Bound by Steel

“Today, we use steel.”

Rylan Mal Eoin looked up at her teacher in surprise. After yesterday’s disappointment on the training field, she was sure she was not getting any better, but Lochlan would never agree to use the sword if she hadn’t improved. This was just his way of showing her that he noticed her achievements. Lochlan was definitely not a coddler—she had learned that the first week of her training.

When she answered, she tried to keep the smile from her lips. “Are you sure?”

“No. But you need to learn,” he grunted. “You can’t fight beside the King of Fallon with a big stick in your hands.”

Trying to stifle her joy, she ran to the weapon house that stood slanted but proud, just near the practice field. When she first came to Lochlan’s training camp high on the hills of Berit, she had sat on the dirt floor of the weapon’s house and stared at the blades, dreaming of the day that she would finally hold her own.

Stopping at the sword gantry, she gawked at her rightful chosen weapon. It gleamed like a polished gem even in the gloom. She marveled at its shape and the elegant line down its shaft to the sharp tip. If she turned the hilt, she knew she would see the emblem of the Maiden engraved in it—a majestic eagle, wings spread wide. It was branded into the leather-bound handle. The eagle was the symbol of spirit, bridging the heavens and earth. It was under that symbol that the Sword Maiden defended the Kingdom of Fallon from all peril.

One day, if she was worthy, it would be her emblem to wear.

Rylan reached out and touched the hilt of the sword. The solid handle molded into her palm as if she’d been born with it in her hand. Gripping it tightly, she pulled it from its hold. The weight and power of it surged down her arm. She swore she could feel the ancient energy of her Great Grandmother, the last true Sword Maiden of Fallon. She had used this sword in the battle that took her life. Rylan could almost feel the blade sing on its own without the force of her arm to guide it.

“Are you coming, girl? We haven’t got all day.”

Lochlan’s gruff voice startled Rylan from her awestruck stupor. She shook her head at her folly. This was not the first time she held the sword. Lochlan gave it to her when she had turned sixteen, after her fourth year of training. He told her its origins and let her hold it to see if it would fit her grasp. It had. But today, it seemed different in her hand. As if it called to her, whispering dark secrets only she could hear.

Taking the sword, Rylan rushed back out onto the battlefield. She stood ready a few paces from Lochlan, her sword raised in the position she’d been taught. Luckily, she’d been practicing with a weighted wooden stick to match the weight of the sword for the past three years. Her arms were strong, rippled with muscle, built to lift and brandish the steel.

Lochlan advanced his weapon, striking forward. Rylan brought her sword down and blocked his. He spun around and came at her again. She turned her sword and blocked him again pushing back with all her might. Lochlan stumbled backwards.

Rylan couldn’t help the grin of satisfaction that blossomed on her face. It was the first time she’d ever managed to push him off balance.

Lochlan righted himself and nodded to her in acknowledgment of the point she made. She nodded back, still unable to hide her grin.

“A disciplined warrior does not gloat over her triumphs.”

“I know, but I can’t help it. It feels different today.”

Narrowing his penetrating blue eyes, he studied her. “How?”

“The sword feels…”

“Like an extension of your arm?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Good. That is the way it should feel.”

Often, Lochlan spoke of the spiritual bond between Maiden and her sword. How they would become one, as if an extension of each other. Rylan didn’t understand how a person could bond with an inanimate object even as she held it close to her body, feeling the power of it surging over her, through her.

Through the haze of the gray day, she could finally see an end to her excessive and grueling training. Soon, the legend of the Maiden would be hers to bear. She just hoped she had the strength to support it.

“Again. Let us see how much you can show me.”

They lined up on the field facing each other in ready positions. Lochlan advanced, lowering his blunted blade to waist level and swinging it up. Rylan took a step back and began her swing to counter it.

Father! Help me!

The terror-filled voice pervaded her mind and Rylan dropped her arms.

Lochlan’s stick hit her on the hip, hard.

As she stumbled sideways, pain radiated up from her flank.

“You dropped your guard. You should have seen my stroke coming.”

Rylan rubbed at her sore hip. Bruises would bloom on it by nightfall. “I lost my concentration for a moment. That is all.”

“That would be all, if I had a sharp blade and not a blunted stick.”

“My mail tunic would have protected me.”

