A staccato drumbeat echoed across the sleepy farmstead, which was just beginning to wake up as the first fingers of dawn gripped the edge of the horizon and began hoisting the sun free of its nightly slumber. Two forms, all dark skin and braided silver hair and bright wide grins, ignored the light of the encroaching morning as they fought, moving with the grace of dancers while they sparred with their wooden blades: strike, parry, riposte, feint, reposition, press, retreat, encircle. Each move was countered with a loud clack, and with each clack their grins widened.
Kavrash drew Lyric's guard up with a high feint and suddenly shifted and stutter-stepped forward, ramming the hilt of her bokken beneath her daughter’s guard forcing the girl back for a moment as she fought to regain her position. There were many times – oh so many times – that Lyric did not wish to partake in this morning ritual, and Kavrash could hardly blame her: painful bruises and cuts were hardly the best way to start ones day, especially when chores typically needed to be done immediately after. But today was different, it was obvious that Lyric was feeling strong and confident this morning - her grin was a dead giveaway. Sure, there were scores of opportunities for Kavrash to punish the girl for missteps - whether advertising a strike or overextending a riposte, the girl often trading guts and bravado for surety and stable ground - but she was getting better daily, and Kavrash beamed with pride as she reflected on how well her training was coming along. Lyric would never be strong, but she was quick and clever and she was improving with each passing day.
Lyric drove her blade down in a quick cut then promptly shifted her weight forward, lashing out with a kick to Kavrash’s calf, clearly hoping to drive her mother off balance. But Kavrash saw the attack coming a mile away and would not be taken so easily. She dropped her knee and bore her weight directly into the path of the advancing strike, stopping it in its path and forcing Lyric off balance. Oh, it is on.
Kavrash was a blur as she moved in to strike, her violet eyes flashing with mirth as she dropped a lightning quick overhead blow of her bokken down at Lyric as she darted past. Lyric parried easily with her own wooden blade as she had seen this trick before and certainly knew that this feint was only a ruse to raise her into high guard. She shifted her weight to her right foot as her mother’s blade slid free of hers, and when Kavrash spun around with a low cut to her flank, Lyric dropped her knee and rolled out of the way as the wooden blade slashed the empty air above her. Kavrash beamed with pride as Lyric rose out of the roll facing her, her bokken in center guard as she prepared for her mother to press the attack as a punishment for her acrobatics. She is getting good.
Kavrash did not want to disappoint her and was on her in a flash, striking high and low in quick succession, challenging Lyric’s footing in the hopes of driving her off guard. But the girl adeptly parried each blow as she slowly retreated under the barrage in an attempt to put some distance between the two of them. So good.
Clack, clack, clack. The sounds echoed through the empty air around them; well, not quite empty air. The sound of whooping and cheering could also be heard in the near distance as farmer Wilkes and his eldest son Rendon – handsome, strong Rendon - had paused in their duties of taking their sheep to pasture to stop and watch the show. Kavrash had often caught Lyric staring wistfully at Rendon while he worked the fields and had heard the girl’s fumbling attempts at small talk with the boy when he had his father had come to the Inn to hear music at the end of a long week, and she sensed an opportunity.
Kavrash slowly shifted around Lyric until Farmer Wilkes and Rendon were at her back, their cheering forms visible to the girl over her shoulder. When Lyric noticed the onlookers, her posture instantly stiffened as she became self-conscious about the possibility of looking foolish in front an audience. Especially an audience as ruggedly handsome as Rendon.
Noting the change in her daughter’s demeanor, Kavrash changed tactics, switching her blade into reverse guard and lashing out with tight, sweeping cuts as she circled her way around past Lyric’s guard. The girl noticed the trap at the last moment and tried to leap backwards to gain some more distance, but Kavrash was too fast. She hooked her leg behind her daughter’s knee and trapped the girl’s blade in the hook of her arm and rammed the pommel of her own bokken hard – but not too hard – into Lyric’s forehead. And down she went with a resounding thump and a muffled cry of pain and surprise.
From her seat on the ground, Lyric sat stunned for a long moment as she tried to piece together what had just happened. She eventually moaned a low “Owww” as she held her hands to her head, where a shy trickle of blood was just starting to peek out from the angry welt that was beginning to form there.
