Nature Mage

by Duncan Pile

  Then came the staff. If Gaspi had been nervous watching Jonn compete, he was practically twitching waiting for Taurnil to fight. Emea looked sick, and Lydia had been stripped of her earlier coolness, concern and hope etched into every muscle of her face.

  Emea grasped her hand. “I hope he does well,” she said. “This really means a lot to him.”

  “Me too,” Lydia responded breathily.

  “I know he can do it,” Gaspi said to both girls. He’d never seen his friend so determined about anything, and couldn’t help feeling he’d be up to the challenge. The bruises Taurnil had been carrying these last few weeks told the story of relentless practice, which had to count for something, after all.

  The first bout was between two evenly matched fighters; one lean and dark, and the other thick-set and blonde. The skills used for staff fighting were very different from those used for blades. The combatants pivoted and thrust, trapped and swung from a greater distance, leaping over their staffs and swapping positions every few seconds. It seemed as much a test of agility as anything else, and when the tall, dark fighter won out, Gaspi swallowed his concern at the obvious skill of the fighters, and waited excitedly for his friend to be called.

  Taurnil sat on the bench, his heart beating so hard he thought people would be able to hear it. His palms were sweaty and he swallowed over and over, trying to moisten his bone-dry mouth. He’d been looking forward to this for weeks, practicing hour upon hour to get ready for the tournament, but now that it was here he wasn’t even sure if his shaking hands could hold a staff, let alone fight with one. Suddenly, there was no more time left to think about it, as Trask’s voice boomed out “Taurnil, Kristos,” and he was walking to the weapons’ rack. He collected a staff, and walked slowly out across the arena on legs that didn’t even feel like they were his. Blood pounding in his ears, he forced himself to keep going, each step emphasised by the loud crunch of sandy, gritty floor beneath his feet. He reached the centre of the arena and faced off against his opponent, forcing himself to meet the calm gaze of the rangy fighter. He’d never beaten Kristos in a fight before, and he tried to force his nerves apart, daring himself to believe it was possible this time.

  “Begin!” Kristos leaped in straight away, attacking Taurnil with an aggressive thrust. Taurnil blocked the thrust instinctively, and as wood clacked on wood and the reverberations shocked his arms, it was as if he suddenly woke up. He was fighting in the tournament, he’d been looking forward to it for weeks, and that moment was now. Nervousness fled him as his focus narrowed on the moment and on his opponent. He turned his block into a thrust, pushing Kristos’ staff out to the right. Kristos allowed the momentum to carry his staff around, and he brought it swinging forcefully in towards Taurnil’s exposed ribs. Taurnil snapped his staff up at the last minute, catching Kristos’ strike and forcing his staff upwards. With incredible speed, Taurnil stepped in, reversing his staff and thrusting the butt of it into Kristos’ chin. The tall fighter’s head snapped up, his body frozen in mid motion. He seemed to float backwards, arms extended and legs hanging limply, before landing with a muffled thud on the arena floor.

  The crowd was silent for a second, before erupting in riotous cheering. Taurnil looked to where his friends were sitting, filling with pride when he saw all three of them on their feet, cheering wildly and thrusting their hands in the air. His eyes rested on Lydia for a second, and his stomach lurched before he tore his gaze away. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that.

  “Winner; Taurnil,” Trask announced, and Taurnil took his place on the winners’ bench while the rest of the first round bouts were underway.

  His next opponent was a dangerous little fighter called Ruberto. He was short and wiry, with a hooked nose and sun-burnt, olive skin. Taurnil squared off against his opponent. His heart was beating fast as Trask commanded them to begin.

  “Begin!” Trask commanded, and Taurnil began to circle warily, his nerves on edge, ready for any sudden move. Ruberto attacked first with a sharp jab to the face, which Taurnil easily deflected. Memories of practice bouts told him that Ruberto was much better at defending than attacking, and decided to outwait him, forcing him into an aggressive position. Sure enough, Ruberto began to strike more often, and though the attacks were hard and fast, Taurnil kept up a strong defence. Taurnil could sense a woodenness in his opponent’s attacks. They were strong and quick and could hurt if they connected, but he didn’t have the kind of fluidity he’d learned to identify in the better fighters.

