Shadowbane

“You fear.” Sithe stood a short distance away, shaking the tension from her arms. Her axe gleamed in the moonlight. “You cannot defeat what you fear.”

“As I told you”-Kalen fought down a rising cough-“I fear nothing.”

“I am nothing,” she said. She raised her axe in a high guard.

Kalen stood, leveled Vindicator, and ran forward to oblige her.

This third pass fared no better than the first two did. He used every bit of sword-training and every trick at his disposal-feints, misdirection, varying time. None of it penetrated her defenses. She threw herself wholly into every attack, fearless of counters or ripostes. Her body seemed to anticipate his every strike, as though some greater force guided her movements. Her muscles hardly seemed capable of lifting the great headsman’s axe, and yet she fought brilliantly with little effort.

They broke apart for a moment, Kalen panting heavily. “You don’t feel like nothing.”

He struck again, but Sithe smashed his attack aside and kicked him in the chest. He staggered back and adjusted his stance for a new angle. Vindicator burned dully in his hand as he weighed her stance. Her grace was matchless-her skill far beyond his.

“The boy believes you a demon,” Kalen said. “Are you?”

“No,” Sithe said so quickly he doubted its truth.

“Myrin said you are a genasi.” The word seemed to strike Sithe-she actually met his gaze. “You are like no genasi I have ever met. You’ve neither fire nor lightning, earth nor water, nor-”

“I am born of the nothing between light and shadow,” Sithe said. “My soul is of the void-the wind through darkness.”

“A cryptic answer,” Kalen said. “And not one that instills confidence.”

“Confidence?” she asked. “You wear your fear for all to see.” Sithe gestured contemptuously at him. “If you fear neither pain nor death, why do you wear armor? If you don’t fear defeat, why carry a sword into battle? And these-pain, death, defeat-these are the least of your fears.” She looked away. “Speak not to me of confidence, when you fear so many things but do not know it.”

“The wise man,” Kalen said, “claims to know nothing.”

“Then the wise man,” Sithe replied, “is an idiot.”

She had just spoken more words to him than he had heard her string together at once. During her diatribe- if such it could be called-her voice had risen ever so slightly. He heard anger and thought he had touched her with the word “demon.”

“You flee your fears, but they will find you. You take refuge in them, but they will not shield you,” Sithe said. “You will learn nothing from me if you fight because of fear.”

“Are you saying I fear to face you?”

“You fear not to face me,” Sithe said. “You face me to escape what you fear you’ll become, the boy you fear to teach, and the woman you fear to touch.”

Kalen lunged without thinking. Surprised, Sithe was only able to raise the axe halfway to block and Vindicator cut at her face. A shroud of darkness appeared around her, absorbing the blade’s impact. Kalen shivered in the sudden rush of deathly chill.

The haft of Sithe’s axe swung around and struck him on the right ear.

Reeling, Kalen fought for his senses. He lurched half a dozen steps to the side and fell to one knee, spitting blood. When he could see clearly again, Sithe stood unperturbed-waiting. Once again, Kalen slammed Vindicator against the rooftop in his frustration.

“Better.” Sithe stood over him, her axe raised high. “Again.”

Kalen wasn’t about to let her provoke him again. Instead, he tried the opposite.

“You speak of my fears, but you’re the one with the axe,” he said. “If my sword and armor are my crutch, what of yours?”

Sithe considered this. Then she dropped her axe to clatter on the withered boards of the roof. She stood waiting, unarmed and unarmored, arms limp at her sides. “Strike then,” she said.

He strode forward, his blade held high. She made no move, even when he cut down at her head. He stayed his slash at the last, turning to strike her with the flat.

Sithe caught his attack, one hand on either side of Vindicator.

“You should have struck fully,” she said. “I might not have caught it.”

Kalen strained, but he could not move the frozen sword. “You’d be dead.”

“I have faith in your weakness.”

Darkness flared around her and struck him like a fist. He fell back half a dozen paces, disarmed. Vindicator remained between her hands, as if she were praying around it. She tossed the blade in his direction and it skittered to his feet.

“Your ignorance makes you helpless as a child,” Sithe said.

Kalen’s anger burned at the weakness coursing through him. He climbed shakily to his feet. “If you know all,” he said, “then I am glad you are teaching me.”

The woman’s black eyes narrowed. She caught the haft of her axe under one toe and kicked the weapon up into her hands.

He had only an instant to react before she was on him, her axe chopping down like a bolt of lightning. Kalen leaped back, but Sithe pressed forward, her axe lashing up and across. The axe hit him so hard he flew back, clearing the side of the building and tumbling through the open air. He glanced around wildly as he toppled back, only to crash on the rooftop of the next building. He stumbled to one knee and looked up. Sithe swooped down toward him, her axe held high.

He dodged the chop that might have cut him in two, but Sithe adjusted in midair, smashing the haft of the axe into Kalen’s face. Roiling light replaced the world and Kalen toppled back, parrying wildly. Sithe’s axe smashed into the flailing Vindicator once-twice-then a third time, sending it sailing out of Kalen’s hand.

Blinded and unarmed, he fell back, curling himself as small as he could and trusted to his other senses to let him dodge her strikes. Miraculously, he moved correctly and the axe whirred past his ear. He knew he couldn’t last long-not unarmed-particularly not when he had backed into the wall of the little room that housed the staircase. He had nowhere to run.

The dazzling light faded and he saw Sithe’s axe streaking toward his face. He ducked-barely-and the axe chopped into the wall. Without waiting-without even taking an instant to thank Tymora he hadn’t been beheaded- Kalen bowled forward, his arms wide. Sithe tried to slip free, but he tackled her to the ground. He caught her hands-

Sithe vanished from under him, pulling him inward as though she had simply imploded into nothing. He slammed face-first into the stained wood and stared blearily around. She might as well not have existed. He knew, however, that she would-

Sithe reappeared a pace behind him and her axe slashed like a threshing scythe. Without thinking, he moved aside at that exact instant. The air around him was suddenly alive with power of its own-a strength and confidence he had never known filled him.

The moment passed and he was once again simply an unarmed man fighting a whirlwind. Sithe brought the axe around and thrust the haft horizontally into his chin. He collapsed like a felled tower. She brought her axe flashing around and buried it into the wood where he lay, its jagged blade a hair’s breadth from his neck.

“You’re so controlled.” Kalen touched his throat, where blood dribbled. “It’s not like you to lose that and actually cut me.”

The blade made a wrenching groan as Sithe ripped it from the rooftop. She strode back to the edge of the roof to watch the receding darkness.

Kalen let Vindicator lie where it had fallen and approached Sithe cautiously.

“That was the moment,” he said. “Armored by faith. Right?”

She said nothing, but he knew he had spoken true.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “Why are you so angry?”

Sithe gazed out toward the horizon. Beyond the black, putrid waters of Luskan’s bay, the sea became blue once more, albeit choked in an ugly haze. The air here tasted of sour smoke and unwashed flesh, but he could remember the sweet air beyond.