Colbey watched as his son’s anguish turned gradually into resolve. With his mind gift, he felt the emotions switch places, and his gaze tracked the changes that accompanied it. Ravn’s jaw set. The color returned to his face, then moved beyond to one shade darker than normal. His hands relaxed at his sides, and his stance become less stiff and more wary. The pale eyes, so like his mother’s, met Colbey’s directly and held there. So many times, the boy, as most beings did, jerked away from the cold, blue-gray stare. This time, he held firm, revealing a determination that left no room for doubt or fear.
“Have at me!” Ravn used a pet phrase of Colbey’s when he tried to spur students to use their rage as a tool against him. “Have at me, then, old Renshai! This spar is mine.”
Colbey laughed. All the troubles of the moment disappeared, at least for Colbey, as the concentration required for teaching an able opponent replaced it. Two swords flowed skillfully into Ravn’s hands, like water. The left was a straight blade, heavy and ponderous beside the shorter, thinner scimitar in his right. The left lunged for Colbey’s gut before the other had fully cleared its sheath. Colbey drew and blocked easily with his right-hand sword, freeing Harval with his left as the scimitar surged for his head. He blocked that strike, too, surprised at the ponderous feel of the movement. Just a split second off, but enough to send alarm jerking through him.
Slowed by his discomfort, Colbey returned only a single attack with each blade. Ravn managed a desperate block/parry combination that left their swords hopelessly tangled. Both withdrew, Ravn glaring at his father, Colbey bewildered by the difficulties with Harval. Is it me or the sword? Experience told him to place blame on himself rather than an inanimate piece of steel.
Ravn’s charge left Colbey little time for thought. The youngster came at him like a charging stallion, the swords point first and at chest level. Colbey threw them aside with a simple inner, upward block. Ravn’s blades scratched harmlessly down his own, but momentum did not end so simply. Ravn drew in so close Colbey could feel his warm breath. A knee slammed for Colbey’s groin. The old Renshai eeled sideways, and Ravn’s knee crashed against Colbey’s hip instead. Colbey kicked backward, hooking Ravn’s ankle. Ravn twisted free awkwardly, retreating beyond sword range before Colbey bothered to riposte.
They faced off again. Under ordinary circumstances, Colbey would have smiled. Ravn was attacking like a Renshai, with a two-sword combination worthy of Colbey and only a few others—all of their race. His boldness pleased his teacher, but Colbey’s concern for his own timing distracted him from compliments. Something felt wrong, and he seemed incapable of adjusting to the change. It seemed as if the sword’s impeccable balance, forged to his own minute specifications, had become skewed. Maybe this isn’t Harval. The thought crossed his mind as Ravn bulled toward him again, this time with an unorthodox maneuver called tre-ved-en or Loki’s cross. Designed for battling three against one, it required the Renshai to pin the central enemy’s neck between crossed blades. The opening of the swords would slice open the man’s neck and add momentum for each blade to cut foes on either side.
Colbey sprang backward, foiling Ravn’s well-aimed attack. The poor choice of maneuver required teaching that Colbey felt too preoccupied to deliver until match’s end. A humiliating finish would work as well. So he spiraled in to disarm. Harval lunged for Ravn’s right hilt, meant to thread under scimitar and over the hand. But the balance foiled him. Instead, Harval slid on top of both, skewering Ravn’s S-shaped crossguard. Colbey’s other sword jabbed for Ravn’s gut, parried by the broadsword. Ravn twisted. Harval cut a thin gash across his wrist, but the lock untangled, and Ravn recoiled for another pass.
Colbey swore soundlessly. Never in his life had he felt so out of control. Always before, he could take any sword, assess the balance instantly, and use it. Now, a sword he knew as well as his own hand had failed him several times. It seemed more as if the feel was fluid, changing even as he adjusted to the differences. Hand or sword? Colbey had to know, and a simple means presented itself in an instant. He switched hilts, Harval now in his right hand and the other sword in his left. For reasons of his own, Ravn sheathed the scimitar and wrapped both hands around the broadsword’s longer hilt.
