Jonis by Rowan Erlking (manga ereader TXT) 📕

“Not today.” He reached out with his other hand and touched the hunter’s forehead.

The man’s eyes rolled back into his head. He dropped to the ground. Jonis dropped the knife in his fist. The open cuts in his hand sealed up right before the hunters’ eyes.

“No more,” Jonis said, looking from hunter to magistrate. “I have had enough of the attacks. I joined the army to protect the Brein Amon people, not be forced to kill in self-preservation.”

“Then you are a fool,” a young wiry man said, stepping from the group of hunters. He drew yet another broad blade. He pointed it at Jonis. “Today we celebrate the end of another demon.”

He attacked.

Jonis blocked his moves, struggling with his exhaustion as well as growing anger. The energy he had taken from his uncle was barely enough to heal the wound. His feet started to slip.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” Jonis shouted. His shoulders ached. This man was fresh, battling his blocks with pleasure and ease.

“Because, you are worth five hundred gold pieces dead,” the hunter hissed.

“Piddling fee if you ask me.” Jonis swiped his blade away, dodging out of reach. “I think I’m worth at least five thousand gold pieces dead!”

They fought all over the courtyard. Twice the hunter scraped his blade against Jonis’s skin, cutting his uniform. Jonis matched those marks on his opponent’s body out of spite. Both bleeding, they clashed, sword against sword until—

Clang!

Jonis’s blade broke off where it had been mended from the first break. The hunter before him cackled, thrusting with his sword.

Slapping the blade to the side before he could run him through, Jonis felt the tip scrape the side of his neck, matching his other scars as if to mark how many times he had escaped death. He then jumped in, grabbing at the sword hilt. Clutching the man’s gloved hand to wrench the weapon out of his grip, Jonis’s immediately eyes fixed on the hilt he was fighting for. Red paper strapped over it like a steel band, binding the hilt to the top of a leather scabbard. His name in black stared back at him.

“This is my father’s sword!” Jonis went ashen.

He reached up and slapped this hunter’s face with a shock of white light. It sparked from his palm, the electric shocks riveting over the man’s scalp and even around his ears and eyes. The hilt in his fist, Jonis wrenched it from the hunter’s hand and held it up. “Where did you get my father’s sword?”

The man bent over the ground, clutching his face.

“Where did you get it?” Jonis shouted.

 Panting, the hunter still maintained his smug grin. “I bought it. It was advertised as good quality steel.”

Clenching the hilt with fury he had never held within himself before, Jonis glared at the cut-off scabbard top. Only the metal top remained. The leather was entirely gone. Grasping the blade, Jonis turned its still bloody tip at the hunter. “How dare you use my father’s sword against me!”

“That sword is mine.” The hunter spat blood on the ground, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I paid good money for it. It was abandoned.”

“It was locked in a sealed cupboard at Dalis Camp. The sword was sealed up!” Jonis poked him with the tip, resisting the urge to impale him. “You stole it!”

“I bought it,” said the hunter with a derisive snicker. “Someone must have confiscated your belongings, demon.”

“Stolen,” Jonis snapped. “By Brein Amon law, stolen artifacts are still the property of the first owner.”

“You can’t prove that is yours anyway,” the man said, getting to his feet.

Jonis laughed angrily. “Get real! Of course I can!”

“Then prove it,” the Patriarch said from a balcony overlooking the courtyard. It had been empty before then.

Looking up, Jonis’s entire body shuddered with indignation. This man, this low deceiving power-hungry ruler of their nation had been watching their fights and doing nothing to uphold the Brein Amon law. Attacks on a soldier, stolen property….

Jonis lifted his sword high for everyone to see. “When I was young, Mr. Farren taught me sealing spells. It was the first spell I ever learned. The first thing I sealed was my father’s sword.”

Sisrik nodded slowly, glancing also to see what the Patriarch would say.

“Look!” Jonis shouted. “The scabbard top is still sealed to the hilt! There is my name! Jonis Macoy.”

The magistrates stared at the red paper.

“Prove it,” the Patriarch said again.

With a nod, Jonis cut the seal with his thumbnail and slid off the remains of the old scabbard, dropping it to the ground. He raised his sword up.

“Any questions?” Jonis asked, lifting his chin.

“Yes,” the hunter that had bought the sword said.

Jonis turned. A rancid-smelling liquid struck him in the face, smearing down his neck. He had closed his eyes in time, but upon impact his skin itched. Then it started to burn.

“Can you survive this?” Laughing filled Jonis’s ears.

Wiping the slimy ooze off, Jonis made a face. “That is sick! Are you demented?”

He flung the slime back at his assailant, but the man hopped backward in playful triumph.

“Now watch him die. He’ll start foaming at the mouth and then twitch from convulsions,” the hunter’s voice said as if from a hollow tube.

Taking no time, Jonis jumped into the nearest fountain, letting the water run over him. It washed away the initial sting, though there was an odd sensation Jonis was not familiar with that continued to make his skin crawl. Once entirely wet, he turned and opened his eyes, lifted his father’s sword. He charged back into the courtyard with a leap from the fountain edge. “That was nasty! Don’t ever do that to me again!”

“It didn’t work,” one hunter murmured, pulling back.

“Throw some more on him,” another of the hunters called out.

