by Cody Loewen
I win both of my fights, but I decide not to try to mess with the magic in my sword to help me. I wield my longsword, using my own physical abilities and the skills I have devecloped here to win, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to my sword. While I sit and eat my lunch, alone with my thoughts, my mind wanders back to the limitations of my sword’s ability. I think about the fluidity of the blade and transforming the weapon in the middle of a movement in a fight. I imagine my blade slipping through Kromm’s defenses with a clever shift in its shape. A slight smile creeps onto my face at the thought, but it quickly disappears as I look around. I must look crazy sitting here smiling to myself. Looking all around to see if anyone noticed, I see the instructor that first helped me with the mastery of my sword walking towards the center of the clearing.
“Attention initiates,” He commands, his voice carrying over the conversations. He stands silently for a few seconds as the voices all around die down to nothing. “Your partners have all been chosen. Gather around, and we will begin.”
Everyone in the clearing moves at once, converging on the instructor in a tight circle, eager for him to continue. He orders us to form three lines in front of him, and the crowd once again throws itself into motion. At the creation of the lines, he looks over his shoulder at Ambrosius, nods, and the two elves trade places. Ambrosius stands before us, his face solemn as he surveys our group.
“I will begin calling out names. When you hear your name, come forward, meet your partner, and then take your place as a pair off to the side.”
I clench my fists to stop the shake in my hands from nervousness. I look around at the lines of faces, wondering who it will be.
Everyone must be feeling this way, I tell myself, reassuringly.
Ambrosius pulls a sheet of parchment from a bag hanging off his belt and unrolls it. He clears his throat, and I can see his eyes moving as he scans over the writing.
“Martin and Xander.”
I watch Martin move out of line to stand near Ambrosius. He is quickly joined by a small elf I hadn’t noticed before. Xander has jet black hair, just long enough to sit on top of his ears. His serious expression barely shifts as he shakes Martin’s hand in greeting. The pair move off to the side as they were instructed, talking quietly to each other as they walk. Once they take their place, Ambrosius looks back down at his list.
“Horace and Sylva.”
The huge man, who I had lost to in my second fight here, joins a slender elven girl dressed in mottled green leather. The clothes hug her figure tightly, displaying a belt covered in throwing knives. I vaguely remember seeing her during the special weapons sessions. The pair make their way over beside Martin and his partner.
Ambrosius continues down his list. Each pair meets near him and then move over to where the other pairs of fighters are already standing. Caria is paired with the man I was fighting when my sword first transformed.
“Lykara-”
I feel my stomach tighten in anticipation. Who am I going to be entrusting my life to on the battlefield? Who am I going to have the responsibility of fighting beside? These questions and more all race through my mind in a split second.
“-and Rayfe.”
A small sigh of relief escapes my lungs as I hear his name. I am happy to be paired with someone I already know. I scan the remaining faces and quickly find him grinning at me and walking in my direction.
“You and me, huh?” He asks, the smile widening even further. We turn and head toward the other pairs. “I can’t wait to see what you got!”
I chuckle at the remark, but my mind wanders back to when I first arrived, seeing him fight. I try to place myself where his opponent was, and I start to worry about our pairing.
I am not a good enough fighter for him, I think to myself, but I push the negative thoughts out of my head. I have beaten almost everyone here, and we still have weeks of training left. They wouldn’t have paired us together if they didn’t think I was capable of fighting with him. He has to be the best initiate here, and they made me his partner. I stand up straight and proud and look over at him. I smile at him, still grinning at me, as Ambrosius reads the next pair of names off his list.
The instructors must believe in my potential to have paired me with such a capable swordsman.
I don’t know any of the remaining initiates aside from my fights with most of them, so I let my mind wander for the rest of the process. I picture a battlefield in front of me. All around me stand the other initiates, in a sea of soldiers. I look across the field at the teaming mass of bodies coming toward us. The army looks like a single amorphous creature rolling forward across the grass, but as they approach, I can make out one familiar face at the front. The scar running down his face seems to move as he sneers at me. He draws his huge sword and accelerates into a full sprint.
I feel an elbow digging into my side and I come out of my daydream to Rayfe’s face, his perpetual grin still in place.
“Did you fall asleep standing up?” he jokingly asks me. “I hope you don’t do that in the middle of your fights.”
I laugh and feel heat rising in my cheeks. “Sorry, my mind was someplace else. What are we doing now?” I look around and see that the other pairs have moved away from us, but we are still standing in the same place.
“Now we fight,” he answers, drawing his swords. He takes a few widely exaggerated swings at the air in between us before settling into a ridiculous fighting stance. I can’t help but laugh as he takes a bow before returning his swords to their places on his belt. “Seriously, the instructors should be around to enchant our blades for the fight any minute now.”
Scanning the clearing, I quickly see that he is right. Several of the pairs of initiates have already drawn their weapons, ready to fight. I catch sight of the closest instructor, still a few groups away, and I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. I know that Rayfe will be my most talented opponent yet, and I need my mind prepared for the fight. I take a deep breath as the instructor moves forward to the pair next to us.
