Chapter 17

Yerin removed her hand from the door, readying her sword. “It's some brand of riddle. Script keeps going right on into it, and there's a key buried here somewhere.” The howls of Remnants echoed up the stairs from behind, and the edge of her blade gathered force. “Take a step back.”

“Wait!” Lindon shouted, then coughed politely. “I mean, ah, please wait, if you don't mind. We've seen this before.”

Eithan sat down on a step and began fiddling with his thumbs.

The shrieks from below grew louder, and a Remnant like a giant purple onion squeezed itself out of the wall to Eithan's side. Before it had completely emerged, he kicked it back.

Yerin took a step back and looked at the door. “I do think you’re right. That looks more than a little like the picture in the Ancestor's Tomb.”

“That's a week away on the Thousand-Mile Cloud,” Lindon pointed out.

“Well, that's a head-scratcher,” she said, and then drew her sword back again. The edge of the blade distorted as though a haze of heat had gathered around the weapon, and she took a step forward.

Lindon's instinct for self-preservation kept him from stopping her before she smashed her technique into the door's surface.

It struck with a rush of power that was deafening in the enclosed space of the stairway, ringing in his ears as though someone had struck a bell over his head. Madra and aura flooded forward with her strike until his view of the action warped like he was watching through murky water.

When it cleared, a single chip of stone was spinning on the floor. Otherwise, the door was completely intact.

Lindon would have taken this moment to stop her from damaging the door any further—it was connected to some unknown script, and might bring the entire roof down on their heads if they interrupted the circle, not to mention its connection to Sacred Valley—but he happened to glance behind them.

Dreadbeasts scrambled all over each other as they clawed up the stairs, seeming to blend into a multi-headed mass of corrupted flesh.

Yerin braced her feet against the ground, her Goldsign drew back like a snake preparing to strike, and she gripped her sword in both hands. Colorless sword madra rippled around her until it was like he was looking at her through a cage of razors edge-on. As she gathered power, she focused on the door as though she meant to destroy it with the force of her stare.

Without giving himself too much room to think, he picked up his severed Remnant part and pointed it at the oncoming rush of beasts. His madra flowed down the weapon, trickling toward the binding.

“The big one,” Eithan shouted, but through his ringing ears Lindon heard it as a whisper. The man was standing now, but he was actually leaning his shoulder against one of the wider sections of wall, completely at his ease.

Lindon listened, adjusting his aim to point at the biggest of the dreadbeasts: a warped purple creature like a bear with heavily muscled arms. When he was close enough to see the bloodshot veins in the monster's arms, the dreadbeast hauled itself back on its hind legs. It looked as though it intended to come down on Lindon like an avalanche.

He stepped forward, thrusting the bright green stinger like a spear.

And just as he did, he activated the binding.

He used his weaker core, the Copper one, because it was just barely strong enough to fuel the weapon. The activation drew his core dry, and if that had been his only source of madra, he would have collapsed immediately.

But he pulled on his Iron core instantly, keeping his legs steady even as the binding activated.

Three hazy green duplicates, like less-real copies of the stinger, flickered into existence around his thrust. It was as though he drove four spears instead of one.

The bear fell on top of his weapon, but one of the Forged spears lodged in its hide. Another caught a Remnant in the head, and his actual spear drove even deeper into the bear's belly. The fourth strike missed, dissolving out of existence in a moment, but Lindon threw himself back as soon as his point bit home.

The venom only took an instant to scour the bear with agony, and it went berserk, flailing its paws and roaring so loudly that it hurt Lindon's ears even through the ringing. It turned in a circle, snapping its jaws as though trying to bite out the infection, and every other Remnant and dreadbeast fell upon it.

A hand caught him by the back of his robes and pulled him up the stairs just as a bloody, severed limb landed at Lindon's feet.

Eithan plucked at his own sleeve, indicating Lindon's clothes, and then shook his head.

Well, if Eithan wanted to pull him out of trouble to avoid getting blood on his borrowed outfit, Lindon wouldn't complain.

