* * *
Sovereign Nadav smiled wickedly, as he knew the Dahken boy was on his way up the tower. Brazenly, he would leave the apparatus he’d used to manipulate Geoff’s dreams right on his worktable, but the boy would have no idea for what purpose they had been used. The Dahken was easier to sway than he’d expected, no doubt due to the sliver of Loszian blood than ran through his veins. Of course, if he had not been convinced, he would have had to die. This time clothed in his robes, Nadav again waited for the boy in his ebony chair. It was not long before Geoff knelt before him in a show of loyalty, the rings under his eyes even more black and prominent than usual.
“Stand, Dahken Geoff,” Nadav said. “I assume you have reached a decision.”
“I have, Sovereign,” Geoff replied. “I accept your offer.”
“Most excellent,” Nadav said impassively, and after a brief pause he added, “Lord Dahken Geoff.”
19.
Keth’s sword whistled through the air. It was a high strike, intent on severing the head from the neck of his target, but as usual, Marya used her smaller size and agility to easily duck underneath it. They sparred daily as she constantly worked to improve her skills, and she had become extremely adept at simply evading most blows. In fact Marya almost never parried Keth’s blade, and she never used the small buckler shield that was strapped to her left arm, a fact that caused Keth no small concern. He virtually had to aim a blow at the shield, and even then, she often just moved away from it.
Adding to his frustration, Marya almost never landed a blow of any sort on Keth. Only at first, when Keth worked with her until she understood how to feel the strength in her blood, did she wound him, and that was of course necessary. In the last month or so, the matches became fights in earnest, and she seemed to genuinely want to hurt him. Though it was her shortsword that was the prime problem; Keth’s longsword had a good two feet of reach over Marya’s shorter weapon. He’d tried to get her to discard the blade and use something longer, but she found everything else ponderous and difficult to maneuver. She discarded the idea within minutes, returning to her three foot long blade.
Keth advanced at her with blow after blow, the majority of which missed completely as she danced away. Some she parried, always returning with her own attack, but he never had trouble parrying her counters or simply blocking them on his large, round shield. He brought his sword down from above and across his body, and she ducked while lurching back and to her right, causing the sword to miss altogether. Keth quickly recovered, whipping his sword back at her shield arm. Off balance, she couldn’t leap away from his blade in time, and it caught her left arm well above the shield. She yelped loudly, and her arm dropped to her side completely limp.
Keth knew not to lower his defenses, and he was rewarded with a jarring impact to his shield, as splinters flew and the metal bands stretched and bent. He was loath to strike at her again, and sensing this, Marya doubled her efforts, allowing her wound to fuel her attacks with great strength. Sparks flew as their blades notched each other. Keth overextended a thrust, and Marya saw her opportunity; she brought her own sword down upon his, forcing it down to impale the ground. She smiled at him wickedly, gloating as blood ran freely down her useless left arm. It would be a simple matter now to bring her sword up and open his abdomen for all the other Dahken to see, until her vision clouded black, purple and red as something huge and round crashed into her right shoulder and head. Marya landed on her back several feet away from where she just stood claiming her victory, groaning from the bashing force of Keth’s shield.
“Damn it Marya,” Keth said, kneeling next to her as she regained her senses. He had left his sword and shield behind, right next to her shortsword where it had fallen. “Are you all right?”
“I can’t move my arm,” she said, her right hand rubbing at her forehead.
“Of course you can’t. Had I actually been trying to hurt you, I would have taken it off! Why don’t you ever use your shield? You should have easily deflected my attack.”
He inspected the wound in her upper arm and found that his longsword had cut through the meat clear to the bone, severing many muscles. It had rendered her arm useless, and her elbow, forearm and hand were coated in slick blood. Keth always kept a dagger at his side, just in case, and he drew it now. Closing his left hand tightly around the cold steel blade, he grunted in pain when he jerked it free, cutting his palm and fingers to the bone. He placed his blood covered hand over Marya’s wound, and she grimaced and groaned.
