by Mark Tufo
“I was,” I answered back in all seriousness.
Another pile joined the first before Brody finally showed up for his shift. “Lovely,” he said, stepping over what could only be described as green offal.
He was carrying a large black canvas bag over his shoulder and set it down on the floor in the living room. He pulled out a portion of pork loin that I could have previously only dreamed about. I could only hope my eyes didn’t bug out as much as Tallow’s when he saw it. Tallow made a move as if to go for it.
“Hold on Sweetheart. This is for after. That is if you even want it by then.”
“After what?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the food.
“This bag was not easy to sneak in here.” He pulled out four broadswords. They looked heavier and more deadly than the practice swords handed out to all the seventeen year-olds when they started their mandatory training.
Brody tossed mine across the room to me. It was a good thing I had a wall behind me or I would have fallen over; as it was, I jammed two of my fingers catching it. Tallow fared far worse; a red crease swelled on his forehead where the hilt made contact in his failed attempt to catch it.
“Jerk,” Tallow muttered, picking up the sword. He ran his fingers across the blade. “These are as dull as a club.”
“I wouldn’t trust you with anything sharper.”
“We’ve already promised you that we’ll play this game your way.” Tallow stood, getting a feel for the blade.
“I’m not worried about myself; you’d end up hurting yourself. Probably cut off something you consider pretty important. Nothing anyone else would notice, mind you, but you’d be sad.”
“Funny,” Tallow said, but he wasn’t laughing.
“Sorry I’m late,” Cedar said as she ran in. “Did I miss anything?”
“Oh, just having a sword tossed at you and what are you doing here?” I asked her as I sucked on my fingers. I looked from her to Brody.
“I told her everything, including what I read in the history book last night. She couldn’t be more eager to help out,” he told me. “Although in all likelihood, she was just too nosy to not be in on what was going on.”
“Cedar, are you sure?”
My friend nodded her head. She did look eager and maybe even a little excited.
“Yes, Princess, I told her how dangerous this was going to be and that the chances of survival were marginal.”
“I told him ‘where you go, I go,’” Cedar responded.
“And yes, I did tell her about everything you’d discovered. Move the couch, we’re going to need as much room in here as possible.”
When the room was clear I picked up my sword, wondering how anyone could swing the thing effectively. “Why are these things so heavy? Shouldn’t we have ones like they use for training?”
“Therein lies most of the problem for Dystancians,” Brody said.
“Huh?”
“They train you for less than a year on a sword that is half the weight of the one you’ll be issued when you go to war.”
“What?” I was appalled. No wonder barely one in a thousand survived.
“What’s going on?” Tallow asked.
“You’re lucky you’ve got looks, kid, because you’ve got very little going on up top. Princess here figured it out in half a second.”
I looked over to Tallow. The gears were spinning in his head, but they were moving independent of each other. “In what little time the people here train, they’re using the wrong weapon. When they get to The War...”
“They get slaughtered,” Brody finished. “Come on, we have to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. Ready for your first lesson?”
Tallow was rubbing his head where he’d been struck.
“You three are going to hold your sword out in front of you, the blade horizontal to the floor, with your arms outstretched. If and when it dips, I am going to eat. The more time your sword points down the less you are going to have.”
“How hard could that be?” Tallow boasted.
“For how long?” I asked warily.
“Until I’m full. Begin.”
Within moments, all of our arms were quavering from the strain. The tip of my blade was wildly dancing from side to side. It went down slightly and I watched enviously as Brody ripped off a slab of meat. I fought it back up. Cedar’s was next; I could hear her gasping for air.
“Are you holding your breath?” I asked her.
“Uh-huh.” Her blade came back up.
“I’ve seen nine-year-olds hold it up for ten minutes,” Brody said around a mouthful of food. He was spitting more out as he talked than I’d eaten in two days. I had my eyes shut and my teeth pressed tight against each other as I warred with gravity.
