By Darkness Hid Read Online Free PDF

you strike level sideways, you risk throwing your weapon or throwing yourself off balance.”
    Achan could just see himself pitching his sword at his attacker as if skipping a stone.
    Sir Gavin brought the waster to his center, with the hilt pointing out from his abdomen as if he were holding a yoke plow. “All parries can be made from the middle guard position. You aren’t trying to strike with a parry. You’re trying to ease their strike against you. Meet their blow by stepping up to it, or cushion the blow by stepping back.”
    Sir Gavin spent the next hour showing Achan the different ways to parry attacks. Achan took dozens of strikes to his forearms and shins from Sir Gavin’s wooden blade. He was having the most trouble with the leg strikes.
    Sir Gavin swung his sword at Achan’s shins again. Achan dropped his waster to low guard and moved it over to block his left leg. The swords clacked together, but Sir Gavin’s pushed Achan’s back enough to touch his leg.
    “Better, but a steel blade would’ve nicked you good. Make sure you move your blade out far enough so you won’t be cut if it’s knocked back.” Sir Gavin took a long breath and blew it out in a cloud around his face. “You’ve done enough for today, lad. You’ll be plenty sore tomorrow. Ease into the routine. The first week will be the hardest.”
    It was. Over the next few days, Achan never sat still. If he wasn’t running an errand for Poril or crawling under the tables in the great hall collecting scraps to offer Cetheria, he was sneaking away to go through his sword exercises. Poril snapped at his absences with threats of the belt, so Achan did his best to be two places at once.
    With the added activity, his appetite grew. Poril’s portions didn’t change, so Achan started joining Sir Gavin for meals. He ate his fill like never before, always saving something nice and whole for Cetheria.
    While they ate, Sir Gavin would talk about noble etiquette and table manners. Once Achan began eating with more grace, Sir Gavin moved on to speak of the other cities in Er’Rets and the nobles who lived there. He began with Sitna, where Achan lived. Sir Gavin said it was a tiny manor built for the sole purpose of raising the prince. He said that in most strongholds, the kitchens had at least three cooks who fed over two hundred people three meals a day.
    Achan soaked it all up and spilled it out to Gren each night at the Corner.
    By the second week, his arms ached less, his blisters had faded to calluses, and he felt more confident about his role as a squire. Although Sir Gavin would still not accept his service. Squires were required to bring their master meals, clean their armor, and care for their horses. Sir Gavin would have none of it.
    *          *          *
    Achan woke one morning to find a new orange tunic neatly folded on the floor by his pallet. He blinked his sleepy eyes until it dawned on him.
    Today was his coming-of-age day. Or at least the day Poril celebrated it. He was sixteen now. A man.
    He slipped the new tunic on. The linen was coarse and loose-weaved as ever, but at least it was new and clean.
    The kitchens were deserted when Achan passed through the sweltering room. Poril must have set the tunic out the night before.
    Achan met Sir Gavin in the wheat field for his daily practice.
    “Is that a new tunic?” Sir Gavin asked.
    “Aye,” Achan said. “Ever-thoughtful Poril gives me a new one every year when my age changes.”
    Sir Gavin stroked his mustache. “What is your day of birth?”
    Achan shrugged and moved his waster from middle guard to low guard and back. “No one knows for certain, so Poril always celebrates it on the first of spring. This is my sixteenth.”
    “Well, I should like to give you something as well. A day of birth is one thing, but you are a man now. And I feel you deserve a man’s weapon. As soon as you finish your squire training, I shall give you a real sword.”
    Achan’s lips