  A couple of minutes into the fight, Ruberto leapt in with a strong thrust to the body, forcing Taurnil into a block; but as the staffs connected, Ruberto pivoted to the left, bringing the other end of the staff around towards Taurnil’s exposed side. Taurnil tried desperately to bring his own staff round to block it ,but was too late, and Ruberto’s staff crunched into his chain mail just below his armpit. Taurnil grunted as pain exploded in his side and chain links went spinning out across the floor as his vest ripped open. He staggered backwards away from the blow, putting distance between himself and Ruberto. Ruberto grinned predatorily and came in again on the attack, striking confidently now with a series of thrusts and sweeps. Every blow Taurnil caught on his staff sent a white hot stab of pain through his injured side, but he fought on with gritted teeth. If he could just get one good move in he could even the fight up, or even swing it in his favour.

  He got his chance less than a minute later, when he caught his opponent in an overextended sweep, trapping one end of Ruberto’s staff against the floor. He brought a foot down hard on the length of wood, snapping it noisily in two. He didn’t pause but leapt in with a hard blow to the body, trying to finish the fight there and then. Ruberto dropped under the swing, landing on his back and thrusting out his feet, sweeping Taurnil’s legs out from under him. Taurnil fell like a dead weight, throwing out his arms to catch himself. His eyes widened as he saw the jagged end of Ruberto’s broken staff sticking up beneath him. He tried to twist out of the way as he fell, but the last thing he felt before blackness enveloped him was a brutal impact in his exposed side, as the splintered wood thrust deep into his flesh.

  Chapter 21

  Gaspi, Emea and Lydia all stood up, as the whole crowd gasped. Lydia shouted his name in the sudden, deathly hush, a bleak and desperate cry, and the three friends burst into a sprint across the arena. They arrived just as Trask pushed Taurnil onto his back, exposing the ragged wound under his armpit, where the broken staff had thrust deep into Taurnil’s body.

  “Oh God,” Trask said fervently. Lydia flopped onto the ground like a rag doll, landing on her backside, legs folded around her in an unruly arrangement, staring without comprehension at the prostrate Taurnil. Jonn had run up from the winners’ bench and stood behind Gaspi and Emea with a trembling hand on each of their shoulders, his breathing ragged. Gaspi stared in horror at his friend, at a wound that surely must be mortal. And then Emea stepped forward. Gaspi almost stopped her but then he saw something that held him back. Her face radiated a mixture of white hot anger and pure determination. She somehow didn’t seem like the Emmy he knew. There was something else there too, something pure and frightening. Stepping up to Trask she laid a hand on his arm.

  “Pull it out,” she said, with a quiet certainty.

  Trask stared at her uncertainly. “If I pull it out, he will bleed to death,” he said.

  “Will he live if you leave it in?” Emea asked.

  “Probably not,” Trask said.

  “I want you to trust me,” Emea said, holding Trask’s gaze evenly for several seconds. Seeing something there that convinced him, he nodded.

  “Now, pull it out!” she said. Trask turned to his task, bending down over the unconscious Taurnil, placing one hand on his flesh around the wound and curling the other around the staff.

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Now.”

  He leaned back, easing the length of wood out of the deep wound in Taurnil’s body. It came out with a sucking noise,
covered in blood. As soon as it was clear, Emea stepped in, kneeling beside her friend and placing her hands over the wound. Blood flowed through her fingers as she closed her eyes. Jonn’s fingers were clenched tightly around Gaspi’s shoulder. Lydia stared on with anguish, tears covering her cheeks and mouth.

