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Vol.1, Ch.2, P.3

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Revision – 2022.10.27

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With briskness, the mareschal made his way to the training grounds. The Owlcrane retinue went in tow, and following behind, I found myself not infrequently glanced upon my Emilie. Her eyes told much, of matters teetering on the tip of her tongue. Yet confiding now was a luxury none of the others would’ve allowed, and so with nary a word whispered between us, on we went to our destination.

Upon arrival did we disperse, with Gerd taking the liberty of pulling out a sword from a weapons rack nearby.

“The arms on these grounds, you can use as you like. Don’t worry: they’re feders, rounded proper, see? The ones over here that number fewer—they’re of the silver sort,” Gerd broached, before handing the blunted blade to Emilie. “Here you are, then.”

“Oh, but… an iron one will do just fine, I think. ‘Tis what I’m used to.”

“Now, Emilie. You’re one of us now. A proud Owlcrane. And by rights, that makes you an executive officer,” Gerd reiterated. “Protocol compels you to make use of argent gear such as this.”

Raakel and Sheila both saw fit to further persuade Emilie, who yet seemed hesitant.

“No virtue in playin’ the mousy milquetoast now, Emilie, least not when it comes to arms. Top blades fer the top brass, they always say. Look here, me maul’s no diff’rent—aglint with silver, she is!”

“Do understand, Lady Emilie. The meek look to us leaders of the Order to answer malice with might, and a mere miser of arms all but ill-avails them. The Order’s strength grows greater still should you brandish only the finest of weapons.”

“I… yes, I suppose I should. Thank you, Officers Raakel, Sheila,” Emilie relented.

“An’ fettle that too, while yer at it,” quipped Raakel.

“F-fettle?”

“Ranks, titles, all that prim an’ prissy tongue waggin’—we don’t need owt o’ that here. Ain’t that right, Gerd?”

“Right you are, Raakel. We Owlcranes, we’re all compeers! Well, Sheila’s a mite different—won’t loosen that polite tongue no matter what. But you can slacken your shoulders ‘round me and Raakel, at least. That ring proper to you, Emilie?”

“Yes, si—ah, I mean, al-all right.”

“Good,” Gerd nodded with satisfaction, before taking up a silver feder of his own. “Right, we’ll start with the basics, then: channelling odyl through silver.”

“Got it, Offi—um, Gerd.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he chuckled. “Having said that, the basics of weaving odyl are well-put in that pate of yours, I take it? When the odyl was imparted to you, that is.”

“They are. The knowledge—it came along with Yoná’s grace.”

For someone forsaken by the Deiva Herself, this was news to my ears.

“Channelling will be child’s play to you, then. And with a bit of practice, you’ll take to conjuring all sorts of magicks in no time,” Gerd assured. “I must admit, I am quite the cat taken with curiosity in seeing what heights you’ll reach, Emilie—or should I say, Lady of the ‘Aureola’? Hah, well, here’s hoping you’ll give us a nice show of it, eh?”

“Er, right, I’ll do my best!” answered Emilie.

Onward stretched the training session. For two or so hours, the Owlcranes coddled Emilie as she arduously cleared hurdle after hurdle. By the end of it, success was found at last: there she stood, her argent arm and armour properly suffused with odyl. Raising up her feder, she found its now magicked blade most mesmerising to the eyes.

“Gerd, have I… have I done it?” she said, unable to pry her gaze away from her wondrous achievement.

“That you have, Emilie. And a job well done at that; look, odyl flows clean through your gear,” examined Gerd. “And your blade is made more keen withal. Can you tell?”

“I-I can,” nodded Emilie, her voice aloft with heightened spirits. “When the channelling finished, it felt as though my feder became something else entirely.”

“Mine eyes had not fooled me, then,” Sheila observed. “As with Sir Gerd, it would seem you bear talent as a spellblade, Lady Emilie.”

“An’ a grand one, at that!” lauded Raakel. “Though, I were wishin’ fer a warrior chum, if I’m honest.”

“It’s just as well. She’s long-practised in swordplay, from the look of it,” said Gerd. “What of your armour, Emilie? You feel a paling all about your body, I take it?”

As if to confirm Gerd’s words, Emilie placed a hand upon her chest. “Y-yes, I feel it. As though my whole being is well-protected.”

