For the first time in months, Turgeon attended the court dinner in the castle’s feast hall the evening after the King had presented him with his first sword. The Swordmaster had made clear to him in no uncertain terms that he was now officially a member of the court himself, and that there was an expectation he would be regularly present at court functions. Evening meals were specifically noted as an important court function he would need to resume attending.
So that night he went down to the castle feast hall to join the court. He had to admit he was excited to see his friend Dael again, though he felt bad that he had abandoned the Duke to his own devices for so long while he trained so hard to learn the sword. He knew Dael would understand though, and appreciate the amount of progress his friend had made in his training in such a short period of time.
When he arrived at the evening meal Dael didn’t disappoint. He greeted Turgeon with bright eyes and a warm hug, welcoming him to the table as if no time had passed at all since their last meal together.
“Turge, it is so good to see you!”
“I’m happy to see you too, Dael.” It still felt strange to use nicknames with a Duke, but he supposed comfort would come with time.
As they tucked into their meals, Dael filled him in on all that he’d missed.
“Y’grathen’s father recalled him to Fjaarlgard a fortnight ago, so that’s been nice. The twins are still here though, and they seem to feel like it’s their responsibility to keep up with the bullying and taunting in Y’grathen’s absence. I’ve missed your kinship at court, but to be honest it's probably for the best that you’ve been gone.
“How’s that?”
“I’m a duke, if mostly in name only. Y’grathen, as a duke’s son himself, thought he could get away with bullying me and he wasn’t wrong. The twins are a different story… they won’t be bullying me. Technically, I’m their father’s liege. They would’ve taken all their aggression out on you. As it is, they’ve been pushing around the servants mostly.”
“You really don’t have any other friends in the castle, do you Dael?”
“No, Turge, I really don’t. I’m so glad you’ve become a part of this court. I know our friendship is based on more than just the fact that I’m a duke and you aren’t some hollow sycophant.”
“Is that why you haven’t made an effort to make friends?”
“It’s certainly a factor. How can I be friends with Ed and Ted when I might have to order their father’s death tomorrow?”
“Fair point. But… It still makes me wonder, why do you stay here? I mean at court, in the castle? Surely you have obligations in your dukedom to fulfill as well?”
Dael went quiet for a while, pondering the question. Apparently it had touched a nerve, or veered into an area he wasn’t prepared to discuss, even with his only friend.
Eventually, and with a heavy sigh, the Duke set down his dining utensils and faced Turgeon.
“I suppose you’ve earned the truth. I can’t… I can’t tell you everything. My mother would kill me if I did.” He dropped his voice to the barest whisper before he continued, forcing Turgeon to lean in to hear. “What I can tell you is that I’m searching for a valuable family artifact that was lost years ago. It is imperative that we recover it, for the strength of the House of Ko.
“I can’t tell you much about the artifact itself, but the last reports we have locate it somewhere in Falkaria City. Mother sent me here to court to try to locate it, but so far I’ve come up with absolutely nothing. I’ve tried to convince her to let me come home, but she’s insistent that I continue my search here.”
“I’m sorry, Dael, I wish there was something I could do to help.”
“I believe you would help me if you could, but unfortunately there’s nothing to be done. I have no leads to follow even after years of effort. Enough of this discussion though, it’s depressing me. What’s been happening with you?”
Turgeon filled Dael in on all that had transpired in the months since he had frequented the feast hall. Dael showed proper awe at Turgeon’s new sword, and laughed at Turgeon’s stories of awkward moments training with Princess Suzette.
Despite Turgeon’s efforts to steer the conversation away from the attack that had occurred the night Prince Gyuzski was expelled from Falkaria, Dael eventually began asking questions about Turgeon’s investigation. He was rightfully curious to know if Turgeon had uncovered any more information about the attack since they had talked in the infirmary.
He hadn’t, and he told Dael as much. His singular focus on training had precluded deep investigation, but they both agreed that it was something that needed to be looked into further.
“But how? What else can be done to find the summoner?” Turgeon asked when Dael pushed him to consider ways to solve the mystery.
“We need to know more about the skag magic, the necromancy that was used to summon it. If we knew more about the magic, perhaps we could find the user behind it.”
Turgeon agreed with that in principle, but where could they find more information? He wasn’t comfortable pushing Master Jesphat for more information on necromancy. The Librarian had made clear that he had already shared what he was willing to share on the subject with Turgeon.
