Alphande'

“Claw, tooth and axe!” chanted Harfr. Many times had he bellowed this after he’d beaten another of his challengers while we trained. “We are weapons within ourselves; the axe is just an extension of our arms. The axe you should not depend on. The axe should depend on you. You are the true axe. The axes that will cut down the society of the humans and which will claim this land fully for ourselves, as we have done in our homeland beyond the sea.” he wiped the blood from his axe into his loin cloth. He then turned from us watchers to the claw he had just beaten and offered him his hand. “That was a good fight Narine. Your skills have improved.”

“That is an honour coming from you.” replied Narine as he took Harfr’s hand and stood up. Slashes of blood drained from gaping cuts in his head, chest, back and limbs. Harfr had not hesitated to slice him with his weapons and could have killed him ten times over, but this was only training and he feeling was merciful today.

His eyes searched the crowd for a new opponent and finally his eyes rested on me. I wished to hide behind the one who stood in front of me, but I knew that would do me no good.

“Dominic of Au Valley step forward.” The crowd parted for me to enter the centre circle. Though my heart trembled, my gait was steady and my face set in stone. Any sign of cowardice would mean my death. “You have been with us for a turn of the moon, surely you have learned some of our ways and adopted our teachings by now.”

“I have,” I said without fear in my voice as I had hid it all in my heart.

“It is indeed time then, that you show us claws of the north that you of the southern tribe are worthy to be among our clan and that in battle we can depend on you to watch our backs.”

“It would be my honour to gain your approval.” My heart thudded heavily against my chest. I reminded myself that I was the one who signed up for this. I wanted revenge on those that had betrayed me and the only way I could get what I wanted was to become a warrior.

Harfr himself placed me under his tutelage, expecting nothing less than perfection from me. Twice he had driven me so hard I thought my eyes would never open to daylight again. Yet twice I had recovered fully. Only to be driven harder the next day.

I was fed only the meat of humans while we trained and already I could see and feel the difference. I had become stronger and thicker. Corded muscles stood now stood in places where they were absent before. It was pleasing to see my new form, but I was still scrawny in comparison to all who stood around me. I could not hope to gain in a month, that which they had achieved over years.

“Tonight you will battle Ishr. He has just crossed into his year of manhood like you. It is the fairest battle I can allow you. Whether it is fair or not you can judge for yourself.” he laughed and the others around him chuckled.

I knew why he laughed. I had met Ishr once and though he was young his form did not show it as he was at least two heads taller than me with arms and legs strong from training. It was whispered among the others that if the trumpet had not called, he would have joined the next bear hunt and no one doubted his ability to claim a two headed bear for himself.

Ishr came to stand in the middle of the ring, sandwiching Harfr between the two of us. He placed a hand on each of our shoulders.

“This is not a fight to death, but a fight into submission. The fight stops when the other begs for his life. Claws, teeth and axes are allowed.” said Harfr as he looked at the two of us. He then dropped his hands and started walking away. Brushing past me he stopped and whispered. “If you are the one to surrender Dominic, I will make you regret the day you first saw my face. If you thought I was harsh before, worse is yet to come.” he then moved to the side of the ring.

My scales prickled at the threat and I held my head up, looking at Ishr unperturbed as my fear of Harfr far outweighed whatever doubt I had about facing Ishr.

The circle tightened around the both of us and we both unhitched our axes from around our waists. I watched as the scales around his neck lifted in anticipation. I too could feel the scales along my back and neck move.

His first set of movements was swift; as with just a flick of his wrist his axe came sailing towards my head. I moved just in time and felt it whistling past the left side of my face. I looked around and saw that someone behind me had caught it before it sliced into the crowd. I turned back to face him, he had a menacing smirk on his face. That was a warning which clearly read ‘the rules don’t apply to me. I came to win, even if it means your death.’

Taking advantage of his armless state I surged forward with my axe raised. Twice I swung at his belly but he dodged my attempts. The third time I swung at him; he caught my arms at the wrists and twisted them outwards. Pain shot through the joints and my fingers were starting to become numb. The axe fell listlessly from my hand to the earthen ground. He released my wrists pushing me away and then swooped down to grab my dispossessed axe. I took advantage of his lowered position as I jumped towards him clubbed him in the back of the head with my elbow. This caused him to stagger a bit but I never stopped my attack. I slashed him once across the face leaving fine lines of bare skin that had dots of blood prickling up from the scale beds.

