Chapter Ten
The crack of splitting wood from outside shocked Rae awake. He sat upright on the floor, his hand grabbing for the icy sword, the storm mote rumbling to the surface of his skin like static mist. It came again, a sharp crack of iron on wood, followed by the clatter of tumbling logs. La lay asleep in the bed, the covers pulled up tight to her face, her mouth a soft, snoring zero. Rae dismissed the storm mote, made himself lean the sword against the wall, then crept to the door and slipped outside.
Mahk’s nest of blankets lay folded by the front door. He stood just a little way downstream, shirtless, splitting firewood with a rusty ax. He already had a pile of small logs piled up next to him, with a much larger pile still to be cut. Mahk snatched a log off the pile, balanced it carefully on end, then laid the head of the ax on top, as though studying where he’d put the blade. Then, with a single motion, he raised the ax and brought it down. Snap. The log fell apart.
“Man, that’s a sharp blade,” Rae said. Mahk looked up, a little startled, almost embarrassed. It was an unfamiliar look on the man’s face. Rae was surprised to notice that his skin was a hatchwork of old scars. Mahk’s muscles rippled under the stiff scars. “Order in ash, Mahk, what happened to you?”
“I was better with my fists than the guy was with his knife,” Mahk answered. “But he was faster. No big deal.” Mahk covered for it quickly, replacing the log and splitting the next one before he continued. “And the ax isn’t that sharp,” he said. “Just a matter of how you hit the wood. Along the grain. And hard.”
Rae laughed and made his way farther downstream, to relieve himself. When he came back, Mahk’s shirt was back on, and the pile of split wood was considerably larger.
“Sorry if I woke you up,” Mahk said. “Fire was out. And the mornings out here can get pretty cold this time of year.”
“Not at all. I think we’re used to the chill. Father was stingy with the morning fire, even when we were just burning the chaff.” He looked up at the sky, trying to judge the hour. “Usually by now we’ve been up for a couple hours, raking hay and feeding the chickens. Well, Lalette would have been, at least.”
“Farm life never appealed to me. Dad was a farmer, and it never did him any good,” Mahk said. He took another log and set it up. “You both slept well?”
“Like the dead,” Rae answered, then immediately regretted it. “We slept well, given the circumstances. You?”
“Sure,” Mahk said quickly. He split the log, then laid the ax to rest, fiddling with the handle like he was nervous. “We need to talk about what happens next.”
“Breakfast, I hope?”
“Don’t be smart.” Mahk straightened up, holding the ax loosely in both hands. Rae was again reminded of the kind of violence the man was capable of. “Smart’ll get you killed.”
“People keep saying that to me. Right. What happens next?” Rae busied himself collecting the wood Mahk had already split, stacking it against a nearby boulder. “I suppose staying here and hiding until everything blows over isn’t really an option.”
“You’re awful light for a guy whose parents just got killed,” Mahk said. Rae paused in his work.
“I have . . . I have a funny way of dealing with tragedy. Learned it from my dad,” he said. “Let it blow over you. Do something else.”
“How’d that work out for him?” Mahk asked.
“Now it’s your turn to not be smart,” Rae said, straightening. He realized he was holding one of the logs like a club. Mahk’s eyes flicked down to the makeshift weapon, and his face lit up with amusement. Rae tossed the club aside. “I’m going to do something about this. I swear I am. But right now I’ve got other things on my mind. Things like keeping what little family I have safe, and alive. Which for now means staying here, and hiding for a while.”
“Maybe I could do that. You can’t.” He split a log, kicked it aside, then buried the ax in an uncut log and left it there. “Freaking high mage didn’t come to my house, tear through the cellar, kill everyone he found, then fly away. That was your house. And he was there for a reason. Everyone knew your family was different. That you were hiding from something—debt, or disgrace. That’s what Morgan thought. But it seems like there’s a lot more to your father than that.” Mahk folded his big arms across his chest and scowled at Rae. “There’s something you aren’t telling me, Kelthannis. Something that got my Morgan killed, as well as your parents.”
“Me? No, I don’t think there is.”
“No? I’ve been thinking. Morgan was really cagey about this job. Mister Button came to us. We don’t usually deal with Button, even when we have dealings in Dwehlling. He’s out of our league. I think Morgan was a little starstruck when he showed up. He’s always . . .” Mahk’s voice faltered, and he sat down on a stone, folding his hands together. “Sorry, it slips my mind that Morgan is dead, sometimes. And then I remember. And then . . .” He took a long, deep breath. “Button started asking around for a spiritbinder. A specific spiritbinder. Someone who might be trying to hide. Said he had a contact who would pay good money if we could find the right mage. Morgan thought of you immediately. Button didn’t care at first. Said he was looking for someone older. And then, suddenly, he cared. A lot.” He gestured with both hands, like a house of cards coming apart. “Overnight, the plan changed.”
“Two nights ago? But that’s . . .” Rae swallowed his next words. That’s the night I bound the spirit. Surely that’s just a coincidence. “He was . . . looking for me?” Rae asked.
“Or someone like you. Doesn’t matter now. Button’s dead. I thought for a minute that that was the end of our trouble. I was going to get the two of you home, then make a list of all the people responsible for Morgan’s death and”—he counted to five on his fingers, then ticked them off, one finger at a time, until his hand was clenched into a fist—“shorten the list.”
