The Crafter's Son: Book One of the Exciting New Coming of Age Epic Fantasy Series, The Crafter Chronicles

by Matthew Berg

  With little to show Breeden that one boy had emerged victorious over the other, the sergeant-at-arms came onto the field and called the match. Before walking them off the field, the sergeant took a few minutes with each boy to talk about their strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities they had missed or exploited during the fight, and his judgment of any innate facility with the weapon of the day he might have observed.

  When the sergeant had returned to the area where Laudan and Derek were waiting, he pointed at Laudan and then looked around at the prospects before him. He didn’t appear to like what he saw. After a moment’s more hesitation, he chose a senior squire named Tavish Ranald, who looked and moved more like a young knight. The boy wasn’t big; he was about Breeden’s size. But he walked onto the field with confidence and a slight swagger to his walk. Breeden was impressed that he seemed undaunted at the prospect of fighting the much larger boy.

  Like those who preceded them, Laudan and his opponent were using training broadswords and were instructed to use both hands. For most boys, this requirement was probably beneficial to allow them greater control over the somewhat heavy weapon. But for Laudan, it was a considerable hindrance and slowed his reactions and limited his range, as well as the flexibility of his fighting style.

  The sergeant-at-arms gave the signal to begin, and the reason for the confidence of Laudan’s opponent soon became apparent. The boy was very, very good. Within a matter of seconds, he had penetrated Laudan’s guard with a torso-high feint followed by a low thrust that jabbed Laudan solidly in his thigh. Laudan grimaced in pain and took a few halting steps backward. He looked angry about having been struck. He parried the next two tentative jabs, but when the boy hit him again, this time with the same torso-high feint, followed not by the low jab as before but by a slight dip of his sword tip and then a follow-up thrust back to the torso, his face began to purple with anger. Breeden smiled at the first hit, but after the second, he began to see a transformation in Laudan he’d not seen before. Laudan was normally calm and controlled his emotions well, but right now he looked fit to tear his opponent’s head off.

  Tavish seemed to sense Laudan’s anger as well and backed off the intensity of his attack, moving into a more defensive posture. And it was well he did, for Laudan’s eyes were clouding over with rage, and he began to swing the sword like a woodsman’s felling axe. Under most circumstances, Breeden would have thought such an attack would be easily defensible, and Tavish appeared to be a capable swordsman. But Laudan’s attacks were now coming with ferocity and intensity, and it was all Tavish could do to parry each overhanded swing. The sergeant saw what was happening and yelled out, “Take it down a notch, Marchant! This is a training match!”

  But Laudan didn’t hear him, or chose to ignore him, and continued his now mindless assault. As the overhanded blows reached a cadence of repetition, Tavish seemed to realize that Laudan wasn’t going to stop, and his air of confidence cracked.

  The sergeant-at-arms came out on the field and was shouting at Laudan with all of his breath. “STOP THE MATCH! NOW, MARCHANT! STOP THE MATCH!”

  Laudan shifted his attack from repeated overhead blows and swung sideways with all of his might, the path of his sword parallel to the ground. Tavish blocked the blow, but he did so at an awkward angle, and Laudan’s sword knocked the weapon from his hand. The momentum of Laudan’s sword carried it forward into the boy’s left arm, just above the elbow. There was a muffled crack, as of a stick broken beneath a blanket. And the boy crumpled to the ground. His face was a mask of agony as Laudan stood over him with his sword half-raised for another blow. Even from this distance, Breeden could see the terror and pain blazing in the eyes of the boy on the ground before him. And then the fight seemed to drain out of Laudan as quickly as it had come. All at once, he appeared to realize what he had done. He lowered his sword and allowed it to slip from his slackened grip and fall to the ground.

