“Now you clean,” the older man said simply.
“So you brought me here to be your slave?” Mirickar asked sharply.
Kallosarin leaned toward him, locking his gaze on Mirickar. “I brought you here to possibly tutor you, and you have much to learn, including discipline and patience. If you can’t even manage to wash dishes, I am not going to waste my time with any other training.”
Mirickar looked down at his food and finished eating in silence. When he was done, Kallosarin told him where and how to clean the dishes, and he did so without comment. Mirickar appreciated the meal, for it was the most he had eaten at once since before the kurakvin attack, but he was annoyed and mistrustful about the old man’s motivations.
“Now will you teach me to fight?” he asked when he finished his chore.
“Now we can take the next step,” Kallosarin said with a nod. “This is my home, not a school. I am not prepared for my first pupil. We must gather the materials we will need.”
“What do we need?”
“Weapons. Practice weapons. We cannot use real swords, else I might kill you by accident.”
Mirickar bit back the first reply that came to mind. “What weapons can we find, other than rocks and sticks?”
Kallosarin nodded. “Sticks, to begin with. Perhaps we will get to rocks later. Although they will not be appropriate in every kind of combat, in the right hands controlled by the right mind, stout lengths of wood can be lethal. Of course, they can also be used to take the place of swords. Let us go into the forest and see what it offers us.”
Mirickar did not voice his skepticism but simply watched the older man retrieve a saw from a pile of tools in one corner. He took the tool when Kallosarin held it out to him, and the two left the cottage without another word. It did not take them long to find a small thicket of short trees with narrow trunks, of a kind Mirickar had not seen before. He wondered if Kallosarin had already known about their presence since they found them so quickly.
“Here,” Kallosarin said, pointing to one trunk. “Cut.”
Mirickar said nothing and went to work sawing through the trunk. The saw was sharp and it didn’t take long for him to finish that cut and the next three that he was told to make, leaving them with two solid staves. Kallosarin drew a small dagger and used it to remove some tiny branch and leaf offshoots and then led the way back to his home.
“While they’re still green,” Kallosarin said, gesturing at the staves that Mirickar was carrying, “the wood will flex a bit, but not much. When dry, they’ll be almost as hard as metal. When you can find them, cuttings from those little trees can be put to many uses. They always grow in clusters like that. Remember to keep an eye out for them.”
“And now I learn to fight?”
“Yes, impatient one, now you learn to fight,” Kallosarin agreed, shaking his head in disapproval. “Hand me a staff.”
The older man took one of the staves and led Mirickar to an open area beside his cottage. They faced off, and Kallosarin told his pupil to do his best to land a solid blow. Mirickar did not hesitate. He launched himself at Kallosarin, but blow after blow was deflected. The forest echoed with the clacking of the two staves slamming together.
“You are good,” Mirickar assented with a grunt as he continued trying to land a blow on the older man. “I have not struck you, but you have also not struck me.”
Kallosarin grinned as he deflected another attack. “I haven’t been trying.”
A moment later, Mirickar found his hands empty as his staff spun end over end into the nearby underbrush. Pain filled his chest when Kallosarin slammed his staff into his ribs. He stumbled back, instinctively holding up one hand to deflect another blow. It would have been useless, but it was not needed. The older man had already withdrawn.
“I was just letting you tire yourself out and exercise your anger,” Kallosarin said with a shrug. “You have no technique, no style, no talent. You only have aggression and impatience. Kill kurakvin? You might be able to barely defend yourself against a solitary kurakvin, if your opponent were drunk. They’re not highly skilled, but they’re better than you. This shoddy performance makes me doubt your story all the more.”
“It is true!” Mirickar insisted as he held one hand against his chest where the staff had hit him.
Kallosarin shrugged again. “Perhaps they were drunk. Or perhaps you were lucky. Or, perhaps there is no truth to it. You’ll get a good bruise from that, but you should be fine. If I train you to fight, you can expect a lot more bruises and a lot more pain.”
