The Rusted Blade

Chapter 1 The Warrior's Pentagon Dust on the air rose in cloudlets from the sandy ground. It was fine, slightly sweet on Otchigen’s tongue. The silence stretched, tense with the expectation of cheering. A single drop of sweat labored down Otchigen’s craggy forehead. Forcing his hand not to brush it away—a warrior does not pay attention to such things—he crouched to the sand. Caressing it, he let it run through his fingers, gentler even than the soft touch of his wife. He closed his eyes and drank it all in. Ecstasy bloomed inside him. Today was the final mock battle in the warriors’ seminary of Vasyllia. Otchigen, chief warrior of Vasyllia, Mother of Cities, stood up in the middle of the fighters’ pentagon, letting the sight of it sink into his bones. The amphitheater seats of carved marble surrounding the pentagon were empty, still half-dark in morning shadow. In the distance rose the three striped and four star-embossed domes crowning the seven towers of the palace. They sparkled like burnished red gold in the summer sun. It was the sparkle that caused his eyes to water. Yes, it was definitely the sparkle. Further still, towering over all, the twin falls of Vasyllia plunged down either side of Vasyllia Mountain’s summit, where the summer snow glistened, too intense to look at for long. Against the faint hum of the waterfalls, a single birdcall broke into the tedium of repeated sound. As though waiting for it, a choir of birds joined in, and the rest of the silence shattered around Otchigen. At that exact moment, the sun rose over the tip of the amphitheater, warming the back of Otchigen’s head. He laughed at the absurd perfection of it. This was a morning fitting for a demonstration of his young warriors’ prowess. Otchigen turned toward the sun and the deliberately missing fourth wall of the fighting pit. To fighter and viewer alike, that gap in the wall revealed all Vasyllia’s three reaches extending down and outward from the heights to the long plateau before the city, cleaved by the Vasyllia River. To call it a city was to ignore the brilliance of it. The mountain itself—crags, groves, waterfall—had been molded into the service of man. Stone cliffs had been made into windowed halls. Arched bridges were carved to span canals, fed from the waters of the twin falls. Groves of wild pine had been tamed into parks and terraces, and now cherries and peaches grew between kitchen gardens set apart from each other by cobbled streets. Let all the other cities bow in awe and wonder before the Mother of Cities, he thought. To his left, the iron-barred central gate to the pentagon creaked open. The sandy dust blew outward, as though the seminary were a living thing breathing its warriors out into the world. Karakul walked out of the seminary and into the pit. Otchigen smiled ruefully and shook his head. Or perhaps not. He might be champion this year. A Karilan. And a foundling to boot. Karakul hesitated only a moment when he saw that the pentagon wasn’t empty, but his angled features relaxed with the cheerful recognition that so flew in the face of the decorum of third-reach Vasyllia. “My lord Otchigen! You are awake early.” “As are you, Karakul. But that doesn’t surprise me.” Karakul blushed. It occurred to Otchigen that if a fair-skinned Vasylli’s flush was like a rose suddenly blossoming against snow, then this Karilan reddened like wine poured into a brown clay cup. He had never grown out of seeing their round-bowl faces, flattened noses, and almond eyes as anything but exotic. Certainly not beautiful. But this morning, there was something fascinating about Karakul. He seemed a blood brother to the early sun, the sand underfoot, the hewn marble of the amphitheater and palace. He had their natural joy and strength. And it made him beautiful. “Well, my mountain eagle,” said Otchigen, clapping Karakul on the shoulder. He was pleased to feel the firmness of the muscle under the linen practice shirt. “The amassed greatness of the Vasylli will be cheering against you. It will be like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Greater men than you have crumbled under it.” Karakul chuckled and shook his head. “Do you know what my name means in Karilan?” Karakul looked at Otchigen with eyes that caught the sun and shone unexpectedly green. “Cursed slave. A name given by my mother.” “I didn’t know that,” said Otchigen. “A strange gift she gave you. No wonder you wanted to leave Karila.” “No, lord. It was the best gift she could have given.” Karakul stared at the falls thoughtfully, as though his mother was somewhere beyond Vasyllia Mountain. There was no sarcasm in his tone. Otchigen, for the first time in as long as he could remember, had no ready response. It unnerved him. Karakul looked away from the falls and smiled again. “Oh, don’t worry, lord. I’m