Chapter 6
I roll my shoulders a few times to loosen them up, my now enchanted sword held loosely in my fingers. As Rayfe takes his position across from me, I bounce lightly on the balls of my feet, excitement and anticipation washing over me like a cool winter breeze. I want to show him that I deserve to be his partner.
“Are you ready?” Rayfe asks, rotating his wrists to casually spin his swords around in his hands. If he is at all nervous, he doesn’t show it. I nod in reply and grip my sword in both hands. In a sudden rush of movement, he stands in front of me, one of his blades flying at me in a downward diagonal chop, impossibly fast. I instinctively drop my right foot back and throw my sword up at an angle, feeling his sword slide down the length of my blade. Before I can recover, he swings his other sword at my side and I barely get my own back down in time to block it. I take a step backward, trying to gain some separation between the two of us to recover for a moment, but as soon as I step back, Rayfe steps forward, as if he could read my thoughts before I moved, and the space I hoped to gain disappears.
I throw my sword up again, barely blocking another lightning fast horizontal sweep aimed at my waist. Rayfe spins, beginning his turn as soon as our blades connect, and sends both of his in a diagonal attack down at me, the blades parallel, inches from one another. The power of the strike, harnessing the momentum from his movements, and the double bladed attack, forces my blade far out wide as I attempt to block the strike, and leaves me open for a killing blow, but he steps back with a grin and allows me to reset myself, before coming forward again.
He is playing with me; I realize with a rush of anger. I am doing everything I can to hold his blades at bay, and this is a casual game to him.
He rushes forward again, and I let out a low growl, determined to get on top of his strikes this time. I focus on catching the directions of his attacks earlier, to reduce the amount of force that he is able to hit me with, but he seems to just speed up the attac
ks, and I am left at the same place I was before. I find myself losing ground, slowly retreating under the seemingly unending onslaught of attacks from my partner and opponent who never tires, and it takes all of my concentration just to avoid those blades. My vision narrows to a dark tunnel; the only thing I see are his arms and the weapons they wield, and I suddenly feel as though I am gaining some ground in the fight. My breath comes in ragged gasps, and my shoulders ache from blocking strike after strike, but I finally feel as though I am not just being pushed back constantly, my focus solely on the weapons. Feeling the momentum begin to shift in the fight, I move to take a step forward, seeing an opening for a counter strike, and bring my blade up to swing it toward his shoulder. But in the span of a single heartbeat, I feel my legs swept out from underneath me, and I hit the ground hard, all the air escaping from my lungs. All I can do is lie there, gasping on the ground, unable to catch my breath.
After what feels like forever, even though it has really only a few moments, I manage to pull some air into my lungs and rise to my feet, furious. Rayfe stands back again, with that impish grin on his face, clearly enjoying this much more than I am. I narrow my eyes and growl as I rush forward, my vision going red as pure rage washes over me at this elf who has been humiliating me. I watch a subtle shift in his grin at my sudden savagery, and suddenly his blades are up, blocking one of my attacks for the first time since the fight began, and I have no intention of letting up the momentum. I grip my sword tightly with both hands, and without hardly thinking, as I bring it around in a mighty downward chop at the top of his head, I am suddenly holding a large battleax, much heavier than my blade was, and the double bladed block that Rayfe had raised in defense barely manages to stop the strike that drives him to his knees.
I watch his eyes widen in surprise as he sits back and gracefully rolls back to his feet several paces away from me.
“What just happened?” He gasps at me, obviously unaware of the properties of my sword. My rage far from sated, I don’t answer and charge him in response, the battleax still gripped tightly in my hands. I swing the weapon in at him, and he raises both his swords, his body instinctually tightening up to take the heavy blow. At the last second, I shift the axe into a small one-handed sword, easily pulling the strike and whipping the blade back in the other direction at him. His eyes go wide again as he realizes what I am doing, and he falls backward to the ground to avoid the “killing blow” coming down at him.
Without hesitation, I follow him to the ground, holding my short sword in a downward grip, ready to drive the blade down into his chest. He catches my arm with his own, holding the blade at bay as we sit there struggling. Through the red veil of rage that still holds me in its grip, I give him a grin of my own as we struggle, my arm pushing down at him, while his hands push back upward, his arms locked to prevent my strike. I suddenly let go of the sword with my right hand, whipping my left hand in to snatch it from the air in a reverse grip, and instantly shift it into a dagger, plunging it down into his exposed chest. I feel the expected magical force right before it touches his body, and he gasps suddenly, the strength going from his arms for a moment before he recovers, the simulated pain fading from my strike.
As his breathing returns to normal, my rage finally dissipates, and I can see and think clearly once more.
I sheath the dagger, shifting it back into its original form as I do, and stand up, offering Rayfe a hand, which he gratefully accepts.
“Well one thing is for sure,” Rayfe acknowledges after I have gotten myself settled. “You can fight.”
