“This is Truvle the blacksmith’s work! Look, here is the seal,” someone said. “It’s definitely him!”
Now they all turned to me with their eyes full of respect.
“Ricka, where did you get these?” Luz asked, holding up the weapon that finally fell into his hands, and not even trying to conceal his admiration.
“Got from Truvle for birthday,” I smiled getting embarrassed for some reason.
The crowd buzzed with approval, once again discussing the metal and the balancing that was unmatched.
Truvle’s stuff was well known here, he made swords for all the commanders in the garrison, while youngsters could only dream of it.
“Can’t even imagine how I’m going to fight you now! Compared to your blades we got tins,” another guard, Sith, said.
The guys laughed, while someone even clapped me on the shoulder.
“It’s not about the weapon that makes the warrior, but the skill!” Yoos’s voice sounded out of the blue right over our heads. “And I can’t remember ordering any rest! Daggers back to the girl! Everyone ready for training!” he shouted at the crowd that was dissolving rapidly.
A second later, I stood completely alone, with my weapon pressed hard in my hands.
“Okay, well… Well, show me what Truvle has conjured this time,” he said, coming closer.
I unfastened the daggers and handed them to him… But already next instant I froze with my jaw dropping down to me feet. The old warrior was doing something that went far beyond my imagination! The blades were spinning in his strong much-practiced hands. They were sparkling in a movement that my eyes could barely catch, which turned the two silhouettes in the air into two spheres.
“Good! Great!” exactly what we need. “He improved them to make just perfect,” he said approvingly.
Snap! And the chain shot sending the claw deep into a log of wood on the ground near us. Then Yoos made an intangible movement and the blade slipped out of the wood that had been holding it so tightly a second ago.
Yoos stepped away to the training area center and the chains spun around him producing various shapes and combinations of these in the air. They were wriggling obediently as if being just part of his body. And Yoos resembled an octopus with long moving tentacles.
The whole squad, me included, was following that show in an ecstatic daze. Of course, the youngsters adored him because the commander was an expert in this military art, and no single cart had ever been sacked while he was on duty through all the years he had been serving! He was feared and respected by all – the guards, the local residents and – oddly enough – even robbers.
Having played a little more with the chains, Yoos came up to me. “Well, fine, now put them in your bag. We will learn in a safer way, both for you and for the rest.”
I automatically stuffed the weapon into my bag, and then, bewildered, looked at him. All the hopes I would be allowed some show-off time with the blades in my hands, melted away immediately.
“Nort!” Yoos shouted so that I jumped up. “Bring me two whips from the stables, a couple of those we use for the horses.
One of the guys rushed to the buildings nearby.
“Whips? What the hell do I do with whips?!” I was indignant.
“I still believe I may need you alive,” the warrior gave me a wink. “You will have to learn how to manage with a usual whip first, and then we go to your claws.”
I did not even try to argue being perfectly aware that he was right.
At that moment, Nort was already approaching us with two whips in his hand. I could see the guy was out of breath, which was the effect of his hurry carrying out the assignment. Yes, Yoos could impose iron discipline on people.
Yoos took the whips and handed one to me.
He had to give a few more orders, after which they brought us a basket of melons, old broken pots and a bunch of round logs.
All this was carefully topped on a wooden table, a little away from the trainees.
Yoos walked closer to this still-life-looking thing, took a tighter grip on the whip, gave a sharp swing… A whiz and a brief crack! The same instant one of the melons exploded into small pieces, as if it had been blown up from the inside. Another swing – and a pot turned into a pile of clay bits. After that he turned to the neatly arranged logs. He was wrapping them, as a wizard, with the end of the whip and throwing at a mannequin used for practicing stabbing skills, inevitably hitting it nowhere but at the head. Every single time!
“Swing, acceleration, hit! Set the direction as accurately as possible. And then stop sharply in the end. That will bring more force to the strike. That must produce this crack!”
He took another swing, and the whip made that very specific sound, leaving another pot shattered.
“Wanna grab something with it – you make a swing, stretch your hand following the whip, and then, in the very end, pull it back a little. This will help it pick the thing. Do not worry if it doesn’t work out right away. You will get your feel of it anyway. But you have to feel the movement, as if this was part of your body, part of your arm… Here, look,” he demonstrated all of the above, and another pot hit the same poor dummy.
“Well, we will learn the throwing a bit later. Get skilled in the lashing and grabbing first.”
I looked shyly at the whip in my hand. It seemed so easy while I was watching Yoos. However, I quickly realized how deceptive that impression was as soon as it was my turn.
