Sword Mountain (21 page)

The door to Fleydur's room banged open. Every eaglet turned from the music sheets to stare at the stranger who stood in the doorway.

“Look at his uniform!” Cloud-wing whispered to Dandelion. “He's from Rockbottom Academy—he must be the admissions officer.”

The officer didn't even acknowledge Fleydur or explain his presence. He flipped open a ledger and began to read off a list of names—the birds who had passed their examinations. Instruments lay forgotten in their talons.

Cloud-wing's beak dropped open as he heard his name. A few around him leaped up and tussled one another in their celebration, but Cloud-wing sat still, beaming. Dandelion watched it all, more curious than ever.

The boys pumped their wings into the air and mimicked the whistling sound of an object falling in a long arc: “
Wheeeeee.
Ka-boom!” they shouted. It was the chant of the Rockbottom Academy.

“That's right, sirs!” said the admissions officer. “We are going to take you softies apart, pound you to bits, and rebuild new eagles up from the rock bottom!”

Chubby Pouldington did not get into the academy, but he didn't care. In fact, he looked relieved.

Fleydur declared the lesson over, and the eaglets left together, still excitedly discussing the acceptances to Rockbottom Academy and Dandelion's idea. Most took their new instruments with them, but Cloud-wing, after an anguished deliberation, returned it to Fleydur, as did several other Rockbottom students.

“You've been to Rockbottom for a school visit. What's it like?” Dandelion asked Cloud-wing eagerly as they flew down the staircase outside Fleydur's door. “It is really that tough?”

Cloud-wing grinned. “We're not allowed to leave the school for the first year. Every day is grueling. There are hardly any fires, and the water's freezing. In the winter months, to take a bath, you jump into a snowdrift and use a hunk of ice to scour the scales of your legs like it's a pumice stone.”

“Ouch!” Dandelion said. They had arrived at the courtyard, where Dandelion had seen him practicing martial arts before.

“Aye, it's a torture institution,” said Cloud-wing solemnly as he walked over to collect his armor and equipment. “The walls are granite, and the perches in the dormitory are steel bars set in little alcoves in the wall. The cook there, he's a murderous fellow! Peels potatoes with a sword. And the guards are notorious; they're not there to keep trespassers out. They are there to keep us in.”

Cloud-wing drew out his claymore. “No singing. No painting anymore. No laughing, I expect.” As he gazed at his reflection in the burnished blade, his voice changed. “But when I return, when I come out, I'll be a warrior!”

Cloud-wing pranced across the courtyard, brandishing his claymore.

Dandelion felt a pang of sorrow and envy. Life at Rockbottom seemed like a series of secret rites and rituals. She had a gold circlet on her head and gold acorns on her collar, but the gold seemed dull compared with that flashing steel.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

Dandelion gasped. Cloud-wing stopped, sheathed his claymore, and turned back to her a little breathless. He lowered his eyes.

“I'll be plunged into a new place. Like you when you first came,” he said. “All the things I'm used to, so many birds I know … gone. A different mountain, a different world.”

“But you'll keep on being Cloud-wing,” said Dandelion.

“Like you will always be Dandelion,” he said.

“Good luck, Cloud-wing,” she whispered, unable to say the word good-bye.

“Thanks,” he said. He paused, looking at the ground. “I'll write letters. Tell you all the news. And you are a warrior, too. A different sort of warrior.”

She gazed at the hazy mountaintops in the distance, at the slopes of Sword Mountain below, and held her candle tightly.

Dandelion would stay here, a warrior against those eight of the Iron Nest who opposed Fleydur and everything he stood for. She would be strong, even with Cloud-wing gone.

And the lazy bird said to the old witch, “Give me a magic potion to cure my bad memory!”

“Why, when physical punishment will work like a charm?” She laughed. “Indeed, indeed!”

—
FROM A STORY IN THE
B
OOK OF
H
ERESY

F
leydur,” Dandelion said a few days later, after a music lesson, “is there a martial arts school like Rockbottom where a girl like me can attend?”

Fleydur shook his head. “Why, Dandelion?”

