Anariel of Erudin: Valmoria's Wrath | Lord of the Rings

20. Wildfire

Turin had always been a warrior, even when we were children. With his wooden sword, he would spend hours training in the stables, from dusk to dawn sometimes, until his hands were bloody and full of splinters. Surprisingly, he did quite well by himself, something that shocked even the guards, who sometimes watched him at night.

One guard, however, was not so happy with his progress. He believed a peasant like Turin had no right to learn swordplay, so he took it upon himself to teach the boy a lesson he would never forget.

One spring night when the moon was half full, he approached Turin in the stables and challenged him to a friendly sparring match. The young boy eagerly accepted. But his wooden blade was no match for the guard's steel, and the guard showed no mercy. After quickly disarming the amateur, he proceeded to beat the boy violently with his own sword—a stick, he called it—and no matter how many times Turin cried, "Yield!" the guard would not stop, not even when the poor boy was choking on his own blood. Turin suffered thirty-two beatings that night, and while the bruises healed, the guard's last words remained forever ingrained in the boy's mind:

"Wood," he said, "can never become steel."

When Turin later shared that story, he told me not to take pity on him. He was glad it happened because it made him stronger. And the very next day, he forged another sword, one even greater than the last, and resumed his training. It didn't matter if nobody else believed in him; he believed in himself. He knew if he trained hard enough, he would one day earn a real sword. Until then, he would have to settle for twigs, and his only opponents would be shrubs, trees, and the occasional chicken—good for developing speed, so he said. When those failed to satisfy him, he did try to challenge another boy, but that didn't quite end the way he wanted.

It was the day after my ninth birthday, and I'd somehow managed to get captured by the evil orc king, played most convincingly by the butcher's boy, who'd recently hit a massive growth spurt that gave him the body of a troll. Turin, a hobbit in comparison, thought he could defeat his opponent with his quick feet and precision. That tactic, however, didn't seem to be working, and he'd already lost one of his greatest allies, Winnie the dwarf, who was tragically slain by the evil king within the first five minutes of battle. She lay a few feet away from us, occasionally returning to life in order to swat the bugs that flew too close to her.

Still, Turin fought on.

"Your reign of terror has ended!" Turin declared as he thrust his sword forward, just narrowly missing his beastly opponent. "I will defeat you and save the fair lady."

The king laughed. "Your movements are too slow. She will remain my slave forever!"

Meanwhile, the fair lady was standing right behind the pair of them. Honestly, I didn't know how I'd managed to get saddled with that role, but there I stood, and my only instructions were to act terrified and gasp whenever Turin appeared to be losing. Needless to say, I was doing a lot of gasping.

"Why must I be the captive?" I eventually protested, folding my arms over my chest. "I think I'm quite capable of saving myself."

"The brave knight needs a damsel to save," Turin argued. "It's what happens in all the great stories!"

"I'm no damsel!" I yelled and then muttered under my breath, "Besides, I would have saved myself by now."

In frustration, Turin dropped his guard for just a second, but that was all the king needed to defeat him. Before either of us knew it, the battle was over. The evil king had his blade pressed right against the side of Turin's neck. If it had been a real battle, Turin's throat would have turned into an open ale cask, pouring out more blood than the evil orc king could drink. Thankfully, it was only an imaginary wound, and the only thing flowing from Turin was a mouthful of obscenities. For a boy of nine, he had a very colorful vocabulary, something he likely picked up from the guards.