Randall looked down at the ruined tang of his weapon’s hilt and nodded absently. “I wish I knew how to fix it,” he muttered.
“That will come in time,” the White Knight said in what Randall took to be an assuring tone. “But first, thou must learn this lesson.” Ser Cavulus reached into a pouch affixed to his armor’s waist and withdrew a small, orange crystal, which he handed to Randall.
Randall accepted to small, hexagonal pillar of crystal, and when his fingers touched the White Knight’s mailed hand, he withdrew almost immediately. The metal was cold—far colder than it should have been for being worn by a living person—and Randall had to avert his eyes shamefully after his reflexive reaction.
After a brief, uncomfortable pause, the White Knight explained, “It is a Ghaevlian toy. Pure Ghaevlian children are taught to make them glow, often before they learn to speak more than a handful of words.”
Randall turned the crystal over in his hands. “How?”
“By concentrating,” Ser Cavulus replied simply. “The Ghaevlian’s say one must focus on the inner light of the crystal—to a Ghaevlian’s eyes the light is strong, but to a star child such as thyself it will appear to be quite faint—and attempt to touch it with thy mind.”
Having absolutely no idea how to accomplish that, Randall stared at the crystal and tried to find the light within it. When he saw nothing but the flickering lantern light, he concentrated harder.
“Do not force it,” Cavulus instructed, “the clearer thy mind becomes, the clearer the light shall be. Once thou can see it, thou will be able to feel it as surely as thou can feel a morning breeze on thy face.”
The White Knight stood abruptly, and Randall’s concentration—such as it was—was broken. “Where are you going?” he asked as the armored knight moved past him.
“I must patrol the camp,” Ser Cavulus replied. “And thou must achieve serenity to succeed in thy task. Take down the tent in the morn, and do not erect it again until thou hast succeeded in lighting the crystal so that it glows with a greater luminescence than this lantern.”
With that, the knight left the tent and after several minutes of pondering why the White Knight—or, perhaps more importantly, the White Blade—was trying to help him, he settled down and focused intently on the crystal.
Never once that night did he see anything shine from the crystal, save the flickering reflection of the lantern’s light.
Chapter XXI: Drills, Drills and More Drills
15-13-5-659
Nearly a week had passed since Ser Cavulus had given Randall the crystal. He was so thoroughly captivated by the idea of tapping into some hidden power which flowed through his veins that Randall worked with the crystal day and night.
During the day he draped a heavy, thick cloak over his head to block out the sunlight. At night he did the same beneath the wagon, to avoid the campfire’s illumination. His physical exercises had gotten surprisingly easier to do, even in their ever-increasing volume, and by the fifth day he almost thought he would be able to wield the sword effectively in terms of the strength required to do so.
That morning, when Randall was completing his hundredth rep of raising and lowering the sword, Drexil approached with the same practice blade he had used during their first ‘sparring’ session propped on his shoulder.
“Aye, ye’ve done better with each passin’ day,” he said gruffly before thrusting his hand out as though to shake.
Randall accepted the man’s congratulations and returned the gesture, but Drexil snorted in amusement. “I meant for ye to grip me hand tight as ye can,” he rolled his eyes. “It’s not as though ye’ve mastered the Five Manuals, now is it?”
“Five Manuals?” Randall repeated in confusion.
Drexil shook his head in bewilderment. “Never mind ‘bout that; just grip me hand tight as ye can.”
Randall retook the man’s hand in his own and, after carefully wrapping his fingers around Drexil’s thick paw of a hand, he squeezed as hard as he could manage.
After several seconds he felt his forearms begin to cramp, but he continued to clamp down with everything he had and Drexil gave him a faintly bemused look. “Aye, as I expected,” he scoffed before Randall felt his hand become smashed in the other man’s grip. Randall nearly cried out in pain as he felt the bones of his hand clicking against each other, but fortunately nothing broke as the other man continued to squeeze with his vice-like grip until Randall finally fell to his knees, gasping for air.
Drexil released his grip and sighed emphatically. “I can see we’ve more than a wee bit of work before us. Go on, shake it out and get back to yer feet,” he said gruffly, waving at Randall’s still tremendously painful hand.
Randall finally was able to do so, and he flexed his fingers gingerly as he saw the color return to them. “Why did you do that?” he asked with more than a hint of irritation at the other man’s rough treatment of his throbbing hand.
“To show ye what ye’ll be up against,” the other man scoffed. “All things close to equal, a man’s grip will often decide the outcome of a fight—magic weapons or no! Show up too weak and yer fancy magical weapon gets ripped right from yer hand, and then where would ye be?”
Fuming from being abused by the other man, even in such a minor fashion, he stiffened his spine. “Show me,” Randall said hotly.
“Show ye?” Drexil repeated with obvious amusement. “Aye, I’ll show ye; on yer guard.” The burly man lowered the sword from his shoulder and held it easily in one hand with the tip hovering mere inches from the ground. He stood there for several seconds until finally urging, “Come at me, then.”
Randall raised Dan’Moread in his hands and took a swing at the other man’s midsection.
