The uneven staccato of clashing metal rang loudly from somewhere up ahead, past the long building made of mud bricks. The sound was laced with violence, yet its music was familiar, soothing even, to us sword artists. Here in the Empire's capital, miles from our ancestral home, too much was different--different customs, different laws, even different coins. But the call of the sword's song was the same.

In response, I automatically reached for the steady pulse of qi swirling within my core. My breath was slow and even, my muscles limber. The boredom and discomfort that had been bearing down upon me moments before didn't vanish, but they dimmed in their intensity.

We had wandered all afternoon through the unpaved roads lined with sloppy rows of cheap hovels and dilapidated storefronts. The hot, dry air had left my tongue sticky and parched. When I had tried to lick my peeling lips to moisten them, the thin coating of dust on them had filled my mouth with the bitter stink of filth and sweat.

The sound of swordplay had been an alarm, pulling me out of a thick, lazy fog that had been growing in my heart. I hardly saw anyone working in this part of the city. Most squatted on the ground in clusters, chatting. The graying ones lounged on overturned buckets or simple stools.

The only sign of active intent I had witnessed was a few hours earlier, when a wiry old crone had slaughtered a squawking chicken, silencing the creature with the quick chop of a rusty cleaver. I remembered how fat that brown-feathered bird had looked within the claw-like grasp of the woman, mainly because I hadn't eaten meat in three days.

I aimed to change that. Small puffs of dry, reddish dust kicked up around our feet as Elder Gri and I raced towards the sound of fighting.

"Elder Gri?" I asked as we ran.

I squinted to make out the senior clansman's face, shaded by the glare of the setting sun as it peeked out from the jumble of wood, mud, and masonry that made up the Commoner's District. The rustic brown cloak wrapped around Elder Gri would have marked him for a farmer or simple traveler, if not for the unbending outline of the weapon underneath on his left hip.

A sword, of course.

Elder Gri's flowing hair, half-gray and half-black, streamed behind him as he quickened his pace. An unsettling eagerness lit up his brown eyes as the sound of swordplay neared. It wasn't a lust for blood, no, but it reeked of a desperation, a lack not of honor but of pride.

For we of the Koroi clan had long given up our pride. Pride wouldn't feed, clothe, or shelter us. Perhaps if Elder Rome were still alive, things would have been different.

"Hurry, Talen. I hear the ring of money." Elder Gri smiled, nodding slightly.

Funny. That sounded more like alchemical steel slicing through a cheap blade of wrought iron. But Elder Gri wouldn't hesitate to slap me like a five-year-old at the first hint of insolence, so I kept my mouth shut.

We rounded the wide mud building to arrive at the crossroads of three dirt paths arranged like six spokes of a wheel. A mixed crowd, most in the dirt-stained tunics of laborers, along with more than a few in the silver robes of the nobility, formed a semicircle around the intersection. I even spotted one wearing the purple trim of a court official.

It was a street fight: crude, inglorious, and profitable. Exactly what we were looking for.

A fresh red stain, a foot's width across, marred the center of the otherwise smooth, makeshift dirt arena. I grimaced as I followed the splotches of crimson on the ground to the edge of the intersection, where a short man in gray garb limped away in defeat, his back to the crowd.

A duel between skilled sword artists usually ended in death or no bloodshed at all, depending on the circumstances of the duel. There were exceptions, like teaching a rude upstart a lesson, but to emerge victorious while leaving the opponent bloody and battered was in poor form, a sign of uneven discipline from one side, or both.

I finally rested my eyes on the figure waiting in the center of the crossroads, his feet set in a proud, wide stance, his right hand resting on the hilt of the sheathed sword at his side.

His black hair flopped carelessly over half his face, and his only visible eye twinkled with a mocking glint. He bared his yellow teeth through his thin lips in mixture of sneer and smile. I couldn't tell whether his pocked tan skin was from a hard life or old age.

