Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3) (7 page)

Heronimo

I faced my elven opponent and saluted. So did he. Zornhao was an old elf and his moustache and goatee were going grey. The skin around his eyes was starting to crease.

He smiled. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

I clenched my right fist and unclenched it, then reached for the sword at my waist. I only held it in my left hand, but I went through the motions of drawing it. I pulled the sword from its imaginary scabbard and flourished it. Brought it up to high guard, hewed once, twice, parried overhead and made a neck cut. I brought the sword back to my waist and drew it again, grip reversed like a two-handed icepick. I slashed upward, slashed right, and slashed left. I stabbed behind me. I twirled the sword in my right hand and chopped down with a normal grip. I reversed the grip and slashed, slashed, slashed again. I stabbed behind me. Twirled the sword.

Chopped down from a high guard. Sheathed the sword. I took my right hand from the hilt, made a fist, and saluted.

Zornhao saluted in return. Fist over heart, he nodded slightly. The light shone off his pristine scalp. When an elf shaves his head it really brings out his ears.

“That’s very good, Heronimo. It takes skill to make the reverse grip look good, and for that reason it’s a fine surprise attack. And it’s always nice to have more than one way of drawing your weapon. ”

“Thank you, professor.”

“Is there some reason you feel like you need such a technique?”

I looked around. We were in a training hall in Drystone, the one Angrod went to. He’d introduced me to everyone years ago, made sure they knew I was his friend. That didn’t stop some of them from giving me sideways looks every time I visited.

Elves are masters of the sideways look.

“Being the only human in a roomful of elves, wherever you go,” Zornhao said. “Must be difficult. But you needn’t fear any single one of them. They can’t be good swordfighters if they’re so quick to judge.”

“But Dinendal—”

“Underestimated you. And you killed him. I rest my case.”

Zornhao was one of the few fencing masters who was willing to teach me. He said he measured people by what they did, not what they were.

“You’re an orphan who took up the sword to avenge his parents,” he had said. “We’ll get along.”

“A true swordsman is open to anything,” he now said. “For no matter how much he trains, he knows every fight is different, and impossible to predict.”

He drew his own sword and struck a front low guard with the point aimed at my feet. A longsword should reach from your armpit to the ground, so his was shorter than mine. It tapered from hilt to tip, becoming almost as thin as an estoc. Mine was more substantial, the long and short edges parallel until the point.

Size isn’t everything though, and the wiry little elf had defeated me dozens of times. I cautiously adopted a front high guard with my sword at eye level.

We faced each other in the middle of the training hall. Around us other people sparred with wooden wasters and steel blunts. Zornhao and I wielded real swords, however. Not every elf would practice with me, but those that did soon saw the advantages of a human training partner. I healed so quickly that they could use live weapons.

Zornhao was also one of the few elves to insist that I use my own sword. Partly because he believed in realistic training and partly because he was just that good.

I’d been practising though. I rushed forward to beat his sword aside and run him through. He parried and closed the distance. I let go the hilt with my left hand and tried to backhand him. He sidestepped and ducked.

I checked myself for wounds. Nothing! I felt pretty good about that, so I did some fancy footwork, changing my stance several times. I flicked imaginary sweat off my chest. Flexed a little for the ladies.

Zornhao raised an eyebrow.

Sword overhead, I dashed forward to strike at his head. Zornhao leaned to one side, pushing my blade out of line. He cut at my right shoulder. then my left, beating me back with a flurry of blows. I leaned too far back and he stepped to one side and hooked his blade behind one knee. Down I went! I landed on my arse and rolled backward, blood flying. I came to my feet and got my blade in front of me.

“It’s not a crowbar, Heronimo. Swords are built for speed.”

The longsword blurred in his hands, a flash of steel as he attacked and attacked. Our blades rang. I defended myself as best I could but sustained several cuts. Still, I was doing better than most of his students. Everyone else had stopped sparring and now gathered in a loose square.

I swung toward Zornhao. He stopped the blow on his crossguard and jabbed toward my face. I pushed it away with the strong of my blade and he turned the thrust into cut. Turned a cut into a thrust. His sword twisted around mine and poked me in the pectoral muscle. Then he kicked me in the stomach.

I parried wildly and got some distance between us. I was breathing hard. Zornhao wasn’t even sweating. I was fitter than he was, but he was the more efficient fighter. He never cut too hard or too far. There was no wasted effort, no wild swings or big movements.

Constant movement, he always said. I shuffled from side to side and went from one guard to another, searching for an advantage. Zornhao assumed a low front guard and I struck high, like an idiot. His sword turned mine aside and pierced my ribs.

I clapped a hand over the wound before my lung could collapse. The wound burned. It was a few seconds before I could bring up my guard. Even then I was light-headed.

