A Shocking Omission

Fixing an obvious infelicity

A reviewer of the new Dorian Vane novel pointed out that there was a bit of a Chekov’s Blade situation, and was correct to do so. So the ebook will be updated next week with the addition of a new chapter and an additional new scene as well as various fixes to address the notes very helpfully provided by some of the more autistic readers. The updated version will be indicated by an version 002 on the copyright page. This is one of the reasons why we always release the ebook before the print editions; ebooks are iterative and can be updated.

Please to enjoy just a taste of the bass…

Cade caught the first-years while they were eating breakfast.

“Today is your first Combat class. Bring your blades; if for some reason you don’t have one, come see me and I’ll loan you a House one until you can arrange to buy one. Keep them sheathed until you’re told otherwise. Do not take them out or wave them about! Do not cut yourself or anyone else.” He looked directly at Leath. “If you arrive bleeding, you’ll be kicked out of class and sent to the infirmary. And don’t think you’ll receive any sympathy from the instructors who are teaching you how to bleed properly!”

He took his tea and left. The boys were fairly buzzing with excitement. The girl looked alarmed. Except, of course, for Halli, who was unperturbed.

“Do you think they’ll make us practice stabbing each other?” she said.

“It’s Combat, not Necromancy, Glassmere,” Lark said.

Rory laughed.

After finishing his cinnamon-sprinkled toast, Dorian went to his trunk and unwrapped the Ashwick blade from its oilcloth. It sat comfortably in his hand in just the way it had at Wayland’s, perfectly balanced and true. But when he put it in its leather sheath and slid the sheath onto his belt, he felt a little ridiculous.

“You look like a pirate,” said Rory, whose blade looked rather like a toothpick in his massive hand.

“You look like a pirate ship,” said Dorian.

They climbed the mountain stairs with blades at their hips and breath in the October air. The children’s excitement was palpable in the air, and even Halli began to get caught up in the nervous anticipation. On the stairs ahead of them, two Barrowdean first-years were comparing hilts. Behind them, two Requiem boys climbed in silence, and one kept touching his blade as if to confirm it was real.

The Nocturne ten filed into the long training hall on the second terrace with the others. It was a high-ceilinged stone room with weapon racks along the walls and the floor was covered with straw-stuffed matting. Everyone was carrying a sheathed blade, belted, slung, gripped mid-sheath, and in the case of one girl from Barrowdean carried across both slender arms like a sleeping infant.

Four professors stood at the front of the hall. Each of them wore the black robes of a master, and stood in a peculiar, wide-legged stance with their fists in front of their legs. They stood there, motionless, as the seventy first years assembled themselves in an uneven series of lines. Dorian knew Strake, the Ruck coach, and Havenwell, the Nocturne Head. The other two he recognised, the tall, young professor who had read the names at the Auction and the muscular, bald man who’d refereed the Sanjitsu match, but he did not know their names.

Strake stepped forward first. “Welcome to Combat. In this room, I am neither Coach Strake nor Professor Strake, but Master Strake. I am the Grappling Forms instructor.” She bowed from the waist, and the assemblage of first-years bowed back raggedly in return, with the exception of the Penraith ten, who looked as if they’d been practicing together in preparation for this moment.

She stepped back and Havenwell, the seldom-seen head of Dorian’s House, took a step forward. “Havenwell. Blades.” He bowed and withdrew as the tall, young professor took his place.

“You may address me as Master Quill. I will be your Magical Techniques instructor. As Talented young people, you possess certain potential advantages when it comes to both armed and unarmed combat. I will teach you how to utilize them.”

Finally, the bald man stepped forward. He didn’t say anything at first, he merely looked from one end of the line to the other, silently assessing them all. “Avestro. I am the senior instructor. You will address me as sensei. My specialty is the Striking Forms, but my primary responsibility is to teach you the first steps of the Way. Most of you will never truly embark upon the journey, some of you will travel far upon it, one or two of you may even one day surpass me. But by the time you leave Wyrmwick, all of you will understand what is, and what is not, the Way.”

