Chapter VIII: "Too Many Stairs"

Merek begins training Tally to prepare her for their line of work. Tally works toward healing and vengeance. The new arrival causes conflict between the thieves.

            Before the sun had risen, Tally was shaken by a firm hand. She jerked upright, panicked, fists swinging. Fawkes yelped and caught her wrists in the air. He held them together and knelt on the floor beside her. 

 

            "Tal, it's only me," he whispered, watching as the frenzy left her eyes. A pang of guilt pervaded his chest again, not only from the fear he had instilled in the girl--the girl who had faced him so bravely, he remembered, woodaxe balanced in her thin hands--but also because Fawkes now looked upon a necklace of bruises where the Inquisitor's hand had been. He retracted his hands and watched Tally recoil, curling into herself, her body betraying her stoic expression.

 

            "I'll be downstairs," he said quietly. "Meet me when you're...ready." He stood and left the room, feeling as though there were a correct thing to say and he had failed to say it.

 

            When Fawkes reached the ground floor of the tower, he discovered one of his own awaiting him. The thief was leaning against the curved stone wall, one leg crossed over the other.

 

            "Fawkes," he greeted.

 

            "Gwilym."

 

            "A word," said Gwilym bitterly.

 

            Fawkes joined Gwilym with his shoulder to the wall. He whispered, "Don't order me around."

 

            "The girl," said Gwilym. "Are you keeping her?"

 

            "Merek's approved her."

 

            "She slept in your room."

 

            "On my floor," Fawkes looked over his shoulder. "Don't torture her about this. Merek wants her here. Take it up with him."

 

            "She's his new protege, then?" Gwilym was failing to suppress a smug grin. Fawkes wanted to strike it off.

 

            He muttered, "She isn't working yet."

 

            "Why's that?" asked Gwilym.

 

            "I ought to get going." said Fawkes, as he began to walk past Gwilym.

           

            Gwilym put his arm out to his side, blocking Fawkes's path. "We all worked hard to get here. We're the best of the best. You're insulting us all by letting her in on nepotism alone." 

 

            Fawkes pushed Gwilym's arm back towards him, "It's Merek who organized this outfit. Merek who gave us a place here. If Merek wants to be charitable and keep her, let him." Fawkes took another step, but he paused again. He wasn't yet finished. "You forget yourself. Fetch some firewood. Perhaps that will help to remind you." He gave Gwilym a measured look and pranced out the door.

 

            The courtyard was still quiet. The sky was beginning to lighten from beyond the trees. When he saw the fortress like this, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. A quiet castle, forgotten by all but him and the dawn (and those nine perpetually hovering moons), a cool breeze pressing his coat to his frame. 

 

            Then she made the door creak, and his castle sunrise fantasies shattered. 

 

            Fawkes did not move, eyes glued to the landscape before him. Tally stood beside him, a head shorter, staring up at the sky the same as him. 

 

            After a moment, she shrugged her arms and said, "It's beautiful here. Colder, but beautiful."

 

            "It'll be snowing soon," Fawkes swore he could feel it in the air, there was a bite to it that spoke of a real Tavaunish winter. "Did you eat?"

 

            Tally nodded. "You eat like kings here."

 

            "We steal from royalty." Fawkes said, and then he turned toward her. "You're one of us now, I 'spose, so I want you to listen,"

 

            Tally sighed, shifted her weight, and then nodded.

 

            "Merek is going to train you every morning at dawn until you're up to our standards. You'll meet him then underneath the Northern tower."

 

            "Underneath it?"

 

            "If we wanted you dead, I'd have done it already," said Fawkes, reassuringly, "and not in a cellar. Too many stairs."

 

            "I don't trust you," Tally said, as though it were a surprising statement. "You really expect me to walk into a cellar on your orders?"

 

            "You've got one job, really," said Fawkes.

 

            Tally acquiesced. 'Too many stairs' will have to be reason enough. But when they entered the cellar, Merek was holding two swords.