He touched his face once and seeing that I had been the one to draw first blood, the anger seemed to broil up inside of him and his ferocity had truly awoken.

He surged forward grabbing me around the waist and then thrust me into the ground. I wriggled under his grip, but he held me firmly down by placing his knees into my gut, using his weight against me.

His eyes of coal were red with murder as he dug his claws into the side of my face, dredging up the scales as he ploughed through my face. Again he struck the same spot and blood didn’t hesitate to come as flesh was scraped up under his nails.

I pushed upwards against his knees until I managed to get a hold of his neck. I slipped the nails of my thumbs under his lifted scales and pressed downwards towards his windpipe. Blood welled up under my claws and started running down my thumbs. I would have slit it open if he hadn’t sensed that I too had no qualms about doing whatever it took to win. Grabbing my hands and pushing them away he sprung up from my belly. I breathed in deeply as I hadn’t been able to do with his knees grinding my belly against my backbone.

I got up shakily as momentarily my legs had become disconnected with my spine. I saw him grab his axe from the claw that had caught it and was making his way towards me. I dove for mine, which was a few feet away.

Muscle, sinew and bone was severed as his axe fell upon my hand just as I had woven my fingers around the handle. I bellowed in pain as I pulled the amputated stump towards my chest, fresh, hot blood gushing from the wound and down to my elbow into the clay ground.

I fought my way up from the ground quickly as his axe again struck where my elbow had just been a second ago.

“Surrender southerner!” he bellowed. “Surrender or it will be your leg I take next.” He shouted as he bore down on me.

“No, I will not surrender.” I said forgetting my pain. “If it is my leg you want, take it.” I said as I kicked him in the knee. I heard a satisfying grunt escaping his lips and his leg curved backwards in an abnormal angle. Disappointingly he didn’t fall, but it did slow him down enough to allow me to slip around him and take up my own axe. I had to slide my severed hand from around the handle so that I could get a better grip.

Unbalanced by the bleeding that had by now stemmed, I staggered forward. I put all my will and strength into the blow but my body failed me and he easily parried the axe from my unsteady grip as exhaustion took hold. He surged forward again pinning me to the ground. This time he held his axe to my neck. If I moved my head would be irreparably severed.

“Surrender southerner, you have been beaten.” he said.

“No I will not surrender.”

“Fine, then you die.” he moved his hand upward and I watched unblinking as it came down towards my neck. I inhaled the last breath I would have in this life. But then, the axe stopped and we both looked up. Holding his arm was Harfr.

“That is enough. This is training and no one is to die.” he said relieving Ishr of his axe and then helped him up off me. “To the victor, Ishr!” he said as he thrust his hand in the air. “It was a good win.” he said and the surrounding warriors bellowed and struck their chests in agreement. “To Ishr.” he said as he thrust his arms upwards to the sky once more before releasing it. He allowed him to be taken by the crowd who had enveloped him and striking his back in congratulations.

I on the other hand, pushed myself up from the ground and made my way over to an empty fire where I would wait until Harfr found me. I didn’t have to wait long as I felt his towering form lingered over me.

“So you chose death over surrender.” he said as he came to sit beside me.

“Cowards are not allowed within your ranks and I did not wish to show myself as one.” I said without turning to look at him. “So death was preferable.”

“That was a good fight.” he said apparently pleased with my response.

“But I didn’t win.” I said turning to him.

“You did better than all of us expected. You did well despite your disadvantages.”

“I do not want to have disadvantages.” I said sourly.

“And when I am through with you, you will not. Hand to hand combat seemed to be your greatest strength. Did you practice this in your village?”

“Yes, I had a friend back home, we wrestled much.” My mind flashed back to Evander and the time we spent together by Taegra Lake. “But that has been awhile now.” I said as I dismissed the memories.

“It shows.” he said approvingly. “It is a skill that will help you when wrestling a bear, but will be of no use in a war. You are good with your hands, but you must learn to hold on to your axe. Twice you dropped it in the fight. If this was a real battle, twice you would have died. I will have to change that.” He said getting up. “Eat and be healed. When your hand grows back, even before it is fully scaled, you should present yourself to me. I will have to teach you how to hold on to your axe.” he said as he walked away.

