(Path of the Dragon Mage: Exiled) 11. Minor Act of Rebellion (Patreon)

Corvus and Solt were not attacked again on the road.

Every new day took them further east, away from the great mountains  which had dominated the skyline for all of Corvus’s life. Eventually,  the vast range was only visible as a smokey smudge against the sky on  clear days, and not at all when there was a hint of cloud.

The trees thinned, too. Corvus expected fields to return, but Solt  explained that this was not good farmland. Or, more specifically, "No  one can grow a damn thing here. The soil's too dry—it don't rain more  than a few weeks out of the year. No one but idiots and desperate men  try to farm these lands."

"Then how do the people eat?" Corvus asked. His tutors had been very  clear that every mile had some value to the Kingdom. Or else the king  had all rights to cut them loose to the demons across the border.

"Grass and livestock, mostly. And fishing." Solt waved his hand  vaguely to the direction they were riding. “We’re headed toward the  Great Lake. You’ll see."

Soon they were well within the dry plains. There was not a tree that  stood above the height of a man. Instead, scrubby bushes and hardy  sage-bush grew so thickly that Corvus couldn't direct Merry-Rose off the  road without having to cut a trail first.

He and Solt hacked out a small clearing on the nights they couldn't  stop at a way station. Wielding a machete had been fun for the first  night.

You have learned a new skill: Wield Machete

However, unlike his other skills, Wield Machete, stubbornly stayed at  beginner 1. He assumed this had something to do with his negative  combat bonus, even though all he was attacking was sage-brush.

Clearing out a reasonably sized space was tedious, hard work  punctuated with the sharp scent of cut sage. Plus, the work gave him  blisters.

Solt called his hands soft. Corvus objected: He did have calluses from the use of the quill.

“You’ll see what I mean soon enough,” Solt commented obliquely.

They reached the Great Lake the next day, though Corvus would not  have known unless Solt told him. The land was flat, utterly without a  hill or high place to see from, and so covered with thick sagebrush that  the road felt like a tunnel through the foliage.

They passed carts and wagons weighed down with hay, stinking fish,  and river grass that went to feed livestock. Only the hardiest breeds  lived here because the summers grew hot as a desert and the winters  equally cold with terrible ice squalls.

Nearby road signs indicated the town of Lake Bridge not far off. Solt  showed no interest in stopping—deciding to push on through the evening  until he reached his property.

It was an estate: A small one that would have put any nobleman to  shame had it been in the capital city. There were no servants within  sight, either. Corvus’s dreams of finally sleeping in a freshly  laundered bed were shattered. And of course, no one put out food that  night. He and Solt ate a cold meal by the guttering light of a candle  stub.
Another disappointment was there were no new runes anywhere.

At least Corvus had a small room entirely to himself… hardly bigger  than the closet he'd had in the palace. But it did include a shadowed  spot under his bed in which to hide his dragon egg.

“What do you think?” he asked the egg in a whisper and held it out as if to show it the room.

The egg made no reply. Not even an answering pulse of heat. He got the vague impression that the dragonet inside was sleeping.

“Well, it has been a long journey,” he said and carefully put it in place under his bed, pillowed with an extra shirt.
Corvus  fell onto his back with a yawn. “Solt said my sword training starts  tomorrow. Never imagined I’d have a sword of my own… Mother would have a  fit…”

He closed his eyes and was quickly asleep.

* * *

It took until midmorning that first day for Corvus to learn that he hated sword fighting.

Swords sounded exciting in books and scrolls. The reality was boring,  dull work. Even worse than mucking out the horse stall. At least when  he was done with that chore, there was a clean stall.

His sword training lesson only gained him sore arms.

Solt started him on hitting the scarred trunk of a tree with a stick,  in a specific pattern. Over and over for more than an hour until his  arms felt unnaturally heavy and he could hardly lift the stick without  trembling.

