Lighter Days, Darker Nights (Rune Breaker) Read online

  “How...” Kaiel began. If Ru got that story from a book, he wanted to read it. But Ru kept speaking.

  “The shepherd was also real. He was called by Eske Metredes and found the weapon in a cave while looking for a strayed kid. He was the first in this era, but the Rune Breaker comes from a time before your gods arrived on this world.”

  Except for the dogmatic to the point of insanity, it was understood that the primary gods of Ere, the so-called Vishnari Pantheon, had not always been part of the world. Their own dogma, by and large, admitted that goblins and ogres and many other mortal races dwelt on Ere before the Pantheon brought humans and hailene to what for them was a new homeland and transformed some of their number into other races; elves, halflings, minotaurs, hengeyokai and the like.

  That assertion didn't pique Kaiel's interest; it was the implication of it. Precious few artifacts existed from the time before the arrival of the Pantheon—Saint's Landing. If Ru knew something the College didn't, that knowledge would be worth a great deal to anyone.

  Ru either didn't notice or didn't care as he recounted how Metredes took over the little valley he called home and ruled by fear up until he was poisoned by his own son, and there was no reason for Kaiel to even consider that Ru had taught the jealous young man all he knew about poisoning. Metredes too had swiftly become worthy enough for death that the pain of the link's punishment was worth it. The poison took the tiny king of a tiny valley swiftly, but painfully as every muscle seized and spasmed.

  “But,” He concluded, “That story contains some accuracies that I was surprised to hear. The Rune Breaker does indeed think for itself and change form.”

  “None of this explains why we're talking about those terrible, destructive legends when I wanted to know about the link you share with Taylin.” said Kaiel hotly. As intrigued as he was with the possibility of pre-Saint's Landing knowledge, being denied the answers to that other mystery grated on him.

  “Because I am a terrible, destructive man.” Ru said, swinging the repaired scythe up to rest over one shoulder. The motion drew Kaiel's eye.

  “The Rune Breaker... the scythe. That's what you've been trying to do? Make one?”

  Ru barked a harsh laugh. “Don't be foolish, story spinner. You cannot create one such as the Rune Breaker. The scythe was called Grace, and it served me well for centuries until that bloated fool that preceded Miss Taylin caused me to lose it.”

  Kaiel groaned, which turned into a beleaguered sigh. “Then what was the point?”

  “Not as smart as even I gave you credit for.” the mage made a tsking sound. “I have told you everything and yet, you cannot make the connections. Of how Arethlana struck a bargain to be master of the Rune Breaker. Of how the weapon thinks and changes its form. And we have both agreed that it is terrible and destructive. Are you so dense that I must add that Arethlana, thinking herself very clever, is the one who bestowed upon the weapon the name 'Rune Breaker'?”

  A horrible possibility shot through Kaiel's mind, but he fought it down. “I always assumed that the thing was named that since its creation.”

  “No name could have survived from the destruction of the world to the coming of your gods.” Ru emphasized 'your'.

  The possibility condensed into a hollow weight at the pit of Kaiel's stomach. He drew together the other clues by speaking them aloud. “Ru Brakar: worse than a demon; an ancient monster. You've said these about yourself. You've complained of Taylin refusing to 'wield' you, and she herself has mentioned a bargain that resulted in the link.”

  His expression went blank as more implications hit him. “That's why a mere 'weapon' is so powerful. It isn't an object at all. It's a man; an ancient wizard bound by... something extraordinary... to serve whoever is willing to bargain with it.”

  Mentioning the bargain stoked a sudden concern. “Is the other part true? About how the Rune Breaker corrupts whoever uses it?” He didn't know exactly where Taylin was, as Ru did, but he cast a worried glance down at the caravan nonetheless.

  “As if I would have to if I wanted to.” said Ru with a disapproving sneer. “People are inherently terrible. There have been one hundred and seven masters of the Rune Breaker and each one of them was a natural monster who had no reservations against turning on allies, friends, families; even those they profess to 'love' if it served their purposes.”

  “But not Taylin.” Kaiel pointed out.