“You do everything, exactly the way I showed. Try, learn,” Yoos said, while still throwing the logs at the dummy. And as he was doing so, that very same Nort was running around and arranging carefully all the logs back on the table, each time risking getting one of them hit him on the head. “I got to leave now. Will be back in the afternoon to check everything. Got it?”
I nodded hastily, and Yoos, throwing a couple of brief instructions to someone as he was walking, retreated, leaving me face-to-face with a new batch of neatly stacked household stuff.
Even though I took pains, I made no progress, to be honest. And yet I went on and on swinging the whip. It definitely refused to obey, every time trying to get me, its master, actually. Yes, I was right then telling Truvle I would kill myself before I would hurt any enemy.
Once I did manage to pick a log, but it made me so happy I pulled it too hard, and then it flew off somewhere to get lost in the crowd. Next thing I could hear was a scream of pain and a joyful exclamation. My unexpected back-up must have helped someone win a sword fight. I spread my arms in a gesture of apology, but there was no one to come forth with a complaint.
Some of the guards approached me a couple of times offering help, yet each time they realized quickly that no support or advice – sincere as it might have been – helped even a tiny bit, so finally they all had to leave and mind their own business, while I had to stay there, just none the wiser.
That was how I spent the rest of the day, and as it drew to its end my sole desire was to bite off my right arm up to the shoulder as I could no longer stand the pain.
Yoos came later to let me go, thus making me happy beyond words… My right arm even happier…
Having covered the distance between the fortress and Karun (and that never took me long) I was approaching home when the Sun went down behind the mountain.
Elcha, short in breath, jumped out shouting that she was going to pick some Dartor plant, and disappeared.
Mammy was not at home, so I had a quick snack enjoying absolute silence, and went to bed.
The Strange Talk
Elcha was walking down a dirty path leading to Water Mount, where the Noiser was pouring down from the western part taking its roaring streams to the city.
She was in a hurry as she had to reach the meadows by sunset – Dartor flowers would be opening then, and they had to be picked within the first half hour, before they lost their best power.
Actually, she had not had in mind any herb picking that day, planning to do it the day after as Mammy had loaded her up with a bunch of things long before. However, as for the day after, Elcha got an invitation from Selena who was throwing a birthday party, so she decided to have all Mammy’s errands complete in advance and then enjoy the following day’s afternoon.
Crickets were chasing one another in the grass, and twilight was hugging the mountains gradually. The path ran round another huge rock, and Elcha did not immediately notice two silhouettes standing a bit further away. Frightened, she quickly sat behind a stone, watching them intensely and trying to make sure there was no danger in approaching them. Judging by the shadows, they were a man and a woman discussing something quietly. As Elcha was about to leave her refuge and follow her way, bits of conversation reached her. It was the man talking, judging by the voice.
“You have to realize – she attacked once she will attack again! They have found us now! And there is less and less time left! Even if we do kill her, others will come, more of them… They know now that you are here.”
Elcha found the man’s voice somewhat familiar, as if she had already heard it before. However, as she was too far, and it was too dark already, she could not distinguish the face.
The woman replied something that Elcha failed to grasp. The man got indignant, “It’s not under control! How come they found you? You must be missing something. What if she attacks again? Should she do so all your cover-up is beaten! Literally! It was nothing short of a miracle we survived last time… She is no child now… That would be too much.”
The last words got drowned out by the infinite crackle of nocturnal cicadas so Elcha could get nothing again.
“Yes, he is teaching her! But I am afraid of…”
The woman’s low whisper sounded like a question, and the man’s exhausted answer came next, “He has torn it all apart. No lead… No clear sign or trace to catch at… I am not sure Arr has a hand in it… It’s proven all too much complicated…”
The woman answered something again, too quietly, and the man hissed, “We cannot return now… We’ll have to present some evidence. Right away, before everyone has time to know what is what…”
For another while they spoke too quietly for Elcha to get a word but at last the man raised his voice again, “Message came today. She was seen near the Azure Ridge and the Gray Hill. She
moves really fast since she manages to reach different parts of the mountains. And you should be perfectly aware that she will not escape this time.”
“Doesn’t matter, actually. The valley is sealed,” the woman’s quiet voice came, yet again so softly that the voice itself could not be recognized.
“Then keep them here all year round. Not a single step out of here!” the man hissed again. “I’ll have the perimeter sealed, too. I really hope your plan will work!” the man raised his voice and was almost screaming. “No magic to be used here, just block it all!”
