061 – Home
***
It filled me with both a sense of relief and horror to return to the citadel. At first, I felt the relief that any traveler might have on a homecoming after a long voyage. Then I was overcome with a shudder of horror on discovering this gigantic fortress actually felt like home. Power Station Thirteen had been the site of my death, its ancient ruins had been a tortuous maze to escape from, and the rebuilt citadel was a prison filled with dangerous madmen. But, through gradual familiarity with its winding halls and forgotten chambers, the citadel had become the only placed I belonged in this new world of magic and monsters. I couldn’t wait to get back to my workshop.
“So this is the spot we’ve resettled, eh?” Iiyluzh said as we passed the front gate. “I’ve seen worse, but not by much.”
“It’s come a long way since the beginning,” I replied. “Even in the weeks we’ve been away, it has improved.”
After the defeat of the golem, the Goadsmen moved their army of trolls to the underground levels of the citadel. Removing those monsters from the superstructure helped improve the air quality. And with the devil-birds intimidated into submission, workers could transport materials up the side of the mountain without fear of aerial attack. Loads of cargo arrived frequently to the front hall, which served as the citadel’s supply depot. Humans and domestic animals moved through the citadel like ants through a hive.
The teams of workers made upgrades at specific sites and sub-buildings around the fortress, mostly the residences of the cult’s officers near the top. The construction workers ignored the many tunnels, stairwells, walkways, plazas, and unclaimed chambers, leaving those areas to the Ugloids. The crews of disfigured men labored through the nights, tirelessly scrubbing and mopping away the filth accumulated over centuries. Their work, more than any other, had transformed the citadel from a dirty cave to a halfway livable crypt. I felt a tinge of guilt thinking of the poor crews assigned to clean up the results of my arson spree in the central silo.
The three disciples, now with their skull masks on, bounded up the stairs to the Hall of Discipline, happy to be home and glad to quit the company of Iiyluzh the assassin. I couldn’t follow them while pushing my heavy wheelbarrow and had to take the ramps up to my workshop. Iiyluzh strolled alongside me and demanded a tour of the citadel.
On the main promenade, not far from my workshop, Malisent the Transfixing Eye strode toward us. She wore a new suit of black plate armor to replace the one she had lost during her raid on the trolls. It looked as if she were ready for battle.
“Strythe. You’ve made it back from your mission alive.”
“Through luck mostly. I nearly died more than once,” I admitted. “Were you worried for my safety?”
“No. Not at all. Annoying people have an uncanny power to survive almost anything, like cockroaches. You have to step on them three or four times at least.” As she spoke, her eyes slid from me to Iiyluzh the Viridescent Blade.
“Ah! Mistress Malisent,” he sang. “I’ve missed you dearly these last years. Whether I traveled on the high seas or the trackless wastes, my precious memories of you sustained me. It’s a joy to be back in your sweet presence.” He licked his tongue over his gold teeth and squinted through one eye.
“Didn’t I kill you already, cockroach?”
“Your blade missed my heart, but your beauteous eyes struck true. You’ve conquered my soul, my lady.”
“I’m about to conquer your face with my boot, vermin.” One of Malisent’s hair clips snapped open and some of her black locks came free. Her blazing fire radiated waves of fearful energy. The workers and minions nearby dropped whatever they were doing and fled at top speed, overcome with panic.
“Wait! Wait, my sweetness. You can’t strike me down yet. I’ve come round the whole world to deliver a report to our dark lord. He’d be angry with you for killing his messenger.” Iiyluzh scurried away from the enraged witch with his hands up. “Our romantic reunion will have to wait for another day, dearest.”
“Pest!” Malisent plucked a copper pipe from my wheelbarrow and hurled it down the corridor at him. Iiyluzh dodged and the pipe deformed as it struck the stone wall behind him. He zipped down a side passage and disappeared from sight, laughing to himself.
“It seems you have an admirer,” I said.
