Iron Elf - A Race Reborn (Book 2)

by Klay Testamark

“No magic, right? And at some point it involves swords? Then I’m dead.”

  “Yoo-hoo!” Tamril said from the Great Hall. “Where are you, my royal lover? Come on up, I’ll tell your fortune!”

  I already knew what she saw in my future. “On the other hand, it is a good way to avoid her. See you tomorrow.”

  Faced with certain death and given access to a liquor cabinet, I did what any man would do. It was a bad way to use Arawn’s personal store, but what was I to do, sneak into the kitchen for cooking sherry?

  Actually, yes. Drunk as I was, I was still enough of a Corinthan to appreciate that Arawn had excellent taste. He had wines that were like flowers in the mouth, wines that were like the summer sun. There was something that could only be mourning wine. It was bitter and earthy—like drinking graveyard dirt. A nice wine for when you’re crying into your drink. There were quite a few bottles of it, which made me wonder. I decided to seek a less melancholy vintage down in the kitchens.

  I found Nanette. She was dressed to travel and giving last-minute instructions to the kitchen staff. “Goodness, milord, why didn’t you ring? Would like some warm milk? Maybe a sandwich?”

  “I didn’t want to trouble anyone.” I began opening cabinets. “Just looking for a nightcap.”

  “We’re done here,” she told the others. “Off with you—I’ll take care of His Majesty.”

  She sat me at the breakfast bar and gave me a glass of sherry and a glass of water. “At least try to minimize the hangover.”

  “Thanks.” I dipped a finger in each. I had no idea how Arawn treated this woman, so I hoped my tipsiness would hide anything said out of character. “I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?”

  “I was about to join the other staff and my husband, but the carriage can wait. You look like you need someone to talk to.”

  “Maybe. How’s your husband, by the way?”

  “I hope he’s getting a good rest. But knowing him, he’s probably worn a rut in the ground waiting for me. He worries about everything, you see.”

  “You’ll have to remind me what he does for a living.”

  She laughed. “He calls himself a trader. He’s fair though, and only makes a little profit. We do quite well, but I wish it wouldn’t stress him so much. The last time he took a vacation it was our honeymoon!”

  “Sounds like a real workaholic.” I took a sip of water. “A man’s job can seem like his entire reason for being.”

  “You must know all about that. I don’t suppose a king can stop being one, can he?”

  “Not if he’s good at his job. If there’s no one else, he can hardly step down, can he? He has to be a king even if it kills him.”

  She looked straight at me. “You could always let them invade, Your Majesty. What did the elves ever do for you?”

  “I wish I knew.” I drained both my glasses. She refilled them and I continued. I said, “It’s the right thing to do, of course. Elves may not be the most loveable of people, but nobody deserves to have their homes taken away.”

  “But you’re afraid you won’t survive the duel.”

  I took another drink. This was good cooking sherry. “I’ll probably get killed and they’ll invade anyway. But not for a year. I have that much time left to me.” I was reaching the stage where I couldn’t believe I was drunk.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t making the most of it with your young queen.” Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “She’s almost as beautiful as I was when I was young.”

  “You’re still beautiful. Why, were you not a married woman—”

  “Oh, stop!” She giggled. “You are a charmer, Highness, but you I reserve all my love for my husband. And on that note, it’s time to go.”

  I stood up as well.

  Grahothy was waiting with the carriage. “Your escort is ready, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Sir Grahothy. I hope I haven’t kept them waiting.” She turned to me. “Your Majesty, I doubt things are as hopeless as you think. And even if they were, there’s a certain comfort in knowing the exact day of your death, isn’t it?”

  She was easily younger than I was. How do halflings get so wise so quickly?

  “Spare me such comforts,” I said. “I’d rather live with uncertainty.”

  Grahothy and I watched her go. Her escort was nearly as large as mine had been. It was made up of many of the same soldiers. I watched her go, then returned to the kitchen.

  I don’t recall going to bed. I vaguely remember trying to go into a detoxifying trance and realizing the disguise ring was blocking it. I must’ve taken it off in my rooms and fallen asleep with the spell running in my head. I know this because the ring was off my finger—and I wasn’t dead.

  “Wake up, elf. Training starts today.”

  “Uuurrgh.”

  I felt dead. The trance had undone the worst of the alcohol poisoning but my hangover was what other hangovers wanted to be when they grew up.

  “Gods, but you’re a mess. Didn’t I tell you to sleep early? Did you drink all those bottles on the table?”

  “But Coach, it helps me relax.”

  “We don’t have time for this. Put the ring on and join me for breakfast.”

  “Can I take care of this hangover first?” I started digging in my head for hangover spells.

  “We don’t have time for that, either.” He reached into a pouch for a phial. “Drink this, it’ll get you on your feet.”

  I drank the potion and almost hit the ceiling. It was a four-poster bed so I only slammed into the overhead canopy and fell back to bed. “Ow.”