  The sergeant barked at Laudan as he was bending to examine the fallen boy. “Back to the barracks, Marchant! I’ll speak to you later!” And then he was all business, removing a dirk from his broad leather belt and, with surprising care, cutting away the padded armor at Tavish’s shoulder. Once he had cut all the way around the fabric, he gently slid the entire sleeve off the boy’s arm. He then cut and tore away the linen undergarment the boy was wearing and finally got a good look at the arm. It was clearly broken, a tent of skin jutting out from the otherwise flat and unbroken surface, where a bone was trying to pierce his skin. He shouted for a piece of wood and for the surgeon, clearly looking for something to splint the injury with until the boy could be brought inside the castle. When one of the other boys tried to hand him a training sword, he batted it to the ground.

  “Fool! I said wood! Is there no one here with sense in his head?” Instinctively, Breeden looked around him. The spindles of the railing right in front of him. One of those would be perfect. His eyes lost focus as he scanned them to select a likely candidate. There! A few feet away, a spindle wasn’t properly fixed in place, its nail loose enough that he should be able to free it. He ran over and jerked it out of its place in a single try. With no time to wonder at what he had done or was doing, he ran down a short flight of stairs to the sparring field and produced the spindle for the waiting sergeant. The sergeant was alone at this point, since the boys who had previously surrounded him had scattered like mice before a farmer’s wife when he’d demanded they find him a suitable splint. He saw Breeden coming.

  “That’ll do. That’ll do. Quickly now, boy! Hand me the splint and help me with the binding. It won’t go easy as it is, and I don’t think I can do it by myself.” The sergeant paused for a moment to place the spindle against the boy’s arm. “It’s a bit long, but it’ll serve. Well done, son.

  “Now, I need you to cut that sleeve right there into long strips. I’ll need at least three or four, and try to get me even more than that if you can. Here’s my dagger. It should be sharp enough to make the job go easily.”

  Breeden dutifully cut the strips from the garment as he was instructed and got five serviceable strips from it. As he glanced up, the sergeant was looking the injured boy in the eye and holding a wad of rolled-up leather in his hand. He was quietly explaining to Tavish that he should bite down on the leather and that his arm would heal properly if he had anything to say about it. The boy looked somewhat calmer from his ministrations and nodded his head briefly to indicate he was ready for what he knew was coming next.

  The sergeant waited a moment longer, while still holding Tavish’s eyes with his own, and then pulled, a quick but steady movement that straightened out the bones under the skin and put them back in a condition close to proper alignment. As he did so, the boy’s body went rigid with pain, and his legs kicked out in an attempt to buck the sergeant off him. Breeden moved to pin down the boy’s legs. The sergeant nodded to him in thanks and then continued probing and adjusting the bones into position with the fingers of his free hand.

  “I’m going to need help with the binding as well.”

  He looked around briefly and spotted a young boy trying to watch what was happening from the edge of the field. “Pers! Get over here! Pin Ranald’s legs down!”

  And then to Breeden: “You. I need you to bind his arm while I hold the bones in place. When Pers takes over the legs, start at the shoulder, right under the armpit, and tie a knot with one of those strips you cut. Then wrap it tight. Not so tight his arm dies and falls off, but pretty bloody tight. And make sure you have enough to wrap down well past the elbow.”

  As soon as the other boy had taken his position at Tavish’s legs, Breeden tied all five strips into one long bandage and then did as the sergeant bade him. While he worked, the sergeant was continually instructing and commenting on his work. “Right, right . . . Good! . . . Watch you don’t run out of binding . . . Good knots! . . . A bit farther apart there . . .”

  Breeden found himself losing focus once again, and as much as he was beginning to acclimate hims
elf to the sensation, this time he definitely wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Within his mind, he found he could perceive the devastation in Tavish’s arm. The flesh, sinew, and bone were in disarray, their arrangement and position misaligned. Even with the sergeant’s manual placement of the bones, which Breeden noted almost absently was close to perfect, there was too much wrong in the arm. And the complexity of the tissues and their structure was too difficult for Breeden even to contemplate.