An explosion drummed his bones, and he spun with an arm thrown up over his eyes. Stone fragments pelted him through a cloud of billowing dust, and the remaining half of the door tipped over and slammed to the ground with the speed of a calving glacier.

Yerin's knees buckled as her technique faded, and she fell to the ground panting. Eithan and Lindon ran by her, each grabbing an arm without discussion, pulling her into the room beyond.

It was a broad, featureless hallway with an open doorway at the end. In the very center lay a circle of script.

The dreadbeasts wouldn't continue slaughtering each other for long, but Lindon spared a moment to admire the advanced script-circle on the floor. There were at least ten layers to the circle, lines of runes and sigils wrapping an empty space in the center.

Lindon and Eithan hurried around the edge, though Yerin regained her feet and ran on her own strength halfway through. Though the circle was much more likely to affect sacred beasts and Remnants, none of them were willing to run through the middle.

The outer circles brushed against the wall, so they were running on runes, and each step sent a little shock through the soles of Lindon's feet. His madra trembled as it cycled, as though drawn down to the floor.

He pushed on, and together the three of them reached the open doorway in seconds. There was, in fact, a door on the other side. This was a more ordinary type of door than the stone slabs before, made merely of dull gray metal and heavily caked with a series of script-circles. It had been left propped open, and judging by the dust sitting at its base, it had been that way for a long time.

Yerin and Lindon heaved together, and Lindon couldn't suppress a flash of pride that he was strong enough to help Yerin with something.

The heavy door slammed shut, its scripts glimmering for a moment as they drew power from the ambient aura. He and Yerin fell to the ground, gulping mouthfuls of the dusty air, and generally savoring their survival.

Eithan stood to one side, hands on his hips. “I have to say...this is fairly impressive.”

Lindon followed his gaze, taking in the space lit brightly by warm orange lanterns that were surely some kind of rune light. The lights were covered by paper screens to soften their glow, and it was a good thing; some of them shone too bright, uncomfortably bright, while others flickered off and on in a disquieting rhythm. They must have been powered by the vital aura taken in by the Ruins’ script, but either the script was broken, or it had been too long since they’d last come to life. The glow was uneven and left half the room bathed in irregular shadows.

The room looked more like a rich clan’s library than anything he’d expect to find in an ancient ruin, the colored tiles set with dusty carpets and beautifully carved tables. One of those tables held a collection of jade statuettes, one a cracked dragon with the head of a lion, the others a series of creatures stranger and more hideous. A glass-covered case displayed some tools of halfsilver and goldsteel, as well as more exotic materials that Lindon didn't recognize, but at least half of the spaces were empty.

Books sat open on stands carved for them, their curling pages painted with arcane diagrams and characters. They had browned from age, and Lindon was certain that if he so much as breathed on a corner, the paper would dissolve.

A row of silver hooks hung from the ceiling, which stood out as he couldn’t think of a purpose for them. They varied in size, but none of them held anything beyond empty air.

A long glaive made of Forged madra, with a blood-red shaft and a gleaming golden sword blade at the end, sat on a frame halfway up the wall. A circle of script surrounded it, sealing its power and preventing it from dissolving. Beneath the weapon, an image was painted directly on one wall: a circle, blank on one half, the other half complex and twisted with a network of lines.

Lindon stared at the pieces of the room for too long before they fit together into a whole.

This was a Soulsmith's foundry.

When he realized that, he shot to his feet and dashed to a nearby table, rummaging through it. He found nothing likely, despite pulling a few drawers open, so he slid to the next one, frantically shuffling through a pile of sealed ebony scrolls with scripts worked in gold filigree on their cases.

Yerin stepped up beside him, giving him a curious glance. “Looking for the spear?”

“Take the other side of the room, if you wouldn't mind,” he said, casting the scrolls and digging in a box on the floor. “A Soulsmith worked here.”

“I'm not seeing your point.”

A box caught his eye, ornately carved and polished and standing as tall as he did. It was covered in a layer of dust, like most everything else in the room, but otherwise it looked exactly like the sort of wardrobe they would use in the Wei clan. Wider, though. If he stretched his arms out as far as he could, he wouldn't be able to touch both ends with his fingertips.

