Martin Hengst - The Last Swordmage

She reached out and took the keys from him. Her eyes never left his face. She watched him like a hawk until she managed to convince herself that he wasn’t going to strike out at her, and then she began searching to the key to the shackles. She found it in short order and freed herself of the restraints.

“Now,” Royce said, ignoring the girl’s reaction as she started at his firm tone. “You will assist me in getting this room put in order. It’s gotten out of control.”

To her credit, she paused only for a moment. “Yes, Sir.”

As he stood, Royce was overcome with a coughing fit so severe that it brought him to his knees. The girl hovered, indecisive, until he waved her off. His chest felt as if someone had filled it with hot coals. With an expansive gesture, he indicated the whole room.

“I need a moment,” he rasped as he labored to get to his feet. “You get started, and I’ll join you shortly.”

He quit the room without waiting for a reply. Tiadaria looked around. Piles of parchment were literally underfoot anywhere she turned. The surfaces of three large trestle tables were covered in maps and fragments of diagrams and drawings. Scrubbing her hands together, she decided that she would start with the maps. Those, at least, she could organize in a meaningful way.

She found some tacks in one of the cupboards and set about arranging the maps on the far wall of the long room, which was unadorned by weapons or armor. The maps that had clearly defined borders, she matched up together and pinned side-by-side. The others she clustered in ways that looked appealing. Stepping back, she surveyed the map wall and sighed to herself. It looked good, she thought, and brought a sense of order to what had been a chaotic jumble.

Next Tia set about the stacks of parchment. Many of the leaves were written in a scratching scrawl she couldn't decipher. Others she could read, but they made little sense to her. Words like flanking, thrust, and parry she had heard on the edges of the village fire when the men had talked about their conquests, but they had no real meaning for her.

She dared not try to organize the things she didn't understand, so instead she set about making neat piles of each stack laid out upon the floor, using a single trestle table to organize her work and weighing down each stack with a smooth stone she went and gathered from the garden. At first, a path emerged in the disorder, then a finely woven rug. There was a floor here, under all this clutter, she thought with no small amount of wonder. At length, the parchment beasts were tamed and put in their places and she stood surveying the room.

All that remained were the weapons and armor. There were pegs on the walls, and it was easy to see that some of the weapons should be hung. Others seemed to have no place, and Tiadaria wondered if they were objects of study or if they had been taken in conquest, the souvenirs of some hard fought battle where the old soldier had bested his foe in a trial of combat.

A long bladed dagger rested on the table in front of her and she picked it up, deciding to begin the organization with the items nearest to hand. As soon as her hand closed on the hilt, a painful shock traveled up her arm, to her shoulder, and into her spine. She cried out and dropped the dagger. It fell point down, and sliced through slipper and flesh. The pain was incredible. A thin wail of agony burst from her lips.

“Stay still.” The old soldier's voice came from the partition between the main room and the hallway. He was peering at her, but seemed unconcerned that she was bleeding, quite freely, onto the lavish carpet that covered the bare wooden floor.

Tiadaria ground her teeth against the pain but did as she was told. Tears rolled unbidden down her cheeks, but she didn't sob. She kept as calm and still as possible though the pain in her foot was immense and nauseating. Stubborn she might be, but she was still young enough to cry when hurt and frustrated.

Royce crossed the room in quick strides and knelt by her foot, still impaled by the razor sharp blade. He looked at it from first one angle, and then another, and Tia found herself wanting to scream at him to take it out and stop tormenting her. She clenched her jaw, determined not to cry out and show any sign of weakness.

“You missed all the major tendons and blood carriers, little one,” the soldier grunted, but not unkindly. “I'm sure it hurts, but if it’s treated well and kept clean, it should cause no more lasting damage than a small scar as a token of your misadventure.”

“Please, Sir,” Tia managed to gasp, the pain was becoming unbearable and she wasn't sure how much longer she could stand there with the blade sticking out of her foot like a spring bloom.

He went to the cupboard and got a clean white rag, which he tore into long strips. He knelt by her again and laid the strips on the floor between his knees. He looked up at her once more.

“Brace yourself.”

The pain of the dagger thrust into her foot was nothing compared to what washed over her as he withdrew the dagger. She clamped her hand over her mouth, willing herself not to throw up. Fresh blood welled about the wound as he pulled the steel from her savaged flesh and soaked quickly through the thin slipper. He removed that, and taking one of the strips of rag, made a small pad which he held firmly over the wound. The other strips he used to hold the pad in place and bound them tightly to her foot and ankle, providing the pressure that his hand had offered moments before.

Tiadaria swooned and the old soldier caught her under the arms with a speed that surprised her. She barely felt the shock that went from her armpits to her spine, as the throbbing in her foot seemed to drown out any other sensation. The old soldier, however, looked distressed, and gritted his teeth in a feral grin as he lowered her into a chair near the dimly glowing hearth. A moment or two in the chair and Tia felt much less gray.

Royce tossed a log into the hearth, prodding the fire back to life with a long iron poker. He disappeared for a moment and returned with a thick, heavy fur that he threw over her shoulders, tucking the ends under her arms. He slumped in the chair opposite her. He looked very tired, Tia thought. Far more tired than a simple afternoon at home should have made him.

He turned to look at the far wall, newly festooned with the maps that she had tacked there. He looked back at her.

“You can read?” he asked, not bothering to hide the surprise in his tone.

“A little,” Tia answered, her cheeks going red with embarrassment. “The women in the north are responsible for keeping the records. Writing about doing things isn't an honorable use of time for a man. He should spend his time doing the things that are written about.”

“A man would do well to study the written records of those before him,” the old soldier remarked, studying her carefully. “How's the foot?”

“It hurts.”

“Aye and it will,” he nodded. “More tomorrow than right now, I assure you. Every step you take will remind you that you best keep a strong grip on any blade in your hand.”

“It hurt me, Sir. I was surprised.”

“Yes, that blade is plenty sharp.”

“No, Sir,” she said, and stammered when she saw his startled glance. “Begging your pardon, Sir. It hurt me before. That's why I dropped it.”

“Hurt you how?”

“Like a burning, Sir. When I picked up the blade, it felt as if my arm had caught fire, all the way up to my shoulder. That's why I dropped it. The long blade…the one from…earlier. It hurt too, but it wasn’t as bad.”

“The halberd has a wooden shaft. The dagger did not. It was your proximity to the metal that made the dagger worse.” His gnarled fingers tugged at his lower lip as he stared at her. “Didn’t you ever notice how your body reacts to steel?”