Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (5 page)

I
don't regret choosing to take the job—I was a few years older than you are, but
only a few, when I started, and I could have been making a stupid choice, but I
don't think I did. I've had a good life. Still, I'm getting old
and tired and it's
time to hand it on to someone else. Do you
want
to be that
someone?"

"Yes,"
Breaker said. The Swordsman's honesty had decided him, at least for the
moment—but then, he had thought he had decided before, and had kept having
second thoughts.

For
now, though, he wanted the role. If the older man had claimed it was all fame
and fortune Breaker might have balked, thinking it too good to be true, but the
description was well within believable bounds. It wasn't perfect—but it sounded
like a wo
rthy
role, one he thought he could fill, one that would please him more than a
lifetime raising barley and beans.

And
he wouldn't have to kill anyone, his mother's doubts notwithstanding. The
current Swordsman never had . . . Or at least so he said, and Br
eaker believed him.
"Yes, I do," he repeated.

"Then let's see
if you have what it takes," the Swordsman said, getting to his feet and
brushing the last few bits of raisin from his beard and shirt.

"I don't
understand," Breaker said, also rising.

The Swordsman sighed.
"Son, if you're going to be the world's greatest swordsman, then you have
to
demonstrate
that you're better than the other candidates. You
need to show the
ler
that you're trying. You need to give the magic something to work
with."

"I don't think
..."

"You
need to learn to
use a sword,
boy. Then you need to beat me
in a duel. Fortunately for both of us, we need only fight to first blood, and I
don't need to try my hardest—but you still have to have
some
idea what you're
doing."

"Oh,"
Breaker said.

He
hadn't expected this; he had been assuming it would all be done instantly, by
magic—that the Swordsman or a wizard would wave a hand or chant an invocation
to the appropriate
ler
or hand him a talisman, and he would
simply become the world's greates
t swordsman,
knowing
how to use a blade.

He felt foolish;
that was never how anything worked. The priestess didn't just ask the
ler
for the crops, and have them magically appear, after all—they still had
to be planted and tended and harvested, and it took
months. Why, then,
would this far less common magic be any easier or quicker?

"That's
why I haven't started my daily hour of practice yet," the Swordsman said,
drawing his sword. "You're going to practice
with
me."

"But I don't
have a sword!" Breaker protested.

"I have another
in my baggage, but no, I'm not going to trust you with it yet. You'll start
with a stick—something that isn't sharp. If you show promise after a few days
we'll get you a real blade."

"Oh." This
sounded much more likely than transformation with a word and a wave, but also
worse than he might have hoped—days before he even picked up the tool he was
supposed to master? Just how long an apprenticeship was he beginning—assuming
he
was
beginning it, and the whole thing didn't fall
apart? Breaker eyed the bare steel of the sword, noticing how it shone dully in
the morning sun. "And you'll use that?"

The
Swordsman shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe not; it depends what we're doing.
Right now, though, I want to teach you the very basics, beginning wit
h what a sword
is." He held out the blade and pointed.

"This is the
blade. The point, the edge, the back—much like a big knife. But see these
grooves?"

Breaker looked.

"They're called
blood gutters," the Swordsman said.

Breaker swallowed
uncomfortably at this reminder of the weapon's nature. "Oh. To let the
blood flow more freely from the wound?"

The
Swordsman snorted. "That's why they're
called
that,"
he said, "because people think that's what they're for. Actually, though,
they're just to save weight, ma
king the blade thinner without weakening it.
That's important, much more important than any tricks with blood flow—a sword
doesn't weigh much, but move it around long enough and every ounce matters.
After an hour waving this about, you'll be glad of those gutters even if you
never draw a drop of blood."

Breaker ventured an
uneasy smile.

"Now, here's
the guard—and it's called that because it guards your hand, of course; no
tricks with the name there. The crosspiece here is the quillons. The base of
the blade that extends through the hilt is the tang, just as it is in a knife,
but it's narrow—I can't show you, but take my word for it. That goes through
the wooden hilt, with the leather grip bound to it with wire, and here at the
end is the pommel. Know what that's for?"

Breaker blinked at
the little metal knob. "To keep your hand from slipping off?" he
guessed.

"To keep the
hilt
from slipping off,
more nearly—but it wouldn't need to be so large for that. No, it's a counterweight,
to balance the sword."

"A weight? But
I thought you just said ..."

"I
did. I said you don't want any extra weight in the
blade.
This isn't in the blade." He held out the first two fingers of his
left hand and laid the sword across them; it balanced neatly an inch or so from
the quillons. "A good sword will balance just there. Too much weight in
the blade and you'll tire quickly, you'll have trouble controlling it, it will
turn in your hand; too much weight in the hilt and your blows will have no
force behind them. It needs to balance. H
old out your hand."

Reluctantly, Breaker
obeyed, and watched nervously as the Swordsman laid the blade across his palm.
"Feel how it balances?"

Breaker almost
trembled at the touch of the cold metal; he had never seen or felt such fine
steel before, and he could sense the
ler
within
it—hard, fierce
ler,
kin to those he had felt in knives and
arrows, but more intense, more alien, far more powerful, and most especially
colder.
He had never before encountered anything that felt as coldhearted,
even though he
knew the physical metal was no colder than any ordinary implement.

Quite aside from the blade's spirit, though, it was immediately
obvious what the Swordsman had meant about balance; the sword did indeed
balance perfectly at the point he had indicated. I
t took no effort at
all to hold it steady on his open hand.

It
didn't seem quite natural—but of course, it
wasn't
natural. Swords were the product of
technology and magic working together.

"Pick it
up."

