Salvar
Younger[edit]
Salvar pushed open the door to the room and took a step in, then quickly backed up. "Sorry," he said. "I was looking for my sister."
Fear's Umbra looked up from his pack. A single candle lit the small room that he had chosen for himself, practically a cell under the eaves of the great hall. There was no window in the room, and the darkness seemed to claim more territory for itself than the candle could contest. The room was thick with hashish smoke. "Quite all right. So you're the brother of that wizard?"
"I am." Salvar drew himself up to his full height. Fourteen years old, he was already slightly taller than Rivers Between Us, a fact that did not escape his notice. His hair was long and chestnut brown, plaited into a single braid that fell to his lower back. He wore a simple white linen robe, a pair of sandals, and a silver chain at his throat.
"Must be hard." Umbra took a deep draw from his pipe and then coughed roughly. "Doesn't have much use for you, does he?"
"What do you mean?" Salvar frowned and took a step into the room, trying to appear stoic, yet dangerous.
"I mean, he's one of the Chosen now, practically a god. Invulnerable and all-knowing. At least your sister can cook, eh? What can you do for him?"
"He's my brother. I'm his bravest soldier, for one thing, and my fu is unbreakable!"
"Really?" Fear's Umbra drew himself up and performed a slinking kata, thrashing his head briefly from side to side making his oily black hair whip about his face. He held one palm before him in the shape of the Five-Dragon Claw. "Show me this unbreakable fu."
Salvar adopted his stance. "This is the White Ash Pattern, which I learned from Sifu Untilled Field with my brother. When he left home, I continued my training and surpassed him in every way. Prepare yourself!"
The boy launched himself into a flying kick, which some martial savants might have thought inappropriately grandiose for the size of the room they were fighting in. At the last moment he snapped his trailing leg out in an arc, twisting in midair to kick-strike off of his opponents neck, landing in an inverted bow-and-arrow stance with an open palm out toward his opponent.
Fear's Umbra released a twinned plume of smoke from both nostrils. "I am ready," he muttered around his pipe.
Salvar frowned for moment, then grimaced and launched himself forward, striking first with an eagle claw to his sternum, twisting into a leaping knee-strike to Umbra's chin, then following with a flying elbow to his shoulder. He then dropped to one knee to prepare an uppercut, but when he looked up to strike the godblood merely shifted his lower jaw, rolling his long-stemmed red-jade pipe to drop a clump of burning ash in the boy's eyes. Blinded, he struck upwards wildly. Umbra took the white linen sleeve between two fingers and used it to clean the pipe's bowl, leaving a black streak on the cloth as it wafted past his chin. Salvar cleared his streaming eyes with one hand, then took two steps back and lifted one leg into an axe kick. Umbra took a single sliding step forward and with his left foot and with one clawed hand seized the boy in his seat of valor. The kick froze in midair.
Fear's Umbra drew a fresh ball of hashish from a pouch at his belt and placed in his pipes bowl, where it ignited instantly. He then looked up at Salvar for a moment and shook his head. "Untilled Field? I've never heard of him, but I suppose there must be dozens of washed up martial artists trying their hand at farming in the Murakan. You've learned about enough to protect your virginity from a drunken oaf, but you're still useless in this house. You'll always lose to an enlightened opponent." He then struck a single Five-Dragon Force Blow at the youth's chest, launching him against the wall where he quickly rebounded to the floor in a heap.
Salvar struggled to his feet, still gasping from strike that had shredded the breast of his robes. "He... I know he needs me. I look out for him."
"Then why are you here?" Umbra dropped his stance and turned around to pick up his pack. "He's already left. He took his elemental thugs with him, even took his sister to cook for him. But you're still here. I'm leaving; everyone's leaving to attend to their spiritual development before the real fight starts. It seems that you're the only one still hanging about looking for something to do."
The boy leaned against the wall and looked down at his feet. "You're right. Of course you're right. I'm no godblood, no dragon. I'm nothing to them. Just another soldier."
