Sword of Might, Chapter 1 (cont. 2)

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And learn it he would. Life on the road on the road with the twins would not be the pampered and protected ride in his father's coach with outriders, servants, and bodyguards that Jerrod's trip to begin his apprenticeship with Astall had been. Even so mild a faring as the ride from Astall's dwelling to Pond Eddy would bring new and unexpected hardships that would give the haughty, young mage pause.

In the morning, the three newly-met associates began their journey after they broke their fast. When Jerrod left the croft, he saw that there were five steeds waiting quietly outside. Three of them were saddled and the other two were loaded with food and equipment. He supposed he was fortunate that he didn't have walk, but the oafs could have thought to provide a carriage."Ah, well," he thought, "I suppose we should be on our way."

"You there, Urki, pack my belongings on those horses. Then help me onto my mount."

Urki merely looked at Jerrod and guffawed. Then he checked the saddle on his own steed and, when satisfied that it was still secure, he swung himself up onto it.

Jerrod could not believe his eyes. The effrontery of the poltroon. Who did he think he was? He was simply a warrior sent to escort Jerrod, not his equal. Well, it was time to teach this Urki fellow some manners. Jerrod began to prepare a spell. "Nothing too serious," he thought. "Merely something to get the simpleton's attention. Something like...a headache. That was it. An excruciatingly painful -- but brief -- migraine would teach the boor a lesson."

As Jerrod began the preparatory gestures to the incantation, he felt a pricking pain in his lower back. "That's odd. I've never noticed that effect before." He continued. The pain grew more insistent. Jerrod glanced back. Enki had her sword "caressing" his kidney. 

 She smiled and shook her head. 

 "I wouldn't. While it may give you some brief satisfaction to twit my brother. I don't think it would be conducive to your overall well-being. Besides we aren't your servants. We are your companions. Whether that companionship will be pleasant or not is to some extent up to you. But whether you chose to be friendly or not, you will do your share of the work on the road. That includes taking care of your own gear and it will include taking care of your own messes. Consider it in some ways an extension of your apprenticeship. Instead of learning magic, during this phase you will be learning civility."

Jerrod banished the spell. Enki resheathed her sword. "We can't continue in this manner," she said. "I'll need your oath on your magical abilities that you will not use those powers to do Urki or I any injury. I don't know the extent of those powers, but they are undoubtedly of some potency or Astall wouldn't have sent us to get you. So if you refuse to give your pledge, we will of need have to silence you. We can't take the risk of you seeking vengeance and I don't think you would enjoy the trip very much at all if you had to spend it bound and gagged or worse. What say you?"

Jerrod gulped. He had never before been faced with his own death or mutilation. And it had been delivered in such a matter of fact manner. There was little doubt that the amazon -- that was how he was beginning to think of her -- meant it.

"I give you my pledge. On my honor as a mage, I will cast no spell which is intended to cause harm to your bodies or souls. I will speak no incantation which has as its purpose your doom. Should I dishonor this oath, may the spirits of earth and fire disown me and may the gods destroy my talent and leave me to live life as the lowest of the low, viewed with contempt by peasants and paupers alike."

Like the "amazon," Jerrod meant what he said. He had to. The oath he had given was as powerful a vow as he knew how to make. Although he resented giving such a pledge to a mere sellsword, for some strange reason it seemed like the fitting thing to do. There was something about the situation -- and the two warriors, Jerrod added to himself -- that made such an oath not only appropriate but necessary.

The pledge seemed to satisfy Enki. Urki, too, nodded his head, content with the promise that Jerrod had given. Their approval filled Jerrod with a warm glow. It felt oddly good to have the approbation of the two warriors.

Jerrod shook himself. "What is going on with me?" he thought to himself. For some reason he was almost viewing two mercenaries as if they were his peers. And that was impossible for he was a mage -- or least a mage-in-training and the son of a noble as well. No mere swordslinger could be his equal. But for now these two were beyond his wrath, and he must abide their impudence.

