Drem stepped out onto Dun Seren’s weapons-field and paused, blinking at the enormity of it. It was only a little past dawn, the sun pale and fresh, painting the field in long shadows and hues of amber.
People were everywhere. Thousands, it felt like—more people than Drem had ever seen in any one place in all of his life. It was overwhelming. He raised a hand to find the pulse in his neck.
“Come on,” Cullen called back to him, the red-haired warrior strutting onto the field, looking for all the world as if it belonged to him. Cullen glanced back at Drem, saw him hovering at the entrance to the field, and walked back to him.
“You’ve fought draigs, wyrms, Feral beasts. And a mad witch. This is nothing,” Cullen said, wrapping an arm around Drem’s shoulders and steering him onto the field. Drem allowed himself to be led, though he wasn’t sure he agreed.
I feel more comfortable in the wild.
Cullen steered Drem through a knot of giants sparring with wooden hammers and axes, the ground shaking as they crashed into each other, and then beyond them towards where the main mass of people were gathered, more joining them with every moment.
Byrne stood at their head, with two others beside her, a squat and muscular man and a tall, dark-skinned woman.
Byrne looked very different from the kindly aunt who had comforted him only a day ago, dressed now in simple working leathers, her hair tied back severely to show her sharp-angled face. The other two were dressed similarly. The tall woman looked at Drem as he followed Cullen.
“Who are they?” Drem whispered to Cullen.
“Those with Byrne, they’re Kill and Cure,” Cullen said.
“Eh?” Drem frowned.
“Byrne’s two captains,” Cullen said. “A quick history lesson is needed, I think, else you’ll go embarrassing yourself, and that will make me look bad.” He grinned at Drem’s confused expression. “This Order was founded in remembrance of two people, Brina and Gar, Corban’s dearest friends. They fell in the battle on the Day of Wrath, and Corban swore to honour and remember them.” Cullen gestured at Dun Seren. “This is how he did it, by building this place. Not just the walls and towers, but the people you see around you. Gar was a warrior, Corban’s teacher, and Brina was a healer. So here at Dun Seren Corban founded an order dedicated to both arts. How to kill, and how to cure. We learn both here, and so there are two captains—one to oversee each discipline. Kill and Cure.” Cullen pointed at the man and woman with Byrne.
“Ah, so those aren’t their real names, then?” Drem asked.
“Ha, no, but they might as well be. No one calls them by anything else, now.”
“So…” Drem began.
“More questions later,” Cullen said as he took a place in the lines, beckoning Drem to stand beside him. “No more time now.”
“What are we doing?”
“This is the Order of the Bright Star, how else do you think we’d start the day? Not too close, now,” Cullen said, “else you’ll end up slicing someone’s body parts off.”
“Eh?” Drem said.
Then he saw Byrne draw the curved sword from her back, holding it loosely.
Drem realized what they were doing.
The sword dance.
“Stooping falcon,” Byrne called out, raising her sword two-handed over her head.
Drem drew his father’s sword, his sword now, set his feet and raised the blade high.
“Lightning strike,” Byrne called out and over a thousand swords slashed down, diagonally, right to left, the sound of it like a high wind passing through the gullies of the Bonefells. It was exhilarating.
They held the pose for long moments, sweat dappling Drem’s brow, steaming in the morning’s chill air.
“Boar’s tusk,” Byrne cried out, all those gathered on the field taking a step and stabbing forwards, low to high, legs bent, arms extended. Holding the pose again, muscles beginning to burn in thigh and back, shoulder and wrist.
“Iron gate,” Byrne cried. Drem took a step back, bringing his sword across his body, a diagonal defence.
“Scorpion’s tail,” called Byrne, and Drem dropped into a squatting stance, one hand in front for balance, his blade above his head and behind, parallel to the ground, like a scorpion’s tail about to strike.
All around him men and women were doing the same, and as Byrne called the forms Drem heard his father’s voice and imagined his mother and father working through the sword dance, on this very field, just as he was now.
There was a comfort in that, something warm and satisfying.
