Son of Soron (7 page)

I can prepare him for battle, but how do I prepare him for the sour taste of victory? Soron pondered, while watching the boy swing his daggers in a smooth rhythm, like he was moving to the beat of a song.

The large northern, sword-breaker style daggers were unique and almost never seen south of the Applomean Mountains.  At two feet long, the blades were shorter and wider than a normal short sword. Often northern warriors would use one of the daggers with a large sword. But for Soron’s purposes they were perfect, giving Nathan a strong defensive weapon easily carried yet not completely offensive in nature.

The daggers featured a thick up-curved cross-hilt and three grooves cut into each side of the wide blade at the base just above the cross-hilt. When a sword would strike the blade, it could slide down toward the cross-hilt until it got caught in one of the grooves. When a strong man turned his wrist, the sword came right out of his opponent’s hand. A very strong man like Soron often broke a poorly made sword this way.

For Nathan, a strong yet agile boy with excellent hand-eye coordination, learning to fight with two of the sword breakers would give him a skillset he could master now before he gained his full size and strength. His training would give him an advantage over most adult fighters. Used by someone with the proper training and skill, the two daggers would be as deadly as any sword.

While Soron hoped Nathan never had to use his training in combat, he felt a certain amount of pride in how quickly Nathan progressed with the blades. In the smithshop, working metal, Soron often could see how his own northern bloodlines were giving Nathan great strength and size for a lad of his age. Out here in the open training with the daggers, Soron saw the speed and agility for which Velaina’s Baltan bloodlines were known.

This combination of power, speed and agility gave Nathan a frightening natural ability as a warrior. Soron was glad he and Velaina chose to raise the boy in the small village of Elderwood. If Nathan had grown up in the north with his own people, he would probably become a great warrior. Great warriors often died young or lived with terrible memories of the battles they fought.

Nathan did not have dark thoughts about learning to fight as his father had teaching. He enjoyed learning the block and parry combinations, and how to stab and slice with the large daggers, and how to thrust his dagger forward once an opponent’s sword  struck the blade, forcing the sword down towards the hilt and the waiting grooves.

Once the sword slid into the grooves Nathan quickly got used to snapping his wrist. He was at the point where he could actually turn the sword in his own father’s hand. A hand far stronger than any future warrior or bandit he might face. While Nathan did enjoy working as a smith, being outside for the fighting lessons was always better. As Soron attacked him with his large wooden practice sword Nathan worked on blocking his father’s strong attacks.

When they first started training his father’s brute strength simply overpowered Nathan, but as he learned to angle his blades and counter thrust, he found he learned how to hold off his father’s powerful attacks.

However, finding a way to counter-strike against his father’s longer reach and superior technique was proving to be a much more difficult task. Soron continued his aggressive attack, pressing harder and harder. Nathan continued to use the right blocking techniques despite the ferocity of his father’s efforts. When Soron ended the days training, he was satisfied that Nathan was ready for a new opponent.

Before the training went any further, it was time for Nathan to forge daggers of his own. The wooden replicates his father had made were excellent training tools but to truly master the techniques he would have to get used to the proper weight and balance of his actual blades.

Nathan took his time, honored that his father let him forge his own weapons. The forging of these blades wasn’t much different than other knives he had done in the past. The biggest difference was the blade being bigger and wider, with the sword breaking grooves above the hilt.

As Nathan pulled a blade from the fire he applied the graphite and phosphorus that strengthen the metal into something special. As the first blade cooled he repeated the process on the second blade. Soon two perfectly made daggers were sitting on the workbench waiting for his father’s approval. Nathan knew the blades were excellent. The balance was perfect and would only require a little work with a whetstone before each edge was razor sharp. Besides the bracelet he had made for his mother, the daggers were his finest work yet.

Chapter twelve

COUNT MAVANE, OF the city of Salba, had a problem, actually several problems. All of which revolved around the main issue: bandits. As the farthest west of the cities under the rule of kingdom of Broguth, Salba did a lot of trade with the villages and cities to the west and south. But those travel routes were not part of the kingdom and thus not patrolled by the king’s army.

