Fireborn Champion (6 page)

The sleigh itself bent upward at the small of Iron’s back. He wriggled his shoulders against the hide, testing its tautness. It held his weight well and with little bounce. Maybe, Sander should have been a craftsman instead of a thief. Maybe then, his master wouldn’t have had to lead this lonely life.

Iron blinked and snapped his gaze to the side.
No. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. If he’d wanted to leave you, he would’ve a long time ago
.
 

Sander grabbed the rope at the head of the sleigh and tucked it beneath his arms. Smoke black as midnight rose in trails around his boots, and he hopped to the top of the snow. “There’s a crotchety crab of a woman in Skaard who can heal you. She was old then, but bless the Six if that stubborn old gasbag wouldn’t hang on to dear life until the Everfrosts turned to dust. We’ll go to her, and you’ll get healed.”

“Simple plans are always the best, you say. And then what? Can we explore? Talk to locals? Maybe we can charter a ship across the sea even. You know I heard—”

“Oh gods, this is going to be a long trip.”

“Fine. You spit in the wind and I’ll study.” Iron pulled out a scroll on the history of a strange land across the sea, far south of Eloia. They called it Ker, and there it was said men and horses were equals. The concept fascinated him almost as much as the idea of a horse. “I’ll just read and enjoy myself while you tug me along. Maybe you can figure out what to do once I’m better.”
 

His master glanced behind him and shrugged. “Let the Mother guide us. I sure as sin in a brothel don’t have any idea what to do next. It’s hard enough keeping you alive out here. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like once we dive into the hornet’s nest.”

“Mother guide us? I thought we were the Slippery Sinner’s men?”

Sander chuckled and faced south. “Every Sinner’s man was a mother’s son once.”

“You make no sense sometimes,” Iron mumbled as he unfolded the scroll.

Sander took a deep breath. He leaned forward. Like a snow leopard after a tired deer, he bounded across the slopping plain. Snow flew in waves beside Iron like the wings of a thrilled glory hawk, and the long journey to Ormhild officially began.
 

Leaving his life behind didn’t hurt Iron nearly as much as he thought. Losing the baggage of his tutelage under Sander—the piles of texts on histories, religions, magic—it lifted a weight from his shoulders. Such was the way of the Sinner, his master taught. Thieves must think their lives more like wind than shadow, the man always said. Winds can pluck a home from its foundations one day and barely flirt with a feather the next, but whether they blow hard or strong, they never carry their treasures long. This was much the same for thieves. Carry a prize too long, and a thief could find himself swinging from a noose. And so it was that Iron left the world he knew behind and thought only of the incomprehensibly vast world before him.

Sander paused their sleigh deep into the night. The broken silver disc of the moon filtered through the pines. Soft pillows of pristine snow jacketed the trees’ brittle leaves and frozen pine cones. Somewhere in the distance, an owl’s hoot rolled through the shadows.

Ethereal starlight wreathed Sander’s hand as he knelt to untie Iron’s ropes. The magical light rotated like a halo around his knuckles, washing them in an oddly soothing silver. “We’ll make camp here. It’s another straight day of sleighing before we reach the city’s outskirts.”

Iron moved his shoulder and winced. The burning in his arm had gone from annoying to unnerving over the course of their journey. At least his knee didn’t throb so much.
 

He noticed Sander eyeing him as the last of the ropes went slack. “You okay? Is your forearm feeling worse?”

“It feels much better, thank you.”

“You’re not as good a liar as you think.” Sander padded the sweat glistening on his temple. He threw his hood back, and his wild hair fell around his ears. Silver streaked the brown at his crown and temples. With the hood back, the crow’s feet fanning from his eyes and deep laugh lines betrayed the hard life he’d led in the shadow of the Everfrosts.
 

“You shouldn’t have told me thank you. Dead giveaway.” His master looked around them. “It’s not smart to make camp beneath one of the trees. If the snow collapses on us while we sleep, the cold would seep through your clothes and into your bones. Not sure if I could get you to Ormhild before the ice stopped your heart.”

“I’m guessing no fire.”

“Not unless you want to kiss a snow leopard before you drift off to sleep. They’re attracted to the light, and now that we’re farther south, there’s enough large game to make them plentiful.”

