Blade of Glass: Chapter 12

Following the Vhemin wasn’t hard. The Feybrind could have been a blind human and managed it. The creatures trampled a swath through the forest about ten meters wide. Geneve wondered at their motivations. They normally took better care to cover their tracks. Leading people back to their lair wasn’t good leadership thinking.

To be fair, they left you for dead. She winced, rubbing her shoulder. It felt hot, packed thick inside her armor. Getting the plate off would be painful, but that was a problem for Future Geneve. Today’s Geneve needed to get her friends back.

They found the ashy remains of a bonfire. Geneve swung from Tristan’s back, the horse snorting as she clanked to the loam. She tried to avoid Sight of Day’s eyes, the Feybrind watching her from Fidget’s back. He leaned forward, as if observing a special case of stupidity. He radiated agitation.

“Go on, then.” Geneve poked in the ash, finding coals within. “Say it.” She glanced his way to see his words.

{You’re burning daylight.} The Feybrind looked to the canopy above, as if gauging the sun. {Your span is that of a mayfly’s. You certainly don’t have the time to waste.}

“Did you call me a mayfly?” Geneve rooted through ash, hefting out a slab of stone. “What do you think this is?”

{It’s obvious you didn’t find time to study in your brief life.} The golden eyes moved, Sight of Day making a show of examining his clean nails, in contrast to Geneve’s sooty gauntlets. {The monsters learn, Daughter of the Three. They take blood heat with them.}

“That’s disturbing.” She dropped the stone to the ash, coughing as a cloud erupted at her feet. “Say nothing.”

{It’s good you’re disguising yourself. Clever, even. No one would mistake you for a Knight.} The Feybrind’s eyes twinkled. {Normally your kind are cleaner. Now you look like a…} his fingers paused for a moment, {stray dog.}

She put hands on hips, drifts of gray settling about her. “We can go now.” She stamped toward Tristan, who sidled away, clearly not keen on her getting back on, especially since she looked like a chimney sweep.

The Feybrind watched her, Fidget snorting beneath him. {Did you find them?}

She knuckled her palm. {Kneel.} Tristan sighed, casting a look at Chesterfield lurking behind, as if saying, Don’t make me. Not in front of my friends. Geneve knuckled her palm again, but harder this time. {Kneel!} The horse dropped before her, and she slung herself aboard. She checked her sword, scattergun, and shield out of long remembered habit. “Found who?”

Sight of Day held a palm out to the fire’s memory. {Those you fear lost.}

“Now who’s wasting time?” She steered Tristan in a circle, following the Vhemin’s trail. “Come on.”

{It’s not your fault.} Sight of Day held a hand out, palm up. {You slept because the angels kissed your brow. I smell it on your sweat.}

She touched her lower lip. “How did the Vhemin drug me?”

The Feybrind shrugged. {Perhaps you should ask the sinner.} He urged Fidget forward.

“You’re not doing a very good job of making me want to spare him.” If Meriwether drugged her, endangering her friends, she’d… I’ll do nothing, except take him to the Justiciars.

{That’s because I don’t want you to spare him.} The Feybrind gave that half-smile. {I want so much more than that.} He set off, Fidget tossing her mane and making a big show of not wanting to be near the dirt trail Geneve left from the fire pit to her horse.

“What do you mean?” she called to his back. Sight of Day didn’t answer. She’d forgotten how capricious they could be. “Fucking Feybrind. All the same!” Sight of Day didn’t turn, but waved a hand, as if thanking her for a delicious compliment. She grinned. Geneve found no human remains in the fire. Her friends were still alive.

* * *

Half a day’s riding left Geneve sore and missing the saddle. Still, Tristin probably felt worse. She couldn’t imagine having hard steel armor against his withers much fun. She patted the horse’s neck. Chesterfield and Troubles cantered in Geneve’s wake, keeping an easy pace without their riders. She tried not to look at Chesterfield. The black charger looked angrier by the moment.

They made good time through the forest. The Vhemin’s wide trail wasn’t just easy to follow but free of scrub that would normally foul speedy pursuit. As the day drew to a close, Sight of Day slowed Fidget, holding his hand in the air, fist clenched. Stop. 

