Book 3, Chapter 62

Galdred took one look at Sorin and said, “You look awful.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know.”

Sorin pulled out a seat opposite of Galdred and dropped into it, perhaps a bit more heavily than he meant to. He was still too tired to care. It had only been a day since he’d woken back up, and he’d spent most of that time running around talking to people he really wasn’t that interested in talking to in the first place.

Arranging this particular meeting had been a massive headache. The Galdyrins still didn’t like him, and getting the message to the family patriarch’s son had required more delicacy than Sorin had in him. Luckily, he’d been able to drop the problem in Urd’s lap and let him solve it. Sorin wasn’t even sure how the Hellion leader had managed it, not that he cared at the moment.

“I see you made it to rank 24. I guess you’ve been having some fun up there,” Galdred commented.

They were in an expensive restaurant that only catered to those who had the danirs that came with being elite climbers or rich parents. In Galdred’s case, he had both. His words were also punctuated by the scrape of his knife against the plate as he cut a chunk of meat off his steak and skewered it with a fork, which Sorin found incredibly irritating.

That was the pain talking, though, so he did his best to keep it from showing on his face. Instead, he just sighed heavily and raked his hand through his hair. It had grown long enough to be getting in the way now, but not long enough to properly tie back. “I find myself in need of a great many things these days,” he said, “particularly a good barbershop at the moment.”

“I’d help if I could, but we have someone in-house, and I don’t think that’s a good option for you,” Galdred told him.

“No, probably not,” Sorin agreed. “Speaking of help, though, did you manage to convince any of your friends to head up to Floor 24 and join the party?”

“In a manner of speaking. They want to meet the man with the plan first. Hard to blame them, though. You’d have to be amazing to inspire anyone to follow you into that meat grinder, right?”

“I suppose. Soul damage is no joke. It takes a special kind of dedication to subject yourself to that.”

“Exactly,” Galdred said. “So how do you feel about a little exhibition match with a private audience?”

“Is it the only way to get your group on board?” Sorin asked bluntly.

“Maybe not the only way, but definitely the quickest.”

“When do you want to do it?”

“Same time tomorrow?”

Sorin held back a grimace through pure willpower. He was not even close to top form, and he couldn’t imagine anyone in Galdred’s circle of friends was a pushover. They were asking him to fight a representation of the best the red tower had to offer while his soul looked like a chew toy.

“Fine. Where at?”

“Let’s say Floor 5, just west of the hub. Plenty of open space there if we end up wrecking the place.”

The same place as last time. He sure does seem to like that floor. It crossed Sorin’s mind that it could be an ambush, but Galdred had dealt honestly with him so far. He’d just have to risk it.

“I’ll be there,” he said, rising from his chair.

“Whoa, where are you going? Have some food. You look like you need it. Don’t worry about the price; it’s on me today.”

“I need sleep more than I need food right now,” Sorin said. “I’m not trying to be rude here, but you know how it is when a voidling’s latched onto you.”

“Ah. Shit, right. Maybe we’ll push it back a few more days,” Galdred offered. “You need some time to recover.”

“Don’t worry about it. It won’t make much of a difference either way. Besides, it’ll do them good to see me still beating their asses even with soul damage hobbling me.”

Galdred almost choked on his steak. “Well,” he said with a laugh, “you’re certainly confident, I’ll give you that.”

* * *

Odric and Azlo accompanied him to the meeting. Neither was going to participate, but if it turned out Galdred was laying some kind of trap, Sorin knew he’d be glad to have them along. There were twelve climbers waiting for them when they got there, all rank 24.

“I didn’t realize we even had that many climbers able to reach the Void Wall among the high families,” Odric said quietly when they came into sight.

“You’d think they’d do more to help,” Azlo murmured back.

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“Why would they when Samael’s been taking care of everything for years?” Sorin pointed out. “There are probably even more rank 24s hidden away in their compounds. These are just the ones chafing at the leash their parents have them on.”

“There you are!” Galdred called out, raising a hand in greeting and not-so-subtly reminding Sorin’s group that just because they were a half mile away did not mean that no one could hear them.

They blurred forward, stopping twenty seconds later next to the large group they’d come to meet. It was an eclectic mix, no surprise given how far climbers had to diverge from standard ideology to make it to the pinnacle of their tower. That said pinnacle fell well short of the actual top floor was irrelevant.

Galdred was the heaviest-armored among the lot, even more so than Azlo. He’d had a lot more time and money to invest into his gear, though, so Sorin didn’t think it was exactly a fair comparison. Next to him was a woman who looked a few years older and close enough in appearance that Sorin pegged her as either a sister or a cousin. That was where the similarities ended though; she was decked out in alchemically treated leather and carried a ten-foot spear with her.

Sorin spotted a second spear, three swords, a whip, a quarterstaff, and a crescent-moon axe among their armaments, as well as several wands and a staff that probably meant those climbers specialized in magic. He wasn’t sure why Galdred would bring anyone like that, not unless they were meant to fill support and utility roles. They certainly couldn’t harm void creatures or heal soul damage.

