It was a lovely morning, with crisp blue skies and a lingering fog that was slowly being eaten by the ever-lifting sun. Aithne stood in the central area of Narzulbur and did some calculations - it had been awhile since she had consulted a calendar -  as she swung the orcish sword, trying to get a feel for it. It seemed well made, to her untrained eyes, and had nice balance, but the peculiar shape, with its bend halfway down the blade followed by a graceful arc back up at the end, changed the swing planes she was used to.

 

The Jaunty Spirit had foundered on Middas, 30 Sun's Height, She and Merks had left the college on Middas, 13 Last Seed, so, with the three days of travel and one day at Narzulbur, that made today Sundas, 17 Last Seed.  It was a day she would remember for the rest of her life, she was certain - the day she became part of the Orc community.

 

It was strange, holding a weapon again. Even though she had not touched a sword until her naval training began, her body had seemed to have a natural affinity for it; she had caught on quickly and acquitted herself well enough. Maybe if she had had one when she went to Labyrinthian, she would not have been so useless.

 

The image of her with a sword trying to keep up with Trendil and Sloan leaked into her mind and she laughed to herself; her “well enough” was nothing compared to the two of them! Aithne would have been just as useless. Either one would breeze through the trial Aithne now faced and she found herself wishing she could borrow their skills for the day.

 

Because she would not be able to use magic.

 

She hadn’t considered the idea until now, standing alone in the center of the entire meyge waiting for her first opponent. Certainly calling down a firestorm would create a healthy amount of shock, but it would also likely turn her opponents into crispy orc-kebobs.

 

But that wasn’t all. Only one of the orcs had seen her in action, and Aithne could hear Chyehye’s voice as if the orc woman was screaming in her ear – she was mentally pleading with Aithne not to use magic. Chyehye’s mind’s eye flashed to the implications: the anger from “honorless” wins leading to an unbridgeable mistrust. Aithne would be ostracized from the meyge before she even joined it. Her prospective suitors might even break tradition and impugn their own honor by refusing to marry her.

 

Without magic, she was just a slightly-above-average swordswoman who hadn’t practiced in over six years. She might – might! – manage to beat one opponent, if she got a lucky draw, but probably not more. Which wouldn’t have mattered to her so much if she didn’t know that that was exactly what the men expected.

 

But…that was only if they knew magic was being cast. What if they didn’t? She could use spells untraceable except to others of magical talent, such as the ones every novice (or 18^th-year, in Aithne’s case) learned when they started dueling. Ebonyflesh, for instance, hardened her skin to something akin to the hide of a mammoth. Rally and Call to Arms boosted stamina, health, and speed. She mumbled the words and hid the hand motions by pretending to fidget nervously.

 

These little bits of rote helped ease her tension and got her mind off the “what if” track it had been stuck on. Urag admonished her from her distant past: she had magic on her side and, as he had told her from the very start, her potential was only limited by her imagination.

 

As her first opponent was called to the circle, Aithne realized she had another advantage – she knew what her opponent was going to do before they did it.

 

The woman she faced was elderly, with a kind face, but she was an orc, after all, and when Dyaj called for the start of the battle, the woman howled and rushed forward, double-bladed axe held high. There was nothing more to her attack – she expected Aithne to stand still and get split in two. Aithne waited for the woman to get close, then sidestepped as the axe swung down and smashed the flat of her sword into the woman’s head with as much force (and just a little extra oomph from a whispered wind spell (with the minor modifier to avoid creating a gust that might be felt)) as she could muster. The orc went down in a heap as several onlookers cried out and jumped away from the skittering axe.

 

The next three were similar; straightforward attacks with no thought but to cleave. Aithne didn't need magic to win them and was pretty confident they would have been easy victories even without her strange mind-reading abilities – there was no skill involved, no need to even parry an attack.

 

After the fourth, Dyaj called out something. Aithne felt his minor surprise as her brain translated his words via this thoughts: she had passed the lowest level of their hierarchy, ṭi ṭːoh. Next came ṭi chyːu and, what’s more, Dyaj had decided he did not want to be embarrassed any further by having this weak human woman continue winning. For the ṭi ṭːoh, he had chosen the weakest fighters for fear Aithne would die too quickly. For ṭi chyːu, he picked the strongest first.

