Nolyn Page 19

  Throughout his whole life, there had been but two constants: Sephryn and his father. He saw them as light and dark, good and evil, virtuous and corrupt. But while he had remained loyal to a father he hated, he had turned his back on the brightest star in his life.

  Watching the men reach the shore and triumphantly rage against the jungle, challenging any hiding within to combat but seeing not a single leaf quiver in response, he was envious.

  What good is it to breathe if I don’t live? What value is there in loyalty if it blocks every path? What will I do now?

  With the shore claimed in the name of the empyre, or at least the Stryker contingent of the Seventh Sikaria Auxiliary, the sailors went to the work of beaching the vessel. Fires were built, and men huddled around the light and warmth, eating from a communal pot of fish soup, a delicacy that was sure to get old long before the supply ran out.

  Amicus had dressed but was still scrubbing the wet from his hair when Nolyn approached with the First Spear’s three swords. “Unusual weapons you have.”

  “Heirlooms,” Amicus said. “Handed down from father to son.”

  The rest of the Seventh Sik-Aux were with them at the center of nine driftwood campfires that dotted the sand. The men ate the last of their meals and watched the crackling fire that sent orange sparks aloft on futile quests to join the pale white stars. Demetrius was also there. Pale and shivering, he, too, suffered from Eraphus’s Wrath. No one had laid a hand on him since that first day. They didn’t even watch him anymore. Initially, the man was too sick to flee, but even though he had improved, he’d be a fool to run now that they were miles from civilization and surrounded by the ghazel-filled Erbon Forest.

  Nolyn sat in a gap in the circle that seemed left for him. “Looked refreshing.”

  “It was!” Myth replied with a huge smile. “Best swimming in the world! Although I was hoping to catch a shark on the way in. Then I could wear its head, the way the Ba Ran do.”

  “They don’t do that,” Riley replied. “They just wear necklaces and anklets made from sharks’ teeth.”

  “Even better. Just imagine what they would think if they saw something with the body of a man and the head of a shark coming at them.”

  “You mean after they stop laughing?” Smirch asked.

  “No one laughs at a shark!”

  “True, but a man wearing one as a hat?” Amicus chuckled. “C’mon? That would be funny.”

  “None of you knows anything.” Myth waved a dismissive hand at the lot. “Although I imagine it would smell horrible—fishy, I suspect.”

  “Your swords,” Nolyn said, staring again at the First Spear’s blades, “they have markings on them. The same ones as on your chest. You seem to have a fondness for runes.”

  Amicus looked up. “My father gave me the tattoo when I was young. Said it was part of my training. Taught me to fight practically from the day I was born. ‘Never too early to start the Tesh,’ he used to say when dumping me off my cot before the sun was up.”

  “The Tesh?”

  Amicus fidgeted with a buckle to the over-shoulder strap that supported his side sword after looping through his waist belt. Most men would be removing their weapons in preparation for sleep, not attaching them. Nolyn wondered if Amicus would sleep with that big sword strapped on as well. “That’s what my father called the first seven schools of combat.”

  Nolyn smiled. “Forgive me, but I’ve fought in the legion and with the Instarya for centuries, and I’ve never heard about any of this. The only Tesh I know comes from the old tales.”

  Amicus didn’t appear surprised. “It isn’t well known.”

  Nolyn looked at the others. “You fight like no one I’ve ever seen. You’re incredible. How is it that such a set of skills could be ignored? I would think everyone would be hounding you for instruction.”

  Amicus frowned. “The Tesh—it’s a family secret.”

  “But you taught them.” Nolyn pointed a sweeping arm at the circle of six. “Don’t deny it. I’ve seen them fight.”

  “Well, I’ve only really taught Glot, Myth, and DeMardefeld. Been training with them for a few years, and they still aren’t through all the schools. Really need to start young to be good at it. I only recently started working with Smirch, and so far, we’ve gone over little more than footwork and basic—”

  “But you have taught them this family secret?”

  “Sure.” Amicus nodded. “They’re family.”

