The old man the boy called Old Shamon opened his eyes. He blinked, confused and disoriented, then saw Rylin crouching next to him and cringed away.
“No funny business,” Rylin said. He tapped the ground where Old Shamon’s feet lay trapped. “Or you’ll find yourself with more than just your feet trapped underground.”
The old man snarled. He looked across at the boy who was standing several feet away. “Do you know what that boy is?” he hissed.
Rylin frowned, and the old man stared at him with dark, glassy eyes. Rylin shivered. The old man laughed. It sounded like a crow squawking. “Myor must be smiling on me today. Why don’t you kill me, monster?”
“Answer a few questions for me first, and then I’ll entertain it.”
The old man laughed again, and Rylin grimaced at the sound.
He pressed the tip of his knife against one of the old man’s fingertips. “Just answer my questions,” he said. The old man glared at him, but he grew quiet.
“Are you a Mage?”
The old man said nothing and continued to glare at him. Then his face grew pale and his body trembled. “You’re one of them too,” he breathed. He suddenly leaned forward. “Tell me, is it true that you are immortal? That you can heal from any wound?”
Rylin dug the knife underneath one of the old man’s fingernails, and the old man screamed. “If you know so much, you should know that answering my questions will lead to a quicker and much more pleasant death,” Rylin hissed. “Are you a Mage?”
The old man whimpered, his eyes wet, his mouth slobbering. “I am. I used to work in the Royal Court.”
Rylin almost smiled. “The Royal Court. Did you ever try to become a priest?”
The old man just sniveled. Rylin stuck his knife under another fingernail. The old man screamed.
“Did you ever try to join the High Order?” Rylin growled.
“Yes! Yes! I did,” the old man said. “Every Mage tries to join the High order at some point in their life. There’s money to be made in it. Almost as much as working in the royal court. And power. There’s nothing more powerful than the High Order. Not even the King.”
I would be surprised if the old King has any power at all. “I heard you need to pass an exam to become a novice,” Rylin said.
“You do,” the old man said. “I passed it.”
“What is on it?”
“It has been a few decades, so I’m not…”
Rylin pressed the knife against a bloody fingertip and the old man yelped. “They test your Talents to see if they’re… extraordinary.”
“Like your little suffocation trick.”
The old man gulped and nodded.
“Would this count?” Rylin tapped the man’s buried feet.
“It would,” the old man said. “It would impress them, too. You’ve combined three extremely difficult skills into one. I don’t have the Talent of Earth myself, but I’ve known skilled Mages who did. Even they would have found something like this difficult.” He smiled eagerly, showing his few remaining teeth.
“Is that so?” Rylin muttered. “What else?”
The old man seemed to think for a moment. “They had an oral examination. They asked why I wanted to join the High Order, why not become a regular priest instead. There were questions about theology as well. But mostly they want to know if you have power.”
Power. That was good. It played right into his strengths. “But you never made it up the ranks.”
The old man spat on the ground. “They wouldn’t let me. Wouldn’t tell me why. But I know it was that corrupt bastard Yemir. Him and his phony smile.”
Archpriest Yemir. The head of the High Order, and thus the head of the Church. The most powerful man in the Kingdom, perhaps. He would have been this old man’s contemporary. Perhaps they had been received into training at around the same time.
“So you became a Royal Mage.”
The old man cackled again. “No, I worked in the Royal Archives, keeping the air dry and the books clean. That was the only use they had for me. They exiled me after I tried to burn it down. Shame I couldn’t get the job done. That idiot prince—”
“They recruited you straight from the Church?”
“That’s where the Royal Court finds its Mages. They’re all failed novices or problematic priests. Every one of them. Saves them the trouble of screening for quality.”
Rylin nodded. This was better than he had expected.
“If I’ve answered your questions, could you let me go?” the old man pleaded.
Rylin studied the old man, and something in his expression must have been unpleasant, because the old man recoiled in terror. With good reason. The man somehow knew Cor and Rylin were Soulthieves. It would be dangerous to let him live.
