Kedrin blinked, as if noticing Saviar for the first time. “You are my biggest grandson, but you’re not exactly enormous.”
“I’m bigger than any other Renshai my age.”
Kedrin nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose you are. You favor your father and me.You’ll fill out a lot over the next few years.”
Saviar hung his head. “Don’t remind me.”
“Don’t remind you?” Kedrin’s pale brows rose in increments. “Savi, that’s a good thing.”
“Not for Renshai.”
Kedrin disagreed and made it clear. “Even for Renshai. Quick maneuvers work great for Renshai, but size and strength don’t harm them either. Look at Thialnir.”
“He’s huge,” Saviar admitted.
“And one of the Renshai’s most skilled fighters.”
Saviar nodded. Until the realization that he might have to face the Renshai’s leader in combat, he had never considered Thialnir’s size before. The man was intimidating for reasons beyond his massive frame.
“Believing a large man must be slow has cost many warriors their lives, Saviar.” Kedrin’s blue-white eyes held a sincerity that went beyond truth. Not only did he speak honestly, he did so from the heart, from a need for his grandson to understand. “Handled well, size can become speed’s greatest asset.”
Saviar’s heartbeat quickened. It seemed possible that Kedrin knew a lesson the Renshai would never teach him. “Can you . . . can you show me?”
“I can.” Kedrin drew his sword with a fluency Saviar normally attributed only to Renshai. “Please stand back,” he said, then laughed. “Sorry, I keep forgetting who I’m talking to.”
Saviar could dodge any move his grandfather could make so quickly it might seem as if he anticipated the strike before Kedrin decided on it. He made a motion of encouragement. He had never before seen his grandfather draw steel. The Knight-Captain mostly instructed his charges verbally or demonstrated by repositioning the other man’s arms, legs, or weapon.
Kedrin executed a series of deft warm-up strikes, then looked directly at Saviar. “Ready?”
Saviar nodded. Renshai were always ready for anything to do with swords.
Kedrin launched into the ganim version of a svergelse, his strokes powerful, committed, and yet still nimble and precise. His movements seemed a study in paradox: broad and strong, lithe and agile. Saviar saw nothing slow or clumsy in the captain’s actions, and they lacked the ponderous ungainliness the Renshai ascribed to muscled outsiders. Kedrin could not match the speed and fiery grace of a Renshai, but that had to do with practice and dedication, not technique. Saviar watched, awed. He could adapt some of those power strokes into new and deadly Renshai maneuvers.
Diving into the flying cuts of steel, Saviar stayed his grandfather’s hand with a careful parry and grab. Close in, swords bound, hand gripping Kedrin’s wrist, he looked excitedly at the knight. “Teach me.”
For an instant, Kedrin looked shocked. He studied the boy in front of him, making absolutely certain his blade had never touched Saviar. Once sure, he relaxed. “I will.”
And Kedrin did. As the sun inched toward the horizon, Saviar learned techniques the Renshai would dismiss as foolish, adapting them to the deadly quickness of Renshai. Saviar knew it did him little good, and a lot of ill, to simply learn the ways of ganim swordcraft. With each new movement, with every suggestion, Saviar sought a way to incorporate it into the repertoire he already knew, to advance the maneuver into something as powerful as it was swift and unstoppable.
In the past, Saviar’s bulk had always seemed an insurmountable hindrance. Constant swordwork kept him as lean as any Renshai, yet deliberate starvation only made him weak and slower. He could never shed the musculature of his paternal ancestors; the solid definition of his abdominal muscles never allowed his ribs to show. Now, he had found a way to use his build as an advantage, and the idea of pausing to rest after such a staggering discovery never occurred to him. He would continue to revise, to invent, until his grandfather passed out from exhaustion.
Not that Kedrin showed any sign of doing so. He reveled quietly in Saviar’s every triumph. Though Kedrin had never stated so, it became clear from his actions and words that he had always wished for the opportunity to educate his grandsons. The time dedicated to Renshai training left little for other things. Though Kedrin had sneaked in lessons on beauty, relaxation, philosophy, and morality, he could never before compete when it came to weapons. Now, his day had come, and he seemed as unlikely to quit as Saviar himself, as relentless and infinite as the Renshai maneuvers.