going to pound that Vasylli lordling into the sand.” Two hours later, the amphitheater seating was packed with restive young warriors—each sitting with his own cohort, in the cohort’s colors. The effect was as though some High Being had covered the amphitheater with six heraldic banners—red, cerulean, gold, purple, green, and gold-fringed black. The banners seethed, as though each hid a nest of hornets just waking up to the short, brilliant mountain summer of Vasyllia. Otchigen knew that as soon as the oxhorn blared, the hornets would be up and in a frenzy. Those same hornets seemed to have woken up in his gut. To distract himself, he looked at the first cohort in their gold-fringed black. The “Dar’s Swords,” they called themselves. Surely his son Voran would be there already. Gold-haired youth after gold-haired youth avoided Otchigen’s probing glance. As always, it made Otchigen simmer. He knew he cut an impressive figure with his blacksmith shoulders and the sharp contrast of his wiry black beard, thick as bear hide, with the white braid flowing down his back to his hips. The air of placid domesticity hiding a seething ferocity. It unsettled the boys, as well it should. Rare was the warrior who took it as a challenge, even rarer the man who recognized it as the first step to a warm friendship, reserved for the very few. Come to think of it, Karakul was the last to acquire his friendship since… he couldn’t even remember when. Voran had never even try to win his father’s friendship. He was too remote, too lost in his reveries, his constant inner search for… something. Why wasn’t Voran the one facing Karakul on the mock battle field? That would have been truly fitting. Then Otchigen remembered. How could he have forgotten? With a twinge of fear tugging at his stomach, Otchigen pushed the thought aside. He had been forgetting things more and more lately. Voran, Otchigen’s only son, had been walled in the far keep of the warrior seminary for two weeks now. The so-called Ordeal of Silence. Otchigen scoffed audibly, he couldn’t help himself. The Ordeal of Silence—the storytellers insisted it was the oldest and most difficult of all the warrior ordeals—was rarely practiced any more. Certainly not by 16-year old boys, no matter which reach they hailed from. No noble third-reacher ever allowed his son to attempt it. More often than not it was a second-reacher merchant-son or the rare first-reacher who took the challenge—and then, only because it promised advancement to the third reach. None of them ever made it, of course. Come to think of it, no one had successfully completed the Ordeal of Silence for at least a hundred years. And now not only Voran, but the Dar’s own son, Prince Mirnían, had decided to brave the silence at the same time. Otchigen almost wished that Voran had done it to prove himself to his father. Even a defiant call for attention would be welcome. But Otchigen knew that Voran did it for his own reasons, with no thought for Otchigen. Even less thought for Aglaia, his own mother, who would have gladly strewn his road to the ordeal with strawberry blossoms. Otchigen caught himself actually growling. With an effort, he relaxed the two bunched masses of muscle on either side of his neck. Flow like water, he told himself, feeling the strain leech off his body down to the nervously tapping heels of his worn boots. Mirnían, he knew, did it because he envied Voran. And for what? Did he think mooning about the forests, sleeping under the stars, communing with the winds was the measure of manhood? In Vasyllia? The Mother of Cities? Her warriors were the envy of all fighting men the world over. The mass of hornets heaved the banners in anticipation. Otchigen snapped into his war-awareness. The rustle of the distant falls, the creaking of gloved hand on sword-hilt, the wistful moan of a moon-bird—it all washed over him individually and as a symphony of sound. The sharp smell of sweat tickled his nostrils. The rust-fringed door from the seminary halls groaned open. It was time. Two young warriors walked out side by side. One was resplendent in gilded scale mail over a red shirt, reaching down to the knees of wildly striped breeches of green, gold, and purple. Nevida, the son of Rudin, chief bootlicker of the third reach. Even though he wore his helmet already, the nose guard a gaudy caricature of a horse’s muzzle, Otchigen still noted the glint of gold on his ear. The i***t was already wearing his champion’s earring. Otchigen’s smile warmed him to the pit of his stomach. He felt, more than saw, the cohort elders who sat near him shrink unconsciously away from that smile. Keep the beast within, he chided himself. Karakul, walking a bit behind Nevida, wore a tail of white horsehair in the peak of his helm. Like all Karilans, he wore no eye guard or nose guard, just a simple