“Once I mix up the attacks to your body, you will be tempted to block them all.” I varied my punches toward his stomach again and he had to drop his elbows slightly to keep them from hitting his body. “But then you leave your face open and a clever attacker could take advantage of the break in your defense.” I told him what I was going to do, but my palm still struck him in the nose with a wet sound that brought the memory of Malek’s confrontation to my mind again.
The blow had not been executed with full force, but Yillomar fell back away from my strikes so that he could regain his composure. Getting hit in the face was a terrible feeling, especially when the nose broke, and it took a hardened warrior to shrug off the damage without temporarily losing their vision or defense.
“So most of your defensive effort should be focused on your face.” I stopped attacking and stepped away from him. The big Elven nodded and the river of blood coming down from his nose dribbled onto his red tunic. He raised a hand and then blew out a fat glob of blood to the side of the circle. Then the big Elven adjusted his nose with a few loud cracks of cartilage.
“I’ll press and attack. Don’t let me hit your head.” He nodded and we took up mirrored positions. I remembered that when we first fought he had jested that my hands in the air made it seem like I was afraid. It was ironic that he was now a student of the technique.
But it was more ironic that I was his instructor.
I varied my attacks between his face and body again. The big Elven did an excellent job of keeping his head defended. A few of my strikes sneaked past his lower defense and smashed into his stomach and ribs. Yillomar’s torso might as well have been carved out of rock though, my attacks did little damage to him; even if their impact sounded like planks of wood being clapped together.
My strikes grew harder and I could see him struggle to fight through the pain I was inflicting on his stomach. I wasn’t hitting him with my full strength, but I guessed the battle would not have been different if I had instructed him to hit me back. After five minutes of punishment I stopped.
“Good.” A crowd of Elvens had gathered to watch, occupying every spot on the logs circling the field. More were standing behind the seated spectators. Fehalda commanded a prime seat, flanked by twenty of her warriors.
“Let’s break and have some water.” I nodded at Yillomar’s suggestion and two Elvens wearing red armor handed each of us a clay jug of cool refreshment. The big Elven had been working hard to tolerate the pain and defend himself and was covered with a thick layer of sweat. Though my strikes required more exertion than parrying, I was not even warmed up yet.
“You can attack me back now. Let’s leave kicks out for the moment. Just focus on downward palm strikes from your defending position.” I guessed a half-hour had passed and I doubted that we would be able to get to any more advanced strategies in the time that remained.
“Looking forward to it.” Yillomar smiled and raised his hands to the position I had taught him. He darted forward quickly and pounded down with a flurry of sequenced palm strikes. He was fast for an Elven, and very strong, but the enemies in my memory were much more capable and I had little difficulty defeating them by the half dozen. I trained with the best warriors of my army and their skill, strength, and speed made the Red Hatchet seem like a child in comparison.
He did have talent and I knew that if we were able to spend a few months together I could have trained him well enough to stand against most of my O’Baarni soldiers. I had judged him a fool when we first met, but the man was learning from my training and his mistakes.
When it was appropriate, I offered him pointers about his technique and reinforced the positioning I taught him earlier. I coached him through the pain that my counterattacks left on his opened defenses. Another half-hour of sparring left him covered in bruises and bleeding from gashes that my blows had inflicted upon his face.
“You are improving quickly.” I nodded and motioned for the woman with the jug of water to bring it to me. Her hair was a dark gold and her eyes an amethyst hue that contrasted sharply with her red armor.
“Thank you,” the big Elven said. “You don’t seem to be working very hard.” He was panting between the words and reached up the hand not holding the jug to wipe some of the blood away from his mouth before he drank.
“It has been many lifetimes since I’ve trained one-on-one. It is too bad I will be leaving shortly.” I shrugged my shoulders, drank deeply from the jug and handed it back to the woman.
“Yes it is. Can you instruct me on kicks?” There were probably two hundred warriors observing our session now and the air was dead silent. It was a little unnerving to be watched by so many Elvens, but I knew each extra minute of training I gave to Yillomar might swing the empress to change her mind on my exile.
“Show me your techniques,” I instructed the red-haired Elven. He nodded and displayed a variety of his leg attacks.
“Don’t kick above waist level,” I commented after he showed me a few of his shin, side, and front kicks. “They are too risky for combat and too easy for an opponent to counter.” I pointed out a few other tiny flaws with his supporting foot position and the way he moved his hands when he kicked. His technique was already very polished, but the few suggestions would make him more powerful if he continued to practice them.
“Let’s spar now. Kicks and strikes. Hit me back.” He nodded, and we spent the next chunk of time battling in the circle while the Elven army watched. I had expected Yillomar to be a quick study and I was not disappointed. If I could have spent a year with the man he might have eventually rivaled Malek or Gorbanni in combat.
Yillomar stopped our match with a wave of his hand and gestured with his head toward the perimeter of the circle. The crowd of Elven warriors had parted and four green-armored warriors walked into the field with Vernine at their point.
“It is time.” Her ruby eyes met mine and I thought I perceived some sadness in them.
“Very well. Thank you, Kaiyer.” Yillomar nodded to me and I returned the gesture. I beckoned to the woman carrying my water jug and she passed me the container. The liquid was still cool and I drank it while Vernine’s warriors circled me.
“The Radicle is located an hour’s walk from us, at the base of the canyon that forms the border between Nia and Brilla,” Vernine informed me as we walked. For half a second, I thought perhaps she and her four armored warriors were to be my only guards, but then I realized that the entire group of Elvens that had observed Yillomar and I fighting were accompanying us as well.
