I could feel the cavern’s increasing malignancy. Like a feeling of doom lingering in the air. I could tell that Ecco’s sister was angry and frustrated, that she would have brought the ceiling down on our heads if she could have.

  And she tried.

  Ecco protected us as well as she could. Not only did she lead us away from the worst of the dangers, but she also held the way open when otherwise it might have become sealed off, and exerted her power to keep us alive.

  Her influence over the rock was impressive, and I made a point of practicing my own earth bending as often as I could, infusing my chi into rocks, and exerting my will to change their shape.

  I was getting better at it. More controlled. But it required more chi than I wanted to spend, and I knew I would have to find a way to make it more efficient if it was to become a core part of what I did.

  I could easily fill a rock with enough chi that I could control it. But to keep a cave tunnel from collapsing on us like Ecco did? If I tried the same thing, it would require that I expend all my energy at once, and I didn’t want to go back there if I could help it.

  I didn’t let anyone see me playing with the rocks, mostly because the skill was still developing and I didn’t want anyone to get false hope. I suspected that Camille caught me levitating a rock at one point, but I let it fall to the ground when I saw her glance my way. She didn’t comment about it, and wasn’t the sort of person to pry anyway, unless the information directly pertained to her.

  I liked that about her, but it made me wonder if we would ever be closer. I supposed someday I’d have to take the initiative with that, in regards to Camille.

  38

  As the days passed, we fell into a sort of routine. Ecco would guide us while we were awake, and Zera would spend the days picking edible fruits and plants. If Camille or I spied any of the bat creatures, or even some of the weird, furry lizards that seemed to feed on the insects, then we would have meat, as well. Ash and I would share guard duty at night, and one or other of the girls would regularly join me to help boost their chi.

  There was almost always fresh water to be drunk, and the lower we got, the more of it there seemed to be.

  Until we reached a cavern with a river flowing through the middle of it.

  It wasn’t a torrent. The river was slow moving, almost placid. But it was wide, and at first glance seemed deep enough to be a danger to cross.

  And cross it was what we needed to do.

  Ecco had no problem at all. She simply faded to nothing on our side of the river, only to reappear on the other. For some reason, she had again changed her look, now appearing as a partial red panda, her tail and ears the definition of fluffy and cute.

  Zera was equally untroubled. While she had spent most of the time in the caves walking, she had fluttered along in the larger caverns, where it had made sense. Next to the river, the ceiling was high enough, so the butterfly girl simply took to the air, to touch down next to Ecco.

  I knew I could lighten my feet and either sail clear over the river, or even step on it a couple of times without breaking the surface.

  Camille was equally unconcerned. “I can swim,” she said, and immediately put her words into action.

  She didn’t swim quite like a normal woman. Instead, she used her tail to propel her along, coming to Ecco and Zera’s side of the river within a few seconds.

  Gamma was the most uncertain. The difficult woman had been quiet of late, her pride having suffered a blow when Ecco had taken over her duties as a guide. But I knew she was one bad mood from uttering an order that would mess everything up. Even then, I felt the compulsion of the binding tugging at the corners of my consciousness.

  For some days, she had wanted me to stay close, almost as if she was afraid I might wander off. I was more than happy to do so. The last thing I wanted was to give the caves the chance to separate us once again.

  But I knew that it would take no more than a fit of pique for her to send me away as she had done before.

  That knowledge made me grind my teeth in frustration, but there was little I could do about it.

  “I can’t swim,” Gamma admitted, and it seemed that that Edda was equally concerned. The chittering monkey hopped from one of Gamma’s shoulders to the other, pointing and chirping at the river as if it was an enemy like the gigantic worm we had fought.

  “I will carry you,” Ash offered, and turned around so the princess could climb onto her back.

  She did so, and Ash waded into the river, steadily getting deeper and deeper until it covered her waist, then touched her breasts, and then rose nearly toward her neck.

  Gamma looked terrified, and so did Edda, who had climbed up on her mistress’ head and sat there shivering in fear. At the midway point, Gamma tried to shift her position. She was mostly wet, with just the top half of her body out of the water.

  Ash continued in her usual implacable, unhurried way. It seemed she would make it across with no problem, and I prepared to make my crossing as well. But then Ash swiveled her head and stopped dead, staring into the water.

  At first, I couldn’t tell what she was looking at, but all of a sudden, the muscular woman spun about, unconcerned of about Gamma’s balance. Gamma squealed out loud as she tried to hold on, but it was Ash’s vocalization that spurred me to action.

  “Rogan!” she said, not looking my way. “A little help!”

  Ash didn’t ask for help lightly. She was enormously capable. With her club in her hand, she had stood at my side in the face of an army, and come out the other side whole and unscathed. To hear the anxiety in her voice was almost shocking, and before I knew what I was doing, I had launched myself into the water.

  It was colder than expected, enough to almost suck the air from my lungs, and the weight of the water in my cloak dragged me down. But I kept my eyes open, looking for what had caused Ash’s distress.

  It wasn’t difficult to find. Hidden in the water, its flesh dark and hard to focus on, was a monstrous eel-like creature that seemed to be sizing Ash and Gamma up for a meal.

