1217 A.B.
It would help to focus on the events the led up to the goblin ambush to put it into perspective, I think. The events leading up to the Surekeel conflict were still fresh in my mind a year or two later, when I found myself in a battle of another sort.
I was running out of room to maneuver. The shadowed walls of the courtyard behind the smithy seemed to close in on me. I held my shield up to block the next attack as I was pressed backwards by the strength of the blows raining down on me. My cuirass was already dented from a particularly hard hit from my opponent that got past my guard. Inside my helmet, sweat ran into my eyes, and I couldn’t seem to blink it out. My eyes burned from it, but I had to fight on. Darkness was falling in the city, but I would not yield. There were consequences to losing.
My right heel hit something hard behind me. I was back up against the wall! Gathering my strength, I struck out backhanded across my body from left to right. The head of my warhammer caught the side of his shield as I had hoped it would. I braced my right boot against the wall for leverage and used the edge of my shield to bash my opponent in his armored face as I held his shield to the side briefly. It was a solid blow, and I freed my warhammer from his shield and drew back to deliver the killing blow to the head when suddenly something hit the side of my helmet. I glanced to my right against my volition and barely saw a shadow lurking in the darkness of an alley. He had a crossbow leveled at my chest and loosed before my wide eyes. Without conscious thought, I released a bit of my power and brought into being an invisible magical shield against projectiles. The pain of the magic was sharp, but it was just in time to deflect the crossbow bolt. My relief ended almost before it began as my opponent used the distraction to strike me on the left pauldron with his warhammer. It was a hard blow, and my shield dropped too low in my suddenly weaker grip.
I was angry, wounded, and desperate to win this fight despite the fiery pain of the magic. Without meaning to, a portion of my power escaped my control and caused the air around my right gauntlet to coalesce into a misty fist, then sent it punching straight out into the chest of my adversary all in the time it took to blink. The magic hurt enough that I could imagine what that blow felt like myself. He was knocked back a few steps despite his balanced stance and waved his arms to keep his balance, but his heel caught on a cobblestone, and he fell on his backside. He groaned in pain, and I froze with surprise at what I’d done.
“What was that?” Bran asked in a low voice, holding his shield over his cuirass.
“I don’t know! I swear!” I tried to keep my voice down and control my breathing, and lowered my weapon. “It just happened!”
Bran got up and walked around in a circle a couple of times as we collected our breath. I looked around for the crossbowman who shot at me, but I saw nothing. Or crossbow woman, I corrected myself.
“Mira, that wasn’t funny!” I called out. “You could have skewered me!”
I heard her snicker from the alley and knew what that meant. I brought my shield up. Just in time, too. Mira snapped off a quick shot as she sauntered from the alley, which hit my shield with a loud clang. Though the risk of blocking with the shield was great against a skilled archer, and Mira was very skilled, it was still preferable to certainty of blocking the crossbow bolt by summoning a magical shield. It was a lot less risky, too, as Mordonian sorcerers were killed immediately when discovered.
“Oh, suck it up, Jeron,” Mira said. “Everyone knows war isn’t fair.”
“You know what isn’t fair?” Mr. Baker shouted out of his window above us. “Being dead tired and trying to sleep with all that clanging racket going on outside your window!” Bakers always got up very early to get their goods ready for the day, so he was understandably upset. This was the first time he’d vocalized his displeasure, but I had the feeling that he’d been annoyed about our practice bouts for a long time. The Bakers were good people to not have complained before now, and our families went back a long way together.
“Sorry, Mr. Baker!” Bran, Mira and I said in unison.
“Really! We’re done for tonight,” Bran called up to him.
“Too right, that,” Mr. Baker said as he closed his window.
The three of us moved over to the rear smithy door and walked through. Once the door closed and we had a measure of privacy, a different kind of battle was waged.
“I had you with the Terran kiss,” I said, naming the shield bash move I’d used.
“No way. I was beating you senseless,” Bran protested.
“But you were stunned momentarily, and I was about to deliver the killing blow when Mira shot me.”
“That’s your bad luck, then, brother. Besides, you forfeited the match when you pelted me in the chest with whatever that was. You’re definitely cleaning the smithy.” He took off his gauntlets, helm, and bevor so he could look down. “Damn! You dented my breastplate!”
