Waylander by David A. Gemmell

‘I fear losing you.’

He moved away from her and lifted a pebble. Clouds partly obscured the moonlight and she strained to see his hand.

‘I am going to throw this to you,’ he said. ‘If you catch it, you stay – if you miss it, you return to Skarta.’

‘No, that’s not fair! The light is poor.’

‘Life is not fair, Danyal. If you do not agree, I shall ride away from the wagons alone.’

‘Then I agree.’

Without another word he flicked the stone towards her – a bad throw, moving fast and to her left. Her hand flashed out and the pebble bounced against her palm, but she caught it at the second attempt. Relief swept through her and her eyes were triumphant.

‘Why so pleased?’ he asked.

‘I won!’

‘No. Tell me what you did.’

‘I conquered my fear?’

‘No.’

‘Well, what then? I don’t understand you.’

‘But you must, if you wish to learn.’

Suddenly she smiled. ‘I understand the mystery. Waylander.’

‘Then tell me what you did.’

‘I caught a pebble in the moonlight.’

During the first three days of travel Danyal’s progress astonished Waylander. He had known she was strong and supple and quick-witted but, as he discovered, her reflexes were staggeringly swift and her ability to assimilate instructions defied belief.

‘You forget,’ she told him, ‘I performed on the stages of Drenan. I have been trained to dance and to juggle, and I spent three months with a group of acrobats.’

Every morning they rode away from the wagons out on to the undulating terrain of the Steppes. On the first day he taught her to throw a knife; the ease with which she adapted to the skill caused him to re-think his training methods. He had planned to humour her at first, but now he pushed her in earnest. Her juggling skills gave her a sense of balance which was truly extraordinary. His knives were of different weights and lengths, but in her hands they performed equally. She merely hefted the blade in her fingers, judging the weight, and then let fly at the target. Of her first five throws, only one failed to thud home into the lightning-blasted tree.

Waylander found a rock with high chalk content and outlined the figure of a man on the tree bole. Handing Danyal a knife he turned her round, facing away from the tree.

‘Without pause I want you to turn and throw, aiming for the neck,’ he said. Spinning on her heel, her arm flashed forward and the knife hammered into the tree just above the right shoulder of the chalk figure.

‘Damn!’ she said. Waylander smiled and retrieved the knife.

‘I said turn, not spin. You were still moving to your left when you threw – and that carried your arm past the target. But, nevertheless, it was a fine effort.’

On the second day he borrowed a bow and quiver of arrows. She was less skilled with this weapon, but her eye was good. For some time Waylander watched her, then he bade her remove her shirt. Taking it by the sleeves, he moved behind her and tied it tightly around her, flattening her breasts against her ribs.

‘That is not very comfortable,’ she protested.

‘I know. But you are bending your back as you pull, to avoid the string catching your body – that affects your aim.’

But the idea was not a success and Waylander moved on to the sword. One of Durmast’s men had sold him a slender sabre with an ivory hilt and a filigreed fist-shield. The weapon was well-balanced and light enough to allow Danyal’s greater speed to offset her lack of strength.

‘Always remember,’ he told her as they sat together after an hour of work, ‘that most swords are used as hacking weapons. Your enemy, in the main, will be right-handed. He will lift his sword over his right shoulder and sweep it down from right to left, aiming at your head. But the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So thrust! Use the point of the sword. Nine times out of ten you will kill your opponent. Most men are untrained, they hack and slash in a frenzy and are easy to despatch.’ Taking up two sticks he had whittled to resemble swords, he handed one to Danyal. ‘Come, I will play the part of your opponent.’