Fire of the Forebears, page 23
“Hey!” Kura lunged to catch hold of the cold metal bars. “I was sent here—”
“Save it,” the centaur said with a swish of his tail. “We’ve seen your kind before, and we’ll see them again. Pray you leave here with your life.”
Renard rolled his eyes. “Ignore him. His people have a flair for the dramatic. This is just a precaution.”
A large shadow shifted at the far end of the hallway, followed by a deep, echoing growl. Kura stiffened as a bear lumbered into the torchlight. It wasn’t just any bear—it was Rusket, the nostkynna she’d met in the Wynshire.
She watched Renard follow the centaur down the hallway, then shuddered as she forced herself to look the bear in the eye. “I didn’t betray you. I would never—”
“I know.” The bear sank lazily onto his haunches. He spoke through clenched teeth, attention fixed on anything but her. “The last man assigned to contact you in the Waste was one of several captured by royal soldiers a few weeks ago. I’m sure he or one of the others gave you up.”
Kura wanted to relax, but the beast’s acrid tone made that difficult. “I’ve been trying to find this place for days, actually. Maybe we can strike some kind of—”
Rusket snarled. “Enough, child. I lend no ear to bargaining. If we see the same cause worthy, then perhaps you will fight at my side. Beyond that I have no care for you.”
Kura could only stare into the bear’s dark eyes, mouth agape, as she tried to channel her growing rage into coherent thoughts. “I sacrificed everything for your cause.”
“Everything?” Rusket tilted his head. “While you yet draw breath?” Kura started to speak, but the bear rose on all fours and shoved his snout as near to her face as the bars allowed. “There are more lives to lose than just the ones you happen to love.”
He turned away and retook his seat with a huff, but Kura glared at his back. Everything he said was so wrong, but she couldn’t shape her anger into words.
“This was a mistake,” Aethan whispered to himself. Triston stood beside the bars, leaning against the cave wall with his arms folded as he casually surveyed their surroundings, but Aethan sat in the corner, his knees pressed to his chest. “This was a mistake. L’cenóri n’obleri gemeye.”
“What are you saying?”
His wide eyes met hers. He was terrified. “You don’t know, do you? Though… why should you?” He drew in a shuddering breath. “You can’t tell them what I am.”
Baffled, Kura nodded.
A door clanged at the end of the long hallway. She spun around as an old centaur emerged from the darkness, two men at his flanks like paupers lagging behind their king. Scars marred the blue-roan fur on his horse’s half and intricate black tattoos covered his lean human torso. Rusket lowered his gaze as the centaur approached, then stepped aside.
The centaur casually chewed a stalk of grass as he stopped before those iron bars, and Kura balked when his dark eyes came to rest on her. Something about him was familiar—not that she’d met him before, but that sharp, cleanshaven face framed by wiry black hair reminded her of someone else: Konik, the leader of the centaurs in the Wynshire.
“So.” He shifted the stalk of grass to the other side of his mouth. “You are the one who found the sword.”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
He snorted. “I was envisioning someone quite different.” He jerked his chin toward Triston and Aethan. “Who are your friends?”
“Oh, well, they’re…” Kura began, then realized she didn’t know where she was going. “The first is not my friend. I, um, was his prisoner until I became yours.”
The centaur chuckled, though his expression didn’t change. His focus lingered on Aethan, who rose apprehensively to his feet. “And him?”
“He’s, uh, my guide across the Feldland plains.”
“Hmm.” The centaur motioned toward the bars, and one man beside him stepped forward to unlock the cell door. “Well, come on.” He beckoned to Kura as he turned down the hallway.
She took a step to follow but paused in the threshold, glancing back to catch Aethan’s eye. He almost reached for her—his expression screamed for her to stay—but she couldn’t be sure if his fear was for her or for himself. She shrugged and did her best to give him a reassuring smile.
Rusket slammed the bars shut behind her.
Setting her jaw, Kura followed the centaur into the dim hallway, leaving all the others behind. He didn’t even give her a second glance. They walked past a flickering torch and into the shadows, toward an open archway leading into another hallway just as long and narrow as the first. Kura drew in a startled breath. That wasn’t a torch—it was a flame, but it was no torch. The fire itself emanated from a nick in the wall, as though it were burning the stone or the air.
The centaur managed the ghost of a smile when he caught her staring. “It’s fitting a child of man should be so fascinated by that, when a lenêre stone would be twice as bright and half as dangerous.”
Kura met his gaze but found herself unable to hold it. He sounded amused, but in his eyes she saw nothing but indomitable restraint, a veritable fence through which no emotion dared to slip. He nodded toward the end of the hallway, and like a dog tailing its master she did as directed.
Silently, the centaur led her down several winding hallways, each resembling the last, until a soft white light replaced the fire-lit darkness. It resembled sunlight, but the light itself emanated from glowing veins of stone which wove across the cave walls, just another layer in the mountainside.
Lenêre stone, the same as N’hadia had had back in the Wynshire. Kura traced her finger along the glow as she walked. There was no heat, only light. The vein wandered along the wall, then disappeared in the light of the room at the end of the hall. A murmur of conversation echoed past the open doors, but it fell to silence as soon as the centaur stepped through the archway. Hesitantly, Kura followed.
