Infinity Blade 01- Awakening

down at the man.
    A clang rang through the cavern.
    The stranger stood there, arm extended, sword blocking the daeril’s attack.
    The townspeople, the daerils, and Weallix all seemed to notice the stranger for the first time. People pulled back from him in a ring.
    Then they saw the sword.
    That sword . Long and smooth at the sides, with a distinctive set of three holes in its center . . . it was a symbol every child in the land was taught to recognize. A symbol of power, of authority, and of rulership.
    It was the God King’s own weapon.
    The daeril was so surprised that it could do nothing but gape as the stranger spun the weapon and impaled the creature through the throat. The stranger moved in an eyeblink, ripping the sword free and dashing forward, cloak trailing behind him. He grabbed one of the chains, moving with practiced familiarity, and swung on it. He swept to a pair of daerils who were towing a young woman toward the stage.
    The two fell easily. These were not the champions of the God King’s palace; they were simple brutes. The stranger left them gurgling in their own blood.
    Weallix started yelling, calling for his soldiers. He raved and ranted, pointing. Then he cut off, stumbling back as the stranger grabbed a chain and pushed forward, swinging up and landing with a thump on the wagons. The purple-skinned daeril struck with a thick-headed mace, but the God King’s weapon—the Infinity Blade itself—flashed in the air.
    The daeril looked with befuddlement at the stump of his mace. The head thumped to the floor of the cart. The daeril’s corpse followed a moment later.
    Weallix tried to leap from the cart, but fell to his knees as the vehicle shook. As he rose, he found the blade at his neck.
    “Call them off,” the stranger said in a soft voice.
    “Daerils!” Weallix cried. “Release the people and stand back! Stand back!”
    The stranger’s hood had fallen behind, revealing a silvery helm that covered his entire face. He waited as the monsters retreated to the edge of the clustered townsfolk. Then he raised his blade—dripping with blood from the monsters he’d slain—and pointed toward the mouthlike opening into the town. “Out. Never return.”
    Weallix obeyed in a scramble, falling to the ground as he climbed from the cart, then dashed at a full run out of the cavern, his daerils falling in around him.
    The cavern fell silent. The stranger finally reached up and peeled his helm from his head, exposing sweaty, brown-blonde hair and a youthful face.
    Siris. The Sacrifice. The man who had been sent to die.
    “I have returned,” he told the townspeople.

Chapter One
    “He wasn’t supposed to win ,” Master Renn hissed.
    Siris could hear them talking in the other room of Renn’s hut. Siris sat quietly, holding a small bowl of soup in one hand. Fenweed, a very healthy soup. A warrior’s soup.
    It tasted like dishwater.
    “Well,” Master Shanna said, “we can’t exactly blame him, can we? For living, I mean?”
    “He went to fight the God King,” Master Hobb said. “ We sent him to fight the God King.”
    And Siris had gone, just as his father and his grandfather had gone. Dozens had been sent over the centuries, always from the same family. A family sheltered, protected, and hidden by the people of the land.
    The Sacrifice, it was called. It was how they fought back. The only way. They’d live beneath the oppressive thumb of the God King. They’d pay nearly all they had in tribute, would suffer the brutality of men like Weallix—who, up until his power grab, had been only a simple tax collector.
    But they would make this one act of rebellion. One family, hidden. One warrior each generation, sent to show that the people of this land were not completely dominated.
    The Sacrifice didn’t need to win. He wasn’t expected to win. He wasn’t supposed to be able to win.
    Hell take me, Siris thought, looking down at his bowl. Even I didn’t expect to defeat him. Siris had gone in with the dream that maybe—if he were incredibly lucky—he’d get a single cut on the God King, make the tyrant bleed.
    Instead, he’d slain one of the Deathless .
    The other room fell silent, then the whispers continued, softly enough that he couldn’t hear.
    I really did it, Siris thought. I’m alive. It was only now beginning to sink in. He looked down, then pointedly set the bowl aside. And that means I never have to drink this dreck again!
    He stood up, smiling. He had dreamed of what