“You’re going to need more than a chunky fist to take on a high mage,” Rae said. Mahk went a little red in the collar, and Rae backed off. “Not that I’m doubting you. Just . . . pointing out the obvious.”
“Obvious enough, sure,” Mahk said. “Anyway. That was before we got to your house. Before we found your parents.”
“Yeah.” Rae shifted uncomfortably. The weight of his parents’ death was still rumbling through his heart, like a cannon loose on deck. “Thanks, by the way. Back there. For caring.”
Mahk shrugged massively. The morning light was strange, but Rae could have sworn the big man was blushing.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, any more than you do,” Rae said. “I don’t know who that guy was, or what he wanted with my parents.” He came up short again. Keeping secrets had been the family business for so long, it was hard to overcome. But he had to tell someone eventually. And Mahk had been there, seen the high mage, and Tren’s broken sword. The secret was out. “I think I know what he was looking for.”
“I think you do, too.” Lalette stood just inside the door, blankets still wrapped around her, making her silhouette massive. “And I think we both want to know what it is.”
The spiritblade was still inside the cabin. Rae retrieved it and brought it outside. He unwrapped it from its burlap shroud and held it out in his palms. Mahk raised a brow.
“Right, the spiritblade you were carrying in Dhwelling. Every ’binder has one. You’re a spiritbinder. Why’s it matter?” Mahk asked.
“This isn’t my sword. Or my father’s,” Rae said, glancing at his sister. La was staring at him in absolute silence, her eyes burning a hole in his forehead. “It belonged to a man named Rassek Brant.”
“Why do I know that name?” Mahk asked.
“It doesn’t matter who he was. He’s dead,” La said. “That sword has sat forgotten in the bottom of a chest in that cellar for years. I still don’t understand why Dad took it in the first place.”
“I learned something about that, a few nights ago,” Rae said. “When I bound the storm mote. Mom caught me, and told me Dad was researching the sword.”
“You didn’t tell me this,” La said.
“It didn’t seem important.”
“Important enough to get our parents killed.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Rae’s voice trailed off.
“Why would that get anyone killed?” Mahk asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Right, right, I think some explanations are in order,” Rae said. He set the sword down on the stump of an unchopped log and stepped back. “Every spiritbinder has a blade that serves as the focus of their binding. It’s like a bridge between the mage’s soul and the spirit that they’ve chosen to bind. Without the bridge, it’s difficult to control the enslaved spirit. Early binders often lost control of their bound elementals, opening a door into the elemental planes, with destructive consequences. Or worse, the elemental would slowly leak into their soul and take over.”
“Like a soulslave,” La said. She still hadn’t descended from the cabin, and was watching Rae carefully. “Except a soulslave is under someone else’s control.”
“Right, whoever has the leash. In that case, the leash serves the same purpose as the spiritblade. Basically, without a blade, a mage can’t control their bound spirits. Clear enough?”
“I just thought they were meant for fighting,” Mahk said. “Magic swords and all that.” He sniffed at Rae’s sword. “I wouldn’t want to go into a fight with a blade made of ice.”
“It’s not really ice. The swords are forged from the pure stuff of the bound elemental plane. That blade is stronger than any mundane steel you’ll find in the Ordered World.”
“Looks broken to me,” Mahk said.
“It is. I always thought it was because its owner was dead. But now I’m not so sure,” Rae said. La descended from the cabin and reached a hand out to touch the hilt.
“Rassek Brant,” La said quietly. “The bogeyman of our childhood. Our own private monster story that no one else was supposed to know about.”
“Secrets have a way of coming home. But why would this high mage care about a dead man’s spiritblade?” Mahk asked.
“That’s what I can’t figure out,” Rae said. “Old spiritblades aren’t worth much outside of academic purposes. And the cracked blade shows that the original owner is dead, so . . .” He shrugged. “It hardly seems worth chasing us all the way to Hammerwall and killing our parents.”
“It was worth enough to hide,” Mahk said. “And worth enough to kill.”
“But why?” La asked, her voice desperate.
“I don’t know,” Rae said. “But I think I know someone who can help us.”
“If this is another of your clever criminal friends—” La started. He held up his hands.
“No, no, nothing like that,” he insisted. La relented, until, “Well, he is a criminal. And he is very clever. But let’s be honest, we need a clever criminal in this situation!”
“I think I’ve had enough of your clever criminals,” La said.
“He’s a spiritbinder, La. Hiding from the justicars, just like us. If anyone can help us, it’ll be Indrit.”
“Raelle Mahest Kelthannis, I swear to you . . .” La left the rest of the threat unspoken, because a high keening sound echoed through the trees. The three of them looked up all at once, eyes wide.
“What the hell is that?” Rae asked.
“Bastion alarm,” Mahk said. “They must be looking for us.”
“Don’t be a fool,” La said. She disappeared into the cabin. She returned a second later with her satchel slung over her shoulder. “They don’t sound the alarm for a handful of runaways.”
“Then what do they sound it for?” Rae asked.
“When there’s been a breach in the orderwall,” Mahk said. “We need to get to the Bastion before they shut the gates and seal the wards.”
La shot her brother a hard look, but didn’t say anything else as they hurriedly packed their few possessions and started down the road toward Hammerwall.