The Vhemin’s trail might not need his tracking skills, but she knew Feybrind had the eyes and ears of, well, a cat. She stopped Tristan, leaning forward to whisper. “Quiet.”

The horse stilled beneath her. Troubles slowed, tossing her mane, and even Chesterfield looked about. The Feybrind pointed three fingers to the right, then two to the left. Geneve nodded. Guards. She’d seen and heard nothing.

Sight of Day unlimbered his bow, notching an arrow with absent-minded perfection. She didn’t know why Feybrind weren’t Knights. They moved so much easier than clumsy humans. It’d taken her thirteen long years of training to reach the rank of Adept, and here was a Feybrind making her feel like a clumsy toddler. 

He slipped from Fidget, settling to the forest floor without sound. She made to follow, but he cast her a scathing look, shaking his head. Geneve rolled her eyes, but he wasn’t wrong. She’d sound like a spoon convention hitting the ground. 

Sight of Day drifted into the trees. She waited, listening, eyes everywhere. After a handful of minutes, she heard a whistle-thud of an arrow loosed to target, then two more in rapid succession. Geneve looked to the trees but couldn’t make anything out in the dimming light.

Two more whistle-thuds came from her left. Half a minute later, Sight of Day re-emerged from the trees. The Feybrind loped with an easy, relaxed stride, as if he’d just spent the last five minutes drinking ale and flirting with the barmaid. Do Feybrind flirt? It felt the wrong time to ask. He shouldered his bow. {There are five less Vhemin in the world.}

“Just five?” Geneve felt uneasy. “There’s no way that small a number could account for Israel.”

{Just five here. No more. We’re safe for now.} Sight of Day’s eyes glinted in amusement. {I believe there are plenty more in the world.}

“Oh, good. I was worried I’d miss out—” Geneve was cut off by a bloodcurdling roar. Five Vhemin burst from the trees about them. She caught scaly skin and slitted snake eyes before fixating on one. That’s the one who brought me down. The monster seemed to recognize her, mouth opening in a horror grin of shark teeth. Her bastard sword was in her hand, Tristan surging forward as if the horse had a personal ledger of accounts to settle.

Lips pulled into a snarl, Geneve crouched low. A crossbow bolt hushed through the air she’d occupied. Shield on her left arm, she raised it. A chunk-chunk sounded as bolts hammered it, the distance between her and the Vhemin shrinking as Tristan charged.

Then she was among them. She rolled from Tristan’s back as the blue roan reared, hooves finding a home in a Vhemin’s skull. Geneve took a mace against her shield, the blow’s force sliding her boots across the leafy ground. She grit her teeth into a grin that would make Israel proud, hunching behind her cover, then surging forward. The shield caught the Vhemin under the chin, lifting the brute into the air. Feet off the ground, her blade Requiem sang, carving the Vhemin in half.

A Vhemin fired its crossbow at her, but Requiem was ready. The blade slashed an arc as Geneve stepped to the side. She continued her turn, sword taking a Vhemin’s head away from its shoulders.

The air hissed, a Vhemin ahead sprouting arrows as Sight of Day fired. She counted six impacting it before it fell back, an arrow through an eye socket finally knocking the dead into it.

Geneve sensed movement from her left and ducked below her shield. She heard the boom of a scattergun, her shield slamming against her. She remembered this Vhemin was taller than the others, enough height to be troublesome. Six paces away. Geneve kept the shield up, trusting her memory as she closed the distance between them. The scattergun boomed again, her shield ringing like a gong, the sound pure and angry. Then she was on the monster, sword slashing from on high, carving a path through the monster’s head, chest, and out the side of its ribcage.

One left. She turned to the creature that knocked her out what seemed like an age before. It crouched, massive shoulders bunched, ready to fight. Vhemin aren’t known for running. She held her arm out at shoulder height, blade leveled, pointing at it. “You owe me a debt.”

“How’s the shoulder?” it leered. “Last time, you were easy. This time, I might—”

Chesterfield rumbled over the top of him, trampling the Vhemin beneath glossy, black hooves. The charger bucked and stamped until there was nothing left, then did it a little more before sauntering off. Geneve checked the remains, then looked around for Sight of Day. The Feybrind leaned on his bow, watching with those wonderful golden eyes. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. {The storm breaks, Daughter of the Three.} He spread an arm to the carnage of the Vhemin. {One against five.}

“I told you before. The Sacred Storm doesn’t answer my call.” She cocked her head, listening as a horn sounded alarm. A few hundred meters away, no more. “We need to hurry.”