  Gaspi looked with desperate hope at Emea’s cupped hands, willing her to connect to her magic. And, suddenly; there it was. Light burst into being under her palms, beaming through the gaps in her fingers. It blossomed in a moment, then grew until Gaspi could barely look at it. Instead he looked at Emea’s face, a beatific mask of certainty and peace. The tingling sensation he felt when magic was being performed was so intense it resonated vibrantly out from his gut and through his whole body. Gaspi tried to look once more at the wound beneath Emea’s hands, but the blazing light obscured all details, until after a few more seconds it began to dim. It waned to a glimmer, then flickered out of existence. Emea stared at her hands for a few seconds before slowly lifting them from Taurnil’s body to reveal pink, unmarked flesh. Lydia sobbed loudly, collapsing completely in utter relief. Amazed by what he had seen, Gaspi reached out to Emea, who still knelt on the floor by Taurnil, a look of quiet surprise replacing the intensity of the previous few moments. She took his hand and let him lift her to her feet, allowing him to pull her into him and to hold her protectively.

  Taurnil groaned and twitched, opening his eyes and blinking uncertainly. Trask and Jonn helped him to his feet. “What happened?” he asked, prodding himself under the arm where his wound had been.

  “That’s what happened,” Trask said, pointing at the ground behind him.

  Taurnil looked in surprise at the blood-soaked patch of floor. “Is that mine?” he asked, worried and confused.

  “You were wounded badly, Taurnil,” Trask answered. “And if this young lady hadn’t intervened, you may be dead,” he said, indicating Emea with his hand. Emea smiled shyly, her eyes filling with tears of relief now that the moment was over.

  Trask was bowled aside by a flapping bundle of silk as Lydia pushed past the others and threw herself at Taurnil with a loud sob, flinging her arms around him and burying her head in his chest. Taurnil let out a grunt as the air was expelled from his lungs, his face a picture of bewilderment.

  “Er…thanks Lydia,” was all he could think to say, giving Gaspi an astonished look over the top of her head.

  “You stupid, stupid boy,” she said between sobs.

  “There, there,” Taurnil said awkwardly, patting her on the back.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Trask said, “but I think it’s time Taurnil goes to the hospital.”

  “But I feel fine,” Taurnil said as Lydia reluctantly disconnected from him. “Well...a bit weak, maybe,” he added, patting himself under the arm where the staff had speared him, “but there’s no pain.”

  Trask indicated the patch of reddened floor behind him. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, unless this young lady replaced that while she healed you.” Emmy shook her head. “And I can’t have one of my guards get impaled and not be checked out by a physician. Off you go now. Jonn - will you take him?”

  “Of course,” Jonn said. “Come on, Taurnil.”

  “Just remember to come back for the melee,” Trask added.

  “I’ll be back in time,” Jonn answered.

  Lydia placed a hand on Taurnil’s arm. “I’ll come and see you later, okay?”

  “Okay...see you later,” Taurnil responded, still looking bemused, and left with Jonn.

  The city hospital was connected to the barracks, so Jonn didn’t have to take Taurnil very far. The medics were quite accustomed to working in a city where Healer magicians lived and practiced their art, and so were initially not surprised to hear that Taurnil had been both wounded and restored to health that same day. However, when Jonn explained the extent of Taurnil’s injury they became much more serious. They made him lie down while they prodded and probed and asked him lots of questions, muttering things like “quite astonishing” and “remarkable” as they worked.

  While the medics fussed around him, Taurnil had some time to think. He kept remembering how fiercely Lydia had hugged him, and how she’d cried when he’d been healed. But what did that mean? He thought back over the last few weeks; the jealousy he’d felt at the circle, how they’d kept falling out after that, how inadequate he must seem around all those magicians. Nothing had really changed, and he didn’t feel like making a fool out of himself again and making her uncomfortable all at the same time. She’s probably just a caring person, he decided, and would have cried the same way if it was Gaspi or Emea who’d been hurt. He thought about asking Jonn what he thought, but what was the point? Injury or no injury, he still wasn’t good enough for Lydia...so why drag it out?

  An hour or so later Lydia walked into the room, her usual calm demeanour restored. Jonn stood up as she arrived, offering her the chair he’d been sitting on by Taurnil’s bedside. “I’ll head back now. Lydia, I leave Taurnil in your capable hands,” he said, with a knowing smile.