  Nolyn didn’t have a reply to that. He’d only been with the group for eight days, and already he felt closer to them than anyone aside from Sephryn or Bran.

  “Look, my father’s dead. I have no sons, and out here, no one cares who I am. What matters is that I can fight. I teach them because the better they are, the longer I’ll live. But not everyone wants to learn. Paladeious and Greig wouldn’t listen to a word I said. They were big, and that’s all they felt they needed to be. Others came to the Seventh Sik-Aux from different squadrons, or even other legions, and believed they already knew everything. And Everett there”—he pointed at the lad—“just arrived a week before you.”

  “So you taught four of the five men who, aside from me and yourself, survived the ambush? You don’t see that as significant?”

  “Honestly?” Amicus said. “I have no idea how Smirch survived.”

  “I’m like an unsightly mole,” the gristly man said. “No matter what you do, you can’t get rid of me, bossy.”

  Everett dragged over another branch of driftwood and added it to the fire. A hive of sparks exploded, flying away toward the overhead half-moon.

  “Will you teach me?” Everett asked.

  “I’d like to learn, too,” Mirk said.

  The First Spear sighed. “Sure.”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” Myth said. “The man is a cruel instructor. I was handsome before I became his student. Now, alas, I’m only good-looking.”

  Riley leaned in toward Myth, studying him, then nodded. “I’m starting to see the wisdom of a shark’s head.”

  Myth threw his bowl at Riley, who caught and stacked it along with his.

  “I still don’t understand the runes,” Nolyn said. “How are they part of the training?”

  “My father said that they were for defense.”

  “Against what?”

  Amicus lowered his voice as if he didn’t want to be heard. “Magic.”

  “Did you say magic?” Myth asked, which surprised Nolyn, as he thought this family—this band of brothers—would have covered such a topic earlier. Judging from the interest on the faces of everyone around the central fire, it hadn’t come up before.

  “There was something called the Orinfar,” Nolyn explained. “Dwarven runes that were said to protect against magic. Are you saying that’s what those tattoos are?”

  “Never heard of an Orinfar, but I do know this”—Amicus pulled his short sword—“is the Sword of Brigham, a relic from my ancestor who fought in the Great War.” He tilted the blade so they could all see the markings running down the length of the fuller, or blood-gutter as some called it. “Legend holds that this sword was forged by Roan of Rhen for the Battle of Grandford.” He paused to glance knowingly at Nolyn. “And these marks are dwarven symbols. They were put on all the weapons and armor back then as protection from Fhrey sorcerers.” He drew out his other, longer blade and revealed the same markings. “This iron one is called the Sword of Wraith, rumored to be the first sword Roan ever forged, and as you can see, it, too, has the same markings.” He pulled the one that normally rode on his back from its scabbard. “Now this . . . well, this is what my father said was the holiest of all. He called this blade the Sword of the Word.” He held the weapon out to the firelight so everyone could see the markings. These were different. Scratched rather than etched, they were also not runes but phonic symbols. Nolyn could read the markings as Amicus tilted the blade so that it caught the fiery light. Running down the length of the naked metal was the word GILARABRYWN.
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br />   “Is that . . .” Nolyn said, stopping himself as his mind replied that it couldn’t be. “Are you saying—wait, where did your family get this? Because there was only ever one sword that was known to have had that word marked on it.”

  “You can read it?” Amicus looked shocked.

  “Of course I can. You can’t?”

  Amicus shook his head as he sat up eagerly. “What’s it say? I’ve always wanted to know, and my father couldn’t tell me.”

  “Seriously? You’ve carried that blade around on your back and don’t know? Are you familiar with the story of Gronbach?” Everyone around the fire nodded. “Do you recall how at the end of the tale a sword was forged by the dwarfs? One that was enchanted by Suri?”

  Jerel asked, “Is she the one that killed the dragon and brought down the mountain?”

  Nolyn nodded. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the sword. Never thought it was that big. I suppose they wanted to make certain the thing had enough room to get that long word on the blade. But how did you get it?”

