Emlyn proceeds to give him the broad outline of what happened and sighs. “I could either scream and get the guards to come running, or I could have just cut them down. Six men were hiding in the bushes, and one of them had the stink of poison on him, so I suspect he had a poisoned blade.”
Ember sighs heavily, “You’re correct on all counts. There were six of them, and one of them had a poisoned blade. We found it on him when we searched him, but why scream? Garmer says you were armed.”
“I just got new friends,” Emlyn shrugs, “I wasn’t ready to risk them over something so foolish. With six of them, one or two might have gotten past me, and if he were the one with the poisoned blade…”
“Those girls are off to the duke’s justices for attempted murder,” Ember shrugs, “Since you made quite an impression at the dance, I can’t imagine they’ll get light sentences.”
“They hate me for being everything they wish that they were, but aren’t,” Emlyn shrugs, “I can’t help them with that. If the sentence is too harsh, their families will all hate me as well. If it’s too lenient, they’ll not learn that they can’t behave in this manner. I don’t know what the right thing is here, but I think their mothers should share the sentence somehow... I think that their mothers drive a lot of this behavior.”
At Ember’s inquisitive look, Emlyn relays the prince’s account of being accosted in the privy by the girl’s mothers. “Gods above! The man can’t even take a piss without them pestering him… I see what you mean. I can certainly relay that to the justices.”
“I also noticed that none of their fathers were in attendance at the ball,” Emlyn shrugs, “I don’t know what to make of that, but it might bear looking into. Maybe it explains some of this behavior.”
“Now that you mention it,” Ember says, “I don’t think I’ve ever met any of their fathers. Even when Master Bozell asked their parents to come in for conferences, it was always just the mothers who came. You’re not the first one to have problems with those girls, you know. They’ve gone too far this time. They distracted the gate guard, let those hired killers in, hid them, and tried to set an ambush for you and your friends.”
“You left out hiring said killers in the first place,” Emlyn says dryly.
“How did you know they were there?” Ember asks.
“I have trained with blind helms since I was a child,” Emlyn explains, “I don’t need to be able to see to locate my opponents. As I stepped off the path, away from my friends, I knew that there were far more people there than just the nine of us. For one thing, those fellows really ought to bathe more often. They were still and quiet enough, but I was downwind of them.”
“There’s one other question I have to ask. How did you get your blades into the ball?”
“I didn’t,” Emlyn shrugs, “When I sensed the ambush, I called them to me, and they answered. As I mentioned earlier, I've just made some new friends. I wasn’t about to let anything happen to them if I could stop it. I’m not bound by oaths yet, so I’d happily trade a thousand of those ill-bred cud-chewing heifers for a single Benger, Madil, Saris, Falnor, or any one of the others.”
“Why didn’t you?” Ember probes.
“I’ll tell you what I told everyone else last night,” Emlyn sighs, “I didn’t want a charming evening marred by bloodshed. It’s not exactly how I’d prefer to have my Temple debut remembered. As much as I dislike those snotty twats, being inept, low-bred, crass cretins doesn’t merit a death sentence. That said, had things gone any further, I would have defended my friends with steel. I had already moved into a position where I would have been able to deal with four of the six quickly. It was the other two that concerned me the most, and with my limited abilities, I wasn’t sure I could keep them from reaching my friends.”
“You think you could take four of them?” Chewing, Emlyn nods.
Once she swallows, she replies, “Yes. I was already in a position to do it. All I had to do was drop my cloak. Let me finish my breakfast, and we’ll go to the training grounds, and I can show you.” Emlyn eats quickly, wrapping up some of the pork in a bit of flat bread, and follows Ember to the training ground. Poking among the racks, she selects a couple of wooden swords that approximate her blades.
She starts poking among the helms but can’t seem to find what she’s looking for.
“What are you trying to find?”
“I’m looking to see if there are any blind helms here,” she replies.
“I’m not sure we have any,” Ember tells her.
“Then you can just blindfold me,” she shrugs, “but the blind helms are more effective. They dampen all the normal senses.”
“Let me see what’s in storage, then.” A few minutes later, Ember returns with some men dressed in temple livery. He’s carrying a padded hood and a blind helm that’s much too large. “This is the only one we have,” he says, handing her the hood and helm, “and I brought some replacements for the ambush.”
Grimacing at the musty smell, Emlyn pulls the hood on and then buckles the helm into place. “Arrange them like they were along the path,” Emlyn directs, “and you be Benger.” When everyone is in position,
Ember says, “We’re ready.” Ember observes as Emlyn moves into position and shifts her balance, preparing for a leap. She mimes shrugging off her cloak, and suddenly she’s in motion. The first opponent falls with his hand clapped to his neck, indicating a decapitation.
