He took the bow and tested the string. It was much easier to draw. He began nodding but Esephalia was shaking her head. “Not like that.” She took the bow from him. “Hold it like this.” And she showed him how to hold the bow out straight in front of him, the middle of it up at eye level so he could sight down the arrow. She gave it back to him along with an arrow and told him to try it out. He held the bow exactly as she had been, then sighted down the arrow to one of the distant targets. He was standing at the nearest target line. The last time he had been here, testing the bows by himself, he had missed with ten shots out of twelve. This time when he let the arrow fly, it whistled briefly, but flew straight and true for the target. It hit the painted sandbag with a meaty thump, and Aurelius let out a whoop of delight.
But he caught Esephalia shaking her head again.
“What is it?” he asked, lowering the bow.
“Which hand do you use most?”
Aurelius frowned. “My right,” he said, flexing the hand that was holding the bow.
“Strange,” she said. “Then you are right-handed, yet you use your left eye to aim.”
Aurelius thought back, and aimed an imaginary arrow at the target to verify her observation. “I guess so,” he shrugged.
“We have a few like you,” she said.
“We?”
“In Elvindom.”
“Ah.”
“They are our worst archers.”
Aurelius frowned. “Well, I’m a fair shot with a plasma rifle. . . .”
“A plasma rifle?” Esephalia asked.
Aurelius laughed. “Never mind.”
Esephalia turned to a quiver standing on a rack beside them and passed it to him. “Sling this over your back. Practice drawing and shooting. You’ll need to practice until you can draw, aim, and shoot, all in the blink of an eye. The faster you can do it without sacrificing accuracy, the better a chance you’ll stand in the ring.”
Aurelius took the quiver from her and slung it over his shoulder. She promptly began shouting directions.
“Draw!”
He drew—grazing himself on the cheek with the arrow.
“Aim!”
He aimed.
“Fire!”
He fired.
The arrow whistled through the air.
The arrow missed.
Aurelius turned to her with a frown.
“Again!”
They practiced like that until his arms were shaking, his eyes tearing, and his legs cramping.
“Again!” she demanded.
“I can’t!” he panted, collapsing to the sand. “No more.”
She gazed dispassionately down on him as he gasped for air. “You need to learn to control your breathing.”
Distant drums began sounding, and a booming voice cut through the air. “All right, that’s it, back to your cells! We begin again after lunch.”
Aurelius rolled his eyes. “I’m going to drop dead if we train again after lunch.”
“No you won’t. You’ll drop dead if you
don’t
.” Esephalia held out her hand to help him up.
Aurelius eyed her hand dubiously and a smile sprung to his lips. This little waif of a woman thought she could help him up? He’d yank her down on top of him if she tried. A part of him wanted to see her reaction when he did that, so he took her hand and pulled, making a half-hearted effort to wrench himself off the ground. She pulled back, and in an instant he was lifted to his feet.
He stood gaping at her. “How did you do that?”
She smiled. “Not all strength can be seen.”
* * *
Lunch was pushed under the bars with a tinny scraping of plates across the filthy floor.
“Enjoy!” The guard’s laughter echoed down the corridor as he left.
Aurelius walked up to the bars on shaking legs. He was weak from hunger. The food was like any in Meria: uncooked fish and some assortment of colored seaweed, but rather than the artfully prepared dishes Aurelius had eaten previously, these were slops: undesirable fish bits with limp stalks of seaweed.
Reven fell upon his slightly larger plateful of food with indiscriminate hunger. Aurelius watched him eat, losing his appetite even more surely than he already had.
As if reading his thoughts, a mellifluous female voice glided to his ears, “You should eat, Aurelius.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“What would you rather have?”
He grimaced as he stared down upon his plate of fish entrails and soggy seaweed. “Anything.”
“Anything specific?”
He decided to indulge her. “A fillet of steak, medium rare; a cob of corn with butter and salt; a baked potato . . . crispy on the outside, buttery and sweet on the inside.” Aurelius sighed. His eyes had involuntarily closed as he’d imagined the meal. He could almost smell the hot, buttery corn and grilled fillet mignon.
When Aurelius’s gaze returned to his platter of food, he had to blink furiously to make sure his eyes were actually open and he wasn’t dreaming.
“How . . . ?”
“Enjoy.”
