The instant Lindon started backing away from the wall, a spear struck like a lightning bolt, flying straight at him.
The Burning Cloak ignited, and he shattered the spearhead with his fist.
Chunks of stone started dissolving as soon as the spear broke—Forged madra, then. Just like the soldiers.
That was a relief. Real stone would have been much more difficult to deal with than a Forger technique.
He waited a breath for another spear, but none came. Then he took a step back.
Two spears flew at him, one on top of the other.
Even in the Burning Cloak, he couldn't keep up, smashing one aside but taking a grazing cut to the inside of his arm from the second. And the Cloak would fall any second; he didn't have the madra to maintain it, not after botching all those attempts at the Striker technique.
He froze in place, trying to conserve madra and movement, and no more spears followed those two.
A steady stream of spears flew out at Yerin, who slowly retreated.
“Stop moving!” Lindon called, and Yerin froze after snatching two spears out of the air.
The remaining spears clattered to the ground, blood flowed down Lindon’s arm to drip from his fingertips, and Yerin stood panting with a spear in each hand.
The wall remained still.
Cautiously, Lindon let the Burning Cloak drop. The blazing black-and-red energy around his body faded.
Though it was difficult to see through the cloudy wall of gray aura, he could make out a few shapes: three irregular balls of shadow, each floating in midair, clustered in a rough triangle with about twenty feet between them. The balls were only the size of his head—at least, as far as he could tell—but they bobbed and flowed like liquid.
While moving his body as little as possible, Lindon raised his voice. “I see three dark spots. Do you think they could be the source of the spears?”
“Targets, I'd say,” Yerin responded.
“Could be both.”
Very slowly, Yerin hefted one of her spears. “Let's test it.”
In one smooth motion, she hurled the spear.
Another spear shot out at her, but she ducked and let it pass over her head. At first Lindon thought the weapon she'd thrown would dissolve into the gray wall, but then he remembered it was Forged madra: the destruction aura would just ignore it.
But it was also a moving object.
Another spear launched from the other side, striking Yerin's spear with a sound like a tree splintering. They clattered to the ground, slowly breaking apart.
“That's a neat little trick,” Yerin said, still crouching with her one remaining spear.
Lindon thought he had the measure of it now. The wall was to keep them from closing the distance, to force them to use Striker techniques, and the spears were to keep pressure on them. They needed to knock the three targets down without attracting the attention of the spears, so they needed to be fast without much movement.
He could see the path laid out for him: he'd have to throw fire quickly and precisely, while still defending himself from the spears. It would take months of rigorous practice to train his reactions, not to mention building up his spirit. But Eithan had only allotted him six weeks for this Trial.
He needed a shortcut.
Lindon wanted to go back to the cave and start working, but he was stuck frozen in the center of the Trial grounds. He hated to ask, but with his madra as weak as it was, he could only think of one way out. “Forgiveness, but...do you think you could cover me as I run?”
“If I can't, worst thing that could happen is a spear through the back.”
She said it like a joke, but he was already picturing a spear thick as his wrist impaling him through the ribs. Even his Bloodforged Iron body couldn't keep up with that.
He stayed still. “I'm sure that a spear to the back is nothing to you, but even with my Iron body, I’m not sure if I want to—”
“Start running, Lindon.”
Chapter 16
After a week, Lindon could almost form a ball of Blackflame between his hands. It would explode immediately, so he’d taken to practicing bare-chested; otherwise, he would have burned away his outer robe on the second day.
Their attempts on the Striker Trial had been less than successful, as they had quickly realized that Yerin couldn’t destroy the targets. The black blobs floating behind the hazy wall of aura would just re-form if they were cut.
To destroy the targets, they needed Blackflame.
Lindon condensed another blob of dark fire, casting his palms in a deep crimson radiance. His mind and spirit were drawn to a point, utterly focused on his task, as beads of sweat rolled down his face.
The ball of burning madra between his palms swelled, growing until it was almost the size of a fist—a little more, and he could consider the first stage of the technique passed.
When he sent one more pulse of madra into the ball, it exploded.
He flipped onto his back, slamming his skull against the hard-packed earth and staring up into the blue strip of sky he could see through the opening to his canyon. His breaths came heavily as he tried to find his cycling rhythm, pulling his madra together for another attempt.
A red-tinged shadow loomed over him, and blazing red circles on fields of darkness swiveled to meet his eyes.
“Orthos,” Lindon panted, gingerly climbing to his feet so that he could bow. “It has been too long.”
The giant turtle grumbled something that might have been agreement. “I am not pleased,” he declared, snapping up a small boulder.
Lindon hurriedly pulled his sacred artist’s robe back up; he’d pushed it down to the waist, which was not a polite way to meet a guest. “Pardon, honored Orthos. I was not expecting a visitor.”
He had sensed Orthos’ presence growing closer, but the turtle had gotten close to the canyon many times over the last few months. He’d never entered. Besides, Lindon’s attention was devoted entirely to his half-formed Striker technique.
“With so much attention on your training,” Orthos said, “you should be making progress.” The last word was packed with such spite and rage that Orthos’ eyes went from red to the bright orange of an open flame. Lindon felt the radiance of the anger in his spirit, and he took a step back, instinctively cycling his madra for a fight.
Orthos snapped his head to one side, bottling up the anger again, mastering himself. “You see?” he said at last. “The pure madra I took from you is not enough to balance the corrosion any longer. I need to pour more power into you, and you are not ready. I am displeased.”
Orthos’ spirit was in better shape than when Lindon had first sensed it; the painful, burning heat was better contained, and now it moved in regular cycles instead of a wild mass of flames.