As Jerrod had wished, their first stop was at the home of one of the peasant tenant/neighbors of Astall. Jerrod instructed the commoner to care for Astall's home and its contents while Jerrod and Astall were away. Although he indicated that the journey he undertook would be indefinite, Jerrod promised an ample reward to the man if he fulfilled his responsibility well and threatened him with a curse if he failed in the task. He gave the peasant a piece of gold as an assurance and, when satisfied that the job would be faithfully undertaken, he took his leave. The peasant looked down at the coin, blinked, look up quickly and stared wide-eyed at the retreating backs of his neighbor and friends as they rode away across the fields.

The three travelers suffered the cold of the morning in silence. The wind howled through the trees and whipped the cloaks of the travelers about them making communication difficult even if someone had desired to speak. Fortunately, no one did. Jerrod still resented the twins' behavior of the night before and so had little desire to talk with them. Enki and Urki saw little reason to converse with their callow companion when their time and energy were better spent keeping watch for danger on the road and in its environs ahead and behind.

After a time, the sun had risen high in the sky and Enki signalled a halt. She and Urki pulled their horses off the road and into a glen of rime-coated linden trees that had their golden leaves still frozen to them. A frozen creek glistened in stillness nearby. Jerrod followed the twins into the dell. After they had dismounted, Urki collected everyone's waterskins and went over to the rill where he began to chip out ice and put it into the still half-full pouches.

Meanwhile, Enki collected twigs and fallen leaves for tinder and began to build a fire. She pulled out flint and steel and was about to strike them together when Jerrod intervened. Realizing what she was about as she gathered the kindling, Jerrod had quietly begun to focus his will and gather the mana. When she had built the basis for her blaze, he spoke a single syllable. The tinder puffed into flame. Startled, Enki leapt back. Jerrod suppressed a laugh and Enki looked at him sheepishly.

"I suppose wizards do have some uses," she allowed. "I had forgotten with whom we travelled. I become used to doing things the hard way when I travel alone with Urki. Next time you plan do something like that, do you think you might bother to warn me?" Enki smiled ruefully.

Enki's attempt at humor did little to break through the barriers inside Jerrod. "Why build a fire at all," he asked. "We can't be stopping for the day. I had expected two hardened warriors like you could and would drive all day long. Why did we stop?" Jerrod's voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. He had as yet not forgiven the other two for what he saw as their effrontery.

The irony in Jerrod's tone seemed to pass unnoticed by Enki. She answered as if it hadn't existed at all. "We stopped for our midday meal and to refill our waterskins. With weather like this neither we nor the horses can continue all day long. Warmth and food to burn over the rest of the afternoon are necessary if we are to survive. Therefore we stop to eat and we build a fire to warm ourselves and the animals."

Jerrod still wasn't completely satisfied. "But why fill the skins with ice? The water in them is cold enough without adding ice to it."

"The heat from our bodies escapes through our clothes. It would be foolish to waste any more of that heat than we have to. Therefore, we carry the skins outside the clothes but next to our bodies. By the end of our ride this afternoon, the ice will once again become water," Enki replied.

Urki soon returned from the stream. By the time he reappeared, Enki had a small wild hen which she had slain roasting on a spit. The bird was soon cooked. The three travelers sat down to eat. Jerrod, although now satisfied that his two companions had been indeed sent by Astall, wanted to know more about how the two had come to know the archmage.

He was blunt. "It surprises me that two such as yourselves would be acquainted with one of the greatest mages in all of Seremoreh. How did you come to meet him?" 

 "There," thought Jerrod self-contentedly. "That should get to the heart of the matter and it should be just the kind of blunt straightforwardness that warriors like these two should appreciate."

