Chapter One
The day was one of absolute brilliance. An aquatic sky with comely clouds reigned overhead, a dominating sun at its eastern end. It began with rays of darling light that worked their way across the horizon, shooting past the mountains and through the forests, painting the sky pink as they came. Assorted hues of lavender and waves of orange and red slowly shifted, and when they disappeared, they left a blanket of the bluest blue to ceiling the entire earth.
Deep within the western wood, the light of day lanced in between each obstacle, pierced all shadows, splitting them apart, and raced ahead into the wood where it echoed on into a clearing. Inside the midst of the tendered land, nature guarded a small stone cottage and garden yard. The home was a wonderful work of hard hands, crafted close with a careful blend of skill and patience. It held the look of the man who made it. Past the thin mist of smoke that trailed from its squat chimney, and on into the yard behind it, that man stood with a sword in hand, beside a boy sharing his same features, surrounded by a set of head-tall wooden pillars. He looked to the boy with a hardened face.
"Grace young Raenyn," he was saying. The man shifted his gaze. "Every good swordsman must have grace." He caught the sun's glare along the blade of his sword as he brought it up, slowly moving his wrist around in lift. The boy eyed the steel anxiously, and studied the glimmer of light that was riding up the length of it. Then his father stopped the weapon's ascent, and the shimmer died down into a glint of sparkling silver that reflected from Raenyn's eyes. Suddenly, the light gave birth to enchanting speed, flashing before him like magic. Raenyn stepped back instinctively, shielding his face, and then he steadied quickly to witness the movement as it continued. His father lashed out with the weapon, striking one of the wooden beams, but just before the sword could stick, he pivoted, and cut into another. The man twisted and turned, each time hitting a different target, until he had struck them all, whereupon he let the weapon rest, three inches deep, within the last. Raenyn blinked. "With grace," his father said, kneeling down, "you can conquer an army without the effort of more brutish warriors. Speed and skill, son, will mark your every strike as destiny would ride your tracks. At any rate boy, as I should speak of fate, you should know that those steps and those strikes coincide."
Raenyn swallowed, uncertain. "What do you mean father?"
"You are a swordsman, by blood. You have been chosen to meet with steel. You were always meant to embrace the blade."
He smiled generously, made wild the hair on Raenyn's head, and stood.
"And you will learn to be the best."
Then he took the sword he had sheathed inside the beam, gripping the handle tight. With a quick jerk, he freed the steel and flipping the weapon around, placed it home into the scabbard tied at his broad belt. He tapped the hilt and guard gingerly, regarding Raenyn with a pair of ebony eyes.
"After we eat, you'll take to practice for the day. To be the best fighter, Raenyn, you must first practice to be the better one."
Raenyn nodded, almost smiling, and followed his father to the little cottage. They ate lightly at a little meal of dried meat and bread, and after sharing a small portion of ale, tended to the hearth, and left. On their way out, Raenyn took up a pair of wooden swords leaning by the doorway, and rushed on to keep up with his father.
The two practiced by the wooden beams for two hours. Raenyn worked hard to follow his father's lead, swinging where he was told to, moving as he was bid, until it was suggested to rest. He had been learning swordplay since he was seven, and at thirteen, had been told by his father that he had more skill with sword than most men twice his age.
"Raenyn, you are bonding with the blade better by the day."
Raenyn Jyhl smiled. He did so as his father, and at a glance, if the two were seen even, apart at separate days, those who would remember their faces would know them easily as father and son. The senior Jyhl was a tall man, with broad shoulders and heavy hands. His face, unlike his son's, was hardened and more square, but his features, however, were without compare; he and his son both had a set of black eyes, a perfectly placed nose, high cheekbones, and a well curved mouth. Raenyn was still a boy, so he had yet to build height and weight, but he was a boy of great credit nonetheless. He had lived in the forest since he was born, and was bred to battle its sources to survive. He had hunted since he was three, began labor chores at five, and in shape to begin swordplay, started in two short years to come. His father continued to stare at him, remembering each day he had lived. He was without a doubt proud to have him as his son.
"Keep to the beams."
He grabbed the other wooden sword, and handed it to his son. Raenyn took it, his features curving curiously.
