Arkady

  He knocked on the door of Aveo’s home for the third time. After a moment passed, he cupped his hands around his face and tried to peer through the stain glass window to see if he could see anything. “Well, guess no one’s home,” he said with a sigh. Before he could turn around to search elsewhere, though, something sharp poked his upper back.

  A sword.

  “Well, hello to you too,” Arkady said without making a move. Best not to spook the sword-happy visitor. That was a good way to get yourself skewered.

  “Who are you?” a woman’s voice demanded. It sounded like she was trying to project more confidence than she felt. She wasn’t a hex knight then, thankfully. But he was still on the receiving end of a very sharp sword, so he shouldn’t let his guard down quite yet.

  “I’m Arkady, and whose sword do I have the pleasure of being poked by today?” he asked.

  “Someone who's wondering why you’ve been knocking on Aveo’s door for the last ten minutes,” she said.

  Arkady smiled. “This may sound hard to believe, but I’m looking for Aveo, at his house, where one might expect him to be.”

  The sword pressed a bit harder into his back. “Why?” she demanded.

  “Ow.” Okay, not a fan of humor, Arkady thought. “I wanted to tell him I admire his work; he’s done a great job with the place. Can I ask a question now?” he asked.

  She didn’t respond. Great. He’d chance it, anyway. “Why is there a sword in my back?”

  “Because you have a look about you,” she said.

  Arkady chuckled. “I’ve been told I’m handsome on occasion.”

  He didn’t have to turn around to perceive the eye roll conveyed in her words. “I meant a suspicious look.”

  “Really? You picked up on that? I’ve been trying to make it more subtle, but so far…no luck,” Arkady said.

  He waited for her to run the sword right through him; it was inevitable that a bad joke would be the death of him one day. Just…not today, apparently, because instead, she chuckled.

  Arkady smiled. “You know, such a cute laugh makes the sword a lot less intimidating—ow!” The sword pricked his skin just as soon as her amusement had run its course. “But it hurts all the same!” he said, jumping forward more than he meant to and slamming into the door of Aveo’s house.

  “Uh!”

  Arkady heard her surprised noise behind him. He was too busy rubbing his forehead to worry about if she planned to finally stab him and get it over with. “Between the sword and the door, I’m starting to think I prefer the sword. What’s this door freaking made of?” He groaned.

  The sword clanged to the ground. He looked up and saw her take a step back. As if she wasn’t the one who’d been threatening him with it just a second ago. “Are you an architect or something? A carpenter? You want to study under Aveo?” she asked him.

  “Sure, I’m ready to move on from the fact I just head butted an extremely hard door if you are,” he said, still grimacing. “But no, not really. But I can appreciate…” He paused when he looked up and saw her. “…beautiful things.” His breath caught. He hadn’t meant to say what he said exactly like that, but hell if it wasn’t true. She was beautiful.

  The pain in his back and face suddenly didn’t occupy a single thought in his mind. Blue starry eyes, brown hair pulled tightly into a ponytail that trailed down her back, and lips that belonged in a museum. She wore a white shirt and simple pants. Both appeared to have their fair share of wood-shavings on them.

  She stared back at him for a moment before breaking their gaze. “Well, let’s turn that appreciation into something useful.” She picked up the sword and carefully considered it. “Do you know how to handle a sword?” she asked. She flipped it and held the handle out toward him.

  Arkady smiled. “I’m more of a dagger man myself. But don’t worry, I brought my own.” He pulled his cloak to the side to reveal one of the daggers sheathed on his waist.

  She considered it, then nodded, sheathing the sword at her waist awkwardly. It was apparent she wasn’t used to handling a weapon. “Good, then follow me,” she said, turning to walk away before he had a chance to ask where they were going.

  Arkady gave one last look back at Aveo’s house before shrugging and hurrying after her. He caught up with her and fell into step beside her. “So, do you need someone beat up or something?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him, a sly look on her face. “Less someone, more something.”

  Arkady arched a brow.

  “A…training dummy?” he asked her when they arrived. It was clear how she’d spotted him from here; Aveo’s house was easily within sight. That was good; it meant his mission hadn’t gone totally off the rails. He focused on the matter at hand. It was, in fact, a training dummy. A wooden half-mannequin on a stick with a red painted target on its chest.

  She sighed. “Aveo isn’t the only one who likes to build. The knights train with each other all the time, but some villagers have started training too lately. They want to help when the hex storm comes. The knights can’t really spare resources to train them, and it’s not like they’d actually let the villagers get involved, anyway. But…people want to be ready just in case. If something goes wrong, if it comes down to picking up a weapon to defend their family, well, the villagers want to be ready for that. I went to Aveo about this, suggested he make some training dummies for them so they’d be able to practice better. But the knights have him working on last-minute preparations for the storm, so if I want this done, I have to do it myself,” she said.