Before he realized, it was over, people all around him were sheathing their blades, Cullen stepping over to slap him on the shoulder.
“Come on, don’t let the sweat dry,” Cullen said. He laughed as Drem fumbled sheathing his sword and then led Drem away from the centre ground, towards racks of wooden weapons.
All around the field groups gathered in different disciplines. Some stood in a loose-ordered line, four ranks deep, with the Order’s round shields on their arm. A command was shouted and the ranks closed up, shields coming together with a loud snap, forming a wall of wood and iron.
Beyond them riders galloped, swords slicing at fruit on stands. Elsewhere a warrior ran alongside a cantering horse, grabbed its saddle and leaped into the air, swinging himself up onto the horse’s back, grabbing reins and urging the horse to a gallop.
“The running mount,” Cullen said.
“That’s amazing,” Drem told him.
“Part of every warrior’s training here. Fail that and you fail your warrior trial.”
“You can do that?” Drem asked Cullen.
“Oh aye, of course I can.” Cullen grinned.
Drem shook his head, continued looking around. He saw giants on bears, archers loosing at straw targets, another group of warriors practising with the lead-weighted nets Drem had seen Cullen use on the Kadoshim half-breed.
Everywhere, the art of killing was being rehearsed.
Cullen hefted a few wooden swords, then put them back, finally settling on one for himself and for Drem.
“Sword belt off,” Cullen said as he unbuckled his own weapons-belt and lay it alongside a rack of other scabbarded swords. “It’s wood for sparring, not steel.” He threw Drem a wooden practice sword. Drem caught it, to his surprise found it was heavier than his sword. He questioned Cullen about it.
“These wooden blades are drilled out, hollowed, and then lead poured inside,” Cullen said. “Train hard, fight easy.” He smiled. “After a moon in the field with this you’ll feel as if you’re wielding a feather when you use your blades of steel. And you’ll have wrists and arms of iron.”
And then Cullen came at Drem, using the forms they’d just practised in the sword dance, pausing between almost every strike, talking to Drem about his stance, his footwork, describing how he should blend it all into defence and attack.
Cullen started slowly, explaining the theory of every strike and defence after he executed them, but as time went on his attacks became faster, then combinations of blows, and Drem found himself sweating, managing to defend a few blows, but always the end was the same, Cullen’s sword giving him a bruise, or a touch to neck, heart or groin.
Cullen stabbed at Drem’s shoulder; as Drem swept his sword to block the blow, Cullen twisted his wrist, dropped his sword below Drem’s parry and stabbed him in the belly.
I am dead a hundred times already.
As they sparred Drem became aware of people gathering around them, of eyes on him.
“The power in a strike does not come from your arms alone,” Cullen said to Drem. “It’s more legs and hips exploding up, into and through your arms. And little steps,” Cullen added. “Never over-extend. Lose your balance, lose your head.” He grinned again, luring Drem into a lunge that ended with Cullen’s sword on the back of Drem’s neck.
“Drem, try fighting him with these,” a voice called out, and Drem turned, saw Keld throwing objects at him. Instinctively he caught the first, dropped his sword and caught the second. Looking in his hands he had wooden versions of a short-sword and axe.
“Closest thing I could find to the seax Olin forged for you,” Keld said. “Now put Cullen on his arse.”
Drem nodded his thanks. He didn’t really know what was expected of these weapons, had not learned any forms with them. But he was used to them, familiar through over a decade of use, even if it was only through trapping and hunting. And he had used them against Fritha and her Ferals.
Not that that turned out too well.
He glimpsed giants in the crowd around him, Balur and Alcyon there with Tain the crow master, all watching him and Cullen, and amongst them, Byrne, arms folded across her chest, face set in stern lines. A handful of women were all staring at Cullen, who was blowing them a kiss.
Drem set his feet, short-sword in his right hand, axe in his left.
Cullen grinned at him, circling, Drem shifting to face him.
Cullen lunged in, sword snaking out, cutting at Drem’s shoulder. Drem’s axe swept the blow wide, but somehow Cullen twisted his wrist, his sword suddenly below Drem’s axe and it was cutting in at his ribs. Drem threw himself backwards, narrowly avoiding the blow. Cullen was grinning, ear to ear, and striding at him. Drem retreated, a flurry of clacks as he managed to block a torrent of blows.
