Etherwalker (20 page)

Huh?

The king nodded over at the cushion, where Mesha was settling herself. Enoch gave a silent sigh of relief.

“Luckily, she seemed to understand that we were saving your life and was content to follow. Stykes says you owe him some fish.”

Enoch couldn’t help it—his relief combined with Nyraud’s generous demeanor broke through the
Ferrocara.
He laughed. The king laughed with him.

“Well
now
you sound like the boy I imagined was hiding under all the fierce Nahuati training.”

The king stepped away from the bed and went over to the cushion. He crouched down to stroke Mesha’s fur, which rippled from cushion-green to ember-red as she exulted in the attention.

Well, if Mesha likes him, he can’t be that bad.

“So I took great care to put you in one of the more, ah, primitive rooms in my tower. One without any mechanical workings. I wanted to make sure you weren’t disturbed—Endra says that a deep sleep heals better than any potion.”

Enoch wondered where he was going with this.

Mechanical workings? He doesn’t know about my . . . 

Looking down, Enoch saw that the scars on his wrists were covered by the bandages. His face and forehead were bandaged as well.

I guess it all comes down to whether Endra would recognize my marks. And if she would tell.

The king stood up and came back over to the bed. He leaned closer, gently put his hand on Enoch’s head. Just like Master Gershom used to do.

“I don’t know why you were in my tunnels, Enoch. I don’t know how you got there, and I don’t where you were headed. But please—accept my offer of a safe place to stay until you need to leave.”

A
safe
place.

Enoch was overwhelmed. This kind of treatment from a
king?
There had to be something behind it.

“Why?” he stammered. His voice broke, and he was ashamed of revealing himself so much. “Why are you helping me?”

King Nyraud smiled, gently tousled Enoch’s hair.

“I had a son once, Enoch. You remind me of him. Sure, he wasn’t a swordsman like you. Or a Pensanden—” he glanced at Enoch’s bandages. “—but he was a smart boy. A clever boy. You would have liked him.”

The king turned, almost as if to hide his face, and slowly walked from the room. At the door, he stopped, just as the old woman Endra had done. But the look he gave to Enoch was tender. Hopeful.

“I put you in this primitive room so that your etherwalker mind could rest, could be still while you recovered. Yet you were more perceptive than I gave you credit for. I can see where you pulled the tapestry away from the wall—it’s got the smell of your balm on it. You found the old ventilation fan in there, didn’t you?”

Enoch’s open mouth was answer enough.

How did he smell the balm from across the room?

Again, Nyraud laughed.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m just impressed—that fan hasn’t worked since I was a child. I didn’t think the Pensanden could read dead machines.

“Your other sword—your
iskeyar
—is down in my sparring room waiting for you. I thought we might practice some swordplay when you are feeling better. Sleep well, Enoch.”

With that, he left.

Enoch exhaled, almost as though he had been holding his breath the whole time.

He knows I’m Pensanden!

The thought shook Enoch. From the way everyone had acted, he had assumed this secret would bring dire consequences. Hatred, or fear. But the king mentioned it as if it were just an interesting facet of who Enoch was, like his swords or the color of his eyes.

He knows I’m Pensanden—and he smiled.

*  *  *  *

The sparring room was huge. It was higher up in the tower than Enoch’s room was and had tall windows looking out over the city. The view was breathtaking, with various smaller towers and minarets glinting in the morning light. Enoch squinted his eyes to see if he could find the Headsman’s Hole, or at least recognize the general area. Unfortunately, nothing looked familiar from this height.

“So you found your sword?”

Enoch turned and smiled, his hand dropping to rest on the familiar pommel of Master Gershom’s
iskeyar.
It had been placed on top of the sole piece of furniture in this enormous room, a long table carved from the same wood as the posts in his bedroom. The sword had been polished until it shone like silver, and the stained sheepskin wrappings about the grip had been replaced with white calfskin wound in a thin silver cord. Enoch had been too stunned by the king’s initial introduction to notice that a similar treatment had been given to the
derech,
and he had apologized profusely when Nyraud next visited. King Nyraud had shaken his head and smiled, saying that
of course
he would have a blademaster’s weapons taken care of while the Nahuati was indisposed. He said hospitality was important, more so when your guest was such a dangerous one.

The king was often referring to Enoch’s martial prowess like that. At first Enoch thought he was being made fun of, that King Nyraud was being condescending. Master Gershom was usually sparing with his praise. It was hard to get used to such treatment from a king.

Well, not too hard.

Enoch looked down, tried to straighten the white cloth at his waist. He felt odd in this spotless sparring gear, restricted. The man who had fitted him said that this had belonged to King Nyraud’s son, said that Enoch was shorter than the boy and the jerkin would need tightening.

I should have stuck my chest out more. I’ll never be able to move properly in this thing.

The king was dressed in more formal dueling armor—silvery plates protecting his chest, arms, and thighs, all sewn into a similarly brilliant white doublet and hose. He even wore white leather boots, detailed with silver tracings that ran to a shining cap at the point of the toe. Sheathed at his side was a pearl-handled practice foil. While thin and flexible like a true foil, the King’s variation was longer than average and curved at the tip. The cimitárra was the fashionable style of sword here in the Reaches. Or so Enoch had heard.

Enoch didn’t know much more than that concerning King Nyraud’s lands—just what he’d been able to glean from Master Gershom about the “lands of Babel” north of Midian. The Emim Reaches, spreading from the Edrei foothills eastward to Akkadia, and northward to the swamps of Jabbok. Enoch imagined that he’d been in Nyraud’s domain ever since he’d met Rictus.

“Alright, blademaster—shall we spar?”

