Seeing that Garnet was now armed and ready, Morningham backed off and attacked more methodically. He began by using conventional fighting patterns, which Garnet easily avoided and answered with his own attacks. Watching the two, Danner thought maybe Garnet would stand a chance against the more experienced paladin. But Morningham adjusted his attacks and began using the same blinding style he’d used before against Garnet in training. His attacks had no discernible pattern, and after a moment’s close study Danner realized Morningham was even using the standard sword forms against Garnet by initiating type of attack and then shifting to a completely different one between one blow and the next. The speed with which their instructor switched styles and forms was mind-boggling, and Garnet fought desperately to keep the blade from him. In practice, a bowkur would leave bruises and perhaps a broken bone if a trainee was unlucky enough. But these were not bowkurs, and a hit would leave more than just a mild injury.
The only other time Danner had seen the two sparring, Garnet had ended the battle by tripping Morningham, but it was obvious that no such ending would be permitted here. Garnet adapted to Morningham’s attacks more quickly than he had the last time, and Morningham accordingly shifted his tactics. Once more Garnet was put on the defensive, but again he adapted quickly.
Danner’s hands clenched and unclenched, and his jaw began to ache as he ground his teeth and watched anxiously.
Twice more Morningham shifted to a completely new attack style, and Garnet was forced to adapt. He avoided all but the most glancing of blows, but Garnet was accumulating an impressive collection of minor cuts on his arms and chest. Morningham was not unmarked, but it was obvious who was winning this battle. Still, it was a mark of both men’s skills that Garnet’s massive blade had not seriously injured Morningham: the paladin through his ability to keep the weapon away, and Garnet because he was pulling his attacks without sacrificing his swordsmanship. After all, Garnet wasn’t trying to kill Morningham, just beat him back.
It was only after Garnet was able to launch his own offensive that Danner decided Morningham also was not, in fact, trying to kill Garnet. Danner saw at least two openings where Garnet overextended himself and the Red paladin could have easily turned the opening into a decisive victory, but he left them untouched. Danner even saw the instructor’s eyes glance at the exact area where Danner knew the weakness lay, then Morningham looked away and the moment passed. Whatever his intention, Morningham had something other than Garnet’s life in mind.
Eventually Danner had his answer, or at least he thought he did. He didn’t see how, but suddenly Garnet’s sword was flying through the air and it landed ten feet from the fight. In the same motion, Morningham sent Garnet crashing to the ground and drove his sword into the dirt an inch from Garnet’s ear. The courtyard stood in dumb silence, several trainees averting their eyes from what they were sure was a killing blow.
Then Morningham spoke.
“I trust this puts to rest any and all rumors about whether trainee jo’Garet is better than I am,” Morningham said calmly, but his voice was pure steel. “I don’t pretend to know the source of these rumors, but I do know where they did not originate. If I hear anyone repeating these lies, I will construe that as a personal insult and grounds for a duel. Feel free to test me on this at any time, you pitiful, spineless wastrels.”
As though to emphasize his point, Morningham jerked his sword from the ground and carefully wiped the blade with a cloth. Traces of Garnet’s blood on the blade left an impressive stain on the formerly white material, and the Red paladin looked appreciatively at a cut on his own arm. Even as he watched, what had at first seemed like a shallow scrape suddenly began leaking blood down his arm. Morningham smiled at the sight as though pleased at his own blood loss.
He glanced down and extended a hand to Garnet. Danner’s friend accepted the hand gratefully and was hauled effortlessly to his feet. Danner was close enough to hear Morningham murmur to him, “Good fight, lad, but if you’re going to fulfill your potential, you need better training than you’ve been getting, that much is obvious. Starting now, during combat training of any kind, you will report directly to me unless otherwise specified. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Garnet replied, a little dazed.
“Good,” the Red paladin said, then more loudly, “now go get your sword and follow me.” Morningham paused, and he looked almost uncertain for a moment, then his face resumed its usual harsh demeanor. “Walk proudly and don’t give those cowards the satisfaction of seeing you beaten, lad. You’ve earned a bit of respect today.”