  It was enormous. A creature of nightmare proportions, and I wondered briefly how it could sustain itself in this river, and knew that it was going to be a tough fight.

  Underwater.

  A man with two short swords against a creature maybe twenty feet long and as thick as three men together. A long, sinuous creature with a head full of fangs and dinner plate eyes that seemed to see everything.

  All this flashed through my mind as I went to meet it. I didn’t hesitate. If the creature had attacked Ash head on, she could already have been dead, or covered in tooth marks. And if Gamma and Edda followed suit, I might have been freed of the compulsion binding me to her. Still, that wasn’t the way I would have chosen to go about it.

  So I kicked hard, driving myself through the water, not caring that I had but a lungful of air to last me the entire fight. All that mattered was that the monster seemed to have decided that Ash and Gamma were food, and was lining them up.

  My Divine Steps were nothing in this watery world was the strength I, forcing me to rely on my legs and the swiftness of my strokes. And in less than a heartbeat, I’d crossed the distance to the nearest part of the sinuous form and plunged my blades deep into its flesh.

  The effect was dramatic. Instead of a long, slow glide through the water, the monster erupted into coils of rage, churning the water into a bubbly froth, and letting out a surprising shriek of anger.

  It was all I could do to cling on as the monster bucked and twisted around, breaking the surface of the river more than once and diving back down. Grimly, I withdrew one of my blades from the monster, heaved myself forward, and dug it in once again.

  The monster turned itself into knots, and I lost sight of Ash and Gamma completely. And then the huge weight of the creature came smashing toward me, giving me just enough time to duck beneath it and hold on for dear life. When the coil had passed, I withdrew my other blade, heaved myself forward some more, and sent it back in.

  If anything, the monster redoubled its efforts, shrieking and writhing, trying to drag my body against the rocks on the bottom of the river, to do anything it could to shake me loose.

  In a matter of moments, I was battered and bruised, and more than once the creature almost smashed the air from my lungs. But I knew I had just one chance to kill this monster, and if I didn’t, then Ash and Gamma would likely die. While I didn’t have the air to shout any directions to them, I hoped Ash was working her way toward the opposite bank while I fought off the eel creature.

  I sent a pulse of chi through my blades, not to change their shape this time, but simply to act as a conduit, searing the monster’s flesh with chi power.

  A lesser creature would have died on the spot. I had killed the spider creatures that way, and a single burst of chi had been enough to take out large swaths of waste walkers. But this monster was tough. For all I knew, the monster was an electric eel hybrid, in which case my efforts might not be as effective as I needed them to be.

  With my lungs starting to burn, my heart pounding in my ears, and the monster writhing in my grip, I drew out my blades one at a time, and crawled forward again.

  At every opportunity, I let loose with a pulse of my power, doing my level best to fry the monster from the inside out, until, finally, I found myself close to its head.

  I didn’t know how long I had been holding my breath. Four or five minutes at least. I was nearly done and expected black spots to start appearing before my eyes as I ran out of oxygen.

  But the monster wasn’t faring much better. Its struggles had weakened, if not faded completely. I knew that I was close to blacking out, could feel the edges of my consciousness fading. But I had never been one to give up, no matter the odds.

  I was Rogan Ward. Legendary hero of this world. I was the Whirling Blade, a master of chi who owned a Soul Blade, and knew how to use it.

  Even before then, I had been a war hero, if on a far less noble a scale. Even wounded, I had gone back and done my part, tried to save a stranger from the Wraith and Goblin that had eventually killed me.

  I had no intention of giving up before the job was done.

  With the last of my strength, I looked the monster in its dinner plate eye and drove one of my blades through it, hopefully into its brain. Once more, it let out a cry and tried to shake me off, but with less power than before.

  With the last of my strength, I emptied my chi through my blade and into the monster’s brain.

  It stopped struggling, and I knew I had done it. If the creature wasn’t dead, then at least I had given Ash and Gamma time to escape.

  With the darkness encroaching ever more, I knew all I had to do was disengage my blades and kick for the surface.

  Unfortunately, the monster wasn’t floating in death, but was sinking instead. I managed to get one blade out of the way, but before I could withdraw the other, I hit the bottom of the river, with the weight of the creature pinning my arm.

  I knew that was it. My lungs were cramping, and it wouldn’t be long before I either blacked out from lack of oxygen or was forced to inhale a lungful of water.

  Either way, I thought, I would be free of Gamma’s compulsion, and that was enough to make me smile.

  39

  It was Ash who pulled me out of the water. She had managed to make her way to the other side, leave Gamma and Edda there safely, and then draw her club to help me.

  It was a good thing she did. I had reached the last of my strength, and try as I might, I couldn’t dislodge the corpse of the eel monster from where it lay on my arm, pinning me down. I even thought to infuse the river with chi, and bend it away. But I barely had enough chi left to keep my own heart beating, let alone attempt something I’d never done before.

  There was no point in continuing to struggle. The battle was won, at least as far as the others were concerned. But I was unable to save myself.