He had a thing for iron and spikes. His neck was clad in an iron choker ringed with small spikes. He had a ring of iron around his wrists and ankles as well, also encircled with spikes. His shoulders and knees were covered in sections of spiked iron armor, similar to what some of the northern tribes used.

Yes, such adornments could turn aside a blade, in principle, but most serious sword artists wouldn't waste time practicing with such a piecemeal defense. Such armor was cumbersome, and we were sword artists, not iron statues waving sharp sticks.

Still, it would be reckless to discount him based on appearances alone. I doubted that he would find my looks to be particularly imposing, either.

"Who's next?" the sword artist shouted, spittle flying out of his open mouth. "Come on, cowards!"

We should have lingered, seen what we could have of the man before approaching. But his challenge was met with silence.

Elder Gri wasted no time stepping past the crowd. "My boy will fight you."

Dozens of eyes stared as I moved to join Elder Gri at his side. The whispers started, the weighing and judging, the rattling of purses in preparation for bets.

"A boy?" The sword artist scowled.

I tossed my cloak to the ground, letting the brown fabric pool at my feet. "Eighteen summers," I said, touching the blade at my side. "And you? Man enough to face this?"

His face split into a wide, vicious grin. "I like your spirit, but you have the face of a baby. How about you?" The sword artist jabbed a thick finger in Elder Gri's direction.

I tried not to frown. He wasn't the first to make that comment. I kept my dark brown hair short, my face shaven. We were traditionalists, the last of a dying breed, but the elders didn't object to my modern, if humble, styling. I hated the oily, itchy feeling of long hair, not to mention the risk that someone would grab at it in a fight. It was a departure from the old ways, and as such, I lacked the grit and gravitas that older sword artists carried.

In short, I shaved like a noble but dressed like a pauper. No wonder that they mistook me for a youth.

Elder Gri grunted. Without a word, he pulled back the right side of his cloak to expose the stump of purpled flesh where his hand and forearm should have been. He could still fight, but he was long past his prime, and not just because of his lost limb.

"I'll fight, not him," I said.

Elder Gri shuffled into the crowd, and from the jingling of coins, I knew he was busy attending to the bets.

The sword artist smirked. "Very well. Make this quick, boy."

He drew his sword, a longsword that he wielded with a single hand. His blade had a bluish tint, as did all alchemical steel. A streak of golden qi flashed up and down the length of his sword at the same moment that a pulse of heavy aura surrounded me, the pressure weighing for an instant upon my shoulders.

Some of the onlookers behind me cried out.

The sword artist grinned, but I ignored his preening. From the strength of his aura, he would be at least a Lesser Master. In other words, only slightly weaker than me, if at all.

I drew my own sword, Terminus. Its severe name was meant to describe the fate of its opponents, but the weapon was also the last remaining legacy of the Koroi, the only one that we hadn't sold for scraps. How long could we keep this up, going from street fight to street fight, scrounging up what little we could to send back home? How long before our clan was finished, before Terminus fulfilled its namesake?

The questions retreated into the back of my mind as I focused on my opponent. I held Terminus before me with two hands, a strong, conservative stance, sending a steady trickle of qi into the resonant chamber within the blade.

The sword artist cocked his head. "Is that a toy?"

"It's enough," I replied.

Terminus had a dull ashy coating, a form of rusting that hardened rather than weakened the material. The coating served to make the sword appear like a cheap tool, which was fine with me if that kept away thieves and lowered expectations.

The less risky move would have been to wait for my opponent's attack, responding with weak probing feints until I had established a baseline of skill and strength. The crowd's impatience, judging from their hoots and jeers, must have infected me, because I shifted into a one-handed stance, matching the sword artist across from me.

He raised one eyebrow, the other hidden behind his shoulder-length hair. He tossed his head, and in that instant, I closed the gap between us.

The sun was on my right, his left, which meant its glare combined with his foppish hair would put him at a moment's disadvantage. As I sliced crosswise, I released the qi stored within Terminus, shaping it into a cutting edge sharper than any material forged by a blacksmith.

