The rasping sounds of swords clearing sheaths came from behind and around him. The Renshai swept forward, as wild and fearless as a pack of hungry dogs. Calistin wished he could draw both weapons at once, to fall upon those who dared try to keep him from the homes that rightfully belonged to his people; but his splint allowed for only one. Screams rose from the line of Paradisians, no longer so bold and confident, and most broke from the line in ragged, crazed running. Only a few remained in place to face the certain death charging down on them.
Sudden as lightning, a figure appeared in front of Calistin. A sword like flickering silver wove through his defenses. It drove toward his hilt in a brilliant Renshai maneuver that defined speed and dexterity. An abrupt backward jerk saved Calistin from a disarming, but the discrepancy of movement disrupted his own grace and usually perfect balance. His opponent slammed a lithe shoulder into Calistin’s chest. Stability lost, Calistin dropped to his bottom in the dirt.
Calistin’s opponent shouted in the Renshai tongue, “Stop, friends! It’s a trap.”
Shocked, the Renshai halted their attack. All bravado lost, the last of the Paradisians fled back toward the Fields of Wrath.
Calistin sprang to his feet in an instant, but the damage was done. He knew only one man who could humiliate him in this manner, only one for whom dropping Calistin on his buttocks had become a standard of training.
Thialnir did not have the benefit of a prior meeting. “Who are you?” he demanded, also using the tribal tongue.
Behind him, the Renshai exchanged quiet conversation. Calistin heard his name bandied about. They had never seen anyone best their champion, even one-armed, and this man had done it quickly and without apparent difficulty.
The newcomer casually sheathed his sword and glanced through the Renshai. He looked ordinary in most respects: average in height, slender and sinewy, with blunt cheekbones and a gently arched chin. His hair was golden, speckled with glimmers of silver, his eyes an intense blue-gray. Four straight, deep scars scored the line of his cheek, just in front of his ear. He carried an aura of confidence that made him seem larger, stronger, and infinitely deadly.
As he seemed disinterested in introducing himself, Calistin did it for him. “That’s Colbey, of course. Who else could it be?” He did not add that he knew the immortal Renshai well. Currently, only he and Ra-khir among the mortals knew Colbey was Calistin’s blood grandfather.
The murmuring grew louder.
Thialnir only stared.
As Calistin seemed to be the only one wholly coherent, Colbey turned his attention to him. “Where’s your brother?”
Now, Calistin found himself staring as well. “Why does everyone keep assuming I have any control over my two adult, older siblings?”
“It’s not a matter of control.” Colbey peered through the chaotic array of Renshai. His ageless eyes seemed to penetrate them to find anyone who might be hiding at the back. “It’s a matter of Saviar agreeing to become Thialnir’s successor, then disappearing when he’s most needed.”
Thialnir nodded broadly. Colbey clearly understood his discomfort in a way Calistin had not.
Colbey’s lips pursed. “I should not have to intervene. It’s dangerous when I do.” The corners of his tightened lips twitched upward ever so slightly. “Trouble likes to follow me.”
Thialnir finally found his tongue. “This time, the trouble came first. What did you mean by ‘a trap’?”
Colbey glanced around the sparse and scraggly trees that managed to root in the sandy soil. “Let’s find a less open place to discuss this.” He gestured back the way they had come.
All talking at once, the Renshai opened a path for Colbey. They could have led the way, but every one wanted to see the legendary, greatest Renshai who had already proven himself with one sword stroke. In their hearts, Calistin knew, they all wanted to match their swords against his. They also wanted to touch him, to test the solid reality of him, but no one risked losing his hands for the honor. Calistin found himself struck by a sudden, silly urge to hurl himself upon Colbey just to shock them. He would pay for the action with pain and a sharp lesson, but he knew Colbey would not maim or kill him.
