by Heath Pfaff
The sound of wood on wood rang out with every success, each time a clear snap signaling that I had joined the pattern properly. It seemed, for a moment, that things were going well, but my ears heard my mistake before my body had time to register. The rhythmic snap of wood meeting wood sounded dully once, and then twice, and I knew that I was about to be hit. I realized far too late that I had extended my balance too far to my right, and because of my missing arm, had no counter balance on my left side. My sword point fell and Snow's blade struck twice, fast, hitting me soundly across the face, and stabbing painfully into my chest. I fell backwards and landed hard.
I felt Malice at my side in a moment, her hand on my shoulder. Snow stalked in, her practice weapon at her side.
"You're getting better, but you're still fighting like you've got two arms. You can't rely on your left arm to balance you, since it's not there anymore. Your style is strong, your power is phenomenal, and your speed never fails, but any opponent you face who is worth his weight in dirt will fight to take advantage of your missing arm, and if they can survive long enough, you will give them an opening every time." Snow reprimanded. It was the same lecture I'd gotten many times.
"You don't have to be so mean about it!" Malice snapped, ever the one to come to my defense, especially if it was against Snow. "He's trying his hardest."
"In fact, I do have to be mean. He'll not learn any other way. If I don't hit him, someone else will, and they might do it with sharp steel. You don't want that. I don't want that, and I think Lowin really doesn't want that." Snow retorted.
"Well, you're still mean." Malice whispered aggrieved, though much of the fight had left her voice.
"Yes, and now it's your turn." Snow pointed her practice weapon at Malice to emphasize the point. The green-eyed former Knight looked down at me, concern on her face. I nodded that I was fine, and handed her my wooden weapon. She took it in her hand, firmed her resolve, and moved away from me and into a ready position across from Snow.
Snow looked much the same age as Malice, like a girl in her late teens with short cropped black hair, none of it long enough to fall in front of her line of sight. She was dressed in a Lucidil Cloak, a fabric whose color shifted and blended, albeit imperfectly, with the surroundings of the user, constantly changing appearance to make opponents uncertain about the exact motions concealed within.
Snow was unique among the Knights of Ethan, even when their numbers were larger, for she had the arms and legs of a white-furred Fell Beast, a very rare breed. Those features had won her the name "Snow." Outside of the practice field she was an easy person to like. She was courageous and strong, quick to laugh, and quicker to try and make others laugh. On the battlefield, though I'd never fought at her side, I'd heard that she was always at the front, and never placed another in a position she would not willing fight in herself.
On the training field, however, she was a devil, and a sharp tongued menace. She allowed no dissension, and exploited every flaw showed to her. Her teaching style left many a student with bruises and broken bones, but few of those who trained under her ever made the same mistake twice. It was easy to remember a mistake when it still hurt for a week after you'd made it.
Their eyes met across the distance between them, Malice's green, and Snow's eyes - once pure and deep black - flashed with a hint of vibrant pink. It was not something that a casual observer might notice, but one who spent as much time close to her as I had, was bound to take note. The gradual change in her eyes, and her closeness to me, was something that frightened me to think about. Malice's eyes had once been black as well, before we'd lain together once, many years before. They had shone green ever since.
The king, the ruler before Lucidil, had once tried to discover what it was about me that had the power to reawaken the nearly dead eyes of the Knights of Ethan. They had sent Snow to me as part of that experiment, and she had come away from the encounter unchanged. Now, years later, after many further intimate nights, I could see the change in her eyes, subtle though it was. What exactly that meant, I could not fathom, and did not wish to dwell upon. I was beginning to suspect I was creating some form of magical bond between others through sheer physical intimacy, and that was a difficult concept to wrap my mind around.
Malice attacked first. As per the rules of training, none of us used our ability to slow down our perception of time and move with super human speed, but even without that aid, the green-eyed girl was fast. Snow was fast as well, and she fell back, bringing her defenses to bear with only a hair's width of space to spare. Snow would not be so easily over matched however, and she turned Malice's surprise attack around in a rush. Malice's attack while fast, and well aimed, had also been sloppily carried out. Her sword technique was amateurish, and Snow took quick advantage of that, striking through the gaps left open in Malice's form.
To her credit, the red haired and green-eyed girl avoided many of Snow's initial attacks, weaving through the pattern of battle like she was made of smoke. However, in the end, technique won out over acrobatics. Snow's wooden blade sounded dully off Malice's ribcage, and the red haired girl fell back in pain. Snow had not taken so much as a single grazing.
Malice's practice wand bounded across the frozen winter grass and landed several feet from her, dropped with the shock of the hard impact on her chest. I went to her side, and offered her a hand up. She knocked it away and stood on her own, an emotional storm cloud hovering over her.
"I should be better than this. . ." She muttered under her breath, her eyes seeming distant for a moment.
"Your techniques are sloppy, and your attacks lack conviction. If you want to hit me, you have to really want to hit me. You can't hesitate. I want you to practice your forms for the next two hours. If you're movements are as sloppy tomorrow, I will hit you far harder next time." Snow issued her judgment coldly, and with detached severity. On the training field, she was a different person.
