Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 1 of 57

Damian Finucane swung his father's sword at the training post and missed. The blade bit dirt instead of wood. Three months ago the masked swordsman had cut his father down in the market square, then carved a scar across his mother's cheek before vanishing. Damian had sworn to find that man and kill him. But he could not even strike a post that did not move. His raven watched from a low branch. The bird tilted its head and made a dry, clicking sound, as if it counted his failures. Damian lowered the sword and wiped sweat from his eyes. His arms burned. His grip was wrong. He knew it, and knowing it did not fix it. If he faced the killer now, he would last one breath. "You hold it like a shovel," a voice said. Damian turned. An old woman stood at the edge of the clearing. She leaned on a cane, but her back was straight, and her eyes moved over him the way a butcher studies meat. He had never seen her before. She wore the gray robe of a sword master. "I need to learn," Damian said. "Fast. There's a man I have to kill." "Everyone who comes to me has a man to kill," she said. "Most of them die first." She pointed her cane past the trees. Beyond them rose a stone temple with tall arches and a cross at its peak. Its great doors stood shut. "That is the swordhall. I teach inside those walls, or not at all." Damian gripped the sword tighter. "Then teach me. I'll pay whatever you want." "You have nothing I want." She walked to him, slow, and took the blade from his hands before he could stop her. She weighed it, turned it, sighted down the edge. "This was a good man's sword. He is dead now?" "The masked swordsman killed him." Something shifted in her face. She lowered the sword and looked at Damian for a long moment. "I have hunted that man for twenty years," she said. "He killed my student. If you want him, boy, then your grief is my grief." She pressed the sword back into his hands and closed his fingers around the grip. "Come at dawn. The doors will be open. Be late and they will be shut for good." She turned and walked toward the temple. The raven lifted off the branch and followed her, circling the high arches. Damian stood alone in the clearing, his father's sword steady in his hands for the first time. He would have his training. But dawn meant the doors would open, and once they did, he could no longer pretend he was not ready. The old woman knew the killer. That made her the closest thing to a path he had. It also meant the hunt had already begun.