“I am not afraid of pain,” Mirickar said, trying to make his tone fit his words.
“That is easy to say. We shall see what the truth is in time. Go get your staff, so that we can begin an actual lesson.”
Mirickar moved as smoothly as he could toward the brush where his staff lay. He didn’t want to let Kallosarin know that the blow had hurt him, but he silently wondered whether one of his ribs had been cracked. Once he had the staff in hand, he warily returned to Kallosarin.
“I am ready,” he asserted, meeting the older man’s gaze.
“Perhaps you should say, ‘Teach me more, master,’ and let me decide when you are ready for anything more than further humiliation.” Kallosarin’s tone was lightly mocking, but his expression was serious.
After a moment, Mirickar assented. “Teach me more, master.”
Kallosarin nodded gravely. Without approaching his young pupil, he began to explain and demonstrate the basics of swordfighting. When it was time for Mirickar to follow instructions, Kallosarin stepped closer and they practiced in slow motion so that neither was at risk of gaining a new bruise. The pace of instruction picked up gradually and Kallosarin led Mirickar through some gentle sparring.
“I can see the impatience boiling over again,” Kallosarin said, shortly after announcing late in the afternoon that his lessons for the day were over.
“I cannot help it–”
“You can, and you must learn to,” the older man interrupted.
“But we have hardly learned anything,” Mirickar said, immediately annoyed by his own whining tone. He tried to even out his voice as he continued, “I feel as if I could have guessed all that you taught me today.”
Kallosarin gave a soft snort. “But you did not guess it, or I would not have bruised you so easily. This is only the first day, and you have much to learn still.”
“How long will it take?”
The older man shook his head and turned away without answering. When it became apparent that he had little other choice, Mirickar followed Kallosarin back into his home. The remainder of the evening was spent mostly in silence except when Kallosarin gave instructions for completing various chores.
They ate a scant evening meal that was just enough to quiet any hunger pangs so they would not be distracted from sleep. After telling Mirickar where to find a spare blanket, Kallosarin went to his own bed and was silent for the rest of the night. Mirickar did his best to get comfortable beside one wall of the home, but he did not fall asleep as easily as his mentor.
“Teach me more, master,” Mirickar said the next day when they returned to their practice area.
Kallosarin had him practice what he had learned the day before. Once that was complete, they moved on with the lessons, gradually increasing in difficulty. They took occasional breaks throughout the day when Kallosarin wanted one, but by the end of the day Mirickar was feeling both tired and more bruised. That evening both he and Kallosarin were more quiet than before, with the older man assigning chores with minimal gestures instead of words. Impatience still ate at Mirickar, but he was careful to not express it.
Day after day the training continued. Instruction, practice, sparring, and more instruction. Mirickar began to lose track of how many days he had spent with Kallosarin. Even his drive for vengeance began to slip away as he focused more on what he was learning. When he realized that he was beginning to challenge Kallosarin when they sparred, the impatience an
d desire to kill kurakvin returned.
“Teach me more, master,” Mirickar said one morning, “but only if I am still unready to kill any kurakvin I may meet.”
Kallosarin looked at him in silent appraisal for several moments. He then nodded. “You are ready, Mirickar. Ready to kill a kurakvin, at least, though I am not ready to admit there are any to find and kill.”
“I am ready?” Mirickar asked, raising his eyebrows in anticipation.
Kallosarin nodded. “You are not a great swordsman, but you are ready.”
Chapter Six
“I need a way to arm myself,” Mirickar said, glancing about at the forest surrounding them. “I must find a village, a blacksmith. I need a good sword.”
“Yes,” Kallosarin agreed, “that staff will not last long against a solid blade, and that cheap thing you were carrying when I found you will not fare much better. Yet a village blacksmith’s attempt at a sword might be just as frail, so you should seek a better source than that. However, a sword is not all that you need.”
