Harper dropped a sword at Kai's feet. "Teach me how to use it."
He panted, catching his breath. He had been pleased to find that the Ivory Manor housed a dozen guards—as well as a place for them to train. He trained early each morning, before the sun rose, along with its heat.
"Please," Harper added.
"You want to learn how to use a sword?"
It would be useful, he supposed. He had tried to convince her not to come on the scouting mission, but she had insisted. Even a reminder of her near death atop Aria's wall the month before had not swayed her. If there was no way to keep her from coming, he might as well teach her to fight properly.
"Show me what you know," he said.
She shrugged. "I've trained with a bow, not a sword. I've only even held one a couple of times." She picked it up, however, sliding the steel blade from its leather sheath. It was a longsword, only a head shorter than her, but she carried it with ease. Using a bow had certainly made her strong.
"Do you want to learn how to use a longsword and shield, like those oafs you fought on the wall, blundering about like miniature giants?"
Harper arched a brow. "I suppose that I should say no?"
"Correct. Besides, although you're strong for your size, you'll be overpowered easily in a battle of strength."
"So you'll teach me how to use your little sword, then?" She asked.
"It's called an arming sword, not a little sword. And yes. It's not an honorable weapon—at least, not in the eyes of oafs. However, it works—it takes more skill and less brute strength." He pulled his sword from its scabbard, handing it to her by the handle. She held it carefully, testing the blade's balance. She wore her riding leathers, as usual, complete with sturdy, flexible white gloves.
"We only have two weeks, so I'll skip past the exercises. You've trained with a bow all your life, so I trust that you've worked the rest of your body, too."
"Not as much as I should have," she said with a wince, "but hunting has helped. I'll start exercising with the guards tomorrow, though."
Kai nodded his approval, drawing a second arming sword from a basket near the entrance to the guards quarters. It was not as balanced as he would have preferred, but it would do fine.
"Learning to use a sword properly takes practice. I've used mine for nearly all of my life. In the short amount of time we have... I'll show you what I can, but you should still rely on that bow of yours."
She nodded, and they began.
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It was past noon by the time they finally ended their practice. Harper had insisted on going on, even as sweat poured down their faces. She was good for someone who had never used a sword before. Kai taught her proper stance; standing sideways to decrease the size of the target—herself—and increase the length and range of her sword arm. He showed her how to stay balanced, keeping to the balls of her feet.
After that, they practiced simple thrusts and jabs. Kai wanted her to exercise as many muscles as she could, as soon as possible. They would be sore for days, even weeks, and it was better to endure the slight pain now than in two weeks, where danger could lurk behind any corner.
"That was fun," Harper said as they made their way to the manor's dining room for luncheon.
Kai arched his brow. "Fun? I don't think any other noble lady I've ever met would call that fun."
"Well, I'm not any other noble lady—I'm me." She smiled, pushing past him to sit at the head of the dining table. Bread, potatoes and roast suckling pig were brought out a few moments later. The meat was delicious, as was all the food that Kai had eaten since arriving in Aria. He had killed the wild boar—with Harper's help—the day before, after their meeting with the royal council.
Hunting was a strange thrill, and one that he had grown to love. The Ivory Manor's grounds were full of game, ranging from grouse to stags to these feral pigs. He made their deaths as quick as possible, with clean shots through the eyes.
"As much as I would like to keep using that little sword of yours," Harper said, setting her fork atop her now empty plate, "it's about time that we searched the library. I've read many of the books there, but not nearly all of them. There are thousands—some of them must have some record of whatever those creatures are and where they came from. Right?" Her expression hardened as her voice dropped to hardly more than a whisper.
"We're leaving, and soon. I want to go—I need to go, but it will hurt to leave this place again." She didn't have to say the rest. Did not have to mention that they may never return to the manor. Kai had only been here for a few short weeks, but he already felt more at home than he had in Northshire.
"We need to prepare in any way that we can—we need to make it back." She rose from her seat as Kai did the same, following her through the twisting hallways of the Ivory Manor.
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The library's size surprised Kai every time he entered it, even though he had been inside the place at least a dozen times by now. The massive center of the room was covered in seats and tables, with only a single librarian occupying them. He was a middle aged man, with snow white skin and gray robes that pooled at his feet. He bowed when he saw them. "Lady Harper, Lord Kai."
"Just Kai." He corrected the librarian.
He nodded with a faint smile. "Can I help you find anything?" He directed his attention to Harper, who seemed to come here a hundred times per day.
"Yes," she said. "Please search for the oldest records in the library. We aren't quite sure what it is that we're looking for, but the language is strange...well, they're pictures, not a proper language. I'm sorry, that's about all the information I can give you."
