ALL NOVEL Initiate: First Steps
The life of an initiate, it turns out, is not a particularly exciting one. There are no daring adventures recovering rare gems from the nests of firewyrms. No nights spent hammering titanium behind roaring lavafalls, no pouring out runic poems of epic splendor onto impregnable armor. Nothing like that.
There is a great deal of sweeping. Sometimes mopping. When I'm not working, I'm studying everything I can. Runes of course, of several scripts, and metallurgy too—but also geography, monster anatomy and behavior, military strategy, physics and chemistry—an initiate must study anything and everything that can be studied. He or she, after all, desires to be one of the elite.
Learning is all very well and good. But the opportunities to apply my knowledge are limited.
An example of this problem: last night's lecture. It took place in one of the larger city halls, and the lecturer was a very respected one, from one of the richer guilds this side of the chasm.
Entry cost me ten whole silvers.
It was worth the price, don't get me wrong. Most lecturers read from books anyone can find, and don't even have the decency to drone loud enough for us at the back to hear them. But this woman was dynamic, spoke loudly and passionately from experience about the power relation between rune font and metal-grain structures, and even included a practical demonstration in which she sawed through three breastplates of varying rune-to-metal discordancy.
At the end, she said: "To really understand the intricacies of choosing the best rune-forming method, practice is key. I recommend creating a series of steel gauntlets and grafting the same runes in various fonts to them so you can feel the differences for yourself.”
And herein lies the issue: I can barely afford the iron—iron, mind you, not even steel—for one gauntlet, let alone three. Wharoth pays me ten coppers an hour, which if I’m lucky adds up to one silver a day. No wonder the last cleaner quit.
So far I’ve been able to make half a single gauntlet, an axehead, a very short sword, and a rather ill-fitting helmet. They sit in a chest at the end of my bed, humming discordantly—my runes are too good for pig-iron.
It’s still better than being a miner.
The months pass. My arm heals. I’m glad of this, but also fearful. There’s one more area of study I have to embark on, the most important after forging.
Weapons and armor are only useful if you know how to fight.
The sparring arena isn’t in the building I first thought it was. Instead it’s just a square marked out in gravel to the left of the guildhall, in full view of the street. I stand in one corner and face off against my opponent in the other, who’s about a foot shorter than I am.
He raises his shield and wooden axe and steps forward. I do the same, and it’s a damn effort. The wooden training armor encasing me seems to think it’s my second opponent: it pulls in the opposite direction at my every movement. I raise my shield and the wood plates on my shoulder try to lower it. I ready my axe for a swing and the elbow-part jams up. The helmet is squeezing my head and the visor makes me pretty much blind.
My opponent rushes me and slams his axe into my head. I flinch backward, then bash him with my shield. It’s a good bash, with all my strength in it, but I barely move him. His axe hits me in the side. I shout in frustration and try to shield-smash his body and chop him in the head simultaneously, and my armor picks this moment to allow me full freedom of movement. I rush on past him and fall down face first.
I hear laughter from outside the fence, and a shout of “go get him son!”
This is the junior class, after all. Initiates my age generally have decent enough armor to fight in the arenas.
“Stand up, Zathar,” says the instructor. “You can do better than that.”
I can do better than that. I know I can. I beat Hardrick, didn't I? He was twice my size and had a knife. It’s this damn wooden armor, two sizes too small, that’s the trouble.
“Yeah,” says the kid. Straggly brown strands of beard are poking out the bottom of his helmet. “Stand up and fight.”
I stand up. I fight again. I lose again.
“Move with the armor, Zathar,” says the instructor. “You've got to move with the armor, or you can’t do anything.”
I breath deep to calm myself. How am I meant to move with the armor? I wish he would explain in a bit more detail.
This time I go for a more unorthodox tactic. First, I fake a retreat. Next I throw my axe at the kid's face and tackle him. But somehow he sidesteps and then he's the one tackling me, down onto the gravel.
He sits on my chest and whacks my helmet a few times. "Yield!" he cries. "Surrender!"
"Get him son!" comes the voice from behind the fence again.
"I yield," I hiss through gritted teeth. "Get off of me already."
"Do you surrender?"
"That's what I just said, isn't it? Now get off me!"
Purposefully slowly, he obliges. I drag myself up off the ground too.
"I said move with the armor," the instructor says. "You don't fight against it."
I tear off my helmet. Sweat pours down my forehead from my matted hair.
"How am I bloody meant to do that? It's two sizes too small!"
"Forge something decent for yourself then," says my opponent, smirking.
"I don't have the money," I spit at him. "Once you grow up you might understand."
The other dozen junior trainees are sniggering. I must make for a ridiculous sight, face bright red with frustration, hair and beard slick with sweat, covered in dust from my constant toppling to the ground—the obvious inferior of a boy not three quarters my size.
"Calm down, calm down," says the instructor. He's an older looking runeknight but only of the sixth degree, and clearly does not give a shit about anything any more.
"Could you please explain how the hell I am meant to move with this absurdly tight armor?"
"It's like..." He waves his arms from side to side. "There's a kind of flow to it..." He scratches his head. "You have to become one with the armor. It needs to fit properly too."
"So you should hurry up and forge something," says the boy. "How come you can't even afford a few sheets of steel?"
I can't take it anymore, and charge at him. With my helmet off I can actually see what he's doing, not to mention what I'm doing too. I smash my fist into the side of his head and stagger him. I kick him in the leg; he nearly falls over.
He doesn't quite fall over though, and swings wildly at my head with his wooden axe. It catches me in the temple, tearing open the skin. Blood pours down the side of my face.
He backs away apologizing. The instructor steps forward to see if I'm OK, but I've been thrown into the chasm, attacked by a giant bat, nearly sweated myself to death forging in front of a lake of magma.
I don't need help, and I don't need an apology.
Snarling, I launch myself at my opponent, trip over my clunky wooden boots, and fall face first onto the gravel once again. For a good few minutes I stay there, shouting in frustration and pounding my fist against the ground. Eventually I stop then just lie there.
"You sure you're OK?" my opponent asks. He's offering me a hand up.
I sigh and take it.
"I think you should get something for your head," he tells me. "I hope that cut doesn't become a scar."
"I'm fine. You beat me, I deserve to get hurt a bit. That's how life goes."
"I still feel kind of bad."
"Don't bother."
"My name's Yezhak. My father's only eighth degree, he wants me to do better."
Is this kid trying to be friends with me? I can’t imagine why. Maybe this is part of what Wharoth calls making connections. Well, there's no need to be rude.
"Zathar," I say.
"You coming back here tomorrow?"
"No. Going to make some armor first."
"Oh."
"Sorry, were you looking forward to beating me up again?"
"Kind of." He smiles nervously. "I heard some rumors. Is it true you forged your first piece with a broken arm?"
"Yeah. I don't recommend it. Anyway, I've got to clean this cut up."
"See you around."
"Yeah."
I take one last look back at him before I round the corner of the guildhall. He's already facing off against another opponent, axe high, ready to pound them into the gravel. He’s small but strong, the epitome of dwarfishness.