Chapter 5

It took a few days to heal. During that time they worked on sword forms even harder than before. Ezhno said it was critical to be able to fight when you were injured. Still, Mato wanted a way to avoid tearing his feet up again.

Boots were the solution. Miners wore boots, but Ezhno said those were unfit for human feet. They went to the sandal maker down the street from the house. The man was old and bent, and his son did a good deal of the work now.

They greeted Ezhno, who introduced them to Mato. Ebo and Chaska Duck.

“What’s a duck?” Mato asked.

“It’s a bird that flies, swims, and dives,” Ebo said. “They are fast and beautiful. When we lived in the mountains, ducks were common. We used to keep them for their meat and eggs.” He smiled and his eyes unfocused. “I wonder what they tasted like.”

“Duck is excellent,” Ezhno said. “Fatty, tender, good flavor.”

Ebo licked his lips. “I can almost imagine it.” He shook his head, then clapped his hands. “Come here, Mato. We need to measure your feet.”

The measuring tickled, but he tried to hold still. They checked the length of his feet, the width, the height of his arch--Mato hadn’t known he had an arch--and several other things.

Chaska got a block of wood out and began carving it. He started with a hatchet, removing fairly large pieces. By the time they left it was clear he was making a model of Mato’s right foot.

“Come back this evening,” Ebo said. “We’ll have the models ready to test.”

“Very good,” Ezhno said.

Then they went home and Ezhno began teaching Mato to fight with knives.

It was terrifying. Up close, very fast, and Ezhno’s description of knife wounds was sobering.

“Avoid knife fights even more than you avoid other fights. You will be injured, and you may have scars that never heal correctly. If you are forced into a knife fight, you must be brutal. Kill your enemy, cripple them, maim them. Take whatever they offer, whether that is a finger, an eye, or their life.”

Knife fighting was bad enough when they were standing, but then Ezhno encorporated wrestling. There were ways to get control of a fighter’s arm based on how you gripped them, and how you rolled. Mato was used to fighting for the top. If he could pin his friends, he won.

That was totally invalid for combat. He could pin Ezhno, and still take a knife in the ribs, across the throat, or in his manhood. That last one forced them to take a break while Mato recovered.

“You have lived a gentle life,” Ezhno said. “You wrestled with your friends, but you were careful not to hurt each other. In a fight for your life, there are no rules. I defeated a robber once by rolling him into the campfire. Another time I tracked a bandit and slit his throat while he was squatting.”

As the sun disappeared over the eastern wall they walked back to the sandal makers.

“Stop limping, Mato.”

“Why?”

“It tells me you are hurt, and it tells me where you are hurt. That is an advantage you should not give me. Always move as if you are healthy.”

“Even if there is blood dripping down my arm?”

“Especially when there is blood dripping down your arm. A man who can ignore injury is terrifying.”

At the shop Chaska compared the models to Mato’s feet and marked them where they needed a bit more shaving.

“Come back in a week. We will have your boots ready.”

Then they returned home and practiced knife fighting until long after sunset. Mato went to sleep worrying about whether some of his bruises were serious enough to keep him from training. Then he had nightmares about people slipping up on him and stabbing him.

* * *

Morning arrived in the form of a bucket of water dumped on his head. He sputtered awake, wiping water from his eyes. Then he got up and donned his pants.

“I’m going to sneak up on you in the middle of the night some time.”

Ezhno chuckled. “You should. If you can do it, I deserve it. We must learn to be vigilant, even when we sleep.”

They went through their morning sword forms, and about the time Mato started to feel warmed up, Ezhno changed things up.

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“That is enough of that for now. Today we will begin learning swords for real. Go get your blade.”

Mato went to his sleeping nook and got his sword, then belted it on. When he turned, Ezhno was already waiting for him in the training circle.

“This is a Spirit Blade,” Ezhno said. He drew his sword and held it across his palms. “Come look.”

Ezhno’s sword was much like his own, sharp on one edge, slightly curved, with a handle that allowed one or two-handed grips. There was fine writing, in a strange language, starting at the base of the deep green blade.

“More specifically, it is a forest blade. You have a water blade. I have also seen blades for grass, wind, sand, salt, sun, sky, and serpent. Forest and grass blades are the most common, at least in the places I have traveled. Salt and water blades are rare. Sotsona IX has a salt blade. I have not encountered another. I have only seen three water blades, including yours.”

“Is there a difference, other than the color?” Mato asked.

“There is. A forest blade has a camouflage effect. If I hold my blade, and stay in the shade of a tree, I will vanish. I cannot move without revealing myself, but for concealment and ambush it is very powerful.

