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Gromph was busy studying a scroll when Dantrag walked into his office unannounced. The wizard was not as strict as his younger brother and looked up before he scolded the intruder. The scolding did not come. "Welcome Dantrag. Though you are only a short distance away at Melee-Magthere, it was been many years since I have seen you. What brings you to Sorcere?"
"Must you ask?" Dantrag said as he moved to sit down in a chair opposite the wizard's desk. "You have just earn the title of Head Master. It is not an easy title for one as young as yourself to obtain."
Gromph looked at his brother carefully. The older brother had never understood Dantrag's unique sense of sarcastic humor. Gromph was not young. He should have obtained this position a century ago if the late Head Master had not held on to it for as long as he had. Also, Dantrag had been named to the position of Head Master at an insanely young age.
"Thank you," Gromph said slowly, still not sure if he was being insulted or complimented. "You came just to congratulate me?"
Dantrag smiled. "Not exactly. I have a student entering Sorcere this year."
"Of course you do," Gromph cut in. "All of your students spend the first six months of their tenth year at Sorcere before moving on to Arach-Tinilth. What is special about this student?"
Dantrag told him. He explained about Matron Baenre's interest in Jarlnian and her suspicions about his heritage. "I see," Gromph said after the explanation. "And what do you want me to do about it?"
"I need you to divine his true house."
Gromph sat back and thought about it. "Without his true name, that will be very difficult."
"Well, if I had his true name I would not need your help," Dantrag explained.
Gromph conceded the point. "All drow have a very distinct magical signature. If you could obtain a sample of his blood or a lock of his hair or something more substantial I could work out something."
Dantrag pondered this. The final grand melee was just a few days away. It was scheduled at the beginning of the year before the students went off to Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith. He could enter the melee again, but drawing blood with a wooden pole would not be easy. Also, Dantrag did not know if he wanted to fight Jarlnian or Zaknafein again. After his fight with the Do'Urden student, Zak had become even more focused and determined than before. Dantrag was not sure of the outcome.
"He will be in your care for six months," Dantrag said. "Surely you can arrange something."
Gromph paused in thought for a while. "There is a thirtieth year student from our house. I could assign this Jarlnian to him. Arranging an incident where his blood or hair could be taken will take some time though. I will send a message to you when the task is completed."
"Very, well." Dantrag stood and nodded toward his brother.
***
Ever since their argument about fighting with honor, Zak and Jarl had not fought together during the grand melee. Jarl had allowed himself to slip to eleventh in the class, while Zak had continued to secure his spot at the top of the class. Around the seventh year, Quinter and Yer'Athor finally decided to join forces to bring down the confident fighter from the thirteenth house. Almost every year in all of the other classes, a student from the first or second house won the top spot, and only when one of them was not present or a noble from a ranked house was in the class did that dominance yield to someone else. Quinter and Yer'Athor were determined to keep that streak alive.
They were defeated soundly. Zak was so sure of himself that the panic most should feel at facing the two skilled fighters was absent, and he proceeded like he did against the other students that attacked him in groups. Dantrag watched from above with jealousy. When he had been through the Academy, he had been the only student from his house and there had not been a fighter from Barrison Del'Armgo. He had not had the type of quality competition that Zak had. Therefore, he did not get the same type of respect offered the warrior from House Do'Urden.
In the tenth year, Quinter and Yer'Athor decided to work together from the start. They swept through the other fighters so quickly and easily, their two different styles meshing together very well, that they felt confident they could defeat Zak this year. It was now or never. Despite the fact that Zak had won the top spot the last eight years running, if he lost it this year, it would belong to someone else. The drow way cared very little about fairness. If you could not survive, even if all the cards were stacked against you, you did not deserve the top spot.
The pair had worked through just about everyone when they came upon Jarlnian. The noble was leaning casually against one of the cavern walls, a few defeated and unconscious students lying at his feet. His arms were crossed with his two sword poles hanging from his belt. "Well met," he said easily as if the three were in a tavern ready to get caught up on old times.
Yer'Athor growled as he walked toward the prone figure, but Quinter grabbed his companion's arm before he could get too far. The Baenre student was the only one that really respected Jarl's skills. The noble had defeated him in the first year quite easily, and he had watched Jarl's attacks on Dantrag during the fifth grand melee when he had been hiding on the catwalk.
Yer'Athor had over matched Jarl several times during the past nine years, including the first year when Jarl had technically beat him. He did not hold Jarl's fighting skill in any type of high regard, but he waited to see what Quinter wanted.
"Join us," the Baenre said.
Jarl pushed himself away from the wall when he heard this. He had not expected an offer of alliance. "To what end?"
"I know you have been hiding your skill from the masters and the rest of the class." Quinter motioned at the students that lay on the ground. "You are a noble. You deserve better than a fourth ranking."