I knew he was right, and I didn’t mean to hit him with whatever I had hit him with, which made me feel guilty, so I gave up. I told myself it was only a tactical retreat, and I’d beat him next time. I couldn’t do it without cheating, and he knew it, but that didn’t stop me from trying to beat him fair and square.
“All right, all right, you win,” I said, holding a hand up. “I’m sorry about that. Really. I didn’t even know I could do it.”
“What was that, anyway?” Mira asked.
“I don’t know. I think it was a concentrated blast of air, believe it or not.” I took off my gauntlets and helm and set them on my anvil.
“It felt like a cobblestone, but there was nothing on the ground to show for it,” Bran said. “You seem to learn things when you’re surprised or doing something dangerous.”
“Yeah. I gotta quit learning things,” I said with a grin. “Here, let me help you with that.”
“We may have needed Elle’s help if that blast of yours had been any worse,” Bran said as I unbuckled his pauldrons.
“Only if she’s around to see it,” I said.
“Oh, she was watching, all right,” Mira said with a smile. “She always pokes her head out of her bedroom window to watch you two spar. All in the name of ‘safety,’ you know.”
Bran smiled like he was just made the champion of a tournament. Well, I guess he really was the victor, but he didn’t have to look so pleased. He had always been infatuated with Elle, and to be honest, I was a little jealous. With his obvious strength, brown hair, and blue eyes, he always got more attention than me from the girls our age. He always got the girls, even though he only had eyes for one of them. Though the official story was that we were fraternal twins, I really did wish that I looked more like him.
We helped each other out of our armor and stored it all on the armor stands in the smithy by our workstations. I went over each piece and used my mending magic to remove the dents and scratches as I stowed it. The mending magic was the first trick I’d learned, and it was worth the pain to save me the time and effort of repairing all our armor. Besides, my family didn’t know how much it really hurt to use magic the way I did, and I didn’t want my mother to worry.
Mira went upstairs to the family common room with Bandit following at her heels. When did Bandit even get there, anyway? That was the sneakiest little critter I had ever met, and she somehow always managed to come and go without anyone noticing.
Bran and I had been preparing for military service for a while now, which meant that we practiced fighting for a couple of hours each day. We were good enough that we only got occasional pointers from our father, Dortham, these days, and we’d both learned to make our own armor, swords, hammers and maces. I admit that I was a little too proud of having made my own arms with the money I earned while working the family smithy. He shared the profits fairly with all of us, and looking back, it went to my head a bit. Smithing armor was a difficult trade to master, truth be told. Smithing would keep a roof over our heads for as long as we could swing a hammer, for which I was grateful, and Dortham had generations of acquired knowledge to teach.
The prince required all youths to serve in the militia for two years starting the year we turned eighteen, and we had to provide our own arms. Most people used the armor their fathers used, but not everyone was so lucky. A while back, Bran and I had discussed Elle and Mira’s situation. Mira was estranged from her family because of a bad relationship with her father, and Elle’s parents were murdered. They didn’t have a set of family armor, nor did they have the means to get any, so Bran and I decided we had to do something to help them out. Bran used most of his money to buy materials for a suit of armor for Elle, and I did the same thing for Mira. If they didn’t show up for duty with some kind of armor, from what we heard from our brothers Elric and Darek, the girls were going to be hammered to jelly. So, we began working on it, and when we had another month to go until we had to report for duty, the armor I made for Mira was ready. Bran was just about done, too. It was a trick to make everything without a live fitting with the girls, but we knew them pretty well, and Elric’s wife Samirah volunteered to try on the pieces when we needed her to. We were pretty sure the armor would fit.
As it happened, the matter came up today as the family had dessert together after dinner. Our father, Dortham sat at the head of the table, and next to him was our mother, Nora. My oldest brother, Elric and his wife, Samira sat close to their two little ones, Jopenn and Dejen (who were still very young and loved to play with Bandit). My next oldest brother, Darek, sat next to his girlfriend, Bethan, who was trying to engage Juleen in conversation. Juleen was very quiet, introverted and still deeply affected by her abduction those years ago, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Bran, Mira, Bandit, Elle, and I were at the other end of the table, and we were each having a slice of apple pie and listening to the latest gossip delivered by Samirah. As these things usually happened, Mira’s questioning put things in motion.