“Oh, I should tell you, Milord. I’m not a blademaster. I was trained by one, and was learning the
pensa spada,
but I never did any of the trials. And I’ve never been tiered. Master Gershom said you had to earn your tiers with blood.”

“Well, that sounds oddly appropriate, eh?”

Enoch laughed.

“Enoch, if passing through the now-frozen tunnels of Babel while single-handedly fending off a horde of starving trolls doesn’t earn you a tier or two, then I don’t know what would.”

Or what about killing coldmen? Breaking a Silverwitch?

Enoch decided he was going to stop feeling guilty for taking pride in his accomplishments. The king was right—it was important to set yourself apart from others sometimes.

King Nyraud leaned forward and handed him another finely wrought practice foil. It matched the king’s own, and Enoch smiled to see that the workmanship on this “toy” was more elaborate than that on any blade—on any
thing—
he’d ever held.

“I apologize that we don’t have tools more befitting your expertise, but maybe the Nahuati-in-Training would deign to use these poor Babel foils?”

Enoch had already unbuckled his new tooled-leather sword belt and carefully placed it on the table where he’d found his
iskeyar
. He gave the foil a few practice thrusts.

The length is unwieldy, but maybe I can try a few of the sweeping moves that Rictus favored? That sword of his was longer, but similarly proportioned.

He attempted a lunge. It felt slow.

I’m used to sparring unencumbered by all this cloth and armor plates, so I’ll need to remember to adjust my dodges accordingly.

The king watched him, curious.

“Shall we?”

Enoch bowed and saluted.

“Avanza!”

And with that, he was dueling against King Nyraud of Babel. The king was fast, and his reach was extensive. Luckily, Enoch had been sparring with Rictus—the appropriate parries and sets to move inside a tall opponent’s radius were still fresh in his mind. The unfamiliar curved tip of the cimitárra kept frustrating Enoch’s advances, though.

King Nyraud noticed this and pressed the attack. With a subtle flick of the wrist, he could slip his blade over the top of Enoch’s with alarming precision. It was through his reflexes alone that Enoch was able to dodge these thrusts.

I’m going to get tired out before he does—I need to parry those.

The problem was, Enoch noted, that he was too accustomed to having his other hand free. It felt so sluggish to be anchored to this single unwieldy length.

Use the length. Let the blade’s own weight carry the
forte
into his thrust.

The next time Nyraud lanced his foil over the top of Enoch’s point, the boy pushed his foil high while letting his wrist dip. The thicker forte caught Nyraud’s thrust and snapped his foil in two.

Nyraud stood there for a second, stunned. Enoch leaned in and tapped him on the chest with his foil.

“Point.”

The king held up the remaining stub of his foil and laughed.

“Enoch, tell me that this isn’t your first time sparring with a cimitárra or I may have to abandon swordplay for good. After those first clumsy dodges, I was sure that you didn’t know how to defend with a single blade.” He shrugged and threw the stub down to the ground. “Apparently, you can.”

The king found another foil, and they sparred until the windows were dark and their jerkins were drenched in sweat. Enoch had never enjoyed his practice so much—sure, dueling with Rictus had been fun, and the specter kept the conversation lively. But what could compare to dueling with a king who had nothing but astonished praise for your skill? And having cool fruit juices delivered to the room every hour didn’t hurt. Enoch felt drained and bruised and ready to drop. But he couldn’t remember being happier.

Nyraud didn’t look tired, but Enoch couldn’t miss the king’s slight limp where he’d scored a sharp blow after one of their longer bouts.

“Well, Enoch, I think that we’ve both learned something today. Unfortunately, you learned how easy it is to bruise a taller opponent. And I learned that even royal dueling armor can’t protect a man
everywhere.”
He rubbed at his ribs, right under one of the pectoral plates, and winced.

“Luckily for me, I’ve got a kingdom to run. So I get to escape your foil for now.”

Enoch saluted with his foil and tried to give a decent bow. His arms
hurt.

“I learned more than that, Milord. I learned that the cimitárra can move surprisingly fast when the dualist leads with the tip. I learned that while the length can hinder quick movements, it can be used defensively in ways that my shorter
iskeyar
never can. And I learned—” Enoch groaned tiredly, reaching over to retrieve his old blades from the table, “—that a cimitárra, even wielded by an expert, could never best the two blades of a Nahuati.” Enoch caught himself, realizing that his speech with King Nyraud had maybe gotten too informal.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

King Nyraud laughed at Enoch’s surety.

“You aren’t bragging, are you? You sound as though this were some obvious fact. These things are never so clear, Enoch. I’ve personally seen men with cimitárras carve a blademaster to pieces—not in a duel, mind you, but on the battlefield. The Nahuati aren’t immortal.”

“No, no. I know that, Milord. I . . . watched my own master fall to enemies. I’m not talking about a crowded battlefield or a mismatched number of opponents. I’m just saying that one cimitárra against the
derech
and
iskeyar
simply can’t overcome the speed and myriad movements the two blades present. Everything else being equal, of course.”

“Which is a rarity I’ve never encountered,” chuckled the king. “I tell you, Enoch, ‘everything else’ is rarely equal, and never so simple as you would make it sound.”

“I’m sorry, King Nyraud, but this is how I see the weapons—they hold moves and counter-moves. The complexity and variation which two mismatched swords provide will always outweigh the possibilities of a single sword. Especially one so limited and directionally-focused as the cimitárra.”

The king was silent, his eyes focused on the ceiling. He seemed to be thinking.

Enoch cringed.

I’ve gone too far. I need to learn to keep the talk of patterns to myself.

“Enoch, this isn’t just dueling bluster you’re giving me, is it? You’ve actually calculated the possible advances, parries, and retreats for these weapons.”