There before him was exactly the meal he had imagined. He watched a chunk of butter slide down the steaming cob of corn and smiled. Magic. It had to be. “Thank you,” Aurelius whispered, and fell upon his food with relish. He ate quickly, devouring the corn, steak, and potatoes in large, greedy bites. Reven had already finished his food and was watching Aurelius’s every bite, like he might pounce on Aurelius to get his food. The elder ate faster. When he was down to his last morsel of steak, he began to feel just how full he was and decided to savor that last bite. He lifted it slowly to his lips, eyeing it all the way there. Just as he was about to pop the morsel into his mouth, it turned to cold, gray jelly. He started and dropped it in horror. The morsel landed on his plate with a
splat
, and Aurelius spent a long moment just staring at it in bewilderment. He felt his gorge rising, and fought to keep his lunch down.
“Ahh . . . I think you forgot to change a piece of fish.”
“To change one thing for another permanently would take more strength than I have, Aurelius. It was enough to change your food temporarily so that you would eat it.”
“Then . . . the food in my stomach . . .”
“It’s better if you don’t think about it.”
Aurelius grimaced and scuttled away from his plate. “You can say that again.”
“Why would I? Did you not hear me the first time?”
“Never mind . . .”
Aurelius went to lie down on the stone shelf along the wall. He was already halfway asleep when their guard returned. “You have a visitor.”
Aurelius sat up as he heard the cell door rattling open. The little, nondescript, freckle-faced man who entered the cell walked up to Aurelius with a faint smile.
“Cardale?”
“That’s me. How are you doing?”
“Not so well. I guess Lashyla told you.”
Cardale nodded his head. “She asked me to help you if I could.”
“And? Will you?”
“I don’t know if I can, but I’ll tell you what I know.”
Aurelius nodded solemnly. “Before you do, I want to know why you’re doing this. Why help me kill your own father?”
“Well . . .” Cardale faltered, and his gaze slipped away.
“Lashyla said he tried to kill you.”
Cardale’s expression brightened and he began nodding quickly. “He did.”
When Cardale didn’t elaborate, Aurelius frowned. “And? That’s it? How did it happen? What did he do?”
Cardale appeared to be thinking about that for a moment. At last he said, “My father tried to drown me when I was a baby.”
“What? Why?”
“He thought I’d be better off dead.”
Aurelius winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. How have you been preparing so far?”
“I’ve had someone teaching me to use a bow.”
“A bow? Planning to run and hide, are you?”
“No, but I think if I can keep Thorin at a distance he’ll be less dangerous.”
Cardale shook his head. “That’s a mistake. Thorin kills most of his opponents at range with a trident. He’s weakest as a swordsman. All he knows is brute force, and true swordsmanship is all about finesse. Use a lighter sword, dodge his heavier blows, and slide in past his guard. You’ll kill him easily that way.”
“That’s it?”
Cardale shrugged. “He’s an honorable man. If you appeal to his sense of honor, you may be able to trick him.”
“Like how?”
“If you were to drop your weapon and refuse to fight him with it, he would drop his weapon and fight with you bare-handed.”
“Anything else?”
“He won’t fight using any dirty tricks—pulling hair, gouging eyes, hitting below the waist . . . you shouldn’t expect any of that from him.”
Aurelius nodded slowly. “That’s good to know, thank you, Cardale.”
Cardale smiled. “Anything I can do to help a friend.”
Training after lunch was even harder than it had been in the morning; Aurelius’s lack of skill was compounded by exhaustion, causing him to miss at least half the targets he shot at. He caught Esephalia shaking her head and making disgusted little noises in the back of her throat every time he missed.
Aurelius ignored her and drew another arrow. He took two long steps back from the nearest target line where he’d been practicing since he began training with Esephalia. He drew the bowstring, took aim . . .
His arm immediately began to shake, and he had to blink the sweat out of his eyes just to see straight. The target resolved into a blurry red and blue speck, and Aurelius let fly his arrow.
It missed by half a dozen feet and went skipping through the sand into another man’s boot. Aurelius cringed, but the arrow bounced off. Fortunately it had bled off enough speed to be harmless. The man turned and glared at Aurelius; to express his displeasure he picked up the arrow and snapped it like a twig.
“You’re never going to be ready to face Thorin at this rate,” Esephalia said, coming up beside him.
Aurelius turned to her. “What do you suggest I do? Give up?”
She shook her head. “Try harder.”