  “That’s…actually pretty cool. Well,” Arkady said, eying it over one more time. “It looks like any training dummy I’ve ever seen.”

  She sighed. “Give it a try. Hit it as hard as you can.”

  Arkady rubbed the back of his head. “I’m less of a hard hitter, and more of a…smart hitter.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, hit as smart as you can.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. He really didn’t want her swinging another sword around at him if he broke her project.

  “Just do it,” she insisted.

  Even without his hex, which had developed very early in life for him, a lifetime of having objects and people’s weaknesses shown to him had trained his senses to pick up on them naturally and with a pretty high degree of accuracy. It didn’t totally invalidate his hex. There were still plenty of times where having a blatant target saved the day, and just because his senses had sharpened when looking for weak points and structural weaknesses, it didn’t mean he could always identify them. But now that he was looking at the training device with a critical eye, its weaknesses were obvious.

  Shinnng. Arkady’s dagger clashed with the dummy.

  Five more times in rapid succession, he struck the most glaring weaknesses in the mannequin’s structural integrity. As he sheathed his dagger, the wooden training dummy fell apart like perfectly cooked meat falls off the bone. He turned to her with a smile, expecting praise. “How’s that?” he asked.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Her jaw dropped. She pried her eyes off the training dummy and turned back to glare at him. “You butthead! I told you to hit it! I didn’t tell you do…” She gestured at the pile of training dummy pieces. “Well, that! This took me an entire day to make!”

  “Really?”

  “Ugh!” she groaned, kneeling down to inspect the pieces.

  “Well…” Arkady started. “I’ll be honest, I’m a lot better at taking things apart than I am putting them together, but…I can tell you where you went wrong.”

  She paused, turning to look up at him. “You…you can?” she asked.

  He nodded. “After hitting it, I have to say, it has a unique feel to it. It felt like I was striking a person. It responded in a way I didn’t expect. I mean, it moves in a way that no training dummy I’ve ever grappled with has. But whatever you did to give it that feeling also made it structurally unsound. Someone not used to fighting might get a little use out of this, but it’s going to fall apart pretty quickly, regardless. Still…that feeling. It’s like it responds to being cut rather than just being a stiff target.”

  “That’s what I was going for!” Her face lit up.

  “Well, goal accomplished. We just need a way to make the structure…more structural.”

  “I considered using a different material but…it’s hard to work with. Aveo uses a special wood for his projects, and he let me have some of the extra lumber, but I can’t actually cut it. It’s tougher, way tougher, and it would work really well for this, I think, but I don’t have the right tools and he couldn’t spare any of those right now,” she explained.

  Arkady frowned. “So you don’t have the right tools for the job. I can see that being frustrating. What’s so special about the wood, though?”

  “It’s not native to Aysela. It comes from the Holy Nation of Tantaloo. They have a special way to grow it, involving dungeons or something? It’s much tougher than anything I’ve ever used and I’m also not used to making projects this big.”

  Arkady paused. “Wait…are you a toy maker too? Did you make those toys for Obie?”

  Her head cocked back. “Aveo made most. But I’ve made him a few…you know Obie?” she asked.

  “He’s a recent acquaintance of mine, but yes. He’s the one who told me where I could find the person who made them. But I’d thought it was Aveo himself. I didn’t realize... wait, did you make the water horse?”

  Her eyes lit up. “I did! You liked it?” she asked, taking a step forward.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. Honestly, I even thought I might commission one of my own. I know an old grumpy man that could use a splash of water to the face now and then!” Arkady joked. If Richard could hear him now, oh the glare he would receive.

  She laughed. “That sounds like my father.”

  “So we both have old grumpy men in our lives, small world, huh?” Arkady said.

  “Heh, yeah. Well, I guess I should get back to the drawing board. Thanks for your help, Arkady.”

  “Of course. No problem at all,” he said, as she turned and started gathering her things. He took a step away, but paused. He really should get back to his search for Aveo, and he really shouldn’t spend too much time with this girl. In just a few days they’d be leaving this place, probably as wanted criminals. He’d promised Richard he’d put the mission first. “It was nice meeting you.”

  “You too,” she smiled.

  But on the other hand…she knew Aveo. If he was willing to loan her materials, then surely she could put in a good word for him. Maybe the mission and hanging out with her didn’t have to conflict with one another. He knew he was partially lying to himself. This wasn’t just an in. He wanted to talk to her more, and that was the simple truth to it. But before he could hesitate, he took a shot. “Hey…what if…maybe I could help? I’m not a carpenter and, well honestly, I’m not much of a craftsman at all, but…if you’re having trouble with cutting something, well, that’s sort of my expertise. Plus, I could give you more advice, help make sure the next version can take more of a beating. If you’re interested, that is.”