 

It was a burly male, shorter but also wider than most orcs. He carried a two-handed great sword and approached her with…not caution, exactly – he clearly felt he was in no danger of losing – but with a practiced sizing-up gait.

 

Aithne circled with him, listening to him pick through strategies. He decided on a quick-strike lunge, which Aithne parried; she followed it with an immediate riposte that tore a gash in his arm. He cried out in surprise and backed away.

 

Aithne felt him ratchet her up a few notches in his mind as the first hints of doubt crept in. She smiled and pushed her advantage, rushing forward and striking with a flurry of blows. He backed away further as he went into a defensive stance and Aithne could feel panic growing in his mind. His swung in a desperate wide horizontal arc that seemed very slow to Aithne’s magically-enhanced reflexes. She dropped her sword and jumped, wrapping her legs as far around his torso as she could while her hands gripped his throat.

 

She did not, of course, have the strength to do him any harm. She did, however, have the Strangulation spell. The orc’s eyes bulged and his sword dropped from his hands so he could use them to beat at Aithne’s back. She silently thanked Chyehbå (an orc, ironically) for creating Ebonyflesh and responded to his fists by reapplying Strangulation but this time with the amplify modifier. The orc turned from green to purple as his punches grew weaker and then he collapsed to his knees. Aithne had just enough time to disengage and roll away before his body crashed face-first onto the ground.

 

The stunned silence was, itself, amplified by the patent disbelief that flooded her from the crowd as she stood and picked her sword back up. Then, unexpectedly, a cheer rose up from someone and it was quickly picked up by others. Soon a solid majority of the circle appeared to be rooting for her.

 

The adulation only grew as she finished the next three opponents to pass ṭi chyːu and move on to ṭi sna. Dyaj, however, was not one of her new fans and impatiently gestured at a particular orc. Once again, the strongest of this ṭi had been chosen first, but this time, it was someone Aithne recognized.

 

“You have done well, better than any here could have expected,” Chyehye said as she stepped into the circle. “I admit, I am just as surprised. I saw how strong you are as a punyyå but it is rare, indeed, to find a punyyå who is also good with the blade.”

 

Aithne laughed. “I had…unique training.”

 

“So it would seem. Let’s see how good that training really was.”

 

The answer was given soon, in Aithne’s mind: not good enough.

 

Although she could read Chyehye’s mind, the orc was too fast for Aithne to take advantage. Even with her magically augmented skills, she was hard pressed to do more than defend herself. Even her sisters might have had trouble.

 

Well, probably not Trendil. She had seemed on an altogether different level.

 

Aithne needed a way to slow the orc down, even if just for a moment. An idea popped into her head, but it would be risky. Perhaps it would be better to concede; she had already surpassed everyone’s expectations, after all.

 

Dyaj’s smug thoughts chased away any idea of concession. He knew Aithne was outclassed; was certain of Chyehye’s victory. Aithne had to prove him wrong once again.

 

She jumped away from a swing, rolled a few times to gain some distance, pretended to be winded enough that she had to kneel to catch her breath while her finger sketched a rune of Paralysis. With a slap of her palm, she infused the rune with power while lifting herself back to her feet, then stepped away from the approaching Chyehye.

 

The orc circled, so Aithne circled with her, keeping the rune between them; it would do no good if her opponent didn’t step on the damn thing. Finally, Chyehye closed the distance, trying for a feint that would turn into an uppercut slash. Her foot hit the rune and Aithne dove forward; she had only a fraction of a moment before the paralysis wore off. Just enough time to dive under Chyehye’s lunging sword. The orc was moving again by the time Aithne hit the ground, but she had what she needed – Aithne’s sword bit deep into Chyehye’s hamstring and the orc yelped and crashed to the ground, clutching at her bleeding leg.

 

Aithne was up in a moment, kneeling by the orc’s side and whispering, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to cut that deep!” She started casting her healing spell, but Chyehye grabbed her hands.