conical metal cap. Nor was his armor anything more than simple chain mail over leather and linen. Not a single stripe decorated his stained grey breeches, the same ones he wore to every practice bout. His boots were serviceable. Nothing more. Then he drew his sword, and all of Nevida’s glitz faded as though the sun were covered in a sudden storm cloud. It was an ancient relic of Karila—a double-edged stabbing sword with a metal guard wrought into flowing shapes of waves and tongues of fire so fine, it looked as though it were grown from a tree, not pounded out of crude metal. The edges caught the morning sun and seemed to sing with it. At the sight of the blade, half of the cohorts hissed. Of the rest, most remained restive, while only a few allowed themselves to cheer. Karakul had done so much to prove himself, and still most Vasylli couldn’t forgive him for being an Otherlander. In a flash of insight, Otchigen realized how much Karakul had trusted him by revealing the meaning of his name. One whiff of the truth, and the entire amphitheater would pelt him with his mother’s gift. Why couldn’t you be my son, Karakul? The guilt only prickled at him as the oxhorns blared. Already, the two combatants were beginning the dance of blades—each choosing a preliminary position based on their relative height, speed, and size. Nevida’s stance was an insult in itself—it was a guard against axemen, most of whom were too short to earn the right of bearing a sword. Karakul was nearly a head taller than Nevida. For his own part, Karakul took a proper stance—one of humility before a swordmaster. But there was a hint of something about the shape of his sword-arm’s sweep… at first, Otchigen couldn’t place it. With a plunge of tingling excitement, Otchigen realized that Karakul was setting Nevida up for a mighty fall. The fighters danced. Otchigen, in his war-awareness, missed the sweep and spectacle of the fight—the thing that made the boys in the stands alternately groan and cry out. Like a drunkard who had avoided ale for a week, he thirsted for those nearly invisible details that spoke the true language of the dance—the war dance of hand, foot, elbow, and hip. Nevida flicked his left hand—a dagger had appeared there as if from nowhere—in a languid attempt at undercutting Karakul’s sword arm. Karakul’s right knee pushed, relaxed, flexed, then tensed. Otchigen gasped as he saw the move before it even came— a stag-like leap away from Nevida. But he still managed to nick Nevida’s left ear with a vicious s***h that the Vasylli had never expected. A spray of blood adorned the sand. Karakul leaned back, but the tension in his hip—Otchigen had seen the same anticipation in the body of a Karilan dancer at market day once—proved he was about to leap forward. As Nevida lunged, sure that he had caught Karakul off balance, Karakul spun out of his range of motion, sweeping his blade down as he landed. It sliced down the back side of Nevida’s right shoulder. The Vasylli lordling’s blade clattered to the sand, raising a puff of dust. The fight was over. The entire city seemed to fall silent. But something was wrong. No matter what the boys thought about Karakul, the mastery he displayed should outweigh any pettiness. He was their brother after all, even if an Otherlander. Where was the cheering? Otchigen turned his head around toward the palace. His heart stopped for a moment. Prince Mirnían stood in the royal box—a turret like an eyrie overlooking the fighters’ pentagon. It was carved out of a single block of marble in the shape of an outspreading crown of oak. Like a flower in bloom, the seat of the Dar crowned the top of the tree. Mirnían, with his pale green face and stooping demeanor, looked like a blight on that tree’s perfection. Otchigen silently chided himself for the thought. But the prince looked terrible. His usual grace—the kind that equally attracted the admiration of women and men—was marred. As though a perfectly-shaped peach-colored rose had a single brown petal curling in on itself in the center of the bud, ruining the whole picture. Metal rang against metal. For a moment, Otchigen was confused, and his head spun as he tried to orient his bulk relative to the new, wrong noise. It was in the pentagon. Nevida had picked up his sword and had attacked Karakul again. Karakul reeled, clearly taken aback. Nevida had not only broken every rule of decency. He had trampled on the code of the warrior seminary. And no one protested. Most were taken with the sudden appearance of Mirnían, while a few clearly approved of Nevida’s act. With a stab of guilt and fear in his gut, Otchigen realized… If Mirnían is here, where is Voran? But he hadn’t any time to follow that thought. He got up, the muscles in his legs tense, even quivering. He raised his right hand and drew breath to call a halt to the