“Maybe from a cut, but not from an injury. A bigger, younger man with a long heavy sword could have broken your leg with that swing.”

“I’ll concentrate harder.”

“See that you do.” He stepped back and raised his blunted sword. “Again.”

Rylan spread her legs and readied her stance. The boy’s voice still clung to her mind like a baby clinging to its mother in fear. Shivers raced up and down her body remembering last night’s dream. She refused to play frightened child to an echo of a dream, however much it had startled her. Quieting her thoughts, she raised her sword.

Lochlan stepped forward and swung down with a wide arc. Rylan stepped to the side and brought her sword up, swinging to strike his hands, hopefully to knock his weapon from his hands.

Three cloaked men carry a young boy gagged and tied. They creep through stone halls in the night, as quick and silent as shadows. A guard dressed in full armor passes their way. But he does not see them, as they pull back and seem to blend into the dark against the wall, virtually disappearing.

Slowly opening her eyes, Rylan realized she was down on the ground, face first in the mud, her lips smeared with the sludge. Blinking back tears, she tried to clear her head. Pain radiated from her shoulder. She tried to move but found she couldn’t push up with her arm.

“Stupid girl. What were you thinking?” Lochlan growled as he pulled her up roughly, uncaring of her wounds. “Are you blind? Did you not see my stick coming at your head?”

Rylan rubbed the muck from her mouth and spat out the residual. “What happened?”

“You dropped your sword, and I hit you. That is what happened. I was wrong, you are not ready to use the steel.”

“I’m sorry Lochlan,” she sighed. “I’m more tired than I first thought. The dream I had—”

“Pah! A ride through the labyrinth will wake you up. Saddle your horse,” he commanded as he stomped back to the weaponry shack, grumbling under his breath. “And make sure to put back your sword in its rightful place after you clean it off and polish it. It will be some time before it meets your hand again.”

With a sense of dejection and disappointment, Rylan watched him storm back into the weapon house. After her years of training, she was used to Lochlan’s discontent with her efforts, but today she had felt ready and worthy to wield the legendary blade. She’d been wrong. Even under the worst strain, Maidens needed to perform.

A lousy dream had been able to throw her off. She was evidently far from ready.

The thought of failing squeezed her heart until she thought she would black out from the pain. Eight years of intense, brutal training and she still couldn’t wield her sword properly. Maybe Lochlan was right, and she would never be ready. Maybe her dream to be the first Sword Maiden in sixty years was just that—a dream.

The thought of her returning home a failure and having to face her mother with that knowing smile and gleam in her eyes, nearly made her nauseous. Her mother had been against her training from the beginning. When Rylan declared at twelve years old that she was going to follow the line of the maiden’s, follow her Great Grandmother’s legacy, her mother had told her she was foolish. That the life of a maiden was nothing but pain, suffering, and loneliness. She thought Rylan should quit her foolhardy dreams, find a husband and have babies.

The last thing Rylan wanted was a man to take care of and a house full of children, wailing for her attention. She wanted a life of adventure and danger. A life born to legends. She was made for that. In her blood boiled the same spirit that had pumped through her Great Grandmother, Maiden Sayrla. She wanted to live forever in the stories and books of the legendary Sword Maidens of Fallon.

She would do anything to achieve that dream.

Picking up her sword, she wiped the residual mud off on her tunic and shuffled to the old rambling house to return it to its rightful place in the cabinet.

First, she obviously needed to learn to use her sword.

An hour later, Rylan was in the stables with her squire, Tressa, readying her horse. After her failure on the practice field, she was resigned about racing the labyrinth. She had barely been able to finish it on her best day, let alone one where she felt so out of sorts.

“He pushes you too hard,” Tressa muttered as she tightened the stirrups on the saddle.

“He does what he thinks is right.” Rylan bridled her mount, patting him gently on the bridge of his nose.

“Well, it’s not right when he forces you into this course when it is clear to any that look upon you, that you need rest. You can barely stand straight on your two feet.”

“I’ll be fine, Tressa. I’ve run this course several times before. Quit nagging like an old woman.”

“Aye, and the last time, you came back with bruises the size of melons on your legs. I know as I had to doctor you up with salve.”

“Lochlan’s last tree trap took me for a surprise is all. I wasn’t ready for that branch to come swinging at my head, and I fell off,” she chuckled, patting her horse on his flank. “Didn’t I boy?”

