As it turned out, using Fifa’s crystal wasn’t a simple thing. In fact, it was damn-near impossible. Unlike Henguki crystals, Fifa’s wasn’t a storage device. It was a dedicated link connected back to her valskab, allowing her to draw power through her bond with the valskab over long distances. The problem was, I didn’t have that connection, and while I could see it stretching out into the distance, Sara couldn’t figure out how to link to it. The best I could do was use Energy Drain to siphon a bit of power from it, basically draining it like a tick stuck to the side of a dog. I didn’t get a lot, but after an hour, I’d managed to suck enough to fill my internal energy reserves. That meant I didn’t have to tap the various Menskie spirits attached to me for power or the Henguki crystals hidden in my storage. At least, not right away.
“How are we on time, Sara?” I asked silently.
“You’re close, John. Probably close enough.”
I shifted my focus outward, into the room around me. The guards’ spirits burned a deep brown in my spiritual sight, even with my eyes closed. I’d kind of hoped that Fifa convinced them to go guard me from outside or something, but the moment she’d left the room, they’d returned, and they’d brought a third guard with them. That last one was hiding somehow, no doubt using their spirits to camouflage themselves, but while I couldn’t make them out with my actual vision, See Spirits picked them out with no difficulty. They hid behind the other two, probably as a backup in case I managed to kill the first two somehow.
I could feel all of their gazes on me, watching me carefully. They weren’t a problem, specifically, but their silent communication was. The moment I struck at any of them, I was sure they’d all send out a mental alert to the rest of the valskab. The heltharvis was probably too busy to respond herself right now, but she had plenty of guards she could send to swarm me once she knew I escaped, and this time, they wouldn’t be trying to capture me. They’d do their best to kill me, and I’d have to kill them in turn. About my only advantage was that I’d interrogated my captured spirits enough to know the layout of this place pretty well, meaning I could move through it as easily as the guards and hopefully slip around them. Part of me had hoped that my utter inactivity would lull my guards, but that didn’t seem to have happened, leaving me with very few options: violence or magic. I chose to go with a little of both.
I readied myself mentally, then pulled up a spell pattern that Sara had worked out while we waited.
Spirit Blade
Power Required: 29
You fashion a blade of pure spiritual energy that you can control mentally. This blade only damages spiritual entities or creations and cannot affect the physical world. The range at which it can be controlled depends on your Reason and Perception stats. Damage done depends on your spirit-based professions, Intuition, and Skill.
The new spell was based on part of the ritual beneath me, the part that formed the spiritual blade used to carve away bound spirits. The ritual itself was probably beyond my ability to cast as a spell, but that one part was simple enough for Sara to mimic and improve upon. I’d practiced it a few times, using it to cut through the inner circle that kept me from reaching out spiritually into the room and weaken a few spots on the outer barrier, so I had something of an idea of its power and utility. What I didn’t know was its range, and the fact was, there was only one way to figure that out.
I opened my eyes and poured the energy I’d taken from Fifa’s crystal into the spell, forming an invisible, hiltless blade about the size of a dagger. I focused my will on it and sent it racing outward, holding it tightly in my will. The blade struck the outer wall of my prison in one of the weakened spots and tore through with an invisible flash of spirit. It continued on and slammed into the heart of one of the guards, burying itself in his spirit before twisting and slashing around, shredding the core of his spirit. The guard staggered and fell backward, tripping over the invisible guard with an expression of mingled surprise and pain. The other guard turned toward their comrade in shock, reaching out a hand toward them almost reflexively before spinning back to face me, but their moment of inattention had cost them.
The instant the second guard looked away, I sprang to a knee, forged my spear in my hand, channeled power into it, and threw. The glowing weapon sped through the air, no longer bound by the torn barrier around me. The second guard turned back toward me as the weapon hit him, meaning instead of punching into his back, it slid into his chest. His eyes went wide as he fell to a knee, clutching the spear that probably burned inside his chest thanks to the energy filling it. I didn’t give him a chance to recover as I sprinted forward, feeling only a tingle as I passed through the remnants of the barrier. I activated Death’s Touch as I struck at him, and power surged in my hand as I cracked my fist into the side of his head. His skull crumpled beneath the blow, shattering like an eggshell, and he collapsed in a twitching heap to the floor.