"Are you leaving?"
His father nodded. "Just for a while."
"Where?"
"Our neighbor, a mile south, has invited me to hunt with him. We are in need of meat, so I agreed."
"And I am to stay?"
The big man frowned. "To practice, yes."
"I can fire a bow and throw the knife as good as any hunter in this wood."
"Almost," his father replied, giving Raenyn a loose smile. "But it is not your skill at hunting that I test; it is your skill with the sword. Keep to the beams, boy."
"When will you return?"
"I won't be long. At any rate, we hunt at half a mile away. If the sun sets too soon, keep up the hearth wood, and feed yourself the last of the meat. There will be more of it by tonight, I assure you."
His father stepped away from him, and as he turned to go, he scuffed Raenyn's hair a second time. Then he went.
"Keep to the beams," he shouted back. "Watch your feet."
Raenyn looked down and made a face. His feet. His father always stressed about his ability to move. One step ahead could give his sword a yard more to reach. It was that one increment, within every inch, that would serve him. The delicate details, he knew, were always the ones that would save his life. A moment later, his father came again, riding a mighty stallion. He looked down at Raenyn, shifted his weight on the saddle, and adjusted the longbow that hung along side it. He spoke then to his son, the last words that Raenyn would ever hear him say.
"I will be back home again soon," he said. "Practice, my boy. Be the best!"
Then he waved good-bye, wheeled the horse around, and rode off down a path, disappearing into the trees. Raenyn watched him ride until he was gone, and then taking up his sword to practice, did just that.
Raenyn's father had met up with his hunting friend and had been tracking with him for several hours when they first caught sight of their prey. Both of them stationed themselves a good distance from the beast, a massive black stag, flanking it from the brush. There, they advanced as the animal stopped to graze, and each of them reached behind them, where a quiver of arrows was tied close with a series of leather strips. The two exchanged a set of nods, ceased to stalk, and then drew forth their ammunition, sliding the arrows out slowly. Once free, they applied them to their bowstrings and began to advance again, pulling them back.
Then something stirred the grounds, a sound that the animal more sensed than its hunter's heard, and it looked up to investigate, its snout resting as it breathed, a mouthful of wild grass waiting beyond its teeth. Raenyn's father made a face, turned from the stag to his companion, and gestured for silence, shrugging slightly. He nodded with a smile, looking again to the beast, but as soon as he had shifted his gaze, he recalled two shapes sneaking up behind the other hunter, two shadows of men that he had overlooked at the same time he saw them.
He didn't have the time to warn him, and brought up his bow to fend them off. The glint of steel unsheathed at the strangers' sides took him away from any caution that had come, and without uttering a word, he released the arrow. One of the men dropped like a stone, and as the hunter turned to face the other, he fell back and killed him as well, sending an arrow into his neck. Raenyn's father drew his bowstring back a second time, crouching down, and looked about. A few birds took wing and spilled off into the sky, shrieking madly, and the stag darted away into a thick of trees.
The one hunter pushed the dead brigand from him and stood, notching another arrow. He gazed down at the dead men, and studied them. They were dressed in worn leather, held tight where it would fall by thick bands of hide and ties of rope and cord. They were filthy men, and he recognized them at once as thieves from the village five miles away. Raenyn's father approached him through the tall grass and stopped to study the men as well. He frowned, as if tasting something sour, turning to his friend.
"What business brings them here?"
The hunter shrugged, uncertain. "Food, perhaps."
"I think not," the swordsman disagreed, shaking his head. "That elk would have been best for the taking once it was dead. Besides, I think any thief from the village would rather pick a purse or borrow a loaf of bread that travel five miles to private forest grounds." "What hunter hunts with a short sword, if even for that?"
Raenyn's father looked about, holding his breath. "I do not think that they were hunting elk, my friend."
"Assassins?"
"No. An assassin would have thrown his sword from the trees."
"Then I don't understand."
"You don't owe any coin at the village?"
The hunter shook his head quickly, "No coin, bad favors, or any ill- meetings with anyone these thieves would hire to, if that's what they really are."
Then a thought hammered into the swordsman's head. "They are thieves, my friend, but they sought to steal something far from coin."
