13 Kythorn
The Silvershields are warriors. I've known the story of how we received the name since I was a baby. My great-great-grandfather Einar was a warrior, and he had a silver shield. It sounds like a frivolous thing for an adventurer, but there was a reason. Once he was a blacksmith's apprentice, and in the well of their village by the River Chionthar there was a trapped basilisk that turned everything that came near into stone. Nobody dared to go near it, but because Einar was in love with the baron's daughter, he made his own shield of dazzling silver. Then, carrying the handkerchief of his true love, he descended the well to the very bottom, just before midday. As the bright noontide sun rose and hit the bottom of the well, he brandished the silver shield. The monster could not help but view its own reflection, and turned itself to stone with a scream heard a thousand leagues away. Since then, Einar bore his silver shield in name and deed, and so have his descendants...
I'm a plagiarist, but I'm not even a Silvershield any more, and not a warrior.
She hit me in the jaw as soon as I woke up (and I did get up at the right time, dawn) and went out to her. Just to show me it was serious, she said.
"You're a spoilt little rich girl and because you asked nicely I'm going to whip you into shape. And I'm going to enjoy it." She pierced the ground with a longsword, just short of spitting me.
I got to my feet and pulled it out of the cold ground.
"I'm only giving you a one-handed blade. Thank me for generosity." She was holding my shortsword instead of her own weapon. "Which hand do you favour?"
"Both." I passed the sword into my right hand. All the weapons-instructors and tutors I've had made me use my right, but I still use my left hand sometimes in practice when I'm not thinking about it.
"Start with your left, then. I suppose we'll have to make use of any small advantages you have."
I started one of the standard exercises for the shortsword; it was different with a longer, heavier blade.
"Sloppy. Try to hit me."
"It's not blunted," I said.
"Exactly."
I swear to Torm I tried. I ought to have had the advantage with a longer, sharper blade, but I couldn't so much as graze her. All she did was defend, again and again and again. I dropped to the ground, exhausted, at the point I could not stand any more.
"Call yourself a rogue, don't you..." she said, running her thumb along the edge of my sword, looking hungry for bloodshed. "Try better feints, next time I allow you to duel me." She demonstrated. "Then go in for the kill. If you're not ruthless enough..."
I didn't duck in time. She left a precisely-placed nick in my earlobe, just below Imoen's right earring.
Ruthless.
"Stand up, pick up those two rocks over there, and practice lifting them up and down until I'm ready to break my fast."
She ignored me as she ran through her own exercises; she was amazingly fast, for carrying such a large sword. I did not dare disobey...
My feet hurt. So does everything else.
—
14 Kythorn
Training again this morning. Shar-Teel made me do the feint she showed me the last session, over and over again. Even after I'm sure I had it right. And still she kept deflecting it...
"Try to fight? It's a surprise you tie your own boots in the morning, ninny!" she taunted. I think that's her general pedagogical strategy. "Again!"
It's a simple enough move. Draw the opponent's blade, shift twenty degrees, and make the strike to their ribcage. The way to a man's heart is a slit to the stomach then up and under his ribs. I bet she took that from somewhere. She had the counter for it, and kept doing it and hitting my shoulder.
"Stop it—please—"
"I thought you'd give up sooner or later, spoiled-brat, but not this quickly. Probably would've died fast anyway." She half-lowered her blade.
No.
Contempt on her face. For the incompetent who keeps running away. She was leaving.
"Distracted! You're distracted!" Bring the sword up. Fast-as-possible. Get past her guard for once—
"Idiot—"
She blocked; I'd come almost a nail's breadth to hitting her. The closest I'd ever made it— I didn't want to start sobbing at how hopeless that was. She threw me off, knocking me back a pace; I tried again to attack her. Quickly.
"Show some spirit, brat! Rogue's tricks if you must!"
"Rrrrraaaaa..." Battle-cries. Hatred. She was Sendai at her most annoying; Kagain wanting payment for Eddard; one of those assassins; the kobold who shot Imoen. If I didn't think about it, I could try to hack away at her for longer.
Rogue tricks. Rogue tricks rogue tricks rogue tricks. Hate this hate this hate this.
She was going to kill me if I gave up. Someone else was going to kill the others if I gave up. The dishonourable throw-dirt-in-the-face trick I'd read about. It wouldn't work with her watching all the time. She was moving even faster than she had at the start.
The trees. A tree-branch. It took time to come up with ideas, six times she would have killed me in a real fight. When she stepped to block the feint again, I ran back instead of finishing the move; I dived under the tree-branch and pulled it back to throw into her face. A bit more daring, and I might have jumped forward and hit her, using the fact I'm shorter to get under the branch...
"Enough for now." She didn't let me do it. Stopping, it felt a great relief; I looked to the side and saw Imoen there, watching. I hadn't noticed her; too busy being angry and fighting. I felt myself breathing heavily, sweating like a horse. (Perspiring like a lady, my stepmother would say; except I couldn't be further from that now.)
"Go move some rocks, weakling. I'll tell you when you're done."
It was such a relief to collapse down when it was finally over. It hurt; but Imoen was smiling at me, and that made it feel better. She even passed me some bread-and-water.
"Hey...nice going there, Skie. 'S good you're working on it."