Corvus frowned, checking his notifications in case he had missed an  alert about the skill. There was nothing. Unlike wielding a machete, he  had yet to overcome his negative combat bonus.

Perhaps because a machete was a tool as much as it was a weapon. A  sword was a pure weapon, and made it that much harder to gain it as a  skill.

Solt allowed him a short break for lunch and then the sparring began.

If Solt hadn't used practice swords dulled practically to sticks, he would have been cut to ribbons.

"Have they taught you nothing?" the man roared, whacking Corvus’s arm  with the flat of his practice blade. A flash of tingling pain shot up  down from his elbow to his hand—the funny bone, his nurse used to call  it, though Corvus found nothing funny about it. He yelled in surprise  and pain, and his own practice sword clattered to the ground.

You have taken 1 damage.

If it were like the others, the damage would repair itself shortly, but it was still annoying.

"Pick it up!" Solt barked. And then, like he had a dozen times that day. "Take your position!"

Breathing hard, Corvus bent to grab the sword in his left hand, but  the arm would not rise. His muscles burned and the sword felt as heavy  as if someone had tied a boulder to the end.

And still, there was no new notification he had learned the sword skill.

"I can't do this," he said, standing back up and breathing hard. He  held the sword but his arm refused to rise. With a grimace, he switched  the sword to his other hand.

Completing a complex task without a skill was nearly impossible.

"Don't tell me that's all you have, boy!" Solt barked. "Look at me. I'm old and fat and I haven't broken a sweat."

Corvus let the sword drop in the dust. It landed on his foot, gaining him another 1 damage. He kicked it.

"I was never supposed to learn swordplay. I was supposed to learn  magic!" Which, in the palace, had meant hours of meditation and  contemplation, of trying to get a flame to flicker, or water to bubble  up to his call. The worst thing--aside from the daily disappointment—was  that no one could tell him how his mother and father did magic. They  just did it, and they expected him to figure it out for himself.

And now Solt’s brand of instruction tasted exactly the same. Why did  everyone expect him to know what he had never been told and never been  taught?

Now he had a lead on magic, of sorts, through runes. And instead of following up on it, he was forced to play with swords.

"So, this is what you are made of? How do you expect to survive your  first battle?” Solt sneered. “Will the demons stop because you're  tired?"

"I'm not tired!" he lied. "I'm no good at this and I don't want to do it anymore."

He wanted to read, wanted to learn about runes. Find out how to hatch his dragon egg. Everything else was a waste of time.

He also knew he was treading on dangerous ground. It was perilous to tell an adult 'no'.

Solt's face flushed red. He reached to grab him, but Corvus had  guessed what was coming and quickly ducked out of the way. At last, here  was a familiar situation, when he’d really annoyed Cipherus. Corvus  knew what was coming next.

Then the only thing to do was run.

"Boy! Come back here!" Solt called, but Corvus didn't dare.

Bolting out of the enclosed courtyard, he aimed for the thick brush  that carpeted this land like trees. He chose a direction at random,  plunging through the twisting maze-like pathways. The greenery closed  over his head in an instant. He chose one direction, and then another,  and within a couple minutes he could not hear Solt at all.

I'm in trouble now, he knew, but he didn't care.

He was angry with Solt. Angry with himself, too. As a child he had  watched the guards at the palace drill with their weapons over and over.  They made it look easy.

Why did nothing come easy for him? Why couldn't he be good at  anything? He was a Prince—or, he had been—he should have shown talent at  something.

That’s why father doesn’t want me as his son.

He ran on, concentrating on his own pounding footsteps so he didn’t  do something horrible, like break down and cry again. It took a few  minutes before he realized that Solt hadn't bothered to chase after him.

Perhaps he knew Corvus had nowhere to go.

The horses were back at the estate. So was his dragon egg. Eventually, he would have to return.

That was later. Now... now he just needed some air.

Decision made, Corvus continued down the twisting pathways. He had  half a mind to find the main road which led to the village of Lake  Bridge. He hadn’t seen it up close, though last evening Solt went for  supplies and came back empty handed, stinking of wine.

