Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1)

by Jonathan Renshaw

  Everyone looked.

  Malik’s lips pressed tightly shut. Aedan guessed that he had been instructing Cayde to take his sword and hit as gently as possible. Aedan would do quite the opposite.

  “Yep,” said Peashot. “He’s scared.”

  “Give it!” Malik snapped, grabbing his sword from Cayde and making the swap with Aedan. He could not voice a warning to treat his blade gently now that everyone was watching, but the warning was in his eyes.

  Aedan read it, and smiled. He was going to hit those shields as hard as his arms would allow, knowing full well that Malik would do the same.

  Hadley was first, as usual. Then the others followed. The swords that did not bend shattered. When Aedan stepped up, he swung hard enough to slice through the shield, the branch and the stone underneath, but the single-ingot blade snapped clean off at the hilt on impact.

  Malik, with cold fury in his eyes was next. He hacked and hammered until he was puffing. Skeet had to stop him, informing him that he was only supposed to execute ten cuts. Aedan’s sword had a few nicks and the blade was bent from when Malik had purposely hit against the flat.

  Aedan took it back and returned Malik’s hilt – the rest of the sword having skittered away somewhere down the courtyard.

  “You’ll pay for this,” Malik hissed.

  “Nobody would pay for this,” Aedan said, glancing at the stump of metal. Several boys laughed as Malik stalked away.

  The testing continued. Only Warton’s held its shape, though not its edge, but as all the boys had felt when trying it, the balance was so far forward it may as well have been an axe.

  Then Skeet brought out a whole range of poorly made swords – from bad steel composition to misguided hilt design. He explained the flaws while demonstrating the results. They bent and broke in a number of interesting ways, and the apprentices were allowed to feel a little better.

  Then Skeet drew his own sword and delivered a blinding slash, producing a deep cut in the shield and no visible damage to the blade.

  “Being able to recognise a poor weapon,” he said, “is as important as choosing a good one. In a sense they are the same thing. Thanks to this exercise, you should all have an intimate acquaintance with many construction defects. Now you are going to get back into the smithy during the night shift and each of you will produce at least one blade that we can add to our armoury. This time you will keep them short.”

  They returned to the heat and smoke and din of hammers for another week. In that time Aedan, Warton and Hadley produced not one but two serviceable weapons each, impressing the swordsmiths whose advice they had depended on.

  When all the boys were done, they were allowed to mend their first blades and keep them as reminders of the need to respect the skills of a master at his craft.

  Warton took the prize. Aedan came a close second – everyone had seen how heavily his sword had been punished. He didn’t really mind the cleanup duty, taking pleasure in the knowledge that it would hurt Malik a hundred times more.

  In spite of the unanimous vote, there was a good deal of grumbling about Warton’s overfed, bloated blade. They decided to honour it with two awards – one for the strongest sword, one for the year’s most interesting farming invention.

  Once the rest of the blades were mended, there were dozens of mock battles to be seen in the passages at night, and one or two minor injuries. During these battles, each dorm considered itself Thirna and the rival dorms were mostly Fennlor and sometimes Lekrau.

  The boys were all mightily pleased with their work, not so much because it was good, but because it was theirs. They had actually made their own swords!

  It was late one night and the others had all fallen asleep when Aedan placed his on top of the bookshelf and stepped back to better appreciate the overall shape. Light from his lantern played over the uneven metal giving it that chunky look, the look of ditch water on a restless day.

  But there was something else he had seen before that looked like this. He racked his brain for a moment, hoping for some terrible and daunting image, until all the little pocks and dimples from a thousand uneven hammer strikes brought an image to mind. Aedan winced. It was Harriet’s oldest pot – dented with battering and hard use, and equally dull and sooty.

  He pushed the image away with a shudder and decided not to dwell too much on the appearance of his new blade. This was a warrior’s weapon, not some decoration for a statesman’s office. What did it matter if it was a bit rugged, lacked shine, wasn’t exactly straight …

  He decided, after a little contemplation, not to name it. Perhaps the next one.

