Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  Aeden sat up in bed, his breaths coming in gasps. The dream was nothing new. He had been having it periodically for as long as he could remember, for most of his nine years of life. It never failed to make him uneasy, almost afraid. Crying and complaining, making sounds at all, were dangerous and invited disaster. That was the lesson of the dream.

  It was almost dawn anyway, so the boy got up from his pallet and went to the larder to get something to eat. The other boys in the small room they shared were still sleeping, their breathing deep and regular. He could see the bruises scattered across them from their training. He had a few himself, though not as many as some. He normally gave out more than he received.

  Aeden took a small loaf of bread, a cup of water, and a piece of cheese, then sat and thought about the dream he had so often. Would it ever go away? Why did he have it? Was it prophetic, or did it belong to someone else? He felt uneasy inside, as he always did when the scenario repeated itself in his sleep.

  He had thought at times of telling his father about it, but always rejected the idea. It would show weakness, and he never wanted his father to think him weak. Maybe his mother? No, it would stop or it would not, but either way, such a trivial thing should not bother him. He was training to be a warrior of his clan. Dreams could not affect him.

  It was no use going back to bed, so he took a last drink of water and went outside.

  The sky was beginning to lighten, but it would still be nearly an hour before the others roused and dragged themselves to their positions in the training grounds. He started running around the grounds, his light boots thumping softly as his feet hit the tamped down vegetation. The training grounds were at the edge of the village, which was itself a large, flat area nestled amongst the highland hills. Boys and girls learned the art of war, among other things, at the grounds, and there they were tested constantly.

  Aeden’s stride lengthened as he warmed up, his breathing coming in a regular rhythm. Twice around the training grounds, and he had a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead. Once more around and he stopped at the practice weapon rack.

  It was a sturdy rack, built mostly of rough wood, the bark still on. It held swords, long knives, staffs, spears, and other pole weapons, with one thing in common: they were made of dull-edged wood, meant to deliver bruises rather than serious wounds.

  Aeden picked up a sword, hefted it in his hand, and returned it to the rack. He repeated the motion three times until he found a broadsword that was balanced well enough to suit him, its weight slightly heavier than he would have preferred, but still usable. If he practiced with heavier weapons, he would become stronger and faster than if he used one of the appropriate weight.

  He snapped into a ready position, the sword held out in front of him, angling upward. His grip was loose enough for him to move quickly, but too tight to allow his opponent to tear the weapon from his hand. He dropped into a low stance, lunging with the sword, a penetrating strike. And then he began to move.

  His arms and shoulders protested at first, not warmed up enough to move with his full range of speed and flexibility. They would get there quickly. Slash, guard, slice, lunge, guard, he went through the movements as he imagined his opponent in front of him doing similarly. He got caught up in the poetry of the movement, letting his mind dwell on nothing but the invisible foe in front of him. Unnoticed by him, the sky continued to lighten around him as he made his way across the training yard, parrying, blocking, striking, and evading.

  “You see?” a deep voice boomed somewhere off to Aeden’s right, startling him out of his imaginary battle. He stopped and looked toward the voice. Their combat instructor, Master Tuach, was standing there with the other twelve boys and three girls who shared the same stage of Aeden’s training. “Aeden has the correct attitude. First to the training yard means first in skills. Take note and emulate him.”

  The master was a perfect specimen of a warrior, tall and muscular and without an ounce of fat on him. His gray eyes seemed to always be scanning for enemies to fight, and his rugged face was most often stern. Aeden had seen him smile only once, when one of the trainees tripped and hit himself in the head with his own weapon.

  Some of the other boys smiled. Others were still wiping the sleep from their eyes, but one or two glared at Aeden, obviously jealous of the attention. One, a boy nearly twice as large as him and two years older, had such hatred in his eyes that Aeden wondered what else he had done to insult the boy.

  For his part, Aeden simply walked to the weapon rack and put his practice sword back. He went to stand amongst the other boys, waiting for instruction from Master Tuach.

