Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [59]
"You still haven't answered my question, tael," Arvaedra demanded at last. "What were you doing?"
She was also, he knew, quite deadly.
Taenaran met the forbidding glare as best he could. Experience told him that there were no responses that would spare him from her discipline. There were simply answers that were "less wrong." He thought for a moment then decided on the blunt truth.
"I was tired and lost my center," he explained.
One of Arvaedra's snow-white eyebrows arched high at his response. "Hmmm…" was all she said, then, "so Taenaran, what will you do when you are in the heat of battle, and you are tired and forget the simplest exercises of the youngest tael? Will you ask your enemy for a quick break before you engage him once more in battle?"
Laughter broke out among the tael.
"Silence!" Arvaedra shouted, turning on the culprits. "You are no better than he. At least Taenaran shows courage enough to admit what you are all either too dim or too frightened to say out loud."
She moved to the center of the kneeling apprentices. "The Seven Forms are the doorway to true mastery. You must practice them and learn them until you can perform them without thought, then"-she paused a moment before continuing-"you must forget them. They are the foundation of our art, the first notes of the Song."
She gazed out among the assembled tael. "What is the Song?" she asked.
For a few moments, no one answered. Taenaran could feel the tension among the tael mount. Every apprentice had heard the masters speak of the Song. Taenaran thought back, desperately trying to remember some of what Aelrindel had said to him about the subject. There wasn't a single apprentice who wanted to answer a question posed by Arvaedra with nothing but a blank stare.
At last someone called out, "The Song is the essence of bladesinging." It was a high-minded enough answer, Taenaran thought, something that he had heard the other tael mumble piously or haughtily to impress their friends and comrades.
"That is an answer that says everything… and nothing," Arvaedra replied with a sharp bark of laughter. "Good enough if our art were no more than wind and shadows. You." She motioned toward Taenaran with a scarred finger. "Come here."
Instantly, the half-elf sprang up from his kneeling position, fatigue and embarrassment momentarily forgotten. Much to his surprise, Taenaran found his sword already held in the First Form.
"Now," the swordmaster snapped, "attack."
For a moment Taenaran didn't respond, unsure if he had heard Arvaedra correctly. "What?" he asked finally.
"Attack," the swordmaster replied in an acid tone. "Since the tael do not know what the Song is, we will show them. Now, attack!"
Taenaran obeyed, driving his sword forward in the First Form's basic attack. Arvaedra parried easily then riposted an attack of her own. The half-elf quickly raised his blade and caught the edge of the el'tael's weapon. The ringing of their swords echoed in the clearing.
He attacked again, aiming a low horizontal cut at Arvaedra's legs. The swordmaster leaped easily over his blade and brought her own sword down in a sweeping diagonal cut. It continued like this, with the el'tael gradually increasing the speed and deadliness of her attacks. The half-elf soon found himself struggling to remember the correct parry as the elder elf swiftly moved through the Seven Forms, beginning to strike at random. Tired muscles cramped with fatigue, and the half-elf felt as if a giant sat on his chest. He was about to signal his defeat after a wicked sword thrust nearly pierced his shoulder, but as he spun desperately away from the attack, something began to happen.
Very faintly, on the edge of his perception, Taenaran heard the soft, melodic strains of music. As it intensified, he realized that the sound originated from somewhere within himself. Could it be that he was hearing the Song for the first time?
A sense of elation began to run through him, energizing tired muscles and sinew. The Song swelled within him. At first, he struggled against its rhythm, for it felt