The Feybrind didn’t move. {It looked like a storm to me.}

“It only works if you’re … whole,” she hissed. She tugged her Adapt’s sash. “You’d know the Storm if you saw it, Sight of Day. It’s…” She trailed off, thinking of Israel. “It works for those in the Three’s grace, is all.”

{You seem whole to me. Now stop wasting time.} He grinned sharp teeth. They were pointed like the Vhemin’s but where the monsters looked like sharks or the big marsh lizards, the Feybrind’s were finely pointed. Delicate, but no less dangerous. {It’s like you want me to do all the work.}

“I killed four to your one!” she spluttered. “Also, you said we’d be ‘safe for now.’ Does this look safe?”

Sight of Day made a show of looking at the fallen, unmoving Vhemin. {Safe enough, yes. You speak like one trying to avoid their fair share. The one I shot was worth five ordinary ones.}

“I saw no such thing. He was like the rest…” Geneve narrowed her eyes. “You’re joking.”

{Life needs joy, Daughter of the Three.} Sight of Day stroked his chin. {Especially when fighting monsters in the dark.}

Geneve pressed her lips into a line. She checked her shield. The surface was unmarked, good Smithsteel unharmed by its encounter with a scattergun. Wait. Since when do Vhemin have scatterguns? She paced toward the fallen creature, retrieving the weapon. She knew it like the back of her hand.

Geneve held Vertiline’s scattergun to the fading light. “It’s time to get you back to where you belong.”

* * *

They led their horses. Tristan seemed to want to follow Sight of Day, so Geneve hissed at him. The blue roan shuffled behind her, head down, as if in a sulk. Chesterfield, Troubles, and Fidget clustered around the Feybrind. Geneve could understand Fidget following Sight of Day, but the other two? Traitorous bastards.

Finding the camp was easy as finding crabs in a brothel. They emerged from the forest’s canopy. Sight of Day slowed, then halted, as thirty pairs of Vhemin eyes marked them in the fading light. Warned by the sound of a scattergun’s anger, they were arrayed before a cave mouth. All were armed; two held glass blades. One was the heavy length of Israel’s weapon, the other Vertiline’s thinner edge.

Geneve stiffened. She knew those blades like she knew their keepers. It doesn’t mean they’re dead. But it means you need to help them.

Sight of Day chuffed a sigh. {There are many Vhemin. I think you’re in trouble.}

“Me?” Geneve glowered. “What about you?”

{I can run much faster than you.} He winked. 

The Vhemin shuffled, not leaving the cave entrance. Interesting. It’s like standing guard is more important than killing us. Geneve’s eyes traveled to a fire burning merrily in the twilight. A stake leaned over it, showcasing the horrors of the Vhemin’s last shared meal. “Do you know how to fight against glass blades?”

{I’ll work it out.} The Feybrind gave her a little side-eye. {Is there more to it than not getting hit?}

Geneve snorted, ran a gauntleted hand through messy red locks, then put her helmet on. Visor down, the world narrowed to slits as she marched toward the Vhemin. She spotted a few grins, more leers, and one or two chuckles as she approached. Her sword and scattergun were at her back, and she carried the souvenir of Vertiline’s scattergun hidden between her shield and arm. The severed head of the Vhemin who’d knocked her sideways she clutched in a gauntleted fist, hidden from view behind the shield for just the right moment. The shield’s crescent edge gleamed comfort below her chin.

The last time she fought this horde she’d been drugged. She wore Tresward Smithsteel and righteous anger, both heavy. These monsters didn’t know what they fought against. She stopped ten meters from the closest. The Vhemin’s skin was grayed almost to black, gnarled ridges running along its skull. When it spoke, its voice made her think of cracking ice. Brittle and hard at the same time, and oh so cold. “You shouldn’t be here, Tresward girl.”

It couldn’t see her face, but she figured it imagined fear. Thirty against one? And they’d bested her not one night past. The mistake of leaving her for dead they looked to correct. Geneve glanced around, taking the time to check their arms, armor, and state of readiness. There’d be no quarter from the Vhemin. Not this close to their prize. Not against one Tresward girl. “You’re right.”

