Night Blades and Morning Blood

Chapter 8

The next two weeks flew by in a flurry of morning runs, afternoons slashing the bark from trees, evenings reading in the study and nights waiting for the blood red flames that never came. Every night when the crimson flames were absent from the grate, Barrett opened his sash window and stared out at the fires in the tree line, waiting, an odd anxiousness in his belly.
The trials held mixed memories for Barrett. He had been young, ambitious and reckless, like a stallion yet to be broken, or perhaps a better likeness was to a forest fire fueled on dry leaves. His time at the college had gained him envy and distrust from his peers and intrigue and curiosity from the other chapter members. Everyone wanted a piece of the would-be assassin from Treadknee.
He arrived at the trials cocksure and impatient, thinking this children’s test beneath him. That year the event was held just inside the great snow forest, west of Telos (the location of the trials was different every year to aid in protecting its secrecy). Barrett’s trials of knowledge and stealth had gone very well but the most revered and dangerous stage still lay ahead.
The morning of the trial of strength the recruits chatted, huddled around a small fire in the deep snow. Would it be torture? Or a fight to the death against some monster? Barrett didn’t care. He sat alone against a huge pine, picking at his nails with his sharpest knife. He was brimming with confidence.
One by one the recruits were called off further into the woods, but none returned and no sound echoed back from them. Finally, left with only the snow and his great wooden backrest for company, it was Barrett’s turn.
He remembered every detail: the sound of the snow crunching under his feet overlaid with the wind whistling through the trees and of his coat bouncing off the ground. The smell of the pine and how the cold the burned in his nostrils. All crystal clear as the smile on his lips.
The scene that greeted him was one that brought the greatest joy he had ever known.
A huge fire, two men high was melting snow in the clearing. Men in dark robes and other apprentices in smaller, lighter versions lined the clearing but one man stood alone.
The tall man stood staring into the fire, his long dark hair lay wet across his scared back, soaked in sweat and melting snow. As Barrett moved into the vast fires warm embrace, the crunching of snow and crackle of wood gave way to another sound. A sound of rasping stone on steel, a sound that echoed through Barrett’s dreams and he yearned to hear in his waking.
His smile widened and he shrugged his coat to the wet dirt.
“So, you accept the challenge boy?” Came the growl of a voice.
The man turned to face him, revealing what he had been sharpening, a huge double headed axe on a thick wooden shaft.
“You are the last to face the trial of combat, Barrett. First to draw blood, is the victor. Let us hope you are luckier than some that came before you.” The great man began to laugh. It was a deep laugh from deep in the man’s flat, hairy stomach, a laugh that made every one of his muscles ripple.
As the giant strode towards him, Barrett realized why. The dirt had an unnatural tinge, a red tinge. It almost went unnoticed in the fires orange glow but the ground around them was saturated with blood. The laughter grew louder and more manic with each step.
He was on him now, stood so close that the rouge hair of his beard tickled Barrett’s face. The laughing suddenly stopped.
“You are arrogant boy! Do you really think you can beat me?” he shouted, his saliva mixing with the melting snow on the apprentice’s face. “You really do, don’t you? Unbelievable! So be it.” He turned and raised the axe above his head in a fighting stance.
He underestimates me, Barrett thought, I am half his size but also half his age. I am lithe and quick and he doubts me.
Barrett sprinted at his foe drawing a knife on the first step and launching it on the second. Just before it found its target the giant moved his head a few inches and the steel went spinning end over end into the darkness.
On step three his hand was on his sword and by five it was coming down in a high arc searching for blood.
The first exchange of blows was rapid and in the beginning, he forced his opponent away but soon the larger man began to fight back. Barrett quickly realized that the heavy axe did not slow the counter and each blow jarred his arms painfully.
The flurry ended when a low sweep took the youngster off guard. He hit the ground hard but rolled quickly expecting an attack. But his enemy just stood and waited, holding his axe high as if it were a toy, silently holding his gaze.
Barrett regained and attacked anew but soon he was again pushed back, just as he planned. Back and back he went until he could almost hear the tree behind him.
The arrogant child stabbed low and the confident master parried and threw a wide slash at shoulder height. There was a thud like a woodsman’s axe. How satisfying.
Barrett had tricked him into a foolish mistake. Before he could withdraw the blade from deep within the trees flesh he made three quick strikes and severed the head from the shaft. As he saw the wood splinter his heart sored. How could he lose now? But before he could finish speaking in his own head the unthinkable happened.