Implicit in his voice was that the respect came not just from the other trainees, but from Morningham himself. Garnet straightened and walked impassively to his sword. He lifted the weapon and retrieved his bowkur from the ground.
“Bring both,” Morningham said, his voice once more the perpetual sneer they were used to hearing. “Let’s see this done the right way.”
Danner caught Garnet’s eye as his friend walked away, and Garnet flashed him a quick smile that was quickly masked under a rocklike façade. Danner grinned knowingly, then turned back to his own training. He was glad Flasch wasn’t around, or the smaller man might have made some half-brained comment to ruin the moment. He, Michael, and Marc had gone to a different training area, and Danner already had plans to taunt them about having missed Garnet’s spectacular fight with Morningham.
They had classroom instruction soon, and Danner was looking forward to regaling his friends with the experience.
- 3 -
“What is faith?”
The class looked at the Violet paladin, not sure if they were expected to answer or not. Vinder Abram was infamous for asking simple questions and riding right over attempts to answer them, whilst other times waiting patiently for anyone to come up with an answer to a convoluted inquiry. Michael held his peace, unsure if the paladin expected an answer or not this time.
“No one?” the Violet asked. “Very well, something simpler perhaps. Focus on a virtue. What is piety?”
“Respect for God,” someone in the back of the room piped up, belatedly raising his hand for acknowledgement. Beside him, Flasch rolled his eyes and slumped a little in his chair. Michael turned to note who had spoken, but couldn’t get a clear look once their instructor started down the aisle. Vinder liked to roam up and down the aisles while he spoke with them, only rarely taking his place at the podium at the front of the room. The desks they sat at were wide enough for two trainees, if they didn’t mind getting the occasional elbow in their side, but they were spaced far enough apart from each other that their instructor had plenty of room to roam about without his cloak so much as brushing a table leg.
“Correct insofar as it goes, but not the answer we need.” Vinder turned down another aisle and stepped past three desks in quick, animated strides.
A younger trainee, his face still sporting a few pimples, raised his hand and offered, “Obeying God’s commands?”
“Are you asking me or telling me, young man? No matter. Less accurate,” Vinder told him, moving down another aisle at random.
“Devotion to God,” another trainee said confidently when the Violet paladin acknowledged him.
“Well, you’ve read An Examination of Prismatic Virtue it seems, or at least skimmed it by lamp light at night,” Vinder said. “The word you left off is rather important, however. Still, by degrees an accurate answer, if somewhat lacking in understanding, and bravely answered. Any other thoughts?”
“Proper devotion, you twit,” Flasch muttered beneath his breath. Michael’s arms were folded across his chest, and he surreptitiously jabbed Flasch in the ribs with his hand.
“What was that?” Vinder asked, turning in their direction. His eyes zeroed in on Michael and Flasch, and the smaller man threw Michael a dirty look and straightened in his seat. “You said something, trainee jo’Keer?”
“Yes, sir,” Flasch said. “The text states piety is proper devotion to God.”
�
��Correct,” the Violet said with a smile. “Why?”
“Sir?”
“Why does it specify proper devotion?” he asked. “Devotion to God is to be universally lauded, one would think. Why is that word included?”
Flasch glanced at Michael, who shrugged his eyebrows and looked slightly away. In truth, he wanted to hear what Flasch would say. His friend was too flippant and got away with too much in class and among their group, and Michael barely resisted the urge to smile at seeing Flasch pinned down by his own irascibility.
“Well, sir, those two words together show the spectrum of piety, which the text goes on to state lies between fanaticism and atheism,” Flasch said, his eyes temporarily flicking to the ceiling as he tried to remember the book they’d read. “A lack of devotion leads to a lack of belief in and respect for the divine, while undue devotion may come at the cost of a man’s reason and the rest of his life as he embraces fanaticism.”
“Better,” Vinder said with an approving nod, “but still incomplete.”