It was a wager, unleashing such a powerful attack on the first blow. If I didn't finish this quickly, revealing my strength so early would rob me of a later tactical surprise. It could also make him reply in kind. On the other hand, being cavalier with Terminus could trick him into being too cautious, as if I had even more hidden power.

I timed the release of qi so that the yellow flash surrounded Terminus the moment it touched the other sword artist's hurried block, giving him minimal warning for the preternatural strike.

He was nimble, unfortunately, despite his brutish guise.

He couldn't directly block the blow without shattering his weapon. Instead, he caught my blade and redirected it as he spun, using an unexpectedly soft parry to guide my sword away from himself. My blade screeched against his, but in the end, I did little more than shave a few glowing sparks off his weapon.

The sword artist nodded. "The boy has some bite."

I gave a curt nod back and waited for his counterattack, as was polite. These street fights varied widely in opponent skill and expectations, and no one had yet bothered to follow the proper forms. But something about my armored opponent made me wonder. I wasn't sure if I was more disappointed or delighted that he wasn't simply a sword-waving thug. He had a nuanced touch to his blade that marked the depth of his sword artistry. But that only confirmed that the earlier bloodshed had been intentional.

He lunged, the point of his sword flying towards my heart, his weapon more spear than blade. I stepped back and swayed right to avoid the blow, but a glimmering tip of golden qi shot out six inches beyond the metal.

The sword artist swiped sideways, matching my motion, to slice at my left arm, but the secondary attack was weaker than the initial thrust. I blocked with an inverted strike of my own, looping his sword over my head to the other side with a circular parry.

He danced away to recover before I exploited his open guard.

"A fine move." The sword artist smiled, his yellow teeth showing again.

I shrugged. "Orthogonal axes. Curvilinear transformation. An elementary move."

His smile faded. "Bah. One of those." He spat on the ground, leaving a small patch of dark dirt halfway between us. "Didn't think any of you nasty buggers were still around."

"Nasty?" I was genuinely confused. I had been called many things, but this was the first time that word had been used. I mean, we were traditionalists. We emphasized honor, grace, all that good stuff, or at least we were supposed to. The opposite of nasty, if you asked me.

"Yeah, nasty. A real pain in the ass, know what I mean?"

Before I could dive into his meaning, he unleashed a flurry of overhand strikes, attempting to overpower me with brute force. This was no special technique or skill; he simply channeled his qi into raw strength and speed.

I slashed sideways to block him. Six times our swords collided.

I gave way with each block, using only a fraction of my qi to meet his swings. My boots scraped against the dirt as I slid backwards each time our swords clashed, every strike sending ripples of pain crackling through my hands and arms. I had barely reinforced my body with qi. A little less, and my bones would break, but I knew my limits and skimmed along them with ease.

I directed the rest of my qi into Terminus, again. As Masters, neither of us would have enough qi to drive both our bodies and weapons to their limit in unison. He would assume, I hoped, that I was weak, unable to block and stand my ground, rather than that I was hedging myself for another attack.

On the seventh block, I unleashed the accumulated qi housed in Terminus, and a golden flash surrounded my blade. It was less than before, as I hadn't sent as much qi into the reservoir, but it was enough. I allowed myself a smile as Terminus bit about half an inch into a section of alchemical steel. I twisted my wrist, snapping his weapon, barely breaking the momentum of the swing.

I could have followed through to cut cleanly through his chest, but I turned my sword's edge to the side, instead slapping him loudly with the flat of my blade.

The sword artist stumbled backwards. He stared at the broken sword in one hand, then touched his chest with two fingers. He looked back at me, his face an expressionless mask, different from before.

I held my sword in a ready position. A proper sword artist would yield now, but these street fights were unpredictable.

"A Grandmaster?" he asked.

I stifled a chuckle. The body or the sword, not both. That was the limit of a Master. Only a Grandmaster could surpass those bounds. Except none had existed in years.

