blade along its length to the base of its torso. As the creature blazed the runes on its surface turned black.

The nightshade writhed and twitched, hissing and screaming, and then the creature was still.

Miro turned away from the burning hulk. Over the crackle of the flames he heard screams and the sound of breaking branches.

Layla! The thought of her fighting one of these creatures sent chills through Miro's bruised and battered body. He began to run.

Miro followed a trail of dead hunters, their small bodies torn limb from limb or crushed into unrecognisable lumps of red flesh. Miro's rage grew. What chance did the hunters' arrows have against a nightshade? Miro's anger was directed at his own people. They had neglected to give the Dunfolk any help, and this massacre was the direct result.

Miro's legs stretched as he jumped over logs and bushes, starting his song as he reached the scene of the battle.

Ahead, the nightshade faced hundreds of the Dunfolk. Arrows stuck out from it in all directions; it was enraged, but far from crippled. Even as Miro watched, it picked one of the young hunters up and dashed her against a tree.

Another young hunter climbed up the vines on the nightshade's body, hacking at the limb underneath. A heartbeat later the creature plucked him off and threw him against the ground with a terrible force before hitting him with its hand again and again.

Near breathless from running, Miro's song almost faltered when he saw Layla step forward, a look of determination on her face and a bow in her hands. The Dunfolk healer took careful aim, heedless to the danger. She released her feathered arrow and true to her aim it flew through the air to lodge in the nightshade's right eye.

The creature roared and reared back, before dashing forward and picking Layla up in its right hand. It started to squeeze. In a moment blood would gush forth from the healer's mouth.

Miro jumped atop a log and leaped high as he could, launching off a branch to fly through the air. With his zenblade held at full extension he swung down.

Miro took the nightshade's arm off at the shoulder, falling heavily to the earth.

Still in the grip of the gnarled fingers Layla landed in a tangle, but in a moment Miro saw her crawling away, apparently unharmed. Miro noticed the nightshade's senses seemed to be impaired, and called out to the hunters. "The eye! Aim for the eye!"

A moment later dozens of arrows sprouted from the upper region of the trunk. Finally an arrow hit the sunken area of the nightshade's other eye, the strike accompanied by a second great roar of pain.

Miro took advantage of the nightshade's distraction to climb its body and hack away its other arm. He dropped back down and cut at the creepers at its base, taking its appendages off root by root. When the nightshade fell to the earth it was instantly covered with swarming Dunfolk. They hacked the vines from its body until the last of its sprouting appendages were revealed, and with their sharp hunting knives they cut at it until it was trimmed down to nothing more than a trunk.

"Leave it," Miro said. "The essence will kill it."

Soberly, the Dunfolk gathered their dead. Some of the hunters returned to the river to watch for more of the enemy, but Miro could see this day's fighting was over.

Miro thought again about the deadliness of the Dunfolk's bows. They had held off a horde of the enemy, the arrows thinning their numbers better than any volley of prismatic orbs. Only the nightshades had proven too much for the Dunfolk, but the hunters had learned today that the creatures could indeed be killed.

If Miro could combine the ranged attack of bowmen with the close-quarters strength of infantry, what an army he would have!

Essence supplies were low; only Rorelan and Miro knew how low they were…

"Layla!" Miro saw the Dunfolk healer, pleased she had escaped her encounter with little more than scrapes and bruises. "Would you do something for me?"

Layla frowned and looked at Miro. "That depends on what this something is."

"Could you take me to your leader, the Tartana? I want to speak with him about your bows."

Layla thought for a moment. "I will take you to see him. And, Lord Marshal Miro…"

"What is it?"

"Just this once, you do not have to worry about the customary gift."

~

M
IRO
left Dunholme pleased with himself and the agreement he'd made with the Tartana.

The Alturans would provide two bladesingers to fight with the Dunfolk on the northern border, for as long as they were needed. By protecting Dunholme from nightshades, the bladesingers would also be protecting Altura.

In return the Tartana would provide two hunters, Prayan and Aglaran, men he assured Miro were the two best bowmakers and archers in their nation.

The two hunters, father and son, now walked at Miro's side as he headed back to Sarostar. Prayan's ruddy features were wizened with age and he had a tattoo of a sparrow on his cheek. According to the Tartana, Prayan could hit a sparrow on the wing from three hundred paces as a young man. Now, the old hunter was the most skilled maker of bows and teacher of young hunters among their people.

Prayan was grooming his son to follow in his stead, and Aglaran's muscles bunched even on his small frame. Aglaran carried the largest bow Miro had yet seen, and Prayan said he would be useful at teaching the taller Alturans. Aglaran wore his hair in a topknot and wore the tooth of a wolf on a thong around his neck.

Prayan was the more talkative of the two, and Miro wasn't sure if the younger man was simply shy or was perhaps deferring to his father.

Miro suddenly grinned when he pictured High Lord Rorelan's face when Miro told him he'd exchanged two bladesingers for two Dunfolk hunters.

It was an argument Miro looked forward to having. He'd seen too many of his men die at the eastern border clashes, men who could have been saved with the decisive advantage bows could give them.

This wasn't a time to be immersed in the past. The Tingaran Empire was no more. The world had changed.

Miro planned to change with it.

12

B
LADEMASTER
Rogan Jarvish wandered the streets of occupied Ralanast. He supposed he couldn't call himself blademaster anymore. What was he? He supposed he was just Rogan.

He hobbled as he walked, and his throat felt tight and sore, but thoughts of complaint never crossed his mind; he knew he was lucky to be alive.

Rogan had always loved Ralanast, with its beautiful grand buildings and warm, generous people. The capital of Halaran was a place of culture, learning, and a renowned centre for trade, where the produce of Halaran's numerous farms, orchards and workshops was bought and sold. Drudges always crammed the city from one end to the other, pulling cart after cart of goods, and the hearty people celebrated life with festivals and dancing, their food and drink shared among neighbours and strangers alike.