  “Spontaneous levitation. That’s new.”

  “My heart’s pounding, my teeth are chattering, and my skin’s too tight. But the hangover’s gone.”

  “That’s normal. I’ll trust you not to binge again.”

  After a light breakfast of cheese and toast we went down to the training hall. It was large and well-equipped, as was necessary to keep the garrison in shape. It was empty, however, and Vitus told me he’d arranged the schedule so we’d always have it to ourselves.

  “Here we have the gym, the sparring area, and the running track. Another building houses the pool. Outside is the arena where you’ll practice mounted combat. We were supposed to put you through some fitness tests, but we can’t do that, can we?”

  I was sitting down and still felt like someone had put my bones back wrong. “How is this better than a hangover?”

  “Your head’s clear enough to listen, isn’t it? Might as well get all the lecturing done. Hello Grahothy.”

  “Good morning, Vitus,” said the captain of the guard. “And good morning, Prince Angrod.”

  “You told him?” My headache was returning.

  “He has to know. You’re going to need sparring partners. He’s detailed a few trusted men to help us.”

  “Who else knows?” I asked, but then someone laid two warm pillows on my head. I leaned back. How thoughtful of them! Wait. Those weren’t pillows.

  “Darling!” Tamril said. “They told me you had a headache. Well, you can rest easy now that I’m here.”

  “Gah!” I stood up so fast I left her jiggling.

  “Don’t you like my dress?”

  It was the one she’d wanted to wear to the dinner party. It had a long pleated skirt and long sleeves, but one couldn’t call it modest because when it came to the chest it showed everything.

  “I wore pasties, see! Perfectly decent.”

  “Buh… I buh…”

  “What His Majesty means is that he’s a little busty, er, busy at the moment,” Grahothy said. “We’d appreciate if you’d let us have him for the next couple of tits. Minutes.”

  “Afterward I’m sure he’d be glad to find out what’s keeping those tassels on,” Vitus said.

  “Why, gum of course.” She batted her lashes at me. “The kind you can lick off the skin.”

  Good gods!

  She left, trailing the smell of musk and lavender. I sat down and put a hand on my heart.
“If Hafgan doesn’t kill me, that woman will. Why didn’t Arawn tell her?”

  “I’m sure he had his reasons,” Grahothy said. “Are you comfortably seated? I could send for a couple of cushions.”

  CHAPTER 14: ANGROD

  The judicial duel wasn’t simply a test of courage. Like the Northlander pentathlon it also tested one’s familiarity with a soldier’s skills.

  In battle a human warrior was expected to hurl spears, leap aboard the enemy ship, and finish the fight with an axe. He would then pillage a now-defenceless coastal village, subdue the women, and carry off anything of value. A Northlander pentathlon thus had five events: javelin, long jump, axe fencing, submission wrestling, and running with a woman over your shoulder.

  It was popular, or so Heronimo told me. He was always trying to get one started and was completely mystified as to why it hadn’t caught on. A capran duel, meanwhile, had three events: mounted archery, jousting, and fencing.

  Vitus: “You get three arrows, three hats, and three passes. Do your best to knock your opponent’s hat off. You’ll be using blunt arrows and wearing a helmet underneath, so no worries.”

  Grahothy: “Next you get three passes with a lance. This is still a contest of skill, not a mortal combat, so the lances are designed to break easily. You can get hurt, but not so much that it kills you. And you can yield at any time, though you lose your case.”

  Vitus again: “The third event starts on horseback. You tilt at each other with proper lances, then dismount to fight as infantry, with sword and dagger. You can still surrender, but there’s no guarantee your opponent will let you live.”

  “Hafgan doesn’t strike me as the merciful type,” I said. “What’s the point of all this training?”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, Prince Angrod,” Grahothy said. “Any opponent can be defeated if you are determined and lucky.”

  “A boatload of training doesn’t hurt either,” Vitus said. “I know elves pride themselves in their martial prowess. I’ll wager you already have most of the skills you need.”

  “I got some practice from hunting wyverns. I can handle a lance or sword. I can shoot from horseback, but not well.”

  “Still makes our job easier. We won’t be teaching you anything new, just refining what you already know.”

  “Hah!” Grahothy said. “Vitus is trying not to discourage you, but they don’t call him One More because of his bar tab.”

  Vitus scowled. “They call me that because I’m the best trainer in the kingdom. I may not be able to teach you anything new, but I will definitely put you through the toughest workouts of your life.”

  Gulp.

  “You may faint. You may vomit. But when I’m done with you, real combat will seem like the easiest thing in the world. And to make it really fun, you’ll keep that ring on at all times. No magic. No shortcuts!”

  Another gulp. And now I had a headache.

  I hated every minute of my training. First I had to wake up at a hideous hour. To facilitate this, Vitus showed up personally with a gong. “Wake up, elf!” he’d say. Crash! Bang!