He gritted his teeth. As if he weren’t already trying his hardest. “Maybe we should try a different weapon.”
Esephalia narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, then reached out and grabbed his biceps in a surprising vice grip.
“Hey, hands off!” Aurelius twisted out of her grip and wiped a hand across his sweaty brow, feeling abruptly irritated with his trainer.
She gave an appreciative nod. “Good, you are stronger than you look.”
“Thanks . . .”
“Let’s try swords. If what your friend said is true, then you will stand a better chance by keeping your opponent close.”
Aurelius nodded and they started toward the largest group of men. Their shouts and the wooden cracks of training swords clashing could be heard all the way across the arena. Men and trolls were paired off and dueling with their respective species as far as the eye could see. As they drew near, Aurelius recognized Thorin pacing around the edges of a particularly large group of men. He was barking out comments and suggestions to the men as he walked by. Aurelius frowned at that, wondering how the ringmaster could train so many men to fight with swords and yet be a poor swordsman himself. Perhaps it was as Cardale said, the man was simply too large and brutish to have the required finesse.
Aurelius went to a rack of wooden swords along the edge of the Ring and selected a long, two-handed blade. It was heavy, at least ten pounds. He swung it in a few awkward slashes before Esephalia caught it bare-handed and took it away, as though he were a child playing with something that wasn’t a toy.
“Hey!” he said.
“That sword will get you killed, Aurelius. Try this one,” she said, selecting a shorter, thinner sword from the rack and then handing it to him. Aurelius frowned as he accepted the sword from her. It looked like it would break if he used it to cross blades with the one he’d first selected, but it was a third of the weight and could easily be wielded one-handed. In fact, the hilt barely had space for two hands.
He held the sword up and out, examining it with a critical eye. “This won’t stop a blow from a heavier weapon.”
“No,” Esephalia admitted. “But this will.” She handed him a gleaming bronze shield. He tried it on his left arm, fitting one of the two straps over his forearm and then grabbing the last in his fist. The shield was round, and about fifteen pounds. It wasn’t overly large or weighty, so it wouldn’t slow him down much.
“Nice . . .” he said, nodding as he hefted the shield.
“Block with the shield, strike with the sword,” she said. “Thorin is a big man, he will use a big sword. I can help you practice, but I will have to use a lighter sword, so you will not learn the necessary techniques to fight Thorin. It would be better for you to find a more appropriate sparring partner.”
Aurelius frowned out at the crowds of men practicing all around them. Most were his size or smaller, and though one or two stood out head and shoulders above the rest, even they were significantly shorter and less powerfully built than Thorin—Thorin, a monster of a man in tattered green shorts who paced around them all like a caged lion, his long blond braids flaring out behind him like a mane. Aurelius looked away with a grimace. “And who would you suggest? Not one of these men is even close to Thorin’s size.”
“There
is
one man.” Esephalia nodded into the distance, and Aurelius followed her gaze out to the edges of the ring where Reven was still running laps.
“Ah,” he nodded. “I suppose there is.”
* * *
Clang!
Aurelius barely brought his shield up in time to block a heavy two-handed blow from Reven’s massive sword. The bronze shield rang with vibrations from the blow, setting Aurelius’s teeth on edge. He felt certain that if that had been a real sword it would have cleaved straight through the shield and sliced his arm off. Aurelius made a counter stab with his sword, aiming for Reven’s right arm, but the wolf man danced out of reach. Reven bared his pointy teeth in a vicious growl and began pacing around Aurelius with his sword raised in a high guard.
Aurelius backed away, looking for an opening.
Reven raised his bushy black eyebrows in a mocking question—
are you afraid of me?—
and then he charged. In the space of a frantic heartbeat, Aurelius braced his feet, raised his shield, and readied himself to spring to either side. Reven barreled on, his emerald eyes flashing with bloodlust. Aurelius watched as if in slow motion as the wolf man raised his sword above his head and began swinging it around at precisely neck height. Aurelius waited until the last possible second, and then he ducked, letting the blow sail harmlessly overhead. Not encountering any resistance, the momentum of Reven’s swing carried him through a three-quarter turn. Aurelius dashed left and came up behind the wolf man with a quick jab to the ribs. Reven howled and dropped his sword. He rounded on Aurelius, eyes wide with outrage, muscles flexed, and teeth bared. For just a second the air appeared to shimmer around Reven, his already hairy body grew suddenly more hirsute and his teeth lengthened dangerously. Aurelius faltered, his expression of triumph turning to one of terror, and then the moment passed and Reven was human again. Reven growled softly and walked away, rubbing his ribs.
