“Four!”
Again, the staffs raced to the space at their lower left with a rushing of air.
“Two!”
A quick pass to the upper left.
“Three!”
Seven staffs whistled to the lower right.
“Very good,” said Grimwarden. “Now focus. Each movement is a deliberate action. Intentional. But never the end of your thinking. Only the beginning.” He waited as each of the students held in the three position.
“Four! One! Two! Four! Three!”
The staffs crisscrossed the air again, only this time more than one missed a mark, and two staffs struck one another accidentally.
“Stop, stop, stop,” Grimwarden said, frustration mounting in his voice. “I said, focus!”
“Why don’t you let me take them?” Goldarrow asked, resting her hand on Grimwarden’s shoulder.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Grimwarden replied. “I’m thirsty anyway.” He walked from the circle, leaving Goldarrow in the middle.
“Everyone, hold your staff like this.” Goldarrow had her hands shoulder width apart, palms down, staff level at chest height. “Similar to what Grimwarden taught you, the five position is here.” She raised it to just above her head. “Six”—down to her waist—“seven”—left hand over the right, staff standing vertically to the right—“and eight”—right over left, vertically to the left. “Now: all together. Five, six, seven, eight. Again . . . five, six, seven, eight.” They repeated the form several times. “Tommy, pull your elbows in. Five, six, seven, eight. Kat, a little higher.” Goldarrow counted through over and over. “Johnny, watch the bend in your arms. . . . Jett, lower. . . . Autumn, Jimmy, bend your knees.”
“Oh, got it,” Tommy said. “One is here,” he swept the tip of his staff to the upper-right-hand corner.
“Like we’re attacking,” Jett added.
“Precisely,” said Goldarrow. “One through four are offensive forms, while—”
“Five through eight are defensive,” finished Kat.
Goldarrow looked to her. “Did you cheat?”
“No, no! I figured it out! Honest!”
Goldarrow laughed. “I was just kidding.”
“So it looks like this?” Jimmy asked, moving his staff while he counted out loud from one to eight.
“Well done,” said Grimwarden, walking back into the midst of their circle. He carried a long bundle of fabric under his left arm. “Well done indeed. After a few more weeks like that and we’ll start you sparring one another. And then, something new.”
“Something new?” asked Tommy.
“Aye, something like this.” With this came the sound of steel ringing in the air: a magnificent blade drawn out of hiding from its scabbard and brandished in the morning light.
13
Playing with Fire
AUTUMN HELD her sword in low guard, eyeing her opponent across the Vexbane Circle. Jett, likewise, circled slowly to the right, edging carefully around. Any sudden moves would be interpreted as an advance, and he could not afford to mess up with Autumn on the other side of any weapon. When at last Jett felt in control, he lunged forward. Autumn instantly disappeared from his view, but he anticipated this, sank to his knees, and spun around to face the opposite direction.
The moment Jett raised his sword up to parry, a series of hard blows hammered down on it like a woodpecker drilling a tree. Sparks lit up the circle. He absorbed all the hits and then lunged toward Autumn, ceasing her speed attack and knocking her on her back. He pinned her hands to the ground and she dropped her sword.
“Get off me!” Autumn yelled, struggling under his inescapable grip.
“Say ‘uncle’ first.”
“Just get off, okay?”
“ ‘Uncle’ first!”
“Yeah, right! No way!”
“Then I’m not getting up.”
“Autumn, Jett,” interrupted Grimwarden, “might I remind you this is a sparring exercise in weaponry, not verbal bickering.”
“Then tell him to stop using his strength on me!” Autumn contended.
“Well, you used your speed! How am I supposed to counter that?”
Grimwarden harrumphed. “Well, I can see we need to move to the next level.”
“The next level?” Tommy inquired. “What’s that?”
“Come with me . . . and bring your weapons.” And with that Grimwarden turned from the training court and entered the castle. The Seven quickly picked up their swords, staves, and bows and followed Grimwarden.
