The swish and flick of Reyland’s shortsword graced the air, as the young apprentice trained in the courtyard of the keep. This far north in Arkasia and especially in the middle of autumn, he had hardly worked up a sweat in spite of being nearly an hour in, thanks to the cool air and the light misting of rain over him. His boots danced through small puddles of mud and water, tracing their way through lunges and backsteps, twists, slow creeps and bursts of movement, all while barely making a sound. He wore nothing but his boots and the black trousers he’d been given, his shirt resting dry under the roof of a nearby stable, revealing a lean figure of powerful muscle.

He swung at no training dummy, duelling instead an imaginary foe, flowing between stances and guards as he reacted to the invisible attacker. The entire world to him had closed off, leaving only himself and his foe. The castle, the solid, light grey skies overhead and even the soldiers that milled about atop the walls were but vague shapes and colours to him, his only thought on his next movement. The next step in his dance.

When he had finished his bout, he made his way to the stable. Then he grabbed a clean rag he had requested to dry first his sword, and then his torso and hair. He exhaled deeply, enjoying the peace of the early morning courtyard, and the quiet of the empty courtyard.

As he took a swig from his waterskin, he noticed for the first time that he had a spectator.

“Well, you look like death himself,” Reyland commented teasingly.

Matthaeus sat on the wooden steps to the keep not far from him, the only other person in the courtyard. The boy was hugging his knees to his chest, looking at the ground a few feet in front of him without moving or making a sound. The boy looked as if he hadn’t slept all night, his eyes were dark, sunken and red. Coupled with his pale skin, thin stature and black hair, he looked halfway to a corpse.

“I figured you’d have been still sleeping. Something got you up early, lil’ tyke?”

Matthaeus looked up with only his eyes, then hugged his knees a little tighter to his chest and turned his gaze to the ground once again.

“Hm,” Reyland hummed, thinking. He didn’t have the best idea of what the kid must be thinking, but he didn’t really like seeing him so obviously upset or bothered by something.

“Oi, want a quick lesson?” Reyland called out, and Matthaeus looked up again. “You know, swordplay. Some exercise might make ya feel better, aye? Works for me.”

Without waiting for an answer he knew wouldn’t come, Reyland sheathed his sword and walked over to a barrel that rested just under the overhanging roof of the stable. It was filled to the brim with varying lengths of wooden training swords, most in varying states of disrepair, with chips and splinters along their lengths. He pulled out two, one that was about the length of his own shortsword, and another that was the shortest one he could find.

“Here,” Reyland called out to the downtrodden boy, holding the shorter sword out to him. Matthaeus eyed it curiously, a little bit of light coming back to his eyes. “Go on, take it.”

The boy took the sword by the handle, holding it awkwardly with both hands. It was large enough to be a longsword in his hands, but he seemed not to struggle with the weight at least, in spite of his frail stature.

Then again, given the kinds of injuries the kid had survived, Reyland supposed calling him ‘frail’ was doing the boy a disservice.

“Righty then,” Reyland said casually, walking back out into the faint, misting rain, giving the wooden blade a few test swings. “C’mon out, kiddo, I know you ain’t gonna melt.”

Matthaeus followed him out cautiously, wielding the sword a bit like a broomstick, unsure of where to hold it as he walked. Reyland smiled and shook his head. He remembered those days, long ago, using wooden sticks to play-fight with his younger brothers…

“Here, let’s fix that stance of yours, first and foremost,” Reyland announced, eyeing the way Matthaeus was standing. He tried to channel some of the spirit of his old instructors, from back in his Initiate days before Griff took him in as an apprentice. “There’s nothing more important than good footwork, aye? A blade’s only useful for running yourself through if you’re just stumblin’ over your own feet all the time.”

He walked beside Matthaeus, and settled into a basic longsword stance, keeping his feet wide and planted, lowering his centre of mass. He gestured for Matthaeus to copy him, and wordlessly, he guided the boy into position.

Matthaeus turned out to be a quick little learner, Reyland soon discovered. Despite the language barrier, Reyland was able to show him three basic guards and stances shockingly fast, and the boy remembered them too. Even half an hour after he had last done a stance, upon calling for it using a simple one-word callout they had created, Matthaeus shifted into just the right stance, almost perfectly. A quick tap to the inside of his knee to remind him to bend them just a little more, and it was near perfect.

