"The barrier is thinning," Elder Oakhaven continued, his hand resting heavily on his staff. "The training we have been giving the youths—the wooden staves, the forms, the rhythmic katas—it is no longer a preparation for a distant future. It is a rehearsal for a play that has already begun. We must accelerate the trials."
"They are children," Miram whispered, a fierce protective edge cutting through her fear. "If we throw them against things that bleed black ash, we are simply sending them to the slaughter."
The heaviest door at the back of the chamber creaked open, a young messenger standing out of breath in the threshold, his face pale as milk.
The elders turned as one.
Luk walked in behind the guard.
Luk walked in; he had on a loose-fitting, short-sleeved linen tunic that fell just above or at the knee, which was light brown in colour, accompanied by dark brown trousers. A slender leather cord is tied around his waist, cinching the loose tunic to his waist.
The elders all turned to look at him.
" Hey, Luk, you are here….. We were just talking about the recent events"
Elder Miram said as she looked directly at Luk.
" Yes, I am aware", Luk said.
" One of my best students came into contact with a creature, and luckily she was able to defeat it" Luk continued.
The elders all looked surprisingly at themselves as they listened to Luk.
" But she was just really lucky" Luk said
The elders had recently put Luk in complete charge of supervising the trainees. Because he spent every day in the dirt with the youths, watching their forms, tracking their bruises, and testing their limits, he had come to the council chamber to settle the matter once and for all: were the trainees truly ready for what was coming, or were they just children holding sticks?
"You can argue about prophecy and thinning barriers all night," Luk said, his voice deep and entirely devoid of fear as he walked right up to the slate table, looking the elders in the eye.
"But if you want to know if they are ready to fight, you ask the man who bleeds with them."
The elders fell completely silent, waiting for his verdict.
"They will perish without more time," Luk said, his voice flat and cutting through the room like a winter wind. He did not mince his words, nor did he offer any comforting illusions to the desperate council.
He leaned his heavy palms on the edge of the slate table, looking directly at Elder Vane. "If you put real steel in their hands today and send them into the valley, you are not sending an army. You are sending a blood sacrifice."
Elder Miram let out a sharp, ragged breath, while Vane's face darkened with a mixture of anger and anxiety. "We do not have the luxury of time, Luk!" Vane barked, gesturing toward the twisted, black scale resting on the stone. "The anomaly is widening. Every hour we waste is an hour the shadows use to gather at our gates!"
"Then they will kill us at our gates while our youths are at least prepared to die bravely," Luk countered, his tone unyielding. He lifted one of his large, calloused hands, pointing to the scars crisscrossing his knuckles.
"Yesterday, I watched the strongest boy in the cohort throw a strike with the Bokken. His form was flawless, beautiful enough to win a tournament in the capital. But when I stepped inside his guard and put my weight against his chest, he froze. His eyes went wide, his breath caught in his throat, and he tripped over his own loose tunic."
Luk stood up straight, crossing his arms over his chest. "A wooden weapon lets you pretend. It lets you think a battle is a dance of points and clean katas. But a monster does not care about form. It cares about meat. The children still think they are playing a game, Elders. If they face a real blade or a real claw with that mindset, the sheer shock of violence will paralyse them before they can even raise a parry."
The council chamber grew suffocatingly quiet. Even Elder Oakhaven, the blind mystic, remained silent, his milk-white eyes fixed on Luk, acknowledging the hard, military truth of the fighter's words.
"They need to understand malice," Luk murmured, his voice softening slightly but losing none of its grim weight. "They need to feel what it's like to fight when they are exhausted, when their hands are slick with sweat and fear, and when the opponent isn't stopping just because a wooden tip touched their ribs. Give me a few months. Let me break their illusions in the courtyard before the monsters break their bones in the wild."
" But what do we do in the meantime?" Another Elder asked.
They all nodded in agreement, waiting for an answer from Luk as they all turned towards him.
" Uhm, I will alert the trained guards and make sure they are all stationed at the locations where some of these creatures had been spotted ", Luk replied.
The elders exchanged grim glances, the weight of the decision pressing heavily upon the room. Finally, Elder Oakhaven nodded, his blind eyes fixed on the centre of the table. "You have your time, Luk," the old man said, his voice weary but resolute. "We grant you three months. Not a day more."
Luk straightened, his face an unreadable mask of grim satisfaction. "Three months is a narrow bridge," he said, adjusting the leather belt of his tunic. "But I will make it wide enough for them to cross."
********************************************************
The very next morning, the grey mist still clung to the stone flags when Luk walked out onto the training grounds. The trainees stood in a neat, symmetrical line, their polished wooden swords and staffs held high in flawless, ceremonial stances. They looked like a painting of warriors.
Luk hated paintings.
He didn't say a word. He walked to the centre of the courtyard, picked up a heavy wooden staff, and slammed it viciously against the stone table, shattering a row of neatly organized wooden daggers.
The loud CRACK echoed off the walls, making half the youths jump and drop their guards.
"Look at you," Luk rumbled, his voice cutting through the damp air. "The elders wanted to give you steel today. They wanted to send you into the valley to fight the things that tore the eastern watch-post to splinters."
A collective murmur of fear and excitement rippled through the line. One of the youths holding two short wooden daggers shifted his weight, his eyes wide.
"But I told them no," Luk continued, stepping right into the boy's space, his towering frame casting a long shadow over the trainee's loose tunic. "I told them you would all die in five minutes. Because right now, you are playing a game. You think a fight is about looking beautiful."
He reached out, grabbed the boy's collar, and jerked him forward, completely breaking his perfect stance. The boy stumbled, his face turning red with embarrassment.
"For the next three months, there are no more clean katas," Luk announced to the terrified crowd. "There are no points. You will wear your heaviest sparring gear until your shoulders ache. You will run the perimeter walls until your lungs burn. And when you spar, you will strike to bruise, because a bruise is the only thing that will remind your body that a mistake has a cost."
He stepped back, raising his short staff into a low, menacing guard. He looked at the student holding the two short wooden daggers.
"Attack me," Luk commanded. "Do not wait for a whistle. Do not think about the rules. Show me if you want to be a warrior, or if you just want to wear the clothes."
" Come on", Luk yelled as he wore a straight face. He picked up a long wooden sword that was lying on the floor very close to him.
The trainees all stood still, too scared to move an inch.
" Come on, boy"
" Let me see you come at me ", He commanded as he moved into a fighting stance.
The boy just stood trembling; he was so shocked and terrified of the sudden turn of events.
" Why not face me?" A feminine voice could be heard among the students.
Luk turned in the direction of where the voice was coming from. He knew that voice.
The line broke as the students gave way for her to come out.
IT WAS MAYA.
" Alright, Maya, let's see what you have got ", Luk said
The other boy quietly sneaked back into the crowd as Maya walked out.
Maya grabbed a wooden sword from one of the trainees standing beside her.
"SORRY, " she said quietly.
" Come on, Maya ", Luk commanded, walking slowly in a circle, waiting for Maya to attack.
Maya ran quickly towards Luk, raising her wooden sword really high.
The other students gasped.
CLASH
The sound of two wooden swords hitting each other could be heard echoing through the whole yard.