In the Time Before Time, it was all man could do to ward off the creatures of the deep wood. His sword was his very survival, a bond not easily broken. In time, the land was settled, peace ravaged the earth, and man knew not the way of it. Man was afraid to be without his sword, and so he gave it new purpose.
-The Triptych; Book of Earth, Panel 2
Castle Tern, Dridon
In the past, battle-hungry, ironclad Grackenwelsh soldiers squaring off against Dridic knights would have been a sight for Lucanh to behold. All the thrill of the battle he’d dreamed of since boyhood was stripped away now. Death descended on Castle Tern, and it marched straight toward him, wielding a weapon mightier than his sword. King Kimbel lifted his war hammer and swung it at Lucanh.
The prince dodged. Whether by luck or instinct burned into him through training, he wasn’t sure.
“Good!” Kimbel snickered. “You’ve no idea how many of your subjects went down after my first strike today. At least you have the sense to move when Havokond comes your way!”
Lucanh’s hand found the hilt of his sword, unsheathing it, the movement thoughtless as breathing. His eyes darted around the keep. It was rapidly emptying of paupers and nobles, who were now pouring into the fortified tunnels and catacombs below, and it was filling with warring soldiers from both sides. He thought briefly of his mother and where she might be.
“Again!” Another swing from Kimbel. The war hammer made a heavy whush sound as it parted the air between them. Lucanh’s body barely reacted in time, but he was out of harm’s way before he even processed the attack.
All those days spent bored to tears with Sir Godwald’s repetitive training paid off when he needed it most. His body moved with rhythm and speed that outpaced his conscious thought, something that surpassed a mere skill—more like a tree that had been pruned and shaped as it grew, the result of tender care, patience, and tireless discipline. Gratitude bloomed in his heart, if only for the moment.
Kimbel bared his teeth. “Very well.” He swung a third time, one side to the other, in a motion that might have decapitated the prince had the hammer met its mark. Lucanh saw the hammer was fitted with sharp blades edged with dried blood, a weapon that cut as well as it crushed. But it had a fatal flaw. Years of tutelage on how to dodge nimble swords and daggers equipped the prince with more than enough agility to evade a powerful but slow-moving war hammer.
“Why did you come here?” Lucanh said, his voice returning with a resurgence of courage. “Didn’t want to send another band of assassins to kill my mother? You managed to have my father killed, though.”
“Your father?” Kimbel sneered. “That desert oaf? He’s been dead since I was a small boy.”
“No, my real father. Sir Godwald. The knight who slayed your assassins.”
“A knight?” Kimbel snickered cruelly. “You truly are a bastard then, and your mother a whore. Who will mourn you when I strike you down? No one!” He swung a fourth time with the same success. “You’ve been raised on a diet of lies and fairy tales.” He swung again, breaking an unlit torch sconce off the wall. “I will make you feel the truth of my strength!” Kimbel swung again to no avail.
“That’s interesting,” said Lucanh. “I haven’t felt much of anything from you yet.” He couldn’t help but allow himself a smirk at his own cleverness.
“You’ll miss this time before you knew the pain that’s coming,” the king answered him coldly. “But you won’t live long enough to learn anything from it.” Kimbel hacked away repeatedly, each time hitting nothing but the air where Lucanh had been an instant prior. “You think this is a game, little boy? Do you see my army flooding your precious castle as you stroke your own ego? Soon you won’t have any space left to run from me!”
He’s right, Lucanh thought. People are dying while I waste time here. He turned his head for a moment, glancing at the knights defending the door leading to the dungeon. Kimbel swung.
Clang! Havokond locked with his sword. Lucanh barely caught the attack in time, his arms bent tight against his chest—he jockeyed for leverage. Kimbel’s attack uprooted his balance and put him on the retreat.
“Getting distracted?” His Grackenwelsh accent was harsh, guttural.
“Not as distracted as you need me to be.” Enough horseplay. Time to end this.
