Ricky TooHigh's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

Three days after the crimson mage left, Ricky TooHigh could stand again. He leaned on the inn's back rail and watched his grandson work the yard. Hunter TooHigh swung the smoking staff in slow arcs, one hand, then two. The wood no longer flared white at every motion. It held a steady thread of pale smoke, like a banked coal. "Wider stance," Ricky said. "The staff pulls where your weight goes. If you lean, it burns." Hunter reset his feet. He cut the staff down. A line of frost split the mud where the tip passed. He looked at the frost, then at his grandfather. For the first time in six years, he almost smiled. "Again," Ricky said. They worked through the morning. By noon Hunter could hold the cool-word for a full breath. By dusk he could hold it through a shield turn. Ricky sat on the step and felt his own hands, which no longer shook. The staff's heat was leaving him for good. He did not know if that meant he had months or weeks. On the fourth day the road brought company. A huge man came up the track first, bare-chested under a fur mantle, a battle axe over one shoulder. His beard was braided in two thick ropes. He saw Hunter in the yard and roared a laugh that startled the chickens. "TooHigh! They said you were dead in a ditch. I rode a week to spit on your grave." Hunter dropped the staff into his off hand and gripped the big man's forearm. "Casius. You smell worse than the horse." "The horse died of shame," said a second voice, low and dry. A dwarf came around the corner with a wrought iron hammer at his belt and a mud-caked hound at his heel. The dog went straight to Hunter and shoved its head under his hand. "He walked the last two days. Complained about it every step." "Duran." Hunter's shoulders dropped an inch. Ricky saw it. He had not seen the boy set down a guard since the inn. Casius Orcbane looked at the smoking staff. Then at the old man on the step. "So this is the grandfather. The one who wouldn't teach you." "He's teaching me now," Hunter said. Duran sledge crouched by the frost line in the mud. He touched it, sniffed his finger, and stood. "A crimson blade mage passed us on the south road. Half-elf. Red cape. He asked if we knew a boy with a hot stick. We said no." He looked up at Hunter. "He's two days out. Maybe three." Ricky closed his hand on the rail. The wood creaked. Hunter set the staff butt-down in the mud. The smoke thickened, then thinned, then held. "Then we have two days," he said. "Grandfather. Teach faster."