  “Good,” he said. “Now then, let the rest of us warm up. I want you loose for our combat trials today. Your bruises have mostly healed by now, and it is time for the level three bouts to begin.”

  Level three bouts. Some of the boys groaned. There were four levels of combat matches in the training, progressively more dangerous and realistic. The third level was more savage than those they had taken part in up to that point. An opponent must be thrown from the training ring or damaged in such a way that it would mean certain death had it been a real battle.

  Level four was even worse. Even being thrown from the ring did not save a combatant. The foe could chase the loser out of the ring and continue to attack. Only loss of consciousness, broken bones, or death would end the bout. When they would actually take part in level four bouts was a secret. None of the boys were looking forward to it.

  Maybe that was not true. One boy might be looking forward to it. Donagh, the boy who had stared at Aeden with such hatred just moments before. He seemed to enjoy causing pain.

  The boys ran around the training grounds several times until the master called them back to the weapon rack.

  “Select your weapons from the rack,” he said. “Aeden, since you are so conscientious, you may take yours first.”

  Donagh glared at Aeden again, somehow making it contain even more heat than before. The master was not doing Aeden any favors in giving him special treatment.

  Aeden nodded and took the sword he had used earlier. At a word from Master Tuach, the other boys swarmed the rack, choosing their weapons as well.

  “We might as well get it out of the way,” Master Tuach said. “Aeden and Donagh, you two will be first combatants.”

  The boy shouldered Aeden aside and walked out toward the center of the area, where a large circle was inscribed in the hard-packed dirt, compressed by generations of clan warriors-in-training. Donagh had selected a polearm, a wooden version of a long pole with a wide, curving blade at the end. The real weapon would have had more than two feet of sharpened steel, something like a broadsword attached to one side of the staff. He wore a wicked smile, obviously thinking he had the advantage because of the range of his weapon.

  Aeden walked calmly to the circle, sword held loosely in his hand with the backside of the wooden blade propped against his shoulder.

  “You’re going to cry like a little girl,” the boy taunted. “You won’t be the stupid mute you normally are. Just like a little girl, you will cry and scream. No, not like a girl. Like a filthy Gypta. I will beat you like a traveling whore.”

  Aeden’s eyes flashed, the fire behind them enough to make his opponent blink and the smile on his face to slip a bit. Thoughts of the dream, the girl’s screams and the feeling of helplessness and confusion, rushed through his mind. This bitch’s whelp was poking fun at him without realizing how keenly his words cut. He would find out that silence was by far the better choice.

  “Cuir aet biodh,” Aeden mouthed, but did not say it aloud. Most of those around didn’t understand enough Chorain, the language of the highland clans, but the master did. He didn’t want anyone to know Donagh’s taunts had any effect.

  The two boys stepped to the center of the ring. Aeden looked up at the eyes of his opponent, many inches above his own, and saw that Donagh’s smile had come back.

  As they were preparing to start, Aeden caugh
t movement near the other boys. His father and mother stood at the edge of the ring, their eyes intense. Master Tuach nodded to them in greeting and then turned back to the ring.

  “Level three,” he said. “Show us what you are made of.” He met Aeden’s eyes, and shouted. “Go!”

  3

  Aeden barely sidestepped the butt of his opponent’s weapon as it whistled, rocketing up from the ground with lightning speed toward his groin. His reflexes saved him as he shifted left and swung his sword down to parry. A sharp clack reverberated around the training grounds.

  Aeden transformed the downward motion into a tight circle and struck out at Donagh. The other boy got his weapon up in time to prevent Aeden’s from striking him, but Aeden could see he was off-balance, weight shifted too far backward and too much on his right foot. Donagh had not expected his stealthy strike to fail.

  They stepped back, gauging each other. The larger boy feinted, the darting blade of his spear tempting Aeden to respond.

