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  He showed Narune the proper stances and then explained their purpose. Surprisingly, the knife meditation stances used by warriors, which weren’t meant for fighting but instead for exercise and training one’s inner focus, were almost identical.

  After a few trial runs, Sanemoro had Narune begin moving through the slightly different repetition cycles used by spiritseers; graceful movements that had him move from stance to stance, his Blade twisting and turning with precision.

  Sanemoro watched him do this for an entire notch, his face crinkled with concentration in the faint red glow of the lantern as he searched for flaws in his advice or Narune’s posture.

  Narune left him to it and focused, his breath deep as he stepped barefoot across the grass, the night air no less warm and sticky. His Blade cut and danced, a streak of shadow that neither the moon or crimson lantern could dispel.

  The motions were familiar, but despite his earlier boasting Narune found the Flowing Blade stances pushing his body because of their demanding need for precision and control—all while he was already Channeling, a new experience for him.

  Channeling was keeping the Flowing Blade open and maintaining the Carrion Flow’s movement inside of him, but at its own pace and in its own way. The whole process made him feel like he was balancing a stack of smooth stones on his head while dancing in the middle of a light storm, and if any of the stones slipped or stopped moving, then, well, he’d die.

  Not as easy as he had first thought.

  Sweat had plastered his hair to his face within a notch, and his lungs hungered for air.

  But that didn’t soften his eagerness any. “So when do I learn actual sorcery?” Narune asked Sanemoro between gulps of warm air.

  “That will take some time, Narune. You need to be absolutely comfortable with Channeling while using your Blade first. You also need to allow time for your Flow to carve the start of its path through you.”

  Narune nodded and continued moving through the Flowing Blade stances. His mother woke a little before dawn to relieve him. She said nothing as she approached, dressed in full war garb, a spear in hand, and watched him for a while. He ignored her, focusing instead on his training, but eventually admitted that he was also trying to impress her a little, childish as that was.

  His mother had the look she adopted whenever she recognized a difficult task that needed to be done. After a moment she passed her spear to Sanemoro and approached him from behind. He paused as she reached out to adjust his posture.

  “You’re doing well,” she assured him. “Always return to this stance. See how easily you can transition into a parry or attack?”

  Narune nodded.

  “Spend a little longer in it before you shift into the others so you’ll learn it more deeply, and stop slouching. Remember that you almost always begin doing something wrong whenever you grow tired, which is why we’re taught to jealously hoard our strength before and during battle. Watch yourself now while it’s just training or else you’ll teach your body poor memories.” She tapped him on the nose and smiled. “It’s no different than when I first taught you the spear. Try to keep a proper stance even if you’re tired; eh, especially if you’re tired.” She circled him again and adjusted his legs. “Don’t forget, the whole weapon is deadly, unlike a spear.”

  Narune nodded again, a grin on his face. As she touched him, he sent her a thought, Thank you, Mother.

  She smiled, thumped him on the shoulder, then made her way toward Sanemoro.

  The sage shrugged. “You know best. I am only trying to translate memory and these manuals.” He bent down with a grunt and picked up the stack of leaves. “I still plan on teaching Narune lore-marks, but I wrote the manual portions in war-marks for you. Because, you know, I am clever this way.”

  His mother took them from Sanemoro and laughed. “I doubt any of us should be calling ourselves clever,” she nipped. But then she moved close and touched noses with Sanemoro, to the sage’s delight. “You’re taking your adoption of Narune seriously, I’m pleased to see.”

  Sanemoro blinked in surprise. “Seas aflame, I did not even think about it that way, but I am, eh?” He stood straighter, seeming pleased with himself, and his mother rolled her eyes at the sight.

  Narune, however, was grinning; he loved seeing them together like this.

  “Oi, stop gawking,” Colibrí said to Narune, then gestured for him to continue before glancing down at the leaf manual.

  Narune returned back to his stances, his Blade cutting through the air, but paused after a moment to glance at his mother. The sun was starting to rise in the horizon and he would need to move further away, probably out further south, to lessen the risk of being seen.

  Colibrí glanced up from the leaves, her head tilting questioningly.

  “I was wondering,” he said after a moment, “if you would make my Gourd?”

  His mother frowned. “I thought spiritseers crafted their own weapons?”

  “And I did,” he said, nodding toward his Blade.

  “That is all tradition requires,” Sanemoro said. “Many spiritseers have someone else carve their Gourds.”

  Narune nodded. “You’re wonderful at coaxing out stories from wood,” Narune said. Then, a little softer, “I’d also be honored to carry something at my side that reminds me of you.”

  “Oh?” His mother crossed her arms, but she was smiling. “And what should I carve onto it for you?”

  “Two coyotes on the hunt,” Narune said without hesitation.

  Chapter 17

  Colibrí perched on a root-road and looked across the dizzying, twisting expanse of the forest. The coquí sang their usual songs, competing with the birds far above, and every so often a dissonant cry joined in. A fresh sunshower had passed and made the root-roads slick. Lagging droplets fell onto her ears and the earthy scent of detritus and soil filled her nostrils.