He watched Kimbel’s next attack. Sir Godwald’s training in following the path of his opponent’s movements, anticipating where their body would go next, understanding how the underlying muscles moved in tandem and when—it all coalesced on the battlefield, allowing him to predict where Kimbel would come to rest an instant later.
Lucanh used this instinct and took his first opportunity. His body pivoted out of the way. He swung his sword, struck Kimbel’s armored abdomen.
The conqueror cried out. He dropped Havokond to the floor, still clutching it with one hand. The flexible gatorskin binding bounced slightly off the stone floor with the impact. Lucanh’s blade couldn’t cut through the armor, but the force of the hit had to go somewhere, conducted through the metal and straight into his ribs. The hit rang Kimbel’s armor like a bell. He cradled his stomach, eyes wide and vital for the first time during their fight. Pain awoke the last shred of humanity he had left.
“That hammer must be awfully powerful against cornered peasants!” Lucanh spat. “But to a trained swordsman, it’s just clumsy and slow. You leave yourself wide open with every swing.”
“Your soft, southern-made blade will break on my armor,” Kimbel grunted, gripping Havokond with both hands again, “before you inflict any serious wounds. And then you’re mine. I can be as slow and as clumsy as I want... when I take your life!”
Whush!
This time, the swing caught Lucanh off-guard. He parried it just in time with his sword, using the force of Kimbel’s own movement against him. It was the closest call of the battle so far. His heart beat like a drum.
He should have known Kimbel was not above fighting dirty.
“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Sir Godwald had told him once. “The moment you stop to brag could be your last. If you must boast, wait until you sheathe your sword.”
Whush! The king attacked again. Lucanh’s dodge sent the bladed head of the war hammer into the wall behind him; stone cracked and crunched, crumbling in dust and rock fragments. Was this the unrivaled strength of a Grackenwelsh fighter? Or was this something more? Whatever it was, Lucanh knew it felt wrong.
The king refused to let up, attacking and attacking, driving Lucanh back toward the heart of the keep. I can’t let him find the secret passageways. I need to lead him away.
Lucanh altered his evasive maneuvers, moving the battle toward the large stone staircase that led to the keep’s second level. One of his first lessons in swordsmanship was never to cede the high ground to his opponent. Kimbel didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
On the contrary, the patricidal monarch fought with renewed strength, eagerly forcing him up the stairs. What the hammer-wielder lacked in battle tactics he made up for in brute force and tenacity.
But strategy could be utilized as long as Lucanh was alive and alert; the physical endurance of the human body was much more fleeting. After presumably a full day of swinging that heavy metal around, Kimbel would have to tire out eventually.
“Enough is enough,” the king growled when they reached the top of the steps. “You flit about like a girl and think you can make a mockery of me? You’ll be burning on a pyre before the moon rises, and no one will remember you!” He hefted his hammer with both hands. “Think you’re so quick and clever? Try dodging this!” Putting weight in his legs and midsection, Kimbel raised the hammer back, swung it, and let it go.
Havokond went flying in Lucanh’s direction, heavy with momentum.
It would take his head off whether or not the blade connected.
Lucanh moved on instinct. He ducked. The wind of the weapon whipped past his hair—a few severed strands fell to the floor in front of him. The hammer clanged loudly against the wall behind him and embedded in the rock.
He tried to regain his footing—too late. Kimbel was already charging.
The king tackled the prince, who lost his grip on his sword from the force of the blow. His sword was knocked out of his hands and clattered metallically somewhere far out of reach. He fell backward onto the floor.
“Whatever you do, never, ever let yourself be disarmed in battle, my Prince. To be disarmed can be even more dangerous than to be wounded.”
Kimbel towered over him, one boot planted firmly on Lucanh’s breastplate. The prince thrashed to free himself—no use. Now the king could finally flex his unearthly strength. In this moment, there was no contest between them.
