The sound of wood striking wood rang out through the training facility, echoing off its empty walls. Normally, the place would be full of students, all looking to gain strength in order to win places on powerful parties or obtain better grades. Currently, however, it was nearly empty, the lateness of the hour and the festivity of the season discouraging its use.

Not everyone had stayed away though. Within, two fighters circled each other, both wearing sparring leathers and carrying wooden practice weapons, their expressions drawn as each sought an opening in their opposite’s stance.

*THWOCK*

Wooden sword met shield, as the taller fighter pressed forward, his sword pounding repeatedly against the slatted defense offered by his opponent.

Wearing a panicked expression, the smaller fighter gave ground, his shield raised in front of him as he was slowly forced into a corner. As his back met the wall, he bounced off, his shield lowering slightly. This was all the opening Rowan needed, and the tip of his sword was soon reflected in the glasses of the shieldbearer.

“You got me again,” Droon said defeatedly.

“It’s not that hard when you never fight back,” Rowan replied. It was true. The way in which Droon fought allowed even a weak fighter such as himself to feel like a martial master, wielding his sword to devastating effect to the detriment of his lesser skilled foe.

Obviously, this was not what Droon wanted, but as the results of the last two nights had shown, he was powerless to do otherwise. Although Rowan was not considered strong among the elites of Faebrook, he had still spent most of his life on the streets, fighting over scraps and petty squabbles. His time spent wielding a sword might have been short, but his accumulated combat experience was by no means small, and it was not something Droon could compete against.

“Again?” Droon asked.

Rowan nodded, lifting his sword into a ready position as they squared off.

This time, it was Droon who seized the initiative, launching himself towards Rowan with a quick stab. A short step to the right took Rowan out of harm’s way, and he counter-attacked, his blade bouncing off of Droon’s hastily raised shield with a hefty thwock.

Not letting up, Rowan followed up his attack with a shoulder tackle, using Droon’s raised shield to hide his intentions. Unable to see through his defensive screen, Droon was sent flying backwards by the ramming attack.

With quick movements, Rowan pursued his opponent, his sword raining down blows on Droon’s upturned shield as Droon scrambled to his feet. Returning to a standing position, Droon circled cautiously, seeking an opening in Rowan’s guard.

Since he’s looking for one, I might as well be nice and give him one. Lifting his blade as it to attack, Rowan feinted an opening. Naturally, Droon would not miss this crack in Rowan’s guard. While the spectacled boy may not have been a great fighter, he was nothing if not studious, and the various basic positions and forms were something Egil had spent the last three months drilling into them. With an eager look, Droon moved his shield aside and attacked.

Seeing this, Rowan made his move, darting forward and sending out a punch. Sword or fist, in the end it was the fist that arrived first, slamming into Droon’s solar plexus and knocking the wind out of him. With an audible exhale, Droon stumbled backwards, but Rowan was not letting him go that easily.

A quick step forward brought him into Droon’s hurriedly raised guard, the boy not forgetting his fundamentals even with the wind knocked out of him. Unfortunately, Rowan had never intended to use his sword for this attack in the first place.

Lifting his leg, Rowan delivered a short kick to Droon’s rear leg, striking just as Droon was stepping backwards in an attempt to put some distance between them. Unable to keep his balance, Droon went down like a pile of bricks, slamming hard into the soft floor of the training room. By the time he had figured out where he was, Rowan’s sword was once again in front of his face.

With a frustrated sigh, Droon leaned backwards, his weapons forgotten as he stared at the ceiling in disbelief.

“Another win for me,” Rowan said lightly.

“I thought I had you there for sure,” Droon replied, raising his head forward a bit to look at Rowan. “You messed up your stance, so I went in, thinking I could hit you before you fixed your stance, but then you beat me anyways.”

“I messed up on purpose. Getting past your shield the normal way wasn’t working, so I gave you an opening in order to create an opening of my own. There was an opening for you to take advantage of; it’s just that I knew what you were going to do since I’m the one who created it in the first place.”

Droon let out a low groan of frustration. “Even with an opening, I couldn’t win. Great.”

Rowan scratched his cheek awkwardly. “Don’t look at it like that. Yes, there was an opening, but it wasn’t a normal opening.”

“What do you mean?”

“A normal opening is a hole left in your opponent’s guard or stance that you can take advantage of, right?”