For years, Count Mavane petitioned King Parth to increase patrols in the lands surrounding Salba and along the main roads to the south. Unfortunately, armies cost money and patrols are not cheap. So until now, the king’s army had protected only the city of Salba and the roads east to the capital. As Count Mavane predicted, the lack of patrols led to an increase in the number of robberies along the trade routes. Bandits became more aggressive as they realized no reprisals would come as long as they attacked only along the western and southern trade routes.

Count Mavane did have a small contingent of men-at-arms and scouts under his control. They would visit the nearby villages and assist them when possible, but this presented a small deterrent to the more aggressive groups of bandits. With the recent increase of attacks along the trade roads, the king finally had decided to dedicate some the king’s army to address the issue. The king’s solution was the count’s latest problem. 

King Parth was sending a small battalion under Duke Evollan to deal with the bandits. Duke Evollan, a fierce and loyal warrior, had served with great distinction in many battles during the wars to unify the eastern kingdom. This gave the duke great stature with the king and a place in the king’s war council. But while fierce and loyal, Duke Evollan was also a boorish and arrogant man. He was quick to anger, and not known for being the most intelligent member of the royal families. Count Mavane privately had often wondered if some of the older royal families had a little too much inbreeding. Duke Evollan was known for winning battles, not for diplomacy.

Count Mavane thought killing and apprehending bandits seemed a task even Duke Evollan could handle. The problem being that the small villages to the west and south were not part of the kingdom, and often had stronger ties with other regions. Dealing with these villages would require diplomacy. Something Count Mavane feared Duke Evollan was not well-equipped to handle.

As Count Mavane pondered this newest problem, his main steward, Bannah, entered the room. “Bannah, have we received a reply from my note to Duke Evollan yet?” Upon learning that Duke Evollan was leading the small battalion, the count sent a message offering use of his local scouts to the duke. Count Mavane hoped having his men, familiar with the local villages and roads, would keep Duke Evollan from causing too many problems when dealing with the different, friendly but independent communities.

Bannah replied quickly, “Yes, my lord I’m afraid we have. Duke Evollan has refused your offer and wants you to remember he answers only to the king. He is not subject to local lord authority and, as such, does not need or want your assistance in this matter.”

Count Mavane had feared that the prideful Duke Evollan would not respond well to his offer. He grunted and frowned at the thought. His scouts could be the difference between innocent people haphazardly being accused of wrong doing. With disgust in his voice, he replied “Well, let us hope then that Duke Evollan is as adept at defeating bandits as he is at storming castles.” The count sighed. He suspected this was not going to be the case.

Chapter thirteen

AFTER HIS SECOND FIGHT with Tomas Nathan’s life fell back into a normal rhythm. He spent his days in the old routine of lessons with his parents and book learning with the other children of the village. During his spare time, he would take his practice daggers out into the woods to work on his form. He was determined to get past his father’s defenses at least once. Soron would use different weapons during their sparing sessions—staves, pikes, sword and shield, sword and dagger, and war hammer, but the most common was simply a single sword.

Most bandits and warriors used only a single sword; carry weight was important to looting and traveling. So, Soron trained Nathan mostly with the single sword. Normally, the sword-breaking nature of the daggers was enough to defeat someone using a sword. But Soron, adept in the use of the daggers, was able to counter Nathan’s attempts to lock up his blade. Continually attacking and using his superior length to keep Nathan from scoring any vital blows. Nathan was determined to beat his father’s defenses at least once. In his mind, a maneuver began to take form.

Fortunately for Nathan, he did not have to wait long to attempt the maneuver with his father. The very next day, Nathan and Soron were sparing again, and again Soron was able to thwart all of Nathan’s attempts to get past his single sword defense. Then, the moment Nathan had been waiting for came. Soron came on the attack, backing Nathan up. He used a downward strike that Nathan would normally have blocked with his left dagger, forcing the blade off to one side while he attempted to counterattack with his right dagger.