“So, I was wondering,” Mira started, “How much does a suit of chainmail cost around here, anyway, Mr. Smith?”
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When I heard this, I knew it was the moment of truth. Without saying anything, I stuffed the remainder of my pie in my mouth so no one could swipe it from me, then nonchalantly got up from the table and went up to the room I shared with Bran to get the armor I made for Mira while they were talking.
“Oh, I don’t know, Mira. You’re a friend, so around three hundred gold royals,” I heard Dortham say.
“Three hundred?” Mira said loudly, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yeah, you’re getting the family discount. We charge two hundred royals to our neighbors,” father said, trying to hide his grin. The crinkle at the corners of his eyes betrayed him.
“Oh, very funny. Ha, ha,” Mira said without laughing. “Seriously, though. I’m going to get smeared all over the marshalling grounds if I don’t come up with something by next month,” Mira said.
“I’m sure we can work something out,” Dortham said. “Do you think you can paint the house for us?”
The others, who all (except Elle) knew what Bran and I were doing, had caught on to the joke. Dortham was just stalling until I got back downstairs. He was doing a masterful job, too. I wondered how long it would take Bran to get his gifts ready. Probably not before he finished his pie. He was single minded about eating until nothing remained in his field of vision.
“Hey, Bran, go upstairs and get Jeron back down here. He’s being rude,” Nora said, knowing that she needed to prompt Bran into action. He blinked, catching on, then nodded and made his way upstairs.
By that time, I’d gathered the wrapped pieces of armor and put them all on top of the shield I’d made. I put the shortsword, gambeson and matching quilted pants on top of the pile and was on my way back down the stairs when I passed Bran. He was going up, and I knew he was also going to get the bundles he’d prepared. Now was as good a time as any to give the girls our gifts. Mira’s questioning seems to be the spark that lights a lot of fires, I noticed.
“I don’t know anything about painting, Mr. Smith, but I’ll bet I could learn fast,” Mira was saying. “Do I have to paint the whole house, inside and out?”
I entered the room with my burden and stood by Mira’s chair for a moment before she noticed me. She looked at my bundles without comprehension, probably just annoyed at how close I was.
“I, ahem, I made you something, Mira,” I said awkwardly. Some of the armor shifted a little, which made a metallic scraping sound.
“Did you…” Mira put her hand over her mouth. “Is that for me?” Mira asked.
“Yeah, it’s no big deal,” I said, shuffling my feet uncomfortably. “Uh, let’s see if it fits. Here, try it on.” I set the pieces down on the floor.
Mira wasn’t one of those people who likes to get overly emotional and let people see her that way, but she actually sniffled a little bit and tried to clear her throat. “Jeron, I don’t know what to say. Thank you so much.” Mira stood and gave me a tight hug, and I could feel my face burning. At that moment, I wished I didn’t smell like sweat and coal fires.
I started by showing her the gambeson and pants, and she unwrapped the other pieces herself and looked at each. As we were doing that, Bran came downstairs with his gifts, and pretty soon both Elle and Mira were misty-eyed. Plate armor was something only the richest people could afford, but it was more than that, and the girls knew we had given it from the heart. Elle gave Bran a hug. Nora and Dortham shared a proud glance. We all knew how big of a deal that hug was. Elle never hugged anyone.
Bran and I helped Mira and Elle try on their new armor. We were right. The pieces fit each of them pretty well, and I couldn’t help but feel a little pride. The girls were completely unused to the weight of their harness, but because the weight was centered on the shoulders and hips and distributed evenly, it wasn’t overwhelming for them. Mira and Elle were all smiles. The padding in the helmets needed to be adjusted a little bit, I thought, but I was pleased with my efforts.
As soon as she put on her gauntlets, Mira punched me in the arm. She didn’t hit me as hard as she could have, though. She was just giving herself a physical outlet for her emotions before she cried or something. I returned the favor by punching her armored shoulder and pretended to hurt my hand badly, which made her produce a single guffaw. The four of us horsed around for a little while pretending to fight, and we ended up almost knocking over a lamp. Getting the “evil eye” from mother pretty much put an end to play time.