He turned to address the room as a whole, and Flasch let out an inaudible sigh of relief.
“But then, you’re not expected to have a complete answer, not at your age and stage of instruction. Piety is, in my opinion, the most difficult of the Virtues to define in words,” he told them, and Michael thought he detected a note of apology in the paladin’s voice. “I don’t want to ruin your day, but in most cases, the only way to define piety is to see it, feel it, and live it. The more you try to put it into words, the less accurate you’ll probably be.”
Flasch frowned at that and opened his mouth to speak, then evidently thought better of it and stayed silent. Michael was tempted to check his friend for a fever, or perhaps demonic influence. When did Flasch ever hold his tongue?
“There is nothing to say that a man who leaves his family behind heeding God’s call is showing proper devotion to God, nor the man who leaves his old life to settle down with a woman,” Vinder went on. “No text tells us that a man must cut himself off from ever knowing a woman, yet we revere celibate monks in part because of their sacrifice. Is a man who is never called to God’s service less worthy than one who is, or is he playing his part in the divine plan by staying on a farm and raising his children with love?”
Vinder looked at each of the trainees as he spoke, and his eyes flicked over Michael as he suppressed a twinge of a dark emotion at the last rhetorical question. It was an innocuous enough point, and he preferred not to dwell on other people’s idealized notions of farm life.
“If you’re called by God, is there any length to which you should not go to obey His commands?”
“Sir, I thought God didn’t really speak to us in words,” someone said, his voice losing confidence as Vinder focused his attention on him. “I mean, how do you really know if He is telling you to do anything?”
The Violet paladin looked seriously at the trainee and said in an intense voice, “If you talk to God, you’re praying.” He paused dramatically. “If He talks back, then you’re insane.”
A few nervous twitters scattered about the room as the trainees weren’t sure whether their instructor had just told a joke. Flasch grinned and looked eagerly at the exchange across the room. When Vinder finally barked a laugh and smiled, the uneasy tension in the room dissipated.
“You bring up a solid point, trainee Tigh, is it? How do we know when God speaks to us?”
Several young men raised their hands, but Vinder blindly ignored them and began his random pacing around the room again.
“The truth is, only you can know, and maybe not ever for sure,” he told them. “We call the process of determining and enacting God’s will for us discernment, and it is a key aspect of piety. We have our teachings handed down from the immortal angels, and for my part, I consider whether the thoughts and urges I have conform to the ideals we’ve been given. Whether my thoughts and actions are truly the result of God instructing me one way or another becomes secondary at that point – by acting in accordance with His teachings, we might always be considered to be acting according to His will. For instance, we are taught that God loves us all equally, so I have to believe that any thoughts I may have of superiority over another race must conflict with that basic principle. Who am I to place myself above another race whom God looks on with equal favor?”
“I like this guy,” Trebor kythed to Michael, and Flasch developed a sudden fit of coughs to cover a laugh.
“Oh, I see not everyone is comfortable with that thought, eh?” Vinder continued, oblivious to the telepathic exchange. “Well, if that’s your cup of tea, you can rest assured there are any number of other paladins and priests who feel the same way and can cite page and verse from texts to justify their feelings. Me, I like to keep it simple.”
A few trainees muttered to themselves around the room, but their instructor pointedly ignored them as he swept on with his lecture.
- 4 -
“For San’s sake, you’ve heard everything being said as well as I have, Danner,” Trebor said, obviously depressed. “The pro-human sentiment running through this place is rampant, and it’s making me sick to my stomach. Even people who normally wouldn’t even think to be racist are projecting things that put me on edge, and it’s made worse by the people who really do believe that crap. It’s getting so I can’t even open up my mind without being assaulted by thoughts about denarae inferiority and how silly dwarves and gnomes look, and how stuck up elves are, and… Hell, you don’t know the half of it.”
Trebor put his face in his hands and gave a low moan. “I’ve had a headache for the past three days, between that and worrying somehow someone is going to find out the truth about me.” The false coloration of his skin gave him an especially sickly look today, and Danner wondered if it was time for Trebor to reapply the oil again.