  Lydia took his seat as he left, arranging her skirts around her for what seemed an unnecessarily long time. Finally, she looked up. “So, how are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Good,” Taurnil answered, tongue-tied as always in her presence. “At least, I think so,” he added lamely, trying to think of clever things to say. “So...how are you?” It was trivial and he knew it, but what was he meant to say?

  Lydia seemed to warm to the question: “I’m much better thanks. I wasn’t for a while back there. But now I know you’re ok…”

  It seemed to Taurnil she wanted him to say something. Should he ask her why she was upset? That seemed a bit too close to uncomfortable subjects. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he said at last. He must seem like a total idiot.

  Lydia reddened, her eyes dropping to the floor as she began to shift uncomfortably in the chair. The seconds extended painfully, and Taurnil began to wish the ground would open up and swallow him. Without looking at him, Lydia stood up to leave, pulling her silks around her with plucking fingers. “Well, if you’re okay then I should get going,” she said, and turned to leave.

  Suddenly, her head flicked back round, her beautiful green eyes brimming with tears, looking right into Taurnil’s own. “Don’t you like me at all?” she asked, somewhere between pleading and angry.

  Taurnil was startled. “Like you?”

  “You know, how a man likes a woman?” she said, definitely angry now, and looking like she was about to flee the room.

  “Like you?” Taurnil said again incredulously, softness entering his voice. “I more than like you. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.”

  Lydia stood still as a statue. “The most beautiful…” she started to say. A slow smile started at the corners of her mouth, and spread across her whole face. “Well - why haven’t you said so, you big idiot?” she said, planting her fists on her hips.

  Taurnil stared up at her, utterly astounded. Was it really true? Could she feel the same for him? “I’ve felt this way from the first day I met you,” he said, “but I never thought you’d feel the same about me.”

  “Why on earth not?” Lydia asked, still sounding angry.

  “Because I’m not magical. And you’re so amazing. I’m not good enough…” Taurnil trailed off.

  Lydia placed a hand on his arm, leaned forward and kissed him fully on the lips. Taurnil’s uncertainty diminished as the kiss lingered.

  “Not good enough…” she said softly as she pulled away, sitting back down again in the chair. “Taurnil, that is for me to decide, and I say you’re more than good enough. Besides - I’m a gypsy. We don’t think that way. My mother has the Gift, but my father doesn’t have a magical bone in his body. If you like someone, you like someone.” She spoke with a kind of fiery certainty that Taurnil found easy to believe in. “And Taurnil, I like you. That has to be good enough.”

  “Oh believe me, it is,” Taurnil answered, his tongue l
oosened by her words. “This is amazing,” he said, sounding stupid in his own ears.

  “Yes, I believe it is,” Lydia said with a satisfied smile. “But don’t keep me wondering like that again, okay?” she said, some of that fierceness returning to her voice. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

  “I will,” Taurnil said, nodding vigorously to convince her.

  Just then, a nurse bustled into the room. “Well, young man you’ve had a lucky escape today. If it wasn’t for that Healer, you might not be here at all.”

  “I know,” Taurnil said, grateful all over again that Emmy had been there.

  “But we can’t find anything wrong with you apart from a bit of blood loss, and your body will sort that out on its own if you rest for a couple of days. So if you promise to avoid any physical activity for a few days, you are free to go.”

  “Thanks,” Taurnil said, levering himself up out of bed. “Let’s go back to watch Jonn,” he said to Lydia, who smiled and took his hand.

  “I’ll send a note to Drillmaster Trask to keep you out of training while you recover,” the nurse said.

  “Yep, that’s great. Thanks again,” he said, and he and Lydia left the hospital and headed back to the arena.

  Chapter 22

  Gaspi and Emmy sat on the benches in the arena, completely ignoring the two guardsmen battling it out with maces in front of them.

  “That was amazing, Emmy,” Gaspi said, not for the first time since she had healed Taurnil.

  “I’m more amazed than anyone else,” Emmy said. “It was like it all just suddenly made sense. Taurnil was injured, and I just knew I could do it.”