Duwan looked at Belran the Leader with anticipation and respect. The hardy one, chief of all the warriors, was well known to all who had been trained, for each new warrior had to test his newly learned skills, quite often to his pain and chagrin, against the swords of Belran.
'He was,' Belran said, 'a warrior of great promise. Indeed, as my skin hardens, the warrior to become the Leader.' Duwan felt his face flush and he swelled with pride, but the feeling did not last long. 'I am saddened,' Belran said, 'but the shortsword is for parrying and the longsword is for killing and one without the other is wanting.'
'I hear,' Duwan the Elder said.
'Had the young one a calling,' Belran said, 'it would be easier.' Duwan looked down. He had undergone the trial periods with the metalmakers, and he had no skill for it. He had strained his brain listening to Manoo the Predictor and he could not come within days of stating the appearances of Du during the time of dims and dark. His calling was to arms, and without the shortsword in his left hand he had no calling.
'Young Duwan,' Belran the Leader said, turning toward the increasingly concerned Drinker, 'what have you to say for yourself? Have you, perhaps, a calling of which we are not aware?'
Duwan thought for a moment. 'I have no calling other than to arms.' An old one, with hard, knobby skin, spoke in his old, strained voice. 'I have seen young Duwan with the young. He has a good heart.' A keeper of the young? Duwan felt a deep shame. He rose. 'The old ones speak of a Drinker, in the time of troubles, who lost his hand in war, and yet he fought, and slew the Enemy, and retained his honor.'
'By severe test,' Belran said. 'Do you seek a test?' Duwan swallowed his fear. 'I do seek a test.'
A young warrior rose quickly and ran to the community house, emerged with two sets of padded swords. Belran the Leader took all four swords in his hands, extended the hilts for choice to Duwan. Duwan knew the swords, for he'd wielded all in his training. He selected the one he knew was better balanced, and left three in Belran's hands. Belran handed back to the young warrior the odd shortsword and hefted the others.
'Am I to fight you?' Duwan asked. 'Is that a fair test? You are the Leader, honored Belran. A fairer test would pit me against one of my own age.'
Belran glared at him without pity. 'My father's father, five times removed, was also a Leader, and strong, the strongest and the most skillful of his village. He faced the Enemy and was slain and, without protection, the village was destroyed.'
'So be it,' Duwan said, leaping to the attack, trying to eke out by surprise at least one small initial victory. His stroke was parried by Belran's shortsword while a counterblow of the longsword whistled toward Duwan's stomach to be met by a swift move, a quick retraction of his longsword so that the padded instruments thudded together loudly. Duwan's footwork brought hisses of admiration from the lounging warriors and elders, but from the first he was on the defensive for Belran had thought it to be kinder to end the uneven battle quickly. With a great leap, a feint of longsword and a sweep of shortsword he delivered a blow that would have, had the longsword not been padded, disemboweled Duwan. The strength of the blow sat Duwan down. He gasped for breath and rose to the battle, but Belran shook his head, turned, handed the swords to the young warrior who had fetched them and turned to shake his head sadly at Duwan.
'I will teach you the gift of storytelling,' offered an ancient.
'The Watcher of the Fire needs no more than one hand,' another said.
'Thank you, my friends and elders,' Duwan said, 'but I have not the memory for being a storyteller, and, as you well know, to watch the fire is a position of honor to be earned, not tossed to a disabled warrior as a sop to his pride.'
'Drink,' Duwan's father said, extending a cup. Duwan drank. He had to be carried to his sleeping pad in the small, private alcove of his father's house and he awakened much later with a bad taste in his mouth and the thunder of the land of the fires in his head. It was the time of the new greens, tender goodness plucked from certain low growing brothers without doing serious harm to them, and after he had accepted a dish from his mother and consumed it he felt better. He had not noticed, for she sat in shadows, that the old and hard and wrinkled figure of his grandmother was motionless in a corner.
'I saw you not, Grandmother,' he said, 'forgive me.'
'I see you.' the old one said.
'You see sadness and shame, Grandmother,' he said. 'You see a keeper of the young.'
'I see one who escaped death.' The old one rose with difficulty and moved jerkily until, with a creak of old limbs and a sigh, she sat on the pad next to Duwan.
'I don't know death,' Duwan said sadly.
'It is not preferable to life,' his grandmother said, as his mother nodded. 'Perhaps, at this moment, you may think so.'
'Never to climb into the gift of Du again?' Duwan said. 'Is that not a form of death?'