Before the first one is entirely on the ground, the second one follows suit, suggesting a similar strike from the other blade. The third is lying on the ground an eyeblink later, holding his stomach, indicating he’s been disemboweled. The fourth has one hand clapped to his side and is also dropping, suggesting he’s been skewered. The five and six are charging Ember, and Emlyn makes a turning leap to block their path that brings them up short.
Lunging forward, she taps them with the wooden blades, indicating that they’ve been stabbed.
“That’s impressive,” Ember nods, “but you got the fifth and sixth ones.”
“I’m wearing pants today, not a ball gown,” Emlyn shoots back as she’s whipping off the blind helm and its musty padding. Pulling a face at the smell of the padded hood, “My timing and that leap to get between those last two and my friends was the part I wasn’t sure I could do in my current condition, and that dress. I doubt you’ve ever worn one of those things, but they’re cumbersome. You think armor is bad, try a ball gown.”
A snort of laughter comes from one of her “victims,” and he stands up, “Since Ember has so thoughtlessly neglected introductions, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Yanthus, the Master of Swords."
Yanthus possesses the deceptive build of a man who spent his youth wrestling a plow before he ever held a sword. He is approaching middle age, a fact betrayed by the salt-and-pepper invading his dark, unruly hair and the deep grooves etched into the corners of his eyes. He isn't overly tall, but he moves with a grounded, predatory stillness, like a viper coiled in the grass. His face is handsome in a rugged, weather-beaten way, covered in a day’s worth of dark stubble. But it is his hands that tell his story: large, capable, and covered in a tapestry of thin white scars from a thousand sparring matches and a hundred real duels. When he looks at Emlyn, the hardness in his dark eyes softens into something profoundly sad and protective, the look of a man seeing a ghost of the family he couldn't save.
Grinning, he sizes her up and cuts her off before she can introduce herself in return, "You, redoubtable Nia, do not require an introduction, at least not to me. I can understand where the voluminous skirts might well be a hindrance to what you have so ably demonstrated. Most of the Temple would pay good coin to see Ember attempt the same feat in a ball gown.”
“Oh, hells,” one of the other “victims” chuckles, “most of the temple would pay good coin to see Ember in a ball gown period. I don’t suppose you could have your dressmaker copy your gown from the ball for him? We could use a good fundraiser.”
Grinning at Ember’s discomfort, Yanthus offers the second “victim” a hand up and gestures to Nia, “Nia, may I present Wex, our Master of Mace. He’s the instructor for all the blunt weapons.”
Wex is a mountain of a man. He’s not just tall, but wide. He possesses the barrel-chested build of someone born at high altitude, with a ribcage like a wine tun and limbs as thick as tree trunks. His skin is a rich, earthen teak color, weathered by wind and high-altitude sun. He does not hide his skin. His face, neck, and arms are covered in intricate, swirling tattoos chiseled into his skin with ink and bone. The patterns tell his lineage and his battles.
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Unlike the painted-on tattoos of sailors, these have texture; the skin is raised and ridged. His clothing is designed to flaunt his tattoos. He wears a fusion of environments. A heavy cloak of shaggy mountain-yak fur hangs off his shoulders to ward off the cold, but beneath it, he wears a traditional woven skirt of flax and leather, allowing his massive legs freedom to move. Around his neck hangs a pendant of greenstone (jade) the size of a fist—a symbol of his ancestors. His hair is a thick, black mane, partially pulled back to reveal the tattoos on his face, with feathers of mountain raptors woven into the braids. Emlyn looks at him, curious about his tattoos but also about his specialty.
“Does that include war hammers?” Emlyn asks.
Giving her a curious look, Wex nods, “It does, at that. Why do you ask?”
“Shield and war hammer are one of my favored styles,” Nia shrugs.
A third man rises nimbly to his feet, “Since these louts haven’t seen fit to introduce the rest of us, allow me to correct that oversight. I am Amon, Master of Axes.”
Amon is a man who looks like he was carved from obsidian and draped in sunlight. He stands taller than most men in Tassatung, with broad, powerful shoulders and the lean, defined musculature of a desert sprinter. His skin is deep black, flawless and gleaming, contrasting sharply with the pale northerners.
He rejects the heavy wools of the region. Instead, he wears a linen wrap, that allows for total leg mobility, secured by a wide belt of painted leather and gold. This is topped by an open, sleeveless linen jacket that leaves his chest bare, displaying a broad collar of turquoise and gold beads, jewelry that doubles as throat protection. His hair is styled in intricate, chin-length braids, weighed down by small golden cuffs that chime softly when he moves.