 

“No,” she hissed. “You have done well to hide your magic thus far. Don’t look at me like that, do you think I could not tell when I stepped on whatever that was you put on the ground? I do not believe anyone else realizes, though, so do not make it obvious now. We have healing potions – I will be fine. Finish the fight.”

 

Aithne paused, then nodded and stood as two orcs ran to them with a stretcher. Chyehye gave Aithne a wink as she was carried off and Aithne bent to pick up her sword. She was suddenly tired and didn’t really want to fight anymore, but the next orc stepped into the circle and roared something at her, so she sighed, reapplied her defensive spells, and set herself. As Chyehye had said, she needed to finish the fight.

 

It ended four matches later, in Aithne’s first and only matchup in ṭi nyi, the highest circle. The orc she faced was some sort of orcish prodigy. Trendil might have been able to defeat him – she was the only person Aithne had ever seen move faster (well, she and Borkul, who likely would also have fared well) – but Aithne had no chance. She couldn’t even read his mind. Or, rather, she could read his mind, but he somehow had a way to choose multiple attacks at the same time, adjusting each swing based on Aithne’s reactions in split-second layers. Had she not had Ebonyflesh, his first blow would have split her in two. As it was, she was thrown across the courtyard and gained a nasty bruise that would have lingered for weeks if left untended.

 

None of her little tricks worked on him. He somehow never stepped on her runes, he was much too quick to jump on to try to strangle, and his weapon speed was thrice anything her enhanced abilities could match even when boosted. Had she been able to use the full force of her magic, she was certain she could defeat him, but without that option, she was finally forced to concede after a bone-shattering blow to her sword wrist (that would have severed the hand completely, had it not, again, been for Ebonyflesh. Chyehbå was fast becoming Aithne’s favorite orc of all time).

 

After the crowd’s roars has died down and, more important to Aithne, after she had drank the bitter healing potion (apparently orcs did not believe in flavoring their potions) and her pain dissipated, Dyaj stood one last time in front of the meyge and called out (as translated by Nyatt), “The trial is finished! Our meyge-pyots has earned her ṭi!”

 

He had mixed feelings about that but Aithne was too exhausted to care about what he thought anymore and shut him out of her mind.

 

“Tonight, we hunt, for tomorrow we celebrate the wedding of the newest member of meyge Narzulbur with a feast fit for a meyge-pyots of ṭi sna!”

 

Fortunately, Aithne did not seem to be expected to participate in the hunt. Many of the orcs rushed for weapons but Dyaj led the way to a small building, basically a hide-and timber hut, much less permanent-looking than the other buildings in the kwåim, and said, “You will have a better home on the morrow, once you have chosen your husband. As the highest ranking member of ṭi sna, your choice of husbands will include nearly all eligible ṭːa ba, so your new home will be among our largest. For now, though, I am afraid all we have is this guest ngot.”

 

Aithne gave him a tired smile. “As long as there is a place to sleep, I don’t care if it is in a dung heap.”

 

Dyaj laughed. “Not even ṭi ṭːoh would live in a dung heap. We have our pride.” A pause, as his expression darkened. “Speaking of pride, I…doubted you. Even after you saved us from the ba ṭːa tswas. Even after Cheyeye told me you did it, not your male companion. You have given me much to consider about myself. I apologize. And I thank you.”

 

“Well, look at me. I don’t blame you for underestimating someone half the size of even your…er, our smallest…um… meyge-ṭːa-its?”

 

He laughed again. “Its means ‘brother.’ If you mean to include both sexes, it would be meyge-ṭːa-poydiw.”

 

“Thank you.” She berated herself as the orc nodded and left her and Merks to themselves in the hut. Why hadn’t she learned Urag’s language? So foolish! Another regret added to her pile. She determined to get a book or three on the subject the next time she was at the Arcaneum.

 

In the meantime, all she wanted to do was sleep. She tossed the sword in a corner of the hut, ignored everything Merks was saying – he seemed to want to talk about something, but she just didn’t care – and curled up on the fur covered straw that the hut used as a bed, asleep almost before her head hit the fur.

 

 

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