“Technically, yes,” Droon replied. “To be precise it’s actually a moment in the battle in which you can seize control of the flow of combat, turning the situation from neutral into an advantage state in which you are the one in control.”

Rowan waved his hand. “Right. Well that’s the normal definition. But that relies on the fact that your opponent is unaware of the opening you’re attempting to seize. Since I created the opening, that wasn’t the case. I knew you would try and attack the moment you saw a chance, so I gave you a chance and you took it, which created an opening for me to take advantage of.”

“Which you did.”

“Which I did,” Rowan affirmed. “Basically I set a trap for you, and you took the bait.”

Droon looked up with an expression that was equal parts amazement and frustration. “Why didn’t we learn this in combat class?”

Rowan blinked. “We did like… two weeks on feints. Were you not paying attention?”

“When?”

“Two months ago.”

Droon hung his head. “Professor Egil had me running laps for conditioning. He said I was too weak to join in on the actual class.”

Rowan remained silent at this, not entirely sure of what to say to this. He vaguely remembered seeing Droon forced to run around the perimeter of the grounds, but he had been far too focused on not embarrassing himself to pay any real attention to others.

Seemingly sensing that there was no point in continuing the discussion from the ground, Droon rolled to his feet, climbing back up with a little difficulty.

“Go again?”

Rowan nodded.

For Rowan, sparring with Droon was nowhere near as stressful as the routine sparring in combat class. Unlike their fellow students, all of which seemed to wield blades like they had been born to do so, Droon struggled to put up a decent fight.

Rather than beat the stuffing out of his new friend, Rowan instead chose to practice his skills, refining his technique against a living person rather than the dummies he usually trained with. Parries, ripostes, guard breaks, Rowan practiced them all, and the two were soon drenched with sweat as they circled each other.

To his credit, Droon never gave up, no matter how badly he was beaten. Every time he went down, he would mutter to himself, analyzing the way in which Rowan had defeated him this time, and then make adjustments. Of course, there was no way he could show any significant improvements in the space of a single training session, but there was no denying his perseverance, and Rowan strived to work harder as a result, not willing to lose to his fellow commoner in effort.

“This will be the last round,” Droon informed Rowan as he stood up. Rowan tilted his head in acknowledgement. It was nearly midnight, and the curfew was fast approaching.

Taking his place across from Droon, Rowan offered him a quick sword salute, which Droon mirrored. Pleasantries out of the way, they closed, eyes wary as they watched each other’s weapons.

After a night of being countered, Droon was not eager to make the first move, and he kept his shield high, his pale face watching from above the shield as his sword hovered beside it, ready to strike the moment an opening was provided.

Not willing to risk a frontal assault, Rowan probed Droon’s defenses with his blade, but the shield remained firmly in place as it deflected his strikes. Instead of creating an opening, Droon hunched down even further behind his wooden bulwark, so that only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were visible.

Stymied by Droon’s defenses, Rowan pondered his options as he bounced lightly on his feet. Neither a frontal assault nor repeated feints had worked, and perhaps due to how often he had employed feints tonight, Droon was no longer biting on any of the openings he provided. Even after Rowan had gone out of his way to provide Droon with an opportunity to attack, he had not taken it, and Rowan was running out of ideas for how to break past his opponent’s seemingly airtight defense.

In a way, Rowan reflected, it was like the story of the turtle that he had heard in his youth. Relying on its powerful shell, a turtle had wandered the land, fearing neither man nor beast that it encountered on its way. No matter the danger, it would always disappear into its shell, waiting out the attacks that rained down upon its impervious shell and taunting its attackers from within until they finally grew tired and left.

Believing itself to be invincible, the turtle travelled the world, venturing from coast to coast without fear. News of its journey soon spread everywhere it went, and powerful fighters, strongmen, and warriors gathered from across the land in order to test their might against its carapace.

No matter the methods used, however, the turtle always came out the victor. Leaving a sea of broken swords and egos behind it, the turtle travelled until one day it entered a tiny village suffering from famine. Starving, the villagers rushed the turtle with pitchforks and branches, but of course they did not even manage to leave a single scratch upon its shell.