Instead of getting a reply like the one Jerrod had expected, however, Enki ignored him. Urki, on the other hand, began to howl with gales of that obnoxious laughter of his. When his mirth had subsided a bit, Urki smiled at Jerrod amusedly and replied, "Boy, you have a talent for rudeness. Don't let anyone tell you you don't. Tell me, young magelet, just who do you think that `two such as us' might be?"

Jerrod turned crimson. "Why I...," he sputtered, "uh, that is...uh, two sellswords....I mean two common soldiers...uh, that is two whose profession uses as its basic tool the blade not on the book."

"Oh," Urki snorted, "so then I take it you believe that magic and arms are never needed together. And mages and warriors can have no situation in which their separate services might be useful together?"

"Well, yes. I can think of no situation in which magic cannot do what arms can do and do it better," Jerrod retorted.

"Then why, little magician, did you not immediately expel us from your teacher's croft when we so rudely interrupted your meditations? Why are you now traveling this cold, windy track with two humble swordslingers like Enki and I?" With that, Urki was once again releasing peals of laughter.

Although it hardly seemed possible, Jerrod, if anything, turned a brighter shade of red, almost a scarlet instead of a crimson. Before he could do more than sputter, however, Enki interceded on his behalf. "Urki, you great baboon, can't you see poor Jerrod has led a sheltered life? He knows little about the world and the adventures it holds. In his experience, every situation has been cut-and-dried and innocuous. Everything had its place and everyone their station. He can't help his ignorance and he doesn't need you to make sport of his innocence!"

Jerrod, although not quite sure if the support which Enki had given was quite in keeping with his own image of himself, was secretly pleased that she had chosen to champion him against her brother's japes. Still, her words and those of Urki had given him much to think about during the afternoon ride.

Despite the realization that there was perhaps a modicum of truth in Urki's lunchtime jibes, the attitudes of the twins galled Jerrod. "How dare they treat a wizard and noble's son so cavalierly!" he fumed to himself as the sun began to set, forgetting for the moment that they were, in fact, cavaliers of a sort. "They had no right to abuse me so! If it were not for my oath, I would fry them here and now! Why I would turn them into newts, then change myself into a bullfrog and gobble them up!" Jerrod ranted on to himself in a similar vein until the trio stopped to make camp for the night.

As they made dinner and prepared to bed down for the night, Jerrod said little beyond, "Pass the salt." Even then he only spoke when he absolutely had to. When he did speak, he kept his sentences short and terse.

Jerrod's surly attitude did not go unnoticed. "Go to sleep, magelet," Urki chuckled. "We will leave when false dawn makes her appearance. Don't worry about the two of us. We will find ourselves somewhere to bed down." His laughter rumbling, Urki walked off to find a spot in which to curl up.

Enki was a bit more sympathetic than her brother. "I know that this is a difficult time for you. Putting aside the physical discomfort of this maleficent blast of unseasonable winter weather and the necessity of sleeping outdoors in it, you have been abandoned by your mentor. You have been dragged out of your home by two strangers, one of whom threatened to kill you, and the other seems to be little more than a sarcastic baboon." She looked at Urki and smiled. He grinned at her in return. "You are being led off on a dangerous expedition to parts unknown. Who wouldn't be upset?"

Unmoved by Enki's attempt to reach out to him, or perhaps irritated by the sardonic tone which the swordswoman had used, Jerrod snapped, "Mind your own business. You understand little about the state of mind of your betters. You would do better to prepare yourself for what lies ahead!"

Enki sighed and replied, "I will, young mage, I will. For now though, I have one last thing to offer. The spot you have chosen as your bed is downwind of the fire. If you remain there for the night you might be a cinder in the morning. But do as you please. I'm sure we can explain your mishap to Astall and the others should it be necessary. Until tomorrow." With that the female swordslinger turned onto her side and settled in for the night.

