Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons 1)

I tried not to think about it now. It just made me feel sad. They were unconscious under a spell so powerful that only killing the wizard who had cast it would free them.

I still had very confused feelings about killing. Nightmares about killing the keiler haunted me, and even the death of the two demons kept me up at night. Killing a person? I didn’t even want to think about it. But that’s what I knew all this was coming to: war, assassination, and other forms of bloodshed.

The dark lord’s army was marching towards the lost city. I knew this, in the back of my mind; I even felt it, when I let my mind wander; but most of the time I was too busy now to daydream, too busy to be sad, and almost too tired to have nightmares.

Unfortunately, they still came, but when I woke in a cold sweat, I fell quickly back to sleep. I had never been this tired in my entire life.

Perhaps the best thing to happen to me that week was making a friend. He was a baker, and his name was Karsten. He had long blond hair, which he hid under a cap when he was cooking, and an infectious smile, that cheered me every time I ran into him.

We had started talking a week ago, at first just a few words at breakfast — he’d ask me if I’d liked the rolls, and when he had, told me he’d baked them — we had talked about food, and I’d told him about a bunch of dishes he’d never even heard of. Now I looked forward to finding him every morning, here in the dining room, and after practice in the evening.

It was good to talk to someone, especially someone around my age; Karsten was 18, but only a few inches taller than me. We were both working hard — Karsten in the kitchen, baking rolls and cooking amazing stews, me in the practice field, swinging a sword until I was ready to drop. I had never worked my body so hard in my life.

Today for instance I had woken at dawn, and Kalle had taught me for several hours the Kriek art of hand to hand combat. There were all kinds of holds to learn, and ways of flipping your opponent over your back, and using their weight against them. Except if I made the slightest mistake, it all backfired, and Kalle crushed me against the ground.

Then we were up again, circling each other. We would practice each hold and flip for dozens of times, until I could do it while reciting a poem, or singing a song.

It felt ridiculous, singing a song while attempting to trip Kalle, but Kalle would take no argument. “You need it to become subconscious,” he said. “Only then can you use it effectively against an enemy. You won’t have time to think about what you’re doing in a combat situation.”

This was war talk and it reminded me of my old blademaster. I missed him terribly. I hoped one day soon I would see Giancarlo again.

I made another hold on Kalle, grasping his head in a headlock and trying to swing his weight over my shoulder, but fell again heavily instead, Kalle slamming into my chest and knocking the wind out of me. The dirt was packed so hard that it was almost as unforgiving as the stone circle where we practiced bladework.

Kalle stood up and grinned.

“I am worthless at this,” I groaned, still on the ground.

“No you aren’t. You’re doing quite well. And with bladework you’re excellent. You had a great teacher, and you have that sword in your hand, and the pixie within it. But you must learn to fight with your own hands too. Not everything can be beaten with a sword, and you won’t always have a sword handy.”

He held out his hand to pull me up.

I felt like one of my ribs were cracked, but I felt like that every day, and every day Kalle and a healer examined me and I was fine, just bruised and battered.

So I stood up, wincing, and I began to sing an old song, a song I dimly remembered, more a melody than a song, more humming than singing, something my grandmother had sung when I was a baby, or maybe it was my great-grandmother?

All I knew was it was in my blood, too, and it felt good to sing it, not silly anymore, and that was when it happened.

I reached out, and instead of fumbling my hold, I got Kalle right where I wanted him. Instead of falling down, with Kalle on top of me, it was Kalle who sailed through the air to land hard on the ground. Kalle lay there, and for a moment I was worried that I had really hurt him, and I stopped singing.

The feeling of confidence and goodness left me, but I remembered the tune.

I waited, looking at Kalle.

He didn’t move, looking at me, waiting. I held out my hand, and Kalle took it. Then he was up again, and we were circling.

Kalle taught me one more hold, and I managed to throw him once more, but not nearly as hard, and this time Kalle jumped right back up. Kalle had thrown me several times, and my body now was a testament to our workout, covered in bruises.

Lying in bed later, I remembered exactly how I’d held Kalle and how it had felt as Kalle sailed through the air. I remembered the dull thud of the hard-packed earth as Kalle hit the ground. Try as I might, however, I could not remember the tune. There was something elusive there. I thought the song might be the key to newfound power and self-assuredness.

If so it was a key that I wouldn’t find again that night. Instead I closed my eyes, and fell into a fitful sleep, filled with my parents, and a tall green-eyed man in a dark cloak, his aura glowing fiercely red, smiling at me, calling me Neffe.

I woke up hungry; and although part of my body tried to convince me to stay in the warm bed and get some more sleep to make up for all the tossing and turning, the other hungrier part won the battle. I stood up with a groan, and dressed quietly in the early morning air. The air was crisp and clean and cold here, and I shivered as I quickly threw on outer clothes and a light jacket.

I knew the cooks got up before dawn, to be able to have food ready for the early risers. I was always one of the first to get to the dining hall, although sometimes I caught sight of one of my trainers in there as well. The hard work of bladework, hand to hand combat and defensive and offensive spellwork just made me an

d my teachers all the more tired, and all the more hungry.

The smell of baking bread and rolls made my stomach clench in hunger and my mouth water in anticipation.