It seemed like only moments before the door to the courtyard slammed open to reveal Ra-khir in all his knightly splendor, and a host of others behind him. For the first time Saviar could remember, he wished his father would disappear, to leave him in the world of inventiveness and joy that he currently shared with Kedrin.
Though equally engrossed, Kedrin could not have had a more different reaction. He sheathed his sword and executed a bow of great formality. Only then, Saviar recognized the group who had accompanied his father: the heirs to Béarn’s throne. Shocked, he froze in position, sword still gripped in his hand.
Kedrin cleared his throat softly, pointedly.
Swiftly, Saviar jabbed his sword back into its sheath and dropped to one knee, head bowed.
Princess Marisole led the group. Only a few months younger than Saviar, she was the oldest heir, Queen Matrinka’s first child. She favored her mother: her dark brown hair thick and lustrous, her figure full and curvy, her eyes a dark hazel that barely showed its green. Her large nose betrayed the bard’s lineage; and, of course, the delicate lute she carried slung across her shoulder.
She ran to Saviar. “Get up, get up.” She cuffed him playfully until he rose, then caught him into an embrace. She felt soft and warm against him, and he could not help noticing that she had developed breasts and hips since he had last seen her. He wrapped his arms around her, forcing his thoughts to his swordwork, to the weather, anything but her magnificent closeness. At his age, any touch from a pretty young thing excited him wildly. If his father or grandfather caught him reacting to a princess of the realm like a common tavern wench, he would suffer greatly for his body’s betrayal.
“You moron,” Marisole whispered, and Saviar noticed only her warm breath in his ear. “You’re a friend, not a servant.”
“I’m both,” Saviar said as softly. “And the son of a Knight of Erythane. If I don’t show proper respect, I’ll get a spanking.”
“Bow to me again, and I’ll spank you.”
Saviar could not resist pulling free and bowing broadly. “Promises, promises.”
Marisole glared. Had they been alone, Saviar felt certain, she would have slapped him. And he definitely deserved it.
Prince Barrindar approached Saviar next. Sixteen, shy, and the spitting image of King Griff, he slouched toward Saviar as if embarrassed by his height. Though tall for his age, Saviar looked the younger boy squarely in the nose. The oldest child of Griff’s third wife, Xoraida, and the only remaining male heir, Barrindar did not stand out the way Arturo had. Artistic, quiet, and blithely unworried about his future, he seemed almost a study in contrast to his more outgoing half brother. Arturo had chased life with an ardor Saviar shared: hoping to become a general in the charge of whichever sibling took the throne. Barrindar seemed content to let life take him where it would.
Saviar gave the prince a small bow that demonstrated respect without drawing attention, and Barrindar returned the gesture with a friendly smile and a tip of his shaggy, bearlike head. He withdrew to the far wall, and Marisole joined him.
The three youngest princesses came next, in a whispering, jostling group. Barrindar’s full-blooded sister, Calitha looked Saviar up and down as if she had never seen him before. Essentially, Saviar realized, she had not. Their paths had not crossed for years, and she was a child then. Now, fourteen, she seemed to suddenly realize he was male. Her deep brown eyes sparkled, and she lowered
her lids coquettishly. Then, her eleven-year-old sister, Eldorin, jabbed her with an elbow and whispered loudly, “Quit staring at him.” Turning a brilliant shade of red from her chin to the roots of her hair, Calitha ran to her older siblings without voicing a greeting.
Saviar bowed anyway.
Eldorin waved, clearly not understanding her sister’s reaction, nor that she had done anything wrong. Saviar gave her another bow, and she skittered behind her brother.
The third of the trio, thirteen-year-old Halika, ran up to Saviar and hugged him. She was the third and last of Matrinka’s brood, and she barely resembled the rest of her family. Shorter and thinner, she sported Darris’ mouse-brown curls, broad lips, and generous nose.
Saviar held her like a treasured sister, glad she did not excite him as Marisole had. He would have felt filthy and low. Instead, he whispered, “I’m so sorry about Arturo.”
Tears glazed Halika’s eyes, and her grip grew fierce. “Be careful, Savi. I don’t want to lose another brother.”