I spun to the first guard, the one my spirit blade had wounded. He staggered to his feet, lifting his spear with trembling arms, and I readied myself to dodge his inevitable thrust. Before he could move, though, the hidden guard uncoiled, lashing upward. I leaped back, but the guard’s weapon wasn’t aimed at me. Instead, it plunged into the wounded guard, sinking into the back of his neck and severing his spinal cord. The wounded guard simply dropped to the floor in a boneless pile of limbs, his brain cut off from his body. I stared at the last guard as he rose to his feet, shedding the camouflage covering him, and my eyes narrowed in recognition.
“Bregg?” I said in stunned amazement as I pulled my spear free of the body of the second guard and stepped back, creating room between us.
“Took you long enough to escape, Hettlug,” the big hunter growled, yanking his own weapon out of the guard he’d killed. “What were you waiting for? An invitation?”
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My eyes narrowed suspiciously at the hunter. “What are you doing here, Bregg?” I asked in a hard voice.
“Freeing you, obviously,” he replied, placing the butt of his spear on the ground and resting on it nonchalantly. “I thought that was obvious, Hemskall.”
I rolled my eyes as he reverted to the insult that I assumed translated out to something like “stupid asshole.”
“Why are you freeing me? The last time I saw you, you attacked me, remember?”
He sighed and seemed to slump. “I did. And when I woke up and worked free of that trap you put me in, I found the others in that big room with the crystals. I realized that you’d told the truth: the four-legs were in Aldhyor, and the heltharvis was using Henguki in some profane ritual—and the letharvisa were helping her. When Fifa left, I followed her here and listened to what she told you. When I heard that—and what you told her—I knew that I had to do something.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly. “If this happens, tens of thousands of Oikithikiim will die, Bregg. Isn’t that what you want?”
He straightened, and his eyes flashed angrily as he looked at me. “No, Hemskall,” he growled. “What I want is for our people to be left in peace. Nothing more. I want to hunt the High Reaches, care for my valskab, and teach the next generation of hunters. I don’t care about the four-legs in the slightest.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Bregg, I was there on that beach up north. You were eager to kill the Oikithikiim. You hate them.”
His face darkened, and he took a step closer to me. “Yes, Hemskall,” he growled. “Yes, I hate them. Why wouldn’t I? Have you seen the death they’ve caused our people? The suffering? No, I’ll bet you haven’t—but I have.”
His voice turned colder as he spoke. “Have you ever been to the Halio, Hemskall? Do you even know what it is?”
“No,” I admitted.
“I didn’t think so. The Halio is a breach in the Kimurrin Mountains, the only passage between the Haelendi and Almella, and that makes it the main battleground between us and the four-legs. So much blood has spilled there that it’s stained the earth red, and spirits of violence, death, hatred, and fear swarm about it as thickly as insects over a rotting corpse.
“If you spent years there as I did, you’d understand,” he said, his voice hard and flat. “We don’t attack the four-legs, Hemskall. We can’t; we can’t leave the Haelendi. All we do is wait for them to attack us, and they always do. Passage after passage, year after year, they send their young and foolish up there and fling them against us to die on our spears for no reason whatsoever. They don’t stand a chance; we’ve built strong defenses, and the spirits of that pass serve us, not the four-legs. Even if they did overrun us, the spirits of the Haelendi would rip them to pieces.” He shuddered slightly. “I’ve seen it, and it’s one of the most horrific things you can imagine.”
“Even so, the slaughter isn’t one-sided. We might only lose one warrior for every hundred of theirs, but we do lose them. I’ve had friends die in my arms, Hemskall, bleeding out from a dart in their throat or heart. I’ve watched people I care about torn to pieces when the four-legs overran our position.”
