Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

He reached out but stopped when, to his relief, she didn’t move any farther. Roan wasn’t interested in the giants; she was shifting her gaze between Anwir and Eres, staring with intensity as Anwir wound up another stone and Eres launched another javelin. She muttered softly, “There’s always a better way.”

To Gifford’s surprise, Grygor joined the other Galantians in the fight against his brethren. Grygor didn’t appear to care about their kinship as he raised his huge sword and hewed down a slightly larger giant with a single stroke.

Vorath, the only Fhrey who had a beard—which he’d grown in the style of the Rhunes—advanced with a three-spiked ball on a chain in one hand and a star-shaped mace in the other. He waded into the fray, a whirling cyclone of whipping metal. The giants appeared confused by his weapons until Vorath solved the riddle by crushing knees and then skulls.

With a shout, which may have been a command that Gifford didn’t understand, the giants retreated, dragging their fallen with them. The Fhrey didn’t pursue or interfere, even when one giant strode toward the well to reclaim the body of his comrade, which was just a few yards from where Sebek stood.

As the giants fled, Gifford noticed other dahl residents who hadn’t reached the storage pit but had survived the storm. Old man Mathias Hagger stood near the waste holes behind what used to be the lodge, sodden with muck. Arlina and Gilroy, their three boys, and daughter, Maureen, were clustered around the grindstone where the millhouse once stood. Arlina’s face was covered in blood, but otherwise she looked fine. Many more weren’t as lucky. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Feet and arms protruded from under wreckage. The battle was over, but the toll had yet to be tallied.





CHAPTER THREE


The Circle of Fire




I will never forget the day my parents died. I was a child of fifteen, and my world had been destroyed. Then Persephone led us away from what had been our home, and I was not a child anymore.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





Arion lay on her back, eyes closed, in a small area cleared of debris inside the walls of Dahl Rhen. When a shadow covered her face, she was reluctant to open her lids. Her head was still throbbing, the pain unbearable.

“Try this,” Suri said.

If it had been anyone else, Arion would’ve pretended to be asleep, but Suri could always tell.

Arion opened one eye. The Rhune mystic stood over her with a steaming cup. Just behind the girl was the old woman Padera. The two had become something of a team lately, joining forces to concoct primitive recipes to ease Arion’s pain. None worked. Knowing the two would continue to pester her until she drank, rubbed, or gargled whatever they brought her, Arion sat up and took the cup. Miraculously, the delicate vessel, called a Gifford Cup by the dahl’s residents, had survived the attack. The exquisite chalice was as out of place as Arion in that world of mud and logs.

Suri made a gesture indicating that the brew should be drunk. Arion sniffed the cup’s contents, then recoiled at the stench.

“You sure?” Arion inquired.

“Pretty sure,” Suri answered with an encouraging smile.

The hot tea was bitter but not nearly as repugnant as its smell. The liquid had a woody aftertaste. “What’s this one?”

“White willow bark.”

“Good for headaches?”

Suri nodded. “The best.”

Arion knew the young mystic was stretching the truth. If the concoction was the best, it would have been the first the pair tried, and they had gone through nearly half a dozen attempts. She took a second sip, which also made no improvement, but at least the steam was pleasant. The old woman didn’t speak Fhrey, so Arion forced a smile and nodded in her direction. Padera said something unintelligible and her sour face turned even more acidic. Suri had been teaching Arion Rhunic, just as Arion worked at improving Suri’s mastery of Fhrey. But Arion’s vocabulary was still limited to a few hundred words, and Padera hadn’t used many of those.

“What did she say?”

“She doesn’t understand why you aren’t getting better.”

“That makes two of us.”

Looking around, Arion saw that not much had changed since she’d lain down, except that now neat rows of wrapped bodies were carefully laid out in a mass grave. Each building was still destroyed. Logs, thatch, and rock foundations were scattered everywhere. She considered repairing the damage—not that she knew exactly how it all went back together—but she didn’t dare take the risk.

Earlier that morning before she’d gone to the forest, Arion had thought she’d finally mended. Her head hadn’t hurt for days, but now the throbbing announced most emphatically that her hopes of being healed were, at best, premature.

Months ago, after arriving at the dahl to bring Nyphron to justice, Arion had been hit in the head with a rock by one of the villagers. She’d yet to discover the culprit’s identity, but it didn’t matter. What had mattered was being completely cut off from the Art. After the injury, she couldn’t manage even a simple weave. It wasn’t until after the bandages wrapping her head were removed that the Art returned. Apparently, Suri had been afraid Arion would retaliate against the dahl because of the attack, so the young mystic had painted Dherg runes on the bandages, and they had inhibited Arion’s use of magic.

With the restoration of the Art, Arion had fought Gryndal, but by the end of the battle the pain had blinded her. She couldn’t walk and had to be carried back to bed. She hadn’t fallen asleep after the fight; she’d passed out. When she awoke a full day later, Arion was physically sick and emotionally devastated, but at least she had the Art once more, or so she’d thought.

Using the Art to extinguish Magda’s flames, then later to trap the giant, had brought the pain back. So while she was no longer blocked from accessing the power of the Art, using it was another matter.

“You’re awake. Good.” Nyphron waded toward her through a pile of thatch that had been someone’s roof. The Galantian leader was wearing his armor for the first time in weeks, the bronze shining brilliantly in the late-afternoon sun. He towered over her. “Do you still think a diplomatic solution can be found?” he asked, his tone forceful, aggressive. He wanted to fight—verbally at least. No surprise there, the Instarya tribe were the warriors of their people.

Suri and Padera rushed off, but Arion couldn’t avoid Nyphron so easily.

The pain was coming in hammering waves that blurred her vision as if from the pummeling of blows. She rubbed her forehead while making a pained expression, hoping he would get the hint and leave her alone.

He didn’t.

Nyphron gestured at the destruction around them. “Do you think this was a random accident? A rogue band of Grenmorians wandering some three hundred miles away from home? A weirdly large group who managed to avoid Instarya patrols, who walked right by Alon Rhist to smash this dahl for the sheer joy of it? And the storm? Was that just a freak occurrence?”

“No, I don’t think any of that.” Her words were slow, tired, and dribbled out of her mouth. He must grasp that she was miserable. Common decency should cause him to—