“What did I tell you?” he sneered down at the boy. He drew a dagger from his belt and twirled its point delicately against the palm of his other hand. “As slow...” He ran the blade against the meat of his palm. “...and as clumsy...” A hair-width slit of red blood trailed the sharp edge. “...as I want.”
Kimbel leaned down with cold eyes, his lips thin with contempt. Smeared his own blood across his enemy’s forehead. Held the dagger up to Lucanh’s face.
Thwack! Lucanh delivered a forceful knee to Kimbel’s groin. It was unarmored.
“You... y-you!” Kimbel choked at the sudden pain, his eyes bulging. He dropped his dagger—Lucanh kicked it so that the small blade spun across the floor, coming to rest far away from them. He wriggled out from under the king, who doubled over, glaring up at him. “You maggot!”
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“That was my underhanded move,” Luke said, retreating. “Payback. And I’ve been wearing a codpiece for years—that’s your fault!” He retrieved his sword from the gap under the carved stone banister, sliding it out carefully so that it didn’t fall to the lower level of the keep. He’d had to turn his back to grab it. He held it tighter than ever now with both hands, standing and turning to face his foe.
A hand on his shoulder—Kimbel spun him around. Thud! His fist full of blood slammed into Lucanh’s cheek. It was a thunderclap at point blank range, like taking a small cannon ball to the face.
His ears rang. He saw stars. Lucanh fell to one knee, his right hand still clutching the hilt of his sword, his lifeline. Warm blood dribbled from his mouth, scarlet oozing onto the blue-gray floor.
Kimbel staggered to retrieve Havokond from the other end of the spacious landing.
It’s not that bad, Lucanh lied to himself. Focus. The world had a foggy blur to it now. He felt less agile. This had never been part of his training—Sir Godwald had never inflicted pain on him. You’ve got to get up.
He had the sense that Kimbel’s upbringing had acquainted him well with pain. That’s why the young king was on his feet again, war hammer in hand.
“Get up,” said Sir Godwald. “Prince Lucanh, get up.” For a moment, Lucanh felt transplanted into the past. A memory fell into place over the present world like a curtain. “I’m not done with the lesson just yet.”
“I am,” Lucanh answered. His thick leather armor had cushioned his fall. He still didn’t like it, though.
“With all due respect, my Prince, by Her Majesty’s decree, I do have the privilege of tutoring you until supper.” The knight reached out his hand and offered a friendly, knowing smile. “Getting knocked down is part of that lesson. The most important part of being knocked down is to get back up. Now, get back up. Get up!”
“I said get up!” Kimbel roared. “Get up so I can knock you down again!”
Against the pain, Lucanh struggled to stand, snapping up his sword into a battle-ready stance. He’d found his second wind, or it found him. “You keep calling me a boy.” It hurt to talk. Kimbel was closing in on him. “You’re only a couple of years older than me. You think you’re a real man? Just because you have more muscles than I do yet?”
Whush! Clang! Lucanh parried another strike. “You could have twice the muscle I do. You still wouldn’t know what to do with it!”
“And you do?” The prince dodged the next attack—it smashed a section of the banister at his back, crushing arm-sized pillars and sending them cascading to the ground floor. “You’re not helping anyone. All you know how to do is be cruel.”
“A privilege of the strong. Some might say a duty!” Now Lucanh attacked, and Kimbel was forced to stagger back to dodge, Havokond too slow to redirect the agile sword. “And I fight for all of the Grackenwelsh Empire. I bring glory to my land. My people!”
“But that’s not what you enjoy about it.”
The king grinned, catching his breath. He shrugged almost innocently. “What do you want me to say? That I want to be weaker? That I want to be killed in battle? Of course not.” Whush! Lucanh evaded. “I love knowing how much stronger I am than you! I love knowing that no one can lay a finger on me now! Know why? Because now I’ve finally—”
“You’ve proven yourself.” Kimbel’s smile faded. “Is that it?” Lucanh knew the feeling well, but ever since that night on the road, strength for its own sake was hollow to him.
