by Jeff Wilson
“I yield,” Edryd managed weakly.
“Not yet, I am not satisfied,” Seoras responded, refusing to accept the concession.
“I am done,” Edryd protested as firmly as he could.
“You have not shown me what you are capable of,” Seoras insisted. Edryd was not sure whether this meant that Seoras thought he had untapped potential, or whether he had recognized that Edryd had been holding back. Clarification came soon enough.
“We will continue until I am persuaded you have treated this seriously. If you fight with anything less than your full ability, I will leave you with a mark that will remind you that you should not have taken me so lightly.”
Edryd stood up and walked slowly over to his weapon, and began gently levering the sword loose, thinking Seoras had already kept that promise. He could feel the damage from the impact he had taken in the chest, and he knew that it was going to bruise badly. Taking a moment to examine the sword once he freed it, Edryd discovered soft gouges scarring much of the length of the weapon where it had contacted the gravel when it had been plunged into the ground. The blade bore stains from the moistened earth and dozens of small notches where it had struck the hardened metal of Seoras’s weapon. It was going to need a great deal of skilled work to restore the edge and recondition the surface of the metal.
Tactically, nothing had changed. The best approach remained a focused aggressive attack, but Edryd could not bring himself to charge in again. Any anger over the stolen money had disappeared. He had been properly unsettled by the last exchange and was no longer sure he could secure any success or guarantee his own safety. The curved sword he was using was weak in defense, and given the superior reach of his opponent’s weapon it was unwise to do anything other than remain close in and on the attack, but Edryd was unable to contemplate doing this, and so he chose to stay back.
It was a failing he had never overcome. Whenever he was pressured or made to feel vulnerable, he relied too much on reading the movements of his opponent, all but reducing his options to responding in a reactionary mode. Falling into a defensive counter-attacking stance, Edryd waited on Seoras to resume the fight.
Seoras gave Edryd a suspicious, considering look. He seemed to think he was being baited, crediting Edryd for employing some form of deceptive mock defense. But he soon dismissed the need for caution, and when it became clear that his opponent would not engage, Seoras drove forward with a flurry of strikes aimed first at one quarter and then alternating to another.
The attacks were delivered with more speed than Edryd could keep up with. His solution was simple. Ignoring the pain each time he twisted his torso, Edryd moved fluidly and constantly to keep his body well out of the range of Seoras’s strikes. If Seoras could not reach him, he couldn’t connect. This placed Seoras even further from Edryd’s much shorter reach, but that didn’t matter. If he could study the man’s attack, Edryd was certain he could find a weakness to exploit.
Dodging most of the attacks altogether, Edryd avoided directly blocking any of the strikes. Instead, he would knock one aside intermittently, disrupting his opponent’s rhythm and interfering with his technique. Even better, by representing a block and then withdrawing it before Seoras’s blade could connect, Edryd could induce his opponent to overextend. Seoras was talented, not to mention shockingly strong and fast, but his technique was, by Edryd’s standard, almost sloppy, and he left an occasional obvious opening.
If Edryd thought he was beginning to stabilize, Seoras did not seem to notice. Once seemingly bored and then angry, Seoras now seemed exhilarated, enjoying the unfettered opportunity to engage freely against a competent foe. At this range, Edryd would need to close a great deal of ground to deliver a strike, while remaining mindful of the need to use the length of his own weapon to prevent Seoras from delivering another counter with his free hand. There had been something out of the ordinary about that simple physical attack, and Edryd knew he could not withstand another.
Edryd grew tired as the fight progressed, his sword arm feeling heavy and sluggish, but he continued to patiently ignore minor openings in his opponent’s defenses. Seoras too was beginning to pay the price for the furious pace he was imposing on the duel, breathing hard and sweating freely. With fatigue setting in on his opponent, the attacks were certain to grow less controlled, until eventually the openings would grow wider and be recovered from less easily. Edryd would wait until the moment Seoras began to wear down and make the most of it.