Defeated, the villagers were about to give up when a wiseman emerged from his hut and commanded them to continue, while sending the children of the village to gather sticks and a large pot. Upon their return, the wiseman filled the pot with water and used the sticks to set a fire beneath it. At last, he commanded the men of the village to lift the turtle and toss it into the pot.

Unable to see what was happening from within its shell, the turtle offered no resistance, and was turned into turtle soup which fed the village until the drought broke and rain fell once more upon their lands. It was said that from then on the turtle shell had been used as a throne for the ruler of the village, which eventually went on to become known as Taureen, not that Rowan had ever seen the throne in question.

Supposedly, the story was a parable to warn children from growing overconfident as there was always someone with the means to defeat you, but Rowan had never cared for that. Instead, what had always fascinated him was the manner in which the wiseman had defeated the turtle.

Despite the wiseman’s lack of power when compared to the many mighty warriors who had tried before him, he had managed to succeed where they had failed by not challenging the turtle’s impenetrable shell head on. Instead, he had defeated it through sheer cunning, something that Rowan’s weak and powerless younger self had appreciated as something he too might aspire to do.

Remembering the old story, Rowan’s eyes sharpened. Right, cunning. Even if he did not have the power to batter Droon’s defenses forcibly aside, there was surely a way for him to slip past them. He just had to find the right method.

“Hya!” Droon stabbed forth with his sword, the jab quick but entirely too straightforward to be threatening. A simple sidestep carried Rowan out of danger, and he returned the favour with a slash that Droon received on his shield.

The shield. Rowan’s eyes locked upon it. Right now it was the source of his frustrations, and Droon’s biggest advantage in their current fight, but did it have to be?

Sending out a few more attacks to keep Droon busy, Rowan felt a plan formulating within his mind. It was not the most honourable way of winning, but honour was for nobles, and he was no noble.

As Droon advanced slowly, doing his best to corner Rowan, Rowan made his move. A quick slash forced Droon to lift his shield, the hollow sound of wood on wood ringing out through the training room. Immediately, Droon lowered his shield, his eyes once again growing visible just over the brim of the bulwark. This was the chance Rowan had been waiting for.

Striding forward, he launched a kick at the bottom lip of the shield, catching it with his booted foot and driving it upwards into Droon’s face.

“Gah!” With a cry, Droon stumbled backwards, clutching at his nose. Not one to miss an opportunity, Rowan darted forwards, the tip of his sword coming to rest against Droon’s stomach.

“Point.”

“Yes, yes. You got me,” Droon muttered, still rubbing his nose which was bleeding slightly. “What the hell did you do?”

“I beat you.”

Droon rolled his eyes. “Obviously. I was asking how.”

“Kicked your shield. You had it too close to your face so I took advantage,” Rowan said lightly.

“Did Egil teach us that?”

Rowan laughed, but said nothing. Egil had not taught them that. In fact, he doubted such a technique was something that anyone at Faebrook would teach, since it was something he had seen in a streetfight. Although the opponent at that time had been carrying a broken bottle, not a shield, and the bottle had taken out his eye, not bloodied his nose.

Helping Droon to his feet, Rowan did his best to remember the situation that they had been in just prior to the kick, committing it to memory so that if it ever arose in the future, he would be ready. This was something that Egil had taught him, a visualization method that worked similar to muscle memory. While it was no replacement for repetitive motion and constant training, Rowan had found that it did help, particularly with dirty fighting techniques that he couldn’t really practice with the other students, lest they wonder where he learned them.

Honestly, even using it on Droon was risky, as there was a chance that, despite his utter lack of combat experience due to his background, he was more likely to recognize them than the well-trained and honourable nobles.

Beside him, Droon fumbled with the strap of his shield, turning in a circle as he vainly tried to swat it off his arm.

Okay, Rowan thought to himself. Maybe he’s not that much of a threat. With Droon’s level of coordination, he wouldn’t know dirty fighting techniques if they kicked him in the face.

Ignoring the irony of his inner thoughts, Rowan stored his own training sword on the wall rack and grabbed a rag from the nearby bucket, getting to work on cleaning the floor of sweat and blood. Droon joined him a minute later, having finally rid himself of the clingy shield, and together, they cleaned the gym in relative silence, both too exhausted for small talk.

Finally finished, they left, Droon half-jogging as he urged them to hurry back to the dorm before midnight struck.

“Come on,” Droon fretted. “The teachers will kill us if they find us out after curfew.”