The hunter looked around quickly, suddenly uneasy, and Raenyn's father finished without blinking, leaning in close.
"They've come to take our attention."
Slowly, the two rose from the grass to see a wealth of men stationed where the swordsmen had been. There were a dozen of them in all, each looking like the two whom had died, each equipped with the same short, broad swords. The hunters met their maniacal stares, and then the lot of them started forward, calling out some battle cry.
Two men fell dead right away, and arrow appearing in each of them, and as they fell and the others charged, the hunters cast their bows aside. Raenyn's father drew his sword, unsheathing it with the flick of his wrist, and the man beside him gripped a set of wide hunting knives. With little else to do, they braced for their attackers, raising their weapons up. Another man died as the one hunter stuck him with a dagger, and a second fell as he sliced him along the legs. Raenyn's father met the men as well, and within a second had sent three of them to the wild grass, either dead or dying. Then the thieves were all around them, and seemingly at the same time, they struck.
The hunter friend managed to fell one last brigand before he was killed, stabbed through the back before he had the chance to bring his other hunting knife to bear. Raenyn's father watched him fall, but put the image aside to save himself from the same fate. He had met with the man only once before, at the village, and it was there that he been invited to hunt. It was there as well, that he had judged the man, by his talk and walk, and he knew he was no fighter. He felt foolish then, for letting him die. He should have had him stand back while he took them all on. The combined skill of those who remained was still not enough to best him, and when they were all dead or driven off, he would investigate the matter on his own.
He parried a wild blow, leaned in, and sent a thief to the ground with a powerful punch. As he collapsed, he stabbed him quickly, and then danced back to slay another. He turned, killing a third, and forging a newfound balance with what ground he had gained, careened into the rest and quickly killed them all. The swordsman wiped his blade off on one of the dead, dragging it along the man's dirty shirt. He spat at the bodies and sheathing his sword, turned to his fallen friend.
The man whom the hunter had cut at the legs lunged for him suddenly, with surprising speed, his sword wrapped tight within white fingers. Raenyn's father stumbled back, unaware and certain of his own demise. But a sound of something heavy beat madly at the air, and turning to the source, he saw a black blade spinning towards them just before it planted itself within the brigand's ribs, pitching him back. The swordsman stepped away, and looked to the one who had saved his life, watching him approach.
His savior was a tall man, built much like him, with darker features and long black hair. He had it tied back at the base of his neck with a silver headpiece, where a black cloak started and flowered down to a pair of fashioned leather boots with metal soles. His face was almost insidious, forming an expression the suggested both friend and foe, with a set of blue eyes both awesome and hinting sinister. As a man who just saved his life, Raenyn's father trusted him with it despite the fact that he had never seen him before.
"Thank you, stranger."
The man nodded as he came close, and wrenched the sword he had thrown free from the bones it was wedged between. There was a savage crack as he took the weapon out, and after Raenyn's father winced a little from hearing it, he studied the sword just before the stranger placed it within his cloak where a sheath lay hidden at his side. It was a wicked looking thing, almost burdened by its own beauty and seemingly uncertain design. The sword resembled any long sword, at four feet of blade with an eight- inch grip, but was decorated beyond any basic blacksmith skill. The metal used to create it failed to reflect the light, as it was a deep onyx, and the shape of it caught the darkness that it looked. It was far from dull. For a foot of the double-edged blade, the weapon started normally, but from there it grew a little broader and became serrated until six inches of steel remained, where the tip glistened a bit from a fine edge that without reason, could cut through anything it was set against. The handle rested wrapped in black leather just under a wide guard of shimmering silver, and it ended at an egg-shaped pommel, of silver as well.
The swordsman took his attention from the weapon as soon as it slipped from view, and gave it instead to the stranger it belonged to. The man returned his regard with a smile that somehow inspired fear rather that what it was intended to.
"These brigands never listen," he said. "Do they?"
"I think not."
The stranger shook his head, and lost his smile, his icy blue eyes becoming crystal. "I paid them well and gave them strict instruction to kill only your companion."
Raenyn's father tensed, his hand easing over the handle of his sword. He swallowed. "What is it stranger, that you want?"
"It isn't often I'm asked that," the man replied, smiling again. "But that such an occasion is gifted to me, I find it under obligation to reply."