Rylin put a bare finger on the old man’s forehead, felt the wealth of Life that throbbed there; like a river about to burst through a dam. The old man screamed.
Rylin withdrew his finger. The old man looked up at him, confused, then hopeful. “You’ll let me go?” he begged. “Please, I won’t tell–”
Rylin raised the knife and brought it down. Blood sprayed from the front of the old man’s neck. Rylin swung his knife again and hacked through the rest of it, and the old man’s head rolled to the ground. The body slumped forward.
Rylin wiped his knife on the ground and got up. A light fog had descended on the forest. Strange.
The boy was looking at him, his face pale.
“Let’s pack up and go.”
“You… killed him.”
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Rylin sheathed his knife and slung the large pack off the ground and over his shoulder. “He knew we were Soulthieves. It’s too dangerous to let him live.”
The boy stared at the headless corpse. He turned to Rylin. “Why?”
Rylin looked the boy straight in his eyes with as much authority as he could muster. There wasn’t much of it lying around. “If you knew somebody could kill you just by touching you, would you want them around?”
The boy stared back for a moment, then shuddered and looked away.
“Take up your bag,” Rylin said, and headed toward the road.
***
Cor was afraid of the man. He had already been afraid of him when he had first met him, and now, after he had killed Old Shamon, he was more afraid.
Even Hunter Anir with his hard-set jaw, iron eyes, and rugged scars did not seem half as frightening as Rylin. Rylin had no scars. His clean-shaven face was smooth, but there was something in his eyes, something in the way he walked that was unnerving.
Cor couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t just that Rylin was dangerous. There was something else, something that made Cor want to curl up and hide. But he couldn’t leave Rylin. The village had burned down and everyone had…
The image of Mother and Father lying on the ground, burned so badly as to be almost unrecognizable, came to mind. There was no sadness, no grief. Only a silent horror. A quiet disbelief. Had that really been Mother and Father? Had everyone in the village really died?
Not everyone.
There was still Hylan.
Thinking of her made him feel all strange inside. He wanted to see her more than anything, of course, but he was also apprehensive. What if she had gone to the Royal Capital because she didn’t want to see him anymore?
Cor tried not to think about it and focused on following Rylin instead.
The fog had finally cleared again, but the sky had clouded over, making the forest gloomy. Cor kept looking over his shoulder, half expecting Old Shamon’s headless body to be following behind them, but the road was empty.
He thought of the way Rylin had hacked the old man’s body off his shoulder. Chop. Chop. Cor shivered and his neck tingled. To see Old Shamon killed just like that…
Cor looked at Rylin, at his pack–really Hunter Anir’s pack–and sinewy hands. He remembered Rylin touching Old Shamon with one of those hands, and Old Shamon screaming like a woman, almost as though that touch would kill him. Could that touch really have killed him? Just how strong was Rylin, really?
Cor wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But there was a mote of morbid curiosity inside him. Stories of ancient Warriors and Enchanters defeating whole armies came to mind. Could Rylin be that strong?
Cor shook his head. Hylan would laugh at him for thinking such childish thoughts. Besides, Rylin had only killed an old man. An old man who knew ancient magic, yes, but an old man nonetheless. It was still frightening.
His feet were starting to hurt. Cor had gone on long walks around the forest with Hylan, but he had never carried a pack on their excursions. They had been walking since early morning, and he reckoned it was getting to around midafternoon now. Still a few hours of walking ahead of them. But he could use a break.
Would Hylan be taking a break?
He did not think so. Hylan was headstrong if anything. If she had taken any breaks, he and Rylin would have caught up to her by now. No, Hylan was walking just as quickly as they were, and she would scorn him if she saw him begging for a break like a child.
Cor grit his teeth and ignored his aching feet and walked a little faster.
***
Cor flinched, then saw that Rylin was only holding out a bowl to him. Cor accepted the bowl and held it up as Rylin spooned some porridge into it.