“Armor?” Mirickar asked. “I would not want anything too heavy or bulky…” His voice faded as he saw that the older man was shaking his head with a grim expression. “What is it that I am missing?”
“More discipline,” his mentor said flatly. “Strategy. Wisdom. Your mind is stronger and more mature than when I first met you, other than the doubtful claim about kurakvin, but you will not last long against an organized foe. One kurakvin? Two? Certainly, with a strong blade you could slay them. But a dozen? A camp of fifty? Whatever enemies you face may not arrive alone or with a single companion, they may come in force. You would be slain before delivering more than scratches.”
Mirickar shrugged. “There is nothing I can do to multiply myself, I am one man against whatever I find.”
Kallosarin shook his head again. “You cannot multiply your body, but you can multiply your effects by fighting with intelligent strategy. I have taught you enough to come out ahead against one or two opponents, but if you leave now you will not have the knowledge and wisdom to approach the enemy in a way that favors you and not them.”
“So you would have me stay here longer?”
“I have spent time and effort training you to fight. I could have spent that time at ease, pursuing my own amusements, but instead I labored to make you an effective fighter. It would be a waste to throw that away.”
“I am wasting time,” Mirickar answered. “I may be throwing away my opportunities to kill kurakvin.”
Kallosarin nodded. “I understand your blood lust. I see that when I thought it might be fading, it was only napping while you were distracted. But it has reawakened. Mirickar, if there truly are kurakvin in the land, you will find there are ample opportunities to kill them. They do not wander places in small groups! No, instead they infiltrate in long lines, stealthily, and only raiding for supplies and to exercise their violence away from those lines. If you saw ten, there might be ten hundred between your home and the border.
“The king should be alerted, if there is any truth to it. Of course, I do not believe there is, but if we assume that you are right and I am wrong, sending you off to kill a few before you are killed is hardly the correct thing for me to do. Every man in the kingdom should be prepared to hunt down every last kurakvin and slay them without mercy, which naturally means not being slain by them first. I can’t prepare other men, but you are here. Let me finish preparing you.”
Mirickar thought in silence before letting out a heavy sigh. “I will stay at least another night or two,” he said. “Beyond that… I do not wish to make promises that I may be tempted to break.”
“There is so little I can teach you in that time,” the older man said, shaking his head gravely.
“It is the best I can offer,” Mirickar said with a shrug, “so do your best.”
Kallosarin shook his head again but did not reply directly to Mirickar’s words. At the older man’s direction, they sparred for awhile to practice things that had been more recently taught. When Kallosarin was satisfied, he led the way back to his cottage.
“Kallosarin,” Mirickar said as he watched the old warrior gather what looked like writing materials, “you never told me why you are hiding away in this forest, when one would expect a great swordsman to be in Madarre with the king. I no longer doubt your skill on the battlefield, but it is a mystery to me why you would be here.”
“There is a good reason I have not told you yet,” Kallosarin answered, briefly pausing to look back at his pupil.
“You are hiding something?”
Kallosarin chuckled and went back to what he had been doing. “No. You never asked after we reached my home.”
“Ah,” Mirickar said, sounding mildly peeved. “Well, I am asking now.”
“So you are,” the older man said as he gestured for Mirickar to join him at the table where he had placed several scrolls and scraps of parchment. “It is not a very fascinating tale to intrigue a young mind like yours.”
Mirickar shrugged. “I would still like to know.”
Kallosarin nodded and gazed down at the materials on the table but not apparently seeing them.
“It was a long time ago, when the land was still ruled by King Erhannor, that is, King Eraxann’s father. We had a… political disagreement. I was sworn into his service, but he sent me from his presence. I had… other interests in Madarre. I expressed to those who looked upon me more favorably that I would not leave the kingdom, since I was not technically banished from it, but I would stay out of sight. I was given a magical chime by a good friend, Arkhaimal. He said that it will sound if one of my friends in Madarre needs me. It has been silent. So many years later, I do not know if my friends are even alive anymore.”