A domed ceiling—every handbreadth painted with colorful abstract patterns—overhung a massive, half-circle stone table. The veins of lenêre stone wound around the room like misshapen spider’s webs, rendering the room as bright as a summer’s day. The bench seats were largely empty, and as the centaur made his way to the head of the table, most of those seated around it put aside their food and papers and rose to their feet.
“Trofast!” Renard exclaimed, looking up with his mouth half full of some sort of stew. “Damn it, just when I thought you were going to be late.”
The centaur frowned. “I’m sure you’ll be able to fill your stomach later.”
Trofast. Kura peered up at the beast-man with new appreciation. The centaurs in the Wynshire had feared his name, and the Varian hadn’t seemed too friendly with him either. She stole a glance at the others as she tried to keep her freezing hands from shaking. There were two men, including Renard, and then the dog and the girl she’d met by the river.
The group retook their seats and Trofast fixed his piercing gaze on Kura. “Your name.”
“Kura of Wynshire.”
“With what intention do you stand before us today?”
Kura glanced from face to face, as if in those expectant stares she’d get a clue of what answer they were looking for. She let out a breath. “By complete accident, I came to find the sword Ìsendorál. I’ve brought it here to you, so you can find someone to wield it.”
A heavy-set man in flowing blue and gold robes frowned. “You make no claim to it?”
“No, I do not.”
Trofast inspected her with what might have been a wry smile. “Two men came to me with a sword like this, though not this one I think, and neither of them managed to wield it. Still, the last purported sword-bearer lives on today. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He is Dradge, son of Rhowan, King of Avaron.”
Kura burst out laughing despite herself, but stopped as she found herself the only one. “That can’t…”
Trofast gingerly lifted the sword, still housed in the battered old sheath, from the table before him. “You stole this?”
“No sir, I…” Kura started, then hesitated as she recalled the exact circumstances. “I just needed a sword. I didn’t know what it was. This has all been some strange twist of fate…”
Trofast grunted. “I do not believe in fate, nor do I trust in circumstance. Something has brought you here, Kura of Wynshire, but whether it is for good or ill I do not know.”
The dog shook her head and hopped up to brace her front paws on the table, her rear paws resting on the bench seat. “She reeks of saja blood, Trofast. If that’s the kind of enemy she keeps, then she’s well on her way to being a friend of ours.”
“Grenja, if only it were so simple.” Trofast drew the sword from its scabbard. The lenêre stone’s light reflected dully in the rusted blade, and his eyes narrowed as they fell on Gallian’s sigil near the hilt. “Child, do you know why I bear these marks on my skin?”
The intricate patterns on his body aligned with white gashes, not to cover the scars but accent them, decorate each with the impressions of vines, flowers, or other shapes—placing them in prominence.
Kura shook her head, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t hold his gaze. “No, sir.”
“Each commemorates a wound that I received in defense of my people. A mark of honor, as such a pursuit deserves fitting recognition.” He ran a finger across Ìsendorál’s fuller. “I tell you this for two reasons: the first is so that you understand the price I am willing to pay in order to defend those I love and what I believe, and the second to show you this.” Trofast lowered the weapon and lifted his right arm. A white gash, far more grievous than any of the other scars, ran across his ribs. It had not been decorated. “This I received at the hands of the last ones who came to me bearing a sword of this name, and while it did not take my life, it has taken any idle trust others may have afforded you before now.”
Kura nodded respectfully. “I understand, sir.” She held his gaze this time, even as she had to press her cold arms against her chest to keep from shaking. “But I hope you understand that I too bear scars, although you may not see them, and I earned them by bringing this sword to you.”
Trofast nodded, thoughtfully, and laid the bare blade on the table. “What is it you want, then? Money?”
“No, sir. I only hoped you might be able to—”
The centaur laughed, but his ears were pinned against his neck. “So you do want something. That is just as well. Your kind has a saying: a horse without a driver carries his cart into the ditch. Though I must point out that a poor driver produces the same result. Whether you intend to hold the reins or not, I’m afraid we must ask you to try. But I promise, no matter the end, you will be justly rewarded.”
Kura studied Trofast’s face, a lump forming in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t be sure if he intended to wish or well or to threaten her, but either way he meant what he said. “What do you want to ask me, sir?”
Trofast nodded to the man in the colorful robes. With his immaculately clean hands and oiled brown hair tied behind his head, he looked like a scholar among soldiers. However, his angular green eyes were stern and as they scrutinized her.
“When were you born?”
Kura blinked. “I’m twenty—”
“I didn’t ask how old you are, I asked when you were born. In what season?”
She tried to hold back a frown. “Fall.”
“Your trade?”
“Uh… farming. I guess.”
His eyebrow twitched. “And what about your parents?”
“My father was a soldier and my mother was a bard.”
“Lovarian soldier?”
“No.” Kura shook her head fervently. “In Dradge’s army. Before I was born, though.”
The man clenched his jaw and looked down at the table before him. “Thank you.”
A wide grin broke across Renard’s face. “She passed your test, didn’t she, Erryl? What did I tell you, huh? What did I tell you?”