Rowan gave him a deadpan stare. “We’ve got ten minutes to curfew, and it’s only like five to the dorm. We’re fine.”

“Seven and a half, actually,” Droon said.

“Seven and a half?” Rowan asked. “Seven and a half what?”

“Minutes,” Droon clarified. “It takes exactly seven minutes and thirty four seconds to get from the indoor training facility to the Draigwyn dormitory when moving at an average walking pace. I’ve counted.”

Rowan nodded incredulously. “Uh-huh… Well either way we’ll still have two minutes to spare. So there’s no need to rush.”

“On the contrary,” Droon said earnestly. “That’s exactly why we should rush. With such a tiny margin of error, any delay could prove fatal to us in our current situation.”

Seriously? Rowan wanted to say, but he held his tongue. At times, it felt that Droon had a bigger stick up his ass than most of the nobles, and given the way many of them acted, that was saying something. Regardless, right now he was the only one around to talk to, and Rowan could hardly afford to be choosy about those who deigned to be his friend.

Rather than reply, Rowan cast his gaze across the courtyard to their right, scanning the vicinity for threats as he had habitually done for years. These days, those threats mostly consisted of Klou’s friends and lackeys from Lykia, rather than the vicious cutthroats and guards with a meanstreak from his youth, but the habit remained. Normally, it turned up nothing; however this time was different.

Tilting his head, Rowan watched as a familiar figure hurried past in the shadows at the far end of the courtyard. Her hood was up, and the shadows were dark, but Rowan’s eyes did not fail to capture Morgana Lunythe as she snuck by, heading in the opposite direction from their dormitory.

For a moment, an angel and a devil waged war within his conscience. The angel’s name was reason, and it told him to ignore Morgana and continue following Droon. After all, it was nearly curfew, and even with the holiday, the professors had not stopped enforcing the midnight curfew.

The devil’s name was curiosity. It told him to follow Morgana and find out what could possibly possess a noble to be sneaking around past midnight.

In the end, curiosity won, vanquishing reason after only a token resistance from the supposed moral guide.

“Oh damn.” Rowan smacked his hand to his forehead. “I think I forgot something at the gym. You go on without me—I’ll catch up.”

“But what about curfew?” Droon squeaked. “You don’t have time to make it there and back!”

“I’m fast,” Rowan promised. Turning, he left Droon, who sputtered something about expulsion as Rowan sped off, following in the direction he had seen Morgana take.

Unfortunately, with Droon standing right there he could not cut across the courtyard to follow Morgana directly, but there was another courtyard connecting the two hallways two hundred feet back which should take him far enough away from Droon for him to escape the other boy’s sight.

At top speed, Rowan ran through the hallway, his footsteps light as he aimed for the courtyard ahead. Reaching it, he cut across, hiding himself behind a well-manicured bush as he waited for Morgana to pass by. Provided he had calculated right, then she should be passing by right about… now.

Soft footsteps echoed softly from the hallway beyond, and Rowan controlled his breathing in order to slow his heart rate, his body completely still as Morgana passed by. Giving her a few seconds to put some distance between them, Rowan rose up from the bush and followed her, wraith-like in the pale moonlight.

The shadows were long at this time of night, the light from the torches nowhere near enough to illuminate the dark halls. To Rowan, it was like a playground, the nooks and crannies easy to duck in and out of in order to avoid any eyes that might be watching as he tailed Morgana.

The fae girl was not quick in her movements, regularly freezing up at even the slightest sound, and Rowan actually found himself annoyed at times with her ineptitude with regards to sneaking. Even if she was a noble, she should at least have had the good sense not to freeze up next to the only patch of moonlight in the hall. With how light she was, she could have easily moved twice as fast without making any more noise than she currently was.

Heedless of her stalker’s frustrations, Morgana continued, leading Rowan deeper within the castle as they left the Draigwyn dormitory far behind them. After what seemed like forever, but was in reality only about ten minutes, she stopped, disappearing down a side passage that Rowan did not recognize. A moment later, the sound of a door being gently prised open tingled in Rowan’s ear, wood scraping against stone and then back over it, again ringing out from down the passage his quarry had just disappeared into.

For a second, Rowan was once again visited by the angel and devil. This time though, both were on the same side. He had come this far; it was time to see what Morgana was hiding.