Aurelius let out a sigh as he watched Reven leave, and his hammering pulse slowly subsided.
“That
was
a good move.” Aurelius turned to see Esephalia smiling faintly at him.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Aurelius said.
She shook her head. “You hurt his pride.”
Aurelius frowned. “You think so?”
She jerked her chin in the direction Reven had gone. He followed her gaze and saw Reven, now fully a wolf, running madly around the edges of the ring once more.
“That’s how,” she said.
* * *
Aurelius lay on the cold stone bench inside his cell, every inch of his body aching and throbbing. His mind was whirling with exhaustion, and he felt almost dizzy when he closed his eyes, as if he were still in the ring dancing around Reven’s wooden longsword. He could still feel his teeth ringing with blows to his shield. Every inch of him was sore, but from now until tomorrow night he was exempt from any further training. The date of his challenge was set.
Aurelius felt his end approaching with a sense of detachment, as though he were merely dreaming, as though it had all just been a dream. Perhaps he was lying on the fold-out bunk in the cockpit of the
Halcyon Courier
, whiling away the time between jump points with some much-needed sleep. Everything he’d been through in the past week was impossible anyway: magic, strange prehistoric monsters, dark forests with trees taller than skyscrapers, mermaids, werewolves, trolls, gremlins, and elves . . . none of that existed. It was all an elaborate dream.
Then Aurelius opened his eyes and stared a while at the dim red light filtering down from the coral-crusted ceiling. He listened to the steady and maddening,
drip . . . drip . . . drip . . .
of water leaking down from that ceiling. He felt the hard stone bench pressing into his back, listened to Reven’s steady snores, cast a quick glance to where the wolf man lay curled up in his wolf form for the furry warmth his coat gave, and Aurelius’s eyes went wide with sudden, anxious terror.
“Yes, Aurelius, it’s real.”
He sat bolt upright to hear the voice and saw the man it belonged to dimly outlined through the bars of his cell. “Martanel?”
“I came to see if you needed anything . . .”
“I . . .” Aurelius thought for a moment. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty, having only just a few hours ago eaten the gruel they’d served him for lunch. “No, thank you.”
“Any . . .” The guard who was really Gabrian, a powerful wizard, hesitated. “Last requests?”
Aurelius grimaced; the reality of his situation was hitting him fully once more. “No,” he replied, but then Aurelius lifted his chin suddenly. “Actually . . . there is one thing.” Martanel cocked his head, and Aurelius jerked his head in the direction of the cell beside his. “When you escape this place, find some way to take her with you. And Reven if he’s still alive by then.”
The darkly glistening whites of Martanel’s eyes widened, and he nodded. “I promise you I will do everything in my power to rescue them.”
They stayed like that, a long silent moment, holding one another's gaze with grudging respect. At last, Martanel spoke once more, “I wish it had really been I who’d been travelling with you these past few days. It is rare to find true nobility in this world, rarer still to find it in one so young.”
Aurelius snorted. “I don’t feel young anymore.”
“Take heart, elder. There are yet things for you to accomplish in this world, and I am not quite powerless to help you.” Aurelius cocked his head, but Martanel was already turning to leave. Aurelius watched him go, wondering at those last words, and what the wizard meant by being able to help him.
Esephalia interrupted those thoughts with her soft, feminine voice—a voice that was strangely carrying in the echoing prison level. “Thank you,” she said.
Aurelius shook his head slowly. “For what?”
“For asking him to rescue me.”
“He would have anyway,” Aurelius replied.
“Do not be so sure. Gabrian has no love for the elves.”
“But he served them by guarding the relic for so many years? How does that work?”
For a while there was no answer except for the steady
drip, drip, dripping
of water from ceiling to floor inside his cell. “It was not honor he was serving in his exile in the Deadwood Forest, but rather his sentence.”
“Sentence?”
“He was exiled and bound to guard the relic for crimes against all elvinkind.”
“What about his father, then? He guarded the relic, too, didn’t he?”
“His father was its rightful guardian, that was his job, but he was not bound to it as Gabrian is.”
“So what happened? What did Gabrian do?”
“The relic was stolen and his father was killed. Gabrian was responsible for both the relic’s theft and his father's death.”