Tag: Drowning Breath of Ogden

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Update schedule: Wednesdays and Sundays, noon Denver time (MDT)

Chapter 17

The gulls of the rookery screamed. The stone of the building rose quietly and placidly, while the shadows on its roof climbed and hopped. Under the cloudy sky, I could not see the Sun or stars, but the vague, directionless light told me that somewhere above, the Sun had risen.

My arm bled where the Drowning Breath of Ogden had cut through the belt. The red line ran shallowly from wrist to elbow and seemed to have missed all my really important piping. Still, it was a long, nasty cut. I’d picked up half a dozen others too. Little cuts, perhaps from leaping out the window, breaking down doors, stood out in red dots and scrapes on my arms and legs.

Without taking her eyes of me, the lady with the dragon blade turned her head suddenly. I didn’t take my eyes off her either.

“Sit down,” she said.

“Why? I’m leaving!” said Osret.

“No, you’re staying. You’re under arrest.”

“Why?” He sounded offended.

“Illegal left turn. Two weeks ago, corner of Markish and Seventh.”

“Are you serious?” he yelled.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

There was a sort of thumping noise.

I thought of something and turned the blade slightly so I could see Osret’s reflection while keeping an eye on her. He’d sat down.

She waited. She was waiting for me.

Self, maybe she’s as scared of you as you are of her. They say that about dangerous animals.

Ha! No, self, she has a dragon sword. She’s just waiting for me to make a mistake.

Was the punishment for taking honey dew and nectar really death for a mortal?

Yes, as I thought about it. It was treason. Again.

Oh, blisters.

I initiated on her.

My lunge passed right through where she had been, for she swiveled her hips and let them pull her sideways. Her feet seemed to slide across the ground. My thrust shifted to a backhand, she parried, and her sword rippled as it moved. The air about it wavered like a heat mirage over the desert. When she stopped my swing, that ripple kept going, a wave that flowed through the air until it hit one of the rookery’s long, forward walls. The wall burst into flame.

As did the ground for she had struck again. I blocked and dodged, and the dragon sword sent waves of flame after me again.

She looked surprised. Not baffled and filled with wonder, but she frowned, mildly startled, like her coffee place had raised their prices overnight. I tried to capitalize, so I blitzed again.

I went for a head-cut, she blocked up, I slashed at her legs, she parried low, I threw lunges for her head, and she faded backwards between them, her sword deflecting mine outward. Then she swung forward, the blade moving in a circle described by a beautiful wrist-flick, and behind the flashing edge of the sword, she drew a red smear. It looked like the after-image fireworks leave on your eyes if you’re close enough to see them shooting upward or against a black sky when they burst. I did not try to parry, merely dodged, and her sword cut furrows in ground it did not touch. She feinted, but the feint cut open a wall behind my head. She lunged and blew the wall down. She blocked my riposte, launched her own, we came close enough to lock blades, and I kicked her in the knee.

We separated. She sniffed. I shrugged.

“Northshore?” she asked.

I shrugged again.

“I know their champions, but you aren’t one,” she added.

“Yeah, I know,” I said in a rush without thinking. “I keep blowing my oral exams.”

She said, “Huh,” in a way I couldn’t interpret.

I really should not have said anything. Two seconds late, self. Two seconds late.

Maybe it sounded like a quip. Yeah. I was so witty.

I closed again, we exchanged a murderously fast series attacks where both of us tried to force the issue into a winning pattern, but neither allowed ourselves to be taken. She tore up the ground. The Drowning Breath whispered to me of the wave-cutting stroke, something I didn’t know, but when I attacked again, the sword began to flow. It wanted to get her. The sword wanted to win.

Suddenly the lady in white had to retreat again. My blade went for her head, I tried to rake her shins, and she jumped, weapon clearing my overhand swing as she flew backwards. The shin strike ended with a stomp, leaving me unable to pursue, and once she was safe outside my range, she swung in a wide open cut at waist level. A plane of fire swept out in all directions. It beat against the rookery, sending the still crying birds to the air, and burning the short hairs on my legs and arms as I jumped over it.

I landed at the ready. She frowned and mouthed something. I think it was ‘the audacity.’

She cut the air between us and sent a wave of flame I had to dodge. Her next strike blew a canyon in the ground. She thrust, and at full extension, the images of dragons appeared over her shoulders, breathing fire. Gouts of it passed overhead while I dove into the canyon. She’d cut the ground so deeply she’d opened up one of the storm-drain pipes.