Suffused with warmth at the compliment, Saviar brushed a curl from her forehead. He knew most of the girl’s affection for him had to come from Marisole’s attitude and stories. As a child, he had spent much more of his time at Béarn castle playing with Marisole and Subikahn. In those days, two years had made a huge difference; he had thought of Barrindar and Arturo as babies. As he grew older, and the Renshai training commanded all of his time, his visits had grown less frequent and shorter. He barely knew the other princesses, including Princess Ivana Shorith’na Cha’tella Tir Hya’sellirian Albar, despite the fact that she was only a half year younger than him, only a few months younger than Marisole.
As Halika reluctantly withdrew and headed for her other siblings, Ivana ran toward Saviar. Her gait seemed simultaneously agile and awkward, as if she might become a dancer should she only first learn to walk. She looked almost animal in her homeliness: her small mouth and nose nearly disappearing behind remarkably chubby cheeks, her eyes canted and reddish-yellow in color, her hair thick and straight, without a hint of wave or curl. Its color was a strange blackish-blond, with highlights that looked red in places, nearly green in others. Her blocky body seemed slightly twisted and hunched. Her arms and legs were short and stout, but her fingers were contrastingly long and slender. She had tiny feet, swathed in toddler’s slippers, that barely seemed capable of balancing her bulk. A bit of white froth perched at the corners of her lips.
Ivana loosed a sound that seemed more like a braying mule than human language and lunged into Saviar’s arms as Halika had done. Saviar barely had time to brace himself before she slammed into him. He wrapped his arms around her with difficulty and tried to appear comfortable. Only propriety and politeness held him in place. He would have preferred to run from her in terror.
Saviar pressed his mouth to Ivana’s shoulders, hiding the revulsion for which he felt desperately ashamed. Not only was Ivana a full princess of the realm, she had once symbolized a great union and the only hope for humans and elves alike. Elves could procreate only when an elder passed on, his or her soul repackaged into the fetus. Violent death meant a soul lost forever, and most of the elves had died in a great explosion. At the time, humans also suffered, from an inflicted sterility plague. When Tem’aree’ay became pregnant with Griff’s child, it had seemed the perfect solution to both dilemmas.
Then, Ra-khir, Kevral, Darris, and a few companions obtained the item necessary for the elves to lift the sterility plague. Ivana was born. And everything changed. Repulsed by the princess, nearly all of the elves abandoned the company of humans to live quiet, unseen lives in the forests scattered throughout Midgard. As far as Saviar knew, only Tem’aree’ay herself remained, bonded to husband and daughter by a love that surpassed tribes, species, even near-immortality.
Saviar hoped that one day, he, too, would find a woman who loved him with such consummate and awesome passion, willing to give up everything just to be with him. He knew Griff would do the same for Tem’aree’ay as well, and Saviar craved the kind of love that would drive him to such madness. For, though Griff had married Queen Matrinka to appease the populace, and Xoraida to legitimately father human heirs, his enormous and tender heart belonged wholly to his elfin wife.
To have this creature, Ivana, be the result of a love so obsessive and fierce seemed the cruelest trick. And many considered it a warning: Leave creation to the gods. Only sorrow could come of meddling with it, of starting new species by mingling unlike beings. The gods had revealed their displeasure by punishing Béarn’s king with this monstrosity, and all humans and elves should take heed. It was so easy to forget that her conception had once been considered the ultimate miracle, the answer to two of the greatest problems of the universe.
Finally, Ivana released Saviar and joined her siblings at the periphery. Only then, it occurred to Saviar to wonder why his father had gathered the heirs of Béarn to watch him practice, why Halika had cautioned him and worried for his safety. Saviar had greeted all the heirs, yet still an equal host stood, calmly watchful, at Ra-khir’s side. A sinewy horde of brunets and blonds, male and female, some of them braided and all of them armed with swords studied his every movement from the sidelines. He knew them all, at least in passing; and he also knew why they took such an interest in him. They were learning him: from the set of his build to the shape, origin, and insertion of every muscle. They were the guardians of Béarn’s heirs, the only Renshai currently residing in Béarn.
And they were about to attack him. En masse.
CHAPTER 12
Renshai violence is swift and merciless, but never without cause.