  Ru growled deep in his throat. “It has to be an act.”

  “To what end? And can't you read her emotions in any event?”

  Another growl. “A substantially well-orchestrated act.” Which, if his claim was correct, was aided by powerful magic to fool the link's telepathy. He didn't have to admit that however.

  “My training says otherwise.” said Kaiel. “My first impressions are usually right when they're positive.”

  “Then you must meet very few people.” Ru countered. “And even if Miss Taylin is genuine in her considerations, the matter remains that I am not her friend; I am her weapon. That was the bargain she struck; to wield me as she will.”

  “'As she will'.” Kaiel quoted, finding his nerve returning. There was no clear proof that Ru was who and what he said he was, and even then, the legends were incomplete and conflicting. Besides that, he'd already had nearly a month to observe the man and found that though he was rude and violent, he wasn't mindlessly so. If he were to turn on Kaiel or the clan, there would be a reason.

  “It seems to me,” He said carefully making sure Ru could hear in his tone that he wasn't afraid of the Rune Breaker, “that how she treats you is Taylin's choice then. It doesn't sound as if you have a great deal of choice in the matter.”

  Ru stood, or rather straightened while floating, weapon still over his shoulder. “This has never happened before.” He confessed, more to the afternoon sun than Kaiel. “I understand orders and distrust. I cannot comprehend what is wrong with this girl, who is handed power on a leash and chooses so vehemently to not use it. She continually asks me what I want, what I think. Just now, when my spell failed, she contacted me to ask after my injuries; knowing I am effectively immortal. This is an entire new kind of madness I've never encountered.”

  Feigning a sudden failure of interest, the chronicler set about straightening out his books. “It stands to reason that, if you are what you say you are, you've spent the vast, vast majority of your life in the company of the power-mad and genocidal. Forgive me for not giving you much credence as an unbiased judge of the mortal psyche.” He ignored the glare and pointed to the west. “In two days time, we will be in the Principality of Torm Dondaire and at the gates of Daire City. I spent many days there in my childhood and I know the people.”

  “You know the women, I'm certain.”

  Kaiel ignored him outwardly while inwardly gritting his teeth. “They aren't perfect paragons of truth and right, but the breed of kindness Taylin shows isn't alien there. I will let them prove that it's not a madness she possesses, but the opposite.”

  Turning in air, Ru looked to the west. Hills limited visibility in that direction, looking as if a giant hand had wrinkled the landscape. When he focused, however, he could sense it faintly: permanent spell structures more powerful, and far more numerous than the ones in the haflings' stone house. There had been nothing like it to his knowledge when last he traveled Ere. It reminded him of a time long past.

  He didn't have time to dwell on it in thought, as he sensed Taylin moving. Turning once again, he looked just in time to see her clear the tree cover, wings outstretched and shining like fire in the sun as she rose, hauling the empty metal tub with her.

  Even without it, she would have been a bit wobbly. Having been out of practice for years, she'd only had less than a month to relearn all that she'd forgotten. As he watched, she had to flap overly much to correct for a stray breeze.

  The one hundred and eighth master of the Rune Breaker. Was it all an act? Did it matter if it was or wasn't?

  He grunted an approxima
tion of a goodbye to Kaiel and teleported. Not to her, but to the wagon. She was usually insufferably cheerful immediately after a bath and he wanted to have some spellwork to attend to so she wouldn't direct it at him. The link already subjected him to enough of it.

  Chapter 2 – Another's Darkness

  “You don't have to grip the leads so tightly all the time. They're very well trained, and they'll follow the wagon in front on their own even if you fell asleep most of the time.”

  The wagon master, Signateria, had taken it upon herself to teach Taylin how to drive and care for her wagon, seeing as both Rai and Bromun's jobs required them to range far from the wagons for a healthy chunk of the day. She was close to both and Taylin's adoption into the clan relieved her of babysitting duty, so it was the least she could do.

  Taylin ducked her head and loosened her steely, one handed grip on the leads. “I'm sorry. I just don't trust horses. Or most animals. I'm not used to anything bigger than a rabbit outside of a cage when I'm not in a hunting party.”

