Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 by The Wizard Lord (v1.1) Page B

the first month
after the wizards departed half the village expected Breaker to give up; it
became a popular amusement among the townsfolk of all ages to come watch the
practice sessions and see an old man with a blunt stick repeatedly embarrass
big strong Breaker, regardless of whether the youth was wielding a similar
stick, a real sword, or almost anything else that came to hand. Time after
time, when the two of them squared off after the day's lessons, th e Swordsman
demonstrated that he could hit Breaker anywhere he chose, at any time he
chose, with either a stick or a sword.
    By the end of that
first month, however, it sometimes took him two or three tries before he
connected, and the townsfolk had large ly stopped speculating on how soon Breaker
would abandon his pursuit of a role among the Chosen.
    In the first few days
some of the other young people of Mad Oak had challenged Breaker to mock duels
after seeing his poor showing against the old traveler; mo st of them were
startled to discover that in fact Breaker was not slow or clumsy at all, and
could match or better most of his opponents from the very first. After a month
Breaker could usually fetch any challenger a sound blow on the side of the
head within the first minute of combat, and the impromptu stickfights ceased.
Some of the village wits began to mockingly call Breaker "the Young
Swordsman," rather than using the nickname he had borne for a dozen
years.
    But as the practice
sessions continued, the mockery faded.
    By midwinter, when White Rose invited the
visitor to sleep in the loft, calling her son the Young Swordsman was no longer
a joke at all.
    The Old Swordsman could still reliably defeat
the Young, though. The young man who still thought of himself as Breaker could
put up a good fight, and hold off his more experienced foe for several
minutes, but inevitably every bout still ended with a rap across the back of
his hand, a tap on his heart, or some other blow indicating his defeat. No
weapon the Young Swordsman might wield ever touched the older man.
    That irritated
Breaker, but there seemed little he could do about it, and he was definitely
improving—just not enough to matter, yet.
    In his more optimistic moments, though, he
could imagine a day when he could beat the Old Swordsman and claim a role
among the Chosen. He tried to imagine what that would be like, but failed.
    He spent many
evenings, after his household chores were done, asking the Old Swordsman about
his life as one of the Chosen, g etting answers that varied according to the
old man's moods. He discovered that the more specific a question, the more
likely it was to get a consistent and useful answer—which was hardly a
surprise, since that was almost always true everywhere, regardless of the topic
of discussion.
    He tried to think of useful, specific
questions, but it wasn't always easy.
    "When you travel," he asked,
"do people just give you food and shelter, wherever you go, just because
you're the Swordsman?"
    The Swordsman laughed at that. "No,"
he said, and because he was in a good mood that night—dinner had been roast
ham and chestnut gravy—he went on to explain that sometimes he was treated as
an honored guest, sometimes he had to work for his keep, sometimes he had to
pay with coin, and there were a few towns where he was shunned no matter what
he did.
    "Sometimes,"
he said, "a little display of fancy bladework and passing the hat will
cover my expenses nicely; you'll want to learn some tricks, like slicing
through lit candles with out blowing them out, for such occasions."
    "Like what?"
    The Swordsman snorted, fetched his blade, and
demonstrated his ability to slice a good beeswax candle in two while leaving
the top half still in place and burning, if a little wobbly.
    "More!" Fidget called.
    'Tomorrow," the
old man replied, and from then on it became a household tradition for him to
perform one such trick every evening, to the great amusement of Spider and
Fidget—such as