“I want to be able to defend myself and those I love,” Dandelion said, thinking of the scars from her healed archaeopteryx wounds. Though hidden from sight beneath her feathers, they ached in the night sometimes and intensified her nightmares. “The moment I first saw Cloud-wing and his friends practicing swords, I was fascinated. I wouldn't be helpless if I learned to wield a sword, would I?” she said, and she touched the candle that she always carried in her pocket. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered her mother and father in their little cave.

“I can teach you, Dandelion,” Fleydur said.

“Really, Fleydur?”

Fleydur looked off in the distance. He was very still. “I believe I may have the right sword for you.”

He led Dandelion back to the castle, where he retrieved a parcel wrapped in leather from his room. Inside was a very plain sword. The blade was webbed with scratches and chipped in one place; the hilt was stained dark with the imprint of a clenching claw. But Dandelion saw the strength of the steel, the sturdiness of the hilt, and the keen edge of the blade. Though it was well worn, it was ready to be used for years to come. Dandelion's eyes widened in delight.

“Go on, hold it,” said Fleydur, excited as well.

Dandelion grasped the hilt, wrapping her talons around the clawprint. She lifted the blade in the air.

“Sweep the sword down like this.” Fleydur made a motion. “That will block an opponent's blow.” Frowning with concentration, Dandelion tried to mimic Fleydur's movements, and Fleydur nodded in approval.

“It's so different from the swords Cloud-wing and the others have,” said Dandelion. “Where is it from?”

“It's the original sword of Wind-voice, the hero also known as Swordbird,” Fleydur said. “I traveled with him. At the end of the archaeopteryx war, when Wind-voice earned the Hero's Sword, he said to me, ‘I no longer have a use for this blade. It's a common but reliable sword, nothing special to a stranger, but priceless to the right bird. I entrust it to your care.' So now, Dandelion, I give it to you.”

Dandelion held the sword reverently. “Thank you, Fleydur!”

Since tradition frowned upon girls learning to become warriors, and since Sigrid frowned upon Fleydur and Dandelion, they went down to the valley to train in the weeks that followed, where Sigrid could not see.

“Carry these stones up that cliff,” said Fleydur on the first day. “It's important that you grow strong enough that holding the extra weight of a sword won't affect your flight.”

That evening, sore all over, Dandelion was greeted by a falcon courier delivering a short letter from Cloud-wing. It read:

Dandelion
,

How are you? After a hard day at Rockbottom, I can't sleep because everybird's snoring in the dormitory—and it's far from musical. Missing Sword Mountain already.

Cloud-wing

She wrote back:

Cloud-wing
,

We miss you, too. Fleydur's agreed to teach me how to wield a sword! Learning swordplay is harder than flying! When I returned to the castle, Olga told me I looked as if I'd been tripping over ankle ribbons all day. We laughed, all right. At that moment a few words, simple words, came to me that are perfect for the king's song.

Dandelion

The next week of training was harder. Fleydur taught Dandelion how to hold her sword so she would not clip her feathers as she flew and how to time her wing beats between strikes in combat. When he demonstrated, his blade whistled through slivers of space between his wings.

“This is absolutely essential,” said Fleydur solemnly. “Fancy flourishes mean nothing if you cannot make your sword a part of you.” Fleydur gave her a dull wooden sword to practice with at first.

Dandelion gulped. “Do accidents happen often to beginners?”

“If they are too afraid,” he said. “If you lose yourself to doubt and fear, for only a second, something could happen. Remember, you are in control.”

After days of watching her attempt to strike with the wooden sword, Fleydur finally picked up Dandelion's steel blade. “Try now,” he said, but Dandelion saw his guarded expression. He worried for her safety. Even so, Dandelion knew that this was a gesture of love. If Dandelion was to wield the weapon safely, he must dare to let her face the danger.

At the end of the lesson, Dandelion flew over.

“Fleydur,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Swordplay is as much about training the mind as it is the body, isn't it?”

Fleydur's face became radiant. “Exactly!” he cried. “It is the most important thing of all.”