Tallow’s point must have dropped as well because I could hear Brody’s lips smacking as he took another hunk. “Barely finished the last piece. Good thing I brought something to wash it down with.” I thought I smelled tea but I didn’t dare break concentration to look.
I felt a small sense of satisfaction as Tallow’s point dropped for a second time before mine did. My arms were coated in a sheen of sweat, my hands in danger of completely losing their grip.
“I thought you guys were hungrier than this.” He took another impossibly large bite, my stomach gurgled in protest.
“This is impossible,” Tallow said, letting his point touch the floor. Try as I might I could not keep the heavy piece of steel from dropping down to match his. Not only was Cedar’s blade on the floor, she was bent at the waist like she wanted to join it.
“You pick it up now, maggot, or I’ll run you through with it.” The malice with which he delivered those words sent a shock of adrenaline through my body and he wasn’t even talking to me.
Cedar’s eyes got wide but she did as Brody told her to do.
“That’s better. I don’t like to eat my food fast. It gives me indigestion.” And then he belched. Just the smell of his digesting food, as gross as that sounds, had my mouth watering.
I don’t know how long he kept us like that. I had somehow sent my mind away as I locked my arms on a task I did not believe I could accomplish. My body was still; I imagined myself taking my mother to the library where she would tell me what her childhood was like. We shared the day like that, talking and laughing much like Cedar and I. “Winter,” she said. No, that wasn’t right, a male voice said it. “Winter.” He called my name again. I felt a hand on my arm and the spell was broken. I nearly followed the sword as it crashed to the ground. “You alright?” Tallow was looking in my eyes. “He said we could take a break.”
“Go on a little vacation, Princess?” Brody asked. He said it carefree enough but I felt that there was something more underlying to his question. “Seems you might have the gift. Wish I had more time to work with you.”
“Gift?” Tallow pried.
“Shut up and eat something. I’m so stuffed I’m going to have to undo the buttons on my pants soon.”
I don’t think I even took a breath as I shoveled the food in.
“Better watch your fingers, she’ll strip them of meat before you even know what bit you.” Brody was leaning back on the couch before he abruptly stood. “Hide the swords. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“How’d you do that, Winter?” Cedar asked after finally getting her fill.
“Do what?” I hated to talk with a mouthful but I wasn’t going to stop eating to answer questions.
“Holding that sword up like that.”
“What? You did it too.”
“Yeah, for a couple of minutes, then I couldn’t hold it up for much more than ten seconds at a time before it fell. That thing must have hit the ground fifty times.”
“What are you talking about, Cedar? Brody wasn’t here for more than ten minutes.”
“It was two hours, Winter. You held that sword up for almost all of it,” Tallow answered.
“That’s ridiculous.” Although this time I did stop eating to think abou
t it.
Cedar was looking at me strangely. “Do you believe everything that was in that book?” she asked while we were preparing for bed.
“All of it? I guess not…now that I’m dwelling on it. Seems to me whoever wrote it was from a certain one of those countries and would want their home to shine in a better light. But I do believe there was enough truth in it to merit what we’re trying to do.”
“Can you imagine that?”
I didn’t know what part she wanted me to imagine. So much of it sounded like fantasy it was difficult to know where even to start.
Chapter 8
Live By The Sword
THE ENTIRE REST of the week went the same way–us holding the swords out until we could hold them up no more. But now, instead of eating our food, he resorted to hitting us with the flat of his blade on the back of our legs. I had varying degrees of success with the mind wandering or “Time Dilation,” as Brody called it. The more I thought about doing it the less successful I was. By the time the end of the week came, Tallow, Cedar, and I could barely sit down because our legs were so bruised and battered. I had to sleep on my stomach for days until the pain subsided.
I was thankful on the second week when we were finally able to swing the sword instead of holding it stationary, until I realized we had to keep it moving continually. The metal did feel considerably lighter than it had when we first started. However, we were now using a whole new set of muscles in a completely different manner and it burned. When we would stop, Brody would smack our arms. I never thought I’d want him to go back to the legs.