  “Aaaaugh!” was my usual response.

  After I got my heart rate down, I would then have a decent breakfast in bed, as was my habit back home. Of course, in Brandish I slept late and often awoke when everyone had finished lunch. Here in the Silver World I ate breakfast in bed because I was often too sore to get up right away.

  There followed a blissful hour of nothing much. Back home I’d have opened my feybook and caught up on the news, but being in another dimension made that impossible. And although I could read capran writing, thanks to the ring, Arawn didn’t have much of a library. Which made sense. It was a hunting lodge and weekend retreat, not a working palace.

  I asked my coach if he had any reading material and he said, “Of course! Fight books!”

  He brought several martial arts manuals, each one beautifully illustrated. “The first rule of fight books is: You don’t just look at the pictures. The second rule of fight books is: You don’t just look at the pictures. And the third rule of fight books is: If you fold or stain those pages I will skin you to make replacement covers.”

  I’d been wondering about the leather. I let go the one I was holding.

  “Yes, they’re bound in the skins of their writers. Talk about putting yourself in your work.”

  Like an improv musician, Vitus preferred to change things so our training sessions were always challenging. No four workouts were ever the same. There were skill sessions and conditioning sessions, there were high-intensity workouts and low-intensity workouts. There were things designed to simulate a real fight and things that focused on a single part of it.

  “You’ll be exerting yourself like never before,” he said. “You’ll need to be fast but accurate, powerful but long-lasting. You’ll also have to be good at all three phases of the combat.”

  “Why don’t we focus on the final leg? Isn’t my archery and lancework good enough?”

  “Are you mad, elf? If you dominate the jousting phase your opponent will be punch-drunk and easy to finish off. Hell, one lucky charge and he might be too injured to continue!”

  So I was in the tiltyard as often as I was in the ring. And a third of my time was spent hunting because Vitus declared it excellent sport for a mounted warrior.

  “And as added incentive, you’ll eat no meat except what you kill. The halflings in the kitchen make wonderful vegetarian meals, so don’t worry about your nutrition. Personally, though, I couldn’t live without my breakfast steak.”

  None of the training was especially different from what I already knew. True to his word, Vitus didn’t show me anything new. I was an elf, a Corinthan, and a nobleman. I liked to stay in shape and I liked knowing how to fight. What shocked me was the intensity with which we trained.

  “Again!” he said, during sword drill. I swung, parried, sidestepped and swung. “Again!” he said, and I repeated myself, though the sword grew heavy. “Again!”

  “Can’t… keep… up…”

  “One more!” he said. “One more!” He’d had me doing sprints, then pull-ups. My arms ached and my legs were like rubber. “One more!”

  “Aaaugh!” I threw down the wooden sword and ran for the bucket. I threw up my eggs and bacon. I wiped my mouth. “What’s the point of this torture?”

  “Not bad, elf. You lasted longer than last time. When the duel comes, odds are you’ll already be exhausted by this point. This is to make sure you can still fight. Remember, the more you bleed in training, the less you sweat in combat.”

  “Isn’t that, The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat?”

  “No, you’ll still bleed plenty in combat.”

  On it went, mornings and afternoons. I never knew what I’d be doing next. It could be target practice from a galloping horse. It could be cutting practice with a side of beef. It could be calisthenics in full plate armour or it could be swimming in full plate armour. Vitus made sure I didn’t overtrain, but he was endlessly creative, and he knew exactly how far he could push me. The entire hunting lodge was at our disposal. The horses were always saddled.

  I had four sparring partners from among the royal guard. Lister was the most aggressive. He fought in a frenzy. Laraib was the fastest. Not the most skilful, but his raw speed made him agile in attack and slippery in defence. Herkus was the strongest and the toughest, preferring to take a blow on the horns rather than wear a helmet. Finally, Sham was the tallest. His height and long arms gave him as much reach as Hafgan had. I never sparred with all of them at once (“We’re training you to fight a single man, not a group!”) but they did work as a team, switching in and out of the ring while I went without a break.

  Lister usually went first, and no matter how fresh I was he was always fresher. He charged into battle with a shout and a grin. He liked to get close and used his fist as readily as his sword. We fought at full speed, our blunt weapons the only concession to safety. “Hah!” he said. �
�I’ll murder you, I’ll murder you!” Steel rang as we got our swords into a bind. The metal rasped as we struggled for advantage. I levered his sword up and kicked him away.

  They sent in Laraib after I’d been softened up, but while I still had some surprises. The man could shift from attack to defence in a single strike: “You’re a little slow today, Your Majesty, how’s the arm? It was pretty beat up the last time we did this, hope you put something on it like I told you. Saaay is this a new technique I must say it’s pretty slick. Watch me I’m gonna cut low whoop you didn’t watch me…”