  She grinned. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” Arkady said. He turned and looked at Aveo’s front door one last time. He really hoped he knew what he was doing.

  Hours later, hours he should’ve spent searching for Aveo and doing recon, they’d finally finished. He hadn’t run his hex over it yet, but his eyes couldn’t spot any glaring weaknesses. The wood was darker, and they’d gotten rid of the larger circular painted target on the front. Now, instead, they’d labeled several different spots on the training dummy. Common places to strike your opponents, so the villagers could practice hitting those spots in particular. Of course, the training dummy was human, and the villagers were training to fight beasts, but it would help them practice with their weapons. Plus, they didn’t know exactly what kind of creatures the hex storm would attract, so creating a dummy to replicate their potential foes was impossible. Luckily, there are certain things that are universal weaknesses amongst different species. There were some places that were prime targets, regardless of your species. Eyes, for instance…as long as the monster had eyes. The heart…as long the creature had a heart. Okay, maybe there were some things that weren’t always going to apply, but in general, the spots Arkady had painstakingly marked would be efficient targets a majority of the time.

  He was pretty impressed with their work, and over the course of it, he’d even earned her name. Orielle.

  Orielle looked at the figure with a hand on her hip. Arkady smirked behind crossed arms. “Now, we just have to give it a test,” Arkady said.

  Orielle nodded. “Be my guest.”

  Arkady reached down to draw his daggers, but a thick, powerful hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Well, well, well, what’s this? Put those blades away, no need. No need!” the man said.

  Arkady turned to look at him. The man was short, with the belly of a dad and a thick mustache that looked as if it might wriggle off his face to go on adventures of its own. His skin was tanned from long days in the sun, and his eyes squinted deeply as he stared at the training dummy. It was as if he too had an eye that could scan an object and see all its vulnerabilities. For a moment, the old man turned those same eyes on Arkady, and sized him up. He nodded before turning back to the training device.

  “Um, who are you?” Arkady asked.

  Orielle started to say something, but the large man held a finger up to lips, silencing both of them. Arkady was silent more out of shock than anything, Orielle…well, Arkady was surprised she wasn’t drawing her sword on the old man.

  The man pulled an axe from off his belt, reached back in a deep arc, readying to strike.

  Arkady shook his head. “Wait…”

  Too late.

  Thunk! The axe sank into the training dummy. The man’s eyes lit up. “This should’ve went much deeper. I thought by the look of it, but I wasn’t sure. You used the wood I gave you?” the man asked, turning to Orielle.

  “I did,” Orielle confirmed. “I had some help,” she said, gesturing to Arkady.

  Arkady’s mind raced. Orielle had told him she got the wood from Aveo. Wait, was this man Aveo?

  The man turned from her to Arkady and inspected him once more. “I have tools for wood like this and even then, the hex knights have to help me from time to time. Are you a carpenter? I could use someone like you in my shop. You interested?” the man asked.

  “I’m more used to cutting men than wood if I’m being honest. But I am a fan of what you’ve done with this fort. You are him, aren’t you? Master Aveo?” Arkady asked.

  The man arched a bushy brow. “Aye, but just Aveo’s fine. I’m sure craftsmanship like this took the better part of your day, and my daughter here gives all of her work away for free, so she certainly can’t pay you.”

  “Father!” Orielle hissed.

  “Father?” Arkady asked, taken aback. So this was her grumpy old man?

  Aveo didn’t acknowledge either of them. “I’m sure you know where the house is already. Be there at 7:30. That’ll give everyone time to go wash up after a hard day’s work,” he said as he started walking towards his home. “By the way, are you a picky eater?” the large man called out without turning back to look.

  “No, sir. I eat what’s at the table,” Arkady called back. Apparently, the offer wasn’t one he could refuse, not that he wanted to.

  “Good, we’re having rat tonight! Come hungry!” Aveo said with a wave.

  “Uh, rat?” Arkady said quietly.

  Orielle covered her mouth with a hand. Her father chuckled in the distance. “He’s messing with you,” she said.

  Arkady felt like an idiot. “Right, a joke. I was worried for a moment.”

  “Well, don’t be. We’ll probably have raccoon. I’ve gotta get going, Ark,” she said. She waved at him before hurrying after her father.

  “Ark?” Arkady smiled. A nickname. She’d given him a nickname, and man did it sound good coming from her. “Wait, did you say raccoon?” he called after her.

  “See you later!” She turned to smile over her shoulder.

  “Great, they have the same sense of humor.” He let out a breath. “7:30. Looks like I found my in after all. Tonight, I’ve got a dinner party.” He didn’t say his next thought out loud.

  “And I get to see her again.”

  He started the long walk home and forced thoughts of today from his mind. Arkady couldn’t forget why he was here. Tonight he needed to figure out where they were keeping Mary. Tonight had to go well.