"Well then?"
The dark man's demeanor diminished into something darker still.
"I've come for your son, senior Jyhl."
Raenyn's father stepped back, his sword suddenly in hand, but the stranger didn't flinch.
"You'll have no business with my boy. How do you know my name?"
"It belongs to you," the man replied promptly. "And I believed, in order to make all of this work right, I should know everything about you that there is to know. I took to know it all quickly, this last week."
"Then you'll be good enough to forget it," retorted the swordsman, raising his weapon. "You've no business with the life of my son, or that which is my own."
The stranger stared at him innocently. "I am sorry, senior Jyhl, but what business I take to has already been decided, and I apologize again, because despite what you might assume, you are in no position nor possess the power to even think to try to stop me."
The swordsman shook once with rage, and then shot forward. His opponent waited patiently for him to come. When he did, sword level, all his years of training and skill and grace measured up to nothing. The stranger's cloak flared out and he stepped aside, effortlessly, drawing his sword at the same time so fast it could not be seen. He met Raenyn's father in mid-swing, cleaving him quickly from his shoulder to waist, and before the man could fall, he had sheathed his sword and turned to watch him do so. The swordsman staggered weakly, gaping at reality in disbelief. Then he fell, rolling over, looking up at his killer as he bled away what life he still had left. He coughed once as the stranger stepped toward him.
"What is it.that you want.with my son?"
"It's complicated." The stranger studied him then, tilting his head a little. He wanted to know what Raenyn Jyhl looked like. He wanted to know what child to seek out when he took to the forest. He looked away from the swordsman, glanced at all the others who had died, and then he turned around completely, scanning the small valley, questioning the entire area with a solemn sigh. At last, he shifted his gaze again and regarded the dying man once more.
"Now, where did you leave that bastard stallion?"
Raenyn's father was suddenly blind. He couldn't breath. Choking on death as it pushed the air from his lungs, he uttered one last word before he passed on, his hand gripping his sword so tight the skin over his knuckles began to stretch.
"Raenyn." he whispered softly, barely.
And then he died.
The day was one of absolute brilliance. An aquatic sky with comely clouds reigned overhead, a dominating sun at its eastern end. It began with rays of darling light that worked their way across the horizon, shooting past the mountains and through the forests, painting the sky pink as they came. Assorted hues of lavender and waves of orange and red slowly shifted, and when they disappeared, they left a blanket of the bluest blue to ceiling the entire earth.
Deep within the western wood, the light of day lanced in between each obstacle, pierced all shadows, splitting them apart, and raced ahead into the wood where it echoed on into a clearing. Inside the midst of the tendered land, nature guarded a small stone cottage and garden yard. The home was a wonderful work of hard hands, crafted close with a careful blend of skill and patience. It held the look of the man who made it. Past the thin mist of smoke that trailed from its squat chimney, and on into the yard behind it, that man stood with a sword in hand, beside a boy sharing his same features, surrounded by a set of head-tall wooden pillars. He looked to the boy with a hardened face.
"Grace young Raenyn," he was saying. The man shifted his gaze. "Every good swordsman must have grace." He caught the sun's glare along the blade of his sword as he brought it up, slowly moving his wrist around in lift. The boy eyed the steel anxiously, and studied the glimmer of light that was riding up the length of it. Then his father stopped the weapon's ascent, and the shimmer died down into a glint of sparkling silver that reflected from Raenyn's eyes. Suddenly, the light gave birth to enchanting speed, flashing before him like magic. Raenyn stepped back instinctively, shielding his face, and then he steadied quickly to witness the movement as it continued. His father lashed out with the weapon, striking one of the wooden beams, but just before the sword could stick, he pivoted, and cut into another. The man twisted and turned, each time hitting a different target, until he had struck them all, whereupon he let the weapon rest, three inches deep, within the last. Raenyn blinked. "With grace," his father said, kneeling down, "you can conquer an army without the effort of more brutish warriors. Speed and skill, son, will mark your every strike as destiny would ride your tracks. At any rate boy, as I should speak of fate, you should know that those steps and those strikes coincide."
Raenyn swallowed, uncertain. "What do you mean father?"