  Aeden didn’t. He looked into his opponent’s eyes. Those orbs darted, watching every time the smaller boy flicked his sword, every time he made any movement that could indicate he was going to attack. Aeden smiled inwardly. His own eyes shifted and remained locked on the bigger boy’s waist, but his peripheral vision caught beads of sweat beginning to form on Donagh’s face.

  Donagh rushed in with a flurry of attacks, trying to strike with the butt of the spear, then the blade, then further down the shaft. He even tried to create an opening to land a kick. He was fast and skilled, but Aeden parried some of the blows, shifted to evade others, and jammed the kick with one of his own to the thigh. At the end of the exchange, no blows had landed, and Aeden still hadn’t attacked. His opponent’s eyes darted even more quickly, anticipating movements that never came. He was ripe for the taking.

  Aeden smirked at his foe. It caused the other boy to stumble as he swung his blade in a long arc, trying to take advantage of the extra reach of his weapon. This was what Aeden was waiting for.

  As the blade came down from above, a diagonal downward slash, Aeden calmly stepped toward the other boy. Donagh’s eyes widened.

  The sword blade made contact with the wooden polearm blade, a deflecting blow. The spear skipped off Aeden’s weapon and the other boy’s strike overextended, putting him off-balance and redirecting the tip of the spear out of range.

  Aeden flicked his sword around and struck a deep slicing blow just below his opponent’s ribs that, if he was using a steel blade, would have cut him almost completely in half. As the momentum of his strike carried the other boy past him, Aeden rotated, reversing the direction of his sword, and slashed downward on his opponent’s upper back.

  Though he could have struck a few inches higher, the blow would most likely have crippled the other boy, crushing the bones in his neck. Aeden was fueled by anger, but he would not lose control. Killing or paralyzing the bigger boy would serve no purpose to the clan.

  Donagh shot toward the ground, striking it full with his face and chest, his weapon bouncing out of his grasp. A huff of air came out of him and Aeden knew that he had at least cracked a rib or two, if not broken them. The boy scrambled to his feet, gasping to get breath into his lungs. His eyes were unfocused, but he finally found the spear and bent to pick it up. Aeden stood silently and watched him.

  Donagh brought his weapon up in a ready position, breathing shallowly, face twisted in obvious pain. He was not taunting Aeden any longer. His eyes, glazed with agony, showed real fear. Aeden nodded at him.

  At this, the bigger boy’s face contorted in rage, and he rushed forward, grunting a pathetic and breathless attempt at a battle cry. Aeden waited patiently for his foe to come to him.

  Donagh swung his weapon with reckless abandon, slashing, jabbing, and flailing it about like an untrained barbarian. Aeden knew he had defeated his opponent. “When your enemy has sacrificed his defense for a mindless offense, he has lost,” Master Tuach always told them. If Aeden had ever seen someone give up all their defense, it was his foe right then.

  Aeden sidestepped a wild downward slash, batted away a lunge, moved his sword just slightly to block a strike from the butt of the spear, and watched as his foe twisted the polearm in midair to deliver a fast, hard horizontal blow. The bout had gone on long enough.

  Aeden again stepped toward his opponent, bringing his sword up in a deflecting position high up on the shaft of the spear. The short arc that section of the weapon traveled made it easy to do so.

  Without stopping, Aeden spun in a circle and struck his opponent’s midsection hard. The larger boy didn’t even have time to bend over fully before Aeden brought his sword around to strike the arm holding the spear. If the loud crack was any indication, he’d broken that arm. The spear clattered to the hardened dirt.

  Still moving in a flowing arc, Aeden struck the bigger boy hard in the face with the pommel of his sword, causing Donagh’s head to snap back. Another tight circle with the sword and he struck down on the collarbone on Donagh’s left side. There was a popping sound.

  His opponent was defeated and there was no honor in damaging him more. Still, level three combat required something more than an assumption that the foe could no longer fight.

  Donagh staggered to his feet, one arm hugged to his chest and the other hanging useless with a broken bone. He was a pathetic mess.