I jumped down.

This place must get a ton of rainfall, because this storm runoff was huge. I could run down here. I did.

Something crackled behind me, and echoes transformed the sound into meaningless noise.

Not far ahead, I found a drainage opening. The opening formed a wide square in the side of a road, and I shimmied up. It had a grate of silver steel, but I could look around by pushing my face against the bars.

A lightning bolt had fallen and landed by the woman in white. Now it slithered in place as she hoisted the fallen swordsman onto the lightning bolt’s back. It was so bright I could barely look at it, but I registered an impression of length, a long head, and curving tail. Memory suggested the shape of a dragon.

Of course. She was from Fate.

Once the swordsman was tied on the lightning dragon’s back, she spoke to someone out of sight. Osret walked into view and climbed onto the dragon. He hung his head and sat slumped over. His gym abs didn’t do him any good while he slouched.

She looked away and pursed her lips. She glanced back at the unconscious swordsman and reluctant Osret. She hesitated, looking out over the industrial part of the city. Few parks stood by the roads, those that did needed tending, and roses grew out of the gutters. Finally, she climbed onto the dragon. It shot skyward in a zig-zagging path as thunder echoed off the clouds.

I ran as quietly as I could in the opposite direction.

Previous chapters in the text box to the right.
New updated schedule: Wednesdays and Sundays, noon Denver time (MDT)

Chapter 16

I’d finally run down Osret and in the moment of triumph, hesitated. He wasn’t ready to fight me. It would be murder. He couldn’t breathe, even in the thick, seashore air. He was probably one of those guys who did five minutes of sprinting spread over an hour fairly regularly because it got him cut. Good for him, but it didn’t help him outrun a murderer.

And it would be murder. But he deserved it.

Self, you’re not here for him. You’re here for the saber. Osret is secondary.

Get the saber.

This was a good thought, I judged.

“Osret, where is my sword?” I asked and some other voice interrupted.

“Hold, mortal!”

Oh, biscuits. Who was that?

I turned around, and some fop in silk and boots came up the road behind me.

The birds overhead were going nuts. They’d never really shut up, even for the night, but now they were raising a din.

He wore a designer sword with emerald fabric woven through the belt and scabbard. It looked mid-length and straight, long enough to fence with but possibly edged. He looked proud of it. He ran up and drew while outside my range before stepping in. The blade fell into line with my neck.

“Mortal, you are guilty of crimes against Mallens, Honor Him,” he said.

“Which ones?” I demanded.

“Deadly ones.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“He tried to kill me!” interrupted Osret, but the interruption of his panic-breathing set him coughing.

“Not you,” said the fop. “Worse. Treason.”

Oh, sickness and death, everything was ruined. They found out about the killing, they had traced an assassin, I was going to Hell until they could stretch my life out no longer in pain and all I could say was, “Could you be more specific?”

The fop could. “You have eaten honeydew and nectar, and it is treason for a mortal to take the sustenance of the gods,” and he looked so pleased with himself.

I went slack jawed. I had to deliberately shut my mouth.

“But I caught you,” he continued. “I will–”

I took off my belt and wrapped it around my off-hand forearm.

“Mortal, are you high?”

I blitzed.

My left opened the gate, catching his blade on the belt and shoving forward and down. His sword cut through leather like butter. My right shot past the fop’s head. He juked to the side, swung the sword wide and around, but my left, no longer blocking, got him dead in the guts. I got inside his counterstroke and threw the boxing cross.

I didn’t catch him cleanly in the jaw. I got him at an angle, but up close like that, I had the hip action double dirty. He hit a wall and bounced.

I threw the left again, a wide, stupid shot that’s worthless if they see it coming. But the fop was having a religious experience, an epiphany, and seeing nothing but himself. He wasn’t fated to win. He was other people, and I hit him so hard he fell out from under the sword.

I chased.

He hit the ground, rolled, and the idiot had great reflexes. He came up with a knife. He jabbed, I pulled back, and we circled.

Then everything changed. Hands up near the face, palms back, pushing straight shots with the quickest recoil I could, I moved back and let him come. He slashed with the knife. The knife was everything. He might eat a dozen, three dozen punches and win if he got one clean cut.

I feinted, feinted, he leaned back and came forward. He slashed overhead, and I kicked him in the inside of the thigh, right in the meaty part of the muscle. He tried to stab my leg but aborted when I threw that jab again. He blitzed, I faded back, he swung twice and I dodged everything to kick him in the same leg, this time the outside.

