To thnidu‘s prompt

“Kishiara, the Tower needs men right now.” The Elder was reduced to pleading. Then again, Kishiara was his last option. “You know that.”

“I don’t see why.” The Elder had chosen to talk to Kishiara during combat training; she didn’t take her eyes off her students as she fended off lightning bolts. “The sorceresses are doing fine.”

“Simple biology dictates that we need men as well.”

“Ugh. Can’t someone else do it?”

“Nobody else was… available.” Willing, he meant. Kishiara hissed.

“So it’s me by process of elimination.”

“Or the temple will only last another ten or fifteen years.”

“But I like – stop that, Jegan – like being me.”

“I know. And I apologize. But we all have to sacrifice something for the Temple.”

Kishiara couldn’t argue with that. They all knew what the Elder had sacrificed, decades ago when the need had been different. “Fine. Let me finish this class first.”

The Elder had not expected fast acquiescence. “So soon?”

“If not now, Elder, you will find my mind changed. Now… let me finish this?”

The Elder left, to prepare the ritual. They all had sacrifices to make. He reminded himself of that again and again. The tower would not live without men, and Kishiara was the only one who could provide them with men.

She went into the ritual pool naked, willing, her head held high although her hair had been shaven off as part of the preparation. In order to succeed, the ritual’s notes said, leave as much self as possible outside the pool.

Kishiara’s head went under the water. In due time – an hour that seemed an eternity – seven male heads emerged. The Tower had its sorcerers.

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For ellenmillion‘s Prompt

“Stand there.”

Terena had placed Tho off to one side and handed him a short blade. At first, he’d been a bit worried for his safety – she had dressed him in enough chain mail to make a handkerchief and just enough leather to hold it on, which left far more of him exposed than he liked.

Then he’d watched her go to work, with her sword-kin, and his only worries had settled in to “why can’t I move my feet?” and “exactly how silly do I look?” The blade looked as decorative as his armor, far too shiny to be an actual weapon.

Tho knew weapons. He’d been a blacksmith’s apprentice, before his village was sacked and he’d been taken captive. He knew armor, too.

Terena was carrying a weapon, a real one, and wearing real armor, a proper breast-plate, greaves, and leather under that. As Tho had learned in the last day and a half, she also had the muscle to carry both weapon and armor.

Tho did, too, of course. But Tho had a tiny shiny blade and tinier shinier scale maile. And feet stuck in place. Which really wasn’t a logistical concern, because Terena and her sword-kin were stacking up the bodies before they ever got to Tho.

He jabbed the silly blade into the arm of someone who fell too close to him, just to make himself feel better. The arm twitched and stopped moving.

“There.” Terena beheaded someone with a tidy swoop – the tiny spurt of blood suggested the beheading was just for show – and jumped on top of the pile. “That’s done.” She twisted back to look over her shoulder. “Well, now that I’ve paid for you, boy, let’s find out what you can do.”

Tho looked at the pile of bodies. Two days ago, those had been the bandits who had sacked his home. He looked at Terena and her kin, and then back at the bodies.

This, his mother would have said, was out of the kettle and into the fire.

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For inventrix‘s prompt

“…and always remember, when fighting the Hosether, is that the only true and clean way to kill is with a blade.”

Instructor Blaias had lost one arm, his off arm, in a battle with the Hosether (or perhaps the Glarth); now he taught the next generation of sword-fighters how to war properly and with honor.

They listened, the young students holding their practice swords, wide-eyed with awe. They listened as he worked them through their exercises. They listened as he showed them how to block properly, so that they would not lose an arm themselves, or a leg or their lives.

They listened as he told them the evil of sorcery. The way that a distance kill was both immoral and illegal, the way that the cleanliness of a blade finished the soul properly, the way that only sword-training gave a truly disciplined soul.

The student Gilcas listened as intently as the rest, learning the way to cut cleanly, for all that he missed his twin.

~

“…and always remember, when fighting the Rodrigerafaus, that the only true and clean way to kill is with a spell.”

Teacher Charis had lost her left eye and half of her nose in a battle with the Glarth (or possibly the Rodrigerafaus); now she taught basic spellcasting for the next generation of fighters.

They listened, the young apprentices. They watched, wide-eyed with awe, as she showed them how you killed someone without ever showing your face. How you took the personal out of the kill, how you took your own soul out of it. They watched as Teacher Charis showed them how to sling a death-spell, so that the death was quick and perfect.

They took it all in, as she showed them how a sword-death was both illegal and immoral, how the blade severed the soul from the body, so that it entered the afterworld bereft of its needed skin, the way that the death-spell finished the body and soul in one swift shot, the way that only spell-casting created a truly disciplined soul.

The student Sashlie listened intently, practicing the motions and whispering the words to herself, learning a clean death, for all that she missed her twin.

~

There was never a time when the Rodrigerafaus were not at war with the Glarth, or the Glarth at war with the Hosether, the Hosether with the Rodrigerafaus. There was never a time when those with swords were not up against those who slung death-spells.

“When you fight, the only true and clean way…” Gilcas, his sword hilt-deep in a Glarth soldier, thought the blood splatter across his face was anything but clean. He muttered a spell he wasn’t supposed to know, and watched the soul separate and fly away. There were a lot of souls leaving today, and the sun hadn’t reached its zenith yet.

“…make the death clean and perfect.” Sashlie used a forbidden knife-block to push a soldier off of her, and pressed a death spell into another soldier’s face. The look on his face was in no way impersonal; the feel of his death flooding back over the spell was intimate and dirty.

She watched the way the body twisted into the heavens. There were a lot of deaths for the gods today, and the sun was barely climbing up its stairs.

The two, half a battle-field apart, took it all in, using the motions they’d been taught and the lessons they had learn, for all that they missed their twin, for all that the cleanest of deaths left them feeling filthy inside.

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