When Grimwarden finally stopped deep in a seldom-traveled section of Whitehall, the Seven stood before a dead end. A solid stone wall. Grimwarden didn’t seem about to say anything, so Jimmy piped up. “So . . . what’re we here for?”
“Your new training lair,” replied Grimwarden, a subtle smile creeping across his face.
“I hate to sound ungrateful, but it’s an empty corridor,” Kiri Lee said, looking back down the way they had come.
“Oh really?” Grimwarden said, leaning lazily up against the stone wall before them. He stood there for a second; then all of a sudden the wall began to move.
“Whoa!” the teens cried out.
“What’d you do?” asked Jett, pointing at the wall sliding away from them. The receding surface revealed an opening on the right-hand side of the corridor. “Check it out!”
“A new door!” Kat exclaimed, walking toward it. “Can we?” she looked to Grimwarden.
“Be my guest,” he said.
The Seven walked through the door and continued down a very narrow passage, roughly cut from the bedrock of the mountain. A few sharp turns lit by torches on the wall eventually led to a descending staircase. And upon clearing the last step, the Seven emerged into a massive hall aglow with a hundred torches at least. From wall to wall, the room was filled with every kind of training apparatus imaginable. Ropes interlaced one another and crisscrossed from floor to ceiling; wooden planks rested on fulcrums like giant seesaws; knotted ropes hung from the ceiling every few feet in long lines, while telephone pole-like beams stood straight up in the middle of the room; there were balance beams, suspended stepping platforms, even floating pads in a long pool of water. And all about the room were wooden boards cut out in the outline of men, hinged at the bottom—targets, from what the Seven could tell.
“This, m’lords, is the lair.” Grimwarden stood back, allowing them to look on in awe. “Created thousands of years ago and seen only by those who built it . . . for one purpose.”
“It’s incredible!” said Johnny.
“What purpose?” Tommy asked, turning to their teacher.
“You.”
They all turned to look at him in wonder. “Us?” “What did you say?” “Huh?”
“That’s right,” he went on. “The architects of Whitehall knew of the Berinfell Prophecies, just as all the ancients did. Our land would be rescued by Seven Lords. But they also knew such leaders—such warriors—would need more than just the Vexbane Circle. To be greater than any other conqueror in our history, they’d need to train more than any other conqueror in our history.”
“So that’s why you contended so strongly for us to come here in the council meeting,” concluded Kat.
“Among other reasons, yes.”
“So let me get this straight.” Tommy worked it through in his mind. “This lair has been sitting here, unused, for hundreds of years waiting for us?”
“Thousands of years is more like it, but yes. While you were busy cleaning up the castle these last three months, I’ve been busy replacing lines, swapping out rotted planks of wood, lubricating the gear mechanisms, and reworking the torches. But it’s mostly just as they left it. Untouched. Unused. And waiting to train the elite of Allyra.”
Kat walked forward to touch one of the old planks of wood. “I can’t even believe . . .” Suddenly a thousand voices filled her head at once. Singing, laughing, shouting orders.
She let go.
The sounds stopped.
&nb
sp; “What is it, Kat?” Kiri Lee asked. But Kat intentionally ignored her.
“Kat?” asked Jimmy.
“It’s the ancients,” said Grimwarden. “How do you train a thought-reader? You impart your memory into your work. For you, Kat,” he said, stepping forward, “there are millions of memories here. Every song that the workmen sang, every order given during the construction, they’re all in here for you to discover . . . to sort through . . . to learn from. Our history. Our traditions. It was rumored that the women who lived here would bring their infants in here just to sing them to sleep, knowing that the melodies would be captured . . . for you.”
Kat could feel hot tears filling her eyes. The fact that she had been the center of attention for a group of her people so many years ago was profoundly moving. They would never meet her, and she would never meet them. But somehow, they would connect over the ages of time and share life together: one looking forward to hope, the other looking backward to love.
“For all of you, this place will be your world for the next several weeks. You will take the skills you have learned in Vexbane—of communing with Ellos, of sword and spear, of staff and of bow—and you will marry them to your own unique gifts. Foresight. Strength and healing. Air walking. Speed. Marksmanship. Thought-reading. Fire.