“And before then?” I asked.

“Rest. I said that the punishment would be harsh if you surrendered. You lost the fight but you did not surrender, so I wave my right to punish.” he laughed as he walked away.

My arms trembled with exhaustion as it has been over three hours now since I had them outstretched in front of me. That was tiring by itself, but added to my burden was the fact that I held two nets suspended on poles four feet long in which there were three boulders each the size of my head. Every time my hand wavered towards the ground, Harfr’s whip would lash at my wrists until they were both parallel.

“My axe lies under those boulders. The handles are of ivory and the blade was made and passed down to me by my sire and his sire and the one before that. There are few things in this world that I hold in higher esteem than that axe. It you allow the rocks to fall and break any part of it, I will have to break you.” he said.

As if responding to a dare my arms shook with even more force. Try as I may, I felt the tendons in my hand give and my grip loosened. Harfr was quicker and when the rocks hit ground his axe was not there. I dropped the other pile defeated.

“I cannot hold on much longer. My will is strong but my hands betray me.” I kneeled down resting my shaking hands on the stone floor of the cave we were in leaving a bloody imprint behind. “I am not as strong.”

“Then you will find strength.” he said. I heard the whistle of his whip before it sliced across my back. I looked up at him surprised more than hurt. “You will place the rocks in the net and hold the pole until I decide that your strength is indeed insufficient.” he said coldly.

“I cannot, my strength is insufficient.” The trembling in my arms got worse and I looked away.

“And I say it isn’t!” he bellowed as he cracked the whip around my torso. “Take it up!”

“I cannot,” I said as I stood up from the floor. I had joined their group to become a warrior, not to be beaten and whipped into submission. I had had enough of this torture. I walked passed him without looking at his face.

“Where do you think you are going?” he hissed.

“Home.” I said unthinkingly, walking on without stopping.

“There is no home but here.” I turned to look at him. “If it is to Au Valley you head you will find it as empty as an abandoned fox hole. They have already started to move south with the rest of our army.” he continued.

This news pulled me to a stop as I remembered why it was I had truly left home. I was to find the new king among the Nuwanhe as he was the one to stop the bloodshed that was going to begin between our races. I had failed to accomplish that and even if I did find Evander now, it would be too late. My want for vengeance against humans for what they had done to me and the need for revenge against Gedric for what he had done to our clan warred against each other. How could I champion one cause without disrupting the other?

“There is no home except among us.” said Harfr. “And in this your home, I make the rules and now I want you to take up the stones and hold them until I say otherwise.”

“My strength is not enough.” I repeated and restarted on my sojourn outward.

“I say it is.” I heard the whip coming again, but before it struck my back I caught it within my fists. Wrapping a length of it around my arm I tugged both it and Harfr closer until he was less than an arms-length from my face.

“It is not enough!” I shouted.

“Yet I say it is.” he was wearing a smug smile as his eyes locked onto mine. He let go of the whip and took a step back. “You are proving more each day that your home is indeed among the northern tribe Dominic. Your strength grows at uncharted speeds the longer you stay here. There is no need to be among your tribe as we will meet them outside the human city of Indué. You may leave now to be with them, but you will lack the strength you could gain if you journeyed there in our company. The destination is the same, but it is up to you to decide how you will arrive.” he said as he folded his arms and leaned against the craggy wall, busying himself with cleaning the dirt that had gathered underneath his claws.

I looked down on the whip I had curled around my arm. Never has my reflexes been this sharp and he had noted that my strength too had grown. He was right, the destination would be the same. I knew Harfr long enough to know that no one walked away from him without facing the consequences of that action. I would rather have him as an ally than the enemy that he would become.

If I was to meet Gedric again I wanted it to be when I was at full strength. No weakling could ever hope to accomplish what I wanted to achieve. In this fight for justice for those in my clan that died, I would not surrender.

I walked back to him and held the whip for him to take which he did. I then walked back over to the fallen stones, piling them back into the net. I then took the poles up holding them straight ahead. Harfr walked over and was about to slip his axe under the stones.

“That won’t be needed.” I said. “I will not let go.” he smiled at me once and withdrew the axe.

“Then we go until dawn.” I looked outside Anolis had already set and Petrolis was only halfway under the horizon. I nodded once in agreement and set my eyes on the hard rock face.

I would not surrender.