Spider Man

Gwenig Vainkag Stasig squinted out into the rising sun as Tagspapiig huffed at her shoulder. 

"Good morning, darling," Gwen sang, ruffling her mare's mane. "Did you sleep well? Because it looks like it's going to be a lovely day for a ride."

Swinging out of her family wagon, Gwen kissed her mare on the nose. "It looks like Father already left for the morning, so why don't you go out and eat while I do?"

Tagspapiig whuffled again, and meandered off a little ways from the wagon circle.  Still smiling, Gwen headed over to the nearest fire. 

"Good morning, Little Mother."

The elderly woman crouched over a bubbling pot of grain looked up, and smiled, baring still-strong red teeth. "You're up late, Gwenig. Long night?"

Gwen grabbed a bowl and filled it quickly. "Now, Little Mother, you would know nearly as well as I if I had invited a man under the wagon."

The older woman cackled. "Now, Gwenig, how are ever going to be a Little Mother yourself, if you don't dance with a stallion or two?"

Gwen just shook her head, eating as she walked away. She knew why people kept asking - neither of her parents had any other children, and her numerous cousins had shown no signs of special leadership qualities or fighting ability. 

In fact, in the last four fighting tournaments, Gwen had flattened thirty-eight of her cousins, and had outright killed a thirty-ninth. 

Shaking her head, Gwen swabbed the last of the boiled grain from her bowl with some milk-soaked buccellum. She was happy as a warrior - most women her age still hadn't killed more than two men, anyway, and thus weren't even thinking about having children. 

Well, except for women who were only mothers, or only priestesses. 

Frowning slightly, Gwen tossed her empty bowl in the wagon, and grabbed her saddle. She technically qualified as a priestess. She could scry the present from a distance, could chant and sing all of the songs, and could purify a wagon or a haunted person. But that wasn't where her heart lay. 

Strapping her extra sword to her side for the time being, Gwen began the trek to find Tagspapiig. 

The sun was high in the sky by the time Gwen had brushed Tagspapiig and settled the saddle and her sword on Tagspapiig's back. They were heading back to the wagon circle, Gwen chewing on stain-berry, when Tagspapiig suddenly stopped, her ears going back and her nostrils flaring. 

"Hé-huff!" Tagspapiig barked, her legs planted. That was a singular reaction, one that every Sarmatian knew deep in their soul. 

Lizard. 

Gwen leapt into the saddle, pulling out her bow. 

"Hi-yeeeee!" She shrieked. "LIZARD!  White Horse Team, we head east!  Lizard!  Hi-yeeeeee!"

As they barreled into the encampment, children and mothers scattered. Lizards were serious business. 

Hundreds of years ago, a sorcerer by the name of Téodoro had decided to conquer Sarmatia, and had brought with him the great Lizards of Ægypta. The Lizards couldn't bear the cold, though, so the sorcerer had used magic to make them able to live in the white winters of Sarmatia. 

What Téodoro did not know was that a priestess of the Stasig could call fire from the skies. His conquest was destroyed, but the Lizards still lurked in the lakes, caves, and rivers. As centuries passed, the Lizards bred, and the best efforts of the Sarmatian tribes could not quite wipe them out. 

Gwen had spent her adult life killing Lizards - starting with the one that had killed her mother. 
Between Tagspapiig and Gwenig Vainkag Stasig, no Lizard would survive into the next century. 

And as the White Horse Team drew in to follow their lead, Gwen felt a feral grin bare her shuriig teeth. With her bow taut and her arrow waiting, the next crest would reveal her target - a Lizard. 

“Hold!” she roared, lifting her bow.  Standing beside the (strangely immobile) Lizard was a boy – a sorcerer?  Another was flying away – she shot two arrows after the coward, and then turned to focus on the still immobile Lizard.

Her heart keened.  Torn to shreds, as if he were any other victim of a particularly ferocious Lizard, was her father.

Gwen aimed, her world narrowed to a point –

And the Lizard suddenly shrank down and became a human.

