After three days, Ildarg was almost inclined to believe that was his normal routine. Not forging forks, knives or other metal instruments for peasants, but moving his fingers around some long steel strings attached to a wooden instrument, while torturing his throat to make it sing at least one correct note.

Rikastil had taken the duty of writing a song he could sing in the final battle. When he announced it first, Ildarg couldn’t help ask him how many songs he had written, and the answer had further sank his hopes: “Well, this is my second one.” Two days later, he announced the song was ready. As Ildarg practiced inside his house, he felt incredibly stupid. Thank goodness, Silvane had taken the habit of spending the day outside with Elise.

I cannot sing very well,

but my heart is true and pure,

so today my throat proclaims,

mighty Kirja, I love you!

Your benevolence’s so touching,

your conditions are so good.

Hundred books every five years,

and you don’t take us as food!

“Uh,” Ildarg stopped his performance, coughing a bit for the effort, “do I really have to say I can’t sing?”

“Does it hurt you?”

“Hem,” he hesitated, “after three days, I hoped…”

“I thought we could try to soften the audience,” Rikastil explained, “as long as you reach a minimum technique, the important thing is you sing with your heart. Back in the academy, the classmates of mine who got the highest grades weren’t necessarily the most virtuous.”

“But I don’t love that dragon! Who loves dragons?”

“Bard trick: when you sing about love, think of someone you actually love. You just need to replace their name with the one you have to sing about. In your mind.”

“I see.”

He repeated the song again, and at the same time he tried to think intensely of his daughter, with the result that before the eighth verse, he began crying while singing, distressed by that impossible challenge he had to endure to save her life. Strangely, this thrilled the bard.

“Excellent!” he shouted, clapping his hands. “That’s just what I meant! You’ll touch everyone’s hearts!”

Ildarg took a moment to wipe some tears and then answered. “I...I am glad…”

“One more!” Rikastil exclaimed. “Then tonight we’ll find a tavern to practice.”

The blacksmith stopped crying. “Wait...tavern? You mean…”

“There are three things a bard has to know: singing, playing an instrument and being confident in front of an audience. It’s time we practice the third one.”

“I can’t sing in this village’s tavern! Everyone knows me!”

“Don’t worry! I’ll bring you to that other village north of here. Nobody knows you there, right?”

“Hem, I might have sold a pair of items to folks there, but…”

“Then let’s get a move, we have a path to walk later.”

Ildarg couldn’t find a way to debate his teacher. “Fine.”

***

The village in the north didn’t look much different from Ildarg’s; to be fair, all villages looked a bit the same, from what he had seen in his life. The local inn had a bear lying next to a big beer mug, illuminated by a torch above, which shone in that moonless night. Ildarg had never felt so uneasy, not even when meeting the dragon: he was wearing the bard’s clothes, while Rikastil in turn was dressed with the blacksmith’s clothes. The plan was to make the latter look like a normal client, and Ildarg an authentic bard. That ridiculous green suite he was wearing wasn’t helping him be relaxed.

“The Drunken Bear,” Rikastil announced, showing the building with his hand, “best beer in the whole county!”

“It can’t be better than Bolarg’s,” Ildarg replied, a bit eager to defend his town’s pride, “he’s the best innkeeper’s one could have.”

“Trust me, you’ll discover a new world when you taste a pint here. I have visited hundreds of taverns, so I know what I’m saying. Anyway, that doesn’t matter, because you’re not going to take orders tonight. Are you ready?”

“Ergh…”

“You remember how to introduce you?”

“Heh! How many times have I seen you bards enter the middle of the night and say Greetings, villagers, tonight I will delight you with my singing…”

“Alright, you do. I’ll enter first, and you’ll follow me shortly after.”

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Rikastil turned to the building and opened the door. Ildarg repeated to himself the song he was supposed to sing, to let some time pass. He got a bit calmer: he could recite all the words. But once he crossed the space between him and the door, and then entered the local, nervousness began prevailing.

“G...greetings, I...I am Illllllll-” He had just found Rikastil sitting on the farthest table. His look was enough to remember something else. He was supposed to use a fantasy name for precaution. “...I mean, I am Illoren and I’ll be your...ahem, bard.”

Someone in the crowd laughed. If anything, none of those faces looked familiar. But that didn’t make them less intimidating: on the contrary, they began mocking him.

“Make us sing, green rookie!” One said, with a huge mug on his hand. Everyone else laughed more.

From the distance, Rikastil moved his hand to mimic a lute, looking at him. Ildarg took the actual lute from his back and played the first chord. The wrong one.

“I cannot sing v...very well...but my heart is t...true and...aaaarrrggghhh!”

He had just managed to play the right chord. His hands rushed to play the second one, and as a result, the lute played a noise more akin to glass being washed.

“So today my mouth...ergh, my throat proclaims...ergh...ergh...”

He couldn’t remember the words coming next. Ildarg began panicking. The inn’s customers were laughing louder. Rikastil, on his table, looked at him with no expression in particular. He should have thought of Elise, so he could touch his audience more. But the thought of her dying daughter only worsened his agitation.

“Hem, sorry, I’ll do it again...so...I cannot sing very well…I cannot...”

“We noticed that!”

The whole inn laughed.