Colbey walked through the opening, with Calistin and Thialnir at either hand. He showed no obvious concern surrounded by Renshai warriors, though whether because he still considered them his people or because he felt competent to handle any or all of them, Calistin did not bother to wonder. All of her life, Kevral had modeled herself on the Renshai of legend: quoting him, wearing her hair in his feathered style, emulating his sword strokes in battle and svergelse. She had reveled in the name the Renshai had bestowed upon Calistin, which he shared with Colbey’s deceased father, and also in his muscular structure, natural dexterity, and skill. Calistin might equal Colbey someday, but the Renshai of legend had nearly four hundred years of practice on him.
And, though it would have sounded beyond impossible just a few short months ago, Calistin now realized he might actually have the opportunity. Colbey had reached his eighth decade before learning that his own blood father was the thunder god, Thor. Colbey had married the goddess, Freya, and produced Raska “Ravn” Colbeysson, Calistin’s blood sire. By Calistin’s calculations, that made him 3/8ths a god, by blood, though he knew it took more than bloodline to become immortal. Colbey had stated that Calistin would have to earn the honor, though he either could not or would not elaborate.
At the time, it had seemed desperately important. Soulless, Calistin had had no other option but an absolute and dark death, without afterlife. Once Treysind had made his great sacrifice, the possibility of immortality lost much of its significance. Like every Renshai, Calistin wanted nothing so much as to die in glorious battle and earn his new soul its place in Valhalla, where the Einherjar battled all day, then the fallen rose to join the victors in a night of feasting.
Colbey led the Renshai back toward the woodlands, stopping short at the edge of a farm field. It took them far enough away from the Fields of Wrath to discourage spies yet near enough the Renshai would not feel as if they had taken the coward’s path of retreat. Once every Renshai had gathered around him, Colbey explained, still in Renshai. “They wanted you to attack them, to slaughter their elders and children.”
Thialnir bobbed his head sagely. “It would not take much for the world to call us savages unworthy of any homeland. Whatever the law might state, the sympathies of every nation would turn to these so-called Paradisians.”
Calistin rarely bothered to consider other’s intentions, but this one befuddled him. “They wanted us to kill their children? Their children? Why?”
Colbey turned his cold eyes on Calistin. “Because, Calistin, the Paradisians hate Renshai more than they love their children.”
Though they learned swordwork from the moment their little hands could close around a small-sized hilt, Renshai offspring did not go to war until they passed the sequence of tests that proclaimed them competent adults. On average, this happened around age eighteen. No one had attained manhood at a younger age than Calistin, and even he had not done so until thirteen. Should a child die in combat, the Renshai celebrated rather than mourned him, as they did all brave warriors. But Renshai did not shove their children forward as fodder for more powerful enemies, and many Renshai had lost their lives fiercely protecting sons and daughters.
“What could be more savage than that?” a young woman named Alvida asked. Though she spoke softly, her voice carried over the silence. “Sending one’s children to certain death to get the upper hand in a land dispute?”
“The world will not see it that way,” Thialnir realized aloud. “No matter what we do, they will see us as bullies and the Paradisians as desperate victims making terrible sacrifices because they lack the means to fight an honorable battle against our warriors.”
That made no sense to Calistin. “But it’s as you said, isn’t it? When the Renshai cho
se to live here, centuries ago, the land lay barren and unusable. No one called the Fields of Wrath anything else until . . .” He could not finish his own sentence. This was the first time he had heard of the Paradisians.
Thialnir made a gesture toward Colbey, the only one born before the Renshai had staked their claim to the land. “All true,” the immortal confirmed. “The Fields of Wrath have remained under Renshai control until such time as some scheming Northmen convinced a handful of impoverished Erythanians they were the rightful heirs.”
“But we have the truth on our side,” said Gareth, an elder. “We can show them, in scrolls and texts.”
Thialnir shook his head sadly. He, too, had started as an impetuous young Renshai; but the many decades of serving as leader, of interacting with diplomats, had taken their toll. “The truth will not matter. For most people, history begins at their own births and ends at their deaths. Between times, they believe what they wish to be truth. The majority cannot even read, and most of the world’s most accurate history is contained in Béarn’s library. Neighbors that we are, how many even among us read Béarnese?”
