The Legend Of Eli Monpress (79 page)

“I’m dead,” Josef said. It was as much an experiment to see if he could speak as a test to see how that statement felt. The words made no sound, which made sense, considering, but they felt very real when he said them.

Don’t be stupid
, a voice answered from the darkness.
If you were dead, you wouldn’t be in pain.

Josef flinched. It was the Heart’s voice, and if he was hurt enough to hear it, things must be really bad. On the other hand, if the sword was talking, it probably knew what was going on, which meant it was time for some answers.

“If I’m not dead,” Josef said, “where am I, and how do I get out?”

You are almost dead
, the Heart answered.
I caught your life a moment before it flickered out. I am keeping it alive by holding it next to my own until you decide what you’re going to do.

“What do you mean, ‘I decide’?” Josef said. “What’s there to decide? I’m not going to die to someone like Sted.”

I’m afraid things are no longer that simple, Josef Liechten
, the Heart said and sighed.
We were defeated utterly. Struck down. And do you know why?

Josef felt a twinge of shame. “Because I’m not strong enough.”

Correct
, the Heart thundered.

Josef choked. The Heart’s answer struck him harder than any of Sted’s blows.

The Heart sighed.
I’ve been waiting for a defeat like this to make you understand. You think you know what it means to be strong, but every time a fight pushes you, you wait until the last moment to draw me, then treat my blade as a guaranteed victory, an undefeatable weapon.

“I have to,” Josef said. “You’re too strong. You agreed I’m not good enough, but how can I get better if your power blows everything away? You’re the greatest awakened sword ever made, but I’m the one bleeding to death on the floor, not Sted. Obviously, the weakness is with me. I have to fix it before I can move forward.”

Fights you can win with dull swords are not the ones that make you better
, the Heart said.
Every time you fight you handicap yourself, pushing me aside for your dull blades, thinking that doing so will make you stronger. But real strength doesn’t come from such cheap tricks. Real strength comes from fighting at the edge of your ability, pushing yourself past the last inch of your resolve with everything you have.

Rage filled Josef, and he started to answer, but the Heart cut him off.

I chose you as my wielder because I thought you understood this. But from the moment I allowed you to grasp my hilt, you’ve done nothing but avoid my powers. Not once have you used me to my full potential. You draw me only as a last resort, a final blow.

“But—”

I did not bind myself to you to stay cooped up in a sheath!

Josef flinched at the anger in the sword’s voice, but he could not deny what it said.

These last few years we’ve been together as two parts
, the Heart said,
sword and man, without understanding. If you wish to leave this place, if you wish to defeat Sted, this must change. I am not your trump card, not your guaranteed out. I am a sword, your sword. You’ve come this far on your own, but no farther. If you want to survive, Josef Liechten, then we must emerge from this together, as a swordsman, or not at all.

“But I don’t understand,” Josef said. “You want us to work together? How? I hear you only at times like this, when I’m almost dead. Am I going to have to take a mortal wound every time I want to fight, just so we can talk?”

The Heart rumbled.
Do you think you’re my first nonwizard wielder? Do you think I would have chosen you to carry me if I thought you were incapable of truly being my swordsman?

Josef shook his head. “I don’t see—”

Do you always need to speak to know why a person fights?

“No,” Josef said. “But—”

Do you need words to understand why a sword cuts?

Josef took a deep breath. “No.”

Good
. He could hear the Heart smile.
You begin to understand. Listen well, Josef Liechten. If we are to fight together, you must see me for what I am, a part of yourself, another facet of your own power. To do that, you must push aside your thinking mind, the mind that requires words, and understand me with what lies deeper.

Josef clenched his teeth. The Heart was starting to sound like Eli’s wizard talk. “You mean like a wizard?”

No
, the Heart said in disgust.
I mean like a spirit.

Josef shook his head. “I still don’t understand.”

You will
, the Heart promised.
Open your eyes.

“What?” They were open, or he thought they were.

This close to death, even you should be able to see
. The Heart’s words were an avalanche.
Open your eyes!

Josef did. The darkness was gone; the pain was gone. He was floating high in a blue sky filled with clouds, and before him, rising like a great wave from the land, was a mountain like none he had ever seen. It was taller than anything in the world, its edges sharp and straight as a blade. Its snowcapped peak cut the sky, slicing clouds as they passed, while its wide base spread for miles and miles in all directions, its roots deeper than humans could comprehend. It stood perfectly sharp, proud and tall, unmovable, unbreakable, and the moment Josef saw it, he understood.

The mountain vanished, and he felt something in his hand. He looked down and saw he was holding the Heart of War. The black sword looked the same as ever, and yet different. When he looked at the blade, the memory of the mountain flashed across his mind.

You have seen my true nature.
The Heart’s voice was deep and warm.
Do you still need words, Josef Liechten?

“No,” Josef said, tightening his grip on the sword.

The Heart of War laughed, a deep, rumbling sound, and Josef woke.

He was alone, and in a different place from where he’d fallen. Crates were stacked high around him and his wound had been bound, though the bloodstains told him how useful that would have been if the Heart had not intervened. He looked down at the sword in his hand for a long moment, like he was seeing it for the first time.

The path to true strength is not easily walked.
The Heart’s voice was more like a memory than a sound now.
Now that we’ve started, there’s no going back. I hope you’re prepared to bet your life on this.

“I always have,” Josef whispered. “Every single time.”

A great feeling of laughter welled up in his head, and the sword’s hilt settled hard in Josef’s hand. He gripped it with a grin and, using the sword as a prop, began the long, painful process of sitting up. When he was about halfway there, he heard a crash. He froze, listening. It was the sound of something hitting the floor, something small and human. He was on his feet at once, creeping up the pile of crates just in time to see Sted panting over something on the floor. It was dark, but he would know that shape anywhere, the slender back, the long, thin arms lying limp on the floor, the pale, pale skin.