He bowed. Dorian belatedly bowed in return; for a moment he had almost thought they were supposed to applaud the Striking Forms instructor.

“But first, each of us will provide a demonstration of our art. Master Quill!”

Quill walked to the centre of the hall. “I need two volunteers. Strong arms, please.”

Two Ruggers boys stepped forward before anyone else had finished deciding whether to volunteer or not. Quill directed them to lift a straw mat from the floor and hold it upright between them, with a wall between them. He walked back fifteen paces, turned, and held up his vinculum rod. It was just a standard casting device, dark-wooded and slender, the same sort of rod that every student carried to the Workings class on Tuesdays.

“You are Talented,” he said. “You know this. What you may not yet know is that one of your advantages is that the world is full of weapons that other people cannot utilise.” He held the rod out at arm’s length, pointing at the mat as if he intended to bespell it. “A walking stick. A writing pen. A dinner fork. Anything you can channel through, you can project.”

He opened his fingers with a theatrical flourish.

The rod shot forward like an arrow. It crossed the fifteen paces faster than Dorian’s eye could follow and buried itself halfway through the mat with a sharp, meaty thunk like an arrow hitting flesh. The two Ruggers boys staggered backward, clutching the mat between them, their eyes very wide. The end of the rod jutted from the straw like a dart from a board, still quivering.

The hall erupted. Seventy first-years looked at the mat, and then looked at the vinculum-cored rods they carried in their own bags, and the same thought passed through every single head at the same time.

Quill walked to the mat and pulled the rod free with a grimace and a twist. He blew on the tip, smiled, and returned to his place.

“Master Strake!” Avestro called.

Strake walked forward. She surveyed the rows of first-years with the cold, assessing eyes of a woman looking over livestock at a county fair.

“Morrigan. You, from Ruggers. Come here.”

Dai Morrigan stepped out of the Ruggers line with the easy confidence of a boy who had been picked first for everything since he could walk. He was large, strong, and athletic, and it was not hard to see why the Ruggers captain had spent seventeen hundred points to steal him from Penraith at the Auction.

“Tackle me, Morrigan,” said Strake. “Take me down to the ground, if you can.”

Morrigan looked at her warily. She stood half a head shorter than him and he had at least two stone on her. Suspecting a trick, he glanced sideways at the other instructors. Avestro’s expression gave nothing away, but there was definitely an anticipatory amusement in Havenwell’s eyes.

Morrigan shrugged, and lunged at the smaller woman.

It was a good tackle, low, driving his shoulder into her midsection, wrapping his arms around her waist and forcing her backward, using much the same form she’d taught them all on the Ruck pitch. For a moment, it looked like he had her, as the force of the tackle nearly bent her in half. But her upper body fell forward onto his back, and she dropped her arms on either side of the boy as she threw her legs back behind her. His momentum carried her backwards, and as her weight drove him toward the ground, she snaked her left arm up under his armpit and up around the back of his neck. Then, in a flash, she was grasping her own wrist and Morrigan was entirely at her mercy.

The boy found himself cheek-down on the mat with his chin in her left hand, his head forced to the side and Strake’s forearm locked across the back of his neck in a hold that would have snapped his neck if she pulled up hard on his chin.

The Ruggers boy tapped desperately on the mat. She released him instantly, was on her feet before he’d even rolled over onto his back, and offered him her hand. Morrigan took it and came up grinning despite himself. He bowed to her respectfully, and she returned it with a faint smile on her face.

The first-years applauded hard. It wasn’t so much that she had beaten him that surprised them, for she was a Master, after all, but the speed and ease with which she’d done it made an impression.

“Master Havenwell!”

Havenwell walked forward carrying three apples he’d somehow produced from his black robes.

He held them up. Just three red apples, with nothing special or magical about them, the sort of fruit that was served two or three times a week at lunch in the dining hall. He set them on the low table near the wall and looked at the seventy first-years with a thin, cold smile that did not touch his eyes.

“For this demonstration, I require the three bravest students in this room.”

The hall fell instantly silent.