  “Brigham Killian was the last of the Teshlor Warriors, protégés of Tesh. His mentor had no children, so his stuff went to Brigham, I guess.”

  “But how did Tesh get it?”

  “You tell me. You knew everyone.”

  Nolyn stared at the ancient sword, amazed. “According to The Book of Brin, Suri gave the sword to my mother for the keenig challenge. Persephone gave it to a warrior named Raithe, the hero of the Battle of Grandford, but there was no mention of the blade after that. But that’s not odd because The Book of Brin ends just after the Battle of Grandford.”

  Amicus paused, his eyes shifting to the fire in thought. “What’s strange is that legends say Tesh used two matching short swords. But only this one is short.” He clapped the Sword of Brigham. “And it was Brigham’s, not Tesh’s, which means neither of these was actually used by Tesh.”

  “What happened to Tesh’s swords?” Mirk asked.

  Amicus shrugged. “No one knows—but then no one knows what happened to Tesh, either.”

  “My mother and her friends said that Tesh went with the party that descended into the underworld, but he didn’t come back. That was the story they told us anyway. With them, you never knew what to believe, but . . .” He reached out and touched the dwarf-forged blade. “This is real.”

  Amicus nodded. “So there you have it. My family believed in magic, and my father went so far as to tattoo me with the markings from the swords as a precaution. He said all of the old Teshlors wore these runes, the ones Tesh taught, the soldiers who won the Battle of the Harwood. Without them, they would have died horrible deaths. My father used to say, ‘The Tesh can protect you from anything except magic and love. The runes take care of the magic, but nothing works against love.’ What can I say? I come from a strange but romantic family.”

  “Not that strange,” Nolyn replied and opened his tunic down the front to reveal a tattoo of runes across his chest.

  Everyone stared, none more surprised than Amicus. Everett got up and crossed to the other side of the fire to look at the faded ink markings.

  “I suppose you can see now why I was curious,” Nolyn said.

  “Where’d you get yours?”

  “My father.”

  Amicus raised his brows in surprise.

  “It’s not like he did it himself.”

  “But he must have done it to protect you.”

  Nolyn stared at Amicus, bewildered. Such a thought had never occurred to him.

  After his mother died, the day before he was ordered north with the First Legion to kick off the start of the Grenmorian War, his father had ordered him marked. Nolyn wasn’t keen on the idea and had refused. His resistance was ignored. He had been stripped, tied to a table, and forced to suffer hours of pain. Forever afterward, he would bear that shameful mark. A ring of tattoos he always associated with the death of his mother and the cruelty of a father who had shown his compassion for a mourning son by torturing him. The next day his father hurled him into peril without so much as a handshake or a farewell slap on the back. Nolyn hadn’t known why his father ordered the markings—didn’t know what purpose they served. He guessed it was a form of slander, some kind of insult. Criminals were branded not merely as a warning to others but as punishment for their crimes. Nolyn had hidden the tattoo, embarrassed by what it might mean. Never once had he suspected it had been meant to protect him.

  But thinking back, there were times . . .

  Giants had no magic, but nearly thirty years after the end of the Grenmorian War, Nolyn was sent to fight in the Goblin Wars. During a battle with the Durat Ran ghazel in the caves of the mountains of the Fendal Durat, he and twenty others had encountered a hive of the goblins. That was typical; that they had three oberdaza with them wasn’t. Ghazel witch doctors were so rarely encountered that few of the soldiers knew what they were. In an instant, Nolyn’s entire squadron was dead. A strange blue fire had burned them, as well as a good number of the goblin warriors, to charred husks. Nolyn survived. He never even felt the heat. Alone in that dark chamber beneath the mountains, Nolyn killed the trio of goblin witches who glared at him in shock, terror, and disbelief. He never knew how he’d managed to survive. He suspected it had something to do with his Fhrey blood, as all the others had been human. His commander told him not to question it, saying sometimes the gods are fickle. He had accepted that explanation, until now.