  She repositioned her spear against her shoulder and frowned. Peacemaker waited somewhere out there, and the expanse between them was like a game of glory stones; only this time no one had drawn the battlefield’s borders and she couldn’t see the war-marks his advancing pieces bore.

  Narune’s tail bumped against her back again, moving as carelessly as usual. She tossed a glance over her shoulder at him, but he hadn’t noticed.

  Colibrí wore her full war garb, mended poncho and all, but her son was dressed only in cloth wrappings and shadow feathers. He too had a spear, yet at his side, hidden within a spread of shadow feathers, was the spiritseer Gourd she had carved and decorated for him.

  Colibrí was proud of it; the Gourd was round, save for the ridge at the back where he had slipped a leather and cloth sash through. Patterns swirled around the dark heartwood, war-marks stitched together in harmonious meaning. Two island coyotes, large and fierce, sprinted through the marks toward the top, their maws open for the kill.

  The Flowing Blade hilt Narune had made himself was set into it, ever smaller than the opening. Colibrí had worried that the weapon would come loose in battle, but he assured her that the hilt was sort of suspended, as if the Gourd had been filled with honey and couldn’t be pulled free without either considerable force or awakening the weapon.

  Colibrí hadn’t questioned that; she had fought beside spiritseers often enough, but most of them had kept their distance. The mystical side to the Flows of Creation remained as much a mystery to her as it did for most Islandborn.

  She glanced up at what little light pierced the canopy. The day was yet young, with many notches left. She glanced over at her son who was watching the other side of the root-road.

  “Do you remember everything?” Colibrí asked. Probably for the hundredth time across a handful of days, but they would again go waggle their rumps with the hope of enticing their foe to strike; one who they not only knew little about, but also commanded the Flow of deception and possibly even halja. Then there was the Empty Victory still lurking out here somewhere, and this was all without considering the usual dangers of the f
orest. She was nervous, not for Narune as his mother, but for them together, two warriors running headfirst into a storm without understanding just how large or fierce it really was.

  Narune nodded and signed acknowledgment. No trace of annoyance, his face showing concentration, ears perked.

  Growing too fast, but into a fine warrior. She gestured back to him and they continued along the root-road.

  Neither of them spoke as they prowled, and their cautious but quick advance let them cover a good amount of ground. The forest again guided them to Stillness, and this time they found a pool of it almost immediately. Usually it took all day, if they even found one, but then again, they sometimes found several back to back. It all seemed patternless to her.

  Colibrí came to a slow stop, and frowned. Part of the root-road itself had been corrupted, the wide path gradually becoming gray and hollow, nothing more than twisting gray sinew in the outline of a root. The false root curled around one of the islands of the middle layer; clumps of limestone and soil lodged into the spaces between the roots of both tree-lords and opportunistic brush. The island had been claimed too, the limestone and soil imitations made from more condensed clusters of sinew.

  Narune’s breath caught. It wasn’t his first time seeing corruption in person—they had found some on the other days, too—but it was the kind of sight that haunted a warrior’s thoughts for a long time, and that was made all the worse by the fact that they shouldn’t be finding any at all.

  It was true that Stillness occasionally took root beyond the Wound, but never this deeply. With the corruption isolated, the land itself could usually hold back the Stillness’s advance until sentinels found it. Those infections were also usually too shallow to spawn halja.

  This, on the other hand, was a reminder of what would happen should they fail their warrior oaths.

  “Come,” she said. “Let’s begin.”

  Her son nodded and moved with her on to the island. They abandoned warrior discipline before beginning their work; nothing willingly entered the Stillness other than the Islandborn. They’d still need to watch for growing halja, however.

  Narune and Colibrí chipped at the gray material using their knives and spears. Some portions were hardened, others soft, neither following a pattern. Once broken the sinew burst into plumes of dust that had a distinct lack of smell. It was easy, but tedious and exhausting work.

  They were at it for several notches, and finished aching, their bodies covered in sweat.

  No halja emerged from the eerie fibers, no Flow-drenched arrow sought their flesh, and the Empty Victory hadn’t pounced. Colibrí found herself disappointed. Well, we’re doing good warrior work. That’ll need to be enough for now.

  It wasn’t very effective work, though. Normally, they went with the warriors and spiritseers that came to fetch them at Yabisi’s command, usually with a sage or two in tow to witness everything for later musing. Unfortunately, they didn’t even let her help with the Stillness and she knew Peacemaker wouldn’t risk himself against such a large warband.

  “Drink,” she said to Narune, then took her own skin and gulped down the lukewarm water.

  Narune took a sip.

  “More,” she urged. “Out here, you eat before you’re hungry and drink before you’re thirsty, understand?”

  Her son gave her a nod and swallowed more water.

  She waited for him to put his waterskin away, then said, “Let’s continue our prowling.”

  They made their way from the island and onto an adjoining root-road. Notches of the sun passed while they moved up and down the layers, perching on bits of road to glance around for any signs of corruption. Few predators challenged them; some moss wolves jumped down at them from a road above, but she was proud to see Narune react quickly. They killed one and wounded another before the pack fled, then left the bloodied carrion before it attracted worse things.