“Do it,” Keth commanded.
Marya nodded and focused on her arm. Interestingly, the pain had disappeared moments before, and the wound didn’t start to hurt again until Keth put his own deeply cut hand over it. She could feel Keth’s blood mixing with hers. She sensed his Dahken strength, and she could feel the pain of his deeply sliced hand. She brought the pain of the two wounds together until they became one, and then just as quickly, they disappeared altogether.
Marya tiredly opened her eyes to see Keth standing over her with his left hand extended out to her. She reached up with her own now healed arm, and he helped her up to stand on unsteady feet. Keth released her hand and wiped each side of his dagger’s blade on his tunic.
“Gods damn this thing!” she screamed as she stripped the shield from her arm. She then flung the metal disk across the practice yard.
“I think,” Keth said slowly as he sheathed the dagger, “you should go rest. We’ve been at it for a while, and the others are restless. Let me work with Celdon while you get some sleep.”
“I don’t need sleep!” she shouted at him angrily. She stole his dagger from its sheath and ran past him to her sword. She picked it up and backed away from his sword and shield. “I’m not done with you yet Dahken Keth!”
He sighed deeply and looked at the other Dahken, including Celdon, whose faces had turned from abject boredom to a renewed sense of interest. He turned and walked to his sword and shield, and as he bent to pick them up, Marya jumped backward a few feet. He stood facing her - shortsword in her right hand and his dagger in her left.
So focused on her sword, Keth ignored the dagger that she held low near her waist, and she stuck him with it in only their second series of moves. The watching Dahken gasped in surprise, and Celdon even cheered with a pumped fist. It was a light wound that glanced off his ribs, but it hurt and drew his blood none the less. He learned quickly to be wary of the small blade as she flicked it in and out of their exchanges as quickly as a viper may strike. It was completely impossible to parry the dagger’s thrust, and he began to use his shield as a barrier from its bite. They danced this way for the better part of an hour, and while Keth still got the better of her, Marya had still managed to wound him several times.
“Enough Marya,” Keth said in a commanding tone, and he lowered his sword. He disentangled the dagger’s sheath from his belt and held it out to her. “Take it, keep the dagger. I can’t teach you how to fight this way, but maybe Thom has someone who can. If you’re wounds are healed, why don’t you go rest. We’ll talk later.”
He watched her as she walked away, headed toward the Dahken barracks. She walked with pride, her face up towards the sun and a haughty spring in her step. She carried both her sword and new dagger in hand, not bothering to clean the blood from the blades or sheathe them. He could have stayed locked in battle with her forever with no sense of victory for either, and she knew it.
“Celdon, stay here with me for a bit,” he said, drawing his attention back to the other Dahken. “The rest of you, go find something to eat and have some fun.”
They trained well past midday, until Keth’s own stomach began to growl with ferocity, and they adjourned to find a pair of roasted chickens. Keth liked Celdon; the lad was quiet but affable. While he had dropped some weight, mostly from training with Fort Haldon’s men at arms, he still had an impressive appetite. Keth looked at him as a younger boy, but had to remind himself that only three years or so separated the two of them. I
n the not too distant future, those few years would mean little to nothing.
After they ate together, Keth released Celdon to do as he might. Keth needed to find Cor and Thom, and as he climbed the grassy slope, he knew where he would find the former. Temporary steps of timber had been set into the hillside to make the walk up and down easier to manage, but even still, Keth felt exhausted after the long session with Marya. His effort was rewarded as he found both men seated at the mahogany table pouring over an extremely detailed map of the pass connecting Aquis to Losz.
“I assure you of its accuracy Lord Dahken,” Thom was saying. “The topography has been charted by my best rangers time and time again. We spent two years alone working on this project.”
“I’m not a cartographer, but it looks like the most narrow part of the pass is blocked by our wall?”
“It is,” Thom agreed.
