Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain

Ashok stepped to the door of the cell. He had no weapon, no armor, just the visceral rage to guide him. Vedoran raised his sword to keep him at a distance, but he looked pleased.

“Almost,” he said. “What you need is … ah.” He went to Uwan and retrieved his bloody dagger from the leader’s slack fingers. He tossed it to Ashok, who caught it without thinking, letting the blood smear his palm. “Now we’re ready.”

“You shouldn’t be so smug,” Ashok said. He fell into a crouch. “I’ve killed brothers with blades smaller than this.”

“They were weak, just like you,” Vedoran said.

He came at Ashok hard and fast with an overhand strike that couldn’t be blocked. Ashok dodged, but his reflexes hadn’t nearly recovered enough to keep pace with his emotions. He over-compensated and fell on his stomach. Vedoran’s sword hissed through the air. Ashok gritted his teeth and teleported. Vedoran’s blade rang off the stone floor with another deafening shriek.

Ashok reappeared inside his cell. He stayed in the far corner in his wraith form-the same place where he’d seen his father and brothers and their emaciated shadows, though he tried not to dwell on these thoughts. He thought instead of how to turn the fight to his advantage. That was the first step.

He stayed inside the cell, forcing Vedoran to come to him. The close quarters favored his dagger heavily, and Vedoran couldn’t make him dance quite so much with so little room to maneuver.

“Where is the warrior who stood on the Span with me?” Ashok asked. He could feel corporeality seeping back into his limbs, but the question burned at him through the bloodlust. “Where is that shadar-kai who guided me through the nightmares?”

“We’re still on that bridge,” Vedoran said. “We’re still falling. But it’s almost over now.” He slashed at Ashok’s wraith body. The blade passed through his chest but caught his arm as it became flesh and laid it open.

Ashok grunted and clutched the wound. Blood soaked his fingers, but he didn’t have time to determine how deep the sword had penetrated, because Vedoran had seen the blood too. He reversed his swing. Ashok blocked feebly with the dagger and tried to twist out of the way.

Vedoran’s blade grazed his collarbone. Ashok felt the hot line where it cut him to the shoulder.

No choice. Ashok teleported again, but it took all his strength and concentration. He didn’t think he’d be able to attempt the escape again until he’d rested, and Vedoran was already crowding him, forcing him to move in his incorporeal form to find a better position.

“You’re tiring quickly,” Vedoran said. “Why are you fighting so hard? You know you won’t win. If Uwan could fall to me, you don’t stand a chance in your current state.”

“Uwan trusted you,” Ashok said. “That was his mistake. I won’t underestimate you or what you’re capable of. Not anymore.”

“I’m doing you a service,” Vedoran said, “killing you now while you’re still full of hope. This city does that to you, gives you hope. But even if you survive, they will never accept you fully. You heard the crowd at your trial. Half of them want you dead. Would they embrace you if you came out of these tunnels? Better to die here and never know that disappointment.”

“Is that what grieves you the most, Vedoran?” said Ashok, gathering himself for the last exchange of blows. “All the people who have disappointed you? Uwan, the city, the gods …”

“You,” Vedoran said. He gripped his sword and put it through Ashok’s phantom chest, swirling it around his heart. “You disappointed me more than all the others. I would have been more than a brother. You were supposed to be with me.”

“I was,” Ashok said, “but this is bigger than you or I. Ikemmu is about more than survival. There are things worth protecting here. The city isn’t perfect, but there’s a future in it. There was no such haven in those caves where I prowled and killed.”

His words came faster as his body faded back into the world. When he could hear his boots scrape on stone, Ashok went on the offensive. He dived in under Vedoran’s guard and nicked his cheek, a light blow to get the graceful warrior backpedaling.

Vedoran teleported away over Ashok’s sudden burst of energy, but he didn’t speak, and as soon as he became solid they went at the fight again. Ashok ducked a sharp slash from Vedoran’s blade, but he stumbled and fell prone with his dagger arm trapped beneath him. Vedoran came after him. Ashok grabbed his leg and twisted, bringing the warrior down beside him.

Ashok heard Vedoran’s sword clatter on the ground. He rolled as Vedoran went for his throat and dug the dagger into Vedoran’s shoulder. Pain spasmed across Vedoran’s face, but he got his hands inside Ashok’s guard and around his throat.

Choking, Ashok tried to pull his dagger out of Vedoran’s flesh, but it was wedged against bone, and his strength was rapidly waning. He couldn’t draw breath. The room started to spin, and Vedoran, through it all, looked half-crazed, his eyes bulging with triumph as he pressed Ashok’s flailing body down and choked the life out of him.

Fading. Ashok felt himself become unmoored from his body, except he was aware of everything. The necrotic energy swirling in the room solidified into reaching shadows, and there was the void again before him, where his father and brothers waited. He wouldn’t look at them, Ashok thought. He looked beyond them into the unknown and tried not to be afraid of what waited there.

Ashok glimpsed it then, behind the rest, the form rising up to fill his vision. It no longer wore Ilvani’s face, but it cut through the shadows straight to Ashok’s heart.

Through his dimming consciousness, Ashok reached up and wrenched the dagger free from Vedoran’s shoulder. Vedoran cried out and loosened his grip. Ashok sucked in a desperate breath of air and brought the blade down nearly parallel between them. Driven by a strength Ashok had thought long gone, the blade disappeared into Vedoran’s chest and pierced his heart.

Ashok felt Vedoran’s whole body stiffen. He flailed, and Ashok caught his hands, holding them as the life drained from the graceful warrior. The breath eased out of Vedoran’s chest slowly, and the crazed look left his eyes. He focused for an instant on Ashok’s face and tried to speak.

“Say it again,” Ashok said, his voice ragged from being strangled. “I couldn’t hear.”

“Forgive …” Vedoran coughed, and there was blood on his lips. “Forgive … yourself. Even … if I can’t.”

Ashok clasped the warrior fiercely to his breast. Vedoran drew his last breath, and Ashok felt the body in his arms go limp.

“You’re in the shadows now, my friend,” he whispered. He hoped that somehow, Vedoran’s soul would find its way out of the void. From there he faced a journey beyond mortal knowledge. But the cares of Ashok’s world could not touch him.

Ashok gently laid Vedoran’s body on the ground. Light-headed with pain and grief, he crawled to Uwan’s side and turned the leader’s body to face him. He put his head against Uwan’s chest and listened for some sign of life. The sign came with the leader’s voice.

“You did well,” Uwan said. His vacant eyes stared past Ashok at the invisible world full of shadows.

“Don’t do this,” Ashok said. “I can get healers here before your next breath. Uwan!” he cried when the leader’s head lolled.

Uwan licked his lips and coughed. “I saw Him, just now. I saw Him, but He wasn’t looking for me. He was watching you. You fought so well … You saw His pride, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what I saw,” Ashok said. “I’m not ready to accept-”

“So … stubborn,” Uwan said. His lips curved in a weak smile. “Always thinking your life means nothing … to the gods. Every life is important.”