Blood Song

After another interminable hour or more he told them to stop, making them line up as he swapped his cane for a wooden sword. Like theirs it was of the Asraelin pattern: a straight blade with a hand and a half long hilt and pommel and a thin metal tine curving around the hilt to protect the fingers of the wielder. Vaelin knew about swords, his father had many hanging above the fireplace in the dining hall, tempting his boy’s hands although he never dared touch them. Of course they were larger than these wooden toys, the blades a yard or more in length and worn with use, kept sharp but showing the irregular edge which came from the smith’s stone grinding away the many nicks and dents a sword would accumulate on the battlefield. There was one sword which always drew his eye more than the others, hung high on the wall well out of his reach, its blade pointed down straight at his nose. It was a simple enough blade, Asraelin like most of the others, and lacking the finely wrought craftsmanship of some, but unlike them its blade was unrepaired, it was highly polished but every nick, scratch and dent had been left to disfigure the steel. Vaelin dare not ask his father about it so approached his mother but with only marginally less trepidation; he knew she hated his father’s swords. He found her in he drawing room, reading as she often did. It was in the early days of her illness and her face had taken on a gauntness which Vaelin couldn’t help but stare at. She smiled as he crept in, patted the seat next to her. She liked to show him her books, he would look at the pictures as she told him stories about the Faith and the Kingdom. He sat listening patiently to the tale of Kerlis the Faithless, cursed to the ever-death for denying the guidance of the Departed, until she paused long enough for him to ask: “Mother, why does father not repair his sword?”

She stopped in mid page, not looking at him. The silence stretched out and he wondered if she was going to adopt his father’s practice of simply ignoring him. He was about to apologise and ask permission to leave when she said, “It was the sword your father was given when he joined the King’s army. He fought with it for many years during the birth of the Realm and when the war was done the King made him a Sword of the Realm, which is why you are called Vaelin Al Sorna and not just plain Vaelin Sorna. The marks on its blade are a history of how your father came to be who he is. And so he leaves it that way.”

“Wake up, Sorna!” Sollis’s bark brought him back to the present with a start. “You can be first, rat-face,” he told Caenis, gesturing for the slight boy to stand a few feet in front of him. “I will attack, you defend. We will be at this until one of you parries a blow.”

It seemed that he blurred then, moving too fast to follow, his sword extended in a lunge that caught Caenis squarely on the chest before he could raise his sword, sending him sprawling.

“Pathetic, Nysa,” Sollis told him curtly. “You next, what’s your name, Dentos.”

Dentos was a sharp faced boy with lank hair and gangling limbs. He spoke with a thick west-Renfaelin brogue which Sollis found less than endearing. “You fight as well as you speak,” he commented after the ash blade of his sword had cracked against Dentos’s ribs, leaving him winded on the ground. “Jeshua, you’re next.”

Barkus managed to dodge the first lightning lunge but his riposte failed to connect with the master’s sword and he went down to a blow that swept his legs from under him.

The next two boys went down in quick succession as did Nortah, although he came close to side-stepping the thrust, which did nothing to impress Sollis. “Have to do better than that.” He turned to Vaelin. “Let’s get it over with, Sorna.”

Vaelin took his position in front of Sollis and waited. Sollis’s gaze met his, a cold stare that commanded his attention, the pale eyes fixing him… Vaelin didn’t think, he simply acted, stepping to the side and bringing his sword up, the blade deflecting Sollis’s lunge with a sharp crack.

Vaelin stepped back, sword ready for another blow. Trying to ignore the frozen silence of the others, concentrating on Master Sollis’s next likely avenue of attack, an attack no doubt fuelled with the fury of humiliation. But no attack came. Master Sollis simply packed up his wooden sword and told them to gather their things and follow him to the dining hall. Vaelin watched him carefully as they walked across the practice ground and into the courtyard, searching for a sudden tension that could signal another swipe of the cane, but Sollis’s dour demeanour remained unchanged. Vaelin found it hard to believe he would swallow the insult and vowed not to be taken unawares when the inevitable punishment came.