"You are a swordsman, by blood. You have been chosen to meet with steel. You were always meant to embrace the blade."
He smiled generously, made wild the hair on Raenyn's head, and stood.
"And you will learn to be the best."
Then he took the sword he had sheathed inside the beam, gripping the handle tight. With a quick jerk, he freed the steel and flipping the weapon around, placed it home into the scabbard tied at his broad belt. He tapped the hilt and guard gingerly, regarding Raenyn with a pair of ebony eyes.
"After we eat, you'll take to practice for the day. To be the best fighter, Raenyn, you must first practice to be the better one."
Raenyn nodded, almost smiling, and followed his father to the little cottage. They ate lightly at a little meal of dried meat and bread, and after sharing a small portion of ale, tended to the hearth, and left. On their way out, Raenyn took up a pair of wooden swords leaning by the doorway, and rushed on to keep up with his father.
The two practiced by the wooden beams for two hours. Raenyn worked hard to follow his father's lead, swinging where he was told to, moving as he was bid, until it was suggested to rest. He had been learning swordplay since he was seven, and at thirteen, had been told by his father that he had more skill with sword than most men twice his age.
"Raenyn, you are bonding with the blade better by the day."
Raenyn Jyhl smiled. He did so as his father, and at a glance, if the two were seen even, apart at separate days, those who would remember their faces would know them easily as father and son. The senior Jyhl was a tall man, with broad shoulders and heavy hands. His face, unlike his son's, was hardened and more square, but his features, however, were without compare; he and his son both had a set of black eyes, a perfectly placed nose, high cheekbones, and a well curved mouth. Raenyn was still a boy, so he had yet to build height and weight, but he was a boy of great credit nonetheless. He had lived in the forest since he was born, and was bred to battle its sources to survive. He had hunted since he was three, began labor chores at five, and in shape to begin swordplay, started in two short years to come. His father continued to stare at him, remembering each day he had lived. He was without a doubt proud to have him as his son.
"Keep to the beams."
He grabbed the other wooden sword, and handed it to his son. Raenyn took it, his features curving curiously.
"Are you leaving?"
His father nodded. "Just for a while."
"Where?"
"Our neighbor, a mile south, has invited me to hunt with him. We are in need of meat, so I agreed."
"And I am to stay?"
The big man frowned. "To practice, yes."
"I can fire a bow and throw the knife as good as any hunter in this wood."
"Almost," his father replied, giving Raenyn a loose smile. "But it is not your skill at hunting that I test; it is your skill with the sword. Keep to the beams, boy."
"When will you return?"
"I won't be long. At any rate, we hunt at half a mile away. If the sun sets too soon, keep up the hearth wood, and feed yourself the last of the meat. There will be more of it by tonight, I assure you."
His father stepped away from him, and as he turned to go, he scuffed Raenyn's hair a second time. Then he went.
"Keep to the beams," he shouted back. "Watch your feet."
Raenyn looked down and made a face. His feet. His father always stressed about his ability to move. One step ahead could give his sword a yard more to reach. It was that one increment, within every inch, that would serve him. The delicate details, he knew, were always the ones that would save his life. A moment later, his father came again, riding a mighty stallion. He looked down at Raenyn, shifted his weight on the saddle, and adjusted the longbow that hung along side it. He spoke then to his son, the last words that Raenyn would ever hear him say.
"I will be back home again soon," he said. "Practice, my boy. Be the best!"
Then he waved good-bye, wheeled the horse around, and rode off down a path, disappearing into the trees. Raenyn watched him ride until he was gone, and then taking up his sword to practice, did just that.
Raenyn's father had met up with his hunting friend and had been tracking with him for several hours when they first caught sight of their prey. Both of them stationed themselves a good distance from the beast, a massive black stag, flanking it from the brush. There, they advanced as the animal stopped to graze, and each of them reached behind them, where a quiver of arrows was tied close with a series of leather strips. The two exchanged a set of nods, ceased to stalk, and then drew forth their ammunition, sliding the arrows out slowly. Once free, they applied them to their bowstrings and began to advance again, pulling them back.