No, Harvest Moon was just a few days ago, Danner remembered. Trebor reapplied the oil every time San waxed full, using the moon as a regular reminder to ensure the chemical didn’t wear off at an inopportune time.
Danner sighed. The two of them were sitting at the far end of a table at the midday meal, far removed from anyone else. Marc and the others were still in line waiting for their food, so for the moment Trebor and Danner were alone. Since Garnet’s display the day before, several of the other trainees had approached him to offer apologies for repeating the rumor about him. Garnet tolerated the attention, but like his friends, he was looking forward to their Sabbatha[9] leave. Their Octday had been co-opted by their intensive training schedule, so they would only be getting a short weekend to themselves, if their instructors granted it at all. More than one weekend had been sacrificed to training in the past, and that was before the uptick in intensity following the doomed paladin expedition.
“Trebor, I can’t pretend I know what it feels like. Not just what it’s like for you to be so assaulted mentally, but the simple prejudice that’s being unknowingly sent your direction. I can only imagine what it would be like if they found out you’re really a denarae. But you can’t let them do this to you.”
“I’m not letting them do anything, Danner,” Trebor said, his voice a bit wild.
“Sure you are. No one can make you feel good or bad unless you let them,” Danner said. “It’s something my dad once told me. Sure, sometimes it’s harder than others, but you can always dampen or enhance someone’s ability to hurt you. You can’t let people get to you like this.”
“This from the person who still gets tied into knots just at the thought of talking with Alicia?” Trebor said, a faint smile breaking through the sad lines on his face.
“That’s different,” Danner said, only slightly nettled by Trebor’s teasing tone. At least it was pulling Trebor out of his emotional trough. “Or… I suppose it isn’t. I guess I really don’t mind getting my insides turned to mush by her, I just wish I knew where she stood. I still don’t know if she’s entirely gotten over that other matter.”
Trebor nodded. There was no need to vocalize w
hat they both knew. One of The Three had impersonated Danner and raped Alicia, and she’d come to Nocka intent on exacting her revenge. With Trebor’s help, they’d discovered the truth, and she could now at least stand to be around Danner for some time without growing upset. They hadn’t seen her in the last week or so, having been so wrapped up in practice they hadn’t left the compound – except for their occasional middle-of-the-night forays hunting corrupted paladins. But they would probably get leave this weekend, and they would invariably see her. Alicia was Marc’s twin sister, and Marc was Danner’s friend, so Alicia was staying with Faldergash, a gnome in the city who was one of Danner’s oldest and closest friends. She and Marc had an aunt in the city, but for whatever reason, Alicia preferred to stay with the gnome instead.
“Well, anyway,” Danner said, clearing his throat, “you just keep rubbing that stuff on your skin, and we’ll never have to worry about people finding out about you until you want them to.”
“I hope you’re right,” Trebor said, the traces of mirth disappearing from his voice. “I really do, Danner.”
Later that day, Danner would look back on those words with bitter irony.
Chapter 3
Even the cleansing rays of the sun could not have banished the horrors that invaded our island and destroyed our city. Even so, we huddled together in the darkness and prayed for the dawn.
- Unnamed dwarven survivor of the massacre at Den-Furral,
“The Homeless Years” (1019 AM)
- 1 -
Birch shifted his broad shoulders and heard the creak of his leather vest as he stared out toward the sea from his vantage atop the battlements of the fallen dwarven capital of Den-Furral. The city was actually a fortress carved into the living stone of a mountain, all but impenetrable to an assault – from the outside, at least. The attack that had destroyed Den-Furral had come from within. To Birch’s right was a room half ruined by the battle over a week ago. In that room, Birch had slain Sal, one of The Three – shape-shifting, mind-controlling, demonic brothers from Hell. A charred outline on the floor was all that remained of the once-powerful demon. Somewhere in the world his brothers, Min and Ran, still lived, and it was Birch’s sworn task to seek them out and slay them.
The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) Page 4