 

            The cellar was a round stone room, just like the three levels above, and was lit only by wall sconces. Everything had been pushed to the furthest wall, save for a single chair, which sat in the middle of the room, a lady's silk shawl draped over it.

 

            "I'll leave you to it," Fawkes said, and left, closing the door behind him.

 

            "Tallis," cooed Merek, "Good morning."

 

            "Is it?"

 

            "If I wished you dead, it would have been done already. I don't plan on doing you harm."

 

            "Too many stairs?"

 

            Merek breathed a laugh. "Quite." He approached, adjusted his grip on the hilt of one sword, and offered it to her. 

 

            Tally took the sword in her hand. It weighed on her arm almost identically to a wood axe, but it moved easier, cutting through the air gracefully, far from the lopsided, club-like woodaxe. The sword was balanced, quiet, and,

 

            "It's been blunted," said Merek. "both of them have.  Unless you're extraordinarily clumsy, you don't have to worry about my health or yours."

 

            Tally wasn't sure what to say. 

 

            "How's your hearing?" asked Merek.

 

            "What?"

 

            "I mean," he started, stepping back into his previous spot in front of the cellar's support beam. "If a villain, armed to the teeth, were to sneak up behind you, would you know?"

 

            "I don't know," Tally answered dryly. "Villains have only ever knocked my door down."

 

            "Quite right," said Merek. "So you don't know."

 

            "No, but for what it's worth, I swung my axe into those men--"

 

            "Until they gave you that?" Merek asked, his free hand gesturing across the throat. Tally touched her throat, then, and averted her eyes to the floor. "Then, let's work on how you swing a sword, for now."

 

            Ralnor had told her some about defending herself, should the need arise, as every parent teaches their daughter. To hit the gut, to stab the eye, to step on the foot; to bite, to scream. He never taught her how to use a sword.

 

            "Go on, charge at me," goaded Merek. "The rest of them would jump at the chance."

 

            Tally charged at him, blunted sword aimed for the gut. Merek deflected her blade using only his swordarm, his blade slicing through the air like the swishing of a cat's tail. 

 

            "Again," Merek ordered.

 

            Again, she struck, and again, he deflected. For what must have been several minutes, she lunged and stalked and made an absolute fool of herself as he parried and disarmed her quickly and without fail, and with one arm behind his back. He wasn't retaliating either, which somehow made the insult greater.

 

            Finally, Tally, out of breath, said, "Oh, for Gods' sakes, will you show me what I'm doing wrong?" This seemed to be the right thing to say, because Merek laughed, and then obliged. 

 

            "I don't know what it is you've read in those books of yours, but you're all about the wrist and nothing else; your footwork is, well, stompy, slow, predictable. Your posture is poor, your grip is weak--"

 

            "Are you quite finished?" asked Tally.

 

            "I could go on, but alright."

 

            "I asked you to show me."

 

            Merek walked to her, feet quiet on the earthen ground beneath, and circled her like a vulture. With the flat of his blade, he nudged her back and her chin, correcting her posture, adjusted her arm, and then he pushed her feet with his own.

 

            "That's your stance, ideally." He returned to his place across the room. "Now, again."

 

            She was quicker this time, and not as sloppy, and she didn't drop her sword. But, when she got in close, Merek pushed her, arm against her collarbone and blade against blade, so that she was against the beam that had been behind him. From here, her throat would have been vulnerable to a sharper sword. That, they both understood, but what caught Merek's attention was the pure terror in Tally's eyes. He realized then that Tally could not see him at all, that she was looking at the face of the man who had tried to kill her.

 

            Merek let go, gently, and stepped back. He cursed himself for his stupidity, and apologized. Tally heard him, but she also did not. She stared, shaking. And then she was back. 

 

            "No. I'm fine. If I don't put that aside I'll never improve."

 

            Merek argued. "Tallis--"

 

            "Again, Guildmaster."

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