An arrow thudded to the ground beside the no-longer-Lizard, which meant that somebody had been shaken from proper aim by this transformation.

Gwen felt nothing.  Her arrow flew cleanly.

“Wait!”

The boy shoved the not-Lizard to the side, saving the sorcerer from certain death.  Gwen’s arrow slashed the sorcerer’s shoulder, but otherwise merely made a deep hole in the dirt beside him.

The boy spoke soft-speak, the tongue of the city-folk to the east, so Gwen responded in kind.

“How dare you!” she snapped.  “You protect an evil greater than any other alive today – what sorcerer are you?  And if you are no sorcerer, move aside!  For this Lizard owes me blood-price for my father!”

Behind her, Gwen could hear one of her warriors translating for those who had never bothered with soft-speak.

The boy shook his head wildly.  “I am not a sorcerer!” he shouted.  More sedately, he said, “But Doctor Conochvars has saved my life.  I’m sure that he never intended to kill – ah – your father.  And – ah – he’s not a sorcerer either.  Doctor Conrad Conochvars is a highly celebrated scientist.”

Gwen dismounted, stashing her bow and drawing her favorite sword.  Scowling, she stalked up to the city-boy.

Underneath the ridiculous amount of layers that was common to the city-folk, the boy was the size of an unfinished child – scrawny and pale and generally the shape of one who has never exerted himself.  With the point of her sword under his chin, he reverted to childhood – his dark eyes were wide with fear.  But underneath that fear was something else…

“Very well,” Gwen spat harshly, her sword still propping up the boy’s chin.  “If you know so much, city-boy, then say how it is that he should pay the blood price – life for a life – without my removing his head.”

The boy looked as if he would rather be anywhere other than there.  But still, under the terror, there was something that made Gwen want to…she didn’t know what it made her want to do, but it wasn’t kill him or disregard him.

“W-well wouldn’t he pay more if he gave his life in servitude, instead of wasting his strength and abilities by simply dying here?”  The longer she allowed the boy to speak, the less nervous he sounded.

Gwen pulled her sword away.  “You argument makes sense,” she allowed.  And then she saw it – that something that she was trying to identify.

Even in the face of a band of Stasig warriors, with Gwen’s sword only just removed from his throat, the boy had something fierce and defiant in his eyes.  Something that was only ever seen in the best of warriors, the ones who would ride to their deaths to protect their tribe.

“Eilig!” she shouted.  “Head back to camp and bring High Priestess Maraaja to decide if this man’s forfeited life should be paid in blood or work.”

She didn’t need to turn to know that some of her band were uncertain.  Only the Vanspag had the right to call the High Priestess.

But the thud of hoofbeats told her that Eilig had obeyed.  She was, at least for the moment, the Vanspag of Stasig.

She would cry about it later, at her father’s burial.

For now, she had to be like her sword – strong, cold, and sharp.

While she waited, she refocused on the boy.  “Boy,” she said sharply, “you gave us the name of the forfeited life, but not your own.  How are you called?”

The boy’s chin went up.  “Piitros Loistavis Pirkkje, Duke of Finland.”  He paused.  “And Estia and Livia.”

Duke meant Warlord, only you didn’t have to be a warrior (Gwen would never understand that one).  But while “Finland” was just the name of the not-so-bad city-folk, she knew the place-names Estia and Livia.  Ruirig might have mostly disappeared into “Finland” and her own tribe, but she knew that the Vanspag was Benhamanaag, who the city-folk called “Duke of Estia and Livia.”

“Benhamanaag Vanspag Ruirig is dead?”  Gwen felt as if someone had pulled the ground from under her feet.  “Who dared kill the Vanspag Ruirig?  And who are you to claim his name?”

Piitros’ cheeks darkened the tiniest bit with pink.  “He was my uncle,” he said.  With a terrible accent, he clarified in the True-Tongue.  “My mother’s sister’s beloved.”  Switching back to soft-speak, he answered her other question.  “Heimrikh Asbjarn killed him – that’s the man who was flying away.”