An overly ambitious cross-strike from Seoras missed, causing his shoulder to dip down and inward, pulled in the direction of the wild swing. Edryd reacted immediately, stepping around his unbalanced opponent and into place at the side of Seoras’s sword arm. From this position Seoras could not possibly make any good use of the point or the edge of his blade. Edryd, on the other hand, had a clear chance to deliver a strike to Seoras’s exposed back: a chance that vanished in an instant as Seoras reversed like a tightened spring, aiming the pommel of his weapon at Edryd’s head.
The whirlwind stroke left almost no time to react, but Edryd, quickly abandoning any notion of absorbing the attack and delivering a simultaneous strike of his own, managed to collapse in an uncontrolled fall. The awkward tactic just barely caused the attack to miss. It left Seoras wildly off balance, but it left Edryd sprawled on the ground. Rolling quickly into a crouch, Edryd raised his sword, supporting it with both hands just in time to block the next attack. There was a loud reverberating clang as Seoras slammed his weapon into the falchion. The heavy weapon pulsed violently in Edryd’s hand, forces travelling through the weapon and painfully jolting the bones in his arm and shoulders as he fought to keep his grip.
Edryd stared at his sword in astonishment, noting the beginnings of a fracture starting a third of the way down the blade and travelling to within a few inches of the hilt. Seoras’s next strike shattered the blade into two large pieces and one small splinter that left a laceration on Edryd’s scalp when it flew out and struck him just above his right ear.
Edryd looked up, expecting to see a stroke that would end his life, but Seoras had stopped. The man’s eyes were closed and he was taking and releasing deep measured breaths as Edryd looked on in stunned silence. The dark man’s weapon, coated loosely with dust, no longer shone as brightly, but it did not bear even a hint of damage. It should not have been possible. Suddenly, Seoras opened his eyes and returned Edryd’s attention with a fixed stare that was a model of calm indifferent tranquility.
“Now you may yield,” he offered. “And next time, use something you are trained to use,” Seoras said before walking away. Exhausted, Edryd sank to the ground in distress, uselessly gripping the hilt of his broken weapon, failing to understand what had just happened.
Chapter 4
Giric Tolvanes
Giric Tolvanes shook Edryd’s shoulder lightly in an effort to rouse him. “Young Master, Lord Seoras has gone,” he said, trying to reassure him that the fight was over.
Edryd didn’t respond. Seoras had left him a damaged and beaten man. His clothing was filthy from rolling on the ground while damp with sweat, and the right side of his head had an unfortunate appearance, covered as it was in a disordered mess of plastered hair gathered together in crusts of drying blood.
“We need to get you cleaned up,” Giric suggested.
Edryd allowed himself to be helped to his feet by the thin elderly man, and he followed as Tolvanes led him towards a small stone building situated behind the barracks at the northwestern edge of the property. Through an open archway in the building, which served as the entrance, Edryd saw a shallow pool lined with flat stones. At its far end, the bath was fed with clear water poured through an overturned vase, which was cradled in the arms of a woman gracefully rendered in dark grey stone. The ceiling had a large opening through which afternoon sunlight filled the space, bouncing off of the rippled surfaces of the pool to create shifting patterns of woven illumination. Perforated stone, shaped into intricate branching sylvan latti
cework, gave privacy while permitting a fresh breeze to flow through the walls.
Edryd removed his clothes and formed them into a loose pile against one of the walls. Welcoming the relief that he felt from the cold water as he entered the basin, Edryd submerged his bruised ribs below the surface. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to forget where he was, but violent images of the trauma he had faced that morning kept surfacing, and he couldn’t keep them shut. Upon reopening his eyes, Edryd gave an involuntary start when he saw that the old man was collecting his discarded clothing. Noticing the reaction, Tolvanes reassured Edryd that there was a robe in a cabinet in the corner and that a clean set of clothing would also be ready in the Young Master’s living quarters.
