Laughter and whispers, shouts and curses, accompanied Dart down the tower toward the practice yard. With the retinue from Chrismferry due in another four days and the festivities to follow, knights had been gathering back home, packing the place full. Even the outlying sections of the sprawling Citadel, long abandoned, had been reoccupied, swelling the ranks.
Along with the bustle came a thousand requests, suggestions, complaints, threats, and bribes, all rising like smoke to the castellan’s private hermitage at the top of the tower. And since Dart served as page to Castellan Vail, her duties had also multiplied, leaving little time for routine.
Like her training practice.
She carried a wooden sword tied to her waist. It was a far cry from the handsome swords of the truly knighted, those rare blades adorned with the black diamonds on their pommels. Still, hers was long enough to bump against her side and threaten to trip her at every step.
At last she reached the bottom of the wide stairs and broke into the cavernous hall beyond. She kept near the wall, skirting the milling crowds in the center.
“Hothbrin!”
She almost didn’t recognize the barked name, not even after a full year here. Then again, it was not really her name. Born an orphan, she had no surname. Only Dart, after the yellow and thorny dartweed that grew stubbornly between stones. Filling the void, Dart had borrowed her friend Laurelle’s family name, taking it on as a mark of their deep bond-though Laurelle was far away, back at Chrismferry, continuing to serve as the Hand of tears for the new regent, Tylar ser Noche.
“Hothbrin!”
Dart turned and spotted one of her fellow knights-in-training, a bristle-headed squire named Pyllor, aide to the swordmaster of the school. Though only two years older than Dart, he stood as tall as any knight, and taller than many. He strode toward her.
Pupp appeared from the throng and stepped between Pyllor and Dart. His molten form grew fiercer, reflecting Dart’s own mood. His mane of spikes bristled at Pyllor’s stormy approach.
“There you are!” Pyllor strode straight through Pupp and grabbed Dart by the shoulder. “Late again! Swordmaster Yuril ordered me to fetch you. By your heels or hair, she said.”
“I-I-I had to attend-”
“I-I-I.” Pyllor mocked her, silencing her. “It’s always about you . Just because you serve the castellan you think you can walk with your nose high and come and go as you please.”
Pyllor’s words could not be further from the truth. Dart’s service to the castellan offered her little freedom of movement or time. And she surely held herself in no higher regard because of it. In fact, the contrary was true. She always felt set apart from her peers, less prepared, always struggling to catch up with her studies and training.
But most importantly, Dart felt herself to be an impostor. She had not earned her place here at Tashijan. Her position was all a ruse to hide her behind the tall walls of the Citadel, to keep her safe and near at hand. Only a year ago, Dart had learned her true heritage, that she was a child born of two rogue gods. And while her humours flowed with none of the rich Graces of the gods, her blood carried a single blessing: the ability to whet Rivenscryr, the Godsword of Myrillia, into existence. Thus, she had been sent here, away from Chrismferry, away from the sword itself, to make it harder for both to be stolen at once.
Otherwise, she was no different from any other girl.
Only perhaps more lost and alone.
“Swordmaster Yuril has everyone laboring with drudges as punishment for your tardiness.”
“But why should the others pay-?”
“‘A knight is only as strong as the Order itself,’” Pyllor quoted with a disdainful smirk.
Dart had heard the same throughout her training. The true strength of the Order lay not in a single knight but in the breadth of the Order itself. As one failed, all suffered.
Such was the lesson being taught this morning.
Courtesy of Dart’s tardiness.
She needed no further prodding to hurry out of the tower and toward the tiers of training fields beyond. The pages apprenticed to the Order held the grounds farthest afield. Dart passed a group of squires practicing lunges on horseback, kicking up clods of mud, earning jeers and accolades from their peers. She sensed the deep brotherhood among them all. What would it be like to be so accepted?
Dart hurried on, eventually spotting her fellow knights-in-training. They were yoked like oxen to wooden and iron drudges, dragging the sleds across the frozen mud and yellow grass, a hard exercise to strengthen back and legs.
Overseeing their labor, Swordmaster Yuril stood with her arms crossed, a pipe of blackleaf clenched between her teeth. Though the woman’s dark hair was streaked with gray, she remained whip-thin and hard of countenance. She heard Dart’s approach and turned to face the late pupil.
“Ah, Hothbrin, good of you to join us.”
Dart dropped to one knee, bowed her head, then regained her feet. “My duties-”
“-are here,” Yuril said. “Not up in the castellan’s hermitage. Castellan Vail knows this as well as I. And you can tell her that from me.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Yuril whistled around the edge of her pipe. “Enough with the drudges! Gather round!”
With grateful groans, Dart’s peers slipped yokes from sore shoulders and hobbled across the field. Dart shied from their hard-eyed glares. All knew whom to blame for their sore morning, but they all also knew better than to complain aloud. That would come later. When they were out from under the baleful eye of Swordmaster Yuril.
“We’ll start today with basic form and position, then proceed with a few sparring matches.”
They lined up in rows of four. Dart wanted to slink toward the back, but the swordmaster would not let her so easily shirk away. She was made to stand at the front of one row. For a full ring of the bell, they ran through the basic forms of defense and offense: Swayback Feint, Dogtoed Parry, Cusp-to-Cusp, Trailing Hilt, Thrusted Lash, and a blur of others.
Dart tried her best, but her lack of practice showed in the dropped point of her blade during Jackman’s Tie and the tremble in her wrist as she moved from Honeynest to Sweeper’s Row. Swordmaster Yuril corrected each mistake. She snapped out with a cane, striking Dart’s wooden sword, stinging her fingers, making her repeat the form.
At these moments, all eyes were on her. Dart felt the weight of their attention, sensed the ill will, the bitter amusement. Tears threatened to rise, but she refused to relent.
Finally she reached the last form, a complicated dance of wrist and steel named Naethryn’s Folly. It was a feint used to disarm an opponent. It was a risky maneuver. If not performed flawlessly, the dance would end with your own sword on the ground. Still, if you could lure your opponent into the dance and not fail, it was almost impossible to counter.
Dart did her best to perform the exacting series of moves.
And failed.
A final twist and her hilt slipped from her tired fingers. Her sword spun into the mud.
Laughter applauded her mishap.
“Disarmed by the wind,” Pyllor said as he strode across the field, arms behind his back, plainly imitating the swordmaster he idolized.
Yuril glowered at Dart, exhaling a trail of smoke from around her pipe’s stem. “Collect your sword, Hothbrin.” She turned her back on Dart, not even bothering to have her repeat the form this time, as if recognizing the impossibility. “We’ll move on to some open sparring now. I’ll be studying each of you to see how you have learned to apply the forms to actual swordplay. In the field of battle, you’ll need to flow smoothly from one to another, to recognize the waxing of one form, to react accordingly, to counter with another.”
The group quickly paired up. Dart soon found herself alone, standing forlornly with sword in hand.
Yuril nodded to Pyllor. “You’ll spar with her.”
Pyllor’s eyes widened in surprise. He was five years her senior in swordsmanship. But he merely nodded. “As you wish.” The pairing was beneath him, but still a glint of wicked delight flashed in his eyes.
Yuril lined the combatants around the field and raised an arm in the air. “Take your stances!”