"Less than that. You're a liability. If you're kidnapped, you can't defend yourself, and your brother can be manipulated by it. His honor would demand nothing less."
"Gods, you're right. I'm better off dead than alive as far as he's concerned."
"You are... right now."
Salvar looked up. "What do you mean?"
Fear's Umbra took a step toward him, his dreamy eyes settling on the boy's chest. "Some mortals... a rare few, mind you... make their own destiny. You can be enlightened, boy, but it's a hard path... a long and hard path. You'll never be as strong as him. You'll never be as strong as his enemies. But you can at least be something more than, say, your father was. Prove yourself... useful... and greater things may come your way."
Salvar knelt before the dark man and pressed his head to the floor. "I'll do anything. Teach me, Sifu!"
Umbra took another step past the youth kneeling on the bare wooden floor and reached out with two fingers to snuff the single candle. Light forsook the room. "I will teach you, little colt... but you're asking for more than you know. Get into some riding clothes and bring nothing else. We leave for Nexus in an hour."
Blackhand[edit]
"Temper, temper." Umbra drawled out the words as he watched from his seat on an overturned barrel. His lazy eyes drifted away from the barge to the winter sky. Endless layers of clouds bulged and swirled above like maggot-riddled corpse skin. A chill breeze from the North snatched at clouds, grass, and waves alike; the world seemed tormented by the season. He leaned his head back for a ragged cough. “Remember, little brother, we’re here for charity.”
Across the deck, young Salvar Blackhand faced four guild mercenaries.
The boy’s ferocity was unchanged. His legs were spread in the wide stance of the Five Dragons form, inept as it was, and he lunged broad strides and sweeps of his fists to strike at armed guards. While he chased one across the deck, a second swung a long shafted hammer that struck a glancing blow to his shoulder. Salvar snarled and grabbed the hammer by the head, throwing both it and its wielder into the Grey.
“At the very least, make a token effort to be aware of your surroundings. Do I have to remind you of what a sword will do to your pretty little skull?” He maundered over to the hundreds of cords of wood lashed to the deck, tree trunks as thick as he was tall. From the exotic hardwood forests of the southwest, they had been imported at great expense, traversing thousands of miles by land and water. One languid hand stroked the grain of the wood while another mercenary was held with his head in the river, his body kicking and flailing as the boy used it to shield him from the sweep of an ax. The blade bit into the guard’s gut, and Salvar let him slip into the water.
Salvar blocked a sword-swipe with an open palm, his hand flaring for instance with essence, reducing the wound to dirty gash instead of a maiming. He shouted and pressed the blade clumsily into its wielder’s own foot. Fear’s Umbra wagged a finger. “Have you even considered trying to avoid an attack? It’ll be another four hours before we can respire. Don’t waste your essence in the day.”
The swordsman tried to step away, dropping his sword in his haste as he turned. Salvar’s uninjured hand drew back into a claw-like shape at his side, pale skin and black nails contorted and rigid. The strike hit the guard in the back of his neck, and his head whipped backward with a cough that sprayed blood-flecked mist into the wind. Umbra’s acolyte growled, “If you like to hear yourself talk so much, why don’t you nag your own…”
His commentary was cut short when the last guard’s axe struck home, sweeping one of his legs out from under him as it bit deep in his thigh.
Fear’s Umbra made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Learned a lesson today, have we?”
The ax rose for the kill, the mercenary ignoring their prattle in old realm, but stopped at the height of its arm and fell from numb hands. Two of Umbra’s fingers were imbedded the man’s spine at the base of his neck.
He withdrew his hand casually, wiping his bloodied fingers on the man’s buff jacket. “Help me cut the cargo ties, boy. We’ll see to your leg when you’ve learned respect for your sifu.”
Three days later the flea-bitten slums of Nexus rejoiced when, for no apparent reason, cords upon cords of good firewood floated down the Grey, free for the taking. Winter was a little less chilling that year.