  A hunting plant tried to ambush them from above as they moved along the road, its razor-leaves still glistening with rainwater. Some of the droplets were venom, however, and its leaves were clustered around the ends of grasping tendrils. When it realized they weren’t fooled and couldn’t reach them, the plant let out a rush of air in frustration, the flower at its center opening and closing. Countless little things squirmed within and dripped digestive fluids.

  Colibrí narrowed her eyes up at the hanging plant. More of them were bundled along the bottom of another mossy root-road, though that one might have been a low branch instead of a true root. The others ignored their overeager companion, hoping Narune and she would continue anyway.

  “We should find another way,” Narune said with a shudder.

  “Sometimes that’s the wiser action,” she replied. But not this time; the clever plants were hunting on a busier root-road. The other roads were smaller and less direct, many of them moving down toward the forest floor where hunting plants roamed in even greater numbers.

  She hefted her spear and jabbed at the nearest tendrils. The plant flicked back and tried to grasp her spear, but she simply stabbed again. They repeated this exchange until her spearhead caught on a meaty bit of the tendril, which was almost as thick as her wrist. The plant jerked away, which also ripped free the appendage. She moved back, gesturing for Narune to do the same.

  The plant dropped its stronger lifting tendrils and wildly reached for her. They still remained out of range, but hunting plants weren’t all that clever, and they didn’t even always use the nearest or longest appendages even if that would have given them enough reach.

  Narune watched, curious, as she prodded the new tendrils with her spear, repeating the process. Eventually the hunting plant flailed one last time and snapped all of its tendrils back up, its flower closing. It ever so slowly began moving around the curve of the road, carried by its own roots, some hard and grasping like claws.

  The others soon began to do the same.

  Narune blinked in surprise. “Why?”

  “In the forest, a predator can all too easily find itself made into prey,” she said. “Some, like these hunting plants, won’t take that risk. Why challenge us when they can eat something less dangerous?” She tapped her forehead. “Our gift is our mind, Narune, so always try and use it first. The plants could have worked together, forced us into a trap, and simply shared the meat, but they can’t understand that like we can.”

  Her son nodded, but still stared uncertainly up at the plants while she led the way forward. They prowled for a few more notches before pausing to eat a simple meal of war rations. They crunched on the balls of seeds, pulped cassava, boiled maize, and sap while watching the root-roads, then continued on their way.

  They found another patch of corruption half a notch later, to her surprise. It was down at the forest floor, but had spread high enough to begin corrupting some of the higher root-roads. Colibrí shook her head; it remained startling to see so much corruption so often, and the sight brought back unpleasant memories of her time fighting at the Primordial Wound. How many Cycles had it been? Too many, probably. She had only returned after growing plump enough with Narune that it slowed her, and had stayed at the edge to raise him through his infancy, doing little more than hunting and warding the forest like the sentinels did.

  “Let’s work at it,” she said to Narune with a sigh.

  They dropped down onto the moist detritus, squinting in the gloom, and removed the hold from her coral lantern. She fed it until it shone as bright as a star and then set it atop a nearby boulder.

  Colibrí wiped her brow as they stepped onto the spongy false soil, then flipped her spear upside down. It was then that she sensed the disturbance; pressure below, like something large was displacing the water. The feel of the Flows of Creation evaporated from her flesh in response.

  Her senses warped subtly, and for an instant it felt as if she were falling but the air was erupting up around her, fetid and hot. A prickling sensation ran along the back of her neck and danced down her spine, like the eerie, somewhat chil
dish feeling that something unseen in the dark was not merely watching, but reaching out for her.

  Honed warrior discipline jolted Colibrí into action. She reached out and grabbed Narune’s arm as he glanced around in confusion, then dragged him back with her as a halja grew from the corruption.

  Grew was maybe an imperfect word, but it was the closest fit to their strange method of birth. The false soil bulged as if something was pushing through membrane, yet the sinew twisted up from it to create the halja itself, like a plant sprouting and growing in mere heartbeats. Even so, the halja still pulled itself up out of the ground as if it were instead emerging from some unseen substance.

  Nothing ever made sense with halja.

  “Mother,” Narune snapped, his spear raised as he backed against her.

  She felt it, too. A gush of Flow being wiped away, thick and heavy for a heartbeat and then gone. Obvious now, but she hadn’t sensed it before—and realized why with a start. Rather than the messy, smeared Flow Peacemaker had used before, these spells had been made to blend in with the natural currents of Flow in the forest.

  She didn’t miss the irony that it was a trap like the one she had trapped Peacemaker in.

  “Peacemaker—” she began, then paused when a several Empty Boars seemed to appear from thin air around them at the edges of the corruption. They hadn’t grown from the corruption.

  The Empty Boars spun in place, seeming almost confused, before finally noticing them. She narrowed her eyes. They must have been caged in that spell that just faded. Well, why not? They didn’t need sustenance, and it would prevent the halja from wandering or being found.

  The sight hinted at many unpleasant things. Colibrí stored it all away for later.

  Well, they had forced his hand like they wanted, but Colibrí was the one who stumbled. Peacemaker hadn’t underestimated her, and he remained the predator because of it.