by B. T. Narro
He swung back and elbowed me just above my right eye. The pain was immense as everything flashed white. I barely remembered falling.
Michael and Charlie were finally pulling the krepp off Reuben when I sat up. They yanked him back far enough for Reuben to scurry away from the beast.
Grufaeragar stood up and swiped at both of them, but fortunately they were each quick enough to jump back before their skin was torn. They both retreated quickly with their hands up.
The krepp started after Charlie, then Michael, then looked back at Reuben, and finally at Leon. His claws were up, his teeth showing. He looked like a threatened wolf.
“Shall I fire?” someone asked.
The feeling of a knife in my temple made it difficult to see straight, but I gasped in horror as I noticed one of the king’s guards with an arrow aimed at Grufaeragar.
The king, with a face as if a vase was falling, gestured for the man to put down his bow. I didn’t think Grufaeragar saw the archer before he lowered the arrow.
“Why all…?” Grufaeragar’s face twisted as he seemed to search for the right word. “Why all kirjek leasp?”
“What?” the king asked.
“Leon cheat in duel for honor!” Grufaeragar said. “He must die for cheat!”
“That is ridiculous. You swung at my head!” Leon fumed. “Then you disarmed me, and yet you still attacked. So I blew you back with wind.”
“You cheat!” Grufaeragar looked at the king. “I ask permission to fight Leon to death.”
“There will be no killing here.” The king then spoke some Kreppen. “Aken iwa. Aken iwa.”
That must mean no killing.
“Then you dishonor me,” Grufaeragar shouted. “All of you dishonor me!”
Reuben told the king, “He is more beast than man. You saw what he did to me when I tried to get him off the instructor!”
I said, “He only did that when you started beating him over the head with your wooden sword.”
“Oken!” Grufaeragar said as he pointed at me. Then he pointed at Reuben. “Felk kirjek ri leasp!”
I made another mental note of the Kreppen. Oken must be yes. Felk kirjek ri leasp had to be something about Reuben attacking him. Or maybe it was “human attacked me from behind.”
“Krepps don’t trade with dishonorable cowards,” Grufaeragar said slowly and surely.
“Grufaeragar, this was all a misunderstanding—”
But Grufaeragar interrupted the king with a mouthful of Kreppen. “Kirjek ri leasp. Kirjek ri leasp! Krepps kirjek felk leasp.”
The king put up his hands. “I don’t understand.”
I figured the krepp had to be repeating that we’d attacked him from behind. I tried to piece together what each word meant. It seemed like his last sentence was saying krepps would attack humans from behind. Oh, “leasp” must mean attack dishonorably, not necessarily from behind. If so, then he was saying the krepps would now attack us.
Was he declaring war?
I muttered a curse.
“Felks aken farrio,” Grufaeragar said.
I’d already figured out “felks” was “humans” and “aken” was “no,” from when the king said “aken iwa.” No kill. So the only new word was farrio. It seemed pretty obvious it had to be “honor,” the most important thing to krepps. Grufaeragar was walking toward the portcullis as if to leave. My heart dropped.
“Wait, Grufaeragar!” the king said.
He said one last thing, his tone dismissive. “Aken lyloll felk jiia.”
I had only one idea what that could mean, Grufaeragar’s dismissive tone my biggest hint: He wasn’t going to “speak human again.”
Then the krepp turned and didn’t stop. I didn’t see that there was anything to lose now, so I tried my best.
“Felks aken kirjek leasp, Grufaeragar!”
He stopped and looked back. I glanced at the king, hoping he might take over, but he made a roll of his hand for me to keep going.
“Uh…” God this would be so much easier without this blinding headache. “Felks aken kirjek leasp,” I repeated, then said, “Felks aken jiia. Aken kirjek leasp jiia.” I could only use words I had just heard and hope that my guesses were right.
Grufaeragar looked a little less angry, or perhaps there was just no way for him to show anger when his hairless brows above his eyes lifted in surprise.
“Lyloll felk?” I asked as I put my hands together and lowered my head in a plea.
“Only because you honor me, human. I speak your language one more. Swear what you say?”
“I swear it.”
“Then say it again.”
“Felks aken kirjek leasp.” Then I said, “It was confusion, not dishonor.”
“I see.”
“We were scared.” I gestured at everyone behind me. “Grufaeragar is very strong. Very scary.”
He clucked out a deep laugh. “Yes, humans scare easily. I remember in street. The man.”
“Yes,” I said, glad he recalled. “We were afraid, too. We thought you wanted to kill us. We didn’t mean to dishonor. We were just trying to defend our lives.”
“I understand now.” He walked back toward us. “You speak good Kreppen for human, Jon. You honor me. I stay longer. I watch humans. Decide later.”
He confidently strutted past everyone and back toward the great hall. “I am hungry!” he called out.
The king gestured for his guards to hurry after Grufaeragar. “Make sure he gets whatever he wants.”
There was a tense silence that lasted until Grufaeragar was out of view. My head was ringing like a bell.
The king looked too surprised for me to tell if he was proud of me. “What did you say to him in Kreppen?” he asked.