It seemed surprised by that. “You what?”

“I shouldn’t be here.” She swept her open hand, taking in them, the cave, and the mountain at their back. “I should be at home, minding hearth, tending for a man, no? Or maybe you meant I should be at Tresward, learning the skills of the Three. Perhaps you mistake me for a Cleric, a body-weak Postulant yet to pass my Appeal. No.” She shook her head, metal rasping. “I see it now. You mean I shouldn’t be here, before you. I should be dead, yes?”

The Vhemin shared an uncertain look with a fellow at its side. “Something like that.”

“Then you shouldn’t have taken my friends, sirrah.” She tossed the severed Vhemin head, watching as it bounced against the ground. Twigs caught in sparse hair. Leaves and gore matted the stump. 

The monster before her did a double-take, then roared, brandishing a cleaver. Geneve unslung Vertiline’s scattergun, blowing a hole in the creature’s torso. The roar cut off, and it dropped the cleaver, pawing at the hole in its chest. Geneve saw through the wound to the other side before it toppled to the ground.

One rushed her from the right. She pointed the scattergun without looking, firing. The blast took the creature’s head from its shoulders, the body continuing a slow lumber. Geneve stepped aside, the carcass traveling past to stumble, fall, and splay on the ground. She let Vertiline’s scattergun fall, drawing Requiem. Geneve raised her voice, shouting over the Vhemin’s rumble of hate and spite. “You carry the glass blades of Knights! You believe to test your edge against mine. Come, then.” She slammed Requiem against her shield, metal clanking and eager.

They charged her. Not just two with glass blades, but the whole remaining twenty-eight. She felt fear touch her, claws in her heart, threatening to drag her down. Imagined, prayed that Israel was at her back, his hand on her shoulder like when she was small. Don’t worry about the fight’s outcome. It’ll end in its own time, he’d have said. Be one with it.

She raised her steel. Requiem caught the fire’s ruddy light against its cold edge, almost like a brand of fire in her hand. If Geneve commanded the Storm, she could make it burn, or a hundred other things. But it was just her, her blade, her injured shoulder, and almost thirty Vhemin. She pressed her lips into a line, refusing fear’s cold embrace. Geneve spared a thought for Sight of Day, hoping the Feybrind was doing his part, then the tide of Vhemin washed atop her.

A slash came at her legs. She swung Requiem, taking the Vhemin’s arm off at the wrist. His blade spun past her, lost to the dark. Another charged, making to tackle her, but he moved like a slow and clumsy toddler, albeit one that ate whole cows for breakfast. Geneve stepped to the side, swatting him on the rump as he passed by. A strike came from her left, and she ducked under the rim of her shield, the blow landing hard and heavy. The force rattled her teeth, so she screamed, sweeping Requiem in an arc. Vhemin fell back against the whirl of steel, and she stood clear. For the moment, at least. 

The two with glass blades stepped forward. The monsters about her shifted, panting and urgent, hungry and restless, all wanting the sticky red inside her. She felt like Israel was still with her, that gentle hand on her shoulder. Fights are won in the heart, lass. Break their will.

Little Geneve might have looked at him, his tall frame and strong shoulders. But they’re Vhemin. They do not falter.

He’d only have shrugged. You are Tresward iron. You can break anything.

Geneve grinned within the privacy of her helmet. By Cophine, Ikmae, and Khiton, I will not fall. She straightened, widening her arms. Shield to one side, Requiem on the other. Chest bared, burnished sun on metal breastplate gleaming under the stars. “Give it your best shot.”

The one carrying Israel’s blade swung. By the Three, he was fast. Even Israel wouldn’t have moved like that. The glass blade hungered for Geneve’s frame. She stood, still as a frozen lake, hard as winter’s rock.

The blade hit her armor, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces. The fragments sprayed about her. Vhemin shielded their eyes from the storm of shards, and Geneve lunged forward. Requiem took the head from the one with Vertiline’s blade, the heart from another, and the arms off a third. She stood on a small piece of earth, making it hers. Not backing away. Not giving ground. If she stepped away to dodge, she always moved back to reclaim it.

