That morning the breakfast hall was significantly emptier, the great majority of those who usually filled it being in jail. Colton swallowed his meal quickly and avoided the shoving of the guards as they emptied the room. Outside, he found Ealric in a training room standing before a rack of swords.
“Examine these swords,” he instructed, “and choose the best of them.”
Colton withdrew the first sword, Ealric watching him carefully. Testing its weight he found it poorly balanced and returned it to its place. So on he tested each sword, till he decided on one and passed it to Ealric. The trainer took the sword and made several strokes through the air.
“Well done,” he said. “All the rest were worthless. Now. Let’s say we are fighting to the death and I have disarmed you. What is your next move?”
Colton hesitated, hoping the obvious answer was the right one. “To dodge your next move,” he said.
“Then demonstrate.”
Ealric swung the sword deftly through the air, Colton dodged, and Ealric swung again. The act continued briefly, but a moment later Ealric altered his tactics and in an instant had the sword at Colton’s throat.
“You see,” he said, “you must learn to be more offensive. When it comes down to your own life, are you not willing to kill?”
The question was rhetorical, but Colton answered anyway.
“In my world such violence is not required to survive.”
“Forget about your earth! It does not matter anymore. If you wish to become a warrior, you must put aside all hope—even the faintest desire—to return to that planet.”
Colton was quiet.
“Now then. To the arena, and we shall see if you have learned anything.”
And so the days passed, and turned swiftly to weeks. Colton did not forget his former home, but his life was changing. He was becoming a warrior for Vellatha, and he was driven on by the remarkable talent displayed by the kingdom’s finest swordsmen. Still, when night fell and the business of the day faded, his mind would wander to the quiet, peaceful life he had once known. He had been striving after a happy, successful future when, in the course of one night, that had vanished and he was taken to Vellatha. The men had come swiftly, quietly in the night, pulling him from his dreams and throwing him within their great flying vessels. The earth had disappeared from his life no sooner than it had gone from his view, and now, only a few weeks later, his life did not even hold comparison to that he had known before.
Here, men were warriors. They had neither wives, nor homes, nor hardly even friends. You might be talking cheerfully with a man one morning, and that night he might be trying to slit your throat. Tyran, though, was an exception. He was the one fighter among them whom the others hesitated to challenge—the one who was either admired or hated by all whose gaze met his.
But there was more to Tyran than met the eye. He was usually quite serious, carrying a quiet commanding look in his eyes. Yet there was a fierceness to his nature beneath that calmness, displayed to Colton for the first time a little more than three weeks since he’d arrived upon Vellatha.
It was a particularly warm evening, and the men came to the barracks still hot and exhausted from the laps Ealric had ordered—twice as many as usual, the punishment having arisen from the bad conduct of several men. Tyran, ready to sleep, found another man sitting in his bed.
“That’s my bunk,” he said.
The man glanced up. “What of it? I’m here now.”
“Get out.”
The man laughed. “What are you going to do about it? Aren’t you too good to start a fight?”
Tyran grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him right out of the bed, throwing him to the floor.
“If you’re ready to fight me,” he said, “be ready to get beat.”
The man’s face snarled in rage, and he lunged for Tyran. In an instant, the barracks erupted with roars and cheers from the other men. Tyran swung a fist into the other man’s stomach, and as he buckled over kicked him back to the floor.
“Stay away from my bunk,” he said.
The man groaned and backed away, but he wasn’t done.
“Am I the only one man enough to face him?” he sneered.
“I’ll take him!” another cried, and then it was chaos.
Tyran threw the man to the ground and then stepped away from the fighter, no longer caring to be involved. He stood still with his arms folded across his chest as guards ran past him into the room, putting a quick end to the men’s revels. Ealric entered the room afterwards, looking on in cold anger.
“Three hundred laps for every man fighting,” he ordered, “and then confinement. I will not put up with such behavior. Look at yourselves! You are warriors, not school children.”
The men stood up with bowed heads, mumbling among themselves. Ealric was turning to go when his eye fell on Colton’s bunk. The bed was empty.
“Guards!” Ealric roared. “We have a man loose. Colton Derak, recent trainee. Find him and notify me the moment he is arrested. Go!”
A tense silence fell among the rest of the men. Ealric turned to them.
“What do you think you’re doing? Laps, now!”
The men jumped from their places and filed out of the room. Tyran followed behind, but Ealric laid a hand on his shoulder at the door and stopped him.
“What do you know of this?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Tyran said evenly. “He saw his chance and took it.”
“You know what this means for him.”
“All it shows is that he has dedication. You want to win his loyalty, not turn him against you.”
“He will learn like all the rest of you.”
“He’s different from all the rest of us,” Tyran said.
“And yet he must become one of you. Go.”