“Just that we won’t attack him again dishonorably. Then I asked him if he could speak ‘human’ again. He was saying he wouldn’t.”
“How could you possibly know all of that?”
“I just listened to the words you and he used and guessed their meaning. I wasn’t completely confident, but I figured it was better to take a chance than to let him walk out of here. If I understood him correctly, he was saying he was attacked dishonorably by humans and now the krepps were going to attack us dishonorably.”
“God and demi, I’m glad you said something. You have a great ear for Kreppen.”
“Sire,” Reuben interrupted before I could thank the king for his compliment. “May I ask what the krepp is doing each day? Why is he still here?”
“He’s still deciding if his kin will trade with us, leave us alone, or war with us. The krepps have been insulted because the last king killed a whole ship of them who had come here to trade. You all heard his story of the demigod coming to Hammashar. We still haven’t been able to determine what might’ve actually happened, but it is important that we honor Grufaeragar’s belief. He is not to be disrespected in any way. That includes by you, Leon.”
“That’s not going to be easy if he imposes himself on our training. It’s hard enough to get anything through the thick skulls of these people without a krepp distracting us.”
“He is growing bored and needs to see something that will tell him we have honor. You will find a way to include him without angering him if he shows up again, or next time he won’t be stopped. Do you understand?”
“Oh, I understand.” It looked as if Leon had more words, but he kept his mouth shut. I figured he wanted to tell the king that he wouldn’t have trouble stopping the krepp himself if it came to that.
I noticed the princess watching from the second story of the great hall window. She waved to me when I looked. I gave a quick nod and turned my attention away. There had been an older woman standing behind her, not the queen, probably a tutor of some kind. They seemed to have interrupted the lesson to watch the excitement.
I was glad it was over. Charlie had his hand up as he faced the king.
“Yes?” Nykal’s frustrated tone made it clear Charlie should not be asking anything.
&n
bsp; “My time would be better spent learning about the magical arts and enchanted devices for the sake of everyone else. I do believe mana has more possibilities than what is currently known by Leon and yourself, sire. There could be many spells that have not yet been discovered.”
“What exactly are you requesting from me?” the king asked.
“I would like to walk around the capital with the authority to demand that the people of Newhaven tell me what they know.”
Nykal’s eyelids lowered. “You will not demand anything of my people.”
“But I have spent years asking politely. No one ever wants to help me.”
I didn’t know if it was because of the awkwardness of Charlie’s request or solely from Grufaeragar’s elbow to my head, but I had to sit down. The throbbing pain in my head was too much.
I put my hand over it as I tried to relax on the dirt. I didn’t see myself training effectively the rest of the day.
“Jon, are you all right?” the king asked. “You took quite a blow.”
“I’ll be fine in time.”
I heard someone walking over. I squinted at Kataleya crouching in front of me.
“Let me see,” she said.
I let down my hand.
She was close to my face as she looked at my brow just over my right eye.
“Excuse me,” Reuben said. “I’m the one bleeding over here.”
Kataleya ignored him. She had me follow her finger with my eyes, along with a few other tests as the king answered Charlie.
“Do you truly believe you might learn something about mana that Leon cannot teach you?”
“Leon only yells, sire. He teaches me nothing.”
“That is a load of horse shit!” Leon yelled. “Nykal, you must see how difficult it is to get through to them? There’s nothing more that I can do!”
I was surprised when the king snapped at him. “Are you giving up on our agreement?”
“What agreement?” Charlie asked.
Kataleya brushed some of my hair out of my face. “You’ll be sore for a while, but I don’t think it’s serious.”
I had figured that much, but I thanked her anyway.
She moved just in time for me to see Leon red with rage. “I’m not giving up. I’m saying it’s impossible. There’s a difference.” He pointed at Charlie. “Fools like Spayker here are hopeless to learn the sword when they lack the motivation. Most of the others you’ve chosen will fail to learn more than one spell before winter is over. You might as well send them to Curdith Forest for a week and see who comes back alive. Then I might be able to impart some knowledge onto the strongest of them without it overwhelming their feeble minds.”
Kataleya moved over to Reuben and crouched in front of the wound on his leg. I found it a little sweet how he smiled at her when she wasn’t looking at his face. If he would just shut his damn mouth every now and again, he might not be such a pain.
But it was Leon who was really pissing me off today. After hearing this speech, I was starting to agree with Charlie. What had Leon really taught us? All he did was answer questions angrily.
He wasn’t a bad swordsman, but I had learned everything I thought there was to know from my father. I didn’t expect Leon to be able to teach me anything.
I did wonder about the agreement between him and the king, though. I had always been curious why Leon was here and not someone else. What had the king promised him? Or what had he promised the king?
“Take a moment to think about what you’re saying,” Nykal lectured Leon. “Then answer me. Are you giving up?”
“I want to know about this agreement,” Reuben interrupted.
Leon walked toward Reuben with such aggression that I was worried he might punch Reuben square in the nose. Reuben quickly limped away from him.
“Stay still and shut your mouth!” Leon demanded.
Reuben stopped hopping backward, though he still held fear in his eyes.
Leon gestured at the ground. “Sit down.”
Rueben sat but looked at Leon as if he might need to defend himself.