“You will be the most elite warriors in all of Allyra when I’m done with you. And you will be an unstoppable team when united in action and in heart. Here, it is not only the individual we will train—as we have aboveground—but the team. How to work as one. And if Ellos blesses us, we’ll have you done by the time Nelly and Regis return from Earth.”
It was only Kat who heard his thought, “If they return from Earth.”
The next several weeks were some of the most exciting, most exhilarating the young lords had ever experienced in all their lives. Their daily cleaning chores were cut down to mostly just cleaning their rooms and washing dishes; all other activities took second place to their training in the lair. When they weren’t in the room physically, they were dreaming about it at night. Every challenge they could not best in the day became their nighttime puzzle, turning it over in their minds, wrestling with it through the midnight hour. They would awake eager to try out their new strategies and please their teachers.
But more than anything, they were excited to learn about their unique gifts. Grimwarden would spend time with each student, explaining the disciplines needed to master the most foundational aspects of their talents. Sure, each of them had dabbled with their skills when no one was looking—who wouldn’t! But to actually know the history behind the power—where it had come from in their family line—and then how to focus, train, and control the gift was a spectacular feeling. No longer just untamed whims within them, their talents began to be honed to something of an unconscious response, summoned with the slightest thought, subdued with a passing whisper. Their powers and the deep respect they had for the teachers magnified exponentially.
“Are your eyes closed?” Grimwarden asked Johnny.
“Yes, Guardmaster.”
“Now, tell me how many targets you saw.”
“Nine. Three along the floor, two on the tower to the right, another on the tower on the left, two on the bridge”—he hesitated, searching his memory—“and one hanging from the ceiling.”
“Well done.” Grimwarden scratched his beard. “Think you can do any better than yesterday? I spent all night repairing the bridge.”
Johnny winced slightly. “Sorry.”
“Do it again and that’s no dinner for you.”
Although the other lords were busy with their own training regimes, they all ohhhh-d him from around the lair. “I won’t miss this time,” Johnny replied.
“You’d better hope not!” Autumn yelled from the ropes.
“Very well.” Grimwarden turned to look at the target range. “The Gwar are attacking . . . NOW!”
Johnny spun around, blindfold still in place, and raised his hands. From his right hand came three bursts, another three from his left. Then a final massive blast from both hands held together. The streams of fire shot forward, illuminating the entire room like the sun. The other lords covered their eyes against the brightness. In quick succession, the wooden targets vaporized into plumes of smoke and ash.
As Johnny lifted the blindfold, Grimwarden began clapping. “Well done, Lord Albriand . . . Johnny.”
Johnny blinked and counted the smoldering piles of rubble . . . eight, nine, . . . ten! “I did it!” He tossed the blindfold up in the air.
“Fine work,” Grimwarden high-fived him awkwardly, much to Johnny’s shock. The other lords laughed, happy to see Grimwarden making the attempt, then congratulated Johnny.
Leaving Johnny to the rest of his physical training regime, he called Jimmy to one side of the room, standing below a very small raised platform two feet square. It hovered directly over a pool of water about ten feet deep. “Lord Thorwin, what say you? Ready to get wet again?”
Jimmy took a deep breath. “Not this time,” he smiled. “I’m ready.”
“Good then. Up you go.” And with that, Jimmy placed a heel in Grimwarden’s cupped hands; the teacher thrust him skyward, Jimmy doing a front flip and landing on the platform. “And you’ll need this.” Grimwarden threw him another blindfold, something he never seemed in short supply of in the lair.
Jimmy wrapped it around his eyes and tied it off behind his head. “Ready.”
“Tommy, Jett,” Grimwarden gestured them over. Together, the three of them reached into a wicker basket and each removed two smooth stones. “You first, Tommy. Then Jett.”
“You ready, Jimmy?” Tommy yelled.
“I already said I was a second ago!”