Pride surges through me, hearing those words from him. His praise fills me with warmth much like the words used to come from my father.
“So can you,” I answer, immediately embarrassed at my clumsy reply. “Not that anyone thought you couldn’t. I’ve seen you fight before and you are amazing.”
Why do I sound so stupid? I ask myself, my face burning.
He laughs, dispelling my embarrassment with his infectious charisma.
“But you have got to tell me about whatever magic allows you to change your sword at will. I have never seen that before. You are more than you seem, Lykara.”
“The power stems from the sword, and the magic that the weapon contains, I believe,” Ambrosius declares, suddenly standing right in front of us. He must have been watching our fight and witnessed the magic of the sword. I give him a nod in affirmation.
“It isn’t often that a magical item with this much power surfaces in the world,” He says again, looking me in the eyes as he talks. “I have heard tales of weapons imbued with incredible powers, and the legends that come with them, but I never expected to witness the abilities of one myself.”
“The abilities of this specific blade are told in legends from a time long ago, he continues. “But most of those legends have been warped over time, so we have no way of knowing what is really true about your sword and what is myth.”
I stand there taking in every word, hoping for some insight into the magic that has awoken within my blade.
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can tell you about your sword’s origin or its abilities. I even doubted if the legends were actually true. However, from what I have seen this afternoon, the magic in your blade is a far cry from mere legend, and you seem to be able to wield that power at will. That is no small accomplishment, Lykara.”
My face flushes red at the compliment, and I clumsily nod in thanks at his words. His small smile helps to put me at ease a little bit, but his expression becomes serious again as his mouth opens once more.
“Take care with this weapon, though.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him, confused in the sudden shift of his words.
“With magic as powerful as this, there is always a danger present, a price to pay for wielding its power.” His eyes bore into mine saying even more than his words. “You must never become a slave to the power that you wield. More often than not, items like these come with a purpose, and if you don’t control the magic of this sword, it will control you.”
I give him a nod as I try to process his words, unsure of exactly what he is telling me, but not wanting to dismiss the warning too quickly.
“Anyway,” he says after clearing his throat. “that fight was impressive, you two. I can see the chemistry that is already present and am looking forward to seeing it in action when you fight beside each other instead of against one another. Take some time together, learn the way the other moves and reacts, experiment with fighting as a team.”
In a fluid motion, he turns and walks back out into the middle of the clearing away from us, and I turn to Rayfe, who is staring at the sword hanging from my side.
“We are going to make a hell of a team. The trolls better watch out when we make it to the battlefield. With my moves and your fancy sword, they don’t stand a chance.”
The image of Kromm flashes to the front of my thoughts like it has so many times before. I see my sword thrusting through his chest and exploding out his back, and a grim satisfaction comes over me, knowing I am one step closer to that day.
Rayfe and I spend the rest of the day going through fighting techniques, learning each other’s fighting style and assessing our strengths and weaknesses. In order to really be effective partners, according to Ambrosius, we must know our partners as well as we know ourselves and trust them completely because our lives depend on it. As the sun bids us goodbye for the day, we head to where the cooking fire blazes to life, and my stomach lets out a loud groan, letting me know how hungry I am. Other fighting partners sit in clusters around the fire, talking in low tones as they continue to learn more about each other. Rayfe and I take a spot near the fire, yet away from prying ears, where we can talk while we wait for the smell of cooking meat to fill the air.
“So Lykara, you don’t strike me as the soldier type,” Rayfe declares offering me that lopsided grin once more as he sits on a log next to me, one leg resting crossed over the other. “What made you decide
to join the army?”
My emotions bubble up inside of me at the thought of having to relive the story yet again. My pain and fear and anger surge up to drag me down into a dark place inside myself. Heat rises in my cheeks and my vision starts to blur from tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.
He needs to know, I tell myself, taking a deep breath. He’s my partner, he needs to know who I am. He needs to know what he is now part of.
“I never saw myself as a soldier either,” I begin, clearing my throat to compose myself properly. “My father was a soldier, a Reaver actually, but I always thought I would spend my life peacefully in my little village, growing food with him.”
“What changed your mind?” he asks, leaning in to hear my soft words.
“The trolls came.” Tightness threatens to seize my throat and choke off my words. I swallow hard to force it back before continuing. “A troll warlord named Kromm, a monster, marched into our village and demanded supplies for their war. When my father refused, Kromm slaughtered him in cold blood and burned the entire village down. He took the rest of the villagers captive. Even the children.”
My voice breaks as I finish talking and a tear streaks a path down my dirty cheek. I wipe it away quickly, and sniffle, trying to pull myself back together, but I know Rayfe is watching it all. In the heavy silence, he reaches over and puts his hand on my shoulder. Taking comfort in his support, I take a deep breath and continue.
“After the trolls left, I came out from the cellar where my father had me hide, and then buried my father. I vowed then and there to avenge him. To avenge the entire village. That’s why I decided to join the army. I need to fight this evil. I need to kill Kromm.”