The porridge was bland, but after all that walking, it was more than good enough. There was even some meat in it; Rylin had caught a rabbit earlier while they were setting up camp. Chop. Chop.
Cor finished his porridge and looked into the small pot on the fire. Empty. He tried not to show his disappointment and set his bowl down. His stomach rumbled quietly.
“Have you ever been outside your village?” Rylin asked.
Cor considered the question for a moment. He had been in the forest beyond the village before, not as far as they were now, but pretty far. He nodded.
“To a city? Which one?”
Cor looked down. “I haven’t been to a city,” he muttered.
“So just another village?”
Cor considered saying yes, but then thought better of it. “No,” he said.
“Eh?”
“No,” Cor said again, wishing Rylin would stop asking him questions.
Rylin nodded. He reached inside his cloak and brought out his knife. Cor started in horror. “Take it,” Rylin said, holding the blade out to him hilt-first.
Cor eyed the blade, eyed Rylin. He couldn’t read the man’s face in the dim firelight. He couldn’t tell if the man was about to kill him.
Rylin sighed and tossed the blade toward him. It bounced to a stop before Cor’s feet. The edge shone like something wicked.
“I want to see what you can do with a knife,” Rylin said.
Cor looked at him. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” he said.
“You damn well won’t if you don’t know how to use a knife,” Rylin said.
“I don’t want to know how to use one,” Cor said. He thought of Old Shamon and his head thumping to the ground.
“You’re a Soulthief,” Rylin said. “If someone finds out, chances are they’ll try to kill you, or get somebody to kill you, and you’ll need to defend yourself. The knife’s not for killing. It’s for staying alive.”
Cor couldn’t see the difference, and he couldn’t get himself to pick up that knife–the knife that had killed Old Shamon.
“Pick up the knife,” Rylin said in a low voice. His face grew dark, and Cor felt suddenly tiny and vulnerable. He picked up the knife, holding it out gingerly in both hands, the point of blade sticking away from him.
Rylin rolled his shoulders and neck and stood up. He held a small stick in one hand. Cor knew what he was to do. In the stories, Myor had made Halunor fight him with a knife while he remained unarmed as a way to teach the boy a lesson.
Cor thought he knew a little how Halunor had felt. He knew he had the knife, but his stomach was cramping and his hands were clammy. He and Hylan had played at swords before, but Cor knew this would be nothing like that. Chop. Chop.
“Pretend I’m an enemy,” Rylin said. “Show me no mercy.”
Cor nodded, wondering whether Rylin could hear his heart hammering. In the dark, the man seemed to tower above him like a shadowed giant.
The two of them stepped toward each other at the same time.
Cor darted to the side, hoping to use the shadows as cover. He kept the knife close and lunged at Rylin, thrusting the blade out at the last moment, but the man stepped out of the way, and Cor felt a hand catch the arm that held the knife and a fist press against the small of his back. His feet flew out from under him, and for a terrifying moment, he was airborne. The hand on his arm tightened its grip and the fist caught him at the hip. With a gentle woomph he fell to the ground.
Rylin tapped Cor on the head with the stick.
“Dead,” he said. He was smiling slightly. Cor was not as amused. He sat up and rubbed his right arm. “You can think,” Rylin said. “That’s more than I can say for most.”
Cor held the knife up. “Here,” he said.
“Keep it,” Rylin said. “I’m going to teach you a few things.”
Cor dropped the knife at Rylin’s feet.
“You–”
“Give me Hunter Anir’s knife,” Cor said. “This one’s yours.”
Rylin looked surprised. He grunted and dug through the pack. Cor breathed relief. There was something sinister about that knife. Maybe it was just the memory of it digging into Old Shamon’s neck twice, maybe it was something else. But holding it made Cor feel cold and uneasy. Made him feel like he would actually kill somebody with it.
Rylin held out the smaller hunting knife to him and he took it. It still made him nervous holding something so sharp, but this one was better. It made him feel a little safer. It made him feel a little closer to home.