fight. A fleshy hand, with only a vestige of former strength, squeezed his right shoulder. Elder Pahomy, his five chins quivering, stood at Otchigen’s right. He was a full head taller than Otchigen. Coupled with his immense girth, he was a sight that could shake the bravest warrior. The cohort elder shook his head. Later, his angry eyes seemed to say. Otchigen wasn’t sure who would be the recipient of the elder’s wrath—he himself, Nevida, or the entire third reach. Otchigen’s head darted back in the direction of the fight. For a shade of a moment, Karakul met Otchigen’s glance. The eyes burned with joy. He wanted the dance to continue. “Very well,” said Otchigen to Elder Pahomy. “It’s on your head, though.” “Do not crown a winner before his time,” said Elder Pahomy. His voice was strained with the effort to keep down his anger. For a brief moment, Otchigen remembered Pahomy in his youth—a lithe, deer-like fighter whose dance was deadlier than a snake’s bite. What had happened to him? What had happened to all of them? With a sigh, Otchigen turned back to the fight that had been marred for him. Short of actually killing an opponent—an offense that would result in immediate execution, like a rabid dog being put down—Nevida could not have committed a worse crime in the eyes of the seminary. There was nothing noble in the continuation of such a battle, no matter how much Karakul seemed to thirst for it. It was a dirty thing. This will taint all of us. It was an unworthy thought, but like the lingering aftertaste of spoilt milk, Otchigen failed to purge it. Nevida seemed to be winning now. He attacked with blinding speed, so fast that Otchigen could no longer anticipate his motions from the cues of his body. A lunge—Karakul bled from his arm. A perfect feint, disengage, s***h, undercut—Karakul bled from two more places. A charge, then a leap back, then a punishing swipe on an overcommitted Karakul—the tide of the battle had turned the other way. Otchigen forced himself to concentrate. Yes. Now he saw it. Although Karakul was bleeding from several livid gashes in both arms and in his left leg, his face was still as a pool of rainwater on a spring morning. More importantly, he still held his blade. The peace seemed to radiate down into his fingers, which firmed with every second back into controlled grasps, into his elbows, which flowed like water again, unimpeded by jutting stones. And then his feet—they were hart’s feet. Nevida’s mask of triumph slipped. In the shuddering of his weight-bearing leg, in the stripe of wet across his temples, in the barely-noticeable lowering of his blade’s tip—he was terrified of Karakul. Bad idea, i***t. Karakul had seen it. Then came Nevida’s mistake. He overextended himself slightly. It was enough. Otchigen held his breath in awe as Karakul, in spite of his wounds, counterattacked. In three quick slashes, he had Nevida on his heels. Otchigen had never seen such mastery with a blade. It wasn’t taught. Karakul seemed possessed by a power of Aer. Nevida’s blade fell with a double clatter. It had broken in two. For a moment, Otchigen marveled at Karakul’s powerful blow. But a twist in his stomach made him reconsider. No, nothing Karakul did would have broken Nevida’s blade. It was an omen. The ultimate dishonor. An omen of Adonais’s divine displeasure. The amphitheater groaned in mixed excitement and horror. Nevida, at that moment, collapsed into a heap of flesh and tears. It was pitiful. It was shameful. It could not be borne. “Get up, you filth!” cried Otchigen. “Get up! You shame your people with your self-pity! Up! Get up!” The roar of the waterfalls rose in volume. Rose. Rose. Rose. It was a thunder in his ears. He could almost feel the spray on his face. Otchigen came back to himself, what seemed only a moment later. Nevida’s bloodied face lay in sand at Otchigen’s feet. Blood dripped from Otchigen’s lacerated knuckles. Somehow, he had ended up in the middle of the pentagon. How had he gotten there? Why was there blood on his hands? Karakul’s touch was like a summer thunderstorm that broke the heat into shards of hail. “Lord, not this. Not this,” he said, pulling him away. Had he just beaten one of the boys? He looked up in horror. All those eyes. They looked at him. Mirnían was there too, in the pentagon. How had he gotten there so quickly? With a look of both hatred and understanding, Mirnían turned away from Otchigen. Mirnían stooped to help the shuddering Nevida up to his feet, who was still blubbering, spluttering something incomprehensible through a bloody mouth. Mirnían hushed him with a look and a hand around the shoulder. The prince’s greenish tinge was gone, replaced by that forceful glance that could sway even the strongest heart. With a final look and a shake of the head, Mirnían turned Nevida toward the seminary and walked away.