Page 10 of The Sunlit Man

Damnation,he thought as the man’s terrified shouts shook him to the core.

Nomad forced his eyes open andrippedhis right hand out of the manacle, his supernatural strength shattering the thumb and tearing the skin along the sides of his hand. He raised his bleeding hand above his head and to the side, then summoned Auxiliary from the mud.

Holding the hilt with only his fingers against his palm, Nomad whipped his hand forward, throwing Auxiliary to spin—flashing and glorious—through the air. Aux slammed into one of the pillars on the podium right next to Glowing Eyes’s head—a six-foot-long glittering sword, Auxiliary’s truest form. It sank deeply into the pillar and hung there, quivering.

The crowd hushed.

Huh,Auxiliary said in his head.I thought you couldn’t do that anymore.

He’d intentionally aimed away from Glowing Eyes. By not threatening anyone, Nomad could avoid triggering the Torment. That said, it had been a while since he had seen the full Blade, been able to access it in all its glory. As he’d hoped, Glowing Eyes was stunned by this spectacular apparition. He gaped at the sword in confusion, forgetting his captive. The gap-toothed man shrank back in the grip of his guards, but hadn’t been touched by the spear yet.

Nomad resummoned Auxiliary, trying to form the Blade again. He failed. The Torment had slipped up once, but now it was on guard. No weapons. Nomad raised Auxiliary high in the form of a tall pole. His thumb screamed in pain, but a bracer at the bottom held it in place, letting him grip it with his unbroken fingers. He formed it into a wrench next, then a crowbar.

Glowing Eyes watched the weapon, entranced, a visible hunger in his wide eyes. He stumbled off the platform, carrying the spear. Fixated on Nomad.

“Good,” Nomad whispered. He met those glowing eyes, daring them forward. “Good. You want this. Come, try to takemeas one of your slaves. Then you can command me to give it to you, right?”

The man approached, paused, then held the spear in front of him, threatening.

“I don’t fancy being stabbed as I absorb the Investiture,” Nomad said to Auxiliary. “You want to handle this one?”

Yes,Auxiliary said.Just form me as a receptacle—or even a standard shield—on your chest as he stabs, and I’ll recycle the energy.

Glowing Eyes hesitated a few feet from Nomad.

“Come on, you!” Nomad shouted. “Stab me!”

The man put the white-hot spear tip near Nomad’s eye and demanded something.

“I don’t speak your tongue, idiot,” Nomad said. “Just stab me!”

The man waved at Nomad’s hands, speaking again, sterner.

He wants you to show him, the knight explains to his sometimes-dense squire, how you summon the tools.

Instead Nomad summoned a nice dollop of spit—spiced with the mud that still crusted his lips—and delivered it right into the bastard’s eye. The spittlehissed, as if on a hot plate, and the man jerked back, furious.

He pointed his spear at Nomad’s chest, growling, causing the crowd to cheer.

Here we go,Nomad thought.

At that moment, one of the nearby ships exploded.

Nomad cried outin frustration as Glowing Eyes turned toward the sound, then began shouting orders as he strode—tall and unflinching—back toward the podium.

Weapon fire—blasts with a distinctly red-white heat—rained from the sky. Glowing Eyes shouted something else, and ember people—a good two hundred of them—came running out onto the rims of ships. Then, as one, their embers dulled.

Their bracers were activating. Nomad’s did as well, but in a panic, he summoned Auxiliary in a specific shape—two thin metal bracersunderneaththe ones on his arms, separating them from touching his skin. It was an odd construction, as he generally had to make Auxiliary into pieces that were touching—so these weird bracers-under-his-bracers were connected by a rod.

It worked, though, keeping him from being frozen this time.

Clever, the knight compliments his squire with true appreciation. That’s an odd shape, even for you.

He could manage practically anything with Auxiliary, assuming he could make it from the appropriate amount of metal. And assuming he understood the construction on a fundamental level. He’d failed to make a clock, for example, until he’d carefully studied the schematics for one.

The remnants of the scholar inside him whispered that he was too simple with this power—that he could do much greater things if he practiced. There just wasn’t a lot of time for anything in his life other than running, and the constant pressure sometimes left it difficult to summon the imagination for any but the most obvious solutions.

Regardless, his bracers buzzed as if annoyed to be rendered nonfunctional by being unable to touch his skin. The ember people had no such protection—and they dropped like toddlers at nap time, collapsing where they were, falling into the mud.

---