“Where do you expect we can learn more about necromancy, Dael? It’s not exactly a common topic of discussion here in the castle…”
“We could ask Melora, the healer?”
Turgeon considered that option for a moment, but quickly dismissed it. Melora knew too many of his secrets already, he wasn’t comfortable bringing her into the fold on this subject.
“No, I don’t think that would work. She’s a healer, and she might know about skag magic, but I don’t think she knows about necromancy. She would probably be insulted if we asked her about it.”
Dael nodded, it was a logical conclusion to draw.
“What about the library’s restricted section?” The Duke suggested, “There could be a volume in there with more information on necromancy than Jesphat has been willing to share.”
That was probably true. An interesting option, but not an easy path. Turgeon had attempted to access the restricted section before, with no success.
“Master Jesphat is… incredibly protective of the restricted section.”
“Probably for good reason, if knowledge like necromancy is to be found there.”
“Of course, but that will be a challenge for us.”
They discussed the problem for the remainder of the meal but eventually concluded that it wasn’t one they were going to solve that night. Agreeing to continue to think on a way to access the restricted tomes and to discuss possible plans in more depth in the future, they parted ways for the evening.
“Don’t be a stranger please, Turge. I hope to see you at court meals more often again now that you’ve earned your sword.”
“There’s still more training to be done – we will begin learning the two handed sword soon. But yes, I will ease up on the intensity a bit now that I’ve made it to this point. I promise that you’ll see me most evenings for the foreseeable future.” There were limits to what he could promise, and they both knew it.
Turgeon took his leave of Dael, and the feast hall, totally absorbed in his own thoughts and plots for how they could find a way into the restricted section of the library. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the Thoth twins observing his departure from the feast hall and standing up to follow.
Daelrud was also quite absorbed in his own thoughts after their discussion, but he had been raised in court life and knew better than to be so absorbed as to be ignorant to what was occurring around him in such a public venue. It didn’t escape his notice when Ted and Ed followed Turgeon out of the feast hall, and he knew that no good could come from a confrontation between those three in the castle’s corridors.
*****
“Hey, farm boy!”
The shout down the corridor caught Turgeon’s attention right off. In the castle at night it could only be meant for him. He turned from his path back to the Swordmaster’s tower to find Ted and Ed, the twins from Innsurmer, approaching him in the dimly lit corridor.
“What do you want?”
They looked at each other, appearing a bit dumbfounded by the question. Apparently they hadn’t really thought the encounter through.
“Are you looking for a fight?” Turgeon prodded.
“Maybe we are, farm boy,” the one on the left (Ed?) retorted. “You’ve been prancing around the castle since you got that sword, we figured someone needed to remind you of your place.”
“Witty. Well, if that’s what you’re after, let’s be at it.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Turgeon wasted no time in drawing his own blade. The balance was different from that of the blades he had trained with, the blunt edges on those having added enough weight to change their feel, but he knew he would need to adjust quickly.
“You’re one to talk about wit, farm boy,” the other one (Ted?) chimed in. “You’re just an up-jumped peasant, it’s amazing they allow you to even sleep under the castle roof, much less train in the Fiorian arts.”
“I hear he trains with the Princess, Ted.” Names confirmed, Turgeon thought to himself. Not that it mattered, really. “That means they actually let this shit shoveler touch our princess.”
Ted made a disgusted face at that, and the twins drew their own blades.
“Stop!” came a shout from farther down the hallway, accompanied by the sound of running footsteps. “Stop this at once!” Turgeon recognized Daelrud’s voice before he could clearly make out his friend's figure in the dim lighting.
“Stay out of this, Duke,” Ed suggested, making Daelrud’s title more of an epithet than an honorific.
“Duke Ko is your liege lord, Thoth, you would do well to respect him.” Turgeon adopted the one handed form of blowing wind, a guard that foolish opponents would interpret as an opening to attack.
As he approached, Daelrud made to draw his own blade but Turgeon forced eye contact with him and shook his head quickly in a brusque motion that clearly indicated to the Duke that he should keep his own blade sheathed. This battle was his to fight alone, and he had no fear of these fools.
The twins drew their own blades almost in unison, but neglected to attack as one. Ed moved first, attempting an overhand cut from Turgeon’s left. Blowing wind made it an easy attack to parry, and Turgeon did so with grace, converting the parry smoothly into an attack – taking care to use the flat of his blade – that struck the other boy hard enough on his temple to drop him instantly, unconscious.
