Woad Children (Challenger's Call Book 3) Read online

  Avalon had just made a breakthrough in reconfiguring the device in my head, so I had taken a brief moment to review the video feed that had played earlier. I was able to use it more and more often. For some reason though, I had the best luck when using it to monitor Chris, and to my surprise I was occasionally able to contact him directly. I had just reviewed the logs of the actions he performed earlier, but it looked like he was still sticking to our plan.

  It wasn’t my preference, though. I still didn’t trust Chris and I sure as hell hadn’t forgiven him for his role in everything from the past two years. But him being under surveillance as well proved he had the same enemies I did. That was why the hacked termination order didn’t include him. Still, I thought it prudent to get my own message out. So everyone I knew and loved got a text on their phone telling them something only I knew about them

  I had no idea why Rhodes’ people had built that function into the monitoring device in my brain but I intended to make them regret it at every opportunity. I just had to put up with a major headache afterwards.

  Guineve stretched her hand and muttered a few phrases I couldn’t decipher. As soon as she finished talking, my headache left. I blinked in surprise.

  “Did you just…”

  “Yes, dear,” the beautiful woman said simply. “I would have done it sooner if I realized how often you had migraines.”

  “You can fix them every time?” I asked in surprise. “Really? Because I get them all the—”

  “Yes, darling Wes. Don’t worry about it,” she said casually, passing me a plate. “Now have a cookie. You haven’t eaten at all since breakfast, and you were too busy to eat a second one.”

  We were in the dining hall again. I accepted her offered treat and bit down.

  Oh my dragon gods, FNG gushed in my mind. This tastes amazing. Why the hell haven’t we married her again?

  It’s complicated, I admitted.

  Bullshit, Teeth growled back. She’s gorgeous, cooks for you, and cures your headaches. Stop being an idiot.

  And I may be a couple thousand years too young for her, I added. Lamely.

  Also bullshit. Everything you run into here has at least an iridium atom’s half-life on your own age. And time flows differently here anyway.

  Yeah but—

  “Wes, dear?” Guineve said patiently.

  Great. I was caught talking to myself again.

  “Still trying to tame your dragon, darling?” the raven-haired woman said with a smirk. I didn’t appreciate the double-entendre, and she didn’t really care that I didn’t.

  “Ahem,” I coughed, taking another cookie anyway. “We should get back on topic. I appreciate the cookies though, Guineve. I hope the children love them.”

  “They do.” The tall woman smiled brightly at that. “But I think your new friend has been helping them just as much with the nightmares.”

  “Huh?” I asked. “Which new friend?”

  “The one we still need to come up with a name for, darling,” Guineve said with another smile. She pointed at the small shape on the floor.

  “Di-rec-tive!” the little blue ball cheerfully shouted. “Heal! Hug! Di-rec-tive!” It gave a wobbling bounce, and Guineve bent down to sweep it up in a hug of her own. The little jelly hummed happily, then quivered as if it were looking at my direction. “Di-rec-tive?” it asked curiously. “Hurt? Sad? Di-rec-tive?”

  “I’m fine now, thanks,” I answered the little ball. “And Guineve’s right. You need a name and I need to stop procrastinating about giving you one. Even if people never stop calling you Di-rec-tive instead.”

  I tried to be creative, but the truth was that the little jelly reminded me too much of a character from one of Rachel’s favorite movies to think of anything else.

  “Alright… Ball-ee,” I pronounced. “You have a name now.”

  Really? Teeth asked. That’s really what you’re going with?

  Hush. He’s senior to you, so you can’t criticize. Especially since you only showed up because of something I ate.

  “Ball…ee?” the little jelly pronounced slowly.

  “Yup,” I said firmly. “Would have gone with Jell-ee, but you thankfully don’t leave a gelatinous trail. So you’re Ball-ee.”

  “Ball-ee!” the newly named happy fun ball bobbed as it shouted. “Ball-ee! Ball-ee!”