Frozen in shock Barrett could not comprehend what happened next. The massive man dropped the wooden stick. He just let go and forgot it. But then he had him.
The bruiting man grabbed Barrett by his cross belt and lifted him high like he was a child. He bared his teeth and growled, renewing the saliva covering on the apprentice’s cheeks.
He threw Barrett down hard, so hard he thought his lungs had burst and his spine had snapped. He had to act now. His sword was gone but there was still at least one dagger in his belt. The thought almost came too late again.
A pain surged through him that made his back and lungs just a distant memory.
Somehow a knife had found his enemies hand and almost in slow time all those rippling muscles worked to one purpose. It was a long knife, maybe six inches from hilt to point, plenty long enough to pass through his right forearm and deep into the ground below.
Barrett wouldn’t scream, he refused, but his lungs sprung to life again and forced air rapidly back and forth through of his teeth.
The victor rose.
“Let this be a lesson, young apprentices, arrogance is worth less than nothing in the face of adversity. Confidence, yes but the line is as thin as a spider’s string. What you see here is evidence. Remember this lesson, for next year you too may have to fight me. Do you want to be this? This arrogant fool who grows wet in his own blood?”
Before he could continue another man on the circles edge raised an arm and pointed.
“Arrogant, yes. Fool, maybe. Looser, no.”
Barrett’s smile crept back across his gritted teeth. Barrett had a knife of his own, not nearly as large or long but enough to do the job.
A trickle of blood flowed down the gleaming blade and danced across his knuckles like a stream on giant boulders. The giant that loomed over him looked from the circle to his belly and saw his demise. It was only a little wound in truth, but blood was blood and the warm flow of crimson was Barrett’s salvation.
Shortly after, when it came time to free the young apprentice he passed out from the pain. It wasn’t until the next day that he learned of his opponent’s rage, of how he hacked down pines all around in his rage and stamped the wet ground to quagmire as he paced and how the rest of the order voted him fit to train further.
His opponent had been Toros, Battlemaster of the order, leader of the northernmost chapter and Bores’ father. An incomparable warrior, master of darkness and a man whose stories would be told in chapters for a hundred years. He had organized the challenge but fought only Barrett.
The scar still remained on Barrett arm but so did the lesson and he found himself stroking the soft white skin each time he remembered it. Arrogance was still a demon he battled with but more often than not he overcame it well.
A cold gust of wind brought him back from his memory with the curious contrast of the fire at his back and the chill at his front. The feeling was just stirring another daydream when he felt a wet droplet on his hand, or did he? There it was again. And again. The water was cold and pleasant.
He looked down at his hand. The white flakes disappeared as they embraced the warmth of his skin. He stared up at the bright moon and there it was, moving towards him on the wind. It was the first snow of winter. Tomorrow was the day.

He was awoken the next morning by bright white beams bursting through the window. The ash was cold in the grate and the wooden floorboards felt like ice on the soles of his feet. He danced on tiptoes quickly to the safety of the rug.
Outside, the grounds were blanketed in the glowing coat of fresh undisturbed snow. The green hues and brown shades that usually greeted him, hidden in the uniform covering of the cold. But it almost looked warm outside. The sky was blue and cloudless and the sun beat down on all he surveyed as if trying to apologize for the jape before it bounced back up at him, released from a million million tiny diamonds in all the colors of the rainbow.
He threw open the sash window once again and his breath billowed out into the dry winter air. All was still, the snow so far unbroken. No birds sang, no woodland creatures pattered or rustled through the leaves. Barrett was alone with only his burning lungs for company.
As he began to move away the white was interrupted. A black figure moved through the trees, first there and then not. His hood was up so Barrett couldn’t see his face, but he knew it was Cutler, rousing the apprentices from there hidden snow covered dens, as had become his own personal tradition.
He could delay no longer.
Barrett dressed quickly in light fighting gear, dark britches and shirt, a black leather vest, gloves and supple dark boots. Finally, the midnight robe came out of the trunk and his wear was complete.
Soon he was striding out across the lawn, secretly armed to the teeth, a mass of black against the stark white. The jewels in his sword added their colors to the contrast of extremes, the emeralds, rubies and sapphires all bobbing brightly above his head as he made his approach.
A semi-familiar scene began to materialize in front him, just inside the tree line.
Almost forty hooded figures stood in their black robes. Each one brandishing a weapon plain to see but Barrett knew their true arsenal lay hidden. Knives, daggers and dirks strategically position to make each man a secret killing machine from near and far.