That gave Ted pause, but not as much as it should have. The other Thoth attacked from Turgeon’s right, attempting a low thrust below Turgeon’s extended guard.
The blow was easily swept aside, and returned with a similar forehand strike to the blow that had felled Ed, smacking Ted across the cheek with the flat of Turgeon’s blade. Unfortunately the strike wasn’t hard enough or well positioned enough to knock Ted unconscious and he continued to push the attack with an overhand cut at Turgeon’s neck.
Turgeon managed to block the blow just in time by bringing his own blade around over his head but still parallel to the ground, deflecting Ted’s strike wide and leaving the other boy wide open once again.
This time he didn’t waste a strike with the flat, Turgeon struck Ted across the jaw with the pommel of his own weapon and heard a satisfying crack as the other boy’s jaw broke. Ed was beginning to stir on the ground when Ted fell on top of him, out cold from the blow to his face.
Only a few heartbeats had passed since the fight had begun in earnest, but the clang of steel on steel had brought the King’s Own Guard running from both ends of the corridor. Upon arriving they quickly surveyed the scene and saw that while Turgeon had things under control a healer would be needed for Thoth boys. The first officer to arrive sent one of the guard’s to fetch Melora, and another to fetch the Swordmaster.
Dael, having observed the entirety of the fight – if it could be called that – stood quietly to the side while Turgeon was questioned by the guards, eyes wide and clearly in shock at the cold efficiency with which Turgeon had dispatched the Thoth twins.
“What happened here?” the officer of the guard asked after he had taken in the scene and sent for help.
“These boys attacked me in the corridor. I dealt with them.”
The officer turned to Daelrud and raised an eyebrow, apparently more interested in the Duke’s account than Turgeon’s.
To his credit, Daelrud pulled it together quickly to address the officer, “It is as the apprentice says. These boys attacked him. I tried to stop them, but they defied me – their liege – and pressed on. They’re lucky he showed restraint and didn’t slay them outright. It was clear they did not intend to show him the same courtesy.”
“How so, your grace?”
“Turgeon used the flat of his blade and his pommel to dispatch them. They struck with intent to use edge and point, they struck with intent to wound and kill.”
“A most serious crime, if true. Attempted murder of the Swordmaster’s apprentice, in the castle halls no less.”
“You doubt my word?” Dael was becoming heated, and with good reason.
“No, your grace. It’s just… they’re only boys. I’d hate to see them hang for such childish malfeasance.”
“‘Childish malfeasance’?! They could’ve killed him!”
Turgeon knew he needed to defuse the situation, and quickly, or this could become a problem for him and Daelrud as well. Neither of them wanted the twins to die for this, and neither of them needed that burden on their conscience.
“A moment, sir, if you will,” Turgeon asked of the guard officer, “Dael…” he gestured for Dael to step away from the guardsmen so they could converse briefly in private.
“Dael, thank you for defending me, but I don’t want Ted and Ed to die. If I wanted that I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of only incapacitating them in the first place.”
Dael acknowledged that with a curt nod, his lips pursed in thought and barely restrained fury.
“Both of them are going to wake up with pounding headaches, and will likely need to spend a few days recovering in the infirmary. That’s punishment enough.”
“You may think so, but you’ll need to convince the officer over there of that as well.”
“Let me worry about that,” Turgeon returned to where the guards loomed over the unconscious twins. “Sir…”
“Captain Grayson, apprentice,” the officer supplied. So, not just an officer of the guard, but the officer of the guard. That could be either a good thing or a bad thing, Turgeon realized.
“Captain Grayson, sir,” he tried to be as polite as possible. “You are most certainly correct. My friend, Duke Ko was upset, but nobody needs to hang for what happened here tonight. I think these two have probably learned their lesson.”
The Captain was nodding along in agreement, accepting Turgeon’s dismissal of the need for further punishment.
With that settled, at least between those present, Melora and the Swordmaster both approached the scene from the direction of the feast hall at a quick walk. Melora set to examining the fallen Thoth twins immediately, tsking to herself. The Swordmaster turned on Turgeon and Daelrud, fury rippling across his stern features.
“What happened here, boy?”
“I was attacked,” Turgeon took the same less is more approach to answering his master as he had with Captain Grayson. “Nobody was hurt too badly.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Well done then. Come, we should return to the tower, it’s late and you are due at the Library early tomorrow morning.”
