Page 130 of Of Empires and Dust
She glanced down at her own weapon, the red light glinting off the smooth steel, the blade curving slightly, the leather handle decorated with delicate ornamentation. The contrast between the two weapons seemed a fitting thing.
One was brutal and harsh, designed to break and snap, to puncture and dominate. The other was sleek and elegant, polished and refined, created with a single purpose: to kill.
“I am Salara Ithan, soulkin to Vyrmír. I would know your full name,” Salara said, offering him more respect than he was due.
“What’s it to you?” The man rolled his shoulders, glaring down at her. “Won’t matter much when your brains are sliding out your mouth. Less talking, more dying, bitch.”
“So be it.” Salara pressed the guard of her sword against her chest, steel clinking. “Det er en aldin går til dauv. Må Achyron inwê du ia’sonei unatair.”
It is a good day to die. May Achyron accept you into his halls.
The man shook his head and laughed before swinging his morningstar into a two-handed grip and marching towards Salara.
She felt Vyrmír roar in her mind, his will flowing through her, his power flooding her. The dragon flew towards the encampment on the other side of the Elkenwood, Boud strapped to his back. He had despised the idea of allowing Salara to go to battle without him but trusted her to know what was needed. If Vyrmír flew to Catagan, so too might Eltoar and Helios. Thatcould not be risked. If it was, then Olmaír’s sacrifice would have been for nothing.
We will be together again shortly, my light. I will not leave you alone in this world.
Salara lifted her blade and settled into valathír – the Frozen Soul - as the human drew within striking distance.
The man let out a roar, then swung the monstrous morningstar at her head.
She watched the weapon’s flight, then jerked her neck back, the tip of a steel spike sweeping past her chin close enough to sting.
The Lorian swung again, an almighty blow that would have caved in Salara’s breastplate, but she sidestepped, letting the man stagger from his unmet momentum. He was strong but slow, his armour heavy and thick. He moved like a milk-drunk child.
“Slippery fucker,” he growled, veins bulging in his neck and forehead. He lunged a third time.
Salara watched his feet and hips, his steps cumbersome, his turns slow.
“En aldin går til dauv,” she whispered.A good day to die.
Her opponent roared once more and swung his monstrous bone crusher. One blow and her skull would be mush or her ribs shattered. But the blow needed to land.
The swing came from the left. Salara stepped back. The second swing came from the right. She ducked beneath it, then levelled her blade across her body and swept it along the man’s hip where the leather connected the plates. The elven steel sliced through the thick hide and bit into the flesh beneath, causing the man to stumble, crying out as blood flowed.
She twisted, snapping her blade back around and running it just below the plate on his back, slicing through more flesh.
The man dropped to one knee but hauled himself upright with surprising speed, using the shaft of his morningstar for leverage. But as he turned, Salara swung her blade from right to left, carving through his face. The skin, muscle, and tendons parted on the right side, giving way to the steel. The blade smashed into his teeth on the left side of his mouth with a chillingsnap.
The man’s knees crashed into the dirt, and he stared at her in disbelief, eyes wide, jaw hanging loose, cheeks split, two shattered teeth hanging on by stringy bits of flesh. She’d seen it before, seen how the body and the mind took long moments to comprehend true trauma. And just like that his eyes bulged, his body shook, and he gave a horrible, muffled, spluttering scream. Blood spilled from his severed tongue as he fingered the remnants of his mouth, convulsing.
Salara stepped forwards and swung, hacking through the thick muscle of his neck. She took his hand with his head, both appendages hitting the ground moments before the body did.
A pang of pity attempted to rise in her heart, but she squashed it. When an animal was in its death throes, the kinder thing was to put it out of its misery. Only a savage let it suffer.
Shouts erupted behind her, and she turned, allowing herself a half-smile at the sight of the Lorian cavalry charging back towards the city, kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake.
Three shapes formed amidst the cloud, rushing in the opposite direction as the others: directly towards her. Hooves lifted chunks of earth into the air, cloaks flapping. All three riders were mages, and Salara could feel the Spark flowing from them.
She didn’t move an inch. They had not yet broken their vows, not yet breached the sanctity of Alvadrû. And she would not be the first to do so.
She pulled in a lungful of air, holding it as she touched her fingers to her chin to feel the thin scratch where the morningstar had grazed her. No matter how skilled or how powerful someone was, life and death were only ever a hair’s breadth apart, a half-second, a hesitation. But she had burned that hesitation from herself long ago.
A tingling sensation ran down her spine. She released the air in her lungs as arcs of blue and purple lightning streaked from the hands of the three riders, tearing through the earth, lifting clay, and setting fire to the dead leaves strewn about the ground.
“Predictable,” Salara whispered as she pulled threads of Fire, Spirit, and Air into herself and slammed them down through the path of the lightning, splitting it and sending it skittering harmlessly around her.
She looked back towards Vandrien and the other commanders and arced her sword through the air, calling, “Ilvar!”