Our clothes looked like they’d been caught out in the rain by the time Brody had left us that night. I didn’t even have enough energy to bathe so I stripped off most of my clothes and fell onto the bed. I really wished I’d thought to take a look at Tallow’s face, as I’m sure he was pretty surprised. I couldn’t even imagine the energy necessary to produce a smile thinking about it. I’d fallen so deeply asleep I didn’t even dream. When I awoke the next morning, Tallow was sleeping in a chair next to the bed. I found it odd that the chair was facing away from me. It was then I sat up with a start, covering myself when I realized I was naked.
Tallow stirred as I moved. “You’re awake?” I asked as I scrambled to get some clothes on.
“I didn’t get much sleep,” he grumbled. “Could you please not do that again?”
“Um, yeah, sorry. Where’s Cedar?”
“She’s on the couch.”
“Hey, my little rats!” Came from down the hallway. I expected to hear the telltale sign of food hitting floor but was surprised when it was the soft clicking of the door shutting instead.
“Must be Turf’s turn for watch,” Tallow said, stretching. Turf had been one of the few that would not drop our food on the floor, yet he always felt the need to call us some sort of name.
“TWO WEEKS, BRODY. Two weeks we’ve been holding swords steady or just swinging them around. When are we going to do something useful, like, maybe strike something?” Tallow asked. He’d been expressing his frustration to me every night, and I knew it was only a matter of time until he said something to Brody. I’d been telling him he’d show us when he thought we were ready. That had done little to nothing to placate him.
“There’s a reason for the things I’m teaching you,” Brody said evenly.
“Yeah, I guess I could always wait for the enemy to impale themselves on my perfectly still sword, or if there’s a lot of fog I’ll be able to blow it away with my pinwheel movements.”
Brody had been sitting, eating a dried piece of meat. He’d not even been watching our exercise. “You think you’re ready for a swordsmanship lesson then?” he asked as he stood and went over to grab his own sword.
Tallow nodded.
“I didn’t hear you tell me that you’re ready for a lesson.”
“I’m ready,” Tallow said, although I noted a hint of wavering in his voice.
“Strike me,” Brody said, the tip of his sword touching the ground.
“What?”
“Hit me.”
Tallow needed no further urging. He lunged, pulling the sword back over his shoulder and bringing it back around when Brody moved. He was so fluid, like a mountain lion, his muscles rippled as he danced back from the swing. His sword came up and struck Tallow’s hand guard, knocking the blade free. Brody struck the meaty part of Tallow’s arm with the flat of his blade hard enough to draw blood.
“Pick up your sword.”
Tallow had his left hand covering over the wound on his right as he bent and picked up his weapon.
“Strike me.”
Tallow didn’t like the way this was going.
“Strike me!” Brody bellowed. Rage contorted his features.
Tallow screamed as he again ran at Brody, this time holding his sword up in front of him. Brody knocked the weapon to the side and with his free hand struck Tallow in the jaw with his fist. Tallow staggered. Brody smacked Tallow’s left arm, leaving a matching welt. He then placed his right foot in Tallow’s gut and pushed him over. He sprang over Tallow’s body and placed the point of his sword against his throat. He was breathing heavy, a wild look in his eyes.
“Enough,” I said softly. “We’re not ready.” Brody did not move. “Brody, we get it, we’re not ready.” He finally paused to look over.
“That’s the problem. You’re not ready and you won’t be at this pace. There’s too much for you to know in too short a time. I’ll be taking double shifts to guard you, triples if I have to. We will train all day if that’s what it takes. You, Princess, you are going to fix whatever is wrong. You are going to make what happened to Marcus mean something.”
He stepped over Tallow. “Class dismissed,” he barked as he left.