  And then Ash was there beside me, using her club like a lever, jamming one end beneath the bulk of the eel and heaving with all of her considerable might. Even then, it might not have been enough. My muscles were done. Empty of strength. The best I could manage was to jerk feebly, trying to pull my arm free.

  Somehow, Ash managed to grab my cloak. She grabbed a bunch of it in her fist and pulled me out from beneath the beast. I felt my face break the surface of the water, and breathed in great gulps of the sweetest tasting air I had ever known.

  Ash dragged me through the water all the way to the other side of the river and onto dry land, where I collapsed in a heap.

  To my surprise, Camille, Zera, Ecco, and even Gamma surrounded me, demanding to know if I was okay.

  “Give him space,” Ash said. “His chi is depleted. He needs to meditate.”

  I had never been more grateful for Ash than I was at that moment.

  Still, the worried faces of the others remained. I caught snippets of what they were saying, but not all. They were talking over each other.

  “But he will be all right?”

  “He was under for so long!”

  “I thought he was lost to us.”

  I couldn’t define from one moment to the next who was speaking, but it felt surprisingly good to know that I would have been missed.

  “I do not believe he swallowed any water,” Ash responded. “Nor does he seem to be greatly injured, although how that could be, I do not know. The way the monster moved, I was sure he would be crushed.”

  At this, I managed a weak laugh. “Who says I wasn’t?”

  Ash ignored me. “Hopefully, he should be fine once he meditates.”

  It took a few minutes beyond that before the others heeded Ash’s words and gave me space. With muscles that felt leaden and useless, I managed to heave myself into a lotus position, and, ignoring the sodden mess of my clothes, I once more reached for balance.

  I found it swiftly enough, and opened myself up to the heavens, really accepting their gift of energy. Such was my state of depletion that it took far longer than usual before I began to feel strong again. At first, it was as if I was funneling that power into a void that was impossible to fill. But then life started to return to my limbs. I breathed deep, started to swell with chi, and all at once, I was back.

  I kept drinking hungrily of this mana from heaven, taking as much as I could, until I could accept no more. Then I opened my eyes and saw that the women were still gathered around me, their expressions much more relaxed than their words had implied.

  I shifted my position just a little, realized that my clothes were still mostly soaked through, and used my chi for a purpose that I was sure the original Rogan would never have considered.

  In a flash of chi, my clothes were dry once again.

  I managed a smile.

  “How are you feeling?” Ash asked.

  “Battered,” I told her. “Bruised. Crushed. Nearly flattened. But for all that, I am still in one piece, and much improved from when you dragged me from the water.”

  It seemed that everyone was happy to hear it. But I wasn’t done. “Thank you for that, by the way,” I said. “If it weren’t for you, I would have been fish food.”

  It was Ash’s turn to smile. “No thanks are required. You were only in danger because of my inability. If you had not acted as you did, the eel would have been on me. And while I might have been able to deal it a considerable blow in my larger form, in this one…” She trailed off and shrugged. “I could not have done as you did.”

  The warrior woman was justifiably proud of her prowess. For her to admit that she couldn’t have killed the eel seemed to have cost her. Not that she envied me, not exactly. It was more that she took it as a personal rebuke.

  As if somehow she should have been stronger.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but fortunately, I didn’t have to.

  “Are you fit to continue?” Gamma asked in a strangely subdued voice.

  I nodded, and the resentment I carried for her remained hidden. Perhaps it was because the compulsion seemed far away for the moment. She wasn’t ordering me to go on. Merely asking if I could.

  “Good,” she said. “Ecco thinks that it might be unwise to stay here any longer than we have to.”

  40

  Later, we found a small nook off the side of a larger chamber that looked like a good place to stop for the day, and shared around the provisions we still possessed. It had been a poor day for foraging from Zera’s point of view. She had gathered a few edible flowers and leaves, but only one of the delicious mango-like fruit, and even that seemed to be past its prime. But Camille still carried a portion or two of bat meat, which she shared out to one and all.

  I ate some of the meat and the few of the greens, aware as I did that my muscles were beginning to stiffen. The battering I had received courtesy of the eel was starting to make its presence known, and I didn’t doubt that I would find large bruises all over my body.

  The others ate what they wished, with Gamma and Ash sharing the mango fruit between them. But at the first bite, the difficult woman paused.

  “This is much sweeter than usual,” she said, her voice uncertain.

  “It is older. Starting to ferment, I think,” the butterfly girl replied. She grinned at Gamma. “If you do not want your share, I will eat it.”

  She held out her hand, but Gamma held onto the half she had kept for herself.

  “Fermented?” Camille asked. “Sounds delicious. Yeah, me too. If you don't want it…” But she wasn’t serious. She seemed to be just teasing rather than anything more, perhaps to convince Gamma that it was okay to eat.

  It worked. The beautiful, long-haired woman whom I was still getting used to seeing without her layers of intricate makeup and tiered hair seemed to accept Zera’s and Camille’s show of interest as proof that the root was okay, and took a second tentative bite.

  She nodded as if convincing herself of the taste, and finished the fruit with a sequence of delicate but increasingly enthusiastic bites.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21