“A grass blade is also very powerful in the right places. When you are in tall grass, you can see someone coming because the tips move with their passage. If you are holding a grass blade, this does not happen. Avoid fighting a grass blade bearer in the grass. They will sneak up on you, and stab you in the back.”

“What about my sword?” Mato asked.

“Sadly I do not know what a water blade’s effect is. We will have to experiment and see if we can discover it.

“Notice the runes on the blade. Each rune has a meaning, and comes with an outward-facing power.” He turned the sword over. “On this side are glyphs. Note that while the runes have straight lines and sharp angles, glyphs are characterized by curves and loops. Each glyph comes with an inward-facing power.

“You will always start with a rune. They are earned by fighting thema. Many people call them monsters, but thema come in a wide variety. Large, small, ugly, beautiful, vicious, peaceful, and so on. Some are strange, meaning you will never see anything like them in the natural world. Others are simply enhanced versions of things we already know. All of them are possessed of power beyond human ability.”

Mato reached out and ran his fingertip over the glyphs. They felt like they had been scratched into the blade, but they were made of black lines that made them easy to see.

“How do you get glyphs?”

“You etch them yourself. Spirit blades give us the strength to resist the thema. They encourage bravery and initiative by forcing you to pursue conflict in search of power. They also encourage learning. Each glyph must be paired with a rune. If they are paired well, they become more powerful. If they are mismatched, they become less powerful. They may not work at all. A fire rune paired with an ice glyph is a waste of both. The process of earning runes and pairing them with glyphs is called balance, and it is critical to training a powerful blade.”

“Okay. When will you teach me about runes and glyphs?”

“Initially, I will not teach you. You must start your training with the priests. Next week I will enroll you in a class. But Mato, you must pay close attention to me now. Do not question the priests. Do not challenge them. Some of the things they teach are contradictory. Do not mention it. Simply learn your lessons, take your tests, and return to me.”

“Why from the priests, and not the academy?”

“Runes and glyphs are considered sacred knowledge. Your education in their meaning and power must begin with the priesthood. Once you have a sound foundation, you can learn additional details from experienced people like me.”

“What happens if I fail the tests?”

Ezhno snorted. “You will not fail. The tests are not difficult. On the very unlikely chance you do fail, you will simply have to repeat the class until you pass. The critical thing is to treat the priest’s every word as if it is the only source of truth in the world. If one priest contradicts another, gloss over it and move on. Failure is tolerated, heresy is not.”

They spent the next few days working with spirit blades. All of their practice and sparring were at slow speed. Ezhno was paranoid about injury, and Mato assumed he had good reason.

His blade was impossibly sharp. His favorite demonstration was to drop a hair onto the blade and watch it part as it fell. The edges were more durable than anything he had seen. Where ordinary knives dulled or chipped easily, spirit blades withstood having the edge swung into rocks, or against normal swords. The only damage he saw was when Ezhno carefully swung his blade into Mato’s, and the collision left a gouge in the edge.

“How do we fix it?”

Ezhno grinned. “Put it in its sheath for the night. It will be perfect in the morning.”

“I’ve heard stories of magic swords being broken. Are they true?”

“Depends on the story. It isn’t common. I’ve seen a sword broken by a massive clawed thema, but after the battle Jilon put the two halves back in his sheath, and the next day the blade was perfect. They say Sotsona the First broke blades and stole their power, but I don’t know if that is literal or figurative.”

“What else do I need to know?”

It took Ezhno a couple of minutes to stop laughing. “You need to know thousands of things. Tens of thousands. Right now you need to know that this blade is yours. You cannot earn another. If it is lost or destroyed, you will be a normal man for the rest of your life.

“Right now this blade can be stolen from you, but when you earn your first run you will imprint yourself on it, and it on you. That means that you cannot give your imprint to another sword. Ever. And your sword will not be useful to anyone else.”

Ezhno traded blades with him. “Now show me some of your forms.”

The water sword had felt light in his hand, almost like it knew what he wanted and was helping him do it. The forest sword fought him. It felt unnaturally heavy. He could barely hold it up, and it fought his attempts to move it through a basic sword form.

“Is it like this when you try to move my sword?” Mato asked.

“Not yet, but after you earn a run, yes. Any sword that is not your own will fight you.”

“So it can’t be stolen?”

Ezhno snorted. “It certainly can. Thieves will not take it because it has value to them, they will take it because doing so harms you.”

“You can only have one sword in your life, and if you lose it or it is destroyed, you cannot replace it. That is why you are teaching me about theft.”

Ezhno patted his shoulder. “You begin to see, but that is not all of it.”