The earth trembled, a promise of things to come. The Vhemin looked about, then withered as a rain of hooves and fury rode over them. Sight of Day galloped past atop Fidget, the Feybrind standing atop the red roan. He fired his bow into the Vhemin, shafts thunking into bodies, limbs, and heads. He tumbled free, landing at Geneve’s side, back to hers. He stood with her, his slim sword held ready against monsters twice his size.

Chesterfield and Troubles rumbled past, braying and kicking. The Tresward horses fought as they’d been trained, hooves marking skulls, back legs caving chests. Tristan was with them, Geneve’s beautiful blue roan looking like a slip of cloudy night.

Not one of the Vhemin ran. They fought, and bravely, and just as bravely died. Whether to the song of Geneve’s Requiem, or the sliver of light Sight of Day fenced with, or to the terrible, unstoppable fury of Tresward horses, they all fell. 

Minutes past, and it was done. Geneve panted within her helmet, casting about for foes. Sight of Day padded like a panther, checking the fallen for survivors. Making sure there were none, his blade talking to upturned faces or pleading hands. His golden eyes burned, not with the warmth of a hearth, but the terrible blaze of a furnace.

Geneve looked at her feet and the hundreds of shards of glass. All that remained of Israel’s weapon, gone, all to break the spirit of her attackers. He’d have said it was worth it, but she wasn’t sure. 

Sight of Day approached, pointing at Vertiline’s weapon. {Now you can have glass in your hand.}

Geneve pulled her helmet free, red locks tumbling about her face. “I can’t use glass any more than the Vhemin.” She tasted bitter envy in her words, tried to spit it out. “I’m not whole.” The Feybrind watched her, waiting. Letting the silence do the talking. “I … know the patterns, but I don’t … hear the song.” She shook her head, then retrieved Vertiline’s weapon. “The sword is just glass. It will break like anything else made of melted sand.”

Sight of Day touched the blade’s edge, pulling his hand back quick at the nick on his finger. He sucked it for a moment. {Then how?}

“The Sacred Storm is the only weapon a real Knight needs.” Geneve pushed the bitterness back down, buried it deep, patted the mound of emotions down with a shovel. “We don’t fight with steel or glass. The Light of the Three lives in us. Strengthens our weapons. We use glass blades,” she tapped Vertiline’s edge with a gauntleted finger, the glass chiming like fine crystal, “because they’re very sharp. But it’s our wills that make them strong.” 

Sight of Day watched her a few moments more. {That sounds like a lot of hard work.}

She gave a harsh laugh, cut it short. “Spoken like one trying to avoid their fair share.”

He half-smiled. {It’s like you’ve known me for a hundred years. You see the color of my soul.} He sobered, facing the cave mouth. {We have work to do.} He favored her with those beautiful eyes. {And by we, I mean you. Get in there.}

She felt her lip quirk in a grin, bitterness be damned. She clapped her hands, drawing Tristan’s attention. She crossed her wrists before her face. {Hide.}

Tristan seemed to mull it over, then tossed his tail, heading for the trees. Sight of Day watched him go, seeming surprised as Fidget followed, then Chesterfield and Troubles. {You have bewitched my horse with your Tresward magic.}

“Your horse doesn’t want to die. Probably the only smart one here.” Geneve shook a few glass splinters from her helmet, then put it on. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

{Are you going somewhere without me?}

“Yes. In there.” She stabbed Requiem toward the cave mouth.

{How curious. I’m going the same way. Care to join me?} The Feybrind set off, tail swishing behind him. 

Geneve watched him. She felt like she should trust him. Like he was trustworthy. As if she had known him for a hundred years and knew the color of his soul. She didn’t know how, or why, but she felt Sight of Day might be pure, like a mountain stream. Geneve distrusted the feeling, because he wanted her to set the sinner free.

He stood at your back with Vhemin raging for blood. He did not run. And he guarded you while the angel’s kiss ran its course. Still, he was Feybrind. Not human, and not Tresward. Geneve should be careful. Mind her step and watch her back.

But as she stepped behind him into the maw of darkness ahead, she felt a flutter of happiness he was here. She told her traitor heart to still, but it wouldn’t listen. It’d been a long time since she’d been with Feybrind. There were so few of them, and she missed them very much.

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