“I don’t know how you can be so unconcerned. One of those clever traps could kill you. If I were you, I would tell him exactly what I thought of his stupid course.”

“Then, it is a good thing for all of Fallon that you are not her.” Lochlan stood in the open barn door, scowling.

Tressa turned toward him, a hand on her round hip. “You listen to me, fella, Rylan needs to rest. Can you not see how she tires?”

“She can sleep later. She must train now. There is no rest in war.”

Tressa sniffed. “We are not at war, you daft man.”

“We are always at war.” He tossed a canvas bag to Rylan. “Fetch me some apples at the end of your course, I fancy an apple cobbler for my supper. If you don’t hit your marks on the targets, it will be two days of ditch digging for you, we need a new privvy.”

Shaking her head, Tressa mumbled under her breath. “And you can bake your own damn pie.”

“You will bake the pie, woman, or you can return to the nasty back allies of Berit where I found you squatting in the dirt.” Turning on his heel, he marched out of the stable.

Rylan just shook her head and tightened the saddle strap around her mount’s girth. Tressa and Lochlan bickered on a daily basis but she tried to stay out of it. There was no sense in having Lochlan furious at her too. He had ways of making her pay for such disrespect, like digging ditches in the heat of the summer sun. Tressa, on the other hand, could get away with it, and had been for the last eight years. It was just their way of communicating.

After patting her horse’s flank for reassurance-hers or his, she wasn’t sure-she mounted him. Once she was secure in the saddle, Tressa handed up her crossbow and five bolts. Rylan secured the bolts into her arrow quiver hanging from the saddle pommel, and tucked the crossbow into her side, so she could hold the reins in her other hand. She’d fallen off her mount several times before learning to handle both weapon and horse.

“Good luck.”

Rylan nodded. “I’ll need more than luck. Only the power of Kernunnos will see me through this day.” Clicking her tongue to her horse, she pressed her heels into his sides, and galloped out of the stables.

After a body-numbing three hours through the course, it was a huge relief when Rylan came around the last corner of the trail and spied the sharp cliff ahead. Her horse sprinted to the finish line. Tired and sore, Rylan thanked the gods for the end. She wasn’t sure she could’ve continued for much longer.

Within moments, she made it to the bottom of the cliff facing. Rylan looked up, spying the apple trees topside. Bright red and shiny, the juicy fruit was begging to be picked. She pushed her horse on, clicking for him to go up the hill. He started up the rocky terrain, the rocks slippery with rainwater. Small boulders started down and knocked him in the ankle. He snorted in surprise.

At this rate, Rylan thought, he wouldn’t make it without injury. However delectable the apples were, she wouldn’t risk him for a few.

“Go back down, Ahern. I’ll go up alone.”

When they were back at the bottom, Rylan dismounted, and wrapped the canvas bag around her shoulder. She scrambled up the bluff digging her hands into the dirt. Rocks dislodged under her feet as she climbed, causing her to slip and fall to her knee. Later she would feel the bite of the rock in her skin, but now all she cared for was to reach the top. She found her footing once more and climbed, using her fingers to find holds to support her weight. After a few more insignificant tumbles, she made it to the top, her breath coming in pants.

More exhausted then she cared to admit, she gazed up at the rangy apple trees. Now she would have to climb, for these apples grew on the highest branches naturally.

Reaching for the lowest branch, she set her boot up on the side and pulled herself up. Her arms quivered with strain, but triumphed as she was able to reach for the next branch and pull herself to the next level and then to the next. Eventually, she sat on the highest thick branch and picked the succulent fruit.

As she plucked each apple, Rylan cursed Lochlan’s name. The prickly old man better be grateful that she was bothering with his stupid apples. For the first time, she mastered the course virtually unscathed. It was a big victory and she wanted to laugh, but the sound would not form. Her throat tightened as if a phantom hand had wrapped its ghostly fingers around it.

Three cloaked figures carry a small boy to an open keep window. As they glance out into the night, the moonlight flashes across their faces revealing—that they are not men, but dark elves. Hair as black as midnight, faces pale, eyes as dark as the night encompassing them and ears as pointed as arrows.

One of the elves straps the little boy to the other one’s chest with a tight cord. He wraps one arm around the squirming lad as he descends out the window by a thick braided rope.