Edryd lingered in the cold water, unsuccessfully trying to sort out how he had been so thoroughly beaten. The bruise was expanding all the way across his chest instead of concentrated near the point of impact where Seoras had struck him with his palm. Concluding that he should just count himself fortunate that none of his ribs were broken, Edryd gave up on the puzzle. Reluctantly, he exited the pool and found a finely woven linen robe in the cabinet Tolvanes had indicated. He wrapped himself in the soft cloth before heading back to the barracks buildings.
Noticing Seoras headed in the direction of his room, with Irial at his side carrying a black coat draped over one arm, Edryd began walking faster to arrive well ahead of them. He had time to ease himself into one of the room’s two wooden chairs before he heard a perfunctory knock at the door. Aed Seoras turned the latch on the door, pushing his way in without allowing Edryd the opportunity to invite them to enter, and speaking before Edryd could offer up a protest at the intrusion.
“You came out the worse for wear, but you are a little cleaner now,” Seoras remarked. Irial followed him into the room without bothering to close the door behind them.
“I didn’t make a good accounting for myself,” Edryd responded. “I may have rearranged your hair some, but other than that it seems I gave you no trouble at all.”
Seoras reflexively ran fingers through loose strands of his disheveled dark hair in reaction to the comment and laughed. He then remembered the laceration which Edryd had acquired during their fight, hidden now beneath his freshly washed hair. “Inspect that cut on his head,” he said to Irial, instructing her to attend to Edryd.
Complying with the order, Irial positioned herself beside Edryd, and carefully placing her soft fingertips on his scalp, she pulled loose strands of his hair out of the way to expose the injury.
“Well?” questioned Seoras.
“Deep, but not wide, or very long,” Irial answered. “It will heal on its own, but it needs to be kept clean.”
“You understand that was an accident,” Seoras said, addressing Edryd. “I thought that falchion would break more cleanly than it did.”
“You have plenty of other swords, and it’s no business of mine to become angry if you choose to ruin them,” Edryd responded, suppressing amazement at Seoras’s claim of having deliberately broken the sword. The hard, slender steel blade Seoras carried should have given out and shattered several times over, long before it ever could have placed any stress on the heavy weapon Edryd had borrowed. What had happened shouldn’t have been possible.
“It looks like you were hit pretty hard,” Irial said, wanting to check the bruise on his chest.
Still sitting down, and ignoring the pain it caused, Edryd awkwardly pulled an arm inside the robe and brought it out of the front opening, allowing the robe to fall from his other shoulder as well. A wide scar, which had not yet fully healed, traversed Edryd’s left side from front to back. That older injury looked serious, and a few hours earlier would certainly have inspired a question or two, but it was minor beside the more immediate damage inflicted during the fight with Seoras. Irial made a startled sound, an expression of sympathy in response to seeing the mottled mix of intense red and blue bruising that extended across his entire chest.
“I am sorry for that as well,” Seoras said. He didn’t seem remorseful towards Edryd or truly sorry for the harm that he had done, so much as he was generally embarrassed at seeing evidence of his lack of control.
“I must look terrible,” Edryd replied in response to the show of contrition. “This was an accident too then?” he added, trying to act untroubled, but managing to sound bitter and sarcastic instead.
“No, not an accident,” confessed Seoras, “just a lapse in judgment for which I can offer no good excuse.”
Edryd did not know what to make of this explanation, but he took it as a sincere apology. “In a month’s time, I’m sure I will have forgotten altogether that I ever had my chest nearly crushed in,” Edryd joked.
“It will be at least three months before the bruising disappears completely,” Seoras responded seriously. “If you rest though, you will be ready to go again in two or three days.”
“Another go… at fighting with you?” Edryd cried out. “Any questions in regard to strength or skill have been settled. I don’t know how you did those things, but I was completely outmatched. There would be no purpose to doing this again.”