Eventually, his stamina plunged to under fifteen percent. Corvus  slowed to a walk. It would slowly refill itself. After last night's  sleep in a real bed, he had woken at full strength.

As he walked, the air around him took on a cooler, swampy scent. One  more turn and he spotted patches of dark blue through the brush. He was  at the Great Lake.

Solt had once warned him not to get too close. Corvus could not  swim—there was never a need to learn as there had been a good chance he  would have a water discipline to keep him safe.

Well, he did not plan on diving in. He was annoyed, not suicidal.

Coming around the last bend, he hit the shores of the lake and stopped.

There was a horse standing in the shallow water.

It was a magnificent beast. Black as coal, so dark it had highlights  of blue in its mane. Corvus had read somewhere that horses were measured  in hands. He wasn't sure how that translated in normal measurements,  but the stallion wading in the shallow water was so tall he would have  had to stretch all the way up to reach the top of its muscled shoulders.

It stood proudly, gazing around with mild arrogance as if he owned the world.

Perhaps, if Corvus had taken the king up on his offer of a horse—and  if it had not been simply a test—he would have received one like this. A  horse meant for a prince.

He stepped forward without thinking, one hand outstretched. He wanted  to lay his hand on the horse's warm flank and feel the power of muscles  rippling under its skin. Make it his own.

Noticing him, the horse swung its great head around. It snorted in warning.

A sharp voice rang out. "Who are you?"

Corvus tore his gaze away and realized, belatedly, that the horse had not been alone.

A girl his age stood in thigh-high water. Her tunic and trousers were  cut in an odd flowing style, light layers piled on top of one another  in a patchwork rainbow. Colorful rags of red and blue were woven into  her mid-brown hair, like braids. Her skin was tanned from a lifetime of  being in the sun, but her eyes were as green as the sage brush around  her.

Corvus stared. He'd seen peasants from the safety of the carriage,  but none had been dressed like this. None had ever looked… pretty.

"Hello," he said, stunned. “This horse is yours?”

The girl's expression darkened into a scowl. “Maybe it is. What does it matter to you?”

“He’s beautiful.” Equally entranced by girl and horse, he took a step  closer. The horse stomped, splashing up a spray and creating a tiny  wave that lapped up against the shore.

“Don’t come any closer,” the girl said. “Nightshade is a trained warhorse, and he doesn’t like strange boys.”

“I’m not a strange boy.” Though he had never met any other  boy his age in a casual enough setting to compare and know for sure.  Then he straightened, common sense coming back to him. “What are you  doing here? This isn’t your property. It belongs to master Solt.”

“So?”

“So, you shouldn’t trespass.”

“The water is free for everyone.”

“It most certainly is not. What do you think water rights are for?”  He’d read all about them back in the palace, just in case he’d ever have  to adjudicate a dispute determine water rights. There were all sorts of  laws, contracts, and leases about the Kingdom’s lakes and rivers  because what noble did upstream could affect the rest downstream. And,  of course, at the end of the day, all of it was the ultimate property of  the King.

She just looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. “My father is Horseman around these parts. That means I can go where I want.”

“What's a Horseman? You mean your family has more horses like this?”  His heart leapt. He would have liked this one, but if there were others  just as good… How much did a horse cost, anyway? Would Master Solt lend  him money? “Can I see them?”

“Nope.” A small smile crept over her face and she leapt, catching one  hand over the stallion’s mane. Using bare toes she scrambled up. Quick  as a lizard, she was astride the horse, bareback.

At once, Corvus saw what Solt meant by having a good seat on a horse.  The stallion took a step and the girl seemed to move with it. As if she  were a part of the animal and not simply riding on top of it. “Who  taught you to ride like that?” Corvus asked.

She didn't answer, just reached up to touch a silver pendant that  hung like a teardrop from her throat. The next instant, she and the  horse were gone. Simply... gone.