“He just knows how to annoy me.” Malisent fought her wild hair back into place, trying to pin it down. “The vile bastard wants to add my poison to his collection, so he’s always harassing me, hoping to get a bite. You’d do well to steer clear of that freak.”
“Too late. I already went an assassination mission with him.”
“Strythe, you have a real talent for finding trouble.”
“It’s not on purpose. Trouble finds me.”
“That’s even worse,” she said. “I won’t be around to rescue you for awhile, disciple, so you’ll have to avoid it on your own. Try not to die before I get back.”
“You’re leaving the citadel?”
“Yes. I have a mission to gather a mercenaries in the west,” she said. “Korkso and his Goadsmen are growing the monster army. That will be the core of our military strength. But his Warcreeps are savage and dim witted. They can’t do everything. We need human soldiers to compliment the main force. Lord Hrolzek is sending me to my home city of Gargléon to form a company of mercenaries.”
“Aren’t you a wanted criminal on your home island?”
“Technically, yes. I made a few enemies in my younger days. But that’s also where I have some friends who can help me assemble a company of fighting men. The other two witches are doing the same.”
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“Have a nice trip,” I said cheerfully. Malisent’s departure was great news for me. She wouldn’t be in the citadel to boss me around or stick me in cauldrons. With her gone and Zambulon graduating, I could finally have some time to myself.
“Practice hard. I expect your research to produce some useful results by my return,” Malisent said. No doubt she wanted to steal credit for my work again and to impress the dark lord. The witch waved goodbye as she departed down the corridor.
That’s how life was in the citadel, the nexus of the cult's activity. New people were always arriving and old ones departing.
***
Putrizio met with us at the Hall of Discipline. This was an important day. Two of his disciples were ready to graduate to real officers in the dark lord’s court. Soon they would move out of the communal barracks and into their own quarters. They would gain much more autonomy on missions. And they could finally take off their skull masks.
“Disciples. I’m proud of your recent accomplishments in the field and your rapid growth over these last few years. You’ve become competent swordsmen. There’s always more to learn, but I have every confidence you will continue to advance on your paths.” He sat down on the top of his desk and examined the trick sword we recovered from Logrev. “Now. Tell me everything about what happened on your last mission. Start to finish. Leave nothing out.”
The Fightmaster, who was usually so slack in his instructions, showed an uncharacteristic focus in questioning us. He interrogated us for several hours about our four on one battle with Logrev the Common Swordsman. He even forced poor Yurk to speak several sentences in a row, something I had heretofore considered impossible. We dissected and anatomized the whole fight, over and over, again and again, until every single detail was laid out before us in bloody detail.
“I see. I see. A very interesting battle,” Putrizio muttered. “It sounds like this was an instructive match for you lot.”
“It was a disaster,” Zambulon said. Reliving the experience through our retelling put him in the same bad mood as after the fight. “A deplorable, degenerate swordsman almost wiped us out.”
“It’s true you may have had more skill and intelligence, but you faced a more powerful foe. It’s not easy to overcome an older swordsman’s years of growth and higher ranked techniques. But the four of you did just that. You won in the end. That’s something to be proud of.”
“I’m not proud at all. And I didn’t win. I lost the fight and fell to my knees defeated. It was only a cheap trick at the last minute that saved us.”
“Tricks, subterfuge, stratagems, and ploys are the essence of swordcraft, Master Zambulon. If you wish to win all your battles through raw strength, you'll end up like this Logrev fellow, chopped in half in the middle of the highway.” Putrizio said. His young student’s attitude concerned him. “The four of you used greater numbers to surround your opponent, your superior skill in martial arts to damage him, and your quick thinking to find a method to win. You turned what you had to your advantage. And, even in the end, your lower rank technique, when employed properly, finished him off.”
Zambulon said nothing. Despite winning and surviving, he still found the battle to be a humiliating failure on his part. He had almost lost to an unworthy opponent.