  The wolves were an exception. They were highly trained and didn't behave like animals at all in her opinion. Not that she knew much at all about how animals should act.

  She had her other arm around Motsey to steady the child as he dozed on her lap. He had insisted that he wasn't sleepy and that he be allowed to watch his aunt's wagoneering lessons. And he'd fallen asleep less than five miles out.

  He looked incredibly comfortable despite his cheek resting on the cold chain links over her chest.

  The chain shirt was now modified to open in the front and had been cut to allow her wings to pass through unimpeded. Worn over a regular shirt and under her similarly modified vest, it was a near permanent part of her wardrobe. The others often wondered at that, but compared to the battered breastplate she was used to, it was light and comfortable. As a concession for Motsey's comfort, she did, however, remove the spade-shaped pectoral plate that clipped over the front closure of the chain shirt to reinforce the weak point it created.

  Signateria laughed jovially. “These aren't horses; these are nir-lumos ponies; they're about as willful as a tumbleweed as long as they're fed.” She gave Taylin a mischievous look that reminded her just how similar the wagon master was to Rai. “If there's an animal on Ere you can trust, it's a caravan pony with a full belly.”

  Taylin didn't know what the look was for until she was alerted by a snort to her right. She turned to find herself face to face with Gaddigan, the monstrous war horse she 'earned' in battle against the King of Flame and Steel's bandits.

  The rest of the horses she and Ru earned between them had been sold off in ones and twos over the past few weeks; but Ru insisted on keeping the huge animal, paying out of his own earnings to buy it from her.

  Despite it costing him apparently no energy to fly or hover constantly, the mage rode his new mount whenever the caravan was on the move. The name 'Gaddigan', he informed her, was from his original tongue and meant 'he who violently rejects'.

  What it was he rejected, Taylin didn't know, but she assumed it was something good and holy in the world. Possibly happiness, or the pleasant dreams of children. What she was certain of was that the big horse remembered her for throwing it aside on their first meeting and hated her for it. And that his ire was not something she wanted to be on the receiving end of.

  Not only was she well aware that Gaddigan had killed at least three wolves in the battle, but she'd personally watched it kick a wild boar to death when it came too close during a hunt a few days earlier.

  She stiffened and shied away from the creature's cold gaze. If only it was Gaddigan that was in convenient strips and packed in salt in one of the barrels strapped to her wagon's roof, and not that boar. That would make her enjoy him a great deal more.

  Her reaction set Signateria off laughing and drew amusement from Ru, who no doubt had ridden up alongside specifically for that reason.

  “I'm sorry.” Signateria said, trying to catch her breath. “But you're a giantess with a flaming sword. No matter how big Gaddigan is, he's still just a horse.”

  Taylin's face reddened. “I'm not afraid. I just don't trust him with my back turned.” She insisted, then shot Signateria a reproachful look. “And I'm no giantess: I'm average height for an ang'hailene.”

  “I do wish you wouldn't keep adding the prefix to that.” Kaiel was riding on the opposite side from Ru and Gaddigan, but until that moment, everyone involved thought he was too absorbed in the book in his hand to take notice of the conversation. “And I can vouch for you not being a giantess. There's none around now except maybe in the most remote areas, but the Museum of Xenology in Harpsfell has a display of giant bones and illusions of how they looked and moved; a female giant would be almost twice Taylin's height and be a beacon of mystic radiance from all the ere-a that naturally collects in their bone and muscle.”

  Ru gave him a level look past Taylin and Signateria. “I for one am quite glad that you were here to ruin that humor with facts, Arunsteadeles.”

  In turn, Taylin turned and gave him an odd look, braving Gaddigan's dark eyes to do so. That was the third or maybe forth time Ru used the chronicler's name instead of profession or one of the growing collection of slurs he was learning for students of the Bardic College. It started the day before, after she returned from her bath and still sounded alien to her.

  Whether it was a good or bad change, she wasn't sure, so she just sat back and observed until she knew more.