Calistin did not need to look to see how many Renshai responded. He had learned to speak Renshai, Erythanian, Common Trading, and Northern. Most of the Renshai could write those languages as well. But, when it came to the more obscure tongues and dialects, few were willing to take time from martial studies to learn.
Silence fell over the Renshai again. Nearly everyone had a hand clamped to at least one hilt. Combat was the one language they all embraced.
Gareth spoke the words on every mind. “So we should give our homes to thieves? When has what others think of us mattered to Renshai?”
Nods suffused the group, accompanied by cries of agreement.
Calistin would have joined them under ordinary circumstances, but Colbey’s presence made him thoughtful. The consummate Renshai rarely appeared on Midgard. As Calistin understood it, any interference from gods on the worlds of men had massive and unpredictable ripples. Colbey’s half-mortal bloodline gave him more leeway than the other inhabitants of Asgard, but even he rarely risked meddling. For him to appear and show himself to so many meant the situation had to have become dire. Calistin loosed a bitter laugh that drew every eye.
Kristel, who had trained with Calistin’s mother and questioned Magnus in Béarn’s sparring room, demanded, “What’s so funny?”
“You,” Calistin spoke fighting words. “All of you. Are you questioning the wisdom of a Renshai who lives among the gods? Colbey has bested whole tribes of Northmen. Giants. Demons. The Ragnarok itself. If you believe you have the right to dismiss him, challenge him. I’ll gladly stand by and watch you make fools of yourselves.”
Colbey placed a hand on Calistin’s shoulder, a plea for silence.
While Kristel glared, measuring Colbey and Calistin, a competent torke named Navali spoke up. “It’s all a trick. That’s not Colbey. It’s a Northman hired by the Paradisians to undo us.”
Calistin’s brows rose nearly to his hairline. He could not believe any Renshai could say such a thing after the brilliant maneuver that had felled him. Not everyone could see Colbey’s attack. Others may have had their attention diverted elsewhere. Still more, he realized, did not yet have the ability to fully judge a man by a single sword stroke. Colbey clearly wished him to remain quiet for the moment, so Calistin obliged.
“Don’t let my fluent use of the Renshai tongue fool you.” Colbey turned on Navali the fearless look of one already certain of the outcome. “Endpoint?”
Calistin could not help interrupting. “Drop him on his ass, same as you did me.”
Navali frowned but did not contradict.
Colbey turned to Kristel, “And you?”
“First blood,” Kristel said before Calistin could suggest anything.
A large, sandy-haired warrior named Tanvard added, “And I’ll take first one to disarm the other.” It was his specialty.
“Nothing more creative?” Calistin would not be left out of a competition against Colbey. He had ended every session with Colbey sore and exhausted, and he relished the opportunity to cross swords with the old man again. “Give me . . .” He tried to think of something absolutely original. “. . . first one to name the color of the other’s underclothes.”
Colbey looked over his various opponents with a seasoned eye. “Ready?”
Navali stepped forward. “Ready.”
Quicker than a blink, Colbey lunged. As Navali drew, Colbey had already crossed inside his guard, inserted a foot behind his ankle. As Navali tried to avoid it, his own momentum took him down. An instant later, blood dribbled from a cut on Kristel’s calf, and Tanvard’s sword went flying through the air. Colbey caught it neatly, as any Renshai would do for an honored opponent. From the looks on their faces, Calistin knew they had expected Colbey to go at them one at a time. Calistin had readied his own sword the instant Colbey went for Navali.
Colbey sheathed his sword, not bothering to attack Calistin as he had the others.
Calistin crouched, waiting. “Have at me, old man.”
“Blue,” Colbey said.