Amon gestures to the other men still on the ground. “The lazy bones napping on the ground over there are Shu-Jin, our Master of Fists.”
Shu-Jin moves with the restless energy of a storm held in a bottle. He is young, in Emlyn’s estimation, likely no more than twenty-eight, but his body has been forged by the rigorous training. He possesses the lean, tapered build of a cliff-diver: broad shoulders that smoothed down into a narrow, roped waist and legs built for explosive power. He wears a padded hemp vest, simple trousers and shark skin soled soft boots. His skin is a rich, burnished bronze, glowing with the health of someone who has spent most of his life on the open ocean.
A constellation of fresh, pink scars on his forearms hints at the violence of his trade. He wears his hair in the severe military style of his people. It’s shaved close on the sides, the top length oiled and pulled back into a sharp, disciplined warrior’s knot. But it is his face that draws the eye. It is angular and handsome in a sharp, dangerous way. Normally, his face is set in a mask of boredom or disdain while he shouts at the local paladins and clerics. However, there is a heat in his dark eyes, that spark of intensity that burns a little too bright. He chews some leaves from his homeland constantly, staining his lips a faint rust color.
Grinning at Emlyn, Amon waves a hand at a third man, “That is Branaulf, our Master of Bows.” Branaulf is a massive man in his early forties, built like the twisted trunk of an ancient oak. His strength is not the balanced sculpture of a gym-goer; it is functional and terrifyingly uneven. His upper body is dominated by a back and shoulder span that seems too wide for his frame. Because he has spent thirty years drawing war bows with a draw weight of 150 pounds or more, his right side (the draw side) is noticeably thicker and more heavily muscled than his left.
His right shoulder sits slightly higher, and the muscles of his back bunch under his tunic like coiled pythons. His hands are his most defining feature. They are huge, with fingers as thick as sausages and hooked permanently into a gentle curve. The tips of his first two fingers on his right hand are flattened and calloused into leather pads, living tabs for the bowstring. He has the pale, wind-burned skin of the far north, ruddy at the cheeks. His eyes are the color of sea ice, pale blue and perpetually narrowed, surrounded by the crow's feet of a man who has spent decades squinting at distant horizons.
He wears a heavy, blonde beard that is beginning to streak with iron-gray, braided into a single thick fork to keep it from catching in the bowstring. He wears the wool tunics and trousers of his people, dyed in temple colors. On his left forearm, he wears a hardened leather bracer that is scarred and scratched from years of string-slap. Unlike Wex or Amon, Branaulf wears nothing that flows. His clothes are belted tight to his chest and arms. A loose sleeve means a snagged string, and a snagged string means a missed shot.
“And finally,” Amon says with a graceful bow, “and Parth, our Master of Horses.”
Parth looks like a king who lost his kingdom but kept his horse. He is a compact man, wiry and mostly tendon, standing with the distinct bow-legged stance of someone who learned to gallop before he could walk. His skin is the color of deep, burnished teak, weathered by the relentless winds of the high plain .His face is sharp and predatory, dominated by an aquiline, hawk-like nose and heavy-lidded eyes that are always squinting against a phantom sun.
His pride is his facial hair, a magnificent mustache that sweeps across his cheeks and curls upward at the tips, kept obsessively oiled and sharp. He wears a turban of indigo silk, wound tightly to stay on, adorned with a single pin of hammered gold in the shape of a stag. He wears a heavy, quilted coat that flares at the waist, patterned with faded geometric designs. Underneath, he wears loose trousers that are tucked into soft, heel-less leather boots designed for gripping a horse's flanks, not for walking on stone.He wears heavy gold hoops in his ears and a torque around his neck that features gnarled animal heads.
Shu-Jin snaps a quick move and goes from lying on the ground to standing. He sketches a stylized bow to Emlyn, “It is my pleasure to meet someone so skilled."
Emlyn recognizes the style of his bow and, with an enigmatic smile, returns it in the same fashion, which also indicates her level of proficiency to Shu-Jin, just as his bow indicated his to her.
Instantly, Shu-Jin is highly focused on her, “You are already a student of The Path, I take it?”
“You take it correctly, Shifu,” Emlyn replies, using the correct honorific, based on his bow.
“You have combined the ways of the path with the ways of the sword,” Shu-Jin nods, “This is not my path, but I can see where it strengthens your path. I thought I recognized some of your movements.”
Emlyn merely nods and smiles.
“You said something,” Amon interrupts, “that I’m curious about. You said that a shield and a warhammer are one of your favored combinations. Do you happen to have others?” “My most favored,” Emlyn explains, “is with both of my blades, but I can swap to a blade and shield when it becomes necessary. I am quite proficient with a bow on foot or horseback. The shield and war hammer are a preferred combination in certain situations, like peeling an opponent out of their armor.”