"If I am not the best student in the class, then I do not deserve the top ranking," Jarl replied.
Yer'Athor growled at this, for it was a direct jab at the pair. They were trying to get the top ranking when everyone knew who the best student was. Quinter did not back down. "The only way to defeat him is to present him with the best competition possible. We are stronger together than apart."
"Are we?" Jarl persisted.
Quinter was taken aback. "You are not proposing that you stand a better chance against him alone than with our help?"
"Let's find out, shall we?" Jarl slowly unhooked his poles from his belt and stood ready.
"Very well, foolish noble," Quinter said as he readied his weapons. "I gave you a chance. If fourth is all you want, then it is what you shall have."
Both skilled fighters rushed Jarl and attacked. It was almost as if Jarl had erected a wooden dome around himself, for each of the pair's attacks were deflected long before they came close to the noble. Quinter and Yer'Athor spread out, placing themselves on opposite sides of Jarl, but the Del'Axle's wooden shield remained intact, deflecting all of the attacks.
Jarl knew he was better than either of these two fighters, but he also knew he would tire quickly if he had to continue to block Quinter's lighting fast attacks and Yer'Athor's powerful ones. He dove to the side, rolling into a defensive stance to try and get the two fighters on the same side of him. It worked, and the frustrated pair came in side-by-side.
Jarl put up his wooden shield again, but this time kept it mainly in front of him. To the masters above it looked like Jarl was juggling his poles, and the skilled noble actually did toss his weapons between hands a few times for no other reason than to frustrate his opponents.
Quinter came in hard from his left, putting all his strength behind the blow. An idea flashed through Jarl's mind, and he held is right hand weapon up vertically to accept the blow. Quinter's pole hit the stationary block hard and put the fighter off balance slightly. He was quick to realize, though, that the incorrect block left Jarl's right torso open for attack.
As Quinter's weapon flashed toward the opening, Jarl's left pole came in to intercept the attack. His left weapon had been dealing with Yer'Athor, and now the big drow eagerly attacked the new, even bigger opening.
With his one weapon still locked in place with Quinter's at Jarl's right side, the nimble Del'Axle pivoted on the block, sweeping it across his body towards Yer'Athor's attack. Quinter was still off balance from the unusual block and Jarl's willingness to open himself up to Yer'Athor, so he was not braced to resist the shove. As Yer'Athor stepped in toward Jarl to attack, Quinter stumbled away from him, and the two collided.
Their weapons actually intercepted each other. To Yer'Athor it looked like Quinter's weapon had blocked his attack, and he turned on his partner briefly, not sure what was going on. Jarl took this moment of confusion to drop into a crouch and sweep his leg out at his tangled opponents. Only Quinter was off balance enough to buckle under Jarl's kick, and Yer'Athor pushed him to the ground without thinking.
When the big drow finally realized that Quinter was not Jarl, the real enemy had already stood back up and was attacking. Yer'Athor spun around to meet the charge, but Jarl had far too big an advantage, and the overmatched student stumbled backwards. He actually stepped on Quinter, and the Baenre student reflexively attacked the leg. Yer'Athor fell in a heap on top of Quinter.
Jarl smiled as he leaped over the two and slapped them both in the head. As the masters above lit up their faces, Jarl laughed. "It is good that we fought, otherwise Zak would have faced the two of you and been disappointed. Now we will truly find out who the best student in the class is.
Quinter and Yer'Athor were furious, and they turned on themselves.
"You clumsy oaf!"
"You stupid weakling!"
Jarl figured they needed to figure out which one of them was going to be third as he had taken them down at the same time. He let them solve the problem by themselves. Zak was waiting.
"So you have decided to fight today." Zak was standing a short ways away. He had watched the entire fight with Quinter and Yer'Athor and had been very impressed. Jarl had just defeated two highly skilled opponents using nothing but improvisation. Zak braced himself for the unique attacks. He had never fought against Jarl before and was looking forward to the opportunity.
"Yes, well," Jarl responded, "I have my moments."
Zak took the offensive, spinning his attacks in as close a copy of Jarl's movements as were allowed within his strict technical regimen. Jarl did not respond in kind, keeping his weapons relatively motionless compared to his opponent, only moving them to block the attacks and not with any extra flair.
Zak backed off at the unexpected response, and Jarl took the offensive. Again, the Del'Axle kept his moves exact and precise, directly out of the textbook. Zak settled down into a defensive posture and quickly forgot about trying to mimic Jarl's style and began to treat this fight like any other.
Zak did not want to relax too much, thinking that Jarl would explode into a chaotic flurry at any moment, but he did not. Even though Jarl had never fought with this style before, it was far from foreign to him. He had not only studied it many times when he had fought against it, but the masters of the Academy had drilled it into his head for the past several years. Though it had looked like he had not been paying attention, he had.