  He was dimly aware of the fact that part of him was still wrapping the boy’s arm, still functioning outside of this separate place where he found his consciousness. As his hands wound the bandage around a troublesome spot in the break, he saw that he needed to open the gap between the bones to allow a fragment of torn flesh to slip out from between the two broken ends. The softer tissue inside his arm had been caught on the sharp edge of the bone and had become trapped in between. He quickly made the adjustment with his hands—to the startled surprise of the sergeant—and then shifted the splint ever so slightly and tightened the wrap to align the opposing bones. As he made the adjustment, Tavish arched his back once more and then went limp. He had blacked out. But Breeden hadn’t fully registered the fact, and found he was quite calm and detached from the entire situation. It was as if he were observing himself respond, unwind the bandage one turn, adjust the bones, and carefully rewrap the arm until the part of him that existed in both places was satisfied.

  He finished the job with plenty of binding left over and tied his final knot. He stood up awkwardly, not sure what he should do next and disoriented as his full consciousness returned and his focus widened to take in the world around him. He realized that he had been away longer than ever before, and his normal sense of the world took longer to return.

  “Where’d you go, boy? For a minute there, I thought you were going to read his future!”

  As when Kestrel had asked a similar question of him, Breeden didn’t know how to respond, and as he had tried to do with Kestrel, he said nothing.

  “And why did you adjust the bones again? I have to admit they might just feel a bit better now than they did after I put them right, but I can’t say why, or how you made it so.”

  If he was expecting an answer, Breeden wasn’t prepared to give him one. He was too preoccupied with wondering once again what strange power had been granted to him. Then the sergeant stuck his hand in Breeden’s face.

  “My name’s Hewrey, by the way, Raffe Hewrey.”

  “I’m Breeden Andehar, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir. You’re no squire any more than I’m a knight. What’s one commoner got any business calling another sir for, eh?”

  The words were finally reaching Breeden, and he responded. “True enough.”

  The sergeant seemed to want Breeden to respond more fully. “Saw you went right to square knots all around. Good to see someone that knows better than to tie an old granny knot. And you were pretty quick with that splint. What was that, by the way?”

  Breeden looked the sergeant in the eye, his bewilderment mostly receded by now. “A spindle.” He pointed. “From the pavilion railing. It was the first thing I could think of.”

  The sergeant looked pleased that Breeden was finally responding and answering his questions. Then he appeared to realize that the surgeon hadn’t yet arrived, and he glanced down at the boy lying before him. Tavish’s eyes were closed. And he had spit out the wad of leather as he passed out. He scanned the area around the sparring field again.

  “You!” Now he was addressing Oskar, who had finally found the nerve to approach the injured boy. “Where is that bloody surgeon?”

  Oskar jumped. “I’m not sure, Sergeant.”

  “Well, go find him, you bloody useless statue!”

  And then he turned to the small boy still holding down Tavish’s legs. “Pers, you can let go now. He’s passed out. And by Mungo’s beard, you’d better find that bloody surgeon!”

  The sergeant spoke again, trying one more time to provoke conversation from Breeden. “Actually, I’m not so much worried about the surgeon at this point. The arm should be fine if he can keep from using it. You did good work today, Breeden. I thank you for your help.”

  “You’re welcome, Sergeant. So, you think he’ll be okay? His arm, I mean.”

  “Sure, sure. He’ll be right as rain in two months. Don’t you worry about him. Ranald’s a tough one. He’ll be a fine knight someday. I’m as sure of it as I am of anything else. He’s smart, he’s confident, he’s one hell of a swordsman, and he treats people well. He’ll be just fine.”

  Breeden smiled. He didn’t know Tavish, had never spoken with him before, but this grizzled old soldier made him sound like someone he should go out of his way to meet.

  A moment later the surgeon arrived, Oskar and two castle boys bearing a litter in tow. The sergeant cursed under his breath, and Breeden couldn’t help himself. “What’s wrong with the surgeon?”

  Raffe looked at him, and uncertainty was reflected in his eyes. “What?”