We had a light-hearted conversation about trivial things as the others finished their dessert. Too soon, it seemed, people got up from the table and went about cleaning up before going upstairs to bed. Bran and I knew that was our cue, so we got up also. Mira lurched awkwardly to her feet. Though she had taken off the helm and gauntlets to finish her pie, she still had her armor on.
“Jeron…” Mira said, stepping close. “Thank you.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek. Was it getting hot in there?
“Um. Any time, Mira,” I said awkwardly.
Not knowing what else to do, I turned to go upstairs. I was a little distracted, but I did notice the way Elle held Bran’s hand and looked right into his eyes before he went up the stairs. That touch spoke volumes. They may end up getting married after all, it seemed. All was right with the world.
-----
Mira keeps a lot of things to herself, and the events of this night would prove to be particularly enlightening. At that time, she had no idea that in the future I’d be able to see past events, so she didn’t guard herself from anything arcane in nature for a while yet. No one who does sneaky things likes to have those things exposed, especially her and Bandit, who was always left to her own nefarious devices in the evenings Mira met with Ykaens.
Because houses in Stonekeep sometimes had new levels added to them, the wooden upper floors overhung the stone lower floors, and that made many of the rooftops closer together than an average pedestrian might expect. Taking full advantage of this, Mira silently crept across the rooftops of Stonekeep’s upper city on her way to her secret mentor’s home. She was cloaked in magical shadow with the moon lighting her way. If I didn’t have magic guiding my sight, I would never have seen her, so the infrequent patrols of the city watchmen had no chance at all. She was an expert at stealth and took full advantage of it. It was Twoday, and as it always rained on Threedays and Sixdays, the clouds were already starting to roll in.
She had never told anyone about her deal with Ykaens, the prince’s spymaster in Stonekeep. Whizzbang was a secret mentor also, come to think of it, but the Smith family knew about that arrangement even if no one else did. Mira had a great deal of freedom since leaving home, and she used her time to learn new skills like lock picking, trap disarming and magic from Whizzbang, and spy craft and assassination techniques from Ykaens. Mira was naturally good at keeping these parts of her life separate. She had to be. Ykaens made it very clear that he’d take it badly if word of his tutelage to her spread. By badly, he meant he’d silence those knowledgeable about such things permanently, and maybe Mira as well. He wasn’t a person one trifled with.
Mira made her way to Ykaens’ home, a very bland and featureless residence two streets away from Stonekeep Castle. She knew she was safe outside the house because Ykaens would never do anything to draw attention to the place, but inside was another matter. Knowing how Ykaens liked to test her, she took her time with her entry to the place. She chose a different fourth story window to enter this time, one that was in a dormer in the attic. She usually avoided the attic because it was so dark up there, making it an ideal place for the kind of traps Ykaens liked. This time her spirits were high because of the armor she’d been given, and she wanted to focus on something other than me. Avoiding traps was just the thing.
She slid a slim knife between the upper and lower halves of the window, and with an expert movement, she slid the locking mechanism open with only the tiniest squeak. Mira slid the lower half up as quietly as she could, smiling when she could barely hear the scrape of the windowpanes herself. She took her time, examining every part of the interior she could, especially the dust. Sure enough, she found some floorboards that were suspiciously clean, and knew Ykaens had placed a trap somewhere within reach of that spot. Probing further, she found a tripwire that was almost invisible in the dim light. Knowing how Ykaens thought, she probed the area behind the tripwire for pressure triggers in the floorboards and was rewarded for her efforts. Mira stepped lightly around them both, and only now saw the crossbows hidden near a couple piles of junk. They weren’t loaded with normal crossbow bolts, she was happy to see, but with bolts that had a pouch of some kind at the tip. They were surely just the bright powders that were so difficult to wash out, but she didn’t want the humiliation of having to go through a lesson with glittery pink powder covering her.