  Aeden stepped back half a step and whirled his sword around and back at his opponent. He delivered four short but blurringly fast strikes. Downward diagonal strike to the side of the neck, horizontal slash to the other side of the neck, a savage lunge to just below the sternum, and a final, downward vertical slice on the top of the foe’s head. All of them barely grazed his opponent, causing no damage but making it clear that, even with a wooden weapon, he could have killed the bigger boy.

  Wanting to end the bout, Aeden spun, throwing his foot out and whipping it across his opponent’s face, causing the bigger boy to fall like a tree to the ground, unconscious.

  Aeden looked at the other boy for a moment, then shifted his eyes to his father. Sartan was nodding, as was his mother.

  Master Tuach walked toward Aeden, a grim look on his face.

  “You have won, Aeden,” he said, “but do you want to explain why you spared him the strikes at the end?”

  “He was beaten,” Aeden said simply. “There is no honor in crippling him. We may need him to fight for the clan one day.”

  The master narrowed his eyes and looked deeply into Aeden’s, then he sighed. “Very well. Get back in line.”

  Aeden did as he was told and slipped back into line with the others. A few of the boys nodded or patted his shoulder as he went by, but most of them were too nervous to do anything but look toward Master Tuach, hoping their name would not be called next.

  “That was fantastic!” Greimich said and he slapped Aeden on the back. “It will be a while until he heals. We won’t have to worry about him lording it over us and threatening us for a time.”

  Aeden allowed himself to smile. He and Greimich had been selected to be training partners, Braitharlan. The term meant, literally, “blade brothers.” They trained, fought, ate, and did everything else together. Their bunks were even side-by-side. In the team combat and games of skill, they were always teammates. It was nice to have someone to rely on.

  The boys turned their attention to the two new combatants that had been called by Master Tuach. Not all the trainees fought in the level three matches. There would only be two or three more bouts. The clan could not afford to injure or cripple too many of their students so early in training.

  Aeden watched them as they fought, his mind recording their movements, their habits, their responses. He might have to fight them one day, and seeing them like this was invaluable. He noticed Greimich doing the same thing and smiled.

  4

  The training regimen for Croagh boys—and to a lesser extent the girls—was brutal. Physical training, combat training, survival training, instruction in
strategy and tactics, and other things that would be needed to carry on the reputation of the finest warriors in Dizhelim, they had it all, every day from their fifth birthday until their testing at the age of fourteen.

  Aeden thrived in the regimented lifestyle, and he excelled in every facet of the curriculum. His keen mind learned things quickly and could analyze and problem-solve in an instant. His physical abilities were second to none in his class as well, allowing him to sit at the head of the class, the second-ranked boy and first-ranked girl far below him.

  The months passed and he and Greimich became as close as brothers, relying on each other and supporting each other in everything they did. Because of Aeden’s influence, the other boy moved up the ranks as they trained and sparred together. Eventually, his friend was in second place among all the others being trained. It was good. Aeden was proud of Greimich. He saw similar situations with the other pairs who had bonded.

  “It is time,” Master Tuach said. “Tomorrow will be your level four combat. You will fight with all your strength and skill, holding nothing back. You will be using practice weapons, but otherwise, you will treat it like real combat. You will strike your opponent mercilessly and give no quarter.

  “Do not hesitate in this.” The master looked each of the students in the eye. There were twenty-six of them, two classes at different stages put together for the level four bouts. “You will treat your opponent as if he or she is an enemy and trying to kill you because it is true. Go and take the afternoon off. Visit your families, prepare your mind and body, rest. Tomorrow, some of you may die. Dismissed.”

  Aeden looked at Greimich. His friend looked back at him.

  “Level four,” Greimich said. “In the last class, two of the students died and one other was crippled.”

  Aeden’s eyes met those of his friend, but he said nothing.

  “I sure hope you get Donagh again. He deserves to be hurt. It didn’t take him long after he healed to start bullying the others as he used to. He’s had months to get back into shape, and his attitude is just as it was.” Greimich laughed. “Well, almost. I notice he doesn’t say anything to you anymore.”