Knight Of The Flame

by H John Spriggs

  After a few minutes, when the velox's breast no longer rose and fell, Milo raised his eyes. "Your stance was good," he said, "and you remembered to hold the string with three fingers instead of two, but I think we'll need to work on your aim a little."

  Gwenna smiled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot to move my arm, like you said."

  Milo's dismissed the thought with a small wave of his hand. "Don't worry about that," he said, then leaned back and shifted from a kneeling to a sitting position. "The most that's going to happen there is that your arm is going to sting for a while." He looked pointedly at her, so she lifted her left hand to show him the red patch that was developing on her forearm. He smiled. "Smarts, doesn't it?"

  Gwenna nodded, then put her arm down. "It didn't ruin the shot?" she asked.

  "Nope," said Milo, "just need to spend some time working on your distances, learning just how much to raise the tip of the arrow," he illustrated by putting his hand out flat, fingers together, before him, angling it up and down slightly, "depending on how far away your target is." He put the hand away. "You'll get the hang of it," he said. He got that impish look on his face. "And I've found that string-against-the-elbow mistake is one that people don't usually make more than once."

  Gwenna nodded. She could believe that; her arm still felt as though it had been slapped, and hard. "Thank you, Milo," she said, "for teaching me."

  Milo beamed. "Of course!" he said, standing up and brushing himself off. "Thanks for asking! I never could get Caymus interested in the bow." He cocked an eyebrow, "and with the weight he could pull, that's a real shame."

  Gwenna tilted her head. "Weight?" she asked.

  Milo answered, though he was looking at the ground around them, distractedly. "Each bow has a certain weight to it, which is how much the wood resists being bent. The same arm that can lift, say fifty pounds of something off the ground can fully draw a fifty-pound bow. It's all a question of how strong you have to be to use the thing, and of how much power the arrow's going to have when it's shot. I'd say the one you've got there is about a twenty-five or thirty pounder. Twenty five pounds isn't really enough to do a lot of damage, to be honest, so you'll want to get a heavier bow, sooner or later."

  Gwenna nodded understanding, then asked, "So how many pounds is your bow, then?"

  Milo stopped looking around and winked at her. "I'll never tell."

  Gwenna smiled. As she stood, she asked, "Milo, what was it you were doing when I got here? You were whispering something."

  Milo looked down at the fallen animal. "Saying sorry," he said. "I was apologizing for stealing all of its remaining days, for taking its last breaths so that we might have more of our own."

  Gwenna thought about this, frowning. "I didn't think an air-priest could be so...melancholy."

  Milo looked up at her with a knowing, and slightly sad-looking smile. "We're not, as a rule. It's something my mother taught me."

  Before Gwenna could pursue that statement, Milo began his hunt for something on the ground again. "Come on," he said, "we need to find a long stick or a branch or something if we're going to get this thing back to Otvia again before the others start wondering about us."

  Gwenna glanced around the immediate area. The only things she saw were rocks, dirt, and the occasional shrub or very small tree. She considered telling Milo what she thought about the chances of finding a branch around here, but instead just shrugged, smiled, and got on with it. One of the nice things about spending time with Milo was that she could feel free to just go along with the insanity. Earnestly, she began her search for the impossible object.

  "That reminds me," said Milo, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, "you didn't happen to pick up the arrow you fired on your way here, did you?"

  "Umm," Gwenna said, an apologetic look forming on her face. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought to retrieve it from the bush it had landed in.

  Milo laughed aloud. "Don't worry about it," he said. "I guess I needed to teach you how to make them yourself, eventually."

  Gwenna smiled, feeling better than she had in weeks. Adventure, indeed! And should couldn't think of better people to be having it with.

  ***

  Caymus, wooden sword in one hand, wooden shield in the other, stood his ground under the warmth of the noon sun, prepared for a blow that he was sure was coming any moment.

  "Stronger," said Merkan, not quite yelling. "Hit me stronger."

