Truesword
by Pauline Barmby
“Ugh!” Nele cried.
Clang! The sword’s flat smacked against the dummy’s side.
“Again!” the trainer called.
Swish! The momentum of the missed second blow spun Nele around. The wind nearly swallowed the sound of the practice sword’s movement as it rattled the tin shacks at the edges of the training yard.
“Again!”
“Yaaaah!” Nele bellowed. She skewered the sword’s dull tip through the openwork mannequin, ripping the dummy from its suspension. It fell to the ground with the sword embedded. She kicked the metal skeleton in frustration.
“Progress, very slight progress,” the trainer commented, shading his eyes from the daystar’s searing light. Holding the dummy down with her foot, Nele extracted her sword. She ran a scarred forearm across her sweaty forehead, leaving a rusty smear.
“How long until I can fight with a truesword? I need to be out there hunting bereveks, avenging my brother, not poking hollow steel into a tinman.”
“Patience,” the trainer replied. “You still have much to learn. Hang up the dummy and begin again.”
Sword blows rang out over the dusty courtyard. The trainer circled the pairs of students, barking instructions here, correcting posture with a tap from his cane there.
“Noooo!” Nele’s yell echoed off the walls. The trainer turned his head to see her lying in the dirt, eyes wide and face flushed, facing a boy two years her senior whose sword point was aimed at her throat. The trainer limped toward the pair, his shadow falling over Nele.
“What mistakes did you make?”
“I … uh… I let him trick me!” Nele spat. “I thought he was going for my sword arm and at the last minute he hit the side of my knee.”
“You should have seen that coming, Nele,” Ari laughed, unkindly.
The trainer leaned on his cane and regarded the boy. “And what mistakes did you make?”
Ari faced the trainer. “Does it matter, when I’m the one standing? I’m ready for a truesword now, master, I know I am. I can do what has to be done. I won’t fail, like Nele’s brother.”
The trainer shook his head. “You are not the only one who believes himself ready. We do not yet know who the truesword wielder will be.”
“Yaaaah!” Nele surprised them both, pushing up from the ground and driving a shoulder into Ari’s middle. Suddenly, he was the one in the dirt.
“That was for my brother,” she snarled.
The whistling wind made a few dry leaves dance in the ever-present dust. The training cycle’s cohort ringed the yard, watching silently as Nele and Bora faced off in the final exercise. Forehand, backhand, sidestep. Thrust, parry, clang. Blows thumped on leather armor. From the edge of the combat ring, the trainer watched intently, taking notes on a small slate.
Bora rolled under one of Nele’s swings and tried to knock her off balance with a foot sweep. She narrowly avoided the trip, leaping over Bora’s outstretched leg. Holding her sword’s hilt two-handed, she attempted to bring the point down to Bora’s chest before they could rise. They rolled again and dodged her blow, struggling to their feet.
The two swords crashed together again, Nele driving forward, Bora backing away. They winced as one of her blows struck a thin spot in their armour. Nele’s fierce expression was broken briefly by a grin. She turned her head to follow the trainer’s motion and Bora took advantage of the momentary distraction, dealing a wicked blow to her knee. Nele staggered backwards and almost fell. She heaved a great gasping breath and surged back toward Bora, raining blow after blow against their sword. Pushed off balance by Nele’s relentless drive, Bora finally fell to their knees with the blunt point of her sword against their throat.
“Yield,” Nele growled, her eyes hard.
“I yield,” Bora gasped.
She grinned and held out a hand. Bora grimaced and let her pull them up.
“Nele has earned the opportunity to wield the truesword,” the trainer announced.
The next day, Nele stood side-by-side with the trainer at the edge of the sacred grove. The wind lifted Nele’s black hair into a halo; she impatiently smoothed it down.
“Why are we here, master? I thought I was to receive a real sword—shouldn’t we be at the armory?”
The trainer regarded her sadly, then glanced toward the thicket of straggling saplings and hollow stumps. The grove was a little smaller, again, this year.
“The sword needed to vanquish a berevek must be made not of iron, but of wood. The last step in your training is to cut down a tree and use it to create your truesword.” He handed Nele an axe, its blade solid and sharp. Her face crumpled.
“Cut down…a sacred tree?”
He nodded.
“But that’s forbidden. I’ll be exiled. You mean my brother wouldn’t have been able to return even if he hadn’t been killed?” Tears formed in Nele’s dark eyes.
The trainer nodded again and his voice went soft. “The truesword cuts those who wield it. Sacrifices are a part of the life you wish to pursue. Henceforth we ask you to kill deliberately and sacrifice knowingly.”
Nele was silent. She turned her gaze up to the treetops and then down to the memorial cords around her wrist.
“I’m ready.”
“Then go, with our thanks.”
Nele swung the axe over her shoulder and entered the grove. She didn’t look back.
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About the Author
Pauline Barmby (she/her) is a Canadian astrophysicist who believes that you can’t have too many favorite galaxies. Her fiction is published or forthcoming in SFS Stories, Martian, and Flame Tree Press’ Compelling Science Fiction anthology. When not reading or writing she runs, knits, and ponders the physics of curling. Find her on Twitter @PBarmby.