  Kaiel never looked up from his book and had no reaction to Ru's jab at him. “So Taylin; you've never been to a city of size before?”

  None that weren't undergoing bombardment, she thought. “No, not really. I spent most of my life traveling around, mostly up in the air.” It was amazing how the mere arrangement of words changed the truth into a plausible lie. Kaiel would know what she meant, Signateria would be spared her outrageous life story, and Ru...

  There was a small, sharp pang of amusement in the link. Did you do that on purpose?

  And if I did?

  He didn't reply. She started to press him on it, maybe force him to admit that she had more wits about her than he initially thought, but at that moment, a spotter atop one of the lead wagons called out. There was a scramble of activity up front as the entire caravan slowed to a stop and two pennants were hoisted atop the lead wagon; one a white flag with a purple slash across it, the other, a green design with a white border.

  “Kaiel, what's going on?” Taylin asked, hand already reaching toward the hilt of the Eastern Brand. The weapon rested now in the elaborate scabbard the King of Flame and Steel kept it in; a mechanical contraption designed to allow the sword to swiftly and safely be drawn while slung across the back.

  The chronicler closed his book and stowed it in a saddle bag. “Someone's spotted a sentry. Might be a legitimate officer of the Principality, might be a bandit spotter.”

  “What do the flags mean?”

  Signateria fielded that one. “The white and purple say we're friendly merchants. The green and white says we're nir-lumos and so we can and will make them a head shorter if they mean to make it a fight.”

  “Ideally, it's seen as a bit less baldly confrontational.” Kaiel laughed, “But basically, yes.” He reached down for the rifle hanging by a strap across the pommel of his saddle and checked to make sure it was loaded. “I'm going to ride up ahead to help with the show of force, should it be needed. Coming along, Taylin?”

  Taylin had spent most of the past three weeks learning how to function as part of the clan. She learned basic mundane healing with herbs, bandages, needle and thread; she hunted alongside Bromun and his fellows when the need arose; and scouted from the air on the behest of Rai's group, but she had yet to find a definitive place and was eager to lend her aid to anything that needed it.

  She nodded and carefully handed the sleeping Motsey off to Signateria.

  “I'll put him to bed beside Rale in your wagon.” the wagon master smiled, accepting her charge. />
  Taylin gave her honest thanks before hopping nimbly down from the wagon. With her wings back to balance with, her movements were far more graceful than they were when she first met any of her new companions. Ru kicked Gaddigan into a trot beside her.

  By the time they reached the head of the caravan, Grandmother and Grandfather had brought their wagon around and set up the awning that shaded the area just in front of the doors where they sat. Grandmother sat on a folding stool in front of a table of similar design set with a spellworked cool pitcher like the one from Kaiel's wagon, along with two cups. Grandfather sat in the wagon's doorway, his rifle across his knees, drinking from a third cup.

  Kaiel and Grandmother engaged in a nonverbal conversation consisting of head tilts and eyebrow movements until the elderly halfling spoke.

  “Sentry.” She informed them, “Flier. One of the scouts came back to report: he came from the direction of Daire City, but he's flying strange colors: red, white and yellow.”

  “I don't recognize it.” Kaiel admitted. “Torm Dondaire's colors are white and orange.”

  “Probably had another political shift.” Grandfather said with a disgusted scowl. He was often vocal on how he didn't care for the Novromi way of politics. “We haven't ranged this far south in three years thanks to the drought opening better places to ford in the north. That's time for three or four changes of the guard in this part of the world.”

  “Possible. But I hope not.” said Kaiel. “The Dondaire government's been stable for fifteen years; a minor miracle for a principality this far east. Then again, fake colors would mean a very brazen breed of bandit has moved into the region.”

  A spotter called out from where he'd scaled a tree when the wagons stopped. Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing.

  Though still distant, the figure was easily picked out against the cloudless blue sky. It was shaped like a man and carrying some sort of polearm, which trailed red, white and yellow streamers just below the head. Most visible, however, was a fourteen foot span of white feathered wings.