  Caymus considered his situation. Merkan was trying to teach him something about swordplay, something the mitre warrior obviously felt was important, but Caymus couldn't quite understand the point he was trying to convey. The giant had his own wooden sword, about twice the size of Caymus's, held horizontally, side-to-side, so that the entire length of the blade faced him, the grip held with both hands. Earlier, he'd seen Caymus practicing his drills while waiting for someone to give him something to do, and had decided he would show him something of the Mael'vekian style of combat.

  The only thing Caymus had figured out so far was that Mael'vekians tended not to use shields, yet still seemed to be able to effectively defend themselves against attacks.

  With a grunt, he swung out at Merkan's side. The mitre brought his sword down and, in one fluid motion, blocked the attack, then carried the swing overhead to create his own offensive motion. Caymus brought his shield up fast and the blade bounced off of it.

  Merkan held up a hand, indicating a pause. "You have not understood," he said, putting the point of his sword in he ground and leaning on it slightly. His wounded leg was healing nicely, but he still favored it somewhat. "You see attack and defend as different things, yes? Attack is the sword, defend is the shield?"

  Caymus nodded, keeping the shield up in front of him, protectively. "Yes," he said. "That sounds about right."

  "That is a Kepren idea," he said. "Kepren soldiers strike out with the sword, then hide behind the shield, believing it makes them safe." He picked up his sword again and stepped back a couple of paces. "Mael'vekian soldiers do both at once." He took a swing at the air. "Each movement is for both defense and attack." As he swung the sword, he pivoted it, turning the attack into an obvious block, then spun on the ball of one foot, weaving the result into another swing. To Caymus, it seemed like a dance, a single, graceful motion from which the blade occasionally emerged. He thought the sight of it was beautiful.

  When Merkan stopped, he pointed at Caymus's shield. "Kepren soldiers believe shields will save them. This is not the case. A shield is good for thwarting a rock, thrown by a child, but it will not save you from a Mael'vek sword."

  Caymus frowned. "Sure, you move quickly, but if I manage to block as quickly, it defends just fine."

  Merkan smiled. "You think so?" The smile held not even the smallest measure of malice or mockery; Merkan was obviously trying hard to help Caymus understand this point of his. "Come," he said, stepping forward again, "I will show you." He brought his sword up, holding it parallel to the ground, pointing at Caymus. "Ready?"

  Caymus brought his shield up, brought his sword hand to his side. "Ready."

  Merkan made a side-swing at Caymus, which he blocked easily, though the force of the hit jarred the bones of his hand. Then, Merkan swung overhead. Again, Caymus easily blocked it, but Merkan was using more of his strength than before, and Caymus could already feel his shield arm getting numb.

  Three more times, Merkan attacked, and Caymus realized that the giant wasn't even trying to get past his defense, but was aiming deliberately for the shield. Each time, the smack of wood against wood rattled the bones of his arm until he couldn't feel his hand. Caymus had known the mitre had been holding back from his full strength before, but he hadn't realized just how much.

  The sixth swing, which came within two seconds of the first, connected directly with the very center of Caymus's shield and was so powerful that it actually knocked him back off his feet. When Caymus had shaken the stars from his eyes and was able to get his bearings again, he found he w
as face up on the ground with Merkan's sword at his heart. Merkan's gaze met his eyes and he nodded slightly. "Understand now?" he said.

  Caymus let his body go limp, and laughed. "My shield won't save me," he said. "I understand."

  Merkan smiled, and reached down to pull Caymus back to his feet. "Good," he said. "Shields are good for arrows and good against those who do not know how to fight properly, but learn to use your sword for defense also and you will live longer." He then motioned to Caymus's sword, lying on the ground a couple of feet from him. "You may want to try a larger weapon also, considering your mitre blood."

  Caymus, who had been reaching for the sword, stopped short. He turned sharply to Merkan. "My what?"

