The Brotherhood: Blood (14 page)

Or so you know.

“All right,” the man said, moving back to the circle he had been standing in just moments before. “I’ve just looked each and every one of you over.”

None of the pages stirred.

“And,” the man continued, allowing his sword-hand to fall at his side, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of you will die in the event of war.”

How can he know that?

Though Odin said nothing, his thoughts must have betrayed his facial expression, as the weapon master’s eyes fell upon him almost immediately.

“Excuse me?” the weapon master asked, stepping forward and tilting Odin’s head up with but a flick of his wrist. “What did you say to me?”

“King Ournul has asked that I specifically train with you.”

“You must be something special then,” the man said, casting Odin into the ring with but one shove of his hand. “Grab yourself a weapon. You’ll be our class project.”

“What?”

The man shot Odin a nasty look that instantly beckoned him to draw one of the wooden swords from the line near the far edge of the sparring sphere.

“All right,” the instructor said. “I want you to fight me, boy.”

“You, sir?”

“Did I ask you to pick flowers and eat candy? I said,
Fight me, boy.”

“Never
what?”

Stepping into the sphere, Odin took queue at the northern side of the sparring ring, then bent his knees and arms, just as his father had taught him all those years ago.

If you don’t bend your arm,
Ectris Karussa had once said,
it’ll be easy to cut it off.

Though he knew more than well that there would not be limb amputation in but a simple mock battle, he couldn’t deny the fact that were he not careful, the tides could turn against him.

The weapons master threw a hit at him.

Odin dodged the first blow and caught the weapon master’s sword on his own blade a short moment later.

“See this?” the man asked the other boys, bearing as much pressure down upon Odin’s blocked stance as he possibly could. “Watch and learn, young men. You’ll need to know how to block hits and return them if you want to kill an opponent in battle. If you don’t act quick, you’ll have your enemy’s sword in your gut.”

When the weapons disengaged from one another, Odin lashed out, spinning his sword to distract the weapons master and create a false front in order to reveal a weakness that was likely to come. The man’s eyes darting from sword to figure, then back again, Odin took notice of an exposed weakness under the man’s arm and around his ribcage and noticed that his stance, though awkward, seemed to reveal a natural weakness that could easily be exploited were he to use his size and his speed correctly.

Here goes nothing.

Lunging forward, Odin ducked under the man’s forward slash, then rolled forward, the brunt of his weight landing at the curve of his upper back and propelling him directly behind the weapons master.

The man, so stunned by the reciprocating action, had little chance to turn around just as Odin pressed the tip of the blade into the weapon master’s back.

“See?” the weapons master asked.
“That
is how your swordfight, gentlemen.”

In the moments following his defeat, the instructor gestured Odin forward, set an arm around his shoulders, then turned his attention to the young men situated against the far wall. “I’m going to pair you up in groups of two,” the man explained. “I want you to practice striking and blocking your opponent. This is the first thing you’ll need to learn. Develop your own style. Watch the way your enemy moves, examine their stance or fighting for weaknesses that you can exploit. When you ‘kill’ your sparring partner in the resulting duel, you’ll switch with another boy who’s won his own spar. The two that were beaten will fight each other in order to gain experience on their weaknesses. Winners will go on one side, the losers—the
dead—
on the other. From there, we’ll switch teams until we have enough for a small skirmish. Understand?”

“Yes sir!” the boys cried, all in unison.

Odin stood next to his weapon’s master, unsure what to do in light of his recent win. He made a move to walk toward what would be the ‘winning’ side before the man stopped him.

Gradually, over the course of several undeterminable moments, Odin mustered up the courage to shake his head, knowing full than well that his father, whom bore no humility, would not care about the declaration. Since when did one need a knight or a military figure whom had learned through accomplishment and consequence to be a valiant man?

“Very well,” Master Jordan said. “Not everyone needs to be in the military to know their way around a sword.”

Truth be told,
Odin nodded.

The weapon’s master slapped Odin’s back one last time before proceeding to bark encouragement and insults to the other boys.

A few short moments later, a massive boy whom had to be some five-and-a-half feet tall felled a quite smaller one with a hard hit to the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back with a violent thud.

“There’s no need to be rough, Mr. Monvich,” Master Jordan said, stepping forward to assist the fallen boy to his feet. “You don’t need to through your opponent into the dirt.”

“Why?” the hulk of boy asked. “It’s not like anyone’s going to treat you with respect on the battlefield. He’ll kill you before he decides to let you live.”

“Very well, Herald, but here, in this castle, we’re not out to kill anyone, especially our sparring partners.” Jordan sighed and shook his head. “You know what to do.”

“Guess I fight you then,” the boy named Monvich smirked, running the back of his wrist across his mouth to reveal a wisp of hair curving across his upper lip.