This time, Ravn did not roar in with the bold commitment that always delighted his father. Colbey often said that he could teach a man maneuvers but never the gall necessary to make a capable warrior. Apparently tiring of the pattern, Ravn turned defensive. He hunched into an in-line stance designed to present the tiniest target possible. He held the sword in a high guard, prepared to counter any attack against him.
Colbey obliged with a few lightning quick sweeps and jabs that Ravn scarcely blocked with simple half circles. It was an easy defense, yet an effective one. A single movement wove a wall in front of him that even Colbey’s meteoric jabs could not penetrate. The swords felt better in his hands; and he, once again, seemed in control. Whatever had bothered his left hand or his sword appeared to have disappeared with the switch.
Guarded joy swept through Colbey. He would still need to determine what had thrown off usually impeccable timing. He drove in toward Ravn, trapping the wild half circles of the youngster’s sword at a low point, between both of his own. Instantly, Colbey swung back with his right-hand sword for Ravn’s head. A certain killing stroke.
Something went wrong. The sword Colbey believed still blocked Ravn’s had fallen short. Ravn ripped by it for Colbey’s thigh. Too late, Colbey pulled his attack and leaped aside. Ravn’s sword creased Colbey’s flesh, the contact stinging. Blood wound down his pants leg in a warm trickle, and scarlet colored the tip of Ravn’s sword. Howling, as much with surprise as anger, Colbey used his off-blade to lock Ravn’s sword against its sheath. A single maneuver cut the hilt from Ravn’s hand and sent it spinning like a wounded goose through the air. Colbey caught the haft. To do otherwise would dishonor an opponent who deserved congratulations. Two swords in his left hand and one in his right, Colbey examined the rent in his breeks with disbelief.
Never in his nearly four hundred years of teaching had any student drawn blood from him. He knew from the feel that the injury was superficial, but that made no difference. In battle, he had weathered the slash, stab, and tear of myriad weapons. Axes had cleaved through flesh and bone. Demons had clawed scarring furrows in his hand and face. A sword had once opened his chest horribly enough to make the marks of demons seem trivial. Yet none of those wounds compared to the minuscule scratch a student had inflicted in spar. Loss of control bothered Colbey far more than any accident of war.
Blood colored Ravn’s fingers from the nick in his wrist, also superficial. That injury, Colbey dismissed, not because he did not bear it, but because he had not directly inflicted it. Never in his course of teaching with live, steel swords had he accidentally wounded a student, and not this time either. Ravn had made the choice to cut himself and break the sword lock rather than give up his weapon. In battle, Colbey would have made the same decision.
Ravn waited in silence for his teacher’s assessment. Ultimately, Colbey had won the battle since he had disarmed his opponent. Yet, though Ravn bled first, he had technically drawn first blood. It was not fair to count self-inflicted injury as a victory.
Colbey clamped a hand to his thigh, placing pressure on the wound more from habit than any real attempt to staunch the flow. He studied his son. The boy waited in an anxious hush. The importance of Colbey’s next words became magnified by the eager concern wafting from his son. Ravn would accept whoever his torke deemed the winner. It would never occur to the youngster to gainsay such a decision though, once rendered, he might press his father for another chance.
All smiles left Colbey. It had become clear that the problem lay with Harval’s stability, not with his own. Suddenly, he understood too well. The sword that held the harmony of the universe had become as unpredictable as the chaos man’s world now tipped all of them toward. The delicate balance that distinguished a good sword from a bad one had d
isappeared, replaced by a clunky asymmetry that shifted along with the world. Vidar had displayed the judgment of his frightening father; he could not have chosen a better time for his counsel. Colbey also knew that he could accomplish his mission far more easily without others in his way. Just as on the battlefield, he would trust his intuition from moment to moment to determine his next course of action. Long-term strategy did not suit Colbey or Renshai; therefore, team efforts befuddled them.