Opening the bottle again, the man turned to toward Jonis. Just as he did, the bottle shattered in his fingers. Jonis’s sword sweeping through. The contents spilled onto the hunter’s hands and at his feet.

A loud scream ruptured from the hunter’s throat. He ran for the fountain, plunging himself into the water as Jonis had, creating a wave that dumped over the other side of the fountain into the courtyard.

Jonis’s face had gone red, swelling where the liquid had hit his skin. He glared at everyone, his father’s sword in his clutches, ready to take on another attacker with renewed energy if he had to. “I’ve had enough of this. Go play war games among yourselves.”

He turned to enter the building.

“No!” the shouts of the other hunters in the square broke out after him. They charged, weapons raised, ready to take him on.

Spinning around on his toes to face them, Jonis jammed his father’s sword into the ill-fitting scabbard at his side, put up his hands in front of him with his thumb tips and his forefingers together in the form of a circle. Shouting loudly, he recited, “North! East! South! West! Ward encircle and protect from hate! Shield!”

Much like a giant wind, something quickly swooped into the courtyard and threw the hunters back. Magistrates and many of the judges fell over also, tumbling into the flowerbeds and scraping along the stone tile. Only Sisrik stood where he had been, as if nothing had occurred at all. The hunter blinked, peered behind him as his eyes grew wide at the sight of so many grown hunters blown back like dry leaves with only the far wall, broken statues, and the fountains to stop them from blowing entirely off the mountaintop.

Jonis lowered his hands.

“What was that?” Sisirk crossed the courtyard right up to Jonis once the commotion died down. “That sounded like a hate ward.”

Nodding curtly, Jonis turned and walked to the door. “It was.”

“How did you know you could do that?” Sisrik followed him in.

Jonis glanced once at Sisrik and faintly smiled. “On accident. I was in a rush one time while we were fighting flesh-eating demons. I did it in panic.” Smirking, he nodded to the hunter. “It is nice to know you don’t hate me anymore.”

He walked indoors.

Sisrik remained outside staring after him.

Behind him, the entire garden seemed to groan. The other hunters got to their feet the moment Jonis had gone. Many were aching store, rubbing their bruises and checking scrapes on all their appendages. A few had broken some bones. All of them glared at the one unharmed hunter, thinking threats they were ready to make reality.

Sisrik just shrugged as he walked back out into the garden and setting his hand on his sword hilt to remind them that he was well and ready to take them on if he had to. “I told you not to fight him. A guy who can defeat a horde of crow demons all by himself is not a demon to be trifled with.”

“Wise words,” the Patriarch above said. He was dusting his own robes off, as did several servants and attendants up on the balcony. Apparently every one around Jonis was hit. “Is there anyone who can take care of my demon problem?”

The hunter that had fled to the fountain to clean off the spilled potion choked. He spat up water as climbed out and rubbed his sopping head. He bowed. “Yes, Your Grace. That Cordril will get sick and die. That potion I threw on him is detrimental to skin sensitive creatures.”

“He didn’t foam at the mouth or twitch,” a hunter with a broken arm eked out through clenched teeth. 

“Patience,” that sly hunter said, wringing out the edge of his tunic. “There are many levels to harm skin-sensitives. The first level was caustic acid.” He showed his own burn. “The next is the tiny creatures that lived in the solution. If he is the kind that absorbs life (as we have seen) then he will get sick, have a high fever. Then he will fall into a coma. His lungs will fill up with their eggs, and he will die. Once he is dead, burn his body.”

“Good,” the Patriarch said, leaning over on the balcony. “How long will this take?”

The hunter smiled. “Two days. You can collect his corpse on the third day and throw a celebration.”

Many of the hunters grinned, feeling quite satisfied.

Sisrik shook his head, averting his eyes to the ground. “Poor kid. And Captain Powal really liked him. I guess I’ll have to break the bad news to Ladis.”

Jonis had a high fever that evening. He did not go out to hunt Night Stalkers—but by then he didn’t care. The true nature of his invitation to the city echoed in his mind. The Patriarch wanted him dead. Somehow the dream of being accepted was over. It was a horrible fact. He was a Cordril, regarded as a demon and an enemy to humans. Like the Night Stalkers, his place in society was a feared one, just like the fop had said. He was the permanent outsider.

Lying on his bed, Jonis stared at the ceiling. His face swelled and his head throbbed. He didn’t even hear the knock at his door, but they let themselves in anyway.

“So it’s true,” Lt. Gillway murmured kneeling next to Jonis’s bed. “You’re sick.”

Attempting to focus his watery eyes, Jonis blinked at his friend. “Merkam. I’m so sorry. It was a trap laid out for me.” He gasped, feeling his lungs ache. “You can go now. Go get married. Leave Danslik.”

“What a sad plea,” Jonis heard another familiar voice say.

Jonis lifted his eyes. The irises dimmed from his usual vibrant blue and were also ringed in red, milky in the whites and watering. He recognized the fop who was the Night Stalker he had spoken to just the evening before, smirking at him in the doorway behind the lieutenant.

“Bidding your friend a fond farewell before you pass into feverish oblivion. How romantic,” the fop said.

“Have you come to mock me?” Jonis muttered, sitting up, though his skin ached as if tearing itself apart.

The fop chuckled—though his eyes actually looked sympathetic. “Only a little. You are quite an amusement, Jonis Macoy.