Isake frowned for a moment before his eyes lit up. "I believe we have a few scrolls that may fit that description, general as it is. I will bring them to your quarters, if you would like."
She shook her head. "The main dining room will be fine."
He nodded, pacing off toward a large ladder as Kai and Harper left the library.
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The scrolls were brought to the dining room little more than half an hour later.
"Careful," the librarian said. "They have been stored well over the years, it seems, but this parchment is still centuries old."
Harper thanked and dismissed him, handing a scroll to Kai as she looked through one of her own.
"This is it," he said immediately. "These pictures are just like the ones on the pillars." She nodded distantly, already immersed in her scroll. The paper was thin and yellowed and smelled of grass and dust and soil. The pictures had been drawn in black ink that was nearly faded and hardly readable. Squinting, Kai looked at the story on his first scroll.
At the top of the parchment stood a man who carried a spear and seemed to be wearing nothing, save for a loincloth. Before him towered a giant, garb similar to that of the creature Kai had nearly been eaten by during the siege.
As the story went on, the giant and man fought, soon joined by reinforcements on both sides. Although it was sloppily depicted—most likely due to whatever primitive tools of art that it had been drawn with—the effect was obvious. Enemies for years, or perhaps much longer. Humans triumphed in some battles, giants in others. It looked similar to the carvings on the pillars, only...
"Harper, look." Her gaze turned from her own scroll to his. "The pictures here are like those on the pillars in Lord Canmore's keep, but they've been drawn slightly differently. The carvings were more precise, which is strange. They must have been made by different people."
She nodded, unimpressed. "That's no surprise; there must have been hundreds of historians in Ath alone all those years ago, just as there are today."
"But these giants...their eyes are black." The massive creatures in these pictures had the same depthless, pitch black eyes as the hounds. "I'll never forget that darkness."
"What does it mean?" Harper asked, brows scrunched in confusion. She shook her head, unsatisfied. "Why didn't the giants at the siege have this darkness in their eyes? Or on their eyes. Or instead of their eyes."
"Let's keep looking. There has to be something more, something useful hidden within these pictures."
He turned back to his scroll. It had been so easy, finding these records—it seemed too good to be true. But would the true test be finding something inside the scrolls; deciphering whatever message they told? They were simple, so simple that even an illiterate could tell what they meant, but with simplicity came confusion. Confusion over the true meaning of the pictures—were they simply a story, or did they seek to convey something beyond the obvious?
The battles between giants and men continued on the weathered scroll, history seeming to repeat itself again and again. Halfway down the scroll, hounds joined the mix of giants and men, eyes filled with a familiar darkness. They fought alongside the giants, never the humans, despite what Kai had seen at the siege. It seemed that some things had changed throughout the years.
Near the bottom of the parchment was a final battle, bloodier than the others. Humans reigned victorious in this last blood-bath, it seemed, although how they had defeated an army of giants, Kai could only guess. Perhaps men had simply had larger numbers, or primitive weapons designed for killing the creatures.
"It's finished," he said aloud. "It told me nothing—not really. Just dozens of battles, all between men and beasts. Have you learned anything?" He turned to Harper, who shook her head.
"Same as you...I think that these scrolls bear the same records, just written by different historians. Then again, these pictures are so simply drawn that it would be hard to find differences, even if there were any."
They compared scrolls, and it seemed that they truly did reveal the same secrets—or lack thereof. The rest of the scrolls, three weathered pieces of parchment, were even shorter than the first two, telling the same tale, although incomplete.
Kai shook his head in disbelief. "How have I never heard of these creatures before arriving at Ath? These pictures are hundreds of years old, perhaps thousands, as is Lord Canmore's keep. Hasn't anyone thought about them, wondered where they came from?"
"People must have believed them to be myth. Bedtime stories told to children. No one had any cause to believe anything more than that...Until now.
Kai sighed, setting down the last scroll. "You're right. There must be more forgotten records, though. If not here, then perhaps in Terrin, or even Sleetshire. Could there be more scrolls buried somewhere in the Ivory Manor's library?"
"Maybe," Harper said, although she looked doubtful. "I'll ask Isake tomorrow."
Kai sighed, frustrated. He hated not knowing. Hated that he would soon be marching forward, searching for enemies that he knew nothing about. Creatures from legend, monsters from bedtime stories. And yet he had to go forward, had to be one of the men in Canmore's scouting mission. He didn't know why he had to, but some part of him knew that he did. Besides, if he didn't go, and if they didn't uncover the Dark Army's secrets, what would come of Aria, the place that he had so quickly grown to love? Would it be destroyed in the night, walls battered to dust without warning? Would it turn into the next Larnwick, a city of ash and rubble?"