“What about these cliffs?” Cor asked. He touched the map on either side of the wall.
“Its true that the wall can be flanked by climbing those cliffs and coming down on our side, but not by any sizeable force. Anyone coming down would be easy targets for our longbows,” Thom explained. He then said with a smile, “Also, I keep a small group of men on each cliff at all times to deter such an action. Trust me Lord Dahken, we are well protected here. Fort Haldon has stood for hundreds of years.”
“Very well,” Cor conceded, and he looked up to see Keth standing at the far end of the table. The Lord Dahken rose from his chair to take the younger Dahken’s arm. “Keth! I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”
“You haven’t, Lord Dahken,” Keth responded quietly.
“I hadn’t realized. You need me then?”
“Actually, I need both of you,” Keth replied, momentarily glancing at Thom.
“How advantageous then for you. What matters bring you here?”
“Its actually the same matter; its about Marya,” Keth said, and he shifted his gaze to Thom. “Commander, I hope you have someone here, a soldier or man at arms, a fighter who fights with two blades? In training today, Marya came at me with a shortsword and dagger at once, and I found it most difficult to ward off. It seemed to be very effective for her and the way she tends to weave about in combat.”
A flash of memory, an image of his very first battle came to Cor’s mind, and he immediately understood what Keth meant. He remembered the short and stocky Tigolean that came at him with two daggers, and how the man bobbed and danced around. He hadn’t even been trying to actually harm Cor, and Cor now knew that if the man had wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. Not back then.
“I have just the man Dahken Keth,” Thom said, nodding. “His name is Jory, and he claims that some Tigolean hermit taught him some ancient art to wield steel with both his hands and feet. Its all bluster and rubbish, I’m sure, but there’s no better man to fight with two blades. He mans the wall from sunup to midday, but I could reassign him.”
“No please, Commander,” Keth said, extending his fingers and slightly shaking his head. “If he would give Marya an hour every afternoon, I’d be most appreciative.”
“Settled,” Cor said, “but I’m still trying to figure out why you needed me.”
“Lord Dahken, it is time to hold the ceremony for Marya as you did for me,” Keth said, and as he watched Cor’s eyes widen, he knew he must explain further. “She controls her blood well enough and will only get better at it. I can’t teach her anything else. She needs to work with Commander Thom’s man to develop her on fighting style, but as far as being a Dahken is concerned, she is ready.”
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You’ve been training her for what, a few months? I don’t think she’s ready, Keth.”
“You said when we can teach someone nothing else,” Keth argued. “Marya channels her strength at will. She fully understands herself and her abilities. There’s nothing else she can learn from me.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Cor said, shaking his head. “Rael was impressed with you and said you’d only become stronger with or without his instruction. Marya is so young, she’s really just a child.”
“As am I, Lord Dahken. As were you when you first began to discover your powers. We are rebuilding our race, as if I even know what that means, and I need to focus my energy on those who need more help. Like Celdon.”
“Is she ready to teach someone else?” Cor asked, and as Keth hesitated to answer, Cor continued. “You say she won’t learn anything else from you, but she must be ready to teach another. If she isn’t, then she isn’t prepared to be a Dahken in name as well as race. Can you tell me she’s ready for that?”
Keth considered the question for a few seconds before conceding the point, “No, Lord Dahken, I can’t.”
“Then this discussion is over, Dahken Keth.”
“Very well, Lord Dahken,” Keth said, and he turned to leave. Before he began the descent, he turned to see Cor retaking his seat to pour over the map of the pass. “I might say, I think one day soon she’ll prove herself to you.”
Cor glanced up for just a second and said, “I’m sure you’re right.”
Keth strode down the timber steps slower than he would have liked. The further he went, the faster he went. He wanted to break into a run, but he knew that would only end with him falling and landing in a heap at the bottom like the fat priest. He was aggravated at Cor’s refusal, but the Lord Dahken was right. As he crossed the common areas of Fort Haldon en route to his quarters, Keth noticed a sticking pain in his side. It occurred to him that the feeling had been there for an hour or more, and he was somewhat winded by the time he reached his destination.