Rage filled him to boiling, painting the room in a wash of angry color. Rage at Sted, at himself for letting this happen, at Nico for not running from a fight she couldn’t win. Hadn’t he taught her anything? But the sword weighed heavy in his grip, bringing him down, telling him what must be done.

Even so, Josef wasn’t the kind of man to fall on an opponent from behind with no warning.

“Sted!”

The cry echoed through the warehouse, and the enormous swordsman looked up just in time to see Josef leap, the Heart of War held high over his head. The sword felt heavy in his hands, yet Josef could swing it with ease, even more so than before. The blade answered his every movement like it was part of his hand rather than something clasped inside it, and Josef felt a rush like never before as the Heart’s triumphant cackle rolled through him.

For a moment Sted just stood there, staring, and then he started to raise his sword to defend. But this time he was too slow. Josef was already on top of him, swinging the Heart with all his rage. The black blade hit Sted in the side with the weight of a mountain. There was a great iron
gong
, and Sted flew backward, slamming into the front wall of the warehouse with a crash that cracked the wooden supports.

Panting from the force of the blow and keeping one eye on Sted’s slumped body, Josef limped over to Nico. He’d seen plenty of violence in his time, but she was still hard to look at. An enormous wound ran down her chest, as though Sted had been trying to gut her. Still, he told himself, this was Nico. She was about as killable as a rock wall.

Josef knelt down to check her breathing. Sure enough, he could feel it, a faint breeze on his fingers, and he let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. She was alive. He let himself savor the realization before forcing it down again, turning to face Sted’s twitching body. She was alive, and it was his job now to make sure she stayed that way.

Across the warehouse, Sted groaned and retched, coughing up a streak of bright blood. He stared at it in shock before turning his hateful glare on Josef. Keeping a hand to his side, he stood slowly, pushing himself up by painful inches.

“I’m impressed,” he gasped, spitting out another mouthful of blood as he got to his feet at last. “You broke a rib. How long has it been since someone did that? Not for years now.” He bared his bloody teeth at Josef. “You’ll pay for that.”

“If we’re paying blood for blood,” Josef said, “I think you owe us far more.”

Sted grabbed his sword again. “What does it take to kill you?” he grumbled. “This time I’ll cut off your cursed head!”

His threat turned into a scream as he began to charge. Instinctively, Josef turned to jump out of the way, but the Heart would not move. For one panicked moment, he stared at the blade. Then he quieted, and understood. Josef planted his feet firmly, in the position shield troops call Bracing the Mountain, and held the Heart in front of him, broad side out, like a shield. There, firm as bedrock, he met Sted’s charge.

The swords clashed in a scream of twisting metal and flashing sparks. Sted was snarling, his sword red as fresh blood, pushing with all his strength. The blood rage crashed into Josef, but the swordsman did not break his stance, and he did not move an inch.

Realizing his assault was useless, Sted began to swing wildly, using his superior height and reach to try and get around Josef’s iron guard. But everywhere Sted swung, the Heart was there. The great black sword and the man carrying it moved together, flicking from one position to the next with a speed unlike anything they’d shown earlier. Sted struck harder and harder, faster and faster, but Josef and the Heart met him blow for blow, each block flowing seamlessly into the next, and try as he might, Sted could not break the sword’s wall.

Finally, desperately, Sted lashed out with his entire body, throwing all his weight into his attack. This time, when the jagged sword met the Heart’s dented surface, the glowing blade snapped. It broke with a squeal of metal that made Josef’s ears ache, and Sted stumbled back. He held up his sword, now just a foot of toothy metal above the absurdly large hilt, and stared at it like a bewildered child. Then, with a cry of despair, hatred, and utter, devouring rage, he threw himself at Josef.

It was a wild charge. Sted thundered toward him, flailing with the broken sword as though it were still whole, running with his whole body to crush Josef beneath his weight.

It was then, in the madness, that Josef struck. He turned the Heart deftly in his hand, sliding the enormous blade around to meet Sted’s flailing arm. He didn’t look at the man’s bared teeth or his twitching muscles. He didn’t look at his own footwork, or how Sted was poised to crush him without the Heart as a barrier. Instead, he focused on the image the Heart had shown him, of the mountain’s peak cutting the clouds. He held it in his mind until the picture was burned into his vision, until the need to cut, the way of cutting, not as a sword cuts, but as a mountain cuts, was all he could feel. Only then did he swing his sword,
his
sword truly, for the first time, catching Sted in the left arm, just above his elbow.

The black, blunt blade of the Heart met Sted’s impenetrable skin, met and sliced it clean. The Heart cut straight through the flesh, through the bone, with no more resistance than a razor through spider webs. Then it met the air again, and Sted was falling, his arm cut clean off.

The enormous man collapsed on the floor, clutching the space where his arm had been. Josef spun around, taking up his guard again, but he didn’t need to. Sted was curled in a fetal position, clutching his broken sword with the only arm he had left while blood poured out of his wound onto the floor. Josef lowered his guard, resting the Heart’s tip on the floor, and Sted’s head whipped around to face him, his eyes burning with pure, horrible hatred.

“No,” he panted. “We’re not finished.” He forced himself up with his one remaining arm and grabbed the top of his broken sword, clutching the pieces together against his chest. “It’s not over.”

“No,” Josef answered. “It is. You are defeated, Berek Sted.”

Sted laughed, a horrible, wheezing sound. “You, you couldn’t defeat me in a hundred years,” he muttered. “You were lucky, that’s all. My sword broke. There’s no way you could have defeated me otherwise.”