He didn’t know how long it went on for, only that his lungs were burning as he instinctively tried to stay alive a few heartbeats longer. The fact that Cullen was pausing for a heartbeat here and there to lavish a smile on someone in the crowd, or to wink at some female, gave him a few moments of recovery. Thoughts began to filter into his mind—Drem’s logic analysing how he was being manoeuvred and out-skilled.
He is dictating this, while all I do is defend.
“Get in close,” a voice called out, Keld, Drem thought.
He’s right, Cullen has the advantage of reach with his sword. If I am to score a hit, I must get closer to him.
And then Cullen was stepping in, a stab at Drem’s shoulder. Drem made to block it, recognized the feint Cullen had used on him when he had been using his practice sword. He parried with his axe, at the last moment dropping the angle, catching and hooking Cullen’s blade as it made to sweep under his arm.
There was a moment’s surprise on Cullen’s face, his grin wavering as Drem dragged him off balance. Drem stepped in and then his short-sword was at Cullen’s throat.
“Ha, Cullen’s dead,” a voice called out, Stepor, perhaps. Cullen was standing frozen still, just staring at Drem, a shocked expression on the young warrior’s face. Then he was moving back, holding his hands in the air.
“Well, aren’t I the arsewipe,” Cullen said, a smile splitting his face. He looked at the crowd gathered about them. “That’ll teach me to underestimate a foe.” He looked at Keld and Stepor, who were laughing hard. “Thought I’d say that before you two did,” Cullen said to them, which made them laugh all the harder.
Drem looked around the crowd, saw Byrne staring at him. She gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. A ghost of a smile, then she was moving on, talking to another pair who were sparring, checking and adjusting their stances.
“Come on, Drem, my lad,” Cullen said. “Let’s see how you get on with a shield in your hand.”
I wish he’d stop calling me lad.
A noise drew Drem’s attention; people were stopping in their training and pausing to stare towards the entrance field. Drem looked, too, and saw a group of men and women walking onto the field, a hundred of them at least.
They walked with the self-assured confidence of warriors, a harnessed grace about them, an air of violence. All were clothed in dark breeches and shirts of mail beneath hard-boiled leather cuirasses.
They were clearly warriors of the Order, as all of them wore the bright star emblazoned upon their cuirasses, but to Drem they looked startlingly different to the other warriors in the field. They were dark-skinned, all with long, jet-black hair tied at the nape, and all wore curved, two-handed swords across their backs.
Like Byrne’s.
Cheers rang out to welcome these newcomers.
A man led them, dressed the same, with a hooked nose that reminded Drem of a hawk. His dark hair was streaked with grey and silver, but something about him set him apart from the others. Perhaps it was the way he was smiling, nodding and raising a hand to the greetings echoing out. Or maybe it was the way he seemed to all but glide across the ground, his movements fluid and contained.
“Who are they?” Drem asked Cullen.
“That’s Utul and his crew, answering the call to muster, I’d guess,” Cullen said. “Not bad in a scrap, is Utul. Not as handy to have around as me, of course, but not bad. He’s captain of the Order’s garrison in Balara.”
“Balara?” Drem asked, the name vaguely familiar to him.
“Aye. An old giant fortress far to the south, on the coast of the Tethys Sea.”
That’s a long way from here, if my lessons were taught right, Drem thought.
Close by, the giant Tain looked up, shielding his eyes to stare. A shape was approaching in the northern sky, a pale pinprick that grew, squawking and croaking as it descended down to the weapons-field.
Rab alighted on Tain’s outstretched arm.
“What news, Rab?” Byrne asked as she approached, Kill and Cure either side of her.
“Death in the north,” the crow squawked. “People running, hunted by Twisted men.”
Drem felt his back stiffen. That was the name Rab had given the Ferals.
“They need help,” Rab squawked.
Byrne looked to Keld and Stepor.
“Let’s go get them,” Cullen said.