Obsidian Chronicles #02 - The Dragon Society by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Author:Lawrence Watt-Evans [Watt-Evans, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-03T02:13:44+00:00

"You really are mad," Black said, as he handed Arlian the wooden practice blade. "You haven't used a sword seriously in months, not since Enziet's death! An hour's practice isn't going to make up for that"

"I doubt Belly has had any more practice than I,"

Arlian replied, hefting the mock weapon—but even as he spoke, a memory tickled at the back of his mind.

Hadn't Lord Hardior said that Toribor spent all his time practicing swordplay?

"I wouldn't be any too sure of that," Black said.

"How do you know he hasn't been planning this ever since he got back to Manfort?"

"Black, I challenged him," Arlian said. "He could have issued his own challenge and met me outside the Eve

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haps Toribor had deliberately goaded him into issuing a challenge, to avoid alienating other members of the Society. It did not seem in character for him, but Toribor was a dragonheart, centuries older than Arlian—it could well be that he had depths Arlian had not per-ceived.

"And what if he thought you'd been practicing day and night, preparing for exactly such a meeting as this?" Black asked. "Wouldn't he have tried to stay in form against the day when he found it necessary to leave the city?"

Lord Hardior had said that Toribor had been practicing, Arlian was sure of it now—but there was little he could do about it. "Then he's more prepared than I,"

Arlian said with a shrug. "I'll just need to find some way to handle him. I'm younger and lighter than he is, and not that much less skilled; I have no intention of dying today."

"What we intend and what we accomplish often don't match," Black said, raising his own wooden sword. Then, without warning, he lunged.

Arlian parried clumsily, and the practice bout was on. At the end of the one-hour limit Arlian had set both men were tired and sweating, and Arlian was worried.

"You're not as rusty as I feared," Black remarked as he placed the swords back on their rack.

"I'm worse than I thought," Arlian said. "You would have killed me in seconds had these blades been steel."

"But I'm a better swordsman than Lord Toribor,"

Black said. "It's my job."

"No, your job is overseeing my household," Arlian said. "You haven't worked as a guard in over a year."

"I'm still better with a blade than he is."

"Well, that's true," Arlian admitted—and he did not add aloud, but thought, "though not by much." He had fought Black in practice, and he had fought Toribor in earnest, so he knew both men's abilities; Black had no such direct knowledge, and Arlian thought Black was underestimating Toribor.

Either that, or Black was trying to be encouraging, to keep Arlian's fighting spirit up.

"And you were doing better toward the end," Black added.

Black was being encouraging. Arlian made a noise but did not reply in words. For his own part, though, while he knew he had indeed done better toward

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