Young Warriors (27 page)

“But now the troll is dead,” the warrior said, “and the treasure has been found again.”

“Yes!” Brinn said. “By me!” And with that, sword swinging, he charged the warrior.

A few moments later, he stumbled out from the other side of the cloud of dust. At no point had his flailing sword found the warrior's flesh.

How was that possible? The dust was thick, but it wasn't
that
thick. Brinn had run right for the man, and he had been swinging wildly. Had the warrior stepped out of the way at the last second, obscuring himself in the swirling haze?

Confused, Brinn spun around to face the cloud again. The gleaming warrior had turned to face Brinn too, but otherwise didn't appear to have moved at all. It was almost as if Brinn had passed right through him.

“And if you take that treasure back to your village,” the warrior said casually, as if Brinn had not just attacked him, “you think it will change everything?”

“Yes!” Brinn shouted angrily. “Of course it will!” His village was desperately poor. But even as he thought this, Brinn remembered that the surrounding villages were poor too. The whole kingdom was poor. And if word got out that one village had acquired a great treasure, what would stop the other villages from wanting a portion of it? But there hadn't been war among the villages since—well, Brinn had
never
heard of such a war. For the most part, they were all equally poor, so what would be the point?

Sure, he thought, there might be some scuffles, some inter-village conflicts. But that was the consequence of wealth. Besides, maybe Brinn could leave some of the treasure here for a while—after he defeated the warrior, that is. It was true that his village didn't need
all
of the gold and jewels. It wasn't like his village was
desperately
poor. No one was starving, exactly.

“But will they believe you if you tell them there isn't any more treasure?” the warrior asked. “Can you be sure they won't come into the Labyrinth themselves, looking for the rest?”

Brinn knew the warrior was right. The villagers
would
come looking for the rest—and eventually they would find it.

Wait a minute, he thought. Brinn hadn't said that part about not taking all of the treasure out loud. So how had the warrior known what he was thinking?

Once again, Brinn squinted at him in the haze. “How did you
do
that?”

“Do what?” the warrior asked, as if he really didn't know.

“You knew what I was thinking!”

At that, the warrior did not speak. Brinn glanced over at the half-sealed entrance to the cave, and at the pile of boulders outside.

Now it was Brinn's eyes that lost their focus. “The troll knew he was dying,” he whispered. “So he was hiding the treasure so that no one would ever find it. To make sure no one ever fought over it again.”

Again the warrior did not speak. In the blur of his own eyesight, Brinn suddenly thought he saw other figures gathered in the haze before him, glints of sharpened swords and polished armor, pennons of purple and yellow.

Brinn gasped, raising his sword. But when he looked more closely, he saw that he was mistaken, that it was only that single warrior alone in the dust.

“Huh?” he said. “Where did they—?”

“Who?” the warrior asked.

Brinn lowered his sword again. “But if I don't take the treasure,” he said softly, “won't you? Then there will be war anyway.”

“I am not here to take the treasure,” the warrior said. “I couldn't even if I wanted to.” And somehow Brinn knew without question that the man was not lying.

“Who are you?” Brinn demanded suddenly. “Why
are
you here?”

“Let's just say I have an interest in where the treasure ends up. I happen to think it should stay exactly where it is.”

“Maybe I
will
leave the treasure here,” Brinn said, oddly relieved. “Who needs it, anyway? Wealth makes one a king, not a warrior. What I came for was the horn! And I can still take
that
back to the village!”

“And then people will know the Troll in the Labyrinth has been defeated?” the warrior asked.

“Yes!” Brinn said proudly. “And then they will be able to come safely into the Labyrinth, and . . .”

And eventually someone might still find the treasure, Brinn thought.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yes?”

“But if I return empty-handed—” Brinn started to say.

“Yes?”

He didn't finish what he was thinking:
Then people won't
think of me as a great warrior!

“You never answered my first question,” Brinn said. “Who
are
you?”

But when Brinn looked again, the warrior was gone.

“Wait!” Brinn said, turning all the way around in the coliseum-like canyon. The dust was settling at last, and the sun was setting too, beginning to dip down under the rim of the canyon. But the warrior was nowhere to be seen.

Brinn looked down. There were footprints in the sand— his own. He could trace them from the side of the canyon, where he had hidden, to the dead troll and the cave. Then from the entrance of the cave through the place where the cloud of dust had been.

But from the warrior there were no footprints at all. It was as if he had never even been there.

“He wasn't here?” Brinn asked aloud. “He was only a . . .?”

“Ghost,” Irontongue said, speaking aloud the word that Brinn wasn't sure he would ever be able to bring himself to say.

It was a long walk back to his village, so Brinn set out that very evening. He wished there had been some way for him to seal the treasure inside the cave. Unfortunately the boulders were too heavy for human arms. But he had buried the fortune in the sand as best he could. And the story Brinn was formulating—a horrifying tale of defeat and woe about his encounter with the Troll in the Labyrinth—would act as a barrier of sorts. For a few years, anyway.

Brinn had only just begun the journey out of the Labyrinth when Irontongue asked him, “But now how are you going to prove you're a warrior?”

“Don't laugh,” Brinn said. “But I think maybe I just did.”

“That's just what I was thinking,” said the sword, who, as usual, insisted on having the last word.

