‘It most assuredly is, perfect for fighting one-handed with that blade, and without a shield.’ The big warrior looked at him thoughtfully. ‘A moment if you please.’
He walked away and returned. He returned with his enormous axe. ‘I would not normally allow another to bear this weapon, but show me how you would hold this axe.’
Tyrion shrugged and took the weapon, holding it two-handed across his body, feet apart, left in front of right.
‘Like you had been training with it for years,’ Korhien muttered. He seemed perplexed.
‘You say you can use a bow. Show me!’
‘I thought you were going to teach me how to use a sword,’ Tyrion said.
‘Time enough yet for your first lesson,’ said Korhien. ‘For the moment, indulge me.’
Tyrion brought his bow and strung it, strapped on his quiver and aimed at the target he had set up on the western wall of the villa. He breathed easily and loosed three arrows one after the other, placing them easily in the central ring he had made. They were not difficult shots and yet Korhien seemed impressed. A small crowd of warriors had begun to gather around them. They had begun to talk quietly among themselves.
‘Technique with a bow... perfect,’ he said, as if he had a list in his head and he was checking something off against it. ‘Spear now.’ He handed Tyrion one from the rack. ‘Cast it at the target.’
Tyrion smiled and turned, throwing the spear as part of the same motion he had taken the weapon. He was showing off now and he knew it. The spear landed in the central ring of the target and buried itself there, among the arrows. Korhien’s eyes narrowed.
‘I think I have seen enough,’ he said.
‘Enough for what?’ The warrior considered his answer for a long moment, as if undecided as to what he should actually say.
‘Enough for me to see that you will not be as difficult to teach as your father.’
‘I am glad to hear that. Shall we begin?’
‘Are you so anxious to learn how to kill?’ Korhien asked.
It was a serious question, and Tyrion sensed that more depended on his response than at first appeared. He decided, as he inevitably did, that honesty was the best policy.
‘I already know how to kill,’ he said. ‘I am anxious to learn to use a sword.’
‘Who have you killed?’
‘I have killed deer,’ said Tyrion, a little embarrassed now.
‘Killing another elf, or even an orc or a human, is not the same thing,’ said Korhien.
‘In what way?’ Tyrion asked, genuinely curious. He did not doubt for a moment that Korhien possessed personal knowledge of this subject.
‘For one thing they are intelligent beings who know how to fight. They will try to kill you in turn.’
‘I have killed mountain lions and monsters come down from the Annulii.’
‘Monsters?’
‘Mutated creatures with the forms of animals all mixed together, or so the other huntsmen assured me.’
‘You take me aback, doorkeeper. I came here expecting sheltered and scholarly princes, like their father once was, not someone who speaks quite so casually of killing.’
‘Is it a bad thing?’ Tyrion asked, well aware that his father found him coarse, violent and unruly, and was often embarrassed by his behaviour.
‘Not in the world we live in,’ said Korhien.
Tyrion was relieved. He had already discovered that Korhien’s good opinion was important to him, and he felt the big warrior was capable of teaching him about those things that were important to him, not just to Father and Teclis. He had long ago outstripped the local hunters in his ability with bow and spear.
‘You said you were going to teach me how to use a sword.’
‘And I am an elf of my word,’ said Korhien. ‘I thought I would need to begin by telling your father’s son which end of a sword was which, and which parts were used for doing what, but I suspect that in your case this might prove redundant. So let us move on to the practice swords.’
‘Wooden swords,’ said Tyrion, disappointed.
‘Everyone has to start somewhere, even you, doorkeeper. Do you have some around here?’
‘In the stables, on the rack.’
‘Typical... of your father I mean... to keep them there.’
Tyrion laughed at the obvious truth of what Korhien was saying and went to fetch them. The wooden swords were much more like clubs than real blades. They had handles and cross-hilts but where the blades would have been on