“Looks like you aren’t taking any chances.” I smirked.
“No.” Fehalda had floated into the ring of the empress’s guards and moved to walk beside me. I turned my head and saw that Yillomar was a few hundred yards behind conversing with a group of his warriors.
“Was Yillomar correct?” I asked the two women. I remembered carrying their barely conscious bodies away from the switchbacks of Nadea’s keep so that I could use the power of the Water to heal the injures the spider-lizard monsters had inflicted upon them.
“About?” Fehalda asked with a white raised eyebrow.
“She said you and Dissonti asked the empress to let me stay on this world.”
“Does it matter?” Fehalda didn’t bother to look at me.
“I suppose it doesn’t. Perhaps I just wish to understand why you changed your mind about me.”
“We have faced nothing but bad luck since crossing paths with you. But now that Turnia is dead, the rest of the clans will soon find out that something is amiss on our world. Even if the other clans do not come here, the rest of the Two Bears will search for their leaders. These people are your enemies as well as ours,” Fehalda explained. She did not make eye contact with me. I could see Vernine looking at me out of the corner of her eye and I wondered what the woman would say if we were alone.
We reached the end of the campsite and continued south for another mile before deviating from the main road to a small path that ran eastward. The path was narrow and looked as if it may have once been a game trail.
The trail clung to a creek bed that ran down the side of the gorge. Though there was some shade from giant ferns, palms, and leafy trees, the air was thick with humidity and the breath of the hundreds of Elvens that surrounded me. The air smelled of fresh brown dirt, organic plants, and the oil of weapons.
We had walked for three quarters of an hour and the trail began to dip down into the moving creek before rising up the other side. The entourage moved through the water and I noticed that there were many more Elvens positioned high in the trees surrounding us. These warriors were camouflaged with leaves and mud, and carried composite long bows. The empress was not taking any chances with my exile and did not think that the hundreds of warriors already surrounding me were enough to ensure my departure.
“What if I find a way back to this world?” I asked after we crossed the surprisingly refreshing creek and began to climb the steep trail on the other side.
“You won’t,” Fehalda said curtly.
“I just need an Ovule. From my understanding they are prized but most clans have them. Won’t I be able to find or steal one?”
“No, Kaiyer.” Vernine spoke softly from her position to my right side. “You won’t find another Ovule.” She avoided looking at me.
“You know I am relentless. I will return here. I wish you no harm. I just want to live in peace. If I return, will the empress attempt to send me back?” The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end and my gut was screaming to me that something was wrong. I was alone in the wilderness with hundreds, perhaps thousands of Elvens that wanted me banished from this world. Or dead.
“You will not return,” Fehalda repeated.
“So you intend to kill me?”
“No,” Vernine said. “The empress is going to send you through the Radicle as she said she would.”
Then I realized what was really going to happen.
Anger drove my vision black and my jaw clenched so firmly that I felt my teeth scrape through my skull. I didn’t want to believe what I guessed, but there was no other explanation for Vernine’s odd answers. The woman was normally cold to me, but the change in her body language and tone was apparent. She was not happy with this situation and neither was Fehalda.
They were going to do what Malek and my friends once did to me. They intended to manipulate the Radicle like my daughter had thousands of years ago. Telaxthe would send me through into the stasis and I would never be awakened unless someone knew my name and the procedure for waking my unconscious mind.
I would never be able to return to this world, or any world for that matter. This was the purest form of exile that would guarantee I could never be a loose end for Telaxthe. She would not have to worry about me returning, advising her daughter, or thwarting her plans with Jessmei.
I took a long breath and tried to force down my anger. I meant my words of alliance with the empress sincerely. While I could acknowledge that I represented a deadly risk to her people, I also saved the woman’s life and thought we had reached some understanding. The leader of the Elven people was one step ahead of me again.
There was no way out of this. There were archers in the trees and hundreds of weapon-carrying Elven warriors on all sides of me. Even if I could harness my magic and incinerate a good deal of them, there were too many to escape.
Maybe it was better to die here than be lost for another millennium.
Would I float through the clouds again? Could I chase the birds and the distant colored ships that swam through the blue skies? Maybe I would find peace with the floating islands of my dreams. What were the chances that Nadea could find out my daughter’s name and how to bring her back, if she even lived? My body had been so weak when Nadea and Paug pulled me from my sleep. There was a chance I would have perished from lack of nourishment in another few years.
I loved Shlara and I killed her. I loved Iolarathe and she was dead because of me. I loved Jessmei and Nadea as well. Would they suffer an early end because of my involvement in their lives? Everything I touched turned to death. Perhaps the skull armor really did exist under my skin. Maybe the incarnation of death, demons, and hell was my actual self and the human face I wore now was the lie.
This had been my final battle, and I had lost.
It was time to surrender.
“The Radicle,” Vernine said and I looked to where she pointed. The creek had turned into a wide river and a few hundred yards ahead the trail bent down to the shore of the roaring blue rapids. The green spiral column seemed to fight against the branches of the surrounding trees to push free of the shore of the river. Green leaves, ivy, and thick branches covered almost every part of its stone surface and I could easily understand how the temple remained undiscovered by Nia’s own people.
At the entrance to the Radicle, the empress and Dissonti stood with a hundred more Elven warriors. They looked up and I made eye contact with Telaxthe. The expression on her face was exactly as I would have predicted. She must have determined that I knew her plan.
“Welcome, Kaiyer.” She smiled when I stepped before her, but there was no glee in the expression.
“I understand why you want to do this.” I took a deep breath and did my best to keep the panic from my voice. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind? I would agree with your earlier terms.”