  Merkan gave him a quizzical look. "Your mitre blood. The blood of the mitre that runs in your veins."

  Caymus picked up the sword very slowly, dragging the point through the dirt as he lifted it. "What makes you think I have mitre blood?" he finally asked.

  "You...are large for a human," said Merkan, his head cocked slightly. "You have large arms and a strong face. We all," he motioned all around him, as though to indicate all of Otvia, "assumed that you have mitre in your ancestry, at least in small amount." He gave Caymus a strange look, as though he didn't understand the confusion. "Did these come from another source?"

  Caymus was dumbstruck by the thought. Merkan was right, of course, that he'd always been exceptionally large, even as an infant. His mother and father had not been overly tall, so people had always questioned his parentage, but he'd never had any doubt that he was anything but a regular, young, human man, albeit a very big one. Could Merkan be right? Now that he thought about it, ever since he'd arrived here, he'd found something familiar in the faces of the mitre. Could it be that the familiarity had something to do with recognition of his own features? Could some fraction of himself actually consist of mitre blood?

  The thought was too strange for him to purse further, at least for now. He changed the subject, trying his best to pick up the thread of the previous conversation. "Do all Mael'vekian soldiers fight the way you do?" he asked.

  Merkan exhaled slightly, as though glad the exchange was over. He was leaning on his sword again. "Not all," he said, "but many. Mael'vek's way of war is stronger, fiercer than Kepren's. It takes longer to learn, though. Kepren's soldiers are more numerous, but not as well trained. Mael'vek soldiers are more capable, but there will never be as many of them."

  Caymus's knowledge of the two cities was not great. He knew they had been in a de-facto state of war for a long time, that their last great battle had been for a city that stood between them. He didn't know how large the battle had been, nor even the name of the city. Mael'vek had won the fight, but had been unable to press any further, so now the boundary between the nations was drawn just north of that battlefield. From what he'd heard from Gwenna and Bridget, modern Kepren was home to many refugees of that city, as it had never properly recovered from the conflict.

  The idea of an Otvian mitre—any mitre, for that matter—fighting for the nation of Mael'vek, seemed strange to him. He didn't know much about standing armies, but he knew they were generally composed of citizens of the nation the army protected. His mind turned back to a mitre named Kormen, whom he'd known in his home town of Woodsea. Kormen, the first mitre Caymus had ever met, had appeared in town about the same time as Caymus had been beginning his apprenticeship as a shipwright in the north shipyard of Krin's Point. After Kormen had found somebody willing to take him on, he had become an apprentice in the same yard.

  Kormen and Caymus hadn't been great friends by any stretch, but they had been friendly and Kormen had explained to him why he was there, about the mitre way of apprenticing in foreign lands. Most mitre never left their underground tunnels and caverns, preferring their lives of quiet isolation, but there were some that had wanderlust in their hearts, who received permission to leave their cities for a time. Those who did so were asked by their people to learn some skill, trade, or other ability that he or she might bring back at the journey's end, be it something practical like carpentry or something more artistic like glass-blowing. The mitre, as a people, benefited from knowledge brought back to them, and the journeyers found that most humans were eager to have someone the size and temperament of a mitre to assist them in whatever trade they picked.

  Merkan had chosen to learn a warrior's arts, to be able to teach his brethren how to fight when he returned. The story he'd told Caymus was that he had entered the city of Mael'vek, then had simply wandered into the first soldiers' barracks he could find and offered his services. He'd said that commander of that particular garrison had been more than happy to have a 'man of his size' on their side.

  Thinking back to his time with Kormen, Caymus considered the particular trade he'd been apprenticed to, and smiled. Knowing what he did now about the homes of the mitre, he figured that there couldn't actually be much call for the services of a shipwright several hundred feet underground.