From above, to the masters looking on, it looked like a fight that would never end. Like when Zak had fought Dantrag, the two fighters looked like mirror images of each other. There were a few differences with this fight. Zak was bigger and stronger than Jarl. Like a true Del'Axle - even though he was not - Jarl's strength lay in his speed and quickness.
Dantrag and Zak were almost identical copies with regard to physique, and so their styles were nearly identical. They were also very quick and could not only defeat most of their opponents by buckling their enemies' weapons under a barrage of heavy attacks, but could also hit them faster than they could keep up with.
Jarl's blocks did buckle slightly under Zak's strength, but his quickness was such that he could recover before Zak could pressure him further. At the same time, Zak could block Jarl's lightning quick attacks with such authority, that the Del'Axle wondered if Zak was copying his own unorthodox style.
Zak was not, and there was nothing unorthodox about what either of the two students was doing. Jarl knew how good Zak was, and also knew that he had very little chance of breaking through his defenses without resorting to his swashbuckling routine. He also knew that Zak would be able to pick apart that routine much like Dantrag had done earlier, and the Do'Urden would not be fooled by any antics Jarl might throw in.
"But this is so boring," Jarl said under his breath after several minutes so only Zak would hear it.
"Then spice it up," Zak responded. "I'm not stopping you."
Jarl still did not feel confident resorting to his old style. He had watched how Dantrag has defeated Zak and began to form a strategy in his head. Behind the two fighters, Quinter and Yer'Athor had stopped their petty feuding and were watching the fight with interest. As they looked on they both realized that Jarl had been right. Neither of them deserved the top spot in the class, and as they watched Jarl increase the speed of his attacks, they also realized that neither of them deserved to be second either.
Zak took notice of the increased speed and put himself in a strong defensive stance. He saw that with the increased speed, half of the attacks would never even come close to Zak if he let them go unblocked, but Zak would play along for now. He thought he knew where this might be headed, and when Jarl made a crossing attempt at Zak's head, he was proven correct.
Both of Zak's weapons came up high to protect his head, but Jarl pulled both attacks short as he stepped back and then stepped in with both weapon points aimed at Zak's groin. The double thrust low.
Zak smiled as he tossed his right hand weapon in the air and caught the pole again in the middle of the "blade." He thrust his arm down from its elevated position with the pole horizontal in his grasp. It collided with both of Jarl's weapons and forced them down toward the ground. With his outstretched arms pulled so sharply down, Jarl stumbled forward just as Zak lashed out with his free left hand, hilt leading.
The left fist struck Jarl solidly in the face and the sound of crunching cartilage was loud enough for everyone to hear. Lights and sirens went off in Jarl's head as he stumbled backwards, barely hanging on to consciousness. He brought his weapons up weakly, but Zak blasted them from his grasp. As Jarl fell backwards, he barely even felt the half a dozen blows that fell on his body from Zak's weapons, and the light from the masters that lit up his face was not recognizable from the fireworks that were already going off in his head.
Jarl some how managed to hold on to consciousness, and as he shook the cobwebs from his head, he saw Zak standing over him with an empty hand outstretched. "Are you okay?"
Jarl took the extended hand and pulled himself up. He nearly passed out from the blood rush, but with Zak's strong arm, he steadied himself. "I'll live, I think," he reached up to his busted nose from which blood was starting to flow. "It's nothing a little healing salve can't fix, I hope. I thought you weren't supposed to improvise?"
"And I thought you never played it by the book," Zak shot back.
"Some friend," Jarl mumbled as a couple of the masters came down to help the injured student.
Dantrag was too distracted by the end of the battle to realize he should be down there collecting some blood. "How did you like that?" one of the other masters on the catwalk came up to Dantrag.
The Head Master pulled one of his beautiful swords out and looked at it. He imagined how hard he would need to grip his weapon in the middle and how forcefully he would need to thrust it down in order to deflect two weapons. "If he had been using real weapons he would have cut his own hand off," Dantrag said, examining the fine edge of his weapon.
"True," said the other master, "but he was not using real weapons. That awareness of his situation allowed him to improvise correctly with very positive results."
Dantrag knew the master was right. When Zak had improvised earlier against him he had mistakenly thought that he was fighting against Quinter. If he had been, the variation on the cross-down parry might have worked. Now Zak had better understood his situation, and as a result had been successful. "The cross-down is still the correct parry," he insisted as he sheathed his weapon.
"Perhaps," the other master conceded, "but if there is a better one out there, Zaknafein will be the one to find it. Or maybe it will be one of his students. I've never seen a fighter that understands battle so well."
Dantrag decided to let the jab at him, intentional or not, pass. He realized that the masters would sing this Do'Urden's praise as loudly as they could, and since he was of the thirteenth house, a place where someone would hardly expect to find such skill, he would definitely stand out.