Self-consciously, Calistin lifted an edge of his tunic to reveal the blue undergarments. Yet, he felt certain, Colbey had not touched him. “How?” he started, sheathing his sword as Navali sprang to his feet, Kristel swore, and Tanvard reclaimed his weapon from Colbey.
Colbey grinned mischievously. “I read minds.”
The confession startled Calistin. Colbey had never mentioned it in the months they had traveled together, yet so many things now made sense. He had often bridged the seemingly unsurpassable yawning chasm between Calistin’s ideas and Treysind’s. He always seemed to know the mood, weaknesses, and strengths of his students. Some of that had to come from experience, but the more inscrutable parts had seemed magical.
Colbey bowed, then walked deeper into the forest. Many of the Renshai rushed to follow him, but the immortal soon became lost among the brush and shrubbery, disappearing like smoke from a campfire.
“Now what?” Kristel demanded of no one in particular.
No easy answers came. Despite his experiences with Colbey, Calistin had no better idea of their next course of action. He still preferred chopping down anyone who stood in the way of their goal, and he knew most of the Renshai would agree with him.
There was no Renshai wiser or more knowledgeable about the world than Thialnir, but he simply stood among the others, puzzling the matter.
Calistin knew his voice also commanded more authority than most. His sword skill spoke for him. Yet, at the moment, he had nothing clever to say. He was Renshai first and foremost, of the oldest school. So long as they could outfight their opponents, and they always could, Renshai never needed to compromise. “There are no good choices,” he realized aloud. “So we might as well follow the one that makes sense to us.”
Calistin’s words jogged Thialnir. “Colbey Calistinsson did not come without reason.”
“To warn us of a trap.” Someone toward the back agreed. “So we didn’t blunder into it in ignorance. But he never told us how we should handle it.”
That set a few off, complaining about Colbey’s methods. Chief among the questions was: “Why did he bother to come if he has no solutions or suggestions?”
A large group chimed in, claiming it a great honor to field a visit from Colbey, no matter the reason, and a sacrilege to complain. Through it all, Thialnir remained silent, thoughtful.
Then, the suggestions came pouring forth, most of them unwieldy, some of them silly, but they always came back to the same theme. The land belonged to the Renshai, historically and legally. Anyone who dared to stand in their way should die. And, though Calistin agreed wholeheartedly with the upshot of the discussion, he remained silent in deference to Colbey and Thialnir. Debating the matter seemed like a waste of time. Colbey should not have come. He
should have let the Renshai attack and destroy the Paradisians come what may. Yet Colbey had come, and that changed everything.
Finally, as the sun sank toward the horizon and the situation, settled in most minds, gave way to other conversation, Thialnir finally spoke again. “I think . . .” he started, and everyone fell silent. “. . . that we do not fully understand the complexity of this matter. As much as the rest of you, I would like to slaughter these fakers and be done with it.”
Calistin smiled. Had he not felt certain Thialnir’s next word was going to be “but,” he would have reveled in the certainty of a forthcoming battle.
Thialnir did not surprise him. “But I fear that may not be in our best interests at the present time. Currently, we have the governments of Béarn and Erythane on our side, if not their people. If we lose their favor, we may find ourselves banished again.”
To Calistin’s surprise, the other Renshai did not grumble or interrupt. They had exhausted their own ideas and wanted to hear Thialnir’s, if only to see if he voiced anything they had already considered.
The massive Renshai looked old, his face wrinkled and tired. “We can always drive those Erythanian squatters away. That option remains even after we try other things. However, once we follow the course of violence, we cannot take it back. Better to start with the more peaceful solutions and increase the pressure if those don’t work.”
Calistin cocked his head, thinking. He trusted Thialnir but did not feel wholly certain the old man had it right this time. He personally preferred chopping up as many enemies as possible. Once a few died, the rest of the self-called Paradisians would get the message and leave.
“So we run like cowards?” someone called out.
The silence broken, many Renshai began talking at once. It became clear they would rather bring the wrath of the world down on them than consider such a strategy.
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