Derek Stone's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Derek Stone had trained six years for a tournament he could no longer find. The heralds had come and gone from the villages below the cliff, and the date and place of the qualifying trials went with them. Miss the trials, miss the tournament. Miss the tournament, miss the only chance in Firwood to be named its strongest warrior. He stood on the battlements of his father's old keep and watched the road. The stone under his boots was chipped from a hundred winters. Banners hung from the towers, faded now, stitched by hands long dead. Derek was twenty-two, broad through the shoulders, brown hair cut short for the helm. He had been swinging a blade since he was tall enough to lift one. He had no name yet. That was the problem the tournament would fix. His cat pushed against his shin. The Maine Coon wore its harness of buckled leather and steel plate, tail flicking above the parapet. Derek had strapped the armor on it as a joke when it was a kitten. The cat had refused to take it off since. "The heralds skipped us," Derek said. "Again." The cat blinked at him. He had already ridden to the crossroads inn that morning. The innkeeper claimed the trials were in Harrow. A drover at the well said Blackferry. A boy selling eggs swore his uncle had heard Oak Hollow. Three towns, three directions, and only one was true. Derek could not ride to all of them in time. He went down through the keep to the garden his mother had kept before she died. Most of it had gone to weed. One thing still grew: a pale flower she had planted by the well, its petals glowing faint even in daylight. She had told him, when he was small, that its bloom tracked the moon of the founding festival. The festival the tournament opened. Derek knelt. The flower leaned east. Not north to Harrow. Not south to Blackferry. East, toward Oak Hollow. He stared at it a long moment. His mother's word against three men's rumors. He had trusted her on smaller things and been right. He went to the stable and saddled his horse. He filled a satchel with dried meat, a whetstone, and coin. The cat followed and jumped up behind the saddle without being asked. At the gate he stopped. If the flower was wrong, he would ride two days east and arrive at an empty field while other men fought for his place. If it was right, he would arrive as a stranger, with no sponsor and no herald's writ to enter. Derek touched the hilt of his sword. He nudged the horse forward, under the arch, onto the east road. Behind him the keep grew smaller. Ahead, he did not yet know which problem he was riding toward.