Chapter 8: Duel with Blunt Swords

"No way! I'm not gonna do it any more. I'm tired, and my head hurts!" Chad lurched to his feet rebelliously, resting his forehead against the bole of a tree at the edge of the clearing. He knew that he was being childish about the whole thing, but he'd sat crosslegged on the mossy ground until he could hardly move, staring at the quarterinch nugget of raw gold until he felt like his eyes were permanently crossed. A throbbing ache bounced back and forth inside of his skull, and even the soft golden sunlight struck harshly at his frayed nerves.

"Come on, Chad. Just once more, and then I'll rub your forehead for you," Ahlenya coaxed gently. "I know that you've got the power. I'm sure that I felt it move just the tiniest bit, that last time. You can do it. I know that you can!"

Chad took a deep breath and dropped back to a sitting position, his legs crossed on the soft turf. Closing his eyes for a moment he rested his hands, palms upward, on his knees. As he'd been taught, he willed a wave of relaxation to flow from the top of his head, down through his body, out through his arms and legs until all tension drained out through the tips of his fingers and toes. His consciousness of his body faded until he was nothing but a mind, resting comfortably within the confines of his skull.

His eyes drifted open and he centered his attention once more on the stubbornly immobile lump of metal on the smooth dirt between his knees. His headache receded as the nugget occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. Once more, he strove with all his will to make it move. His muscles tried to tense with the old anger that rose within him, and again he forced them to relax, one by one.

For a timeless moment, his whole being was focused on that one target, filling his entire universe. All at once it was as though he could see every bit of its surface, every pit and crevice and clinging speck of dirt. He willed it to move, to rise. It seemed to tremble on the verge of movement, in that instant representing to him everything that had ever opposed him and held him back, a target for all his anger, everything that had been done to him all through his life. Then concentration was lost as a stab of agony lanced through his head. He thought that he heard a sharp crack, as though someone had stepped on a nearby dry twig.

His head slumped forward as he fought back a surge of dizziness, a wave of nausea that threatened to turn his stomach insideout. Groggily, he raised his head once more, fighting against the pain that was trying to drill its way out from somewhere deep inside his skull. The first thing he noticed as the stabbing ache receded was that the nugget was no longer on the ground in front of him, only a fistsized depression in the soft dirt marking where it had been. Ahlenya sat there silently, her hands clasped together in her lap, looking at him with an unbelieving, almost frightened expression.

"Wha... What happened," he stammered groggily. "Where'd it go to?"

"It went straight up!" Her voice was hushed. "I never even saw it move. Just bang! and it was gone!"

"Yeah? Well, it felt like it took the top of my head with it," he growled. He leaned back, outstretched arms braced against his weight, and shook his head experimentally. It stayed in one piece, even feeling better by the minute, and his nausea dwindled until it was nothing but a memory. "That does it, I'm wrung out. How about a bite to eat and something to drink before we try again?"

"Of... Of course, Chad." She got up and went over to the basket she'd brought with her, taking out thick slabs of roast pork and soft cheese securely held between layers of dark bread, and an earthenware jug of cold water. All the time he was eating she sat nearby, watching almost fearfully his every move.

"What's the matter," he growled, uncomfortable under her searching gaze. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

"It... It's not possible, what you did. Only The Goddess has such strength."

"Aw, come off it," he muttered. "It was just a fluke. I probably couldn't do it again if I had to." He took another nugget out of his pouch, laying it on the ground where the first one had been. "Here. I'll show you."

Again, he focused his attention. It seemed easier, as though he had found the trick of it. He strove with all his might to make it move, his former anger replaced by an inner certainty, and this time he succeeded! The nugget stirred, straining to rise, wavering free of the ground for an instant before falling back, inert.

"See there? I moved it! It moved like I told it to, and it didn't even make my head hurt."

"What didn't make your head hurt?" The soft voice came from behind him as someone approached from the direction of the tent city.

"Hi, Charis." He glanced around at her as he uncrossed his legs, leaning back against his outstretched arms and grinning exultantly. Now that he thought about it, she'd been around a lot lately. Watching him for The Goddess? No matter. "Guess what? I just made a nugget move, and it didn't make my head hurt at all. I'd been trying all morning, but no luck. All I got was a splitting headache, until just a little while ago. Then my first nugget took off all at once, and my head nearly killed me."

"Your nugget took off?" Charis looked from him to Ahlenya questioningly. "What do you mean, it took off?"

"Ahlenya said that it just went 'bang', and disappeared straight up. Far as I know, it's still going."

Charis shook her head doubtfully, plainly only half believing what he was saying. "I never heard of anything like that happening before. Anyway, what I came to tell you is that the scouts have located a caravan headed this way. Doranthe is sending out a raiding party to try out some of your new ideas. He said to ask you if you'd like to go along to see how they work."

"Sounds great! What say we round up Mike and Lom, and all of us go. What do we need to take with us?"

"You'll need a light helmet and a shirt of chain mail. Oh, and don't forget your short sword. You need to get used to wearing it, but Doranthe says for you to stay back out of the fighting. He says you're too valuable to lose, right now."

"Sounds great to me." Chad grinned at her. "I think I'm too valuable to lose, too."