“Paling emanates from silver armour and wraps ‘round the body whole. As you are now, neither unmagicked blade can scratch you, nor unmagicked spear prick. You are as a fortress to them, really,” Gerd explained, before turning to me. “You. Fetch yourself a feder and come.”

“Aye, sir.”

An abrupt order coming at the tail end of some hours spent being wholly unattended to. It was only Emilie who thought to pay me any sort of mind, as from time to time did she turn a glance my way. But I suppose the eyes of the Owlcranes were hardly unclouded to my presence. What an honour.

With an iron feder fresh from the weapons rack, I made my way to Emilie and Gerd.

“You. Go on. Attack Emilie with that sword of yours,” commanded Gerd. “Emilie, you need not lift a finger. Stay where you are and enjoy the show. Got that?”

“I-I do,” answered Emilie. “All right, Rolf. Shall we, then?”

“We shall. Let’s get to it, Emilie—”

“Hold!” barked Tallien, watching from the cool shade. “Mind that tongue of yours, you churl! It is ‘Lady Emilie’ to you! A proper dame and your superior officer, she is! Know your place!”

“Pardon my offence, Mareschal,” I corrected myself. “Lady Emilie, by your leave.”

“…Wha…”

Emilie was left utterly aghast.

Well, let’s not pretend this sort of thing was never on the horizon. It was a snake of a sneaking suspicion, stalking me from the moment I knew Emilie and I were assigned to the same brigade.

The leadership of the Order—all within were made well-privy to the particulars of each and every one of us recruits. That much is certain. And perhaps just as certain was this: there was meaning to this farce. A meaning in having me bend the knee to Emilie, my former fiancée of all people.

Savouring some sadism upon the man ungraced, maybe? They certainly had the sort of authority to indulge in such ill—with impunity, no less.

What looks Raakel and Sheila were giving were not known to me, but there did I spy a slight smirk leaking from Tallien’s lips. And for his part, Gerd wrung his face full-wroth, only to relax it to a glare of disdain in the next.

“Now have at it,” he ordered after a scoff. “Aim where you please, it matters little.”

“Aye, sir,” I complied. “Commencing.”

I rushed forth and swung my sword down in a diagonal arc, targeting the tip of Emilie’s shoulder. But in the course of it, the blade stopped just a digitus shy of its mark.

I knew it then.

The “paling”—what Gerd was harping on about.

There was no recoil, no sense that said my sword struck aught material, as against a wall or a plate of armour. Rather, it felt as if some pliant force, soft but unstoppable, wrapped itself about the blade and stopped its cutting course. Feeling for myself this unseen armour through my weapon, I soon realised: there was no way I could penetrate such protection.

Then, in that same moment was I thrown back clear through the air, asudden and without warning.

“Gagh…!?”

Down into the dirt I crashed, tumbling and rousing a wild plume of dust.

“Rolf!?” Emilie screamed.

“Hah… hagh… gah, agh…!” I was laid low, face down, flat on the ground, with a hand clenched to my chest. Air left my lungs in great chaos as I struggled to rectify my breathing. All whilst heat and pain wove together and gripped my whole body—a feeling of having my nerves torn out and laid bare.

My vision convulsed. Only through sheer conviction could I train it forth, that I might espy the assailant source.

And there did I find Gerd.

Half-turned to me, in his hand, a sword held in a slighting dangle. That was no pose, no stance: he had but swung the weapon on a whim whence he stood. A simple and uncaring motion, abruptly imbued with enough force to toss me back like some toy.

“See that, Emilie?” he said.

“Gerd! Rolf, he’s—!”

“Hush,” he interrupted. “The lecture’s not over.”

Indeed, Emilie.

Listen well.

Just as I will.

For I need this knowledge, this strength. Every last drop of it, that I might earn another step closer to knighthood.

It’s the very reason why I’m here.

“That scum’s sword. It stopped before it met your body. Why? Well, you’ve the paling to thank. Silver armour accords this magicked protection even to parts of your person unprotected by its plates. That is its very purpose: to provide you with an all-encompassing bulwark.”

With his sword now set upon his shoulder, Gerd continued on in dramatic fashion.