  “You just swore when you saw him coming.”

  “Oh, no. That wasn’t for seeing the surgeon. That was for seeing that it was another bloody commoner that found him.”

  Breeden looked puzzled, and the sergeant explained. “I had fourteen squires in this field when I sent them to find the surgeon, just as when I sent them in search of wood for a splint. And I’ve a commoner bringing me the splint, and another commoner finding me the surgeon. What kind of war leaders are we training here? There are lessons aplenty to pass out today, I warrant.”

  The surgeon reached them then and asked the sergeant and Breeden to clear some space for him. He examined the injury and its binding, probing with his thumbs to determine the extent and nature of the break, and tugging here and there at the bindings. He did this for several minutes and asked a handful of questions as he worked. “Who bound this injury? . . . How long has the boy been out? . . . Describe the incident that caused the injury . . .” After he had finished his probing, he reached into a pouch at his belt and removed a small stoppered bottle, which he uncorked and ran beneath the injured boy’s nose. Tavish immediately woke up, and the surgeon placed his hand gently on his chest to hold him still.

  The boy calmed at the sight of the surgeon, and the sergeant standing within view at his back. He appeared to remember why he was lying down and spoke. “My arm is broken?”

  The surgeon nodded. “Sure is, son. But it’s well set. You’ll be fine.”

  Tavish was clearly in pain, but he looked relieved at the man’s words. “Laudan . . . ?”

  The surgeon returned a quizzical look, and the sergeant responded for him. “He’s sorry for what he did. But there is no excuse for such an act. He will be punished, rest assured.”

  “No!” The act of raising his voice caused Tavish to grimace in pain. And then, softer: “No, he didn’t mean it, I’m sure. He’s a good kid. He’s pretty amazing, actually. I’ve never faced anyone so strong. But don’t be too harsh.” He clearly wanted to say more, but the sergeant interrupted him.

  “No, Tavish. Save your breath. You will be two months recovering from this wound, and another two months before you are back to where you are today. Don’t try to protect him. He needs to understand that his strength is a gift—true, it is an awesome one—but it is a gift not to be carelessly wielded by a thoughtless boy!”

  Tavish seemed to understand that Sergeant Hewrey didn’t want to hear more excuses, and held his tongue. Breeden was impressed with Tavish and immediately understood why the sergeant spoke so highly of him. And oddly, he found himself agreeing with the sergeant about the punishment as well. What he had seen in Laudan had scared him. Laudan could easily have killed Tavish before he came to his senses. He had seen the look in his friend’s eyes. The look was terrifying. The look was death.

  The surgeon cleared his throat and ceased his examination. And when he looked up, he appeared satisfied. “The arm should heal well. The swelling will increase, and we will
likely need to loosen the bandages when it does, but the bone is well positioned. Assuming nothing important inside the arm was cut before you managed to put everything back in its proper place, he may regain full use of it. As always, Sergeant, your field dressing is excellent, though I suppose it pays to have so very much experience with such tasks.” He had been serious from the first and throughout his examination, but he finally smiled at the last. It was clear to Breeden that the man truly did respect the sergeant-at-arms’s work.

  The sergeant nodded to the surgeon in thanks for the comment and remained silent, expectant. The surgeon then signaled that the boys who had accompanied him should load Tavish onto the litter. The sergeant dutifully followed the surgeon and the injured boy off the field.

  Breeden and Oskar stepped toward each other and nodded in silent recognition that something important had happened to their friend. Or maybe it was a recognition that they now understood something new about Laudan. Breeden couldn’t really be sure what he had meant by the nod, nor what Oskar had intended. He was only sure, he supposed, that things had changed, and that Laudan was no longer the respectful, silent, and well-meaning noble he had always thought he was. Breeden found himself humbled by the experience. Laudan was always so composed and so sure of himself. So faithful to his belief in the One God. And he had always shown such patience and restraint when others were so free with their criticisms and their opinions. Like so many other people, Laudan clearly had his own demons.