Leon crouched and pulled Reuben’s leg to straighten it. “This is going to hurt. Take the pain like a man, for once in your easy life.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked in a shaky voice.
Leon closed his eyes and drew a long breath. He put his hand over Reuben’s torn pant leg.
Reuben winced, then grabbed at his leg for a breath. Then he took a few quick breaths through the pain as he withdrew his hands so as not to interfere.
When Leon finished, he sat down and looked physically exhausted.
Reuben glanced at his wound with curiosity. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” Leon said as he slowly got up.
While his pants were, of course, still torn, the wound was just a faint line as if it’d had a few days to heal.
“Your turn, Jon,” Leon said as he made his way over to me.
“How do you do it?” I asked.
“It’s just a superficial healing spell. It isn’t complicated. F and Upper F.”
That was something I should be able to learn in a matter of hours! My immediate reaction was anger. “Why didn’t you tell me about that spell earlier?”
“There are many spells like that which had no use for you until now.”
“I want to learn them all.”
“You’ll lose your grasp on Expel faster than you’ll learn a few simple spells. You have to improve first.” He put his hand over my forehead, causing me to wince as it brushed against my brow. He hummed as if in thought. “You might actually be able to cast Heal with enough practice. Perhaps it should be the next spell you learn. Just keep practicing Expel at the same time.” He looked back at the others watching. “I haven’t even begun to teach all of you the true possibilities of your mana because none of you have proven you are ready.”
Leon looked back at me and let out a small groan as he began. I gasped. It felt like a hundred tiny needles were weaving through my brow.
I wanted to curse the incredible pain, but there were women and royalty watching. Reuben’s healing couldn’t have hurt this much. There was no way.
My legs shook. I was just about to yell out, but it came to an end.
It was Leon who looked worse off after. He had his palms on the dirt as he steadied himself.
“You’re welcome,” he said between quick breaths.
I grumbled my thanks. But then I did start to feel better. The pain washed away like I’d rinsed off dirt.
I touched the area carefully. It was still tender but splendidly better. My head was clear. The day wouldn’t go to waste anymore.
I have to learn this spell.
Charlie asked Leon, “How many spells do you know?”
“I know all the spells I can cast and a few more.” He sighed. “I don’t know how many that is. A lot.”
“Hundreds?” Charlie asked.
“No.”
“I know there must be hundreds,” Charlie said.
“There are, but you’re not going to find out anything by pestering the commoners in Newhaven. You have to ask the right person or you have to find books or scrolls on the magical arts. The best place, for both sorcerers and texts, is unfortunately Rohaer. I’ve never been, but everyone who knows anything has heard that the library in their capital is the place you want to go to truly learn.”
I thought of Eslenda in Curdith Forest. She had to know many spells. The camouflage alone seemed especially useful, but I wasn’t going to speak of her.
I still wondered if one of the people here could be responsible for telling the illusionist at Greda’s shop that I would be picking up a ward of dteria. I wanted to trust all of my peers, but I sometimes had a habit of trusting too much. It was often difficult for me to see the dark side of someone.
“There is at least one book written about the magic arts and magical devices in Newhaven,” Charlie said. “I’ve always
wanted to search for more, but I’ve never had the money to even purchase the one I want. I would like to go now that I do have the coin.”
“You will stay and learn the sword,” Leon said.
“I watched Remi fight. She has more coordination than I do. I wouldn’t want to waste everyone’s time.”
“You know what? Fine. We have wasted enough time. Take the rest of the day to search the city all you want. Be back for supper.”
I was a little surprised at Leon’s change of mind, but I was more concerned about something else to really care. I didn’t want to waste my time here, either.
“I’d like to go with him,” I ventured.
Leon looked dumbfounded. “You’re not about to say that you wish to skip sword training as well?”
“Yes, but for a different reason. My time is better spent helping Charlie. I don’t mean to offend you, Leon, but I don’t believe there is anything you can teach me that I don’t already know about sword fighting. I can practice with the others after they’ve caught up a little.”
“Then I should also have the day off,” Reuben said.
I gave him a look. He was ruining my chances.
“My ass.” Leon picked up two protective tunics. “I’m tired of talking. Show me just how good the two of you are.”
We slipped on the leather armor. There was nothing protecting our arms while wearing a sleeveless cuirass, but it was better this way, more mobility. We each picked up a training sword from the ground.
I could see in Reuben’s eyes that he desperately wanted to prove he was better than me. Unfortunately for him, I knew that just couldn’t be the case.
There was no one better.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Long before I was born, my father had lived in Tryn. He was the head guard for the lord of the city, and he’d taken it upon himself to train the other guards. When he retired, my father moved to Bhode, and he and my mother had me. As soon as I was old enough to pick up a sword, my father started training me. He was never the type of man to exaggerate his son’s strengths. So when he told me, a year ago, that I was the best swordsman he’d ever fought, I knew it was true.
We’d sparred every single day. It was how we both enjoyed passing the time. He knew many different fighting styles and used all of them against me. There were other men in Bhode who would sometimes join us, but none stuck around for long. They had no training and usually didn’t enjoy losing against a boy.