I half-expected for Malice to argue with the white-furred weapon master, but to my surprise, she did not. She nodded her understanding, dusted herself off, and walked away to recover her practice weapon, without meeting the eyes of either Snow or myself. I looked at Snow. She looked angry.
"What's wrong?" I asked, not sure what it was that was bothering her. She had won the encounter.
"She's still there." Snow said. I did my best not to look confused. "I can tell that Malice is still there. The way she moves . . . the way her attacks roll from one to the next, taking the form of necessity and not pattern. It's like she is just below the surface. I can't see it when I talk to her, or with the way she clings to you, but when we face each other sword-to-sword, it's like she is just beyond the range of voice. I feel like I could almost reach her if. . ." Her words trailed off.
I considered Snow for a time before speaking again.
"So, there is hope for her yet, then?" I asked.
Snow shrugged. "Hope can never be taken away, only lost." Snow swung around to me, her face once more neutral. "Grab a practice sword. We're not through yet."
I tried not to sigh heavily as I went to retrieve another weapon. I supposed that I was lucky that I healed quickly. Snow rarely broke my bones, a task which was pretty difficult to accomplish, but she quite frequently hit hard enough to leave some terrible bruises. Of course, bruises healed so fast on my flesh that I could watch them fade before my eyes. In fact, unless I intentionally tried to look at them, I rarely saw them anymore. If I hadn't come so close to death, on so many occasions, I might have thought myself immortal. Of course, my missing left arm served as another constant reminder. Immortals didn't lose limbs so easily, I thought.
I withdrew a weapon from the bin of practice blades, choosing one far larger than the size of a standard sword. The weapon was heavy compared to a Knight's weapon, but it felt right in my hand. I walked back to Snow, getting a feel for the wood wand. Snow looked at me with narrowed eyes.
"You'll never learn any finesse when fighting with a weapon like that." She said.
"Finesse has never really worked for me. However, I'm stronger and faster than most of my opponents, so maybe it's time to use that to my advantage." I replied.
"So you're going to substitute brawn for style?" Snow did not look impressed.
"Yes." I answered coolly.
"Then I shall have to show you why that is a bad choice." She brought her weapon up. The practice wand she used was crafted to mimic the two handed weapons of the Knights of Ethan. The wooden blade I had selected was a weapon of the front line, a massive sword used less for fighting, and more for skewering charging war sows, or breaking apart an enemy's front line as they tried to plow over the top of you. The blade alone was about four feet in length, and three quarters the width of man's hand across. I gripped the handle and held the weapon out before me. It was light in my massively powerful grip.
"You're not the first to think this was a good idea." Snow said to me as she began to circle. "Yet, do you ever see any of the others carrying such a big weapon?"
"No, but the others were not me." I answered. I didn't honestly know how my experiment would turn out, but I needed to think of something. I had been trying to adapt to fighting with one arm for a long time, and I had yet to find a successful method.
Snow and I charged at the same moment. Her blade moved quick, circling in for a decisive kill. I brought my weapon up before me, turning my side to my enemy as I did so. My larger blade turned her smaller one aside with ease, but she did not slow her movements. Her deflected momentum turned around in a flash, and her blade was coming back at me again almost before I could respond. I called upon my endless strength and forced the massive blade through the air to counter the new incoming attack. I deflected her again, but the large wooden sword had dragged me off balance, and I had to follow through its momentum with my body to avoid stumbling. I kept its flat surface between myself and Snow, and she was hard pressed to push her attack through.
The big blade had its disadvantages, but it had its advantages as well. To get within range of attacking me, my enemy had to cover a good deal of ground directly through the path of my weapon. If moved quickly enough, the blade was an effective shield. With my strength, the sword did not slow me down enough to be a hindrance, but with my missing arm, the large blade was even more likely to overbalance me on my right side. Could I make it work? I wasn't sure.
Snow stalked in, her blade tip never quite still as she weaved her path towards me. She sprung, her entire body uncoiled, seeming to double in length as she burst forward with surprising agility. She was past the point that I could create an easy defense in a flash, and I was forced to risk retreating, or closing and shortening her striking range, rendering her attack less effective. No, there was another option. I heaved my giant weapon in close to my body and drew it across and downward, in front of me as fast as I could. The opening that Snow had been driving through came closed just as she was nearing striking distance, and her blade deflected from the cross piece of my wooden sword and spun wide, only grazing me where it should have struck a powerful blow.
I was not so lucky on her follow up swing. I was so caught up in the triumph of my deflection, that the next strike hit me hard across the neck, and I fell to the ground, collapsing on my left side that had no way of bracing for the fall. Snow stood over me, looking down and shaking her head.