“Those things,” Seoras remarked, and then paused for emphasis before continuing, “are techniques that can be taught.” Thinking Edryd may have missed the implied suggestion, Seoras tried to make his meaning even more clear. “I am prepared to teach you. I want you to be my student.”
“You said as much before we began, but please, find another pupil. I don’t intend to remain detained under your care,” Edryd declared. He would have liked to learn what Seoras was offering to teach him, but he was sensible enough to be frightened, and he was not about to willingly place himself under this darkly enigmatic man’s influence and control.
“This estate is not a prison, Edryd,” Seoras objected. “Let me know when you want to go into the city, and you can leave the grounds whenever you wish. You are free to go wherever you like, anywhere in An Innis.”
Edryd, feeling discomforted by these instructions, was struck by the importance of what Seoras had not said. He had not denied that Edryd was being detained; he had only denied that the manor grounds were the boundaries of his prison. And although Seoras had given Edryd leave to explore the town, he had done so in a manner which emphasized that he had needed permission. The freedom Seoras had then promised to Edryd, allowing him to go anywhere in An Innis, also implied (in somewhat uncertain terms) that Edryd was not so free that he would be permitted to actually leave the island. Deciding it was best not to ask for clarification, Edryd remained quiet, hoping he was overreacting and reading too much into what Seoras had just said.
Seeing the worry on Edryd’s face and misinterpreting it, Seoras tried to reassure his would-be student that he was not asking him to leave the property. “You are welcome to remain here while you recover. Stay even longer if you would like.” Edryd still looked uneasy, so Seoras continued, making it plain that he was not placing any demands upon Edryd. “I am not asking anything in return, you are here as a guest.”
Appreciating the need to get away now more than ever, Edryd pulled his arms back inside the robe and fought to suppress the cold shudder working through his body. “If you return my money, holding back an appropriate amount for expenses and for the broken weapon, I will be on my way now. I wouldn’t want to impose any more than I already have,” Edryd said. He tried to say this all politely, but there were undercurrents of both anger and fear in his voice.
“That sword is worth as much broken as it ever was whole,” Seoras said dismissively. “A blacksmith of even modest skill could use that steel to forge a much better weapon, and the precious stone adornments can be put to better uses as well. You owe me nothing for the damage.”
“I would say you were being too generous, except you have my gold sovereigns, and you seem unwilling to return them,” Edryd pointed out.
Seoras laughed. He was not bothered at all. Far from it, he was enjoying Edryd’s irritation. Edryd’s face reddened in respo
nse to the laughter, but the rising wellspring of anger agitating his blood was perfectly useless at the moment, for there was nothing he could do.
“I’m sorry,” Seoras replied, no longer laughing at Edryd, but still outwardly no less amused. “I insist that you stay until you have healed. Your care will be seen to. Irial manages the housekeeping and Tolvanes prepares morning and evening meals. If there is anything we do not have here, you can send Tolvanes out for it, as he also manages and oversees all of the supplies.”
Edryd’s face tightened with resentment, his reaction plain and unconcealed. He didn’t want to be looked after. He wanted to be somewhere else, far away from Seoras and his hospitality.
“As to your money, I can’t allow you to keep that unsecured. I will instead provide you with a letter of deposit, promising to honor any of your debts,” Seoras offered. “It should be safer than carrying gold coins around.”
Edryd started to complain but stumbled. This was not so different from what he had settled on trying to do after talking with the innkeeper last night. It was exactly what he needed, but it was going to make it very easy for Seoras to learn the exact nature of any transactions made against the note.
“Do that,” Edryd accepted grudgingly. It was better than nothing. If he left An Innis, the letter of deposit wasn’t going to be worth anything wherever it was he ended up, but that would matter very little to Edryd if he could use it to successfully buy passage off of this island.
“I will draw it up and have it ready when I see you again,” Seoras agreed. “I would stay a little longer, but I have business with the Ard Ri,” he said, excusing himself as he left.