Colbey continued to stare at his son, knowing which decision would prove best for the world. But other things than his own ease and even the disposition of the worlds lay at stake. His son’s self-esteem poised on the brink as well. “Go to Griff,” he said at length.
Ravn’s sudden rush of joy slapped Colbey a staggering blow.
Colbey continued before Ravn could move. “But remember, you’re bound by the promise I made. You may not kill elves or humans. The fewer dealings you have with mortals, the less you interfere with my job.” He did not bother to stress the importance of his own work on Midgard. Adolescents always responded better to knowledge acquired on their own than to lectures thrust upon them by well-meaning parents. He offered the broadsword, hilt first.
“I understand!” Ravn loosed a wild whoop of excitement as he snatched up the sword, running toward home without bothering with further conversation.
Colbey released the wound, which had already stopped bleeding. He stared at the smear of blood across his hand, shaking his head. A new era had truly begun.
Chapter 35
Griff’s Guardian
Never get in the way of a fighting Renshai.
—Colbey Calistinsson
Concentric rings of furrowed bark disrupted the trunks of most of the trees on the elves’ island. Flexible, they swayed and bowed in the ocean breezes, their long, serrated leaves drawing massive shadows that danced to the beat of their rattling. The salt air felt strange in Ravn’s nostrils. He had spent his only time on man’s world in Griff’s quiet Grove, and air clotted with rime felt thick and choking in comparison. He guessed the odor came of many sources, blended into a single smell that now defined the sea. Behind him, wavelets chopped white spirals across the fluttering blue-green water. Ahead, sand stretched, heat haze turning the distant horizon to a blur. Ravn’s glimpses from Odin’s throne indicated a central location for the elves and their few structures, including the angular building in which they kept Griff and another human prisoner.
Sand trickled into Ravn’s sandals as he took his first steps, its soft warmth a sensation he did not waste seconds enjoying. He had worried about Griff for too long to allow something as simple and superfluous as pleasure to delay him. Though little taller than his father despite the gods’ blood that flowed through him, Ravn had grown accustomed to the tremendous strides of those around him. He stretched his pace to the far side of comfort, without actually running. Eagerness could not wholly displace his need to contemplate strategy. The seemingly unmotivated attacks on Griff had given him reason to despise elves and none at all to care whether they lived or died. Only his father’s promise held him to peaceful methods, and that reason had not yet become internalized enough to overcome his natural hatred for them.
At length, a dark spot interrupted the horizon to Ravn’s left. Although not likely to represent the elves’ town, Ravn steered toward it. He had too little experience reading what he saw from the High Seat to trust his memory of locations. Whatever lay to his left did not look like a natural formation and might represent the very building he sought.
Sand folded over Ravn’s sandals in a warm cascade and funneled into each footprint, so they all but disappeared behind him. Ravn did not care about the trail he left. The time for subtlety had passed; it would not assist him in the task sparring skill had won him. He continued toward his goal, soon identifying it as a single, small dwelling holding little promise of being a prison or the home of hundreds of elves. A boat rocked in the waves, sails unfurled and masts like skeletons against the frothy sky. The lone figure perched on the cottage roof and staring out over the sea might give Ravn directions or, at least, an early taste of elfin hostility.
Ravn continued his trek toward the cottage. The figure on the rooftop became clearer as he approached, distinctly recognizable as an elf only as Ravn drew within hailing distance. The fine, angular features grew unmistakable, the frail, long-limbed body only confirming his image. The glimpse gave him an impression of maleness and also of great age, though he could not pick out details that revealed these things to him. Sea breezes ruffled fine red-brown hair over the stranger’s lowered hood and twined it into streamers that seemed as soft and flowing as his cloak. The locks contained a trace of silver that little resembled human graying, and the wrinkles creasing the delicate face seemed to come from a combination of salt air and smiling rather than age. Compared to the eyes of humans and gods, the elf’s seemed animal, canted and slitted like a cat’s but lacking the starlike centers and the variations in tone and color.