It was good to rest at last. And to eat something. "Thanks."
"It's like I learned magic to protect you. Now you're trying to protect us."
"Yeah. Imoen...Thank you," I said. That's Imoen: amazing. For her to help me like she did, for so long.
"No big deal," she said. She leaned back in the grass, staring up at the blue sky. "Y'know, when I was all alone in Candlekeep, I used to wonder what it'd be like to have a big sister or brother," she continued. "Someone else to be ol' Puffguts' or Mr G.'s foster kid. Someone to look out for me, cover for me when I got caught nicking stuff, help out with the chores... And then I got you to look after, kiddo."
"I wasn't that bad!...Was I?" There are questions to which one never wishes to know the answer. "Anyway, you don't know I'm not older than you," I said. "When's your birthday?" We could celebrate it; make sure she had a good one.
"Dunno. You know how ol' Puffguts found me?" Imoen had told me the story of how Winthrop caught her picking his pocket while he and Gorion had been journeying, and how she was then adopted by them. "The travellingfolk I was with then, they told me they found me as a baby. Lying by the side of the road crying my head off. They figured I might be bad luck because who abandons a baby, but they were nice enough, even in all that trouble—and then I came to Candlekeep. So I don't know anything like that. About who I really am."
"Maybe your family wanted you to be picked up for some—some good reason," I said.
"Candlekeep's my home. So it doesn't really matter anyway," Imoen said.
"Share my birthday. Then we don't have to argue about who's older," I said. "Third of Marpenoth. A pink cake with candles." It's been a long time since I've wanted a birthday celebration. "Guest of honour?"
"Deal. Big birthday bash—in the Baldur's Gate thieves' guild!" We did the fist-bump again for the sake of the Plan. It was nice, sitting there; almost like Candlekeep, lazing on the rooftops in the sun and gossiping about everything and nothing, or celebrating Greengrass with Ulraunt's roses and Winthrop's fruit muffins. When I was young I used to want a sister, too.
Then of course we had to go on the march again.
After a while—when the pain started to fade a little—I guess I noticed that it was green and lovely. Trees of all sorts, oak and hawthorn and kinds I don't know the names of. We stayed well away from bears and weren't disturbed by anything else that morning, and that was good; nature is dirty and troublesome, but sometimes it's not as bad as usual.
—
14 Kythorn, Later
I'm such a great trap-spotter.
It was exciting at first. Shar-Teel was walking along in front of our group, in this place she says is the Wood of Sharp Teeth on the way to Larswood, when I saw something and yelled at everyone to stop.
"What is it?" Shar-Teel said. "If it's your feet, your cold, your nails, your headache, or your hair, I am going to chop you into small pieces and feed them to wyverns."
"(Emphatically seconded)," Edwin muttered.
I remembered a little about ettercaps setting traps from a book on Battles of the East. "Just get back. Um, please?" I picked up a stick once the others were clear, aimed carefully, and threw it to meet the thin line of spiderweb.
"See? It's an ettercap trap! Surprisingly complicated for their low-intelligence species," I said. The grey webbing had popped into existence over the grass and my stick, viscous and maybe poisonous. At last I'd noticed something they hadn't.
"Yes, congratulations, it's a trap," Edwin said. "Speaking of which, you brainless nin..."
Those who set the trap.
Two ettercaps and three giant spiders emerged. I didn't know ettercaps had claws so large, or looked so disgusting. But Imoen, Garrick, and Edwin all chanted their spells at the first spider, and it collapsed; Shar-Teel was already in front and ready to fight.
I could only draw my bow. Five good arrows left; I started using them on the first ettercap while the spellcasters concentrated on the spiders. Shar-Teel didn't hesitate to rip through its pale stomach, smiling as dark gunk exploded and spattered her. The second reached her, and its claws sunk deep between her armour, too close for her to swing her large sword properly. I aimed for the stomach she had ripped open—torso shots, easier to hit than head-targets, they say—and sunk the last of the good arrows to bring it down. Imoen's final magic missile sped past me and killed another spider. They still look so horrible when they're dead...
Shar-Teel, yelling wordlessly, took a dagger from her belt, slitting the ettercap's throat to get it off her. It fell; I shot an arrow for good measure.
The last giant spider was coming past Shar-Teel, to us; they're waist-height, those spiders, with fangs and too many eyes and disgusting fur. Imoen and Garrick used their bows on it, and Edwin his draining spells; I was close, and had to stab at it. Better Shar-Teel's longer blade, for enemies as horrible as this... She came, anyway, and finished it off.
"Antidote. Give it to me." She looked surprisingly pale beneath her tattoos; there was red blood on her armour as well as that belonging to spider and ettercap. Imoen gave her one of ours.
"D-do you need it bandaged?" I asked her. I'd been stupid again.
"Spiderweb will staunch it." She pulled some thread out of the head of one of the dead spiders. She glared at me. "Search the ettercaps for treasure and take any arrows you can reuse. From now on, you'll be marching at the front with me. Spot the traps and don't start any stupid bloodshed."
Hadn't she punished me enough after the training? I went and used a stick to poke around the bodies, only touching them when she yelled at me to stop being finicky. One ettercap had two human rings jammed onto its claws. Shar-Teel claimed them, of course.
—