The Northern king only shook his head. “Your pampered life of royalty has deluded you. I’ve accepted the way of the world.” A lethargic hammer swing—Lucanh’s parry was nothing special, and he barely had to try. “The gator and the waterfowl have no such delusions. One takes and the other is taken!”
Whush! Another heavy swing. Lucanh redirected it with ease, swung his sword again. Clung. Kimbel winced but was otherwise unscathed. The Grackenwelsh armor was too strong, the Dridic blade too dull and weak, for Lucanh to make progress. He was twice as agile with half the strength. His stamina was already falling for the second time.
Luke attacked once more—Havokond swiped his sword aside like a grown man swatting away an overly playful cat.
“It’s no wonder you think this way,” said the prince. “It’s where you came from. Your land. Your father. He was evil, and now you’ve turned out just like him.”
A flash of rage in the king’s eyes. “Wrong!” Whush! Crunch! “Wrong!” Whush! Kimbel swung with newfound intensity, back, forth, back, forth, driving Lucanh across the landing. He left a trail of shattered stone and gliding dust clouds in his wake. “He’s dead! I’m alive! And it’s all because I stopped depending on mercy to survive.” Havokond blew out another cluster of columns in the banister, now a ruin of its former self. “Look where I am now! King of three nations, soon to be king of the entire Stone Continent! Emperor of the world! I’ll take whatever my strength allows. This is the law of the land, boy. And this sentence of yours is what the law demands.”
“What sentence? What law?”
Clung! Lucanh caught a shockingly fast swing of the war hammer with his blade. His arms trembled with the effort of holding it back—his own wide eyes stared back at him from the reflection in the hammer’s black blade.
“Trying to kill your rightful king, of course.” Kimbel grinned again. Pressed the hammer harder. Now the edges of both blades were close enough that Lucanh could see the heat of his breath fogging up the steel. “For that... I sentence you to die!”
Lucanh broke their deadlock. Ducked. Clang! “Agh!” Kimbel’s next strike caught him in the right greave—he cried out in pain. The boy rolled to evade the following swing, which left a spiderweb crater in the floor.
Now his cheek and his shin both throbbed with hot agony, further dividing his attention. He scrambled to his feet. His right leg buckled under his weight pressing on the pain, making him hobble.
Kimbel didn’t slow in the slightest.
Whush! Clang! Crack! Their weapons hurtled through the air, crashing wildly. Blade grazed blade and sprayed orange sparks. Lucanh couldn’t draw up the same energy as before to go on the offensive, and the lightness and fleet-footedness that made evasion easy were softening his attacks.
He couldn’t land a decisive blow to save his life. Worse, his injuries were slowing him down. Soon he’d have no upper hand at all.
“I used to dream of this fight,” he grunted, sidestepping Havokond with great effort. “I hated you. I think I still do.” Kimbel arched an eyebrow and smirked, as if in praise of his honesty. Lucanh dodged the next attack and pivoted into an attack of his own—his sword struck the king’s armored kneecap, finally inflicting some damage. The elder fighter staggered back some steps to regroup. “I don’t know if I believe in Triad anymore, or the Triptych. Not like before. I don’t know what I believe. All I know is...” He grimaced, shifted his weight from his hurt leg. “Isn’t there more to life than this?”
“More to life than struggle?” Kimbel cocked his head. “More to life than proving yourself? Than success? More than... what... thrill, accomplishment, or waking up better than you went to bed?” The king indulged in another dead-eyed smile. “You tell me. Is there?”
“I was never much for the boring panels in the Triptych, but they might say a thing or two about this.”
Kimbel scoffed. “The tome I live by is no fairy tale. It’s a record of triumphs—the weak die and the strong survive. That’s the only code I need!”