Sander cleared a spot for them and placed a few hides over the hard soil. They drank from a leather flagon and filled their bellies on dried berries and greyhorn jerky. Once finished, Iron rolled on his back and stared into the sky.
 

The trees loomed around him save a ragged tear between them that opened to the night. Stars glittered in the gap like someone had painted a scar with diamond dust.

“Iron?”

“Yes, Sander?”

“There are some rules you should obey once we enter civilization.” He snorted and shook his head. “If you can call Ormhild civilization. I need you to think of these rules as being just as holy as the Sinner’s Ten Wisdoms. No, scratch that. These rules are even more important than them.”

Iron blinked, an incredulous smile splitting his lips. “More important than the Ten Wisdoms?” He cleared his throat and spoke in his best, worst Sander Hale impersonation. “‘A man who ignores the Ten Wisdoms today will die a fool tomorrow.’”

“Oh, you were listening to a lesson? It must’ve been the eclipse of a blue moon that day. In all seriousness, this is important. You won’t get the chance to die a fool tomorrow if you ignore what I’m about to tell you. You’ll die much sooner than sunset.”

Intrigued, Iron turned from the stars to look at his master. “I’m listening.”

“First and foremost, never, under any circumstances, use your magic.”

“What?” Iron rolled onto his wounded arm and nearly cried out. He worked through the pain and propped himself up. “Might as well ask me to cut off my arms. Why can’t I use magic? That’s the best part about what we do!”

“And the most dangerous. Iron, there are no others on Urum who can do what we do. Either they will hate you for it and try to torture it from you, or they will fear you for it and simply try to kill you. Every king and queen, every…” Sander struggled with the words. He cleared his throat and continued. “…Every tyrant will hunt you. No one you befriend will ever be safe, assuming you’d ever be able to trust anyone you met.”

The rare moment of seriousness in his master’s tone disarmed Iron’s wit. “I—I guess I could keep it a secret. I’ll tell no one what I can do.”

“Promise me in this. A Sinner’s Oath.”

Iron groaned. A Sinner’s Oath. Unbreakable. “That’s too much. You’ll just have to believe me when I say I’ll keep it a secret.”

“Hells no, it’s not too much. I’m your master and you’d better listen to me. You owe me a debt for saving your ass from those wolves, and I’m calling you on it. You say the words and seal the secret in your heart.
Now
.”

“Fine. I promise.” Iron took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “As the Sinner slips me from death’s grasp, so shall I swear to keep my word. I will tell no one of the magic we share.”

A cold grip clamped around his heart but quickly faded. Iron opened his eyes and looked at his palm. Without the magic flowing through his blood, the world had lost some of its color. He looked to his master who was snapping his fingers with a look of concern puckering his lips. “Well hells, mine’s gone too.”

“Oh, then you should release me so you can use your magic again. Just say the words. Hold the Sinner’s Oath fulfilled.”

“Nice try. I survived this world before my power, and I’ll survive it after.” He sighed and lowered his hand. “Second rule: Don’t make any friends. People are awful and friends will get you hurt. I regret teaching you the word friend in the first place, or at least I regret telling you its true meaning. From now one, the word friend means something unpleasant like, I don’t know, wart.”

“Maybe I’ll just close my eyes and wait for you to tell me when the world’s safe enough for me to open them? Or should I just wrap myself in swaddling furs and jump into your arms?”

“You were much cuter and far more manageable in swaddling clothes. Trust me.”

“This isn’t fair! We’re finally starting to explore and you won’t let me do anything! Are you really that poor a teacher that you’ve got no faith in your student?”

Sander’s lips pressed into a thin line. Iron met his master’s dark stare. He knew his words hit Sander where they would sting. Iron regretted the words, but his pride kept him from showing it. The throbbing in his poisoned wound intensified, and he swallowed a grimace.

“Listen, boy.” Sander pointed a finger between Iron’s eyes. “You listen to me, and we just might survive long enough for you to heal. I think you’re strong. In fact, I think you’re probably the second most capable priest of the Sinner walking on this hateful ball of rock and water. I’ve made you into the sharpest sword on Urum, but you’ve never left the sheath. Power without experience is just another way to spell disaster. If you ever want to be the most capable priest in the world and so,
so
much more, then you will listen and listen well. Understood?”