Hemriig! Gwen barely managed to keep her fury in check.  Seriously?  Benhamanaag Vanspag Ruirig had been killed by a boy?  And a boy whose name was “snowflake?”

“Vanspag!”

Gwen turned, somewhat relieved at the interruption, to see Maraaja riding up on Adanaga alongside Eilig.

“Eilig told you what must be done?” Gwen demanded.

Maraaja dismounted smoothly from Adanaga.  “Yes.  I will scry it.”

Gwen smiled gratefully – while the two of them would likely never be great friends or lovers, Maraaja was fiercely loyal to those she valued.  Gwen was thankful to be one of those precious few.

Behind her, Gwen heard Piitros swallow hard.  Gwen took a moment to look at Maraaja, trying to see what might have scared or startled the city-boy. 

Maraaja was short by Stasig standards, and had numerous braids of gorgeous Sraniig-red hair instead of the more practical hair ties of a warrior.  She was not wearing any armor, and had refrained from wearing her bow and quiver.  For a priestess, she was rather over-dressed, wearing leggings to her knees, sandals on her feet, and a leather breastband for comfortable riding.

In short, there was nothing particularly alarming about her.

Maraaja pulled out her mirror, and bit her thumb with the ease of practice, smearing the symbol for knowledge across her mirror.  After a moment of dead silence, Maraaja began to make a high keening noise, rocking on her heels.

Gwen restrained herself.  Maraaja was always a bit alarming when she had a true vision, instead of simply catching a glimpse of the past or future.  Instead of moving, Gwen concentrated on the mirror – the symbol faded into the shimmering surface, and Maraaja gave one last keen before growing quiet.

Blood spilled from Maraaja’s nose, and Maraaja refocused on the people surrounding her.  Ritually, she knelt to the ground, rubbing dirt on the mirror.

“Vanspag, he will live,” Maraaja said hoarsely.  “The gods will it.  He will pay in sweat and not in blood.  So is decreed, so shall be, and those who transgress will answer to Oitosyrig and Argimpasa and Agin.”

“Witnessed,” Gwen said numbly.  She would have to let her father’s killer live.  On the positive side, Maraaja had declared her Vanspag right out of a vision, which meant that the amount of challengers she would get would likely be halved.

“Right,” she said sharply.  “Back to camp.  Eilig, Naanat, you stand guard over the nameless one until we can sort out who he shall serve and how.  Piitros, you ride with me.  I will answer challenges at noon.”

“Witnessed,” the entire White Horse Team chorused.

Gwen swung up onto Tagspapiig, and yanked Piitros up in front of her.  “Hold on, city-boy,” she said.

They had a long and bloody day ahead of them.  Challenges, Gwen knew very well, were to the death.

-

Piitros had kept firm hold of his uncle’s swords during the near-confrontation with the Sarmatians; which now that he thought about it, was terrifyingly reckless. He knew better than to think that he could take on a Sarmatian- and it would be second nature to a Sarmatian to assume that, if he had swords, he knew what he was doing with them.

The Sarmatian riders had brought him and Doctor Conochvars into camp and deposited them in a large wagon- the two who had been ordered to watch the Doctor, Eilig and Naanat, had all but thrown the man into the back, and were currently sitting inside it warily, watching Doctor Conochvars semi-cower against the back wall.

This arrangement didn’t leave a lot of room for anyone else within, so Piitros found himself being sat down on the edge of the open side by the priestess he didn’t feel particularly comfortable looking at. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it was inappropriate to look at someone wearing so few clothes. How did she stay warm?

He held his uncle’s swords between his knees and kept his hands on the hilts. There was some sort of orderly commotion beginning, and he focused on listening carefully to try following what was happening. The lead warrior, the one the priestess had addressed as Vanspag, was gearing up for her ritual challenges.

That was… odd. Usually no one challenged the Warlord without a very good reason, and it had certainly seemed like the warriors she’d had with her were perfectly willing to follow her orders. Perhaps it was a custom of this particular tribe.

“Priestess,” he said, putting on his best calm, respectful Finnish manners tone and looking her firmly in the eye so he could keep up the polite mental fiction he’d constructed that she was wearing the standard four layers of Finnish dress. “What tribe is this?”