Tyran took his leave, and Ealric retired to his room. As for Colton, he waited in the cool shadows beneath the stable, where there was just a large enough gap between the ground and the floorboards for a man to lay. In his hand he gripped a dagger, stolen from the armory three days ago. For two hours he lay there, till darkness fell across the kingdom and even the horses were silent. Guards still marched throughout the building and across the open land, ceaselessly searching for him, but he offered no hint of where he hid. Then finally, as it grew very late, he pulled himself out and climbed to his feet. Just around the corner of the stables stood a guard at the entrance, his hand resting calmly on his sword. Colton found a smooth rock and with faultless aim knocked the man unconscious.
Then he slipped into the stables, and found himself before the most flawless, splendid horses ever seen. They tossed their massive heads and snorted as he entered, their great bodies demonstrating years of careful breeding and training.
Colton chose one, a smaller creature that would undoubtedly be the fastest of them all, and saddled it swiftly. Then he took the reins and threw open the stable doors, on the horse’s back in a second and galloping across open land the next. Colton bent over the horse’s neck as it kicked up dirt in the air, tearing across the earth like lightning.
The alarm bells began to ring from the training center, but he rode on and paid them no heed. A glance over his shoulder a few moments later told him he was being pursued, and yet his confidence remained until the wall of the city grew large before him. Then he was forced to turn his horse, and the swift steeds of his hunters began to close the gap. Now they were on the very edge of the city, and he galloped across crudely cut cobblestones through narrow streets and past shacks that served as homes for the poor. Here there were still many guards, and though he rode too swiftly for them to cross his path, ahead of him two crossed their spears before an archway and blocked his course.
The horse, moving too swiftly to slow down safely, reared as its whinny split the air. Colton lost his hold and tumbled to the stones, and as he rose slowly the horsemen found their pursuit at an end. Leaping down from their saddles they fell upon him, throwing him back to the stones as soon as he had risen. But though the chase was ended, Colton would not give up his freedom so easily. He tore his knife from its sheath and, calling everything Ealric had taught him to memory, resisted the soldiers with all the skill he had in him. Letting stroke after stroke fall, he made certain that they would never think of him as a coward. But finally his strength wore thin, and the knife flew from his grasp beneath their blows.
Colton lay still in the street, heaving the cool night air, dark splotches of blood staining the ground. Two men pulled him to his feet, and he fought away the wave of unconsciousness that threatened to take him. They dragged him to a horse, and he mounted barely conscious of what was happening. Then the men tied his hands to the saddle horn, mounting their own steeds and turning back to the city. Colton was taken to the jail immediately and thrown behind bars, badly beaten. He drifted to sleep late that night, waking only a few hours later.
Ealric stood outside the cell, gazing through the bars with an inexpressible look. Colton moved to stand up, and groaned. Every muscle ached, and it would be a miracle if one bone in his body had escaped bruising. He leaned against the prison wall and tilted his head back to look at Ealric, his left eye horribly swollen.
“Usually men are whipped for trying to escape,” Ealric said, “but it would seem you have received a sufficient beating. They told me you fought well.”
Colton grunted. “I was trying not to be killed.”
“Then you have learned something,” Ealric said, smiling for the first time since Colton had ever seen him. “It is that desire for life, for the beauty and vibrance of every day alive, that drives men to be great. A man wants not only to merely survive, he wants to live, to thrive, to be full of strength and success. Every morning we wake with breath in our lungs having endured another day of harshness, but only the strongest of men can last through years and not be torn to weakness.
“You have it in you to become great, Colton. I can see it in your eyes—you are not ready to die. You are young and healthy, and more than that you want to learn.” Ealric paused, and his tone grew softer. “I can give you that. I can teach you and train you, and I can make you into a man of talent and power, whom other men look to and say to themselves, ‘Oh that I might become like him!’ You see Vellatha’s finest warriors and gaze at them in respect and admiration; I can make you stand among them.
“But you must turn your resistance into motivation. If you desire freedom, find it in every swordstroke and sweep of your cloak. If you desire might, look for it in each man who falls beneath your sword. Find victory in the passing of every test put before you. Find happiness in the strength of life that brims within you. Let your gaze be full of life and courage, and let your hands speak to the mighty works you have accomplished. Weak and selfish thoughts drive a man to the dirt, but you must persevere, Colton.”
“Then train me,” Colton said. “I am willing to learn.”
Ealric motioned to the guard to unlock the cell. “Let’s begin, then. To the arena.”
Thank you for reading! You can find chapter 1 here.
This is wonderful and I can’t wait for the next chapter!
His change of mind seems awfully abrupt. I don’t know if you want to give us any inclination about what his thoughts are? I would question whether he’s actually being deceptive.