  It quivered in Guineve’s arms, and I got the impression that it was trying to run around in circles while still being hugged. “Ball-ee! Ball-ee! Di-rec-tive!”

  Guineve laughed at the little jelly’s antics.

  “I love the name, Wes. It fits perfectly.”

  Teeth muttered something about me not deserving this woman. I ignored him and turned my gaze to the objects on the far end of the counter.

  “So, before I get side-tracked again, I need to ask you about the scabbard you gave me. You asked me to wait until we finished rescuing and integrating all the prisoners, and that’s done. So I need to ask you about Breaker’s, or Excalibur’s, scabbard. And why the blade is growing in it.”

  “That,” Guineve sighed. She gave Ball-ee a pat before she sat the little jelly back on the floor. The blue ball ran off happily, still shouting out its new name. “That is a story I only have pieces from, out of the genetic material Stell merged herself with to create me. But that blade and the scabbard I gave you are both as old as the most ancient ruins on this planet. In fact, I suspect they are as old as the planet itself. Maybe even older.”

  That didn’t seem possible. Just like everything else that had been happening recently. So it was probably exactly as she expected.

  “Talitha told me a little bit about the sword,” I said. “She called it Breaker, which was where I got the name. But I called it Excalibur because the scabbard seems straight out of Arthurian myth. And from what you and the rest of Stell have told me, Arthur actually existed, and came here.”

  “Yes.” Guineve nodded thoughtfully. “The blade answers to those it considers to be king of the great beasts. The chiefs among the dragons themselves.”

  “The Pendragons,” I said slowly, remembering Talitha’s name for me, and Aegrim’s rage over her giving me the title.

  “Yes. Arthur gained that title as part of his Renown. I am not sure who recognized him as such.”

  “Someone who knew dragons called him that,” I realized. “And they probably didn’t explain any more than Talitha did to me.”

  Talitha had called me that same title, back when she was a ghost. She had laughed at me when I explained how I wasn’t a dragon. I still didn’t quite understand why she thought I was one, even with finding out about the Flesh-bond my ancestors had supposedly made with the Dragon of Pain and Affliction. Something told me that wasn’t the reason why.

  “Arthur had a version of this blade that he used to kill a true Dark Icon. Unlike Raw-Maw, this was one that had completely Descended, and had even formed its own Pantheon. Like you, he shouldn’t have been able to slay it.”

  “How do you know he had a version of this same sword?” I asked.

  “The weapon’s hilt.” Guineve pointed. “The same one you now wield, only it was complete, and formed a long blade. The scabbard appeared on him whenever he came to Avalon and wielded the weapon, and returned to the statue of my half-mother whenever he traveled back to Earth.”

  “But you noticed that I wielded the same weapon? Or the same hilt, at least?”

  I had not really started using Breaker until I had escaped from Rhodes’ dungeon. And even then I had only been using it to store other items.

  “Stell detected a connection to it when she examined you. We didn’t inform you because the weapon was still only in handle form, and we were not sure it was the same weapon.”

  “Why?” I asked, curious. “Even in pieces it feels like this sword is pretty distinct.”

  “Yes. But it is also still in the Lightborn lands, enshrined within a monument to Arthur. Occasionally a worthy king or hero is allowed to remove it, and in time of great ne
ed. They call the weapon Clarent.”

  I tilted my head at that.

  “You’re telling me that this same sword is in two places at once, and in my case, is in partial form? Meaning it has two different forms?”

  “We thought they were merely similar at first, and unrelated. But no—” Guineve shook her head—“as the Avalonians resurrect, new memories come to me through my half-mother. The weapon in the Lightborn Lands is part of Breaker. There are pieces in the other worlds as well, though they appear to be complete swords. The white-hilted dagger you now wield is the piece Avalon was granted. It resided in the scabbard itself.”

  “But I didn’t see a dagger in the scabbard when you handed it to me.”

  “You did not,” Guineve confirmed. “Carnwennan, or Little White-Hilt, rarely wishes to be seen. But when it accepts an owner, it grants its power of concealment to the wielder as well. As you have no doubt noticed.”