“Fine.” Iron twisted onto his back and glared into the starry scar. He remembered the circle of stars wheeling in his vision, and the woman’s vague words. The Serpent took many forms. Maybe that meant Sander’s advice actually contained some kernel of wisdom. Maybe someone waited out there to turn on him.

Or maybe you’re delirious from poison and all your master’s courage could fit on a snowflake.

Technically, Sander had only made him promise not to use magic. He never made him promise not to make a friend. The world beyond the lower reaches couldn’t be that bad. Sander was a good man—or so he had been to Iron—there would be other Sanders in the world to find, and they wouldn’t go around making Iron commit to Sinner’s Oaths over every little thing.

An oddly chill sweat beaded on his brow despite the furs covering his body. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His arm throbbed like it had grown a heart of its own. Thankfully, they would reach Ormhild tomorrow, and then Sander’s friend would heal him. Iron closed his eyes, and a dreamless sleep sunk its fangs into him.

Distant voices called to Iron through an inky night. No stars appeared in the scar between the trees. Clouds must have come. Worse, had snow somehow fallen? Terror wrapped a cold and clammy hand around him. Sander had said something about the chill stopping his heart. The chill, the slow poison of winter. It was one of Sander’s earliest lessons. Iron recalled the signs.

Fingers and toes like wood, hard to move and harder to handle. He tried wriggling his hand. No luck. Terror tightened its grip. A body rocked by violent shivers, unless of course the chill had already reached his heart. Iron stared into the black and felt not a single tremble. He didn’t feel much of anything.
 

I’m not already dead. Oh, Sinner, I’m not dead. No!
He pulled his mind through the fog. No, not fog, black oil thick as tree sap and deep as a mountain lake. Iron fought the black. Voices were bare whispers, so bare, but he heard them nonetheless. He pulled his mind toward them, willing his body through the soft pull of an endless sleep.

The black fought him, and he fought it. He wondered if he would fight for eternity. If this was death, no wonder the living clung to life.

Iron reached toward the voices. They grew louder—at least he thought so.
Yes. They are louder. I’m here! I’m here!

A dull light appeared like a high sun through a thin veil of winter clouds. He stretched toward the sun. He could almost grab it now, just a little more…

Iron’s fingers pierced the diffused veil, and the world expanded in beautifully harsh light. Water soaked him head to toe. He thought he’d fallen in a frozen lake, but no, the salt stinging his lips, the cold, clammy skin, it all pointed to his own sweat and not a pond. His wounded arm no longer burned. In fact, it no longer hurt at all.

A few blinks brought some clarity to the world. A blue salve coated his wound. A stench like sour mint rose from it as an oddly soothing chill sunk into his muscle. He looked around his room. Sunlight poured in an angled column onto a floor covered in furs. Dust swirled and danced like sprites in the light. Tables crowded the room. Dingy glass bottles, vials, jars, and other containers all in shades of blue and green littered the tabletops. Odd objects floated in a few of the bottles. They had an eerily animal look about them.

Skulls of goats, greyhorns, and elk stared at Iron from mounts on the wall. Their horns and antlers held unlit candles in varying states of use. Beneath the skulls, Sander’s familiar silhouette waved one arm over a hunched bean of a figure while the other arm formed a fist pressing against his thigh. “You’re almost done, and I’ve got the money! Give me a break here, Thyra. He’s just a kid.”

The hunched figure named Thyra spat and turned, waddling toward the shaft of light. She passed into it like a wraith might pass through stone, and it illuminated her features.
 

She had a face like half-cooked potato with cheeks that swelled beneath sagging lids. Her wide, flat nose drew up its short bridge into a wrinkled scowl, and when she saw Iron’s open eyes, her jowls moved with her disapproving head shake.

“You think I don’t know this runt’s poison?” She grabbed a small cup and took a swig. Iron had an inkling it wasn’t medicine. “I know this poison. We all know this poison, you fool, even as far as Skaard, we know that corruption. You bring Sol and his demons to Ormhild. He would leave our lands be and look south and east. Not now. Not now!”

Sander rounded the table until he stood behind her, his footfalls thunking on the creaky floorboards. “It was just an accident. Sol can’t possibly know we’re here.”