Thinking two traps were probably all there were, Mira was just about to go down the stairs when her neck hairs rose. Sometimes she had a sense of impending doom, and she had learned the hard way to trust her feelings. She froze immediately, senses straining. Then she saw it. There was a loosely tied waterskin attached to a string that became a tripwire at the downward staircase. This one would have covered her in some kind of paint or something. It was deviously hidden, and Mira wondered if maybe Ykaens had a little pixie blood in his ancestry. She avoided the trap and carefully went down the stairs, checking everything as she slowly descended.
She stopped at the door at the bottom, giving it a very close inspection. Once she was satisfied the door wasn’t trapped, she silently turned the knob and opened the door a crack. Standing right outside the door, already meeting her eye, was Ykaens. Mira sighed, once again realizing she would never get the jump on him.
Ykaens gave her a half smile. “I heard your thunderous approach and had plenty of time to assemble my guards. You’re officially caught.”
“You jest. I was quiet as a mouse,” Mira said.
“Actually, it was a squeak I heard,” Ykaens said with a patrician smirk. “One of the rafters. Terribly noisy when they’re not maintained properly.”
Mira swore softly and put her hands on her hips. She had learned to always keep her hands close to a weapon under his tutelage, and she always had hidden blades handy. “Lesson learned,” Mira said lightly. Inwardly, she was seriously considering moving to a more peaceful place.
“Come,” Ykaens said as he turned and moved down the hallway. “Time for a lesson with the dagger.”
Mira followed and was soon absorbed in lessons on dispatching men from all angles with daggers and knives of all shapes and sizes. Though he had taught this one before, Ykaens repeated his lessons often, giving Mira a great deal of practice over time. The soft sounds of rainfall announced that it was midnight, now officially Threeday. Ykaens called a halt and sat on a stool by the wall. He indicated the stool next to him with an open hand, and Mira sat, fiddling a little bit with a button on her vest.
“You’re distracted,” Ykaens said.
“Jeron gave me a set of plate armor tonight,” Mira said. She forced herself to adopt a relaxed pose. She didn’t take her hands too far from her weapons, though.
“I see. That’s quite a gift. Fit for a prince, even. Are you sure you’re still only friends?”
Mira was warned by him, almost continually, in fact, about not becoming attached to anyone or anything that could interfere with her duties to the prince. She wasn’t sure of her feelings about me herself, but if there was one thing she did know, it would be that giving Ykaens any leverage over her was a bad thing.
“Just friends,” Mira said firmly.
“And how are things progressing with Whizzbang’s tutelage?”
“Slowly. Learning magic’s not an easy thing.”
“It isn’t. I never had the ability myself,” Ykaens said. “Tell me what else you’ve heard.”
Mira gave him all the gossip Samirah had recounted that evening, which wasn’t all that useful to a spymaster. Maybe he was testing her memory, Mira thought. She wondered again if he had some way of spying on the Smith family. He liked to play games with her, always keeping her mind alert. But no, if he had a spy that close to the Smiths, he would know about my unintentional use of power today, and probably would have shown up with a company of soldiers to put me to death on the spot. Surely, he doesn’t suspect, Mira thought to herself.
“You’ve done well, Mira,” Ykaens said. “I think you’ve learned as much as I can teach you for now, and you’re a match for nearly any man in the city. More than a match if they don’t see you coming. In fact, I think you’ve earned a respite before you go into militia training.”
“About time,” Mira said under her breath. She was wondering if he would ever acknowledge her efforts. Her father had always treated her as worthless, so Ykaens’ validation of her ability was very important to her, though she still tried to hide that fact from him.
That whisper may as well have been a shout to Ykaens, sharp as his ears were. He smiled amicably. “Remember the lessons I’ve given, Mira. More importantly, remember your oath. The prince will require your services sooner or later.”
Mira stood. “I’ll remember. And thanks for the compliment.”
Ykaens gracefully got to his feet and extended a hand in friendship.
“I see the needle,” Mira said, keeping her hands near her knives.
Ykaens laughed softly, putting the poison needle back into the ring with a motion that Mira almost couldn’t see, it was so practiced. “Good night, Mira.”
“Good night, master Ykaens.” Without outward emotion, Mira left the way she came.
His secret smile after Mira left was at first proud, then whimsical, then grim.