  I had. In fact, I had used that same power to help me ambush the last of Rhodes’ men. Guineve had made sure to inform me about that particular power, despite her reluctance to talk about the rest of the weapon until now.

  “My half-mother says that each piece of Breaker is a legendary blade in its own right. All have been wielded by great heroes in the past, during times of great need. She revealed all this to me when she gave you permission to take the scabbard. She also told me one more thing, dear Wes.” Guineve stared hard at me. “She said that none of the heroes had been chosen to wield Breaker in its completed form. None had been chosen to assemble the whole blade.”

  “But at least one person in the past had been given the hilt itself,” I answered calmly. “Or my father never would have been able to help me find the blade.”

  It couldn’t have been a coincidence that I first found this hilt inside of a VR game that my father had helped design. Even if I didn’t understand for a minute how he had been able to do it.

  “Half-Mother did not tell me anything about that,” Guineve confirmed sadly. “I have no idea where John got the grip for the blade. But the hilt itself has supposedly been lost since before Avalon was first ruined.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t,” I said, thinking carefully. “Maybe it chose to be found when it did.”

  Talitha, the first resurrected Avalonian, had told me that the weapon showed up at seemingly random parts of her civilization’s history. And there was a tiny tug on my mind that told me Breaker, or Excalibur, or whatever the weapon’s real name was, was sentient.

  “Maybe.” Guineve nodded. “From what I know, not even the ancient Avalonians fully understood the weapon. I do not know what this means for you, dear Wes. I know it means you will have authority, and great responsibility. But I hope this weapon will help you more than it burdens you.”

  Her voice had grown concerned, and she reached over to place a hand on my own.

  I went through another brief hangup about being touched, with my body sending messages that it was doing something wrong by touching a woman, that being touched reminded it of all the other times it had been beaten and abused, and that after all that it still craved more touch from Guineve, and felt guilty about it. The Freaking New Guy stayed blissfully silent while I tried to work all that out, and I did my best to be brave and accept Guineve’s offer of support.

  “Thanks, Guineve,” I said, placing my other hand over hers. “The thing has already helped me, and I’m confident it’s a good thing. But whatever happens, I know I have you, and Breena, and the rest of Stell in my corner. That gives me far more confidence. I know it’s going to work out.”

  She smiled at me, an even richer smile than usual, one that brought out a twinkle in her eye.

  “Thank you, dear Wes. I always knew you were the best of them.”

  I took a moment to rest in the fact that someone believed in me, and felt another small bit of my trauma and phobias melt off.

  “Okay,” I finally said, letting go of Guineve’s hand. “I can possibly assemble a magic sword, if I find enough other magic swords. Probably a good thing. We’ll just have to see how it turns out for us. Can you tell me about the other project you wanted me to show me? The one lying on the table over there?”

  The scabbard wasn’t the only thing she had wanted to talk about when I came in. They had brought in some kind of heavy, padded jacket thing that looked like it would get hot quickly if I wore it. Then my medieval combat lessons kicked back into my head and I realized it was a gambeson, or an aketon. I forgot if there was a real difference between the two. “Guineve, don’t I already wear padding under my armor? Not that it seems to make a difference, given how hard I keep getting hit?”

  “It makes some difference even if the material doesn’t survive one blow,” the tall woman insisted. “Every injury averted, or even lessened is an injury your vital guard doesn’t get distracted with repairing. But this new garment will help your other armor survive.” She reached across the table and pulled the jacket closer. Looking at it more closely, I saw that what I thought to be cotton was actually material that shifted and shimmered ever so slightly. In fact, I could swear the color changed a bit to match the brown on the table beneath it.

  “It can camouflage?” I asked incredulously. “Holy Stell, that’s awesome.”