Zornhao smiled and got fancy with his footwork. His feet blurred. Then his sword. It was on my left. My right. Left again! I parried madly but it was though his blade was glued to mine. It stuck, no matter how I hacked and hewed. He batted my sword away and administered a stinging cut to my belly. He feinted high and slashed low. Our blades locked, slid, and then he was smashing the pommel into my face. I clawed at him and tried to dislocate his arm. He spun away and kicked my feet from under me. I rolled aside as his sword bit into the mat. I ran and he hurried after. Just before I hit the wall I got a foot on it and turned, pushing off into a powerful one-armed lunge. He grabbed my wrist and threw me to the ground.

“Aagh!” I landed hard and lost my sword. I skidded on the mats, losing some skin.

“This isn’t a fistfight,” Zornhao said. “You don’t just stand there and trade sword cuts with the enemy. You either get out of there or step into grappling range.”

Were this a real fight, he’d have killed me. I knew that. He could have disarmed me in two strokes. Instead he picked up my sword in one gloved hand and offered it to me, hilt first.

“You are improving, Heronimo. You almost got me a few times. But you need to stop thinking of this as a contest of strength. The longsword is an efficient weapon. One needn’t be a muscleman to wield it.”

I took the sword and got to my feet. As he said, it wasn’t heavy. It was a bit over three pounds and well-balanced besides. An elegant weapon, not a clumsy thing from some barbaric age.

Zornhao stepped away. “Again!” he said.

I settled into a rear middle guard with my blade behind me at waist level. Zornhao raised his sword into a rear high guard, the blade over his head like a splitting axe.

Time slowed.

Around me the spectators whispered. Some were making last-minute wagers or snide remarks. I doubt they knew how good my hearing was. From the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face. I thought it was Angrod, but it was Cruix. They were identical except for Cruix’s hair and clothes.

To my surprise, Cruix smiled.

I cleared my mind and got my head back into the fight. Just in time too. Zornhao hewed down then raised his sword to cut me with the short edge. I avoided this and he pressed the attack with a flurry of sword strokes. Damn he was fast. And because his blows were so controlled, his defence was perfect, his offence almost unblockable.

His blade twisted around mine and stopped at my eyeball. I parried furiously and got some distance between us.

“What have I told you so far?” he asked.

“A swordsman keeps an open mind,” I said. “Swords are not clubs, and swordfights are not fistfights. Finally, I should stop relying on my strength.”

“Very good. And what am I arguing with all this?”

“Um… that I should’ve picked a simpler weapon?”

“Ha! But no. Heronimo, there are no simple weapons. I could lecture for hours on the intricacies of even the quarterstaff.”

He waved his hand. The Nine Weapons were well-represented. Zornhao and I had longswords, the smallest of the two-handed weapons. A pair of blonde siblings bouted to one side with staff and spear. The brother tried to keep the sister away at spearpoint, but she battered at his guard with an agile staff. They didn’t socialize much, and had in fact been sparring since I walked in.

Among the people gathered around the professor and me, several had one-handed weapons. Two elves had dull practice sabres. They must have been royal guardsmen. A bearded half-elf toyed with his rapier while a tiny elf noble absent-mindedly tucked a wooden dagger into her belt. All of these weapons were meant to be used with the other hand free.

On the other end of the hall were the paired weapons. A muscular elf fought defensively against an elf with twin swords and another with a sword and knife. The defender himself had a sword and shield, which he used to great effect against their whirling attacks. Steel rang on steel and echoed across the space.

“What do these weapons have in common?” Zornhao asked.

I started to sweat. There was snickering from the audience. I glanced at Cruix but he was looking around him with a frown. I didn’t expect that. I turned my attention to the question. What did they share? They were all weapons, but that was too obvious. Weapons were tools, and tools needed hands… No, that wasn’t it. They weren’t merely tools because… Wait.

“They all have wielders?” I said, and hoped it wasn’t a dumb answer.

Zornhao nodded. “And what do these wielders do that makes these things weapons?”

“They… they hold them like weapons. They use them as weapons. Because that’s how they see them. As weapons.”

“It is the holder’s intent that makes a weapon. Really, anything can be a weapon. It is not strength that a swordsman ought to value. It is not speed either, although that’s better. It is clarity. That’s what separates the lively and the dead.” He pointed at his temple. “All battles are fought in the mind. All other things equal, the one who wins is the one who thinks.”

“I should fight smarter?”

“Your wits are what make you dangerous. When you realize that, you’ll see why open minds react better. Why blades are not blunt objects. Why a swordfight is not any other fight. And why strength is overrated.”

He must have seen my confusion, because he added, “So yes, do fight smarter, Heronimo. You’re more than able.”

He raised his blade. I did so as well, after wiping my sweaty palms. Zornhao and I struck front low guards with the pommels at waist height and the points at each other’s throats. We nodded over our blades, and then we struck.

I dashed forward. As a human, any wound below the shoulders was not likely to be immediately lethal, so I guarded only my head and neck. His sword flashed toward me. I took hold of my blade and caught his sword with the steel between my hands. I levered his sword up and turned it aside. Its point slid up, around, and past me as I stepped forward and put my blade at his neck.

The slightest move would open his carotid artery.