As the sun was sinking beyond the horizon and the cliff face cast longer and longer shadows, Judd stepped off the boat, picking up his shirt and boots as he did so. He was thanked by the boat’s steward for his help and walked along the pier to the dock, heading for the steps. He trudged higher and higher, looking no further than where to put his next step and when he reached the top of the cliff he leaned against a post and sighed. The air was cooling so he slid his shirt on, knowing that it would inevitably smell like fish but then, what else was new?
He had always smelt of fish. The first memories of his childhood were of watching his father descale fish from his perch atop the gutting table, hundreds of scales flying into the air, littering the ground at his feet. And the smell of fish was ever present. It was soaked into every aspect of his life, into his home, into his clothing, even into his skin and apparently, all the way to his soul.
He was the furthest any LaMogre had ever been from Astaril and yet he still could not outrun the stench of fish or the way it insisted on dictating the course of his life.
He had made up his mind, upon returning to the hut, to tell Aalis, Verne and even get a message to Caste somehow to go back to their homes. He was no knight and no amount of positive attitude or grit was going to change his future so that he became one.
Perhaps he should just go…
“Ow!” He yelped and clutched at his head. “What in Maul…”
“You ought to look where you’re going.”
Judd turned to the speaker and saw the old farmer who had summed him up so succinctly as to his prospects reclined against a fence post, flanked on either side by ears of wheat waving in the breeze that was picking up. He had cracked Judd over the head with his cane and took Judd’s glare with ease.
“I don’t need to look,” Judd retorted, rubbing the bump on his head, “you told me where to go and I went. Isn’t that enough for you?”
He began to stride off when the old man’s voice reached him.
“So that’s it? One little discouragement and you’re giving up.” Judd kept walking. “Is that what a knight would do?”
“As you so scathingly noted, I am not a knight nor do I have to ability to be one.” The old man made a scornful snort and Judd turned to see him push off the fence post and walk towards him.
“Since when did you care for the opinion of strangers? Everyone’s got an opinion! Even fools!”
“I care when I am beaten to within an inch of my life just to prove a point!” Judd snapped at him. “I care when it becomes blatantly obvious that I cannot protect anyone who travels with me, especially kind hearted healers and reluctant and pedantic clerics who cannot defend themselves. Dalain did me a favour my showing me just how utterly foolish I am!” He realised he was yelling and closed his eyes. “All my life I kept looking at the horizon, wishing I could see what lay beyond…when I should have been focussing on what was right in front of me.”
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He started walking away again.
“Just tell me one thing,” Judd sighed and paused, not turning around but waiting to hear the question, “did Dalain Thiery really knock you on your arse eighteen times?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re still standing?”
“Aalis is a good healer.”
“She’d have to be a blimmen sorceress to have so completely healed you.” The old man reached his side. “Dalain hits like an ogre wielding a sledgehammer…and you got up seventeen times from that?”
“Yeah,” Judd studied the old man, “how…how do you know what he fights like?”
The old man snorted. “Cause I’m Oster Agress, former sword master.” Judd stared at him. “What?”
“You’re a knight?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Agress started walking. “Why be a sword master when you can be a knight? It’s a matter of bloodlines, boy, and neither myself nor Dalain have the right ones. The best people like myself could ever hope for is to be a sword master.”
Judd was so stunned for a moment that he had to jog to catch up with Agress. “You’re really Sir Alaykin’s old sword master?”
“Nay lad, I was Fort Bastil’s sword master. Knights come and go but sword masters…well, we have the experience and responsibility over the soldiers of the fort and so we tend to stay with the forts we are promoted into.”
Judd couldn’t fathom that the wiry old man walking beside him had been a sword master.
“How long?”
“Eh?” Agress paused then shrugged. “Oh…nearly twenty years.”
“Twenty years!”
“Over ten of those serving beneath Alaykin.”
They walked together, Judd’s mind awhirl and Agress’, just wondering what he would have for supper.
“If you were a sword master for twenty years…you must have been extremely good.”
“I was.” Agress said with confidence. “Fort Bastil’s reputation of having some of the finest soldiers in all of Terra came from my time as sword master.”
Judd considered this. “I suppose Dalain Thiery was one of those?”
“He was…until he decided he didn’t want to take orders from me anymore.”
“He got you dismissed?”
“He certainly had a part to play in it.”
Judd chewed his bottom lip, the hope he had crushed beneath tonnes of fish that day starting to wriggle out and become noticeable once more.
“Do you think…would you be able to teach me? To be a warrior?”
Oster Agress stopped and looked at him with a gaze that could have stripped the skin off a shark. Judd could feel himself withering away.
“What use are sword skills when you’re a fisherman?”
His heart sank. “That was a test, wasn’t it?” Judd’s hope slipped away. “I…didn’t remain strong and I…ow!” He rubbed his head and shied away from the old man. “Would you cut that out!”
“Stop trying to learn the lesson before it’s even been taught!” Oster rubbed his face. “Young people…honestly…so eager to get where they’re going they don’t appreciate where they are.”
Judd waited for a long time until the smarting of the second bump on his head began to dissipate. “So…you will or you won’t teach me?”
“Oh I’ll teach you.”
Judd brightened. “Because…I’m tenacious? Noble minded? Strong?”
“No,” Oster snorted, “because you can get up seventeen times against blows dealt by Dalain…there aren’t many who can do that.” Oster leaned towards Judd who kept a close eye on his cane. “Just promise me one thing.”
“You want me to give Dalain a beating?”
“Nay lad, at least, not in the same way you were beaten…” A wicked gleam sparkled in his eye. “Come by my place tomorrow, first light and I’ll see if I can’t turn you into a half decent swordsman.”