—Arak’bar Tulamii Dhor (aka Captain)
TERROR SEIZED SAVIAR in an all-consuming instant that drove everything into slow motion. The mass of Renshai drew and attacked with a speed that would ordinarily have astounded, yet Saviar felt as if he had all the time in the world to die. Instinct took over, and his own sword rasped from its sheath. Then, fear retreated behind the courage trained into him since birth: to die in glorious valorous combat, to find his place in Valhalla, to fight until he drew his last gasping breath. He would do nothing in cowardice, but neither did Renshai training force him to act a fool.
Eyes on his foe, Saviar made a wild leap for the staircase. The forest of swords followed him, clutched in the hands of eager Renshai. Saviar bounded up, three steps at a time, then whirled to face his opponents on the landing. The other Renshai were on him in an instant, but the closed confines forced them to face him one warrior at a time, the others clamoring and howling on the steps like wolves.
And I’m the bone, Saviar realized, catching the first attack, by Asmiri, on his sword and parrying it harmlessly aside. Asmiri clutched a hilt in each hand, cursing the banister and wall that limited his right arm. Nevertheless, his left-hand strokes came blisteringly quickly, and he even managed a few surprises with the right. Hard-pressed to his defense, Saviar parried, blocked, and dodged without bothering to return an attack. He knew all of his attackers, and it chilled him. Every one had fought in the Pirate Wars, every one had already passed the tests to which he still only aspired; not one would go easy on a young Renshai they still considered a child.
Yet, when an opening came, Saviar seized it. He lunged into a miniscule space between Asmiri’s weaving blades, jabbing hard enough to disembowel his opponent. Asmiri managed to dodge, barely, hampered by the Renshai behind him. Saviar’s blade stabbed through cloth and grazed skin. Real blood followed its withdrawal, and Saviar paused for an instant, startled.
Saviar’s torke always told him to keep his strokes real. Any adult Renshai who could not avoid the most deadly strike of a student deserved to die. It happened occasionally, though never to Saviar, who had not even drawn blood on a torke. “Asmiri, are you all right?”
Asmiri gave him a pale-faced, sour look. “I’m dead, all right?” Unable to properly retreat from the battle, he wilted to the ground in a feigned and awkward swoon. “Keep fighting.”
I won! Saviar realized. I actually won. He had no time to revel in his triumph. The horde pressed forward, and Elbirine replaced Asmiri. Lost beneath the swiftly shifting feet, Asmiri worked his way cautiously down the stairs while his companions did their best not to step on him. Lithe, small, and fierce, Elbirine had trained with Kevral. Though approaching middle age, she moved with the quickness of a stooping hawk. “Overconfident, like your mother?”
Forced to leap backward to avoid a stunning strike, Saviar dashed his spine against the stonework. Because of her youth and attitude, Kevral had not been well liked by her classmates. Saviar had to wonder whether she annoyed them as much as Calistin did him. Head ringing, he surged into a slashing over-under combination. “No.” He dodged a powerful slice from the small woman. “Just . . .” He parried. “. . . confident . . .” He lunged. “. . . enough.”
A twirling maneuver saved him from a deadly jab, but opened his side momentarily. Steel tore his britches and the covering flesh and bruised his hipbone with enough force to bring unbidden tears to his eyes.
“Not fatal,” Elbirine shouted, without giving Saviar any time to recover. She sliced and cut, surging in and out with fine movements so fast they seemed invisible. He managed to dodge or parry every one, at the same time collecting tiny rents and bruises that reminded him how close he had come to losing the battle.
“Come on, knight’s son,” Elbirine growled, meaning both the talking while fighting, and the words, as insult. By referring to his father, she meant to remind him that he was not all Renshai, but something less. “Get angry.”
Saviar wished he could, but his training remained too strong within him. He knew that rage made men careless, the commonest cause for a fall. He did not like Elbirine. The Renshai guardians of Béarn’s heirs had come to help him, at Ra-khir’s request. Any Renshai would assist one of their own, and no Renshai could resist a battle.Yet, it soon became clear Elbirine wanted him to pay for all the humiliation she had suffered at the hands of his mother, from Kevral’s superior skill and her patronizing manner. Saviar knew only that he could not allow Elbirine to best him.
Flight of the Renshai Page 18