The sword artist must have seen my amusement, because he scowled. "A trick of the sword, then."

"There's no trick without skill. Do you yield?" I lowered the tip of my sword slightly.

The sword artist stared hard at me. Then, he bent down to collect his broken blade. "See?" He waved the broken blade at me. "What did I say? Nasty, plain nasty. Fixing this will be a mighty pain."

I could sympathize. Finding a smithy that could work alchemical steel wasn't easy and was sure to cost a hefty sum of gold. My eyes flicked to the browning patch of blood from earlier. Then again, I wasn't exactly sorry for what I had done, either. It was a clean victory, unlike his.

"What's your name, boy?" he asked.

The sword artist had placed the broken blade into his sheath and tucked the hilt into his waistband. I took that to mean the duel was over and put away Terminus.

"Talen," I replied. I hesitated to say anything further. Grudges weren't exactly unheard of.

Elder Gri stepped toward me, clapping me on the shoulder. "Talen of the famed Koroi clan." He raised my hand into the air and turned to face the crowd.

I bit my tongue and followed Elder Gri's lead, keeping a wary eye on the defeated sword artist. The Koroi name wasn't worth anything up here in the capital, Sanctum, but Elder Gri still harbored hopes that my victories would draw new disciples and somehow resurrect the clan to its former glory.

I wasn't too sure. The short duel would have been rather unimpressive to a layman, and from the crowd's jaded faces, they had seen plenty of Masters fight before. Some of the onlookers were already dispersing, probably trying to sneak off without paying their bets.

"Koroi?" the sword artist said. "I'll remember that." He nodded once more, and turned to walk away as well.

On a lark, I called after him. "And your name, Master?"

He waved casually over his shoulder, not bothering to look back. "I go by Rellick around here."

Wait a minute. I knew that name. Rellick the Reaver? The Spiked Swordsman? The Martial Mayhem? That Rellick?

I scratched my head, staring as the sword artist in his piecemeal armor walked away. Behind me, Elder Gri gathered the bets, invoking my name too many times for my comfort.

"Pay up, pay up," Elder Gri hissed. " Don't make him mad. You saw what he did. He'll carve you up from your crotch to your throat. Like that." He snapped his fingers.

I sighed. I had learned two lessons today.

One, the legends of Sanctum didn't quite live up to their reputation. And two, the Koroi weren't the only ones who longed for better times.

I took a step toward Elder Gri to help with the bets, but I froze mid-step as a flash of blue light appeared.

Not light, words. Blue glowing letters floated in my sight, tracking to the same position even when I swiveled my head.

Exam qualifications: 1/3

I glanced about, but no one else acted like they had noticed anything.

"Elder Gri?" I waved my hand in front of my face, but the words remained. "Do you see this?"

Elder Gri turned away from a grumbling old nobleman who had just dropped a handful of silver pieces into his outstretched palm.

"What is it? Dust in your eyes?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No." I didn't know what the words meant, but there were too many ears here for my comfort. "It's best I tell you elsewhere."

"Fine. Hurry up and help me collect the--"

Elder Gri didn't have a chance to finish. One of the onlookers, a figure in a black cloak and hood, rushed forward to snatch Elder Gri's small coin pouch. The thief threw off his cloak, and the billowing fabric obstructed our view for a moment.

I snatched the cloak and whipped it to the side, but the fluttering fabric released a puff of acrid, gray powder into the air. I shut my eyes but the blue letters still glowed in my vision. I ignored them, drew Terminus, and spun it with a surge of qi-backed speed to blow away the unknown agent.

A little more than a second had passed, but by the time I looked up, a figure wrapped from head to toe with black cloth was skipping along the rooftops half a block away, the dark blue of Elder Gri's coin pouch visible in one hand. The figure bound from rooftop to rooftop, leaping a good ten yards at a time with a bird-like grace.

That was no ordinary thief. That was a sword artist. I slammed Terminus back into its sheath and set off after him.