“I said we were warming up, you little shit.”
The corner of my lip curls up. “That’s why I kicked your chest instead of your face.”
“Right. Well, I’m plenty warm now.” He pulls an Infusion of the Lizard from his cloak and downs it. That’d be a dangerous decision if he were going to continue to spar with me. Another kick like that could break ribs instead of cracking them, or it could be much worse. “These cracked ribs are going to ache until tomorrow. But we need to work on some things that are a little more important than beating the piss out of an old man.”
He walks toward me, and I stand up straight, ready for the real lesson. “You’re going to be up against all manner of terrors, but you can be sure that shadow demons will be a part of it.”
I give him the expected response, one I learned from a very early age. “Flame, Light, and Lightning work best against them.”
“And if you can’t use your Marks?” he counters.
I pause for a moment. “Steel?” I ask with a shrug. I’ve never even considered fighting any of the monstrosities of the various gods without Marks.
He shakes his head. “Fire, light, and lightning are still the answers. Yes, you can injure a shadow demon with steel weapons, but it takes too long. That’s a job for soldiers who have the time and backup to replace each other if they’re wounded.”
“How in the thirteen hells can you tell me to use fire, light and lightning, but not use my Marks? That doesn’t make sense.”
He pulls me to the edge of the ring where a bucket sits with a thick black liquid in it. He pulls the short sword at his side out of its scabbard and dips it in. “Oil, Fi.” He holds the short sword out so I can see a tiny device on the cross guard. He pushes a button and there’s a soft click before the blade erupts in flames.
Some flames fall from the edge onto the sand, ending in hissing sputters, but much of the fire stays along the edge. “It won’t last long, but most fights end in seconds if you’re doing things correctly.” He hands me the short sword, and I can feel the heat coming from the blade, down the tang and into the handle, but it’s not enough to burn, especially if I had gloves on.
“Where am I supposed to get oil from? It’s not like I get to prepare a battlefield with barrels before I get there.”
He reaches into his cloak and draws forth a water bladder, but this one has black stains around the tip. “You won’t need a barrel. Just an oilskin. Remember not to get caught in some burning whore’s blast while you’re carrying this. You won’t have any choice but to use a Mark to put out the flames if that were to happen. Then again, if you get caught in their flames, you’re rightly fucked, regardless.”
I nod to him, but he’s not done. “Now, those shadow demons won’t expect you to do this, at least initially, so you’ll have time.If there’s a group of them, they can put out any sources of light when they scream. It takes a few of them, and they have to work together to do it, but they can and they will. Just re-apply it.”
I stare into those caring brown eyes. “This is how you fought them before, isn’t it?”
He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “There weren’t many of us back then. We had to be dirty in our fights. Still, it wasn’t nearly as bad as when the Order first started. They didn’t have much of anything in those days. Just a bunch of untrained oafs with a few Marks of the Phoenix. Rhaskar hadn’t had the chance to perfect anything. Luckily, all the champions at the time were rip-raring to prove themselves, and the battles between them were brutal and decimated their own armies.”
He frowns and rubs his scar again. “You little shit. You know how easily you can distract me by talking about the old days. We have important things to do. Now give me back that sword. We’re going to work on finding the weak points on shadow demons today.”
He points at a boar-sized burlap sack that’s been set up and filled with hay. Next to it is a bear-sized one. Both of them look like children made them to be terrifying, including crudely drawn teeth. Jute ropes are tied around them to givesomeshape, and they’ve been painted black, though there are patches of tan still visible.
“Those are the worst demons I’ve ever seen,” I say.
“Your father didn’t expect me to become some silly artist worried about brush strokes on a god’s damned shadow beast. Now, quityour stalling. It’s time to train, and you should be happy the teeth on these disgraces are nowhere near as sharp as the ones you’ll face in thirteen days.”
His voice and words are coarse, but he gives me a smile as he points out how best to fight them without the Phoenix. That’s Bram Mercer. Mouth like a sailor, but when it comes down to it, he’s as cheerful a man as you could ever hope to meet.
Interlude 2
Thegodsgathered,acommon occurrence these days, on the top of Skycrest, the one place considered neutral by all. At the peak of the highest mountain, a human would see nothing but clouds below them, but the gods saw so much more than that. Blue skies above, and war below, they lounged atop the one place in all Nyth, they could be themselves. While the war that raged across Nyth has taken lives numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the ones who began the conflict were unaffected by it.
Godhoods are a strange thing; each of the beings sitting atop Skycrest held one godhood save Lysara, who held two. They are thoughts, beliefs, and power given some semblance of consciousness. Their concerns are limited to three things: survival, the acquisition of power, and following their specific purpose. The godhood of endings yearned to see some piece of the world end, thus when Lysara became the Goddess of Death, she was driven to watch the threads of humanity be cut. Each time this happened,she gained a small amount of power, and the godhood’s hunger was sated.
But on any typical day, each of the gods was less controlled by its godhood. Even gods seek diversion when there is nothing of importance to worry over. This war between their champions has provided that diversion for almost eighty years.
“I’ll wager two villages of humans on my borders that Echo wins this one,” Nyxthos said. He wore his cloak over his head, even here amongst his equals. Only his face was visible from beneath it. A silver goblet filled with human blood, an offering made by his Mages, was in his hand as he leaned over the edge of the peak to watch the battle.
Draeven stepped up beside him and laughed. The god was obviously once a great soldier, standing far taller than his companions. Chains hung from his body, bloody and rusted, and at his hip was an empty scabbard, where his sword, Mournfang, had hung until he’d gifted it to Azric during his birthright ceremony.
“No one can challenge the Prince of Bones on the field of battle. You know this, Nyxthos. I’ll accept your wager. My Chained will drain your humans of their life force to forge new blades and armor.”
“And if she wins?” the cloaked god asked.
“I’ll offer the city of Stonecross. Two thousand people live there along with several ironwights who work the forges. I am very confident that the young prince will be victorious on this day.”