Breaker hesitated,
then closed his other hand on the worn black leather of the grip.

It fit perfectly
into his hand, as if it had been made for him, or as if he had used it every
day for a season. He turned his wrist and the blade flashed upward like a
startled bird— still cold, but now alive and eager.

"It's so light!"
he exclaimed.

"It's a good
sword," the Swordsman replied. "It feels lighter than it is."

Breaker essayed a
few cautious moves with the sword, turning it this way and that, as the
Swordsman watched. Breaker glanced at the older man, who gestured for him to
continue.

Still hesitant,
Breaker took a few swings at an imaginary foe, and could sense the sword's
chill pleasure in being used this way. He closed both hands on the hilt for a
long swooping chop at the air.

He was vaguely aware
as he did that the Swordsman was moving away. The traveler bent down as Breaker
clove the air with a wild swing.
...

And then the
Swordsman was in front of him, a long willow twig in hand, and the stick was
thrusting toward Breaker's eyes. Instinctively he swung the sword around,
chopping at the green stick, but somehow the twig moved around his blade and
still came at him, as if it had writhed like a snake.

And
then the tip of it touched the tip of his nose and pulled away, and he stepped
back, trying to gather hi
s wits. The sword in his hand wanted him to do something, but he did not
know how to respond.

The willow twig
slashed at the back of his hand, a stinging blow, but Breaker held on to the
sword and twisted it around to face this attack.

"Oh,
excellent!" the Swordsman said, stepping back and raising his stick to
vertical. "You didn't drop it, you didn't try to use your empty hand—for a
barley farmer who never held a sword before, nor saw anyone wield one, that was
excellent!"

"What?"
Breaker said, feeling very stupid. The weapon he held seemed suddenly ordinary,
just another metal tool.

"My
dear lad, you do have a swordsman's instincts. You have a natural talent. The
wizards'
ler
who
guided me to you have served us both well."

"I don't
understand."

"I am
telling
you, my boy," the Swordsman said patiently, "that you have
the inborn ability you need. You have the instincts to work with the sword's
ler.
With my training and the necessary magic, by spring
you
will be the world's greatest swordsman—and / can go ho
me and live out my
life in peace!"

Breaker looked at
the Swordsman, then down at the sword in his hand. "Oh," he said.

It had never really
occurred to him that he might not have the ability. What he had doubted was
whether he truly
wanted
to be one of the Chosen.

And
he still wasn't entirely certain of that, but at this point, after being told
that he was indeed chosen by
ler
and not simply a random volunteer, he was not
about to admit it.

 
An hour later Breaker was exhausted, sweating
despite the coolness of the air, and very unsure of his own abilities, despite
the old man's praise. The Swordsman had taken the sword from his hand—without
asking, and without Breaker intentionally releasing it—and had then sheathed
the blade and given the youth a wil
low twig, so that they were evenly matched.

The
twig's
ler
was
warm and green and soft, completely unlike the sword's, but still, it fit his
hand and was about the right length.

The old man had then
demonstrated that he could do things with his hands and a willow stick that
Breaker would never have thought possible. He could move it with a degree of
speed and precision more reminiscent of Harp's hands plucking strings in one of
her fastest reels than of anything else Breaker could think of; he could put
the point on any portion of Breaker's body in seconds, no matter how Breaker
might dodge or twist or struggle, or how fiercely he might wave his own willow
twig about trying to ward off the touch.

An
hour of waving a willow twig left Breaker shaken and shivering, as tired as if
he had been hauling heavy loads uphill.

And
at the end of it the Swordsman looked at him, nodded, and said, "That was
good. Be here again tomorrow, and we'll work on it some more." Then he
turned and marched back into Elder Priestess'
s house.

Breaker
wordlessly watched him go, then angrily flung the willow twig aside and stalked
around the house to the village square. He wiped the sweat from his brow with
his sleeve, then rubbed at the spot on his chest, right over his heart, where
the
Swordsman's stick had jabbed him repeatedly.

"Breaker,"
someone said.

He turned to see his
sister Harp standing in the break between Priest's house and the village
shrine, and for an instant he wondered what she might have been asking the
ler;
then he
remembered that that passage could be used as a shortcut down to the
blacksmith's forge and the smith's adjoining house, a house that was also home
to the old blacksmith's youngest son, Harp's friend and perhaps future husband
Smudge.

A
visit there was f
ar more likely than consulting priests or
ler.

"Hello,
Harp," Breaker said. "Are you on your way home?" "Yes.
You?"

She didn't bother to
answer, but fell in beside him as they walked up the winding lane.

It was a beautiful
day, a gentle breeze rippling leaves that were just beginning to turn to red or
brown or gold. The sky above was richly blue, arching from the pavilion atop
the ridge in the southwest to the distant cliffs in the east. The fields at the
foot of the slope were bare and dark, and some of the village children were
picking through the debris left by the harvest, looking for barleycorns to chew
or scraps they could incorporate into toys or games. The trees beyond the
farthest field hid the river and docks from sight, but Breaker knew they were
there, marking the boundary of Mad Oak, the edge of his family's world.

The
weather and Harp's presence swiftly eased his temper, and the view down the
ridge reminded him of his place in Mad Oak, and that becoming one of the Chosen
would mean a place in t
he wider world beyond.

"So," Harp
said, as they left the square, "are you serious about this?"

"About
what?" He didn't really need to ask, but he wanted to hear her say it.

"About becoming
the next Swordsman."

He didn't answer
immediately, but rubbed absently at the bruise on his chest.

"I'm not
sure," he said at last, as they passed the house adjoining their own.
"I thought I was, but I keep changing my mind."