Myrl had trained.
Lord Ashe, his tutor, had been his educator and mentor since the day he had officially left the Royal Nursery. It had been his birthday, Myrl had just turned four years old. And the training had begun that very day. Everything a young prince of Rhiada should know.
He let his Mantle of Office slide from his shoulders, sinuously down his back, to land with the barest rustle of fabric on the floor. He worked to keep a mild, pleasant smile on his face, as he addressed the Baron before him, and the hall full of nobles and dignitaries. “Very well, my lord Baron. I will even allow you to take the first swing.”
A light murmur ran through the hall. It was excitement, and the allure of a show they had not expected. There might even be the spectacle of blood. Death.
“Or, you could apologize to me. Here, now, before all of these assembled members of the rulers of Rhiada. THere are worse fates than owning your mistakes publicly, even for a baron.” He let his slime go wide. For the crowd of observers.
The mob laughed.
Literacy, and a fine hand with a quill, started immediately. His clumsy little fingers quickly learned all of the forms of the letters, as well as the three different letter and runic symbols of various neighboring countries. Communication is at the heart of ruling. By six, he had been turned into a competent public speaker, if not yet an orator of any skill. And he had begun learning the basics of an art called “fencing.”
He had been patiently trained, by a very expensive selection of professional fencing tutors secured by Ashe, and to a lesser extent his parents, using little batons to move like a dancer through the forms and movements that would mark Myrl as an up and coming student of the noble art of swordplay. Soldiers fought with swords, axes, spears, bows. Royalty fenced. Or so went the saying.
His father praised his accomplishments in those fencing classes. His mother cooed over his writing and ability to read poetry to her in her sitting room after dinners. Myrl felt like he could fly.
At the age of eight, Ashe had begun his training in horsemanship, statecraft, and history.
And then his parents had been killed.
Myrl felt the oval brooch that had held on his mantle, just smaller than his palm, where it sat in his hand. He could feel the deeply cut lines of his family crest, the Royal Crest of Rhiada, on the skin of his palm.
As he turned a slow circle, looking at many members of the assembled along the walls of the hall where they stood watching the display. Catching an eye here, smiling and nodding an implied bow there. He was pleasantly surprised to see Admiral Galler Earstov Ekino Kleinhoff, a trim, petite little man in an outrageously large naval hat of some kind, standing with some higher ranking members of his officer corps. They were all dressed in fabrics of reds and blacks with ornaments of gold and gems. Myrl knew Galler was an exotic bird where clothing was concerned. He also knew the man was a Merrow, a member of that race of goblins set off to sea in the dawn of the world. He gave a partial bow to the Admiral, and the scar-faced little man bowed in return with a smile to make a seabeast envious.
The weight of the brooch in his hand was a comfort. He ran his thumb along the rounded edge of the oval of cast gold.
And then his parents had been killed. And he and Ashe had been sent north to live in a small military keep at the edge of the kingdom.
His turning ended when he again faced Feesin. Elbana had just rejoined him, and offered to help him off with his tunic with one hand, while holding out cloth wraps for his fists with the other. The tunic was loose enough on his otherwise lanky frame that reaching with his left hand across to his right shoulder and giving the cloth a tug as he shrugged had the garment off and sliding to the floor to sit with his already shed mantle.
Elbana watched the tunic fall to the ground, and Myrl could see his Master of Arms and Horse repress a twitch at the inherent slovenliness of the move. She then began wrapping his left hand and wrist in the length of linen cloth. He looked down at his right hand that held the brooch, then tucked the polished piece of gold onto the top edge of his trousers near his right hip. Myrl stretched his neck and shoulders as Elbana finished with the wrap on his right arm.
And then his parents had been killed. And his real training had begun. Ashe had been adamant that Myrl learn to use actual swords. Myrl had been made to learn to fight. MAster Elbana had come into his life. She taught him how to make a fist. How to dodge a fist. How to take the punches he couldn’t dodge.
He stepped forward and waited.
The priest, Raoh, stood between him and Feesin. The man looked just as calm as he had while slapping Feesin moments ago. Unflappable. But Myrl could feel the rage the man was suppressing. It pulsed around the brawny man where he stood, red tides of ire washing up against Myrl in a sea of excitement coming from everyone else in the hall.
Feesin stood a few strides further away, pale skin slick with nervous sweat as he too stood bare-chested. His breathing was labored. Myrl wondered if the man was on the edge of collapsing in a fit of emotions. He could somehow feel the man’s kaleidoscopic spinning emotions of rage, embarrassment, fear, and extreme disappointment.