A little flicker of pride went through him, at the boy’s quick progress. Maybe he’d make a good instructor, someday, after his apprenticeship with Griff was done. Or, maybe he just had a good student.

He chose to believe it was both.

“Right,” Reyland called again, speaking slowly and clearly as he had most of the morning. “Let’s try some strikes now, aye? Watch.”

He raised his own sword up high, holding it as if it were a longsword, and performed a diagonal cut from his right shoulder to left hip. He moved through the motion slowly, trying to show how to follow through, activating the muscles throughout his back and core for control, twisting at the hips for power.

Matthaeus followed suit, much more clumsily. His footwork and stance faltered as he lost his balance just a touch, and he leaned forwards too much at the end of his swing, killing any momentum for a follow-up attack.

“Not bad, not bad,” Reyland said, nodding sagely. In spite of it all, it truly wasn’t a bad attempt for someone who’d clearly never held a sword before. “Again.”

Much of the morning passed just like that. At times they took breaks, Reyland sharing his waterskin, and at times they went back to the basics. Footwork, form, strikes, over and over again until Reyland felt it was enough for one day. Too much, and he would be more likely to forget things.

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“I think we’ve got a lil’ swordsman on our hands, aye?” Reyland said with a hearty grin as they wrapped up, planting a hand on Matthaeus’ head and ruffling his hair. “Good work today, lil’ tyke. Was a lotta stuff, but I think ya did great.”

Matthaeus panted a bit from the exertion, and Reyland chuckled. To him, it hadn’t even been a warmup, but he was more than happy to give Matthaeus something to do. He hadn’t seemed quite as troubled all morning since they started, after all.

“-ou” A little voice said, and Reyland stopped and perked his ear up.

“Eh? Did you say somethin’?” He said, stuffing both swords back into the barrel they came from.

“...Thank you,” Matthaeus said shyly and with a thick accent, refusing to look him in the eye.

Reyland’s grin grew ear to ear.

“Aw, don’t mention it. I needed the practice too, or the old man will get pissy at me.”

“That’s one way of phrasing it.”

Reyland jumped at the sudden sound of Griff, just behind him, turning and shooting his mentor a disgruntled look.

“We should really sit and have a talk about you sneaking up on people, mate,” Reyland said with a sigh.

“You should be more aware of your surroundings,” Griff replied simply. “Are you finished now?”

“Aye, figured Matthaeus shouldn’t push himself much harder than that.”

“Good,” Griff said with a single nod. “The kitchens have prepared lunch. See to it that you’re both well fed, then take the afternoon to yourselves. We’ll speak more at supper.”

“I thought we were leaving today?” Reyland asked, a bit surprised. “Kind of late then, if we’re having supper here again. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

“Plans have changed,” Griff said, and the grim look on his face was enough to make Reyland frown as a hint of worry came over him. “We’ll leave in the morning. Make sure you’re well rested.”

Then, the eldest member of their party left them alone in the courtyard once again, striding back inside the keep with purpose. After he was gone, Reyland scratched at his head before addressing Matthaeus.

“He doesn’t get any less odd with time, trust me.”

Matthaeus nodded, still watching the door where Griff had entered the building.

“Eh, nothing for it then,” Reyland said with a shrug. “I wonder if we’ll be havin’ duck again tonight…”

----------------------------------------

They did not have duck again that night, as it turned out. Supper was pork, which Reyland initially frowned at, immediately followed by a mental apology to the cooks after he tasted it. Matthaeus ate every bit as ravenously as the night before, prompting many jokes from Reyland about the bottomless pit that was the boy’s stomach, while Griff and Lord Aubrey held more important discussions Reyland promptly ignored.

Then, when supper was done, Reyland found himself and Matthaeus alone together, at the very top of the keep. The boy had simply followed him after supper, since Griff and Aubrey were still at the table, and Reyland had merely shrugged and let him tag along.

It had taken a while of searching, but eventually the wooden ladder to the flat topped roof of the keep was found and Reyland excitedly climbed up. The view was everything he’d hoped for.