“Hush girl,” Kavrash said sternly as she fished a linen bandage out of the bag at her feet and began wrapping it around Lyrics head. “Think of this as a warning not to get distracted. If this had be…”
“If this had been a real fight, I’d be dead, I know. I know. You say it every time,” Lyric shot back, her eyes daggers. “I just don’t know why we have to practice like this all the time. No one else around here does. Just us. We already stand out enough, we don’t need ano…”
Kavrash silenced her with an icy stare. “I have told you of the dangers of this world. You must be prepared for what may…no, what is coming. This is why I teach you to fight. To look. To watch. To hide. To escape. To run. You must be ready.”
Lyric fired back, “But we have the Knights. We have the militia. We have the Sheriffs and town guard and the city watch. If danger comes, they will handle it. I just want to work with Da in the Inn, it's not like I am going to take the purple and run off to fight dragons.”
Kavrash’s gaze softened briefly as she found herself reflecting back upon her last night in the blackness of the Underdark when she had last visited the great Weaver. The ancient elf had been born on the surface world, her skin and eyes and hair as white as alabaster stone. No one knew what had driven this surface elf into the bowels of the earth, but the woman could read the webs better than any of the drow seers that had spent their entire lives down her among the spiders. The Weaver’s cavern was full of sticky webs as millions of tiny translucent arachnids diligently worked and spun and knitted all of the stories of the world into the great web, all the while the Weaver effortlessly waded between them, disturbing not a single strand as she searched for Kavrash’s story amongst the millions of divergent patterns contained within the latticework.
When at last she had found the strand she was looking for, the Weaver followed it as it merged and diverged and connected with thousands of others, tracing each of these with a long fingernail as she worked. After a long moment she had spoken, her voice cold and serene, and Kavrash could still remember each word to this day. “We live within the womb of the world, and a great darkness is gestating here,” she had said. “Our minds and blades have grown soft and dull, leaving us incapable of facing the peril that awaits us.” The Weaver had glided towards Kavrash like a wraith as she spoke until the two were standing face-to-face. She then gently placed a wrinkled hand upon Kavrash’s belly and continued, “You carry the blood of the spider within you and her place is not here in this darkness, but in the light of the world above. Her strand is strong and it connects with dozens of others, all thick and sure and each bearing great weight, upon which thousands of other major strands connect.”
The Weaver had stared straight through Kavrash as she continued, “You must get to the world above and you must prepare her for what is to come. Your fate is not your own, it is hers, and your place is to give her the tools that she will need in order to succeed.”
Kavrash had not wasted a moment after that, packing her bags that very night and carrying her unborn daughter up to the scary world of the open and endless sky.
Back in the field, Kavrash reached her hand down and helped Lyric to her feet; a hand which the stubborn girl reluctantly accepted after a long moment. As the two began the slow walk back to the Inn, Kavrash draped her arm over her daughter’s shoulder and pulled her in close. “I know you think that I push you too hard but know that I do this for your own good. I do not think that your life will be one of pouring drinks and feeding sheep and sweeping floors. You are destined for more. And you did good today, really good.”
Lyric turned her head slightly to look at her mother, beaming at the praise. Kavrash continued on, “Now come, let us hurry back and wash up, I have a surprise for you.” Lyric looked at her quizzically. “Your Uncle Ipsin is coming by for a few days, and he …”
Kavrash couldn’t finish the sentence as Lyric yelped with joy and took off in a sprint towards the Inn. Kavrash smiled as she watched her disappear into the distance. Would Lyric actually go and join the Mages as Ipsin wanted her to? And was this the right move? It would give her more tools in her arsenal for what lay ahead, and possibly put her into the path of those she was fated to meet. Certainly more of a chance than she would in this sleepy town. Still, to put her training into the hands of others and entrust her to them, it was almost unthinkable.
“Mom, hurry!” came a loud cry from the door to the Inn. “He’s here!”
Ipsin would know what to do, he always did. Kavrash smiled and broke into a light jog. “Coming!” As she jogged she reflected upon the last words the Weaver had spoken to her before she had left:
“The very fate of the world may very well hinge upon a very small conflux of webs, of which hers is intricately tangled. Ten strands converge upon a shield of green, and two sets of five depart, bound together but separate, each set upon the same end but by different paths. The weight of the web is supported by these ten strands and they all lead towards ruin. Towards darkness. Towards the end of all things. Towards one strand formed of five that threatens to pull this entire web to the ground.”