“I… guess,” Odin said, taking notice of both himself, then the other boy, whose shoulders were nearly as broad as Odin’s torso and whose muscles had begun to show. His face, though harsh, also bore a manly distinction that set him apart from the baby-faced, fat-cheeked boys around them—a strong jaw, a squared chin, and that undeniably-manly whisper of hair atop his lip.

“You might think you can get around me with your height,” the bigger boy said, throwing a few more blows in his direction, “but I’m bigger and stronger than you.”

Like that matters,
Odin thought.

The swords began to soar through the air as though they were birds making their way toward their migratory patterns. Monvich’s blade hard, unruly; Odin’s quick, unmerciful—the wooden swords, though as safely-protected as they were, began to strike one another in ways that began to make them splinter shortly after their use. It would, Odin knew, take but a single hit from the Monvich boy’s sword to severely hurt him in its current state, as it seemed serrated now instead of sanded-down and protected by natural papers. At one point, Odin realized that a crowd had developed around the circle and that people were watching them, but only glanced at the group briefly for fear that should he distract himself, the bigger boy would find the opening he’d need.

“That’s it!” Master Jordan said. “See, boys? This is how a swordfight should be.”

Monvich’s sword slid up along Odin’s blade and nearly hit his shoulder. In response, Odin swung his sword to the side, then ducked when the bigger boy put both his hands on the practice weapon’s hilt and swung it down like a hammer.

“I’ll get you,” the bigger boy panted, chest heaving, cords in his neck bulging and face sparked red.

Soon enough, Odin knew, Monvich would be much too worn out to continue.

They always said the bigger you are the harder you fall.

The weapons master moved away from the boys and began to walk the sphere the two of them stood in. He circled them, eyes alert, movements swift and precise. His body appeared to say,
Don’t pay attention to what I’m doing.
It seemed a far-cry of distraction, for even Odin had trouble maintaining concentration on the battle beforehand as Herald’s blade continued to swing forward and down upon him, much like the hammer he’d recently thought of that only a brutish man’s ample shoulders could weild.

There!

Odin lunged.

Before he could even begin to raise his sword to deliver the ‘killing’ hit, Monvich struck out—not with his sword, but his fist.

Blood spurting from his nose, body flailing through the air, Odin collapsed to the ground with blood covering his chest and pain screaming throughout his body.

“Hey! Hey!” Master Jordan cried, running forward to grab the bigger boy’s shoulders before he could get any closer. “That’s enough! That’s enough!”

“I won!” Monvich laughed, looking down at his bloodied fist. “I fucking
won!”

“I suppose you did, but I never told you to use your fist.”

“You told us to ‘kill’ our sparring partner.”

Rather than speak in response, Jordan looked down at Odin, then back up to Monvich before saying, “I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear.”

When the Monvich boy stepped to the other side of the ring and joined in with the group deemed ‘the living,’ Jordan looked at the group, sighed, then said, “All right, boys. Put your practice weapons away and head over to the lake. You need to wash the sweat off before you head in to your afternoon lessons.”

While the other boys put their weapons away, dusted themselves off and walked off to the lake, Odin pushed himself into a sitting position and pinched the end of his nose to still the flow of blood, which rushed forward continuously without any pause.

“You are, but there’s no reason to unintentionally hurt or injure someone you don’t have to.” The man sighed, then turned his attention up at the fleeting images of the boys. “That young man has a wild spirit, son. He may be a bully, but he’ll make one hell of a knight someday.”

Though Odin couldn’t respond without betraying his hurt or anger, he managed to nod, then removed his hand from his nose. “I think it stopped,” he said.

“Good,” the man replied. “Go bathe. You’ve got a while before the first bell rings. Get yourself cleaned off, then head inside for your lesson.”

Odin stood, looked toward the pond in the distance, and sighed.

Hopefully nothing would come of this.

Dozens of boys played and swam without a care in the world. Some stayed to the side, nursing fingers that could be sprained of broke. Others fingered cuts and scrapes caused by the rough edge of the wooden swords. It would have seemed, to anyone looking upon this small group, that they were only children—young, unafraid, and all the less ashamed of their naked bodies. Many could have been staring, silently taking note, and not a single one of them would have cared, for they played and splashed and cavorted with one another as if there was nothing wrong with these open displays of emotions.

He thought it some kind of passage, this nudity and this endeavor. Most every boy had a partner he splashed or waded with. Some discussed the first day of weapons practice and how well it may or may not have been; others pondered over smaller things, particularly the maidens that took refuge at the castle alongside them, tending the livestock in the areas beyond the castle or learning prayers from convent nuns. Some even boasted of their progress with the sword, taking into account that they, unlike the others, were far superior to anyone.

It wasn’t until that moment that Odin had any trouble or embarrassment bathing with other boys. It was, in the end, all skin—surely what did he have to worry about? However, here and now, worry started to get the best of him, as the boys, though young, showed signs of maturing. Stubble, hair under the arms, around the areolas and down by the groin were only a few of the things he noticed.