“Stasig,” the priestess told him. She seemed very amused, for some reason.

Probably she’d noticed he was stiffly ignoring her sartorial state, Piitros decided morosely. And he knew about Tribe Stasig- they and his uncle’s Tribe, Ruirig, occupied the territory immediately along the Finnish border. Ruirig had migrated almost wholesale to Estia and Livia when his uncle had been titled, the only ones staying behind those who had close family or friend ties to Stasig.

Somewhere in here, he probably had family.

“Why are they challenging the Vanspag?” he asked. “I had thought challenges only came when it was time to choose a new adult for the position.”

“Gwenig is not recognized as Vanspag yet,” the priestess told him. “But she will be, before the day is out. The one the Lizard-Man killed was her father, the old Vanspag Stasig. Now, we simply let the fools with an inflated sense of their own worth and ability batter themselves to death against our new Vanspag’s sword.”

Doctor Conochvars had killed a Sarmatian Warlord.

They were in so, so much trouble.

The mental state Piitros found himself in, thinking about what could be in store for them once the ritual challenges were done, was not helped by watching Gwenig Vanspag Stasig systematically destroy the few who tried to oppose her on the battle ground. Their deaths were unpleasantly similar to what Piitros was conjuring up for himself.

After the first two deaths, he dropped his eyes to his hands and started reciting the Totuuksiataru, the Finnish mythology cycle, under his breath to distract himself.

“‘In the first time of all things there is the Void, and within the Void is Lintukoto, what the Vikings in their heathen ways call Vanaheim; and in Lintukoto there lives Seppo Ilmarinen and the Frija-bird, the Great Artisan and the First Bird-’”

He had worked through the creation of the Eight Dimensions, the laying of the Moon-Sun Egg and the formation of Earth, and was up to Frija convincing Odin to place Loki’s children on Earth rather than have them killed when the challenges ended. Piitros watched as the priestess who’d been sitting with him cut the ritual tear-track scars into Gwenig’s face to mark her new status as Vanspag, and Gwenig’s subsequent passage through a bonfire to confirm the appointment, silently appealing to Sikkin Pirkkje and Queen Frija to grant his aunt a vision-dream if the Sarmatians had him killed so she would know to sacrifice to his spirit alongside his uncle’s, so they could both stay in Hela’s Court together and retain the integrity of their souls.

The first order of business Gwenig Vanspag Stasig saw fit to dispense was, evidently, them. She was striding towards him, her new scars still red and healing, the priestess drifting along behind. Piitros debated standing, and before he could decide, the issue was decided for him.

Gwenig loomed over him.

“You will explain,” she demanded.

Loki Laivisi, Silvertongue, Grandfather and Great Prince- please, Piitros pleaded. Help me not say the wrong thing.

“I am not entirely certain what occurred, Gwenig Vanspag Stasig,” he said cautiously, aiming to sound apologetic. Maybe he wouldn’t get hurt if he seemed harmless and pathetic- she’d already decided he was ‘city-boy’, after all. It shouldn’t be that hard. “I merely pursued my uncle’s murderer. I did not have time to interrogate him.”

   Gwenig seemed slightly taken aback by the fact he knew the proper form of her full title; or perhaps she was merely stunned at his ability to mangle her language through his accent. Before she could say anything else, Doctor Conochvars called: “I can explain.”

A stern frown, and Gwenig turned her attention to the Sarmatians in the wagon.

“Has he caused any trouble?”

“None, Vanspag,” one of them replied.

“Stay out here,” Gwenig ordered, then looked at Piitros and pointed to the wagon’s interior. “In. Go.”

 Piitros scrambled into the wagon, politely tucking the swords against the wagon wall behind him as he sat down by Doctor Conochvars. Gwenig had unsheathed a knife, and was glaring furiously at Doctor Conochvars in a manner that clearly conveyed that if he made one wrong move, it was going to find a new home inside him. The priestess was the last one into the wagon, and settled herself inside the entrance, blocking the chance of casual nosiness from anyone outside the wagon.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Piitros discreetly poked Doctor Conochvars with his foot to get him to speak.