  “Not fully,” Guineve said with a small chuckle over my use of Stell’s name. “Just a bit when white stands out too much. But it will usually be under your other armor. I’ll describe that in a moment. But the fabric is a stronger version of the same material my garments are made from.” She pointed to her blouse, and I could see the same swirling, misty motion in her own fabric. Then I quickly looked away from her chest before my eighteen-year-old libido lost focus. Again, she was amused by that.

  Why are we looking away agai—

  Hush, I interrupted FNG. Focus.

  “I thought you magically conjured your garments, Guineve?” I asked purposefully. She was still smirking, but she answered my question.

  “Avalon’s mist is special, and those with access to the Ideal of Mist can modify it further. And native Avalonians, or Avalonian Satellites such as myself, can affect it even further. The end result is a material we call mistweave. It’s useful for keeping garments light, at a comfortable temperature, for resisting heavy blows, and finally it serves well to reinforce other garments or even actual armor.”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed. “That beats anything I could buy at an outlet store back home. But is it really going to last longer than those chainmail shirts I went through?”

  “Yes,” Guineve said simply, without taking offense. “The jacket was further enhanced with more of my Mist magic, as well as Wood magic from Breena, and Shaping magic from both of us and Eadric. Not only will it take blows better than any other garment you will find, it will also repair itself, because it already comes with its own vital guard, even if it gets completely shredded. And it’s a durable version at that. But its main purpose is to serve as an initial layer of protection, like the padding on your old armor. That was why Breena and I worked hard on creating this.” She pointed to what looked a piece of hairy leather. A moment later I realized it was a light tabard. A thick protective kind, not the cloth kind you wore to let people know about your allegiance to whatever order or baseball team you were part of. “It’s meant to go right over your gambeson. It’s only partially made out of mistweave. The rest of it is leather, reinforced with a bit of what you might call ‘woolish’ material.”

  “Really?” I asked, confused. “Where did you get wool from on Avalon? I could have sworn we hadn’t domesticated anything yet.”

  I mean I wasn’t a fan of mutton, but I’d take my meats where I could get them.

  Damn right, FNG added.

  “When it comes to food I have a number of resources,” Guineve admitted. “But it’s not actually wool. It’s just thick fur.”

  “Oh.”

  That made more sense. There was actually a fair bit of wildlife on Avalon, deep within the mists. I just hadn’t h
ad time to pay attention to them and the hunters we had for them didn’t need much help.

  “Specifically fur and hide from a giant cosmic wolf.”

  “What?” I asked, until my brain suddenly caught up with my mouth. “Oh… Oh.”

  Raw-Maw.

  “Wait, wait. You’re saying you’ve made me a light protective armor out of the demigod I killed before?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement. Because that sounded awesome.

  “Just a small piece of it, dear Wes.” Guineve nodded. “My magic and Breena’s lets us do without many tools, but we’d need a real tannery to work more than a tiny bit of the material. But wearing it over the gambeson, even if you wear other armor over the tabard as well, should grant you much more protection than what you’ve had to work with in the past.”

  “I’ll take it,” I said quickly, banishing all of my previous reservations to the void. “And both parts of this armor will even Rise with me? And you said I can still wear other armor over it?”

  “Yes, dear.” The beautiful, amazing, genius of a woman nodded. “That was why we decided to make it for you.”

  I was so happy I didn’t know what to say. This was like Christmas, except that someone was actually buying me magic armor instead of pencils or an ugly sweater, which was all Mom had been able to afford these past two years. But this time I was getting actual magic armor made from a demigod. It was just leather and fur, so it probably wouldn’t completely replace my heavier armor, but I could still wear this underneath and it would have to help a whole lot more. Maybe I’d be able to upgrade it, find more magic material to reinforce it with. To my nerd power-gamer mind, the possibilities were endless.

  “Hey Guineve? Thank you,” I finally said.

  “You’re welcome, darling.” The kind, stately woman smiled. “It’s only natural that we do all we can for you, just as you do for us. Especially when you were so willing to let us pick over your trophy for useful parts.”

  She said that last part with a smile, and I suddenly remembered my awkward offer for Breena and Guineve to take whatever they wanted from my kill.