"The fight isn't over until one of us is lying on the ground. Try not to forget that next time." She paused for a moment, probably replaying the fight in her head, and looking for what aspects needed criticizing. "Your big sword makes a great club, if you're into that kind of thing. Of course, I guess that a brute like you was never really meant to handle a refined weapon. You may continue to train with your Sow-fork, but I want your active weapon changed to reflect the new direction of your training. There is no point in learning a new sword on the training field, and not taking what you learned to the battlefield."
That, I knew, was the closest I was going to get to approval of changing weapons. Snow had learned her sword skills in multiple places, and believed the skills she'd obtained were an art. I had been told on many occasions that I did not have the will to break my training and accept the flow of the sword art, but maybe it was only that my art was different from theirs. I would need to find my own way.
"Well, don't just lay there. I'm not done humiliating you yet." Snow broke my line of thought, tapping her practice sword in one palm. I stood up and dusted myself off. It would be a long morning.
I was nearing the end of training, when Ethaniel walked out onto the sparring field. The tall powerful leader of the Knights of the Ethan was grim faced. He had been so for years. He rarely ever smiled, and had few pleasant words to say to anyone. He had two sets of eyes, two the black of a Knight of Ethan, and two located just above his brow line that were gray and smoky. Those gray eyes oozed a perpetual mist of darkness. His head was crowned with a pair of large spiraling horns, and upon his back were black webbed wings. They were folded over his shoulders like a cloak. Beneath his lower set of eyes were two pits, an acquisition whose origin I was not certain of. They gave him an instinctual ability to perceive fluctuations in hot and cold. He was the first of the Knights, and had always been considered the greatest of them. He was my primary advisor, and my only political supporter, though I'd grown to dread speaking with him. His moods were, anymore, always dark.
I remembered when I had first met him. He'd had a warm, if not sad, smile that came easily to his face, and a demeanor that welcomed talk, and encouraged a bond whether one meant to establish one or not. Ethaniel had changed, and I knew not why. Every time I gazed into the second set of gray eyes upon his forehead, however, I wondered if they had something to do with his descent into bleak drear. They always seemed to stare outward with malevolent rage, as though watching a world they hated. Those eyes should have had no bearing on Ethaniel's personality, for all additions to the body of a Knight of Ethan were supposed to be bound by the Knight's mind, but I had learned much about that bond over the years. I had my own demons dwelling within me. Did Ethaniel fight such darkness within himself? Was he winning?
Of course, I knew it was possible that the political situation alone was to blame for his constant dour mood. Castle life had been difficult since I'd taken the crown. Ethaniel worked constantly to maintain the peace between myself and the heads of the various loyal clans. Some few supported me whole heartedly, but for the most part they all would have preferred if another had ascended the throne. If I hadn't needed the ships to sail and find Kaylien, I would have been happy to let someone else take the position from me. The grim faced warrior approached me. He seemed more agitated than usual.
"My King, may I have a word with you." His voice was clipped, his eyes, all four of them, glinted with anger, though the gray eyes glinted with more than just general anger. They gave Ethaniel the ability to see things that were too far away to be seen by the naked eye. With them, Ethaniel could gaze from one side of our lands to the other, or even further, across the Great Salt Seep that stretched from our shores into forever, as far as most were concerned. The problem was that the eyes only worked occasionally, and only showed some things. Ethaniel had worked for years to master the art, but he'd never been able to tame the ability. It was yet another source of frustration for the Knight.
"Of course." I answered promptly.
"In private. . ." Ethaniel added, gesturing to the side of the practice field. I nodded my agreement, though I certainly wasn't excited by the prospect of a private chat with my angry advisor. I turned to Snow, bowed respectfully, and then followed Ethaniel to a more private setting for our conversation.
We stepped into the covered overhang of the double doors which led back into the castle interior. I could tell I wasn't going to like what Ethaniel had to say before he even opened his mouth. The set of his jaw and the clip of his voice had given every indication that he was in an especially foul mood.
"Lord Lheec was here today." He began, his anger, I coul
d tell, was boiling just below the surface. How he had learned of the events of the morning I didn't know, but it was obvious that he had. News traveled fast in a castle. It was as though everything that happened within the walls echoed through the very stone. "I don't suppose I need to even ask if what I've heard is true. You turned down Lheec's offer to wed his youngest daughter, Bellena." If it was meant to be a question, it wasn't stated as such.
"Yes," I replied, attempting to keep my calm. My anger flared inside me though. That Ethaniel would be angry at me for turning down such a disgusting offer enraged me. "She was a young girl, too young to marry, and I am not interested in wedding."
A low growl issued from Ethaniel's throat, and his eyes smoldered.
"Lheec is one of the very, very few people who stand in support of your rule, at least publicly. Do you have no love of your country? By insulting Lheec, you put yourself in a very precarious situation." Ethaniel's voice was like a whip, tinged with the strange powerful vocal disharmony known amongst the Knights as "the voice." Like the arms and legs our kind take from other creatures, some Knights have taken the very voice of another monster, and it is as much a weapon as the claws of the Fell Beast. Ethaniel normally hid the voice when in public, but agitated, it shined through, lashing at me like a physical attack. I was, however, no fragile child to be so easily intimidated.