Drexil blocked the clumsy blow easily enough with his own weapon and he snorted. “Is that yer best? Again!”
Re-gripping the leather-wrapped handle of the sword, Randall came at the other man with a low attack which he tried to follow up with a thrust at Drexil’s chest.
But the burly man barely had to block the first attack, having easily moved out of the swipe’s danger zone before snapping his practice weapon up against Dan’Moread’s blade and wrenching hard against Randall’s grip as he turned the star metal blade aside. Randall refused to let go of the weapon, and ended up staggering forward to one knee in order to avoid falling down on his face.
Feeling something hard and cold against his neck, Randall growled as he knew that Drexil now held his blade there. “Ye know nothing of footwork, do ye?” the burly man lamented. “Get up and do it again.”
Randall stood to his feet, more than a little irritated at being toyed with in such a blatant fashion. But even seeing Ravilich snicker by the campfire wasn’t enough to break his focus as he pressed forward, determined to get at least one good shot in.
They ‘sparred’ for a half hour before Randall finally felt as though his hands were threatening to give out, and he called for time. The sweat was pouring down his forehead but he thankfully felt less tired than he thought he looked.
“Ye’ve got heart; I’ll give ye that, lad,” Drexil said in measured approval, and Randall was actually outraged that the other man had yet to break a sweat. “But ye’ve got no mind fer yer center of balance; yer feet flop around like a duck’s out of water, and ye give away yer every move with yer eyes.”
The burly man reached into his pack and produced a short length of rope with a noose on either end. “What is that?” Randall asked between deep, measured breaths.
“This,” Drexil said as he tossed it to the ground in front of Randall, “is yer next drill.”
Staring blankly at it, Randall picked up the rope, which was not much longer between the nooses than the width of his shoulders, and examined it carefully. To call it ‘rope’ was probably misleading, since it was little thicker than a pair of apple’s stems. Turning it over in his hands, Randall saw that it was actually two pieces of thin line joined in the middle via a small, strange knot. “What
do I do with it?”
“Slip it round each of yer ankles,” the bigger man explained, gesturing to Randall’s feet.
Randall warily did as he was instructed, and after the bits of twine were securely fastened he stood himself straight. “Now what?”
“Now, bend yer knees a touch,” Drexil instructed, doing so himself in demonstration.
After he had complied, Randall realized what the string was for. He shuffled his feet slightly this way and that as he gauged the total distance his feet could move apart while wearing the thing.
“Aye,” Drexil said approvingly, “ye’ve the lay of it, now. Now hold yer weapon like so,” he held his own sword in front of his body, and Randall did likewise. “Aye, good; now get a feel fer movin’ around like that.”
After several dozen steps, Randall actually thought he could see the purpose of this particular exercise. No more than ten steps in he realized he had been constantly letting his weight fall forward, which caused him to lose his balance with nearly every other step. But by keeping his feet closer together, he was already figuring out how to compensate by leaning his head back slightly and bringing the hilt of the weapon closer to his waist.
“That’s amazing,” Randall said in awe. He began to take shuffle-steps frontward and back, then he would pivot left, and then right, and then left again. Feeling the combined weight of his body and the sword beginning to behave as though they were one gave him a thrill of satisfaction—which was instantly banished at Drexil’s bemused chuckle.
“It’s well short of ‘amazing’,” the other man chided, “but it seems ye’ve a feel fer it already, which is impressive considering yer obvious lack of talent. I’d feared after yer…shall I say ‘underwhelming’ display of raw strength that ye’d have little aptitude for the arts martial. But I’ve been known to make a mistake or two,” he said dismissively. “I’d thought to save this fer tomorrow but since ye’ve already gotten yer legs beneath ye, we’ll work on what me pa called the ‘six true positions of the sword’.”
Drexil held his sword above his head, with the blade pointing to the right and the pommel pointing left as though to block a downward, chopping attack. “That’s one,” he said, before reversing and bringing the blade to the left and the pommel to the right, “and that’s two. Got it?”
Randall nodded, finding he was more than a little eager to learn some sort of actual technique. Drexil then lowered his hands to his right hip with the blade perfectly vertical as the tip pointed to the sun above, and the pommel pointed to the ground between his feet. “That’s three,” the burly man continued, before once again reversing his stance and coming to hold the weapon across his body, with the hilt near his left hip and the tip still pointing skyward, “and that’s four.”
Randall mimicked the motions as the other man assumed the positions, and Drexil nodded before bringing the sword back across his body and sweeping the tip downward and behind himself while the pommel pointed almost directly at Randall’s face—a near-perfect replication of the commander’s stance just before he had incapacitated Randall in the alleyway.
“That’s five,” Drexil said, before bringing the blade up and down across the front of his body, cleaving the air where an opponent might have stood and coming to a rest with the weapon nearly opposite of ‘position five,’ but with the knuckles of the man’s hands now pointing away from Randall and the tip pointing to the side, rather than behind. “And that’s six,” the broad man finished as he brought himself to a relaxed stance with his fingers interlaced around the sword’s hilt.
Randall mimed the six positions in sequence a few times, and Drexil nodded approvingly until he came to position five. “Nay,” he said gruffly, “ye must point the pommel at my face, like so,” he demonstrated with his own blade. “Clear?”