It was midafternoon before the raiding party finally left the tent city. Chantar, resplendent in a bright red tunic with shiny decorations, led the way through the woods toward where Doranthe's scouts had spotted a small caravan slipping quietly along a seldomused path. They were settled in and ready well before their prey pulled into view.

As the scouts had foretold, there were six large wagons in the caravan. Each was pulled by four heavy draftgrahl whose foamflecked jowls and lowhanging heads told a tale of punishing haste even to Chad's inexperienced eye. The yellow sun was sinking low, and several of the guards had just ridden ahead to stake out a likely camping spot when Chantar's raiders struck!

Later, Chad was able to sort out his impressions into a wellplanned pattern of attack and counterattack. At the time, though, everything seemed to be a confused blur of squealing animals and shouting, struggling men. Men in goldenbrown tunics slipped from the concealing brush to cut draftgrahls loose from the wagons, while swiftflying arrows struck down the charging guards.

There was more confusion as the advance guards returned. The tide of battle momentarily turned, and a halfdozen fighters managed to cut their way free of the melee. They ran straight at Chad and his group, desperate to cut their way out of the trap they were in!

"Look out!" Ahlenya screamed a warning, stepping in front of Chad, whose sword was still only halfdrawn from its scabbard. The guard's heavier blade battered her slender sword aside, beating her to the ground, and raised for a killing downstroke. All else was closed off as Chad's whole consciousness narrowed down to that one gleaming length of iron.

The guard's face reflected sheer unbelieving horror as his sword seemed to take on a life of its own. It twisted in his grasp, the blade bending almost double before it tore out of his hand. The flat of the blade swung sideways against his helmet, crushing it like foil and splattering his brains across the ground. The sword flailed wildly, smashing at the remaining guards with great swings, hitting as often with the flat as the edge, and finally dropped to the ground as it found nothing more to oppose it. There was a highpitched tinkle as it struck against a rock, shattering into tiny fragments as intense cold left it more brittle than glass.

"Are you all right?" Chad knelt by Ahlenya, lifting her tenderly from where she had been thrown by the guard's first and only blow.

"I'm fine, I think." She rubbed her sword arm, probing at it gingerly with the fingers of her other hand. "At least nothing's broken, though I won't be swinging a sword with that arm for a few days. But Chad, just what in the world did you do?"

"That's a good question. I only wish I knew the answer. It was like I reached out and took hold of his sword, the same as if it was a nugget or something. After that, it was easy enough until the sword broke." He lifted her to her feet, looking around at the suddenly peaceful scene. Most of the guards were standing inside a circle of archers. The rest lay here and there in untidy heaps. The caravan's packers were occupied with rounding up and pacifying their animals, helped by some of their captors.

None of the caravan guards had been armed with the new weapons, much to Chad's relief. Ahlenya's brush with death had left him more shaken than he cared to admit. What was more, he'd killed at least one guard, maybe two or three.

He'd never actually killed anyone before, and he tried to convince himself that he'd had no choice. The air around him was thick with the smell of blood and death. His stomach lurched as he stared down at the crumpled bodies, and he gritted his teeth as he swallowed, forcing his lunch back down in his belly where it belonged.

"A nice bit of action, and none of our people killed, or even hurt too badly." Chantar's resonant baritone held a note of pride as he strode jauntily toward them.

"No fault of yours, my brother," Charis accused, rigging a sling for Ahlenya's wrenched arm with cloth torn from a dead guard's tunic. Was that an undercurrent of anger in her normally placid voice? "If Chad's newly wakened powers hadn't saved us, there would have been several deaths, his included. Isn't it supposed to be elementary tactics to protect your guests in a fight?"

Chantar stopped and took a second look at the huddled bodies, lying in their own blood and brains and stinking of death. Chad's sword hadn't even been drawn, while Ahlenya's lay to one side, twisted and bent as she stood with her bruised arm in its newlyfashioned sling. On the ground, the icy fragments of the guard's bloody sword had blackened the groundvines where they lay.

"Why, what happened? How did that sword get all broken up like that?"

"That group of guards broke through your lines," Charis answered. "They came right at us. The first one beat Ahlenya's sword down. He would have killed her, but Chad seized control of his sword and used it against them."

"Chad used the guard's sword? How did he... , I mean, what did he do?" Chantar stammered, confused.

"Here, I'll show you." Chad reached out with his newfound powers, lifting another guard's sword from where it had fallen. Somehow it wasn't nearly as easy as it had been during the fight, but he swung it in clumsy circles overhead before letting it fall, point first, to the ground. "Like that. I've never used one of these things before, so I'm not too good at it. All I could think of was to protect us."

"Doranthe will wish to hear of this," Charis murmured. "And, of how the attack was carried out."

Chantar glared at her for a moment, then stalked off to shout unnecessary orders at the men who were searching the wagons for valuables. In a remarkably short time one wagon held all of their chosen loot, including all of the guards' weapons. Three pairs of draftgrahls were hitched to it, and the rest of the animals were led off into the woods to swell the Followers' herds.

"But what made the sword shatter like that?" Doranthe asked when he was told of the incident.

"Ahlenya says that mindtouch always makes things get cold," Chad answered. "When iron gets cold enough, it can break like glass. After it broke, the pieces froze everything they touched."