Then they went on whispering again, after which Elcha could get another bit. “As long as the first is alive, they don’t need the other one… the older blood is more important! Goodbye! See you in a year.”
Next moment it was only the woman standing there in her dark cloak, her head covered with the hood. Another moment… and the path was completely empty.
Elcha was still waiting as she did not want the two to see her eavesdropping.
Strange talk, she thought. I wonder who they were and who they were discussing. Besides, she got quite curious about the valley being sealed. It means that our valley got some guarding spell cast on. But why? And who against? I think I’ll have to tell Mammy or Ricka, she decided finally.
Elcha stepped out of her refuge and rushed up the hill. Just a bit more, and then Dartor would lose its power – too dark. As she ran out into the glade covered with flowers, she hurried to pick them to stuff up her bag, then lit a light on her palm so she could see the way, and went back.
That time, somewhere far and away up in the mountains, a triumphant inhuman howl could be heard, and two coal-black creatures darted between stones. One stopped and pulled the air with its nostrils, then chose a more accurate direction and rushed into the crevice between the rocks, as the second snarled and followed it.
The Premonition
Next morning I woke up all in cold sweat. Nightmare!
I saw a fire, and it was everywhere – everything around was in flames. And it was burning m from inside. I could not stand the heat and screamed. Then some shadows came out of the fire. They resembled the beast that had attacked me in the mountains. And there were more and more of them. Then I saw a woman’s face. She was either crying or singing a song, or chanting a spell. And then she shouted something through the roaring flame, and shoved a bag into my hands as she asked me to take care of it. The shadows surrounded her, and at that point it felt like I fell into darkness… And I was falling way down… The feeling was sickening, just horrible… And then I woke up.
I had seen the dream before, more than a few times. But each time it would change a slight bit – once the woman was seized with fire, resembling a fiery goddess; another time the fire around turned into a fiery beast, or some man appeared, whose face I could not see, to shout something to me. But the effect was inevitably same – the woman disappeared all enveloped in flames, and then I fell somewhere deep down, into an abyss, pressing the bundle tightly to my chest… And fear, terrible fear, a feeling of helplessness, which left me sobbing in silence…
For several minutes I was lying still trying to recover, my heart pounding.
I got up and sat on the bed. There was some bitter feeling squeezing me deep from inside. Every time I had that dream, I was out of humor for the entire day ahead, and it looked like that day would be no exception.
But then it was something different. Either my subconscious decided to play tricks or someone invisible wanted to play with my subconscious. Anyway, my nightmare got a whole army of monsters – all with their manes moving – crawling in.
I shook my own mane, shaking my head from side to side to dump the obsession. The Sun was already staring into my bedroom window, as if giving me a gentle hint that I had been sleeping too long.
I could hear the door squeak, which meant Elcha was already up, so it was time for me to get down to something, too. I got dressed, braided my hair and went downstairs.
There were some people waiting in the hallway, while the door to Nargara’s study room was closed. That meant she had a customer in.
I greeted everyone politely and turned left into the kitchen. Elcha was already laying the table – pies, honey and cottage cheese. There on the stove I saw a small clay teapot, which was sending forth a delicate and fresh scent of thyme and lemon balm.
“Want some tea?” my sister said cheerfully.
“Sure,” I accepted right away and sat at the table.
Elcha was fast bringing cups, sugar and spoons, after which we got to breakfast.
“Nightmare again?”.
I tried really hard to look calm but my sister was no spring chicken when it came to
seeing people through.
“Yeah, again,” I replied reluctantly and ran my hand through my face trying to drive away all the images that were still haunting me.
“How about some herbs in your tea before bed? I picked a lot yesterday. Could prepare the right mix for you. Will make you sleep like a bab…” Elcha stopped half-word and then went on rattling yet in a lower voice. “You know, yesterday, when on my way to pick some Dartor, I overheard some strange talk.”
“You are up, aren’t you? Great!” Nargara came in. “Lots of delivery today. Ricka, you take two boosters – one to Kold’s bakery, the other to the Meekle brothers… And four efils…”
“It’s Friday, so I got to go to Truvle’s. Why not visit him fir..?” I asked.
“No, Truvle is coming himself to pick his elixirs,” Nargara cut me short showing she would not tolerate any argument.
I exchanged looks with Elcha. The smith never wasted his time on things like that. He never liked having to drop his work even for a minute. And visiting us would take at least two days.
“Anything wrong?” I asked, even though the answer was more than obvious.