That wasn’t precisely true, but Turgeon was wise enough to castle politics at this point to understand that his master was just providing an excuse to extract him from the situation and went along with it. Melora was marshaling the guards to assist with carrying the still unconscious Thoth twins to the infirmary for further care as Turgeon took his leave of Captain Grayson and Dael.
That night Turgeon lay awake in bed replaying the brief fight over and over in his mind, the fight energy still coursing through his veins. After what felt like hours he finally dozed off into the deep sleep of exhaustion.
*****
“Now that you have earned your one handed sword, it is time to begin training with the two handed sword,” the Swordmaster began class the next afternoon. Suzette and Turgeon looked at each other and grinned, this was what they had been waiting for.
“As you are aware, the two handed sword is the pinnacle of the Fiorian art. While there are techniques and weapons we will train with after we master the two handed sword, such as the spear and mounted combat, this weapon is what separates a Fiorian master from a common swordsman.
“Some would say one can never truly master the two handed sword. To some extent, this is true: there is always room for improvement in technique execution and timing, developing plays to be more precise and pairing them in novel ways. However, when you complete your training in the two handed sword in this salle, you will be considered a master of the weapon and there will be few swordsmen in all of Atenla that will be your match.
“The two handed sword marries attack and defense like no other weapon. When you wield the blade you don’t have a spare hand for a shield and so the blade must be both your shield and your sword.
“Many of the guards, plays and cuts you know from the one handed sword are applicable with the two handed blade, with some minor variations. That, however, is just the start of the art with the two handed blade. There are additional complexities, plays, techniques and more to be learned for this weapon as it is the pinnacle of the art.
The biggest difference between the longer two handed sword and a shorter blade was the speed with which a clash would play out with the two handed sword: after training in grappling, the dagger and the one handed sword the weapon felt slow to the students. When a broad arcing cut attack came down from the Swordmaster or Suzette, Turgeon felt like he had all the time in the world to bring his own blade up to parry. Of course, this was all relative to the other weapons and branches of the art. To an untrained eye it would seem as though these attacks and parries were happening at an absolutely furious pace.
Eventually, exhausted and dripping sweat but glowing from the pleasure of wielding such a beautiful blade, Turgeon made his way from the salle down into the tower’s common room and bade Suzette farewell. He had barely enough time to get cleaned up before he would need to return to the feast hall for the evening meal, and he was eager to talk with Dael and plot their assault on the library’s restricted area.
When he emerged from his bedroom changed and ready for the evening meal, he was surprised to find Melora waiting for him in the tower’s common room.
“How may I help you, ma’am?” he asked, but he suspected he knew the answer already.
“We need to talk about what happened last night,” she was clearly upset, which gave Turgeon cause for concern.
“Are the Thoth boys okay?”
“They will be fine, but they were both injured severely. What you did to them could’ve left with permanent brain damage. The blows you struck to their heads were nearly as deadly as a cut to the throat.”
Turgeon hadn’t realized he was hitting them so hard. He had just intended to incapacitate them so they would stop attacking him.
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt them badly.”
“You’re lucky the castle has such a talented healer,” a strange bit of vanity from her, “and that I was close by. If they hadn’t been treated when they were, it is likely they would’ve spent the rest of their lives as bumbling idiots.”
Turgeon resisted the easy retort that it wouldn’t have been much different than their previous state of intellectual capability while also trying to hide his pride at the effectiveness of his strikes, but Melora saw it.
“This is not something to be proud of, boy,” she chastised him. “Next time you might not be so lucky – and then it will be you the Captain of the guard is looking to string up on the gallows.”
That was not a pleasant thought. Turgeon simply nodded his acceptance of her admonishment.
“I … I suppose I just have a lot of anger built up. So much has happened in the last year, and I’ve had so little control over it. When they attacked me, I just let it all out on them.”
“That is entirely understandable, Turgeon, but you must learn better ways to manage your anger. Better outlets than beating up other boys. Perhaps when your master will let you participate in the tournament during the midsummer festival this year.”
“Do you really think so?” The tournament was for knights and lords, Turgeon hadn’t even been allowed to watch the event before he came to the castle.
“It’s up to your master, and I imagine it depends on how far you can progress in your training before the festival. In the meantime, try not to hurt anyone else, please?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Off with you then. We’re going to be late to the evening meal.”