Ravn assessed all of this from profile, for the elf continued to stare at the ocean even as Ravn stopped to study him. The cabin’s construction looked strange, lacking the supports and details gleaned by humans over millennia. It supported a ceiling tacked and tied in place instead of nailed. The flat roof would shed rain poorly, though it did form an excellent perch for the elf to overlook the ocean.
When the elf paid him no heed, Ravn called out a greeting. Although he expected to meet resistance, he saw no need to begin by antagonizing, so he simply said, “Hello.” It held the additional advantage of being nearly universal in every human language.
The elf’s eyes crinkled, presumably because he did not recognize the voice. He did not stiffen or jump, suggesting he had known of Ravn’s presence but had chosen to ignore him. Unhurriedly, he turned and looked at Ravn, gaze measuring the young god in an instant. His eyes narrowed further, and the scrutiny became intent. “Hello,” the elf returned politely, if belatedly, his accent more like Ravn’s own than the youth expected. The elf jumped lightly from roof to ledge, then scrambled down a beam with the agility of a squirrel. Many questions surely came to his mind, yet he did not ply Ravn, just waited with an immortal’s patience for him to speak again.
More prepared for an attack than conversation, Ravn fidgeted. He chose the Northern language, the one favored by the gods and closest to the elf’s intonation. “I’m looking for a prisoner called Griff. Could you tell me where to find him?” Ravn tensed, expecting anything but the civil, matter-of-fact answer he received.
“No, I’m outcast. I only know of one prisoner, and she’s female. But if such a prisoner as this Griff exists, you would find him in the compound.” The elf gestured toward the center of the island.
“Thank you,” Ravn said, and he started to turn in the indicated direction.
But the elf had not finished. “Be careful. You may not find the others as tolerant of humans as myself.” He gave a serious but friendly nod. “I am called Captain.” He used the trading tongue term.
Although Ravn doubted the elf had used his real name, he did not press. Ravn was a nickname, too, a common one among those of Northern lineage. “And I’m called Ravn.”
“Ravn,” the elf repeated and paused so long that Ravn believed he had only spoken to confirm he had gotten it right. Ravn had just opened his mouth to affirm it when the elf finally continued, “You resemble a friend, though he would be nearly four centuries old now. And I know humans do not live half that long.”
“Nor even a quarter,” Ravn asserted honestly. “Perhaps it is only that humans of similar features look alike to one used to living among an entirely different race.” Not intending the words as insult, Ravn continued, “I might have the same difficulty distinguishing between elves.”
“No.” Captain denied the possibility. “I’ve lived far more of my life among humans than elves. Though I’ve never moved freely among them, I’ve seen enough over thousands of years to know the differences.”
“It’s more than a physical resemblance. Your voices are similar, and your mannerisms. And I’ve seen few enough humans who wield two swords at once.”
It seemed impossible that an elf had known Ravn’s father in his mortal years. Surely Colbey would have mentioned such an association. Yet the timetable seemed right. Ravn felt the need to test this elf’s knowledge. His torke had taught him to know his enemy as well as possible, and not just the maneuvers he chose in combat. “Surely, I’m not the first warrior you’ve seen carry a spare sword.”
“No,” Captain admitted. “But you’re playing with me now, aren’t you? If you carried the second only as a replacement, you would wear both blades on the same side. At either hip, at either hand. Though I’ve seen warriors use two weapons at once, only Renshai would rather attack twice than defend at all. Only Renshai use two long swords at once, and even few of them master the technique.”
“I am Renshai,” Ravn admitted, amazed and discomforted by Captain’s knowledge.
“And this human you came for. He is Renshai, too?”
Ravn laughed at the image. “No.” He chuckled again, unable to think of anyone as un-Renshai as his innocent companion.
Beyond Ragnarok Page 67