“The explanation starts a long time ago,” the Doctor began. “When I wasn’t yet an adult. My family is from the island of Eire, in Viking territory. When I was born, I-”

He gestured at his right arm.

“Didn’t have this. Vikings are supposed to be warriors so that didn’t… turn out very well. I couldn’t fight and I couldn’t do a lot around the house, so I did things I only needed one hand for. Reading. Writing. Carrying things; buckets, mostly. Carrying buckets is dull work, so I had a lot of time to think. We didn’t have a lot of money, but my parents paid for my schooling mostly so I wouldn’t be at home. I don’t think they wanted me around much.”

Piitros could feel the anger rising, fast. There was no excuse not to love child, to fob one off to strangers, to dismiss them so utterly in mind and body and emotion-

“Perhemurhaaja!” he cursed Doctor Conochvar’s family under his breath. If only they had been Finnish; and they could have brought down the wrath of the law on anyone who would treat their child so-

“But I was good at school,” Conochvars continued. “So good that the school master thought I should go to Alexandria. He contacted one of his patrons, a Viking who’d made a name for himself in business, in Byzantium. That was Nordmann Ásbjarn- Heimrikh’s father. He came all the way to Eire to see me, and after I passed some tests he’d brought along, he went straight to my parents, told them he was going to have me trained up to work for him, and took me straight away to Alexandria.”

His expression went distant, with just a hint of sorrow.

“It was wonderful, while it lasted. Someone wanted me, and was willing to invest in me making something of myself. I was in Alexandria with the other boy Ásbjarn had scouted-”

Conochvars nodded at Piitros.

“Your father. I probably should have noticed, from the beginning, how… proprietary Ásbjarn was about us. He’d call us for updates every week, and all we would hear about was what he wanted us to do, the projects he was going to have us work on, the great things he was expecting from us- but I didn’t care. Notice. I was in Alexandria, learning, and I was happy. Maybe Rixardos noticed. Maybe that was part of why he left Alexandria with Miiria before completing his Doctorate. When-”

He had to stop, here, and collect himself.

“When Ásbjarn found out that Rixardos had left, he was furious. He ranted to me for hours about how Rixardos had betrayed him, abandoned him, thrown away everything he’d been given. I was pushed three times as hard to finish my degree and start working. And I did, because I was too scared he’d cut me off and leave me drifting. I graduated, and then he… it was all- ‘go here, go there; find out what those people are doing, take it for me’. I- I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have for Nordmann Ásbjarn. Eventually, he-”

Conochvars stopped talking and looked pleadingly at Piitros.

“He made me help him kill your parents.”

It was hard for Piitros to parse exactly what he was feeling right then, because first and foremost was rage. Some of it at Doctor Conochvars, but most at Nordmann Ásbjarn; at the man who he knew, now, was responsible for everything.

“Ásbjarn mostly left me alone, after that,” the Doctor went on, hastening past that point of the conversation. “He had enough purloined science and theory to work up a very good supply market for emerging technologies, and even made a few himself- the smaller, simpler ones it would impossible to prove he couldn’t have come up with with his own team of scientists. Then one day, some old acquaintances from Alexandria got in contact with me, seeking my expertise on the project I’d spent my whole life on- the thing I had hoped would grow my arm. Ásbjarn barely even seemed to register my existence, most days, so I went to Franx with them, to finally solve my project. It worked. Much better than I or anyone had ever expected. We had to work out a few things, like the fact that besides growing me an arm, the serum-”

Perhaps he was trying to smile.

“-well, you saw. It granted me a mutant ability, as well. Our team started ranging all over the field with our ideas about what the serum could do. We thought we’d solved every medical problem science could encounter. Then the war started, and we ran. Doctor Bet Yisroel took half of the research to Alexandria, to protect it, and I took my half of the research all the way back to Byzantium, and went back to work for Ásbjarn like nothing had ever happened. I kept the research a secret from him, of course. I thought that was about the end of it- eventually, I thought, Bet Yisroel would contact me, after the war was done, and ask for the rest of the research. I thought that that would be my way out- after the war, he and I and our other partner, Doctor Yinsen, could come out with our findings and produce the serum and sell it and I would finally be out of Ásbjarn’s power. But then I was kidnapped.”