BRENT HARTINGER

BRENT HARTINGER has been writing books since he graduated from college in 1986, but he didn't have any luck getting them published until 2001. That year, his luck definitely changed, and he has since sold nine novels to various publishers, including three teen novels (
The
Last Chance Texaco,
Geography Club,
and its sequel,
The Order of the Poison Oak
) and two fantasy novels (
Dreamquest
and the upcoming
The
Fifth Season
)
.
Brent also writes screenplays and plays, some of which are adaptations of his novels.

Of all the genres and mediums in which he writes, Brent most likes writing fantasy—preferably fantasy for young people—which is why he is so thrilled to be included in this anthology.

Brent lives outside Seattle, Washington, with his partner, novelist Michael Jensen. He loves meeting people and talking about the process of writing, and often speaks at schools, seminars, and conferences. Visit his Web site, “Brent's Brain,” online at
www.brenthartinger.com
.

AFTERWORD

Josepha Sherman

IS THE IDEA of young heroes and heroines strictly fiction? No, it certainly isn't. The fictional heroes and heroines in this book definitely have their parallels in history and folklore. In fact, in many of the world's cultures, young people, boys and girls alike, were expected to become warriors, to help protect their tribes and sometimes to show their worth as potential husbands or wives.

The pre-Christian Celts of Great Britain and Ireland actually wrote into their law codes (or at least had the law codes memorized before the days of writing) that for the protection of each clan, every noble family must have at least one child trained to be a warrior. If a family had no son, the daughter was trained to be a warrior. There seems to have been no taboo against a warrior woman marrying and raising a family, since there were always servants (or slaves) available to do the “traditionally female” daily work of cleaning, mending, and cooking. Indeed, women warriors could gain as much honor as the men. In the mythic cycle centering about the great Irish Celtic hero Cuchulain, the hero is trained in arms by the greatest warrior of all, the woman Scathach. Some scholars even think that at one time Scathach, too, had a cycle of stories about her, but none of those stories still exist.

The Vikings of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark also had a long tradition of teenage warriors. Boys were more often trained to be warriors than were girls, but there were girl warriors as well, who were sometimes called Shield Maidens. One of these young female warriors is Hervor, who learned how to fight while still a girl living in her maternal grandfather's house. Hervor avenges her father's death, then joins a band of Vikings and has many adventures as a warrior before finally settling down and taking a husband. Other young women warriors who sailed with the Vikings ran away from home rather than be forced into marriage. Among those were Sela, Stikla, and Alvid.

In ancient Greece, the boys of the land of Sparta were trained from birth to be warriors. Any weak baby was left in the mountains to die. The surviving boys began their military training at age seven. It was a harsh training, teaching the boys to be hardy and resilient, able to live off the land and ignore hardship. Girls were trained to be hardy, too, not as fighters but as the mothers-to-be of a warrior race.

The Cossacks, a martial people from the steppes of Russia, trained their boys in the warrior ways from birth. In fact, when a boy was born, his parents placed a weapon in the newborn's hand. By the time he was three, he would be an expert rider. Cossack boys would fight war games on horseback, and any boy who showed bravery and skill was praised.

India has its share of legendary young heroes, but three women stand out among them. The first of these is the historical Rani (or queen) Chennamma. Born in 1778, she was trained as a warrior from childhood and, after her marriage to Raja Mullasarja of Kittur, became leader of the women's wing of the royal army. The rani died in 1829. The second historical figure is Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi. Born in 1834, she fought against the British and their attempts to take over Jhansi, which was then an independent Indian province. Rani Laxmibai was raised as a warrior by her raja father and was as a child already an expert rider and sword fighter. She died in combat against the British in 1858, at the age of twenty-four, but is still remembered in many Indian folktales and ballads. A third young warrior woman is Jalkari Bai, also from Jhansi, who came from a poor family and had to teach herself how to fight so that she could protect herself. She is said to have killed a tiger with her ax when she was about ten. Tradition says that Jalkari Bai looked very much like Rani Laxmibai and was taken under the rani's wing.

Mongolia is the birthplace of one of the world's most famous warlords, Genghis Khan, who conquered almost all of Asia and much of Eastern Europe. He was born Temujin, son of a tribal leader, somewhere between AD 1150 and 1170. But his father was poisoned by an enemy when Temujin was about ten years old, and the boy was made a slave. Temujin refused to give up. He escaped when he was a young teen and, through courage and sheer willpower, began uniting the other Mongol tribes. By 1206, he had united them all, avenged his father's murder, and become known as Genghis Khan, or “Universal Ruler.”

In the nomadic tribal groups of North America, where food was found, not raised, and other tribes were always potential dangers, boys were trained to be hunters and warriors almost from the day they could walk. In fact, a boy's first toys often included a toy bow and arrow. Girls were trained to take care of the family and to gather whatever vegetables and fruits were available. However, whenever there are groups of people, there are exceptions to the rule. Some tribes, such as the Cheyenne, had a role for the bedarche, who was a gay boy or man who lived by choice as a female. The tribes who had this custom accepted gay people without any problem. Other tribes did not. In all the tribes, some girls chose to be warriors, either to escape marriage or because they felt a drive to protect their people and gain honor. The Oneida—who are one of the Six Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora—have a legend about a young woman warrior named Aliquipiso. Although captured and tortured by the Mingo, an enemy of the Oneida, Aliquipiso remained brave, pretended to give in, and deliberately led the enemy into an Oneida trap. The Cheyenne people tell of a historic brother-and-sister team of warriors who fought together and protected each other in battle.

The heroes and heroines in this book may, indeed, be fiction—but they do, indeed, have an honorable link to the real world.