Then something stirred the grounds, a sound that the animal more sensed than its hunter's heard, and it looked up to investigate, its snout resting as it breathed, a mouthful of wild grass waiting beyond its teeth. Raenyn's father made a face, turned from the stag to his companion, and gestured for silence, shrugging slightly. He nodded with a smile, looking again to the beast, but as soon as he had shifted his gaze, he recalled two shapes sneaking up behind the other hunter, two shadows of men that he had overlooked at the same time he saw them.
He didn't have the time to warn him, and brought up his bow to fend them off. The glint of steel unsheathed at the strangers' sides took him away from any caution that had come, and without uttering a word, he released the arrow. One of the men dropped like a stone, and as the hunter turned to face the other, he fell back and killed him as well, sending an arrow into his neck. Raenyn's father drew his bowstring back a second time, crouching down, and looked about. A few birds took wing and spilled off into the sky, shrieking madly, and the stag darted away into a thick of trees.
The one hunter pushed the dead brigand from him and stood, notching another arrow. He gazed down at the dead men, and studied them. They were dressed in worn leather, held tight where it would fall by thick bands of hide and ties of rope and cord. They were filthy men, and he recognized them at once as thieves from the village five miles away. Raenyn's father approached him through the tall grass and stopped to study the men as well. He frowned, as if tasting something sour, turning to his friend.
"What business brings them here?"
The hunter shrugged, uncertain. "Food, perhaps."
"I think not," the swordsman disagreed, shaking his head. "That elk would have been best for the taking once it was dead. Besides, I think any thief from the village would rather pick a purse or borrow a loaf of bread that travel five miles to private forest grounds." "What hunter hunts with a short sword, if even for that?"
Raenyn's father looked about, holding his breath. "I do not think that they were hunting elk, my friend."
"Assassins?"
"No. An assassin would have thrown his sword from the trees."
"Then I don't understand."
"You don't owe any coin at the village?"
The hunter shook his head quickly, "No coin, bad favors, or any ill- meetings with anyone these thieves would hire to, if that's what they really are."
Then a thought hammered into the swordsman's head. "They are thieves, my friend, but they sought to steal something far from coin."
The hunter looked around quickly, suddenly uneasy, and Raenyn's father finished without blinking, leaning in close.
"They've come to take our attention."
Slowly, the two rose from the grass to see a wealth of men stationed where the swordsmen had been. There were a dozen of them in all, each looking like the two whom had died, each equipped with the same short, broad swords. The hunters met their maniacal stares, and then the lot of them started forward, calling out some battle cry.
Two men fell dead right away, and arrow appearing in each of them, and as they fell and the others charged, the hunters cast their bows aside. Raenyn's father drew his sword, unsheathing it with the flick of his wrist, and the man beside him gripped a set of wide hunting knives. With little else to do, they braced for their attackers, raising their weapons up. Another man died as the one hunter stuck him with a dagger, and a second fell as he sliced him along the legs. Raenyn's father met the men as well, and within a second had sent three of them to the wild grass, either dead or dying. Then the thieves were all around them, and seemingly at the same time, they struck.
The hunter friend managed to fell one last brigand before he was killed, stabbed through the back before he had the chance to bring his other hunting knife to bear. Raenyn's father watched him fall, but put the image aside to save himself from the same fate. He had met with the man only once before, at the village, and it was there that he been invited to hunt. It was there as well, that he had judged the man, by his talk and walk, and he knew he was no fighter. He felt foolish then, for letting him die. He should have had him stand back while he took them all on. The combined skill of those who remained was still not enough to best him, and when they were all dead or driven off, he would investigate the matter on his own.
He parried a wild blow, leaned in, and sent a thief to the ground with a powerful punch. As he collapsed, he stabbed him quickly, and then danced back to slay another. He turned, killing a third, and forging a newfound balance with what ground he had gained, careened into the rest and quickly killed them all. The swordsman wiped his blade off on one of the dead, dragging it along the man's dirty shirt. He spat at the bodies and sheathing his sword, turned to his fallen friend.
The man whom the hunter had cut at the legs lunged for him suddenly, with surprising speed, his sword wrapped tight within white fingers. Raenyn's father stumbled back, unaware and certain of his own demise. But a sound of something heavy beat madly at the air, and turning to the source, he saw a black blade spinning towards them just before it planted itself within the brigand's ribs, pitching him back. The swordsman stepped away, and looked to the one who had saved his life, watching him approach.