The group of men were interspersed with other, smaller figures each dressed in differing hues of grey, green, brown and blue, but all of them dark. The slight difference between the hopeless black and the dark menagerie of the apprentices’ garments reminded him of Tiberius’ hair, long ago, which chameleoned with the shade of sun and surrounding.
As Barrett drew up the band of students and masters began to close in and form a ragged circle. A few familiar faces turned to nod but most stared straight ahead.
Cutler stepped forward into the quickly muddying snow and threw back his hood. It wasn’t often that anyone saw him armed and Barrett had only ever seen him wear a sword openly at the trial of strength. This year was no different and the new initiates all tried to ogle his blade out of the corner of their eyes. It was unlike any sword most people had ever seen. Not because it was cruel and jagged and capable of disgusting disfigurement, crude blades like that were common enough, but because of how Cutler claimed to own it and where it supposedly came from.
Cutler often boasted about how he had haggled with a foreign trader for it in Tiber port. The blades story, no doubt embellished by the merchant before and Cutler on each telling was that the blade was crafted in a faraway land to the south-west, where the land was wet and coated in luscious green forest. The blade therefore had an unusually green hue. It was not a bright, sharp green like that of an emerald or fresh grass but more a dull dirty green like the blade was poisoned and would leave festering, corrupted wounds behind wherever it slashed. The perfect weapon for someone cruel and venomous.
“This year.” Cutler began. “Things will be conducted slightly differently to normal. As in other years the trials of stealth and knowledge have been primary, this year the trial of strength will take precedence and begin now.” A few of the adult members exchanged glances but silence was maintained. “I now hand you over to the Battlemaster of Order of the Night’s Blood and master of the northern lands; Bores.”
The bearded assassin strode out to take Cutler’s place and surveyed the faces around him with his scared, unblinking eyes.
“Thank you, Cutler. As our leader has explained, I am the orders battlemaster.” He stated, keeping his voice gruff and unfriendly. “Therefore, it is my duty to organize and supervise this; the trial of strength. Know also that, as battlemaster, it is also my duty to enforce the punishments sanctioned by the orders highest level. I am the orders headsman and hangman and it will be me who you will answer to should you defy the book of life.” He paused and studied the faces around him again.
“This year’s trial will be a trial of battle as always but this year you will fight each other,.”
Nobody moved or spoke but Barrett did notice a scrawny, ginger haired apprentice stifle a jaw drop. Clearly, they had all expected differently. “The rules will be that of standard in house dueling. Permanent physical damage is to be avoided. Once blood has been drawn that apprentices is eliminated. Last man standing will be the winner. However, all apprentices will be judged on merit, not their finishing position.” Another pause.
“Ready!” the loose circle of black stepped back and became more defined.
“Draw!” the apprentices drew swords, knives and even a spiked mace from a broad shouldered, pig faced boy.
“BEGIN!” Bores bellowed, sending a few crows to the wind from their high branches.
Immediately half the apprentices began rushing toward their chosen adversaries while the others took up a defensive stance and prepared to meet them. The flurry of clashing blades was loud like a swarm of angry metal bees.
Barrett had hoped that at least some snow would be spattered with crimson relatively early but quickly the background noise of crunching flakes disappeared to leave the bare, frozen earth beneath.
After five minutes of heated battle all contestants were still unscathed but after another five the field looked very different.
First, the small surprised ginger boy took a daggers slash to the ear before another six unmemorable faces took minor flesh wounds. The weak of the heard removed, the fight’s pace increased. The boy with the mace began swinging wildly, taking advantage of the new-found space. His second opponent of the match suffered a badly broken arm before fainting at the sight of exposed bone and being carried away. The mace swings grew quicker and harder as the ground became softer and began to squelch. One un-parried blow and he was on his back, a sword arching down fast towards his chest.
“STOP!” Bores bellowed just in time to save piggy from defeat and scattering another flock of moaning crows.
The crowd began to murmur. One by one they turned to stare in Barrett’s direction. Bores strode towards him, his eyes fixed on the house over his shoulder. He turned slowly, worried of what he might see.
Leaving deep crimson footsteps in the snow and dragging one leg behind him was a man in a black robe.
The group followed in the battlemaster’s wake away from the trial until the hobbling assassin and the northerner were face to face.
“What has happened, brother?” Bores asked, his voice calm and quiet.
“The kretch.” The unfamiliar man replied dribbling bloody saliva. “The kretch has escaped.”