  "Hey, you two! If you're through smacking each other for the moment, could you give me a hand?" Rill was calling down to them from some scaffolding where he had been working as they'd sparred for the last half-hour or so. The platform he stood upon was about half again the height of a mitre, and from it he was efforting a repair on a wooden contraption of some description. Rill had apparently become quite excited when he'd first set eyes on it.

  The place where they were standing was several hundred yards from the main entrance to Otvia. Merkan had come to fetch Caymus that morning, intending to show him the outer-workings of the city, and to show him what Rill had been up to all morning. Caymus been quite surprised to discover the path at the edge of the encampment, hidden by fallen masonry, which wound up and around the back side of the peak from which the mitre had carved their home. After several minutes of walking along the path, they had come to another shelf, much like the area where the encampment was built, though much smaller, which was home to a huge garden where potatoes, carrots, several kinds of squash, and a few plants Caymus couldn't identify grew in the gathering sunlight.

  Caymus had marveled at it, this parcel of farmable land they had created out of the side of a mountain, then had looked further up the path and found that he could see several more like it. Merkan had explained that the same abilities they used to extract oil from stone allowed them to turn barren rock into something that could sustain the planting. The only thing they needed was water, and that was where the contraption came in.

  The machine consisted of a substantial length of rope, a number of gears, pulleys, and what Caymus had learned were the bladders of some sort of goat-like creatures that lived in these mountains. The rope, which he believed must be tied into a continuous loop, emerged out of a hole in the ground that was about the same diameter as his own waist. Connected to the rope, at lengths of about two feet, were the bladders, which were all empty. There were a handful of gears and pulleys embedded into the rock also, but Caymus couldn't divine their purpose, not without seeing them in action. Rill was currently holding onto one of these gears while he motioned for the two of them to come over to the scaffolding. "This thing's not all that steady," he said, "and I could really use some hands holding it in place while I knock the rest of the pegs in."

  Caymus turned to Merkan, who nodded, and they both put their practice weapons down and walked to the scaffolding. "Is that all you need?" Caymus yelled up.

  "I've dropped three pegs already just trying to keep my balance up here, and they keep going down the chute. If I drop any more, I'm going to have to go down and ask Ventu for another set."

  Ventu was the most affable mitre Caymus had met. He spoke quickly and smiled a lot. He had been here when Caymus and Merkan had arrived, showing Rill what he'd needed done to the mechanism at the top of the scaffolding, then had gone back down, purportedly to see how the machine was looking at the other end. The machinery had been damaged during the attack; getting it fixed quickly was a priority for the residents of Otvia.


  Caymus and Merkan, standing on opposite sides of the scaffolding, placed their hands to hold it steady. The beams were just bunches of thin wood which were bundled together into thick collections by twine, then lashed into the structure before them by slightly thicker cords of rope. When Caymus put a tight grip to a couple of the lengths of wood, he heard them creak and felt the whole thing flex. Rill was right: it wasn't steady at all.

  "Got it?" Rill shouted down at them.

  "Got it," Caymus said, hoping it was true.

  Rill nodded down at them and got to work. Caymus watched bemusedly as he started connecting the gears together with their anchor points in the wall next to him. Rill's hands moved quickly as he fed the rope through the pulleys and small protrusions, knocking them into place with small, wooden pegs. Caymus wondered if the holes in the ground had been created using the same method Merkan had used in creating the hollow that had hidden Rill during the rescue attempt. Another hole, this one large enough that he could probably climb through it, existed in the wall near his shoulder. Merkan had told him it was a chute that they used to send the food they picked up here down to cold storerooms below.

  Caymus looked up at Rill. "Are you sure you know what you're doing up there?" he said, in a playful tone.

  "Yeah, yeah," replied Rill. "Ventu showed me what to do. Just keep it steady is all. I'm just about done." Caymus was a little surprised at how quickly Rill's fingers moved as he put the pieces of the watering machine back together. His friend seemed confident and relaxed as he worked, and there was no suggestion of hesitation or indecision in the placing of parts. He just seemed to know where they went. He even had a smile on his face.