“I just don’t want to hit you like last time.”
“Enough, Tommy,” Grimwarden placed a hand on his shoulder. “I think he learned that lesson.”
“Okay,” Tommy replied, saying it more like a question. He looked to Jimmy.
“Here it comes!” Jimmy yelled.
“Hey, I was going to say that!”
“I know,” Jimmy replied. Tommy hesitated. “Would you just throw the stones?”
Tommy, finding he was accurate with any weapon—not just the bow—wound up and threw the first stone, followed quickly by the second. Right behind him came Jett, wheeling his arm back and drilling Jimmy with his first and second stones. Grimwarden was last, throwing with all his might.
Jimmy stepped to his right, catching Tommy’s first and second stones, one in each hand. As Jett’s next two whizzed at his head, Jimmy used the ones in his hands to deflect Jett’s, the stone projectiles flinging off into the far wall. Grimwarden’s stones were next. Jimmy threw Tommy’s first stone back at Tommy, the second back at Jett, and caught both of Grimwarden’s, winging one right back at Grimwarden. The last he kept for himself.
Tommy, Jett, and Grimwarden ducked or jumped out of the way. “Whoa!” said Tommy. “That wasn’t in your training scenario!”
“I know,” Jimmy grinned, removing his blindfold. “I improvised.”
Week after week the Seven grew stronger, testing their skills against every new challenge Grimwarden could throw at them . . . in many cases, literally throw at them. But none of them would ever forget the day they walked into the lair and it was pitch black.
“Grimwarden?” a few of them called out. Their voices echoed throughout the vast chamber.
“I’m here,” came a reply from across the room.
Tommy leaned over to Johnny, “Want to light things up?”
“Yeah, sur—”
“Belay that, Johnny,” Grimwarden yelled back. “You’ll have your chance.” Johnny stood in the darkness, his hands poised to set fire to the pitch-black darkness. “All of you, listen to me. Before you lays a new course, one you have never encountered before. But unlike your previous challenges—where each of you tested with me individually—this one requires something more. It requires all of you to work together. As one.” Though t
he Seven could not see a hand in front of their face, they each looked to where one another stood, taking in Grimwarden’s next instructions with care. “No clues today. No advice. You must figure this one out on your own. Now, a few rules.”
“Rules?” Kat echoed.
“Yes. Kat, you may only read the objects painted in red.”
“Red? Hey, wait a sec! I can’t see a—”
“Johnny, you may only cast fire on what Kat tells you. Jett, your strength can only be used on anything painted blue. Tommy, no throwing, only the bow you find on the course may you use. Kiri Lee, you may not take more than five steps in the air at one time. Autumn, you may not leave Jett’s side for more than two seconds, which I will be counting. And, Jimmy, you may only use the words yes and no. Am I clear?”
The Seven stood blinking in the darkness, going over the rules in their minds.
“Your objective is simply to get to me. Failure on any front and you cook for yourselves for a week.” And their previous failures with such contests proved he was not joking. But a week? “You have until the sand runs out in the glass beside me.”
“Starting when?” asked Tommy.
“When Kat questioned my saying there would be rules.”
“What!” the Seven cried out.
“I suggest someone does something shortly,” Grimwarden chided.
“Quick, what do we do?” asked Autumn.
“I can’t see a thing!” said Jett. “This is crazy. We need light.”
“But, guys, I can’t do a thing until Kat gives me a target.”
“Kat?” asked Tommy.
“I’m thinking—I mean—”
“Well, just starting feeling around,” cried Jett. “You’re bound to find something!”
“But she can’t read just anything,” Kiri Lee put in. “It’s got to be red.”
Thanks, Queen Obvious, Kat thought and then immediately wanted to kick herself.
“Kat, over here,” Autumn suddenly called out. “I’ve found something right in front of us here. Feels like four candles on a table.”
The six of them shuffled forward, letting Kat to the front. “You’re right, candles. But which one can I read? Which one is red? I can’t just tell Johnny to light them all. He’s supposed to light one of these.”
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