He shot for the wardrobe before answering Yerin, throwing the doors wide.

White light erupted from within.

Pain shot through his newly sensitive eyes, and he blinked away the blinding light. When he could see again, Yerin was standing in front of him; she'd moved between him and the potential source of danger.

But it wasn't a defensive construct waiting for a victim—though he really should have considered that possibility before throwing the doors open. It was a shining bar of Forged madra, long enough to stretch from one end of the wardrobe to the other. It was held by a set of carved wooden supports, held just below eye level as though waiting for him to take the weapon.

And it was a weapon. A spear, formed seamlessly from madra by ancient Soulsmiths. It shone with the light of the stars, congealed into a weapon whose power he could feel radiating against his skin.

Yerin's breath slowly left her, and even Eithan gave a low whistle as he strode over to take a look.

“In my grandfather's day, Soulsmiths valued beauty as much as function.” He moved his hand along the shaft of the spear without touching it. “The script flows with the contours of the weapon, guiding it so even the aura is a work of art. Exquisite.”

Lindon could just barely pick out a few lines of script on the shaft, which looked like white paint on white, but the spear had held his attention too long already. He dropped to his knees, searching the drawers at the bottom of the case.

The real treasure should be down here.

After digging through a handful of junk, he withdrew an ivory box wider than both his spread hands together. It was heavier than he expected, for being only about an inch deep, and the lid was etched with a pattern of interlocking leaves.

Carefully, he lifted the lid. There were no notes and no brightly colored bindings inside, so he almost tossed it aside.

Then he realized what they were, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

The badges were slightly smaller than the ones from Sacred Valley, but otherwise they were practically identical. Eight badges sat within the box, each marked with a hammer—the symbol of a Forger.

The first row contained a badge each of copper, iron, jade, and gold. That much he expected. But the second row moved from halfsilver to goldsteel to materials he couldn't identify. One of them was a deep, fiery red, and the other a blue so rich it was like a Forged slice of the sky.

He reached a shaking hand and lifted the iron badge. It was lighter than a feather in his hand, but he handled it as though it were made from glass. Delicately, he threaded one end of his shadesilk ribbon through the loop at the top.

“Well, look what you found,” Eithan said, and Yerin leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. Lindon paid them no attention.

He hung the iron badge from his neck and closed his eyes.

After a moment, Eithan cleared his throat. “This anthill has been well and truly kicked,” he said. “I'm afraid that very soon we will have to share our meal with the…other ants.”

Lindon snapped out of his reverie. “Dreadbeasts?”

“Worse. Humans.”

The Sandvipers must have found their way through the Ruins, though he supposed it didn't matter much if it were the Fishers or even the Arelius family. Whoever it was, they would strip this place bare.

Lindon slid the ivory box into his pack, shuffling a few other necessities around to make room, and then dug back into the wardrobe's bottom drawer.

In this one, he finally found what he was looking for.

A script-marked box contained three indents in the silk lining within. One of these holes was empty, but the other two contained a pair of bindings. They were bright white, made of the same arcane material as the spear, and shaped like spiraling drills.

Quickly, he scanned the notes near the bindings. “Generation Fourteen shows all the qualities we’d hoped for,” they read. “It demonstrates the capacity to devour and process madra with a high degree of efficiency, though each individual contains only one binding. If a sacred artist could cultivate similar techniques, our efficiency may double…”

The next page had been scribbled in haste, judging by the carelessness with which the characters were slapped on the paper. “The failed specimens may be the key to success. Their auras alter as they devour one another, growing faster than we’d ever predicted. Theoretically, there is no upper limit on this growth, but the spirit warps the flesh. Further study needed; could lead to achievement of the primary goal.”

Lindon stuffed those notes in his pack, continuing to read. The labels confirmed what he'd thought: these were the bindings at the heart of the Jai clan's spear. The mechanisms that drained madra from victims.