  As he crawled into bed, he almost failed to notice the deep shudder that ran through the floor and caused the faintest slipping of dust from the walls around him. It was brief, stilled again before he gave it any attention, as if something in the earth had cleared its throat to speak and then drawn back into silence.

  It was just a feather of a thought, a hint of doubt. Was there more for Castath to fear, something entirely unconnected with the plans of hostile nations? But the shudder had been too subtle and the exhaustion too great. Before he knew it, he was asleep and the thought lost.

  Rodwell’s persistent droning bounced off Aedan’s ears causing little damage. Like the rest of the boys, he had never celebrated the classes in law. But now, after the thrill of sword-making, these monotonous strings of wordy terminology held doses of boredom that were surely fatal.

  Aedan turned away and let his thoughts drift out the window.

  It was midmorning of a sizzling day plucked from the middle of the sun and dropped into a lingering summer. Green lawns sprawled in the golden blaze; a few students sprawled where the lawns crept under the shade of oak and plane. Birds dropped out of the sky and collapsed on leafy branches where they wheezed and panted and fell asleep; spiders ignored the flies stretched out in their webs, and all the world dreamed.

  Nudged by a sleepy conscience, Aedan wrenched himself into the classroom just in time to hear Rodwell say something about eleven exclusion clauses to bad-debt penalties in merchant commerce. He uttered a tortured groan and collapsed back into blissful thoughts that fled the academy, dived into the river where they splashed around until cool, and then sat down dripping in the shade on a grassy rise. It had become one of the boys’ favourite pastimes to watch from their little hill as work progressed on the grounds laid out for the much-awaited autumn festival.

  The screech of chairs told Aedan that the class was over. He had survived with minimal injury and decided to apply the same technique through the rest of the day. But something long-awaited was soon to change this.

  It was the beginning of Dun’s evening class, and Aedan was the only one who remained where he was after the announcement. He hadn’t been listening.

  “Did he say we can handle them?” he asked Peashot. But Peashot was already halfway to one of the racks, reaching for a sword that was too long for him by a yard. That was all the answer Aedan needed. He snapped fully awake and headed for a line of weird leaf-bladed monstrosities.

  Dun allowed the apprentices one whole class to move freely through the weapons hall where, at last, they were permitted to handle and study whatever beckoned. After the days spent making his own sword, Aedan looked through the weapons in an entirely new way, searching for weaknesses, estimating strength, and remarking on balance.

  His appreciation for good blades had only grown. Around him the gleaming eyes and expressions of awe were telling. The primary fascination was, of course, with the longswords and greatswords – massive weapons that the boys pretended to lift without effort, while arms shook in their sleeves and necks were webbed with bulging veins.

  Dun watched all of this with wry amusement.

  The following morning, he spoke to them.

  “You heard about the increased weapons production in Greel,” he said. “Unfortunately it has grown worse than that. Three weeks ago one of our rangers happened on a camp of six men in the forest south of th
e river. The ranger was spotted and barely got away. We haven’t been able to find his attackers who we suspect were Fenn scouts – skilful ones too. The thing that really concerns us is that the ranger is convinced they were trying to capture, not kill him.”

  Dun paused to allow the boys to reach the conclusion themselves. “It’s information they were after,” he said. “Now, considering the depth of inside knowledge you are given, we can no longer afford to let you out into the wilds with only hunting weapons. It’s time that you learned to handle the blades you have been making. Follow me.”

  The boys jostled each other as Dun led them from the weapons hall into the training hall and had them sit in front of a strange new addition to the furnishings – a pig carcass. The carcass was bound in leather and steel armour, and beside it was a rack with a dozen swords. They ranged from short, stout weapons no longer than a forearm to curving single-edged blades, and finally to the towering greatsword.