He took a deep breath. “So, yes, I hate them. I hate them because they hate us and kill us, and it makes no sense at all. I hate them for what they’ve taken from me, from my people. I hate them for the nightmares they’ve given me, for the scars on my spirit that will never heal, and I will hate them until I take my very last breath—but I don’t want them to die. I just want them to go away and leave us alone.”
I stayed quiet for a few seconds, giving him a chance to regain control of himself. I actually felt some sympathy for the guy. I understood his pain. I’d watched friends and comrades die in stupid, pointless battles that changed nothing. I knew the kind of hate he was talking about. You hated the enemy for what they’d done to you, but acting on that hate would just drag out the pain and make it linger. You’d never forgive or forget, but if they gave you the chance, you could pretend that you could, and that was the best that you could hope for.
“If you heard Fifa, then you know why they do it, Bregg,” I finally said. “Why they attack, and why they’re not really the ones who keep the war going.”
“Yes. I heard.” His voice was flat and angry. “The elders have betrayed their own people, and they’ll pay for that, one way or the other.”
“So, why help me?” I finally asked. “If you let this happen, Bregg, it gives you everything you want. The war is over. The Bargain is over. The elders are powerless. Your people are safe.”
“No, they aren’t,” he snorted. “I don’t think you realize how much my people rely on the spirits, Hettlug. They help us hunt, craft, grow crops, heal wounds, and a hundred other things. We’ve based our entire existence on them. Without them, we’ll die, the same as the Oikithikiim.” He sighed. “Besides, if I let this happen, Hettlug, then I’m no better than the Oikithikiim—or the elders who hid the truth about the war from us. Sacrificing all those people for peace—it’s wrong. Their lives aren’t ours to give away like that. We can’t choose their paths for them, no matter how much we want to, and the heltharvis and letharvisa have forgotten that simple fact.”
“You’re going to have to kill more of your people, Bregg,” I warned him.
“No. These aren’t my people.” He gave me a grim smile. “My people are the ones who can’t defend themselves. I vowed long ago to keep them safe, and I haven’t turned aside from that vow, yet.”
I bit back a sigh. I had to admit that Bregg’s help would be invaluable. He was a skilled fighter and expert hunter. He could move even more quietly than me, and apparently, he could turn invisible somehow. The two of us could slip together through Aldhyor without attracting a lot of attention. Of course, he was also a major pain in my ass, and I barely trusted him not to stab me in the back the first chance he got.
Sadly, beggars could not be choosers—and I was a beggar at that point.
“Fine,” I said at last. “You can join me.”
“I wasn’t asking, Hemskall,” he replied. “You couldn’t stop me.”
“I think I showed you once that I can, Bregg.” I took a step closer to him, and my voice went as cold as his had just been. “Here’s the thing, Bregg. I have a plan for dealing with this, and I won’t let you fuck it up. That means that while we’re doing this, you follow my orders, even if they don’t make sense to you.”
“That depends on the orders, Hettlug,” he said quietly. “If you tell me to kill an innocent…”
“If we do this right, Bregg, no innocents have to die. That’s my goal, at least.”
He let out the sigh that I’d been holding. “Fine, Hettlug. I’ll follow your lead. Mind telling me about this plan of yours?”
“We can talk on the way,” I hedged, not really wanting to share everything with him in case he decided I was a threat again. I could listen in on the Menskies’ telepathy, but knowing that he’d spilled my secrets wouldn’t really help once he’d done it.
“Tell me this, at least,” he pressed. “How do you intend to stop the ceremony?”
“I don’t,” I replied with a grin.
His face froze, and he gave me a hard look. “What do you mean, you don’t?”
“I mean, I want it to proceed, Bregg. That’s part of the plan. We aren’t going to stop it. The Bargain needs to end, and we’re going to let it happen.”
He stared at me as if I were crazy, and honestly, I didn’t blame him. If he knew the entirety of what was happening—and what I planned—he wouldn’t have had to wonder.
This plan was definitely crazy—and it was the only way I could see getting through this in one piece.