“You alright?” I asked, going over to help him up. There was a fine line of blood leaving a trail from his Adam’s apple to the collar of his shirt, where the material greedily lapped it up. “Cedar, help me dress his wounds.” The skin on his arms had split in fat swaths where the sword had made contact. Blood seeped from the wounds rather than flowed, the welts nearly a half inch across. At least they were shallow. His busted lip we could do little for.
“Do you think he needs stitches?” Cedar was looking from the wounds to me.
I shook my head and grabbed the salve. “This is going to burn a bit.”
He issued not a sound when I slathered it on. I knew the pain he was in, though, as a single tear came from his eye. Cedar and I each wrapped an arm in a bandage.
“Probably shouldn’t have challenged him,” Tallow said as he put his head back on the headrest of the couch.
I started laughing.
“Is he being serious or funny?” Cedar asked, and I laughed harder.
Tallow joined in. “Man that hurt. Thought my damn arms were going to fall off.”
“Oh, I think he’s being serious.”
“Isn’t he right, though, Winter? I mean, how are we ever going to learn anything just swinging our arms around?”
“He’s got to have a plan.” I can’t say I was particularly keen on defending Brody’s actions but we were trusting him, implicitly, with our lives; I had to believe it was the right thing to do.
“I’m going to bed,” Cedar announced abruptly.
Tallow could barely keep his eyes open and went to sleep as well. I suddenly found myself the only one awake. I sat by the window watching as young children darted about playing catch or tag, oblivious to the fact that all of this could be so much better. I saw the older ones fighting beautiful, natural desires that we were meant to have but never would simply because someone, somewhere, had decreed it. In the seven hundred and sixty-eight pages of the World History book I had read, never did I see anything about Bio Buildings or entire generations that were destined to fight a never-ending war with an unknown purpose. Just the amount of paper available when the book was written was a testament to the greatness of the age. What had finally happened that toppled so many po
werful countries around this gigantic world? Or were they still out there? Was it possible only this country was the one that had spiraled down? Wouldn’t another have stepped in, though, to help? So many questions. I felt like my brain was going to liquefy and run out of my ears. I had so few answers to plug up the holes with. I drifted in and out of sleep with my head resting against the windowsill. It was pitch black when I awoke, a sound no louder than the scraping of sawdust on the floor penetrating through my dreams. A shadow impossibly darker than the surrounding ink entered through the door. It came in closer, sweeping down the hallway like an enrobed death. I moved as fast as I could to get off the chair I was on with as little sound as I could manage. I don’t think a cat could have come in any quieter. I was fairly certain it was Brody; it was roughly the same size. I wanted to see what he was up to.
As he looked around, I ducked down. Tallow was asleep on the couch, his soft breathing not changing as the darkness crept toward him. I kept the sword low as I maneuvered to get between them, but Brody was faster. By Tallow’s muffled cries I could tell Brody had placed a hand over his mouth. I caught a glint of metal as a blade swung through the air.
“You’re dead,” Brody whispered. “Now be quiet.”
“What?” Tallow said, still trying to figure out what was going on as Brody released his hand from his mouth.
“Shh, you’re dead–I told you that already.” Brody wheeled as I placed the blade of my sword against his throat.
“You’re dead,” I hissed.
“How? Forget it. Pretty impressive, Princess. Let’s draw the curtains and get some lanterns on, because it’s going to be a long night.” After being so tense and ready for action just moments before, now I only felt exhaustion at the thought of more training.
I lit five candles and Cedar was dressing before Tallow could shake the cobwebs from his head.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Your first exercise of the evening and you failed miserably,” Brody told him.
“How? I didn’t even do anything.”
“Oh, I can assure you that you did. You were able to die. The War doesn’t stop when the sun goes down. In fact, it becomes more active. When you are your most tired, your most exhausted, your weakest or sickest, it comes. It doesn’t care if you haven’t eaten or have injuries; it always comes like a relentless predator. Death will stalk you until the end–that is all it knows.”