Rylan woke from her vision mid-fall, reaching out for purpose much too late. Trying to snag a passing branch, all she managed to do was pierce her hand with the wood as she fell in a crumbled heap at the base of the tree. Pain, immediate and stabbing, sang up her arm.

For several moments, she was unable to move. Her breath had been knocked out of her, and she tried to concentrate on taking one in. Opening her mouth, she gasped and sucked in some needed air. Before long, she coughed and rolled over onto her side. Searing agony ripped through her back and down her legs.

Laying there unmoving, she gauged her injuries. She moved her legs, just a little. Thankfully, they were not broken. Then she moved her arms. Blood stained the sleeve of her tunic. Glancing down at her hands, she noticed a thick splinter of wood stuck through the skin between her thumb and index finger on her left hand.

Rylan closed her eyes against the wave of nausea that rolled over her. Not usually squeamish, the sight of the unseemly protrusion in her hand rolled her stomach over. It had to come out. She wouldn’t be able to ride back with it like that.

Taking hold of the top of the stick, she drew in a deep breath, and yanked it out. To stop the scream, she bit through her lip as burning pain surged through her hand and up her arm.

Reaching down, she tore a long strip off the hem of her tunic and gently wrapped it around her hand to stem the bleeding. When she arrived back at the compound, Tressa would need to inspect it to make sure that there were no little wooden splinters in her flesh. There would be more pain and discomfort later if she healed with them inside to cause infection, and possibly gangrene.

After tending to her wound, she was able to sit up. She moved all her limbs ascertaining that nothing was broken. A loud noise caused her head to lift. With relief, she watched as her horse, Ahern, appeared from the rocky cliff. He trotted over to her and sniffed at her head, nudging her with his nose.

“Did you hear me fall, boy?”

He snorted as if in agreement, and continued to prod her with his muzzle. Reaching up, Rylan grasped hold of his bridle and pulled herself to her feet. Her legs quivered with strain and she wobbled once against the horse. With effort that popped sweat on her brow, she moved down the horse’s side. Lifting her foot into the stirrup, she was able to pull herself into the saddle. The canvas bag was still wrapped around her neck and chest. She didn’t bother to look inside as the tart odor of ruined apples wafted to her nose. At least, Lochlan would still have his damnable pie, she thought as she kicked Ahern into action.

The sun was setting with explosions of red and orange in the sky when she arrived back at the compound. As she came down the small rise, Rylan spied Tressa standing at the open stable doors waiting for her. Relief nearly brought tears to her eyes. The woman always knew when she needed her the most. This night, as pain radiated through her sore achy bones and flesh, and her mind muddled with unclear thoughts, was one of those times.

When she neared the doors, the squire reached out and took Ahern’s reigns from Rylan without question. Tressa led them into the barn, and to the horse’s stall where she could rub him down for the night and hang up his tack.

After Ahern halted, Rylan dismounted, nearly falling out of the saddle. Tressa steadied her with a firm hand and looked Rylan over with sympathy in the grey depths of her eyes.

Rylan glanced away. She couldn’t afford sympathy, not now, not ever. The course in life she chose was a lonely and demanding one, but she would see through it without cause, no matter what she had to endure.

“Your hand?”

Rylan glanced down at the linen cloth. Blood had soaked it through. “Will need you to look at it, but later. Now…now I must have a hot bath, or I won’t have the energy to finish my chores before full night.”

Tressa opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it and just nodded. As Tressa tended to her duties with Ahern’s tack, Rylan stumbled across the stable floor toward the open door.

Lochlan stepped into the opening just as she arrived. Without a word, she slipped the canvas bag off her shoulder and handed it to him as she passed. He opened it and peered in. Head down watching her feet, she walked straight toward the house intent on seeing to herself.

An hour later, as she sat soaking in the small wood bathtub, the water growing cold and filthy from the dirt on her skin, she thought about the disturbing images in her head. She thought to tell Lochlan, but needed to know clearly what she was seeing first. If it was a bad dream and only a dream, he would think her childish and a fool, but if it was more…

Rylan couldn’t stop the shivers that erupted over her body. A sensation of dread and malevolence crept over her like a shadow’s dark casting across the ground at sunset. She sensed that soon she’d be completely encased in black without a light to guide her way.