Jerrod flushed once again. He lay down and waited until Enki and Urki both appeared to be sound asleep. One or two embers had already flown off the dying fire and struck his blanket during the wait. When he was convinced that the twins were in the land of slumber, he surreptitiously arose and moved his bedroll to a more propitious spot. He did not notice the slight smile which touched the warrior maid's lips as he lay down next to her to go to sleep.

As the time and the distance passed, the three new companions began to become more accustomed to one another. Enki and Urki slowly adapted to having a mage and his abilities along with them. They began to utilize Jerrod's skills in setting up and breaking down camp in dozens of mundane ways to do things that never would have occurred to Jerrod to do on his own. Jerrod also had insights into ways in which his talents could complement theirs and make life on the road easier.

His thaumaturgic firestarting talents were just the tip of the iceberg. His sorcerous ability to invoke the spirit world enabled the travelers to use the nature spirits of the environs through which they passed to provide more bountiful access to fuel and game than they otherwise would have. In addition, Jerrod's knowledge of herbs and simples was also useful. However, in this area Jerrod found that the twins had something to teach him as well. They, too, had wide knowledge of the flora of Seremoreh. Their knowledge was hard won through the practical necessities of healing wounds from battle and living in the wilds much of the time. As such, the twins knowledge was more pragmatic and immediately useful than Jerrod's somewhat theoretical insights.

For example, when one of the pack horses stepped too near the den of a nursing badger and was rewarded with a bite and a slash on the foreleg, Jerrod suggested Bandon's wort, a bright green plant with yellow, star-shaped flowers to reduce the mare's inflammation. None was available nearby, however. Enki found an alternative in a weed that Jerrod had never taken note of before that grew all over the meadow in which they had stopped. When Jerrod asked her what it was, Enki said that it was called plantain and that it helped stop the bleeding and prevent infection. The mare, unfortunately, apparently did not subscribe to its curative powers. When Enki tried to put a compress made out of the crushed leaves of the weed on her foreleg, she reared and bucked and prevented the treatment despite all Urki and Jerrod could do to hold her steady.

It was then that Jerrod's own knowledge came in handy. He had noticed some fallen and dried blossoms by a hawthorne tree earlier. He suggested that they feed some to the steed before they tried to treat it again. He remembered from his lessons with Astall that hawthorne blossoms had a calming effect and surmised that if they gave enough to the horse the flowers would gentle her enough to allow them to treat her wounds. He was right. Some of the hawthorne blossoms inserted into the horse's fodder soon had it much more tranquil. The mare hesitantly allowed Enki's ministrations, and in a few days her foreleg was healed with no ill effects.

In the evenings, Jerrod and the twins huddled in their bedrolls near the campfire. As they became better acquainted, they began to converse during these quiet times around the crackling blazes. During one of the earliest fireside conversations, Jerrod decided to find out more about his traveling companions in general and their connection to Astall in particular.

"Urki, tell me about yourself. A warrior of your vast experience must have many stories of wonder to relate. Please share some of your adventures with me," Jerrod asked. Jerrod, impressed with his own cleverness thought to himself, "There, that should be humble enough for these self-important mercenaries. Perhaps now I can find out more about what is going on and why Astall sent two of their sort to roust me out of the croft. But why did I pose my question to Urki and not to Enki? She had seemed somewhat sympathetic at their first lunch, but something about her makes me uncomfortable."

Urki grinned at him. "The magelet speaks! Well, well will wonders never cease! This gives me hope that perhaps someday birds will fly! I would be happy to tell you of my heroic life, Jerrod," Urki laughed. "Mayhap if you are a very good listener, I will also share one of our past adventures which may shed a little more light on our current adventure with you."

"Am I really so transparent," Jerrod wondered. "That cannot be. But then how did the warrior know what I was thinking. Perhaps, it was just a fluke. That must be what was, but if not...." Chilled by the implications of the interwoven notions that, one, a warrior could be clever enough to see through his strategem and, two, that perhaps, just perhaps, he was not quite so clever as he thought himself, Jerrod shuddered.