It was quite clear to everyone in the wagon that this was not a set of pleasant memories for Doctor Conochvars.

“They took me right out of my lab in Ásbjarn’s compound. At first I thought they were just that good, but I should have known better about that, too.”

“‘They’?” Piitros asked.

“HYDRA,” Doctor Conochvars told him. “A secret organization, of terrorists and scientists. I don’t know exactly what they’re up to, but they’re involved somehow in the war in Europe, very deeply. They- they tortured me. For information about the serum. I told them, eventually, after they cut off the arm I’d grown myself. They kept me for a while, after I’d given them the information- I realized later it was a set-up. They let me go after they told me that Ásbjarn had been hunting for me, found them, and paid them an exorbitant amount to get me back. I believed it at the time, even believed it right up through the point where Ásbjarn produced the serum- my serum, the project I had never told him about and made sure he could never find the research for- and gave it to me so I would grow the arm back.”

Conochvar’s expression had been getting more and more shamed as he talked. Now, it was fully into abject self-loathing.

“I honestly believed that he’d started to change. But then he pulled exactly the same thing he’d always done, and started telling me about how much I owed him- about how he owned me- and said I had to help him kill you, Piitros.”

“Me?”

Piitros really no idea how to process that. The fact that someone would think he was worth the time and effort to plot and carry out an assassination- madness. If they wanted him out of the way, all they had to do was wait until he mortally offended someone and was struck from the succession by his aunt in an act of self-preservation, for the good of Finland.

“My extension of the original research for the serum was on repressing mutant abilities,” Doctor Conochvars told him. “I intended it for use for those whose abilities were unfortunately inhibiting- with powers that prevent them from functioning in society.”

The idea of that struck something deep in Piitros, something inherently Finnish, that screamed wrong! at the pronouncement.

“There is no power that can’t be accommodated!” he insisted heatedly.

“I’ve always admired the lengths the Finns go to to ensure that mutants and magicians can live comfortably,” Conochvars told him. “But what about someone who kills, involuntarily, with the slightest touch? Someone who exudes poison or sickness? What if someone were born with the power to recall the dead? Not everyone is lucky enough to be born in Finland.”

Piitros sat and stewed on the concept. It just couldn’t be that something couldn’t be figured out-

“My extension of the serum solved the biggest problem there was to killing you,” Conochvars continued. “Your shapeshifting. The assassin would have to be extremely skilled and extremely lucky to sneak past the entire palace complex, catch you entirely unawares, and kill you before you had time to notice you were dying and shift instinctively- then sneak out again. But if the modified serum could be delivered to you beforehand, and introduced into your system, the middle parts wouldn’t matter. So Ásbjarn coerced me into producing the dampener serum, threatening to frame me for your parents’ murders, and then gave it to his son to deliver and carry out the assassination. I was to go with him, to provide a cover story, and assist him if the science went wrong, somehow.”

“But he’s alive,” Gwenig said suddenly. “Snowflake failed.”

“But I can still shift,” Piitros added, thinking about the earlier events. “It took a long time, and I’m not sure what I managed, but I did.”

Conochvars chewed on the inside of his cheek.

“It hadn’t been tested before,” he admitted. “It could be that it’s like what happened with the base serum- it achieved the desired result, and gave you something extra. In this case, I suppose, something in return.”

“Why did he want me dead?” Piitros asked after a moment. “I haven’t even ever met him.”

“You’re Rixardos’s child,” Conochvars told him. “That’s enough for Ásbjarn. You’re proof he couldn’t keep him for himself. He’ll want you dead as long as you’re alive.”

Gwenig said something, but Piitros wasn’t paying attention to what. The enormity of the situation had just hit him.