Putrizio looked to his other student. “Yurk. A cut throat is a harsh way to learn a lesson, but you won’t forget it. You got overconfident and fell into your opponent’s trap. Real fights aren’t the same as sparring. You’ll never know your opponent or their abilities, and even a second rate swordsman will keep some tricks up his sleeve – or in his sword.”
“Yes, fightmaster.” Yurk nodded in agreement.
“Your playful nature is the source of your talents. It’s what makes your style vibrant and unpredictable. But you can’t let it go too far. Fights are deadly serious. The battleground is no place for games or beating up on people for fun. Learn when to finish a battle with a killing stroke.”
The fightmaster looked to Hwilla and I. “Junior disciples. You did well to stay out of the way and prioritize assisting your seniors. There’s not much a newly enkindled mage can do against a veteran. You won’t be ready until your fires grow stronger, so try to avoid such unbalanced fights in the near future. Had Logrev been less foolish, he would have disabled the two of you first to give himself more freedom of action. Not everyone will make that mistake.
“Now. All four of you should start thinking about what your next technique should be. Yurk, as a specialist in augmentation, you might want to consider a rapid healing technique. Zambulon, likewise, you might wish to develop an enhancement with defensive uses to compliment the offense of your Whetted Razor Strike. Don’t decide now. Think it over. Make your choices with care.”
“Fightmaster Putrizio,” Hwilla said. “Didn’t you say you were going to teach us a secret technique before we graduated? Well, Yurk and Zambulon only have a few days left. How will they have time to learn?”
“Ah yes. That. I did promise you I’d share my knowledge with you young people, although it’s not a technique, and it’s not exactly secret. Wait just a moment.”
Putrizio took out a huge codex and slammed it on the top of the desk. We all gathered around as he opened the cover of the book. It was a rare thing for swordsmen to record their lore in books, as I found out in Nettlewreath, and they usually wrote down highly esoteric subjects or advanced techniques. The title page read: ‘Observations of Putrizio.’
“Disciples, you see here the final results of many years of work and deep cogitation. As you know, I once served as the master of a large arena, holding tournaments and arranging fights between swordsmen. In that time I watched thousands of duels and skirmishes. This book contains all my observations of countless swordsmen and numerous fighting styles. This book is unique, a compendium of swordcraft.”
He flipped through the pages, which showed swords, fighting figures, stances, and diagrams of footprints resembling the instructions for dance steps. While it didn’t contain deeper lore—one couldn’t actually learn a technique from it—the compendium did give a comprehensive overview of the subject. It named all the major and minor sects, as well as some heretical groups such as the Black Scorpions, and listed the techniques used by their members. It had a large catalog of every known technique, who used them, how they worked, what they looked like, and ways to counter them. It illustrated many different weapon types, schools of combat, maneuvers, and fighting styles.
After its main sections, long indices filled almost twice as many pages with helpful tips, hints, and addenda.
To give one example, one index contained a precise description of swordsmen who relied on enhancements to increase their physical power. Doing so gave them a burst of superhuman strength but did not increase their bulk or muscle mass. These lightweight fighters could easily launch themselves into the air on accident. To compensate, they adopted characteristically wide stances with low postures. When this became a habit, it signaled their preferred method and fighting style to an observant swordsman even before a fight began. The index gave illustrations of what clues to look for.
That was only one minor observation out of thousands. Not much by itself, but they added up to a large and practical body of knowledge. Putrizio’s work was a textbook for teaching swordcraft.
“You four are the first of my students lucky enough to see the completed book. Look through it closely and take what wisdom you can. Of special interest you at this stage in your training is the catalog of known techniques. You may find therein one that catches your interest or excites your imagination. It won’t teach you any techniques, but it will show the first step for developing you own.”
Putrizio was clearly proud of his accomplishment. Zambulon and Yurk didn’t seem that interested, since they were the type to learn through direct experience not theory, but it held inestimable value to me. For the next few weeks, I’d have a chance to study swordcraft in the manner I was most accustomed to: dry, boring books.