Under the light of the nearly full moons, the forest was in full display. Seemingly endless flats of trees and plains, old fields and forests in patches to the north and east. In the northwest, glimmering faintly was the ocean that separated Arkasia from the Norlands, though it was barely visible over the forest tops, and even then only from such a high point as the keep’s peak. South, the forest continued farther than the eye could see, though Reyland knew that eventually there would be the Selerican Sea, followed by Selerica on the other side. It would be weeks upon weeks of travel through untamed wilderness to even get to the sea’s coast, though.

Lastly there was the west, where peaking up into the skyline over the horizon, a towering mountain range could still barely be seen, little more than a dark outline against the starry night sky.

“Do you see there, Matthaeus?” Reyland asked, pointing towards the mountains. “That’s our destination.”

“Castle Acheron, home of the Order, is right there in those mountains. It guards the pass between the Grand Arkasian Forest, where we are now, and the Arklands on the far side. Hard to believe it’s visible even from here, though. We’re still weeks of travel away.”

Matthaeus’ amber eyes followed his finger, looking at the mountains quizzically.

“Ah, then again,” Reyland said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard the mountains up north are twice, maybe thrice the size of ours down here, and absolutely crawling with dragons and giants. These probably aren’t too impressive then, eh?”

Matthaeus, of course, did not respond. He simply continued to stare at the mountains in silence. Reyland shrugged, finding a section of wooden crates to lay back on, resting his hands under his head as he looked out at the night sky. A few moments later he heard Matthaeus quietly clamber up onto the boxes next to him, laying down side by side in silence.

“Are the stars different up north, I wonder?” Reyland mused. “I’ve never been to the Norlands, so I wouldn’t know. Maybe someday, when ya get your memories back and a few more words into ya, I can convince you to tell me about it.”

Matthaeus was silent next to him, but by now, Reyland could tell it was a comfortable silence. A strange change of pace for the apprentice, but he found that it wasn’t all that bad anymore, now that he was used to it.

“There, see that one?” Reyland pointed at a little cluster of stars. “That’s Sahrn, see? Old archmage, from back in the days when Kasin was just bein’ built and always gettin’ attacked by wyverns and the like. They say his magic was so mighty he didn’ die, just made a new home for himself up in the stars. See there, you can see his arm and his wand, then there’s his head…”

Reyland pointed out the whole constellation, knowing Matthaeus was listening and following his pointing, even if most of the words were lost in translation.

“And there,” Reyland said with a smirk. “That one’s old King William, the first king of the Arklands. First man to unite the Arklands as one, and beat back the invading Arkasians. Since then, every king of the Arklands has taken the name William, maybe just to honour him, maybe to try and be like him, dunno. But they all take his name one way or another. If ya look there, that’s his sword, sweepin’ out to the east overtop of Arkasia, and his shield drawin’ a line north to south, separatin’ the Arklands from the Arkasians in the east.”

“And there, if you… hm?” Reyland continued, finger drawn to point at another constellation, only to realise half of the constellation was missing. The sky simply went dark, all of the stars disappearing, and it took Reyland a few moments to piece together what was happening.

“Storm clouds?” Reyland muttered, a frown crossing his face. “Ah, blimey, that ain’t good. Griff’ll need to hear about this.”

“Hear what?” Matthaeus asked quietly. “What are… stohm klauds?”

“Storm clouds,” Reyland said back slowly, smiling a bit at Matthaeus’ still thick accent. “For now they’re bad news, is what they are.”

Matthaeus nodded slowly.

“Snow?” Matthaeus asked.

“Not likely, this time of year,” Reyland responded. “Still, that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be pleasant… not if we’re leaving tomorrow. Here’s hoping the winds don’t blow our way, aye?”

Matthaeus nodded again, his eyes never leaving the clouds far off to the north. Reyland went back to pointing out constellations, reciting off old stories from memory, things he hadn’t talked about since joining the Order. Eventually a cold wind blew across the roof, and both boys began to shiver, forcing them inside.

Reyland spared one last backwards glance at the clouds forming in the distance. He very, very much hoped it wasn’t heading this way.