Illara Chronicles: Swordplay

Firelight

The first day of travel ended when the sunlight was lost, and stars began to blink into view between blankets of cloud cover. Kendreth and Dentren stopped the wagon at the base of a hill, the only landmark more significant than tall green grass for an hours ride.

Kelith and the others began to build camp at the top of the hill. Kendreth watered his and Keliths horses. Dentren rode with The Warden to scout out a perimeter. As night fell more fully, fire lights began to blink into view all around.

"Others Bladeward encampments?" Kelith was rolling his bedroll out over a particularly dense patch of grass.

"Orcs." Malcom spat as he began building a fire of their own. "The Bladeward walls their fires off, to keep out of sight." 

"You'd think it'd be easy enough to blend in. There's more than a dozen out there." Kelith forced himself to stand. Kneeling over his bed brought his weariness to bear.

"The orcs know their own movements, novice. They'd pick our fire out of the twelve others." Malcom hefted a long roll of sealskin and wooden posts out of the wagon, and positioned the covering in a wide ring around the fire pit, so that it would block the firelight. He crouched there, and drug his knife against a bar of flint, sending sparks into the large stack of dried wood.

Taldren slipped out of his boots, and travel-wear, and right into his bedroll with a book. Aelara hammered in the hitching post, and tied the horses to it. Kendreth fed and brushed them.

Malcom muttered some quiet curse at the cold firepit, as he continued to strike his flint to no avail. "If any of you are done lazing around, you could give starting the fire a try." 

If Taldren heard him, he made no move to show it. Kelith stood beside him, but was lost to his thoughts. He couldn't place why Malcom got under his skin. He struck the flint again, with no luck, and threw it on the ground.

Abrasive.

"It's maple, I think. The sparks roll right over maple, it doesn't catch easily." Kendreth smiled at him, knelt and picked up the discarded tools, with Malcom and Aelandra at his back.

"Kendreth is different." Sprig whistled in Kelith ear.

"I know." Kelith began, "He --"

Kendreth drug the knife against the flint hard, and fast. The fire lit in an unusually bright flash and sent a shower of sparks into the air. Kendreth fell back, Kelith twisted his eyebrows into a confused frown, and Aelandra placed one hand on her belly and the other over her mouth as she laughed loudly.

"What's so funny about it?" Malcom sneered at her. Her laugh was replaced with a scoff, and the light in her face dimmed back into the diminished demeanor that she'd worn all day. She walked away from him. He raised his vocie at her back. "I shouldn't have let you win in the trial. You aren't as much fun as the girls from Havenhelm." 

Taldren turned a page as loudly as he could. Kelith cocked his head and took an involuntary step back. Kendreth rose and turned to confront him, but Aelandra had already strode back into Malcoms space.

"You should not have let me win. You did it because you were afraid." She was only half a head taller, but she looked down at him.

"It was a mercy. I didn't want to embarrass you for being so big and slow, and altogether out of your depth. You are no swordsman, if it weren't for my kindness there'd be no place for you in the bladeward."

"A swordsman? Fine! I'll get my hammer; you gather your sword and see if I don't break it in two. Or we could fight without weapons, and I'll break you in two!" Tears welled in her eyes.