Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

The time for setting up and second-guessing was over. Just a few feet below and a couple paces distant stood the man who had murdered his father, the one responsible for the slaughter of Kaden’s monks, for Amie’s murder, and Ha Lin’s. Valyn felt as though he’d been waiting forever, but the waiting was over. He took a deep breath, bared his teeth, and went.

The Aedolian managed to block the first blow, getting his armored forearm between his neck and Valyn’s knife at the last moment. The man was smart. Instead of reaching for his own sword, a reaction that would have given Valyn the space and time necessary to finish him, he pressed forward, counting on his armor to block the knife, trying to bring his weight to bear as he lunged for Valyn’s throat.

“Adare,” he shouted roughly, eyes wide, lips turned back in a snarl. “Get back! Get down .”

Someone had trained the Aedolian well. Most fighters instinctively limited their attacks, taking only the shots from which they thought they could recover safely. This man hurled himself forward with one intention only: clobbering Valyn back brutally enough to buy time for Adare to escape. It was a bold, brave attack. It was suicide. Valyn pivoted, knocking the Aedolian’s hands clear, slipping inside his guard, driving the small dagger up into the unarmored space beneath the armpit. He twisted it hard, then spun away, pulling it free.

The guard collapsed, blood drooling from his lips, eyes glazing. Valyn tossed the knife to the ground behind him, drew his double blades, and fixed his eyes on the man across the fire pit.

If the kenarang was shocked by the attack, he didn’t show it. Before Fulton’s body hit the floor, his own blade had whispered from its sheath. He held it level between them in a type of hybrid low guard Valyn didn’t recognize. Il Tornja’s eyes flitted to the dead guardsman, to the trapdoor behind him, then back to Valyn. Valyn could smell Adare’s grief and panic, could feel it deep in his lungs. From Ran il Tornja, however, there was nothing. He might have been made from the stone beneath his feet. The man looked calm, ready, which suited Valyn just fine. This was better than a bolt in the heart. He was looking forward to shattering that calm, to taking the bastard apart one finger at time.

“Valyn hui’Malkeenian,” the kenarang said. His voice was smooth as brushed velvet.

Valyn opened his mouth to respond, but Adare shoved her way forward, putting herself between them, arms stretched out as though her slender hands could hold back the blades.

“No, Valyn!” she screamed, staring at the crumpled body of the guard. “Oh sweet ’Shael, Fulton!”

“He’s dead,” Valyn said, his own voice flat, emotionless.

“No,” Adare said, stepping across the fire pit, collapsing to her knees beside the Aedolian. “No! Why? ”

Valyn didn’t look down, but he could hear her scrabbling pointlessly at the man’s armor behind him, as though she could find the wound, could stanch the flow of blood.

“He might have been part of it,” Valyn said, stepping forward. “A part of the plot. The men who came for Kaden were all Aedolians.”

“He wasn’t part of anything, ” she wailed. “All he did was try to keep me safe !”

“Well, he knew what he was signing up for.” Maybe the man was guilty. Maybe he was innocent. It didn’t matter. A lot of innocent people had died already.

“You’ve made a mistake, Valyn,” il Tornja said, not lowering his guard.

Valyn took a half step to the left, and the kenarang turned with him, adjusting the angle of his blade. Valyn moved right, two steps, and again il Tornja adjusted, the movements subtle but precise. So. The man could keep his cool during an attack, and he knew how to fight.

“I’ve made plenty of mistakes,” Valyn said. “But this isn’t one of them. You murdered my father. You ripped out the heart of Annur, and I’m going to rip out yours.”

“He just saved Annur!” Adare spat. “This fight, this battle, this whole fucking thing … we won because of him!”

“And now that we’ve won,” Valyn said, keeping his eyes on the kenarang, testing his responses to changes in guard, posture, “we are finished with him.”

“And what about you, Valyn?” il Tornja asked, cocking his head to the side. “Where have you been while we battled back the Urghul?” He gestured toward the fighting still raging below. “What role did you play in saving Annur?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“And while you waited,” Adare snarled from behind him, “people died. Were you huddled up there the whole time? This is about more than your own personal vendetta.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Valyn said, trying to still the sudden trembling in his hands, “about watching people die.” Memories of the night before filled his mind, of Laith fighting on the bridge, of the flier falling, spears buried in his flesh. “While you’ve been primping and playing emperor, I’ve been fighting my way across this whole fucking continent-”

“You were sent here,” Adare protested, “by Long Fist. By the bastard who just attacked the empire.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Valyn said. “I’m here. And I’m going to kill your pet general.”

“In fact,” Il Tornja said, “you may decide that it does matter. When you know the truth.”

“What truth?” Valyn snarled.

More than anything, he wanted to be finished talking, but talking gave him time to probe, to test, to study the kenarang ’s responses. Il Tornja was a swordsman as well as a general, that much was already clear. If Valyn was going to kill him, to be sure of killing him, he needed to know more. Somewhere behind him, Adare was still sobbing, still trying to stanch the hole in Fulton’s flesh. Valyn blocked out her cries.

“You left the truth behind long ago,” he said, moving as he spoke, studying il Tornja’s response. “Left it when you killed my father.”

“This is bigger than your father,” the general said.

“Save your breath. Adare already fed me this line. We need you to defeat the Urghul, to defeat Long Fist…”

“And have you paused to wonder,” il Tornja asked, “just where your friend Long Fist has been during this whole bloody battle?”

“Elsewhere,” Valyn spat. “Who cares?”

“You might, if you hope to save Annur.”

“We saved it already. Right here. The Urghul are broken.”

Il Tornja smiled, a careless, easy expression. If he was nervous to be facing one of the Kettral, he didn’t show it. “It might be more accurate to say that I saved it. Put up your blade for a moment and I’ll tell you why. I’ll explain where Long Fist is.”

Valyn tested a low feint. Il Tornja stepped aside easily.

“He is in the Waist,” the general said.

“That’s impossible,” Valyn said. “Unless he has a bird, he couldn’t have made it out of the northern atrepies.”

“He has something better than a bird,” il Tornja replied slowly. “He has the kenta . I take it you’ve heard of the Csestriim gates? From your brother perhaps?”

Valyn tried not to stare, tried to keep his mind loose, ready. When the attack came, it would come fast.

“What I learned from my brother is that only the Shin can use the gates. I don’t know much about Long Fist, but he’s obviously not a monk.”

“No,” il Tornja said. “He is a god.”

“Horseshit,” Valyn spat, lunging forward, committing to the attack this time.

Il Tornja knocked it away.

“Unfortunately not.”

“A god?” Adare asked, voice high and tight.

“Meshkent, to be precise.” The kenarang raised his brows as he watched Valyn.