His savior was a tall man, built much like him, with darker features and long black hair. He had it tied back at the base of his neck with a silver headpiece, where a black cloak started and flowered down to a pair of fashioned leather boots with metal soles. His face was almost insidious, forming an expression the suggested both friend and foe, with a set of blue eyes both awesome and hinting sinister. As a man who just saved his life, Raenyn's father trusted him with it despite the fact that he had never seen him before.
"Thank you, stranger."
The man nodded as he came close, and wrenched the sword he had thrown free from the bones it was wedged between. There was a savage crack as he took the weapon out, and after Raenyn's father winced a little from hearing it, he studied the sword just before the stranger placed it within his cloak where a sheath lay hidden at his side. It was a wicked looking thing, almost burdened by its own beauty and seemingly uncertain design. The sword resembled any long sword, at four feet of blade with an eight- inch grip, but was decorated beyond any basic blacksmith skill. The metal used to create it failed to reflect the light, as it was a deep onyx, and the shape of it caught the darkness that it looked. It was far from dull. For a foot of the double-edged blade, the weapon started normally, but from there it grew a little broader and became serrated until six inches of steel remained, where the tip glistened a bit from a fine edge that without reason, could cut through anything it was set against. The handle rested wrapped in black leather just under a wide guard of shimmering silver, and it ended at an egg-shaped pommel, of silver as well.
The swordsman took his attention from the weapon as soon as it slipped from view, and gave it instead to the stranger it belonged to. The man returned his regard with a smile that somehow inspired fear rather that what it was intended to.
"These brigands never listen," he said. "Do they?"
"I think not."
The stranger shook his head, and lost his smile, his icy blue eyes becoming crystal. "I paid them well and gave them strict instruction to kill only your companion."
Raenyn's father tensed, his hand easing over the handle of his sword. He swallowed. "What is it stranger, that you want?"
"It isn't often I'm asked that," the man replied, smiling again. "But that such an occasion is gifted to me, I find it under obligation to reply."
"Well then?"
The dark man's demeanor diminished into something darker still.
"I've come for your son, senior Jyhl."
Raenyn's father stepped back, his sword suddenly in hand, but the stranger didn't flinch.
"You'll have no business with my boy. How do you know my name?"
"It belongs to you," the man replied promptly. "And I believed, in order to make all of this work right, I should know everything about you that there is to know. I took to know it all quickly, this last week."
"Then you'll be good enough to forget it," retorted the swordsman, raising his weapon. "You've no business with the life of my son, or that which is my own."
The stranger stared at him innocently. "I am sorry, senior Jyhl, but what business I take to has already been decided, and I apologize again, because despite what you might assume, you are in no position nor possess the power to even think to try to stop me."
The swordsman shook once with rage, and then shot forward. His opponent waited patiently for him to come. When he did, sword level, all his years of training and skill and grace measured up to nothing. The stranger's cloak flared out and he stepped aside, effortlessly, drawing his sword at the same time so fast it could not be seen. He met Raenyn's father in mid-swing, cleaving him quickly from his shoulder to waist, and before the man could fall, he had sheathed his sword and turned to watch him do so. The swordsman staggered weakly, gaping at reality in disbelief. Then he fell, rolling over, looking up at his killer as he bled away what life he still had left. He coughed once as the stranger stepped toward him.
"What is it.that you want.with my son?"
"It's complicated." The stranger studied him then, tilting his head a little. He wanted to know what Raenyn Jyhl looked like. He wanted to know what child to seek out when he took to the forest. He looked away from the swordsman, glanced at all the others who had died, and then he turned around completely, scanning the small valley, questioning the entire area with a solemn sigh. At last, he shifted his gaze again and regarded the dying man once more.
"Now, where did you leave that bastard stallion?"
Raenyn's father was suddenly blind. He couldn't breath. Choking on death as it pushed the air from his lungs, he uttered one last word before he passed on, his hand gripping his sword so tight the skin over his knuckles began to stretch.
"Raenyn." he whispered softly, barely.
And then he died.