If Ásbjarn wanted him dead, just for existing- and if Uncle Benham had already been killed, just for being near him-

“I can’t go back,” he realized, out loud.

Gwenig stopped talking and stared at him.

“I already got Uncle Benham killed,” Piitros told her. “He died because he was with me; and Ásbjarn wanted me dead. I can’t- If I go back, Aunt Mei will have me with her. The next time someone tries to kill me, it will be her in the way. They could- I can’t risk that. I can’t go back to Finland. I can’t.”

“He will be staying,” Gwenig said after a while of silence on everyone’s part, pointing at Doctor Conochvars. “He will be my slave, to repay the life-debt he owes me for my father. And you?”

She looked him up and down, pointedly, derisively. Piitros felt like wilting, sinking into the bed of the wagon and lurking beneath it.

“No wonder they sent Snowflake after you,” she snorted. “You are pathetic and talentless, city-boy. You aren’t going anywhere until you learn how to use those swords you brought with you.”

-

“Up!”

Piitros woke up with a shout.  “What the –!”  Pushing his sopping hair out of his face, Piitros glared at his assailant.  “What did you do that for?”

Gwenig stood over him with a slight sneer on her face.  “One, you are the last person asleep this morning.  I have already done a morning perimeter ride, and gone over duties with the debt-slave.  It is with no wonder that you are such a –”

At this point, she began using words that Piitros had never heard before – although he did catch the words “yellow-face” and “city-boy.”  Gwenig shook her head.  “Two, from now on you wake when I do.  You don’t,” she jerked her chin towards him, “You get a wake-up call.  Three, don’t talk to me in the True Tongue until you learn the proper respectful feminine address for a superior.  I know enough Soft-Speak for you to babble in it.”

Piitros winced.  “I – alright, I can do that, um –”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Gwenig said, stepping back.  “Get your day clothes from the Little Mother outside the wagon.  Meet me by the cattle fences.”

Piitros followed orders as hastily as possible, and took a brief moment to look around before making a beeline for the place that had to be the cattle fence.

Gwenig was leaning against the wooden posts, her hair shining in the still-rising sun.

The moment she caught sight of him, Gwenig tossed something large and wooden in his direction.  Reflexively, Piitros ducked.

Gwenig snorted.  “It’s a toy, city-boy.   A wooden sword.  You’ll start with one, and we’ll go from there.  Now, pick it up and come over here.”

Hesitantly, Piitros picked up the wooden sword.  “What do you want me to do with it?  I don’t know how to –” He stopped short, ducking as Gwenig pulled another wooden sword from…somewhere.

“Defend yourself,” Gwenig said shortly.  “Stop ducking and bring up that sword.  Ducking only works if you can save yourself the other hundred times a sword comes at your head.”

The next time Gwenig brought the sword towards him, Piitros swung upwards with all of his strength.  A loud thwack told him that he had actually managed to block the blow.

And then Gwenig did something with her sword that made his wrists scream in pain, and Piitros found himself reacting by dropping the wooden sword.  “What –?”

Gwenig stepped back, her eyes sharp and focused.  “Good.  You are not a coward.  Now, pick it up again, and we start from the beginning.  Hold the sword straight out in front of you.  Do not let your wrists bow, do not let your arms fall.”

Piitros slowly picked up the sword, and did as ordered.  Already, he could feel a slow trail of sweat trickling down his back.  Standing still, Piitros held the wooden sword and waited.

Gwenig surveyed his stance for a moment, and then began pacing around him.  “Tuck in your backside, you are not a spear-thrower,” she said sharply.  “Head up, you should always look at your enemy, not your sword.  The sword isn’t running away.”

Piitros straightened and lifted his head.  Suddenly, he realized that, with his head up, he was taller than Gwenig.

Odd.  She seemed so very much larger than life, but he was nearly a head taller than she was.

“Focus!” Gwenig snapped.  “Letting your heart wander will bring you death and defeat.”

Piitros swallowed hard.  His arms were beginning to burn with the effort of keeping the sword level.  He had a feeling that it was going to be a very long, very painful day.