Whush! Lucanh dodged Havokond. The rhythm was coming back to him now, buoyed up by a third wind. A hero is he who finds a third wind beyond it—his mind flashed back to the Triptych, to the countless eves he spent reading the tome under the supervision of Sir Godwald. The pity he felt for Kimbel was as sore as his leg. “I’m sorry your father was such a poor teacher. Mine taught me better than yours—but it’s not too late to see it another way.”
Something in those words struck a deeper nerve than Lucanh’s sword had. Kimbel gnashed his teeth like a rabid dog, swinging in another flurry that drove Lucanh back. The prince nearly lost his footing again. “My father... taught me well! He taught me... what I needed... to do!” The crazed hammer wielder panted from the exertion, the first sign that his stamina was finally starting to dip.
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yes! It does—”
“No!” Clang! Lucanh leaned his sword in the direction of the swing, pushing Kimbel’s attack through to its natural progression. He locked eyes with the invader. “It doesn’t. We can both walk away from this. We can make a treaty.” His attacker caught his breath. “I promise.”
A flicker behind Kimbel’s eyes. What was it? Consideration? Fear? Hope? Maybe his words were getting through. It was short-lived. “As if you’d ever honor that.” Clung! A heavy strike—Lucanh held it at bay, and this time, it didn’t take quite so much effort. “I’m the reason your father is dead, you fool! You said it yourself! I tried to have your mother killed—I’m trying to kill you now!” Clang! Blood-tinged spittle flew from his mouth. “Are you a fool? Or just a coward?”
“Strength has a purpose,” said Luke. “And it’s what I’m doing. Not what you’re doing.” Whoosh. Clang! His blade hit Kimbel behind the knee. Clang! He hit him next in the joint between his vambrace and spaulder. “Do you yield?”
The king retreated once more, and then the momentum of their fight slowed to a standstill. They stared each other down, each of them breathing heavily, bruised, bloodied. Their battle stances slackened.
Lucanh took a moment to listen to the mayhem downstairs. It sounded like it was starting to let up. He could hear orders being shouted in the Dridic dialect; either Dridon was starting to prevail, or the Grackenwelsh soldiers had all pushed down into the dungeon, perhaps to the catacombs. He would find out soon enough.
“You really won’t give up, will you?” Kimbel panted.
“No. But I’ll give you one last chance to walk away. Only one. If you refuse, you will die today.”
Kimbel smirked, rolling his eyes. “I don’t doubt the possibility. Stronger men than you would have accepted their fate by now, but you... You just keep coming. All this fighting...” The young man spat a mouthful of blood on the floor. “I never stopped to consider that... maybe I was wrong.” The Grackenwelsh king took a few slow steps forward. The prince readied his sword, but relaxed it when he saw what Kimbel was about to do. He held out Havokond by the grip with one hand, his arm shaking with the weight, as if to drop it.
“You’re surrendering?” Lucanh asked.
Kimbel nodded. “Only if you lay down your weapon, too.”
“You really mean it? I convinced you?” He imagined Sir Godwald patting him on the shoulder for a job well done.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, little prince. Do you know what they do to liars in Grackenwell?” Kimbel chuckled. “Now take me up on my offer before I have second thoughts, would you? This armor chafes.”
Lucanh held out his sword. Nodded. “On three. One... two... three.” Kimbel released his grip on Havokond, letting the heavy war hammer fall vertically toward the floor. In the same instant, Lucanh let go of his sword. The true weight of it was so much heavier than the metal it comprised and he was glad to be free of the burden.
Blood was shed, but they would both walk away before paying the ultimate price. Lucanh was proud of himself. They would discuss the terms of Grackenwell’s surrender and then both approach their respective armies to broker peace. Finally, Lucanh would be the hero he dreamed of being—and he would do it the right way, the way that would have made his father proud.
Havokond’s gatorskin binding rebounded against the floor.
Kimbel snatched it out of the air and swung it in one fell swoop. Whush. The hammer aimed for Lucanh’s head.
The blade hit its mark, broke the skin of his face before he could even scream.