Path of Glory

4

“Is there any honor in that? Is there any honor in waiting for your enemy to die?”

“Honor?” Helmer almost spat. “That’s a fairytale for young fools. When you die, I’ll win. There’s no point in me fighting you now, when I know I’d lose.”

“If I want to, I’ll live for a hundred more eons.”

“Even if you live for thousands more,” Helmer shrugged. “I’ll still live longer. I’ll live forever... And we both know your days are numbered, Sage. Your death is much closer than a hundred eons. It’s much closer than a measly thousand years.”

The wizard said nothing…

“I’ll ask again: why did you call me here? Why did you violate my rights and kill my nightmare?”

Ash suddenly sighed and leaned heavily on his staff.

“Who knows? Maybe I just wanted to talk to my old enemy... or old friend… After all, your protégé will die tonight. Even if I don’t live to see another Demon Parade, I’ll at least get to watch you end up with nothing again.”

Helmer started laughing at first, then abruptly came to his senses and held out his hand. A nightmare jumped on it and squeaked something in its Master’s ear.

“What did you do?” Helmer jumped to his feet. “What did you do, Sage?”

The demon tried to disappear into the shadows, but couldn’t. The snow he was standing on suddenly burst into white flames. The clearing and the clouds disappeared. They were now standing in the middle of an endless darkness full of stars.

“This dungeon, Helmer, will exist for only one night. You entered it of your own free will. You can only leave when its walls fall.”

“What did you do, you fucking halfbreed?”

“I brought two harbingers together,” Ash replied. “And probably signed my own death warrant in the process.”

With these parting words, the wizard stepped into the light of one of the stars. The enraged demon, growling and cursing, was left standing alone in the middle of the dungeon created by the greatest wizard to ever live. The one who knew just as much magic and True Words as the Fae Queen, the Prince of Demons, and the Jasper Emperor. He knew them all. Or rather, he knew almost all of them. One Word remained hidden.

 

Arkemeya dismounted, patted the rump of her Bloody Mustang, and headed toward Sukhashim. She could hear the echoes of a battle, but she decided not to come any closer, so that the Mad General wouldn’t be able to sense her. Camping in her safe spot, she waited until the battle was over and the funeral ended.

Well, she’d also stopped to make sense of her own thoughts. For the first time in her life, she was truly free. The deal she’d struck with Helmer back when she’d been just a child was finally done, and Arkemeya was now free. Maybe this wasn’t a big deal to those who’d been born relatively free, but for a halfbreed who had the blood of inferior demons and the inhabitants of the Sea of Sand flowing through her veins, it was a significant change. She needed time to sort herself out and figure out where to go from here.

She understood that she wanted to fully enjoy her newfound freedom. And in her personal experience, adventure and unexpected twists of fate kept happening around Hadjar, and for a cultivator, those things meant power and freedom.

That was why Arkemeya was now walking toward Fort Sukhashim and trying to think of what to say to Hadjar. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Maybe if she hadn’t threatened to kill Tom, hadn’t blackmailed him, and hadn’t coaxed a resource of incalculable value out of him, she wouldn’t have had to say anything to him…

“Still,” she whispered to herself, “He does owe me…”

She lingered where the road curved. She saw a white-haired swordsman, whom she’d already met in one of the villages, stop in front of Hadjar, say something to him, and then… Arkemeya didn’t understand what happened next. Bathed in the light of the full moon, she saw the white-haired warrior, who spoke in a mechanical voice and moved like a puppet, suddenly disappear and then reappear right next to Hadjar. His sword was buried in the Mad General’s heart. Hadjar hadn’t even managed to take his sword out of his spatial artifact.

“You idiot!” Arkemeya screamed.

She’d never understood Hadjar’s habit of carrying his sword in his spatial artifact. Even the simplest style of swordplay required a warrior to have a weapon at hand. Sometimes, a weapon could be pulled out of a scabbard faster than from a spatial artifact, and speed was crucial to one’s survival.

All these thoughts raced through her mind. Even before Hadjar, clinging to the white-haired swordsman’s shoulders, could fall to the ground, she was charging forward. The ground cracked under her feet. Her two curved sabers flew out of their scabbards, and the purple light that surged from the weapons spread out and turned into the two huge wings of a desert falcon. She moved so quickly that, to the soldiers atop Sukhashim’s walls, she looked like a huge bird in flight.

But before Arkemeya’s sabers could hit the white-haired swordsman’s back, a wall of roaring flames appeared in front of her. Its heat was so intense, and the mysteries of the Sword contained in it so profound, that Arkemeya had to switch to a defensive stance. Crossing her saber-wings in front of her, she braced for the attack of the white flames. Roaring, they struck her crossed sabers. The stream of fire smashed the ball of purple light into the ground. A huge river of blue flame, compared to which Arkemeya’s defenses looked like tissue paper, dragged its prey a dozen feet away, melting a deep furrow in the ground as it did so.

When the torrents of fire finally subsided, leaving behind molten rocks and lava flowing into the furrow, Arkemeya dusted herself off and jumped out. What she saw made her assume a more cautious stance. Hadjar was lying on the ground, breathless, with a spark of life barely holding on inside of him. The Mad General clung to life with all his strength, but it was clear that in a few more moments, he would go to meet his forefathers. The white-haired swordsman was examining him. He’d pinned his opponent to the ground with his blade, and was looming over him like a vulture. Snow fell on his broad shoulders, and his gray eyes were glued to Hadjar’s glassy eyes.

Arkemeya took a step forward. White fire immediately cut her off by appearing right in front of her. The combined White Flame and Sword Spirit mysteries were so deep and powerful that she was certain of one thing: the opponent standing in front of her could kill her with a single attack.