  “Maybe your father doesn’t want you as dead as you think he does,” Amicus suggested. “These tattoos might be the reason we’re still alive. Remember what Lynch said? ‘He could burst you like a bladder of blood.’” Amicus made a show of snapping his fingers. “And I thought the emperor hated magic.”

  “He does.” Nolyn frowned as he faced the possibility of being wrong about long-held beliefs. “He outlawed use of the Art across the entire empyre.”

  “So if it wasn’t your father who tried to kill you in the Erbon, who then? I suppose it might not even be a person,” Amicus said.

  Nolyn agreed, “We could be facing a demon, a god, or an old-world spirit like Wogan or Bab. Might even be a crimbal, a tabor, or welo. Well, no, I guess it couldn’t be a welo.”

  “You’re a veritable wealth of curiosities, aren’t you?” Smirch said. “Anyone ever heard of any of those things?”

  Everett nodded. “Crimbals. They’re mischievous little creatures, but dangerous, too. My grandmama talked about how she saw them at night—said they looked like little lights bobbing in the field near the forest.”

  Nolyn shook his head. “Those are leshies. Totally different things.” They all stared at him in fascination. “Sorry, I spent my youth in the Mystic Wood. Suri had a thing about forest spirits, talked about them all the time. All I’m saying is that we have no idea what we are dealing with, except . . .”

  “Yes?” Amicus said.

  “Well, right before the legate exploded, Lynch used the word he. ‘You’re dealing with real power. He can destroy you with a snap of his fingers.’ Maybe I’m reaching, but I just don’t think Lynch would have been so casual if it was a god, nor would anyone refer to a woodland spirit as a he. That would point more toward an Artist—a practitioner of magic.”

  “Whoa. Wait a minute. Did you say Legate Lynch exploded?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah, I was wondering about that bit myself,” Jerel added.

  “You said the legate was dead.” Smirch scrubbed his stubble. “Didn’t say nothing about him exploding.”

  “Did you actually see it happen?” Mirk asked, his face wrenched in a grimace.

  “No,” Nolyn said. “Demetrius took off, and we were going after him. But we heard it. Sounded sort of like a pop and a splatter.”

  “More of a gush, really,” Amicus added.

  Nolyn shook his head. “No, it was definitely more of a—oh, I know. It sounded just like pulling the cork on a jug of good beer. You know what I mean, don’t you? There’s that hollow thug! Followed by the froth and . . .” Nolyn
noticed the expressions of horror on those around the fire. “So, no, we didn’t see it, but the noise made us stop.”

  “We went back in, and Lynch was—all over the place,” Amicus explained.

  Mirk stood up and started to leave.

  “Where you going, Arrow Mouth?” Smirch asked.

  “To talk to the sailors,” Mirk said. “They’re bound to have ink and needles.” He stopped and looked back at Amicus. “If they do, would you let me borrow one of those iron swords? The ones with the runes?”

  “No problem,” Amicus replied. “So long as you return it. Fail, and your first lesson in the Tesh will be extremely short.”

  The Calynian nodded. “Thanks.” Mirk trotted off down the beach.

  Riley, Myth, Smirch, Jerel, and Everett exchanged looks; then, as if on cue, they all stood up and followed after Mirk.

  Chapter Twelve

  Crossroads

  Sephryn placed her jug in the fountain. She pushed it below the surface of the circular pool and listened to the gurgle as it filled. She had found the hydria, the one with the broken handle and chipped foot, under the stairs. There had been two, but she couldn’t carry both and wasn’t relishing the idea of wrestling even the one jug back home. Water was a heavy thing.

  “How is Mica?” Adella asked.

  The woman was coming Sephryn’s way with her own pair of clay pots suspended from a pole. Sephryn frowned in jealousy—she couldn’t find her pole. Mica had always fetched their water, and Sephryn had no idea where Nurgya’s nursemaid had stashed the carrying stick. Not under the steps, that was certain. She was lucky to find the jugs. Why the pole wasn’t with the jugs was—