“I see, but do not see,” Mirickar replied. “What was the political disagreement?”
“Old grief,” Kallosarin said, shaking his head. “Old grief from years past, it matters not now. When you are older, you will have old grief too, and you will not want to revisit it unnecessarily. Now, let’s talk of killing your enemies.”
Mirickar watched as his mentor pushed to one side most of the materials on the table, leaving only one piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink. Kallosarin then sketched several symbols on the parchment.
“Here,” Kallosarin said, pointing to one symbol after he set down the quill, “is where you see cooking fires as you approach as dusk fades to night. Dark shapes beyond appear to be tents. Here, and here, are steep hillsides covered in loose rock and sparse shrubs. The ground in front of you is reasonably level and has short, thin grass on it. To make it easy, you can see a banner flying by one of the tents and you recognize it as your enemy. Show me how you would attack.”
Mirickar looked at the diagram for a moment. “Well,” he said slowly, “if the sides look challenging but there is a clear approach in front, then I would rush them directly.”
“And you would die, if they were kurakvin,” Kallosarin said, shaking his head again. “It’s too obvious, don’t you think? When you are in conflict, and you see the enemy has made it easy to strike at them, do you not pause and wonder why? Now if you were fighting the Jullarek tribes, as I once did, then such a simple approach might be all that was needed. But kurakvin? The individuals are not smart, but they have developed solid warfare techniques over their countless generations.”
“So why would I be dead?”
“Because there would be kurakvin around the cooking fires, but those would be the weak, the injured, or those being punished. There would be more of them away from the fires than near them, and you could be certain that the easy path before you would become a killing zone for them. Archers, at least, would rain death upon you. They might have light war engines in place, depending on how long they were encamped.”
“So how should I attack? Go up the slopes that are bound to cause trouble, in footing or noise or both?”
Kallosarin grinned briefly. “The correct answer is that you would not att
ack at all, at least not yet. Instead of only listening to your desire to kill them, which would instead give them the chance to kill you with impunity, you would take the time to scout their location. You want to find their strengths, their weaknesses, and the best – not first – angle and method of attack.”
Mirickar sighed. “Very well. But this is simple, and could have been simply put. Must I really spend more days here just to learn the long way what could be told the short way?”
“Simple, indeed,” Kallosarin said, giving a soft snort. “Simple and yet if this was real instead of on parchment, you would be dead. This is the first, and admittedly simple, lesson. Do not judge the breadth and depth of my instruction from your first scant glance. I started simply when I began teaching you how to use a sword. Did that hint at what you would eventually learn?” Mirickar shook his head. “Are you then ready to settle down and learn more now?”
After a moment, Mirickar nodded. “I am.”
The two spent the rest of the day huddled over the table, with Kallosarin sketching out scenarios and Mirickar suggesting how he would handle each one. Each time, Kallosarin critiqued his choices, but it became apparent to both of them that Mirickar was improving his first answers as the day wore on.
When night fell and they had spent their energy, they retired quietly to their beds after a sparse meal. Mirickar felt that he would be thinking of the other man’s diagrams for hours and then dream of them once he fell asleep, but sleep found him quickly and his dreams did not trouble him.
Mirickar spent the next day mostly in the cottage with Kallosarin, working through more scenarios. They took short breaks throughout the day to spar outside, partly for practice but mostly to freshen their thoughts. When they sat down for their evening meal, Mirickar’s expression was serious.
“I can wait no longer,” he said as the other man doled out their portions. “I should leave in the morning.”
“You know you can’t kill them all,” Kallosarin responded. “If they’re kurakvin as you claim, the king truly should be told, rather than wasting your life making a tiny scratch in the forces they are slipping into the kingdom.”
The Vengeance of Mirickar Page 4