  “I think you can guess what we are going to do here,” Dun said, “and what you will be having for lunch.” He walked over to the rack. “Let’s begin with edge cuts.”

  He drew a very short double-edged, leaf-bladed sword, hacked at the unguarded carcass, then at the leather armour and finally at the steel plate-armour. Damage was minimal. The falchion, with its heavy head and slightly curved edge was far more impressive. The standard military-issue straight-edged arming sword and the longsword, though more imposing weapons, produced less damage. A basket-hilted broadsword was no better. The curved sabre and cutlass surprised them all by slicing through the leather easily and creating an even deeper dent in the steel plate than the falchion had done.

  Eager smiles showed as Dun took up the greatsword which stood almost as tall as he did. He brought it down with a shriek of wind and it gave the carcass a resounding thump, but unlike the curved blades, it was not able to slice through steel or leather.

  “Now before you all sink into clouds of disappointment,” Dun said, “remember that a war hammer will not pierce armour either, but it will fell an enemy. Cutting is not everything, but it is important. What have we learned from this?”

  “Curved blades cut better,” the boys replied.

  “And thinner blades,” added Vayle. “The sabre cut deeper than the falchion.”

  “True,” said Dun, “though that also has to do with the increased blade speed of a longer weapon. Anyone know why the curved blade slices more easily?”

  They thought about this for a moment before one of the boys from Warton’s dorm offered a reply. “If you sit on stones that are all the same height it doesn’t hurt, but if some of them are higher, it does. I think it’s the same with the blade where only the high parts are pressing hard and they sink in more easily.”

  “That’s an interesting way to describe force distribution. Another reason is that a curved blade will tend to slide over the surface and not just press as a straight sword does. A sliding blade will always cut more easily. Anyone who has worked in the kitchen will have seen this. Does everyone understand the principles?”

  They did, or at least pretended to.

  He moved to the other side of the rack and took up the smallest sword again. This time he stabbed. The results were even more disappointing. The shorter blades made deep punctures in both types of armour. The longer blades bent in ways that the boys had not thought possible, leaving far shallower punctures. The longsword actually bent so far that it retained its skew form and the greatsword bowed and bounced Dun away from the steel plating, revealing only a vague impression in the armour.

  “Conclusions?” said Dun.

  There were several responses:

  “Longer blades bend.”

  “Shorter blades are sturdier for thrusting.”

  “Never underestimate short swords.”

  “Long swords are stupid.”

  Dun held up his hand. “Longer swords are not stupid,” he said. “What crucial aspect have we not dealt with here?”

  “Reach,” said Aedan.

  “Exactly. What good will your little falchion be if you can’t get close enough to use it? Remember that in combat it is often the one who causes the first damage who wins. It is seldom necessary to cut an enemy up for firewood. A thrust to the eye or chop into the shoulder will put an end to most resistance.”

  He picked up the curved sabre and held it out straight. “What is the difficulty with thrusts here?”

  “The point is not where you expect it to be, unless you are used to that sword,” said Peashot.

  “And that’s a very important thing to remember. If you are watching the tip, you’ll adjust naturally, but if it’s dark or you’re rushed, you could miss your target by a long way. When thrusting at chinks in armour or at eyes, it could render your efforts largely useless.”

  “Master Dun,” Peashot interrupted, “is that why there are some swords back in the weapons hall that have a curved edge and a flat back with a point that looks like a sting.”

  “Well spotted,” said Dun. He went to retrieve one of these swords and held it up. “Two protruding, curved edges would have made it too heavy at this length, so the design is a compromise. The front edge is given a curve by means of an outward bulge, but the point is dead ahead. Sickle swords also try to achieve the compromise, but as far as I’m concerned, the farmers can have them.”

  To end the demonstration, he took up a spear, held it at the back of the shaft, and rammed it through the steel armour and deep into the carcass where he let it rest. The wooden shaft bobbed slowly in the air.