The Jai clan could have their spear back. Powerful it may have been, but it was just a single weapon.

Learning to make such weapons...that was the real fortune.

Of course, Lindon didn't have such a high estimation of his own abilities. He would learn what he could from the bindings and from the notes, and he may even keep one of the bindings for later examination, but knowledge like this was worth more than a leg to a Soulsmith. Gesha would have sold the entire Fisher sect for something like this.

Tucked away with the bindings were a trio of polished black river stones, each marked with a tiny script-circle that Lindon couldn't identify. He tucked them away, just in case, but as he was making space in his pack for the box of bindings, he was interrupted by a deafening crash.

The door at the other end of the room, on the opposite end from where they'd entered, had buckled and fallen inwards. A pair of fur-clad Sandvipers filed out to either side of the door, weapons writhing with green madra. Jai clan members followed them, with spears and gleaming hair and meticulous blue sacred artists’ robes, and then a couple of wary-looking Fishers.

Jai Long's red-wrapped head emerged next, spear held low with its point toward the ground. The sect heir, Kral, followed him with a roguish smile.

“Fan out,” Jai Long ordered. “Spear first, then—”

He didn’t get the rest of the command out of his mouth.

Yerin whipped a wave of sword madra at him, her Striker binding thin as a razor but with the fury of a storm. One of the Sandvipers met madra with madra on the edge of his axe, green power eroding her technique. The force still pushed him back a step.

Before he'd come to a stop, Yerin had raised her sword. The white blade rang like a bell.

And every blade in the room answered.

Glass crashed, lights flickered, and the air filled with a storm of splintered wood and shredded paper. Lindon's vision blacked out as something grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back just as the spear's display case exploded.

The eruption of sword aura from Yerin's Ruler technique might have killed him, crouched as close as he was to the powerful bladed weapon. He struggled to his feet, setting his pack aside, and thanked Eithan in a shaky voice.

“No trouble at all,” Eithan said, watching shreds of paper drift down around him like an early snowfall. “It's an honor to save the helpless.”

One of the Sandvipers was bleeding and slumped against the wall, struggling to stand, but before Lindon caught sight of the others, a constellation of stars flashed out of the debris, blasting toward Yerin like a flight of arrows.

Her sword gathered a shimmering edge as she wove the weapon in a complex knot, knocking the technique from the air, but her robe still gathered another collection of tears as the lights ripped through her loose sleeves. One gouged the looping ribbon of her red belt, and motes of red essence rose like smoke from the wound before it filled in again, sealing itself.

Lindon dropped back to his knees, scrambling on the floor for his stinger weapon. He considered searching for the Jai ancestor spear, but he’d lost sight of it in the rubble, and he needed something to defend himself while he snuck around the room. Iron he may be, but a fight was out of the question; if he was caught between Jai Long's technique and Yerin's, the only thing left of his Iron body would be his badge.

But this was an ancient Soulsmith foundry, loaded with all the elements of a secret project. There had to be some construct he could use against the Sandvipers. He gripped his stinger in one hand and crawled along the aisle, scanning the wall for the bladed glaive construct he'd noticed before.

He wouldn't be able to use it to fight, but a distraction would serve him just as well.

A boot slammed down on his weapon.

Lindon's eyes crawled up, past the sable fur lining the boot, over the midnight pelt hanging like a cloak, to Kral's face. The Sandviper heir looked down on him gravely, like an executioner gazing upon a condemned prisoner.

He hadn't used a technique yet, so he must want to talk. Lindon had something he wanted: the location of the spear, along with its foundational binding. That gave him leverage. If he kept Kral from joining Jai Long, maybe Yerin could hold out long enough for—

His thoughts were interrupted by the toe of Kral's boot slamming him in the forehead.

He flipped over and landed on his back, skidding into a table of bronze and polished wood. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it should, but he was still shakier than a struck gong, and he rose to his feet like a newborn fawn. The sight of bright green in the corner of his eye reminded him that he'd maintained his grip on the Remnant weapon. That was something, at least.

Kral raised one of his eyebrows. “Iron. I thought you were a Copper.”

