The Knight Sorcerers

CHAPTER ONE

            With the last jam of an impact still traveling up his arms, Gaylen stepped back from his Master, saluting the figure and sheathing his blade before he wiped the dust and sweat from his face with an equally dusty and sweaty sleeve.

            Even as his arm was just starting to cover his eyes, a flicker of movement from his Master made him drop the arm, moving so quickly he did not have the time to wonder if he had mistaken the movement.  That had been a concern long enough to keep him a Trainee when many others his age had been tapped for Apprenticeship by other Masters: he had so analyzed everything to death that even some of his fellow Trainees had called him on it.

            Even the greenest Trainees had managed to catch him in feints, but those days were long years in the past, and his reactions were finally instinct.  The long arm in the sleeve continued down past his face, his hand grasped the sword, and he slid it out and into the air so smoothly he looked as if he had meant to act all along.  It was a grace he had paid for in more sweat and blood (not to mention bruises and bandages) than any Trainee - or Apprentice - should have to wear.

            It was worth it; his blade met his Master’s sword with a completely bone-jarring smash.

            “Well done!”  The enthusiasm and praise was clear above the reverberation of the blades, and Gaylen’s Master grinned openly at the tall young man.  Sharsi had always been easy with praise when it was deserved, but it did not make the praise any less satisfactory.  And the occasional “well done” was rare enough so it was truly a compliment.

            Removing a helmet with more than a few slashes in it from practice blades wielded by over-eager Apprentices and Trainees, Sharsi saluted him with the blade openly this time.  The salute made Gaylen realize he had unconsciously been waiting for the gesture to end their bout.

            “Very well done!  That’s exactly the kind of response that will keep you alive.”

            An arm as simply clad as her Apprentice’s rose up itself to wipe an equal amount of dust and sweat from her handsome face, and the compact woman turned the copied gesture into a stretch that almost reached her up to the height of her Apprentice.

            “Thank you, Master.”  Gaylen worked out the kinks in his arms by shaking them after he again sheathed his blade.  He smiled at her; the expression might not be effusive, but it was entirely genuine and just as meant as hers.  “But then, I’ve kept myself alive in the past even without it.”

            Sharsi cocked an eye