The man scowled but didn’t reply.
What test? Anxiety shot through her veins. The forebears’ prophecy—Skellor had recited the thing to her only days before. All those lines about autumn, scythes and swords, of black birds and Ìsendorál… The fonfyr was Fidelis, a hero of epic proportions, more than anyone—much less an unlucky sword-thief—could possibly dream of being. “Look, I’m not the fonfyr, I already told you—”
“And we heard you, child,” Trofast said softly. He picked up the sword, then handed it hilt-first to the girl in the purple cloak seated beside him. “Test her.”
The girl rose, pulling back her hood to release curling black hair. She had dark skin, a shade lighter than Renard’s, and a round, innocent face. She reverently took the sword into her hands, and her bright green eyes met Kura’s for only a moment as she held out the weapon.
“Careful, Idris,” Erryl muttered.
Kura frowned in his direction, but the girl didn’t pay him any mind. She placed the hilt in Kura’s hand, then took a deep breath and stepped back.
“I’m going to say some words. Can you repeat them for me?”
There’s no getting out of this now, is there? Kura sighed. “Alright.” She grasped the sword hilt with both hands and stepped into a simple guard stance.
Idris took a shuddering breath, then began to speak. “Ettere fonfyr dar les deamyur.”
“Etterie fonfyr dare less…”
Idris laughed quietly, a smile piercing her solemn expression. “Sorry, I’ll try again. Ettere fonfyr.”
“Ettere fonfyr…”
Kura did her best to repeat the words. They were strange and flowing, the vowels softer and the cadence slower than Ristaer. As the final syllables rolled off her tongue, energy surged through her veins. It was as though she’d been hit by a wave of water, but instead of knocking her aside, the force became part of her.
The sword burst into flames.
Kura screamed and threw the weapon to the ground. She turned to the others in panic, but they were staring at the sword. Bewildered, she looked down. The blade was no longer on fire, and it was also no longer chipped and rusted. The fuller shone with a line of swirling, engraved letters that burned red like fire, and the blade itself glistened like gold.
“My god…” Renard murmured.
No one seemed to have anything more to add.
As they all watched, rust grew on the blade again, creeping like ice from the hilt, up the fuller, and towards the point. The edge itself seemed to remain sharp and the steel still glistened with a mute gold beneath the marred surface, but apparently the transformation wasn’t strong enough to last.
Idris covered her hands with her cloak, then gingerly retrieved the sword from the dusty cave floor. Kura cringed as the girl held the hilt toward her again. All this time, I’ve been carrying that?
“Again,” Trofast said, his face stern.
Grimacing, Kura wrapped her cold fingers around the hilt.
Idris recited those strange words and Kura again tried her best to repeat them, her heartbeat increasing with every passing second. She kept her attention fixed on that blade, and gradually everyone and everything else faded into the periphery.
Red light flickered in the lettering by the hilt. It swept up the fuller, intensifying as each letter illuminated, until the blade burst into flame. Kura’s first impulse was to toss it away again, but against her better judgment she held on. The flames danced before her eyes, as bright and natural as any fire she’d ever seen, but what was it burning? The blade continued to shine, as gold as the autumn sunrise shimmering on calm waters.
Then she felt it: a strain, not just in her muscles but every part of her, as if she were running—sprinting, winded, and with all her strength—up the steepest mountain, although she hadn’t taken a step since the blade had caught fire. She gasped for breath, her limbs shook, and the flame on the blade flickered.
The next thing she knew, she was sprawled on the council room floor.
Several voices filled Kura’s ears, but she hardly heard them. She rolled onto her side, her chest heaving, and forced her eyes open. The world was a blur of light and darkness, but she blinked a few times, hard, and the hazy image of Idris’s face came into focus. The girl was kneeling over her, saying something to the rest of the council.
Kura tried to sit up, but even Idris’s slender arm was enough to hold her down.
“It’s alright,” the girl said with a tight smile, her voice oscillating in panic. “You’ll be alright.”
Kura doubled her efforts and forced herself to a seated position.
“Hey, kid, take it easy.” It was Renard on her other side with a look of sympathy, supporting her with his arm. “Can you stand?” He offered her his hand and she took it, but even with his help she used all her strength to get back to her feet.
“Tend to her, Idris,” Trofast said. Something had changed in his expression—it wasn’t sympathy, but maybe close to it.
“No.” Kura feebly tried to force herself out of Renard’s grip. “I won’t go, not without my friends.”
Trofast’s eyes narrowed. “So now you do call Dradge’s son your friend?”
Kura paused. She hadn’t meant it like that, but what else was she supposed to say? “If I must, to have him treated decently.”
Trofast held her gaze, then nodded. “Alright.” He turned to Erryl. “See to the both of them as well, and return here on the hour.”
Chapter twenty-seven
Bellicosity
Kura’s head dropped to her chest, startling her awake.
She drew in a deep breath and snuggled deeper into the thick, warm blanket draped over her shoulders. Idris and Renard, with an armed escort, had brought her to this rickety old chair in a small, dimly lit room and then promptly left—although someone stood guard in the hallway beside the open door.