He pressured. I retreated and fell back, giving up a dozen good chances to deny him any. Now he chased. My belt was in half, one end flapping, and not long enough to block. I kept a grip on the tail of it in my left. I could block one or two with the off hand, but he’d lay the arm open for sure.

Sickness, I wish I’d taken the sword instead of closing.

He lunged, I retreated, we circled, I went for the fallen blade but he blocked me, I got another good leg shot, and fell back. He stepped forward, almost over the sword.

He was going to try to kick it up into his hands. He wanted it. I could taste his hunger for it. As soon as he did, as soon as all his weight landed on one leg, I was going to blitz so hard I’d knock his tastebuds out his back door.

And he knew.

He dropped onto both feet, even stance, right in front of the sword.

I rose up onto my toes.

We both knew.

He tried to body fake me. I didn’t fall for it.

He moved his off-hand out behind him, ready.

I breathed.

He body faked again.

I breathed.

He stomped one side of the handguard, the sword pivoted up, and he hooked a toe under the handle.

From outside range, I went. My right fist shot forward; my left followed. He swung the knife, I swung my left palm out and open with the folded up belt, smacked the blade, and he only cut the heel of my hand. I cleared his knife-hand sideways.

He caught his sword.

I got him in the throat.

His whole body went rigid, he dropped the sword, and I followed-up to his head. The bells of his temple rang, and the gods left. He dropped.

I looked back.

Osret was staring at me like I was the devil.

I picked up the sword, and the moment my hand touched its handle, I knew its name and lineage. This was the Drowning Breath of Ogden, made by Thorophus the Weapon Maker in his Eighth Testament. It had been forged of eight lesser blades that killed Ogden. His son, Aelon, had ordered this one of their steel and used it to avenge his father. I heard the words Thorophus whispered as he made it, and the dire hatred Aelon had spoken when he used it. It had been made for revenge, it hungered for revenge, and when I held it, the sword yearned.

I knew of this sword. I had had filed paperwork on it. It was a blade of Fate.

The fop was from Fate.

“He was from Fate,” I said out loud.

“Is from Fate. The Bureau of Sanction,” said a new voice, and a woman stepped from shadow to the ground. “You have not slain him yet.”

I looked at her and held the Drowning Breath.

She was tall and beautiful, hard but curved. She’d pulled chestnut hair back, wore white armor of moonsilk, and her boots were tall, laced things that reached the midpoint of her shins. Her jacket and pants were tight enough to move, but with moonsilk that meant nothing. It flowed like liquid silver. I could see the creases where her hips met her pelvis, the tightness of fabric across her chest, and the tiny dimples of muscles flexing on her rump. She had bright red eyes.

Around her shoulders flew a red and gold dragon, long as a python. It had no wings, but flames danced on its hide. It and she shared an eye color, red, but the dragon had scales too. Tiny flames seemed to escape from its lips as it slithered through the air, climbing on invisible things like a serpent might climb the roots of a great tree.

I didn’t know her. We’d never met. I would have remembered a hot dragon lady.

Well, hot because fire is hot…but no, sexy-fire-dragon-lady was definitely a thing. I had not known sexy-fire-draon-lady was a thing, nor that I was into it. I was. I would have known if we’d met.

We stared at each other, and the red of her eyes leaked out like tears. But her tears burned, and they leaped for the sky like candle-flames freed of their wicks.

“You may take him and leave,” I said.

She considered a moment. “No.”

I held the Drowning Breath of Ogden, and she wore a fire dragon like a scarf.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

She didn’t move her feet but pulled her head back as if my words splattered crazy in her direction. “You’re asking me that?”

“Yes. If you run, I won’t chase you.”

“No,” she said again.

I raised the sword point until the blade stood between us.

Her dragon spiraled in and out, and she reached for it from one hand. The serpent turned to liquid fire from which she drew a long, single edged sword that danced in her hand. The flames of the dragon vanished, or perhaps its essence was merely made steel.

She had a dragon blade. If I did not know her, I knew of her kind. She was from the Bureau of Sanction.

I said something which had been said to me. “You think you’ll win, and you might, but this will not go well for you if you do.”

She smiled like I had in the House of Hemlin, where Zenjin had said that to me. Things had not gone well for me, but they’d gone much worse for him.