This time, Nathan pivoted on his right foot swinging his body out of the way of the sword swinging down at him. Bringing both blades up, he crossed his daggers and let the sword strike the blades. But instead of trying to push the sword off to the side, he turned his daggers and forced the sword to continue on past. As the sword hit the ground he pushed down on his daggers keeping the weapon momentarily pinned to the ground.

He used the momentum of pivot to swing his left leg around and behind the legs of Soron. As Soron pulled back on the sword to release it from the wedge formed by the ground and Nathan’s daggers, Soron’s own momentum forced him back onto Nathan’s leg. This caused him to lose his balance and take and awkward step back to regain his balance. During the step back Nathan kept his left blade on the sword, now pushing it off to his left.

Still balanced on his right foot, he pushed up and forward, bringing him close enough to his father’s body to lightly strike him in the chest with his free dagger.  He finally scored a clean hit on his father, the first time he had ever been able to do so.

Soron had to laugh. It had been a long time since anyone scored a hit on him during a training session, and to have a fourteen year old do it was un-heard of. “Excellent job Nathan, but I didn’t teach you to use a leg sweep or to use your daggers to push a sword into the ground. How did you figure out to do that?"

Nathan smiled, and replied, “It was the only thing I could think of that might get you off balance long enough for me to get close enough to strike. I knew it had to be quick enough to prevent you from seeing it coming, and then just stepping over my leg and chopping it off.” 

Soron was impressed by his son’s ability to recognize the short comings of his own weapons and create an attack without being formally taught it. “Using two daggers always give you an advantage when it comes to quickly blocking and turning attacking blades. But against a skilled opponent or multiple opponents, you will have to use your body to gain an advantage on the attack.  That leg sweep was a good move against a single opponent. Another option is to pivot like you did but instead of following the sword down, let your opponent’s momentum bring the sword down to the ground. It won’t stay stuck like it did when you used the daggers but it will free up your daggers for a quick-spinning attack from two angles.”

Soron was proud but Nathan still had a long way to go. The training was progressing well. Nathan was now at the point where he was not just reacting to attacks but formulating his own counters, a very good skill.

As Soron and Nathan continued sparring, they failed to see the set of eyes watching them from the distance, eyes that carefully noted the skill which they displayed.

Chapter fourteen

DUKE EVOLLAN AND HIS company of soldiers had been patrolling the stretches of roads outside Salba for several days now. Upon arriving in the area, the duke and his men purposely avoided entering Salba. Doing so would only allow the meddlesome Count Mavane to give suggestions on how to approach the bandit situation. He was sure the count just wanted to ride his coattails on this endeavor. Duke Evollan did not need some minor lord from a low-bred, outlying western city telling him how to deal with bandits. The accolades for this tedious venture were going to be his and his alone.

For one long and unfruitful week, they had been scouting along the roads west of Salba. Signs, in the form of decomposing bodies dragged off the well-traveled roadways and pathways, were noticed only because of noisy scavenging birds. With the few bodies they found, the corpses remained nameless, stripped of anything of value, flesh eaten by birds and other scavengers. The duke left the bodies to the forests, unburied. Unscrupulous bandits along the northern road that led to the village of Elderwood had been busy. The duke was finally closing in on the bandits, and all signs led toward the area around the village of Elderwood.

Earlier that day, the duke had sent out his scouts and they were now returning to camp. As he ate the barely adequate roast pheasant and sautéed wild onions, the duke pondered the lack of amenities. On the next excursion the king sent him on he would take a larger contingent of his house staff. A duke should not have to suffer such hardships as he currently was. Taking a sip of his wine, he listened to his first scouts report. “There is a small village to the northwest of here, sir, about a mile through the forest. From what I could tell, mostly berry-pickers and the sort, but I did see a large northern warrior and a young man sparring in a meadow at the edge of the village. Both looked to be skilled warriors, not the sort I would want to run into on a forest road.” The duke took this information in, a northern warrior and a local sparing together. This could be the important.