Rachel Aaron: The Spirit War

He fell asleep the moment Milo lay him flat, the Heart of War clutched to his chest. How long he slept, Josef never knew, but when he woke it was night and Milo Burch was gone. The cave was empty except for the bloody blankets Josef lay on, the water barrel, and a large supply of food. A loaf of bread and a water skin lay on the ground beside his head, and Josef ate greedily before falling asleep again. When he woke next, it was evening. This time he was strong enough to stand. He went looking for Milo, but the old swordsman was gone. There was, however, a message scratched in soot on the cave wall.

After fifty years as a swordsman, it read, I think I’ve earned the right to live my last few as just a man. Remember why you fight, Josef Liechten, and the Heart of War will never forsake you.

That was it. No name, no date, no direction. Josef smiled. Nothing else was needed. He read the note twice and then rubbed it out with his palm. He gathered the food and as much water as he could carry. Then, tying the great black blade across his back with strips torn from the blood-ruined blankets, Josef Liechten, master of the Heart of War, set off into the desert to become the world’s greatest swordsman.

Den the Warlord, unknowing owner of the highest bounty the Council of Thrones had ever issued, was bashing his way through a jungle. He ripped out the waxy green plants in wet handfuls, kicking the rotten ground whenever it tried to trip him. Insects whizzed by in the humid air above his head, flying at his eyes whenever they dared, biting and stinging and all the while buzzing, “Go away! Go away!”

Den smacked them out of the air and kept going.

He knew by this point that the jungle was another dead end, but he had nowhere else to go but through it. So through it he went, smashing the undergrowth with mechanical efficiency until he spotted something white through the trees. Den slowed at once, sliding into a stance as he pushed the last of the broad leaves back. There, hanging directly in his path between two large trees, was a hole in the world. The hole was rectangular, an inch taller than himself, which was to say very tall indeed, and easily wide enough for him to walk through. Its edges were smooth and white, and they shone brighter than the noon sun reflected off water, which explained the flash he’d seen earlier. But strangest of all was that the jungle he saw through the opening was not the one he stood in. It was as thick as his jungle, just as green and overgrown, but the wind that drifted through the white-edged hole was hotter than the humid air around him. The soil on the other side was sandier, the trees denser and older. Though he’d been following a ridge in this jungle, the new jungle was flat, the land unremarkable save for a knot of trees directly ahead, their roots tangled around the entrance of what looked to be a small dirt cave.

Den frowned and took a moment to consider. He’d seen such a portal once before, the only time he’d ever managed to corner a League man. His face broke into a grin at the memory. That had been a good fight.

If he hadn’t already decided his jungle was a dead end, that thought alone was enough to decide for him. Smiling in anticipation, Den stepped forward, ducking through the portal. When his feet hit the ground on the other side, he took up a defensive position, looking for his opponent. But the new jungle was as empty as the old one had been, its trees tossing in the lonely wind. Feeling cheated, Den turned back only to find that the portal was gone, leaving nothing but a fading white line in the baking air.

Den snarled. It wasn’t that he was angry to leave the first jungle. When you were searching blindly as he was, one place was as good as the next. But he didn’t like unknowns, and he certainly didn’t like having fights taken from him. He closed his eyes and listened, ears straining, just on the off chance the League man was waiting for an opening, but it was no use. If the League had been here, they were long gone. Den was working himself into a foul mood over this when he caught a faint sound on the wind, almost like a sob.

All at once, Den’s smile returned. Seemed this jungle wasn’t so empty after all.

He turned on his heel until he was facing the dirt cave below the tree roots. It was a wretched thing, a black hole in the mud held together by tree roots. The entrance crumbled a little as Den pushed his way in. The inside of the cave was dim and low, forcing Den to stoop almost double until he’d climbed down to the bed of mud and leaves that served as the cave floor. When he reached the bottom, he straightened as best he could and gazed through the dark at the woman hunched against the cave’s far wall. Den’s smile split into a toothy grin. Not a League man, true, but a better prize, the one he’d been walking through jungles for almost ten years now in search of.

Despite his noisy entrance, the woman didn’t appear to notice Den for several seconds. Finally, she shifted against the mud, glancing at him through slitted eyes.

“Oh,” she said, looking away again. “It’s you.”

Den crossed his arms. “It’s me.”

The woman didn’t answer, and Den, tired of crouching, sat down. Normally, he would have just knocked the roof out, but he’d been looking for her a long time and, much as it irked him, a little tolerance was a small thing compared to the hassle it would take to find her again if she ran, miraculous portals notwithstanding.

When it was clear Den wasn’t leaving, the woman pressed her face against the cool dirt as though she could somehow ignore him. It was a futile effort, for the cave was very small and Den was a large, large man.

“What do you want?” she grumbled at last.

“What you promised me,” Den said.

The woman laughed, a harsh, joyless bark. “Is your life so dull you’d search all across the Empire to collect a bad debt?”

“You promised me a war,” Den answered calmly. “I crossed half the world for that promise. Does it really surprise you that I would cross the other half to hold you to it?”

She glanced sideways at him, her dark eyes sharp and almost as he remembered them. “I suppose it doesn’t,” she said. “My apologies, Bloody Den, but you’ll have to find someone else to stage your fights.” She turned away, pulling herself against the wall again. “I have no more care to rule.”

“No!” Den’s shout rattled the earthen walls. The woman jumped, flinching as Den leaned in, towering over her despite his seated position.

“You promised me,” he whispered, low and deadly. “Twenty-six years ago you promised me a war. Twenty-six years I’ve waited, fought your warriors, and prepared your troops. I’ve held up my end of the deal tenfold, and you owe me. If you want to lie in the mud and feel sorry for yourself, do it on your own time, but right now you need to finish what you started. You will honor your pledge, or I will test your famous immortality for myself, Nara.” The name rolled off his tongue like a curse.

The woman leaped up from the mud and turned to face him, staring him down like he was a cockroach. “You will not speak so informally to me, barbarian.”

Den leaned back against the cool mud. “I’ll treat you like an empress when you start acting like one.”

For a moment, the rage burned in her eyes, and she was nearly herself again. Her authority radiated through her mud-stained rags, dismissing her long, matted hair and wretched surroundings until he could almost see the Empress he remembered, tall and dark and terrible in her rage. But then, between one second and the next, it crumbled, and she sank to the mud floor in a broken heap.

“What does it matter?” she whispered, letting the dirty mass of her dark hair fall over her face. “The Shepherdess has abandoned me. Everything I did, my entire life, it was all for her. I gave her everything—my soul, my love, my service—but she doesn’t even look at me anymore. All she cares about is that boy.”