Lindon lowered his weapon and spread the other hand, showing it empty. “Nothing more than a humble Iron, honored Highgold. There’s no blood between us, and I see no reason why any should be spilled.”

Kral nodded along with every word, then flipped his hand as though gesturing for a servant to leave his presence. Three liquid drops of green madra appeared in the air in front of him, splashing toward Lindon. He hastily raised the Remnant part, but the Striker technique still landed on the skin of his arms, burning like liquid fire.

He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, tightening his knuckles around the weapon and forcing watery eyes on Kral. The bites of the real sandviper had been a hundred times worse than this. He focused on that thought.

But Kral had disappeared.

The young chief's black cloak was still dropping like an abandoned shadow, and hadn't yet crumpled onto the floor, but Kral was gone. As Lindon was still registering that fact, something slammed into his back. He crashed into the table across from him, his head smashing through the solid wood.

A thick shaft of vivid green madra stabbed into his shoulder, and his breath whooshed out at the blazing spike of agony. Only a few hours with a new Iron body, and he'd already ruined it.

He struggled up, instinctively trying to escape the pain, but a green haze covered his head. When he inhaled, it tasted like metal in his mouth, and burned like fire in his lungs.

Kral's boots padded away, leaving Lindon face-down in wreckage, pinned to a destroyed table on a spear of Forged Sandviper madra.

“The Copper's dead,” Kral said lazily. “Actually, I suppose he reached Iron, didn't he?”

“So he did,” Eithan said. His voice was pleasant, as though he was chatting with a friend. “If he died, then he has only his lack of ability to blame.”

“I…can only agree. You're more reasonable than I expected.”

The voices were hazy through the pain and the lack of oxygen, but Lindon found himself listening nonetheless. After the past two weeks, this level of agony was nothing. It was almost familiar.

In fact, it was fading quickly.

“Why don't we come to an arrangement?” Kral continued, his words almost swallowed by a thunderous crash behind him. Yerin and Jai Long, no doubt. “I've seen your ability, and I can recommend you directly to my father.” He paused as another crash echoed through the room. “In fact, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I am Kral, Highgold of the Sandvipers. My father is Gokren, Truegold and chief.”

“My name is Eithan.”

The Forged spear pinning Lindon's left shoulder to the table had already dissipated significantly, enough that he could push himself up. His head was starting to spin for lack of air, and he staggered to the side, inhaling a breath.

The burning venom in his veins had already subsided to nothing more than an uncomfortably warm tingle. Even his stab wound didn't scream quite so loudly, though his left arm was still dangling useless and blood dribbled down his side to the ground.

He was injured enough that he should have been senseless on the ground in pain, but every breath cycled madra through his channels and lessened the pain by another notch. In fact, his madra was entering his flesh and simply...vanishing, as though his blood had devoured it. His Iron core was emptying at an astonishing rate.

The Bloodforged Iron body. Sandvipers used it to combat their own toxins.

And Kral didn't know he had it.

The Sandviper heir was standing with his back to Lindon, an awl in one hand and his fur cloak in the other. Over his shoulder, Jai Long was pacing toward Yerin, who was leaning on her sword to stay upright.

“If you have no sect, Eithan, a sacred artist of your skill would be welcome among the Sandvipers.”

Lindon rushed over to the shattered wardrobe, dropping to his knees and gouging them on the debris. He didn't care, wrenching the lid open and dividing his attention between the box and the Sandviper leader. If Kral glanced around, Lindon was dead.

Eithan leaned casually against the wall, his gentle smile fixed on Kral. “I'm here looking for fresh recruits. I don't intend to be recruited myself.”

Lindon fumbled one-handed at the pile of garbage next to him, looking for the spear, but he grasped his stinger first. It would have to do. His fingers caught it on the bright green material instead of the hilt he’d wrapped, which burned his skin like acid, but this pain was just a breeze next to a thunderstorm. He set it aside, using both hands to lift free a scripted box.

Two white, spiraling bindings waited within. He slipped one into his pocket and picked up the stinger with his other hand.