And then his parents had been killed. Myrl learned how to slip past a guard, and where to deliver his strike for the greatest …impact.
Raoh made the formal announcements of their intent to dual. The crowd stood in rapt attention, many eyes wide in anticipation.
“And You, Baron Feesin, claim dishonor! What demands do you pose for Arbitration?” Raoh boomed.
“The boy must publicly deny his false claims made against my family, and give up the Crown.”
Many in the crowd laughed at that. High Priest Raoh just shook his head sadly. Raoh looked to Elbana, his Second for these purposes. She slowly shook her head, her face as unreadable as a stone wall.
“And you, Prince Myrl, Heir to Rhiada, What demands do you pose for Arbitration?” the priest asked Myrl. He could feel her anger radiating from where she stood.
“I demand a formal, public apology, here, now, from Baron Feesin. And that he be first in line to swear fealty to the crown once I am on the Throne.” It was as simple as Myrl could have made it. Make the old scarecrow bow. Publicly. He knew the man wouldn't take it, no matter how easy Myrl made it for him. Making it insurmountable would have made him look cruel to those assembled, and if all answers were “no,” then a simple request made him look like the level-headed, mature leader asking for good behavior from the belligerent troll.
And then his parents had been killed. And his hands were now more calloused than people would expect of a Prince of the Realm. His palms were more comfortable holding a sword than a quill.
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Raoh looked to the baron’s second, which was, oddly, the shorter, pudgier of the two younger men, both his sons?, who had been carrying the dueling case and papers earlier. He now looked stoic as he shook his head at the High Priest. His emotions, however, were all a tightly focused ball of rage. Myrl could almost see the flawless obsidian ball of pure, black, hate that slowly turned on its axis in the young man’s chest.
From the other son, Myrl could feel confusion, trepidation, and irritation. All of it tinged with smears of fear. This turn of events was not at all what he had been expecting. His prodigious throat knot bobbed up and down in anxiety.
The High Priest looked from the Seconds, then to the Primaries, then to the crowd and rolled his eyes in obvious disdain for these silly men and their squabbles. The assembled nobles laughed, and called derisively out to Raoh. Raoh allowed his look of sorrow and distress to fall from his face, and smiled along in jocularity with them all.
He then dropped his hands and stepped back from where Myrl and Feesin stood. “My Lords!” His voice filled the length and breadth of the cavernous space, riveting everyone’s attention. “No weapons you were not born with! Fight to Submission, Incapacity, or …” He let the moment hang. “...Finality!”
And then all of those in attendance erupted in raucous cheers. Some in the crowd chanted the ancient cry of “FAIGHINN!! FAIGHINN!! FAIGHINN!!” that once was used in the long extinct fighting pits that used to dot the country, and drew thousands for the deadly tournaments that Rhiada used to mark the changing of the seasons.
Myrl had to admit, he did kind of like this feeling he was being bathed in. Wave after wave of excitement and …joy?
He stepped toward Feesin, holding his arms wide. As he promised, he would let the old man swing first.
Feesin’s chest was heaving in an attempt to breathe. The man was a physical wreck, he had been utterly unprepared to compete in his own duel. He was panicking now, being forced to do his own bloody work. To face the possibility of losing because it was HE, not one of his sons, who had to try to overpower another man. He was now sweating so prodigiously that his coronet was slipping.
Why didn’t he take off his coronet? Does he think it will protect him? Did he just forget it was on his head?
He almost missed it when Feesin began to throw his first punch. The gangly, skinny arms moved in an uncoordinated mess of loose skin, untoned muscles, and awkward bulky old joints.
Myrl almost let the man hit him. Just out of pity. Let the old man feel like he was accomplishing something.
But, then… And then his parents had been killed. And now he was expected to either take his father’s Crown. His father’s Throne. He had not trained so as to become a beastly fighter. Not to be a man dragging himself around from one battle to the next by instinct, Myrl had been taught to fight with forethought. With intent, not instinct.
And this pathetic old scarecrow yelled and capered and shouted, and expected Myrl to just run away. To live elsewhere, or to die off in the wilderness, as long as Myrl didn’t come back and try to take back his rightful place.
Feesin wasn’t facing an angry guard dog, snapping and biting out at everything that gave him pain. He wasn’t fighting a mountain cat, feral needs and hunger driving him to attack cattle and men with equal vigor. Feesin was facing the next King of Rhiada.
The slow pale arc of Feesin’s arm moved laboriously through the air toward Myrl’s chin. In a snap decision, Myrl leaned to his left, and as Feesin’s fist passed his face, Myrl twisted to the right, snapping his left arm up, his open palm slapping Feesin’s elbow, forcing his arm to sail past out of control. Feesin’s right arm dragged the rest of his scrawny old frame around in the majority of a circle.
