Blood Tempered: Book 1 of the Sword Monk Saga

Blood Tempered: Part 20

"I've never been that quick on my best day," said Augin, "and I'm one of the quickest blades I've ever met." He was watching the sword monk at his training in the courtyard. He was not the only one. Everyone was staring at the monk. Hard men who made their living swinging sharp steel, they could not tear their eyes away from the display.

Korbo grunted.

"What are we going to do about Stench, Korbo?" asked Augin.

"Why should we do anything about him?" Korbo replied.

"Come on. He obviously only tagged along on our excursion so he could report back to the witch."

"Well," said Korbo, "We did lie to him about her wanting to kill him. I think that makes us even."

"So just leave it there?"

"Just leave it there," Korbo affirmed. The important part of our understanding is still in place."

"You're no fun at all." Augin said, and turned his attention back to the Andine and his greatsword. "How can anyone be so fast with a blade so damned big?" he wondered aloud, and shook his head.

"Jealous?"

"Maybe. A little."

"Don't be. You wouldn't like what goes along with that sort of skill." Korbo hawked and spat.

"Eh?"

"Forget wine and women, for a start. As for song, well, I think there's a few hymns to their patron saint."

"Sounds fairly wretched," Augin admitted.

~ ~ ~

Caida was deep into his meditation of the Lesser Wheel. He did not hear the low conversation about him that came from two men by the gate, Korbo and Augin, though he was unconsciously aware of every movement of every person who might conceivably move within striking distance of his blade.

I am a wheel whose edge is death. This was the mantra that every sword monk was taught along with their first forms. Caida recited it mentally as he worked through the forms in the open courtyard of the keep in the early morning light, oblivious to the eyes that watched him.

My limbs are the spokes, my torso the hub.

The sword blurred in the still, hot air. Every swing brought with it a low moan from the sword as it sliced nothing. It was the sound of death. His wounds were forgotten.

With every revolution, my soul moves closer to redemption.

If Caida had heard Korbo and Augin, he would not have agreed. He had found peace and joy in his religion. But he didn't hear them. The mantra unwound endlessly in his head, but beneath it, his thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. And it was all to do with her, of course.

His duty and charge was to rescue the princess. The princess did not want or need rescuing. On that level, his quest was over before it had ever begun. He should return to the monastery in Drum and forget the entire affair.

But if her words were true, then his abbot had already known the quest he'd sent Caida on was built on a false pretext. And he knew the abbot was wise in the ways of the imperial court, having served two Emperors personally. It seemed unlikely Olvera had taken him in, had fooled the head of the Andine order.

No. The abbot had wanted him to come to this place, to this realization. But Caida, for the life of him, could not reason out why, or what to do next. That it was the Season of Atonement–did that make any difference, have any bearing? He could not see how it would.