“This is the guy, huh?” one of the men said. He was the oldest of his group, maybe thirty-five or so, and he wore a pair of daggers on his belt. Sorin had no doubt the climber knew how to use them, but he didn’t think they were the man’s primary weapons. “Doesn’t look like much. Second-rate gear. Soul chewed to hell and back. But... Hmm... There is something. What am I looking at?”

That last part was directed to the climber standing next to him, this one obviously a mage and leaning into the role. “His aura’s too strong for a rank 24,” the man supplied. “Even if you factor in the soul damage, he’s still stronger than anyone else I’ve seen since the wall went up.”

“I guess that means we can skip the demonstration then,” Galdred said.

That idea was met with a chorus of objections. “Hell no! That’s the fun part!” said the woman Sorin took to be his sister, summing up the rest of the group’s stance.

“Fine, fine! You’re all a bunch of combat junkies. Okay, who wants the first spar?”

Sorin cleared his throat before anyone could respond. “I’m not fighting twelve matches. Pick whoever’s best, and I’ll beat that person.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?” the guy with the axe said. He pushed through to the front of the group and moved to stand directly in front of Sorin. “Anyone object if I go first?”

“I do!” one of the mages told him. “Why should you be the only one who gets to have any fun?”

The argument spiraled from there. No less than seven of them wanted to fight the ‘fresh blood,’ as they’d taken to calling him. That devolved into two impromptu matches of their own to claim the right to go first, though no one besides Galdred seemed to think Sorin had been serious about fighting just one match.

“Could I convince you to do three?” Galdred asked him. “I know it’s an imposition, but...”

“I’d really rather not.”

“It’d go a long way toward bringing them around. Remember why we’re doing this.”

Sorin grumbled, but he gave in. “Fine. Three. Only three. Don’t come back around trying to bump it up to five later. You guys figure out who those three are going to be and let me know.”

Giving them a hard limit sparked a whole new line of arguments and a third duel between one of the spearmen and the guy with the quarterstaff. The spearman lost that fight almost before it started, though he took it well. Aside from some grumbling about having to hold himself back too much, he just laughed and conceded.

Finally, after another twenty minutes of bickering and brawling, the group settled on their lineup. His first opponent was the aura-reader mage, followed by the man with the quarterstaff, and then finally by Galdred’s cousin—Sorin had cleared that up while he waited—with the spear.

“This is friendly sparring only,” Galdred warned. “Don’t go crazy pulling out C-rank abilities and burning the floor to the ground.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know the rules,” the mage said. He brushed past Galdred to walk into the impromptu ring they’d made with a bit of earth magic. It was a raised platform three feet high, perfectly level, and fifty feet across.

“Ring outs aren’t a thing when we play,” Galdred told Sorin. “It’s more a guideline to try to keep whatever you do contained as a courtesy to the spectators. The fight ends with submission or knock out, and everyone’s got some good healing spells, so don’t worry about being too gentle.”

“Got it.”

Sorin met his opponent in the ring. The mage was wearing a cowled robe, but had a full battle harness over top of it. Potions, vials, ceramic orbs, a pair of wands, and a single glass rod all hung off him, in addition to a plethora of rings, necklaces, bracelets, and an actual crown adorning his person.

“It must be hard to sneak around if you clink with every step,” Sorin said.

“Sneaking’s for those who lack the ability to blow things up with their mind.”

“Begin!” Galdred called.

The mage’s hand raised up to point a long, knobby finger in Sorin’s direction, but that was a distraction. He had good control over his own aura, but not so much that Sorin couldn’t see the spell forming in it. A beam of frozen air lanced out from next to the mage’s hip, cold enough to leave a trail of frost in its wake and a coating of ice on whoever it hit.

Sorin defeated it by the simple expedience of no longer being in the way. Ignoring the spike of pain in his soulspace as he pulled on his anima reservoir, he blurred to his maximum speed, cleared the distance between him and the mage in less time than it took to blink, and brought his sword down to crack the pommel on the man’s skull.

A barrier flickered into existence, probably reflexive given that the mage had shown no indication that he’d realized Sorin was behind him now. It knocked the blow aside, startling the mage in the process, and forced Sorin to reach deeper into his bag of tricks. He ran anima through Force Weaver to form two powerful jaws that brought pressure on the barrier.

Still Winter rolled out of the mage and enveloped the entire arena. That might have been helpful if Sorin hadn’t already been so practiced at operating inside his own cloud of freezing cold air. Having someone else use it on him for a change meant he had to approach the handicap from a different angle, but in truth, it didn’t matter anyway.

The mage needed something to help him escape, and Still Winter wasn’t it. He’d relied on his barrier, but it was already buckling under the pressure of Force Weaver. With a resounding crash, it shattered completely, and Sorin’s sword came to rest just below the man’s chin.

“I yield,” the mage said, letting his magic fade away as he spoke.