Nodding in recognition of his error, Randall brought the sword to the position and Drexil’s eyebrows rose in approval. “Well done; I’ve never trained a star child, before. Are all of yer kind so quick to learn?”
Randall shrugged as he went through the positions again, mindful of his footwork as he did so. “I really don’t know; we’re not allowed to own weapons of any kind, let alone train with them.”
“Aye,” the man said as his eyebrows lowered in silent reflection, “forgive me; t’was a fool’s question.”
“What’s the value of these positions?” Randall asked with open curiosity.
“Well, one and two are ‘engaged’ positions,” Drexil explained, “at least, that’s what pa taught me.” The larger man held the sword up above his head and tilted his chin toward Randall, “Should ye bring yer blade down to cleave me in two, this is a classic ‘high block,’ see?”
Randall nodded in appreciation, having already deduced as much. “And what of three and four?”
“Ah,” Drexil said, bringing his sword to his side in position three, “this is a neutral posture. Easy enough to engage either defensively or offensively from this stance,” he demonstrated a pair of attacks—one a slash and the other a thrust—before returning relatively easily to position three. “But position four is a bit more defensive, and reserved fer those with fancy feet—more of a classic ‘counter-attacking’ posture,” he turned sidelong to Randall and switched the weapon over to his left hip with the tip skyward. He then spun so quickly on his lead, left foot that his blade literally whistled through the air between them and he came to a stop in a different relative position—but the exact same posture—by the time he planted his feet.
“Wow,” Randall said appreciatively. He knew now that there was absolutely no way he could stand against Drexil for more than a few seconds in a real fight. If the big man wanted to put him down, that’s exactly what would happen—enchanted weapon or not.
“Aye,” the burly man nodded, “but these positions themselves are old and outdated. What ye’ll do with them, however, is as good as any other mode of practice I’ve yet seen.”
“And what is it I’ll be doing with them?” Randall asked cautiously.
“Simply memorize them, and while ye wear the string about yer feet ye should transition between the positions as smoothly as ye can—payin’ no mind to speed,” he said severely, “and keepin’ the strings from parting. The order in which ye go is of no consequence at this point—be it ‘one, two, three,’ or ‘three, four, one,’ or any other combination, but it’s best to go with an odd followed by an even, at least ‘til ye get the hang of it. All that really matters fer now is that ye learn to keep yer feet beneath ye and yer weapon in hand. Clear?”
“I think so,” Randall agreed before doing precisely as Drexil had instructed.
“Remember,” the burly man called over his shoulder, “the steady fighter beats the one that twitches like a monkey in fits every time.”
With such incredibly sterling words of wisdom in his ears, Randall shook his head wryly and went about the work of learning how to actually wield Dan’Moread in something resembling a respectable fashion.
Chapter XXII: First Light, and Illumination
Evening, 19-13-5-659
Several days passed and Randall had still not heard from Dan’Moread. But every time he wielded the sword during his twice-daily exercises he felt as though he was bringing some measure of comfort to the weapon, so he stuck to the routine steadfastly.
His footwork lessons were already paying dividends, and in addition to his other couple exercises he was finally feeling as though his body was beginning to get the hang of all this physical exertion.
In fact, Randall had never felt this relaxed and at ease in his entire life. The warm sun beaming down from the clear skies above combined with his daily—and nightly—drills and training had a liberating effect. Randall could scarcely imagine how he had felt within the walls of Three Rivers’ Native District.
Ravilich kept his distance and Eckol was usually quiet, except when he and Drexil performed their own daily drills. Those drills generally involved Drexil wearing the taller, leaner man down after nearl
y an hour of sparring.
Ser Cavulus barely spoke to Randall during this period, but he still watched the White Knight with absolute fascination as he knelt in prayer with Rimidalv plunged tip-first into the dirt. Such devotion was something Randall had never really known. If he was being honest with himself, he felt something very much like jealousy when he thought of the wonders which must have filled the White Knight’s life.
On the third evening after receiving the strings and footwork drill instruction from Drexil, Randall was focusing on the small, orange crystal Ser Cavulus had given him. Like the other nights, nothing happened for several minutes and Randall was nearing the end of his tether with the stupid thing.
“Stupid piece of junk,” he growled under his breath, but still nothing happened.
He decided to give it one last try before getting up and doing some more sword drills. His wounds had nearly completely healed, and he was no longer saddle-sore from riding atop Storm Chaser, so he required very little actual sleep to keep feeling refreshed, and he had decided to spend most of the past few nights practicing his footwork in the darkness rather than wasting the time in sleep.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a clearing, or a placid body of water like the Rydian Sea during the dry season. After several moments of silent visualization, he imagined relaxing on the water with no boat to float on. He imagined drifting across the top of the ocean with the warm sunlight streaming down from high above, and for a moment it seemed as though time stood still.
He was actually alarmed by the sudden lack of usual noise from the camp, such as the snorting of the horses or the constant, good-natured bickering between Drexil and Ravilich and his eyes snapped open at once.
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 26