He had managed to play the first two chords right. Now he only needed to remember the third...his hands moved erratically...why couldn’t he do it? He had played it decently just that day!

When he found the right chord, something hit his hand. Ildarg smelled something very awful, and a slimy sensation pervaded him. His hand was now covered by something that looked like rotten cabbage.

Hit by disgust, he let the lute fall down. As it hit the floor, it played a very dissonant sound. Not only was the whole crowd laughing and booing at him, but more rotten food was coming at him. Ildarg did the only logical thing: exit, leaving the lute behind, abandoned. “Ildarg!” He heard the bard calling him, but he didn’t listen.

Once out, Ildarg looked around himself. He had nowhere to rest. It was late night, too dangerous to travel back home. But he didn’t dare get back to the inn and ask for a room, not with so many people menacing to throw things to him. The awful shame of his terrible performance finally hit him like a train. He sat on the ground, his head hidden between the arms covered with rotten food.

“Hey, Ildarg.”

Rikastil was standing behind him, touching his shoulder in discomfort. Ildarg did not turn his head.

“Definitely, I didn’t soften anyone,” the blacksmith commented, gloomy.

“No, indeed.”

Ildarg retracted within his arms further.

“Listen,” the bard continued, “you don’t have to worry too much. It is perfectly normal to not perform well the first time. Mine was not better either. You only need to acquire confidence and with time you’ll be no more awed by cr-”

“I have that damn bard battle in three days!” Ildarg cried, raising his head towards him. He had taken the lute back.

“Oh,” Rikastil exclaimed, “right.”

“I can’t do it. I’ll have to travel to another village, which is one day by walking. It’s too late.”

“But you must save your daughter!” The bard replied. “It’s your only chance, didn’t you say so?”

“It’s too little of a chance!” Ildarg cried. “I’ll have to get back to that dragon and tell him the situation.”

“Don’t be like that!” Rikastil shouted. Ildarg felt his shoulder being scrolled. “You have learned a lot in these days, it’s just a matter of calmness!”

“Rikastil, how can I be calm when I have to face a crowd bigger than tonight’s, and if I fail I get a dead daughter?”

“Well…”

They stood in silence. From the inn, someone shouted something, but they didn’t pay any attention.

“You can keep my money,” Ildarg said, “thank you for your service. Tomorrow I’ll go back to that dragon’s cave.”

“And what shall you do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll bargain for a different solution.” He paused. “I’m going there alone. Don’t ask me to take you too.”

“I can’t come anyway. I need to be in Lavidar in two days.”

“Perfect. Then I think we can say goodbye, and thank you for-wait, did you say Lavidar?” He got up and turned to the bard.

“Yes, why?”

“That’s where the battle is going to be.”

“Ah, hem…” the bard scratched his hand. “Yes…”

“Don’t tell me. It’s what I’m thinking of, right?”

“Ergh…”

“I’m going to battle you?”

Rikastil lowered his head, defeated.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ildarg shouted.

“You...you offered me so much money,” he admitted, “I make that amount in a year. I couldn’t miss that occasion.”

“And you tried to sabotage me, right? You wrote that stupid song on purpose!”

“No!” The bard replied, indignant. “I swear, Ildarg! I tried to come up with a song you could perform! It doesn’t matter how good it is, if you sing it well!”

But Ildarg didn’t want to hear anything else from him.

“Give me my clothes back,” he said coldly. “I have enough of this idiotic costume.”

“But we’re outside, it’s cold, someone will see us-”

“I don’t care!”

Rikastil sighed. “Fine, then. Let’s just make it quick.”

He began taking out the pants. Ildarg followed by unbottoning the cloak. They were about to exchange the upper side of their clothes, when a voice boomed from the inn.

“Hey, look here! That rookie’s showing himself off!”

More drunken folks came out of the inn, followed by another rain of rotten food.

“Let’s run,” Rikastil said. Ildarg didn’t dispute it, and they fled naked around the village. Soon, many doors opened at once to see the absurd spectacle. The voices of the villagers, the laughs, the shouts surrounded them, in a desperate search of a calm place where to get dressed. Eventually, they found a meadow where cows were grazing.

“Behind them!” Rikastil pointed. Ildarg, as he made the first step onto the grass, felt something very squishy. His shoes were now darker.

“I have stepped on one of their turds,” he announced with a depressed tone.

“Damn,” Rikastil commented, “those were my best shoes.”

“Well, sorry,” he snorted, “but I think at least you are in time to clean them up before the battle. That’s your biggest worry!”

“Ildarg, you have no reason to be angry with me! I did my best teaching you how to be a bard, no need to be that aggressive.”

“I do!”

“Why, exactly?”

“You could have told me I was going to face you!”

“Look, it didn’t come to my mind, fine? Can we finish dressing up before the farmer finds us-”

“Hey, you two, what are you doing with my cows?”

They both fell silent. They still hadn’t finished getting dressed again. Even the cows were looking at them now.

“We...we mean no harm!” Rikastil shouted. “We just need a place for the night! Really!”

“You don’t fool me, thieves! Get away before I tell my dog to come at you!”

Ildarg sighed. “Run away again?”

“Yes.”

They left the meadow and began a second run, with the feeling that night was getting quite repetitive.