“Especially not by a sect as weak as yours,” Eithan added.

Lindon could practically feel a winter breeze as Kral responded. “I suspect you may have misspoken, my friend.”

“I'm afraid not. If I belonged to your sect, which I’m proud to say I do not, I would be painfully ashamed of you. What kind of a Highgold fails to kill an Iron?”

Kral's spine stiffened, and he started to turn.

Lindon slammed into him with the end of his bright green stinger, the end digging into Kral's ribs. Blood splashed, and Lindon poured all of his remaining madra into his makeshift weapon. The energy was soaked up like rain in the desert, and the binding activated.

Three acid-green echoes of the stinger flashed into existence, stabbing into Kral from three different angles. They didn't penetrate far, only scratching him before dissipating, but that was enough to release their venom. Lindon knew that from experience.

Not that it mattered.

Kral had an Iron body of his own, and Lindon had hoped to find a better opportunity to attack than this. Eithan had rushed him, threatening to expose him with words, so he’d taken the angle he could get.

As a result, Kral steadied himself in an instant. His jaw was set in pain, but he was barely scratched. Madra gathered around his fist, and he started to turn and deliver the technique that would reduce Lindon to a pile of smoking bones.

With the desperation of a cornered animal, Lindon tore the drill-shaped white binding from his pocket and stabbed down.

The white spiral flashed as it touched blood, blinding bright, and drew Lindon’s Iron core dry like an alcoholic pulling at a bottle. Sandviper madra rushed out from the wound in Kral’s back, visible as bright green lines running up the drill, but Kral himself did not move. He stiffened like a man in the grip of a seizure, eyes peeled unnaturally wide. The technique withered and died on his fist.

The madra flowed into the binding…but not into Lindon. He’d wondered about that. The binding simply drew out the power, but it took the script on the spear to draw it into himself. The white drill rippled green, brighter and richer with every passing instant. It grew more solid, less like an object painted into existence and more real. In only a breath of time, it was so detailed that it looked as solid as a poisonous green seashell.

Then it exploded.

Lindon released the binding just in time to avoid losing a hand, but green light burst like a dying star, and he was launched backward. At the same time, something spattered him that burned like acid.

His vision blurred in the overwhelming sensation of being devoured by insects, and his mind couldn't keep up. He thought he blacked out for a moment, but he couldn't be sure.

When he came to, nothing had changed except the pain lessening slightly. His skin was red and tender, but as the last dregs of his madra vanished, healthy skin crawled into place.

He didn't have the strength to stand, and his spirit felt like a rag that someone had squeezed too many times, and he finally stopped healing when his madra was completely exhausted.

All he could move were his eyes, and he craned them to their limit, searching for Kral.

The Sandviper heir lay in a bloody, crumpled heap on the ground. His feet twitched, and Lindon couldn't tell if they were the last throes of death or if he was about to stand up and end Lindon once and for all.

Yellow hair fell over his vision, and Eithan frowned at him. “That was a very expensive robe.” He lifted a scrap of burned pink cloth lying next to Lindon, which dissolved even as Eithan lifted it.

Lindon croaked an apology.

Eithan produced another robe—this one was sky blue, with a pattern of violet birds spreading their plumage—and draped it over him. “This is why I always carry a spare.”

Spear-wielding members of the Jai clan had surrounded them by now, shouting demands, even as a pair of Sandvipers crashed to their knees next to Kral. Some Fishers loomed over Lindon, hooks in hand, but they didn't look any friendlier.

A flash of starlight, and Yerin flew backwards like a ballista bolt. Jai Long stalked toward her, spear readied, but his red-wrapped head turned as though he'd caught a scent of something.

His figure vanished, and then he was vaulting over the members of the Jai clan, landing next to Kral. He shoved the Sandvipers out of the way, placing his palm against the fallen heir's core.

When Jai Long's hand dropped away and his shoulders slumped, Lindon desperately wished for the strength to run away.

The man in the red mask rose like a Remnant, spear clutched in one hand, and his eyes focused on Lindon.