  “And the disadvantage of a spear?”

  “It’s only really dangerous at the tip,” Hadley said. “If an enemy gets past that, it’s just a stick.”

  Dun nodded. “Same problem if the tip gets sliced off. Now do you begin to see why there is no such thing as a supreme weapon? Respect them all for their particular strength.”

  The following day, the boys were presented with their first training weapons – swords, daggers, shields, spears, bows and quarterstaves. “You will begin with wooden and covered blades,” Dun said. “They are shorter and lighter than full blades so that you don’t develop bad habits while trying to adjust for excessive size and weight. Remember, these are only for training. From now on, during any outing that requires you to leave the safety of the Castath surrounds, you will carry sharpened steel.”

  Each apprentice was given two swords – one of straight wood, and one of curved iron bound in tough leather. Dun showed some of the ways they might be carried – by belt, baldric, or mounted across the back. Different applications called for different mountings and he pointed out the disadvantages to each. Both a baldric and a hip attachment could be cumbersome to movement, catching, even tripping the wearer, whereas a sword on the back was conveniently out of the way but was much more difficult to draw in an emergency and exposed an armpit that would seldom be covered by armour. Dun showed how, if this particular mounting sagged, locating and retrieving the weapon could be troublesome, and how, with a full scabbard, a long sword could only be pulled half way out before the arm was fully extended. There were modified scabbards that compensated with slits or by enclosing only part of the blade, but they created other problems.

  “Generally,” he said, “back mountings are recommended for short blades or very long blades that would be clumsy at the hip and could not be drawn there either.”

  When he had finished with scabbards, he folded his arms and put on a stern expression. “After this class, you are always to be with training sword, or quarterstaff, or bow and quiver, so that you can get comfortable with them. Even at night, some weapon is to be immediately within reach. Expect to be tested in this. Anyone who has to scratch around in the darkness to find his weapon will do circuits until morning.”

  It was Vayle’s confidence that tripped him up. Instead of doing like the others and keeping his wooden sword under his pillow, he placed it under the bed where it wouldn’t cause him discomfort.

  At the
wild, clanging alarm, they sprang from bed, wooden weapons clutched, while Vayle knelt in the darkness, bumped his head on the timber frame, groped around, knocked the sword deeper under the bed, and had to crawl after it on his belly. He looked quite spent when he finally stood before a sad-faced clerk who said nothing and merely pointed to the door. By morning Vayle was too tired to even hear the jibes. The training blade slept under his pillow from then on.

  Dun taught the sword in a way that was far less spectacular than had been hoped. The training began with long, heavy mops. The boys were made to traverse a course of short upturned logs with the woolly-headed weapons, executing basic thrusts and cuts at each step. It was a week before their balance compensation was good enough to allow them to finish the course.

  After mopping out the hall, they retired the mops and progressed to training swords. As they began working on forms and rudimentary sequences, there was no dimming of the weapons-master’s obsession with balance. The number of times they heard the word “feet” was beyond counting.

  “Foundations and flow,” Dun called in his almost sing-song tones while he walked between them, assessing their efforts. “Feet first, then swing. Where do you want to go – where do you want to swing? Place your feet accordingly. If the blade’s weight carries you and forces you to step, your footing was wrong. Lorrimer, that was awful! With your height you can’t afford desperate footing. If you topple around like that, you are fighting your own clumsiness as well as your enemy, and you give him a hundred openings. Good, Hadley. There’s nothing wrong with a deep step as long as you remain in control of yourself. Ha! What have we always said about moving over uneven ground, Kian? If you can’t afford to look, then slide your feet. Don’t just slap them down and hope for the best. Breathe, Aedan, breathe! I can see the redness of your face from here. Attack him Kian, he’s too tired to oppose you. Go, go, don’t let him recover!”

  Kian drove forward with his encased iron sword, and sure enough, Aedan’s exhaustion caused him to fold under the attack and stumble as he backed away.