fic | 1

[ailith]

THE UNINITIATED, EXCERPT 1

“I will kill you,” said Saph, standing over her, feet wide apart for balance, sword raised to strike. The dust tasted like defeat, it tasted like loss, like her father never returning from the raids, like her mother’s beaten body before the silver-plated gates. Yes, her mother had stood her ground but for that, she had paid with her life. Was that the price now, too, should Ailith decide to stand up again? And would that be a price she was willing to pay? Was her life worth the fight?

“Get up.”

Anyone who isn’t worthy of the sword is going to die by it, Saph would often remind her, when they were sparring, training staves clanking loudly against each other for each blow delivered. They were made of wood, the heavy spear-shaped canes, but with a rounded silver plating at the tip. Getting struck with one could break bone.

Ailith had survived three years of Saph’s merciless training regime, she had become the best prospective Gatekeeper there was, the first in the ranks of the apprentices. Saph never said it, but Ailith knew, if she made it past her apprenticeship, she would be the first in the ranks of the Gatekeepers, too.

Yet, here she lay, on her back in the dust and the dirt of the arena, her hand weakly clutching her sword and her left arm numb from the hit it had taken from the heavy silver handle of Saph’s weapon, full impact into her upper arm, so it lost all feeling. Just dead meat. Maybe she wasn’t worthy of the sword after all.

Letting her head loll back, staring tiredly up into the pale gold of the morning sky, they’d been at it for close to an hour, Saph and she, neither one of them gaining the upper hand easily, Ailith thought of her mother, who had been a Gatekeeper, worthy of the sword, but she still fell by it. She still died. Ailith was nine years old and had been fatherless since infancy, then. Was this the point when she could finally follow her mother? Was this the end?

Seconds had passed by, and she felt Saph’s hesitation like a heavy cloak hanging over their heads, ready to bury them in black fabric. She should’ve killed Ailith already, but she hadn’t. She was waiting.

That was her mistake.

With a roar, hoarse and broken, Ailith sprung to her feet, forcing her numb arm to cooperate, swinging her sword from knee-height and up with her good hand, creating a soft curve of utter destruction. Saph parried but with some difficulty.

“You should have, master,” Ailith told her. Their swords were crossed between them, they stood at perfect eye-level, staring into one another’s souls. Because in battle, the soul was completely bared, defenceless, that was why so many people ended up crushed by their actions on the battlefield, whether they won or lost.

“You should have killed me,” Ailith continued.

Seeing as Saph wasn’t like those people. Neither was Ailith. They bore their kills as naturally as they bore their cuts, the scars that the violence of their lifestyle inevitably left on their bodies. On their spirits.

They were both prepared to do what was necessary and even so, Saph had held back. It was in the moment when she realised her master was only human, a woman of flesh and bone and blood, that Ailith realised she had won the fight.

Spinning in a half-circle, showing Saph the side that was covered in thick leather armour and therefore more difficult to injure, she swung her sword over her head and delivered the final blow to Saph’s unguarded chest, punctuating the small pouch on her front, filled with pig’s blood. She was in perfect control of the motion, she did not penetrate beyond those layers of rawhide.

An apprentice, even one who had just now risen to Gatekeeper rank, wasn’t allowed to kill her master. Seniority counted for something. Everything. The more battles you had survived, the higher the esteem you were shown and had deserved. It was commonly accepted, not just like legislation but like natural law, that a senior warrior could always make the call as to a younger warrior’s worth, but not the other way around.

She might not have seen enough, Ailith thought, her blood-spattered sword sinking to her side, dropping to the ground with a thud. But this, she had seen – Saph, the greatest fighter among the Gatekeepers, bloodied by Ailith’s blade. Because she had hesitated for a moment and Ailith had seen her true value.

Clutching her left arm to her chest, she walked over to the other woman, who was truly a woman now, equal to Ailith in every capacity, and touched her hand to the empty leather pouch placed just above Saph’s heart.

“I saw you,” she said.

“I know,” Saph replied. “I wanted you to see.”

And like that, they were both warriors, they were both women and they had both made a call on the other’s worth. Ailith patted Saph on her upper chest, near collarbone and the slope of shoulder, it was a gentle touch, before stepping back. It seemed to her that the sword didn’t do the selecting, but rather the wielder of the sword did.

Let that be her final lesson as an apprentice.