“I’m okay. I guess I’m just a bit nervous about The Proving. It’s only a few days away now… I’m not ready.” Calen took a deep drink from the waterskin, his eyes never leaving the ground. The silence seemed to go on for an eternity.
“Haem was nervous too, Calen.” Vars ran his eyes over his son’s face with a note of caution. “The night before The Proving, I found him throwing up in the grass out back. He was a nervous wreck. Worried about failing. Do you know what I told him?”
The air caught in Calen’s throat.
“I told him that the sun will set, and it will rise again, and it will do so the next day and the next. The gods are in charge of such things, but it is by our own will that we pick ourselves up when we fall. He would be proud of you, Calen, as I am.” The words seemed to hang in the air as
Calen handed the waterskin back to Vars. “We should get back to practicing.”
His knuckles were white as he gripped the hilt of the practice sword.
Haem…
The sun was near setting when Vars placed the practice swords into their cloth wrapping, tying it off with a worn piece of string. Every muscle in Calen’s body ached. His shoulders stung with a dull, pulsing throb, and new cuts had sprung up across his body from the many times he exposed himself. Even so, he wore a grin. He had landed a few blows – strong blows, by the way his father rubbed his fingers along his ribs. Calen knew he was a fine swordsman for his age, but Vars was the best in all the villages.
Vars was eighteen summers, working as a blacksmith apprentice, when High Lord Rayce Garrin rose to power in Varsund and turned his eyes towards the plains of Illyanara. The Lorian Empire had never paid much attention to the petty squabbling of the Southern lords, only stepping in if one seemed to gain too much power. The fighting was an easy way to “cull the herd.”
When the Varsund War broke out, being a young man with a sense of adventure in his bones, Vars answered High Lord Castor Kai’s call and rode to Camylin with a group of other young men from the villages and joined up with the Illyanaran army. The Varsund War lasted eight gruelling years. Calen had heard the stories many times over. The devastation was far reaching. The soil was fed with the blood of over-eager youths from the fields of Oberwall all the way to the Argonan Marshes. Towns and cities burned, fields were salted, and bloodlines were erased. Through it all, Vars survived.
He never spoke much about it to Calen, but it was well known across the villages. “A captain of the Illyanaran army,” Calen had heard Jorvill Ehrnin say once. His father was well thought of in The Glade, and his words were always considered. Even Erdhardt Hammersmith gave ground when Vars spoke, and Calen rarely saw the village elder heed counsel at all.
“Calen, I didn’t mean to upset you when I—”
“I know,” Calen cut in. “I’m sorry.”
Vars rested his hand on Calen’s shoulder. A warm smile spread across his face.
“Well, how are we? Not too sore, I hope, after beating each other senseless with sticks?” Calen had not noticed Dann until his hand clapped down across the middle of Calen’s back, igniting a tenderness from the earlier sparring session. He swatted away Dann’s hand. “Get off me, you ass.”
Calen’s anger was met with a mirthful laugh. “How is he doing, Vars? I hope better than the bow. I had to go pick that arrow out of a dead squirrel earlier.” Dann laughed at his own joke until a swift hand cracked him in the back of the head.
“Do you ever shut up?” asked the stern voice of Tharn Pimm, who seemed to appear out of thin air. He winked towards Vars as Dann rubbed the back of his head, muttering to the wind.
Dann’s father was a handsome man of average height, with short blond hair. His frame was wiry, but the muscles that rested on it were dense and used to hard work.
Dann began to complain, but a stern look from Tharn made him think otherwise. Calen found it difficult to suppress a grin.
“How goes the training, Calen?” Tharn asked. “I was watching with Jorvill from the edge of the training field. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone land as many strikes on Vars in a long time.”
Vars raised his eyebrows.
“Well… ever, to be honest. You have a fine sword arm on you.” Calen saw Dann getting ready to make a smart comment, but the words never made it to his lips. “Unlike this loudmouth over here. He’s not too bad with that bow of his, but Achyron himself will need to bless him if a boar gets close enough to smell him. Look after him in there, Calen, and try not to let him do anything too stupid.” Tharn wrapped his arm around Dann’s neck and knuckled his hair playfully as he led him away towards the village. “I will see all four of you for supper, in about two hours. Vars? Ylinda has been preparing the venison all day.”
“Aye, we shall see you then.”
Dann muttered in protest as the pair ambled away, Tharn’s headlock still in place.
Vars stared at Calen out of the corner of his eye, an approving look on his face. His father often did that when looking at Calen or Ella, and he always seemed to have a semi-vacant look in his eyes when he did so, as if he were in a faraway land.
“Dad?” Calen wiped the sweat from his brow that had condensed with the cool evening air.
With a momentary look of sadness, Vars’s eyes snapped back to the real world. His expression shifted, as if melancholy had never touched his face. “Yes, sorry. Let’s get going. Best