Dantrag was supposed to be powerful. He was of the first house. This made his accomplishments less glorious in everyone's eyes but his own. Dantrag would fix that. He did not know when, but sometime in the future he would confront Zaknafein and defeat him. It might be a decade, or it might be a century, but he would prove to the city that he was the best.
With all the attention focused on Zak, he had totally forgotten how well Jarl had fought. The Del'Axle had stood up to him for longer than anyone other than Dantrag. The noble was definitely not from the fourth house, but Dantrag did not worry about it. He had passed the responsibility of discerning Jarl's true heritage to Gromph, and he would wait for word from his brother.
***
Zak knew little about magic. His mother had taught him nothing about his innate abilities, and the first months at Sorcere were spent tuning in those talents. His lack of magical skill had nothing to do with his intellect, and once he was shown how to use his abilities, he mastered them quickly.
Because of Zak's initial lack of magical skill, he was not given a very advanced thirtieth year student to shadow. The mage in training was a common drow from a house ranked somewhere in the teens. He had very little to teach Zak and was more interested in watching the top ranked fighter dispatch the creatures he summoned. The mage had never been trained with a weapon, and Zak's mastery of the blade entranced him.
Zak did learn a little, such as how to access the abilities within magical items such as wands and weapons, but he did not gain much of an understanding with regard to spell casting. What he did have access to, though, he tried to master as well as he could. Just a year ago, he would have scoffed at the idea of including magic in his fighting, but now after his successful improvisation against Jarl, Zak was more than willing to open himself up to other options.
If Zak was the least advanced in his class when it came to an understanding of magic, Jarl was first. The noble already had complete mastery over his innate abilities, which was augmented by his magical piwafwi. He was assigned to an advanced thirtieth year student from House Baenre named Elrial.
Jarl was always careful to keep his true heritage secret to everyone, but he was getting frustrated with the frequency in which he came in contact with members of his true family. Between Quinter and Dantrag back at Melee-Magthere, Jarl had thought he had seen enough, but now he was to serve under Elrial for six months, and the head of Sorcere was also a Baenre.
Elrial recognized Jarl's strength right away when he had the fighter demonstrate his innate abilities. Though Jarl tapped into the strength of his piwafwi very efficiently, Elrial noticed that the medallion that hung around his neck stayed inactive. The medallion was the symbol of House Del'Axle and signified that he was a noble of that house and should have added even more strength to his abilities.
The mage was about to point this out but remembered what Gromph had told him. Matron Baenre did not believe this male was really from House Del'Axle. That would definitely explain his inability to tap into his house's power. If Jarl knew about his true lineage, Elrial might tip him off that he was under investigation.
Instead, Elrial complimented him on his use of the piwafwi. "You wear very heavily enchanted items, and you use them well, but do you truly understand how they work?"
Jarl was confused. Hadn't he just demonstrated how they worked? He had kept himself levitated for almost fifteen minutes. "What do you mean? I am able to access them, aren't I?"
"Yes, you can use them to improve abilities you already have, but can you use them by themselves? Can you manipulate them beyond your innate powers?"
"Explain."
"Your boots," Elrial began, "they help you move silently. It is a skill that you can probably perform better than anyone even without the boots. Enhancing that ability is hardly using the enchantment to its full potential. It is a very powerful enchantment, but not that difficult to understand or manipulate."
Jarl was actually learning something for a change. "Show me."
Elrial closed his eyes and reached out mentally to Jarl. He touched his apprentice's mind and made contact. Carefully he brought Jarl's focus down to his boots. The Del'Axle could now see the items clearly in the magical plane. He could almost read the enchantment on them as if the symbols were written in ink. He watched as Elrial reached down to one of those symbols and flipped it.
They both opened their eyes. "Now try your boots," he said.
Jarl hopped up and down slightly, and the boots banged on the floor as loudly as if they were made of lead. "Are they ruined?" Jarl asked suddenly, a deep worry evident in his voice.
Elrial laughed. "Hardly. All you need to do is-" but Jarl had his eyes closed again and with in moments, his feet were as quiet as a whisper. Elrial was impressed. He had expected to have to reverse what he had done, but Jarl did it as quickly and expertly as the mage ever could have.
Before Elrial could show the fighter what other items he possessed that could be altered, Jarl was doing his own inventory check. After a little bit, he got his coin pouch beneath his piwafwi to jingle loudly and then turn suddenly silent again.
Jarl looked up at the Baenre mage, thinking he might like his time here after all. "Show me more."
"Of course." Elrial smiled broadly. He had been instructed by Gromph to gain this student's confidence so that when the trap was sprung, Jarl would not be able to see it coming or suspect anything afterwards. Right now, Jarl would willingly step into a portal that led into the abyss if Elrial told him to. This would be easy.
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