“Enough of this talk,” Shu-Jin says, “Let us take her measure the correct way.” He tosses Emlyn a wooden pole that’s about the diameter of her fist and somewhat longer than she is tall. He watches approvingly as Emlyn tests it for flexibility and then bows to him formally. He comes at her in a flurry of blows that she blocks or deflects, without much movement. Seeing that he hasn’t been able to force her out of her position, he halts. “Well done.”
Grinning, Wex says, “If you're done playing with sticks, let’s try something a bit more substantial.” He tosses her a shield, which she catches, and she drops the pole to grab the wooden war hammer Wex throws to her. While she’s arming herself, Wex has armed himself with a shield, a padded mace, and a well-padded gambeson. He prowls towards her, and Emlyn shifts to face him as he tries to flank her. He lunges at her, but instead of backing up, she drops her stance and raises her shield to deflect his blow.
Her follow-through shoves his arm up and his shield aside, and she delivers a solid whack to his ribs. Wex calls a halt, “That stings a bit, even through the padding. I suppose if you had a proper one with the spike on it…”
“I’d peel you out of your armor like an octopus peels a shore crab out of its shell,” Emlyn finishes, “or if I wanted to take you alive, I’d keep pounding on you until you couldn’t fight any more. One of my people’s more effective tactics against our neighbors is to have squads of hammers plow through the enemy, knocking them senseless, while the pikes follow closely behind to take surrenders. Then we’d ransom them back to their families.”
Chuckling, Yanthus elbows Wex, “My turn.” He’s also wearing a heavily padded gambeson and hands her some different practice swords. “I want you to try to land a strike on me with these.” Holding out his hand, he touches the edge of the blade, and it leaves a blue mark. Nodding, Emlyn takes them and tests the weight and balance of the blades. She works through a short version of a practice pattern that makes Shu-Jin smirk for a moment before eyeing her thoughtfully. When she’s done, she turns to Yanthus and bows before setting herself.
He signals for her to attack him, and so she launches herself. He quickly finds himself hard pressed to block her flurry of blows, but Emlyn quickly falters and then drops suddenly to one knee. Yanthus looks confused, but Ember steps up and, mumbling a prayer, puts a hand on her shoulder, and the familiar blue nimbus rolls across her.
“I knew it was too much,” Ember says with a shake of his head.
“I seem to have about the same strength and endurance as the cooked carrots from the dining hall,” Emlyn replies with a wan smile.
“Give it time,” Ember replies gravely, “This time last month, you didn’t have skin, and the month before that, you didn’t even have toes.”
“Was it that bad?” Emlyn asks.
Nodding, Ember watches her closely as some color returns to her face, “Bad enough that the healers banned shiny objects and mirrors from your rooms because they didn’t want to frighten you into giving up.”
The group clusters around her, and Ember mumbles again, and another blue nimbus washes over her, and he eyes her critically, “That’s enough for today.”
Yanthus looks at his gambeson and grins, pointing at the blue marks on it, “She’ll do, Ember.”
“There is one more thing,” Ember says, “that still puzzles me. You said you can call your blades.”
“I can’t right now,” Emlyn says, “It takes a bit out of me to make the call, and right now, I don’t think I have it to spare. I don’t think you’ll understand unless I can show you. The mages might be able to explain it to you since it’s magic. I don’t know exactly how it works. As a daughter, not a son, many of the secrets of my family line were kept from me because no one ever thought I’d need to know them. When I married, I’d have become part of my husband’s House, and such things are guarded jealously in the Great Houses of my people. All I can tell you is that those blades are bonded to me. If I call them, they appear in my hands.”
“How does it work?” Yanthus asks.
“I focus on them, on needing to have them, on wanting them with me, and tell them to come, and they do.”
Ember mumbles a third time and lays a hand on her shoulder, and a blue nimbus rolls across her again. “That should do it,” Ember says with a small smile. “Tomorrow, you might be able to do this for yourself. Now I want you to go to the infirmary and have the healers look you over. Inform them that you wish to initiate a physical conditioning plan. When we’re all back here after mid-winter break, we can start it then. Until then, take it easy. Lounge around some. Benger’s been trailing you around, so you don’t crack your head when you drop. Stop pushing yourself so hard.”
Leaning down a bit more, he looks Emlyn in the eye, “Stop letting other things drive you. You drive them, not the other way around.”
Almost meekly, she nods and heaves a huge sigh. “You’re right,” she agrees, “I will.”
“And go finish your breakfast,” Chuckling, she replies,“Oes, tad.” (Yes, Dad) before she leverages herself up and makes her way slowly toward the infirmary.