The man stumbled. And looked around in confusion at not having made contact. Did he swing with his eyes closed?
Myrl reached out and slapped the side of the man’s head, cupping his hand to compress the air around the man’s large, shapeless ear. The loud “POP!” made those closest to the fight jump and laugh. Feesin cried out, and almost went to his knees in pain from the pressure slamming into his eardrum like a blade.
Myrl allowed the man to turn back to him, an ungainly, bumbling arc to Feesin’s right, in a set of half thought out, jerking movements. Myrl noted the man crossed his legs as he stepped and turned.
Myrl stepped forward, driving his right fist up and intp the man’s stomach, feeling the loose flesh give way to allow the punch to move up and under the ribs on the old man’s left side. Myrl gave a half turn, and spun under Feesin’s left arm.
Feesin collapsed with a gasp to the floor. His stomach began to heave in revolt.
Myrl looked to Raoh. The old priest made a gesture of helplessness.
“Surrender.” He said. He leaned his head to the left slightly, watching the man heave and gasp on his hands and knees on the floor.
“...no…” He rasped out between gasps. From behind him, where he knew Feesin’s sons watched, Myrl could feel the rage he had felt earlier intensify. The shorter son was being consumed with hatred.
Feesin made as if to stand up, and Myrl was happy to let the man do so. Until he tried to turn his standing up into a lunge at Myrl, at which point Myrl lashed out with his left fist, striking down the gangly old mess with a strike to the base of the back of his skull.
Myrl stood over the sprawled out form of the baron. From what he could tell, the fight was as close to done as he could make it without killing the fool, and Myrl hadn’t even begun to breathe hard with exertion.
He felt the derision of the Nobility assembled. And they had begun to laugh, and jeer at the quivering mass of bones and pale skin that had been one of their own until mere moments ago. Myrl raised his hand for silence, and looked at the assembly sternly.
A tide of heady anticipation rolled over Myrl. The excitement! It was tinged, just here and there, with what he could only call bloodlust.
A moment of concentration, and an exertion of Will, and everyone in the Throne Room heard him as he said, again, “Surrender, Feesin. Don’t draw this out any more. Bend the knee. Accept me as your King.”
The mound of flesh shivered, and there was a wet mumble.
Myrl dropped to his haunches by the man’s head, and asked again. “Please, Surrender. Swear fealty to me. Let this end.”
There was a moment of silence, and Myrl thought he had won through incapacitation. But, then, he heard, along with everyone else,"...swear… king…”
Myrl sighed, and smiled. He had begun to stand, as a scream erupted behind him, and the sound of running feet approached.
The crowd gasped, and a lightning bolt of fear and incredulity flashed at Myrl from everywhere around him. He spun to see shorter brother, Feesin’s scribe son, running at him with a long, elegant, and gleamingly sharp saber raised above his head.
He shouted a command, backed by a force of Will, and a calculation of force lashed out at the young man’s legs. Off to his far right, he felt Ashe release the exact same spell aimed at the running fool.
Two hammers of force slid into the man’s legs from two different directions, and turned what could have been an abrupt, if forceful, tripping of the young man into a brutal snapping of his right leg.
Most observers thought the young man had tripped and had unfortunately broken his leg in an embarrassing public display. As he lay on the ground thrashing and screaming his pain out to the universe, the Royal Guard surrounded him, kicking his saber away from him. A few other guards surrounded the other son where he stood, agape and confused by rapidly enfolding tragedies perpetrated upon his family.
All three men were gathered up and shuffled away with different measures of success. Feesin and his older son, one carried, the other stumbling as guards held his arms. The younger, heavier son continued to thrash, and scream. Ashe had made his way over to the attempted murderer, and shouted a sleeping spell at the man with such authority that Myrl wondered if the shorter brother might never wake up again.
His limp form was then carried away, as Myrl replaced his tunic and mantle. He pulled the oval gold brooch from the upper seam of his trousers to repin the mantle to his tunic at the shoulder.
Determinedly, Myrl turned back to the dais, and made his way to the throne. With a graceful turn, as if nothing amiss had occurred, Myrl sat.
Myrl lifted his hands, he noticed with a modicum of embarrassment they were still clad in their wraps from his brief fight. He gestured broadly to those assembled/
The hall, silent up until that very moment, erupted in a confusion of cheers. Some chanted his name. Some continued to chant “FAIGHINN!!” And some shouted just for the joy of shouting.