He shut the door behind him, and looked at the chair and table he had scrounged from Rael after his death. The table was covered with the various texts Rael had written out. Only the window on the east wall lighted the room. Actually it was nothing but an open portal that shuttered from the inside, and only ambient light came through at this time of day. Keth sat down heavily in the chair with a sigh, gingerly inserting his fingers under the left side of his chain shirt. There it was - a small wound where his dagger, Marya’s dagger, had nicked him. It was not deep, but it bled and hurt as his fingers traced it. He began to tiredly pull off his armor.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
Keth looked up to see a girl leaning in the doorway that led to the room in which he slept. Between the dim light and that she had recently bathed, her combed backward hair that was usually hazel appeared black. Marya wore an off white shift that hung loosely from her shoulders down to her ankles. It clung to her in places where her body was still wet from bathing in, and Keth found it difficult taking his eyes from her form.
“I didn’t realize it,” he said, looking at his blood covered fingertips.
She crossed the small room in just a handful of steps with a gait that didn’t match the shift she wore. The more she learned about her race and the strength she could tap, the more arrogance Marya adopted in her walk, in her very being. He had never seen it more than right now; the effect was oddly feminine, though he had never seen another girl walk in such a way. Except for maybe Thyss.
She stood over him and took his hand to look at the blood from his wound, and she then reached down with her other hand to grasp the hilt of his sword. She drew it from its sheath as she released his hand, and it was awkward for her, as it was substantially longer than her own. Carefully, she ran her own fingertips against its edge and allowed the blade to cut into them. She bit her lower lip as she did so, the cold steel bringing both a searing pain and a fiery pleasure. As the blood welled up from the blade’s cut, she pressed her fingers against Keth’s wound and bent down to kiss him.
20.
This morning, like most as of late, Cor ate alone at the Dahken table and watched over the progression of Fort Haldon. He knew little of engineering, building or masonry, but it was explained that the foundations had to be dug and placed before anything else co
uld occur. That task had started right where he now sat, where the Dahken Hall would be and extended outward from there. Progress seemed so slow that Cor was certain the stronghold would never actually be built.
Marya arrived at the table, looking stronger and more like a woman every day. While the other children ate together below, Marya had taken to joining Keth at the site of the hall. Cor had little to say of it, as she had shown herself more than willing to stay at Keth’s side through all things. Cor wondered if her loyalties lay with him, with the Dahken or with Keth, and he decided to discuss with Dahken Keth the nature of his relationship with the young woman.
In truth as Cor understood such things, Marya had only just begun her journey into womanhood, and Cor endeavored not to notice the fact. She was a full foot shorter than he, and he wondered what bloodlines had mixed to create the hazel color of her hair. Her matching eyes showed defiance, but Cor thought it a ruse meant to guard some truth. She was a slender girl and her features were sharp, the bones of her face clearly defined beneath her gray skin. There was something else about Marya - arrogance, a swagger in her walk that wasn’t there when he first saved her from Taraq’nok. Cor had seen the same in Thyss and in the vision of Rena so long ago. Cor realized that he was staring at the girl, and he averted his eyes.
Thyss trudged her way up the slope, and Cor looked at her in concern. Things hadn’t been quite right since her trip into the Spine two or three weeks ago, when she had brought back the dead Loszian. She seemed always tired, fatigued, and she rarely left their bed in the morning hours. He was convinced she was angry with him; everything he said seemed to anger her, and they hadn’t made love since the night of her return. As she approached, she looked exhausted and disheveled, having not tied her hair into a ponytail as he’d seen her every day since they first met. Thyss’ usual formfitting tunic and pants, made of the foreign black silk that shimmered in the light and was as strong as steel, were nowhere to be seen in favor of loose wool. Her sword, however, never left her.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 02 - Fire and Steel Page 18