“On the other hand, a magicked strike against an unmagicked mark yields the sorry sight afore you—scant more than a flick of my sword-wrist showed us how well the clown cartwheels!”

Gerd spoke the truth: his unannounced interruption was hardly what one would call an “attack”. Yet even then, I was sent hurtling back—easily so. Were his sword not dulled, that moment certainly would’ve been my last.

“Now Emilie, a quick quiz,” Gerd went on. “What happens, then, if magicked sword met magicked armour?”

“W-what…? I—”

Emilie’s eyes teetered on the verge of tears as they darted back and forth between Gerd and me. A kind soul she is, truly, to sooner wish to have me seen to by a surgien than resume this farce of a lesson. But a lesson it was regardless, one she could ill-afford to ignore. To do so was anathema to her standing.

Ultimately, her worries were unwarranted: I’d escaped with only abrasions and bruises, the sort no surgien would humour.

“Fret not, Emilie. I made sure not to end him,” said Gerd. “But the hour-sand flows, and I would hear your answer.”

“Er… I-I don’t know.”

Depends on the prowess of each party, I silently assumed.

“The side that yields the most odyl wins, Emilie. But one does not win purely by strength of odyl, no. Train enough and you’ll soon find yourself weaving greater magicks for both offence and defence. Understood?”

“Y-yes…”

“That said, your store of odyl is the hand that plays the checkmate, all things considered. Now do you see why you are as a queen-piece to us, Emilie?”

So, a gap in prowess can be bridged through sheer output of odyl. I see. The odyl one attains at the Roun of Orisons is for ever immutable in its capacity. It follows, then, that to be gifted with a large store of it affords one a vast and inviolable advantage.

“Right then. Take to heart all I’ve taught you, Emilie. We quit here for the day,” said Gerd. “Your very first session and already you’ve come this far—quite impressive, I must say.”

“Thanks… Gerd.”

“Apply yourself well, Emilie,” remarked Tallien. “I expect wondrous things from you.”

“Thank you, Mareschal. I will.”

“And eh…” trailed Tallien, turning to me, “…’Rolf’, was it? I name you Emilie’s swain. Serve her well from here on out, will you?”

As I thought.

“…Aye, sir.”

I was now somehow back on my feet, with my breathing settled enough to form a coherent reply.

“What!? Wait—” exclaimed Emilie. “Why Rolf? And why a swain, for me?”

All recruits start their lives in the Order as swains to more senior knights—that is, were they not anomalies like Emilie. At the same time, the knightly number naturally outcounts the recruits’, so it would be untrue to say that all knights have a swain of their own. That a fledgling like Emilie be allowed one, however, was a worthy warrant for suspicion.

“It is the knight’s duty to show his swain the workings of chivalry,” Tallien explained to a confounded Emilie. “As for you, young lady. What better swain for a fledgling dame such as yourself, than a wingless chick like him?”

Truly, words as curt as they were cutting. One would find no blame in asking why Emilie be allowed a swain to begin with. An effort, I fear, that finds no borne fruit. That hardly stopped Emilie, however.

“S-sir! With all due respect, a swain for me would only be needless trouble, then! For his part, Rolf stands to gain more as swain to ano… another…”

Emilie’s voice trailed into silence. For her, a dark realisation, finally setting in: under another knight, what awaited me was nothing better than oppression, unchecked and unchallenged. Only, I would not’ve hesitated to suffer such a fate if serving Emilie proved too much a strain upon her heart. But alas.

“…Nay…” she surrendered, “…I see now. Pardon my outburst, Mareschal.”

“You know each other well enough, yes? See to it that he does not stray from his corral,” sneered Tallien, then turning to me once more. “And I trust you have no qualms? I made myself loud and clear—enough that a wastrel like you should understand.”

“None, sir,” was my immediate and unquestioning answer.

“You will maintain her equipment, tend to her steed, keep tidy her chamber, and—well, the list goes on, really,” explained the mareschal. “Do devote yourself to her and your duties, will you?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Rolf…” Sorrow shaded Emilie’s face.

And so it was that I was assigned to the Owlcrane Brigade as swain to my former fiancée.

Forgive me, Emilie.

There’s nowhere else I can go, naught else I can do but suffer this place and wager my lot upon my sword.

 

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