Training will take you only so far. In the Great Hall, hour after hour, bouts of fatigue, pain, exhaustion in equal measure, wave after wave, day after day, adding to the years we had. It all came to the moment. The moment when you would have to kill a man.

There are lores which speak of Slinger power. They say we kill with a word. Others, superstitious ones, say only killers become Slingers. It is something that is in us so we are already cut-off, lost from the world of men, destined to become something other than we are.

It serves us well to have that. Because when we kill we are already dead. I don’t know how to express this. Once, a long time ago, under a different sky when things were different again I had it all explained to me. Korda, the others… we spent a long time thinking about it. Analysing what we were doing, what was being done to us.

Then, when we had to do it. There was not time to think.

We were dead. Dead to the world. Instruments of justice. Korda was right. The moment the sword is drawn we are transformed, unsheathed, unfleshed. What we know is that life is painful. We see the beauty of the world, we see it in the drop of a dew drop in the morning leaves at dawn. We feel it in the wind that comes down from the white mountains full of snow and cold. We sense it in the hiss of a blade as it cleaves the air. And it is so strong. So powerful. The beauty kills us.

When swords are drawn we are dead. Ready to embrace what we are but has not yet come to pass. Without life we are all sword. An instrument of justice, ready to kill.

We discussed this for a long time. Trying to understand the words. There is a paradox here I cannot really explain. When we are dead, swords drawn, we feel most alive. There is something that makes us connect. That’s why we do not drink. Drunkenness is a real death. It blunts the senses.

The first time I had to kill I was coming back from town. I was alone. Easy pickings for anyone who did not know me. It was dark on the dusty path that led from there to the Great Hall and I had been away all day. It was a day of watching. I was unarmed. Students had to leave their weapons back when they were watching and I had spent a long time at the market, observing the seller-girls, watching them move amongst the stalls, listening to their banter.

It made me feel at peace with myself and it was a quality I took home with me as I hurried through dusk, passing the city gates. Heading home.

I knew I was being followed about an hour later when I saw the shadows in the forest gloom move against the light rather then away from it. It was full moon and easy to see and shadows are sharp-edged then. They had not thought they should hide. Or maybe they thought they did not need to. Three. One on horseback.

I stopped.

There’s no point in playing games. When death comes you have to welcome it and in that instant I forgot who I was. There was some sort of cry from the forest edge and the man on horseback rode fast towards me, a blade flashing in the moonlight. Movement, at the edge of my vision. A three-pronged attack, distraction within a feint. They were experienced then. Taking no chances.

I waited.

Time stopped. The bright moon froze and I saw the man on the horse ride towards me, blade raised, cleaving, an arc. The steel singing. His frayed sleeve brushing against the bridle where he held the reins with one hand. The horse’s eyes white with terror. The night gallop unsettling it and the sword arced.

How can you explain these things? I moved. Head the blade, felt its beauty and the passage of its steel. And I was quick. Intercepting it as I had been trained to do a thousand times before. Already moving away from the falling rider, blade in hand, ready to meet the other two running.

They were swift. And one had a gun. Raised it to point at me, fumbling with its mechanics, the bulky muzzle in direct line and I had nowhere to hide and I did then what was the only thing I could have done. I moved, stepped back, side, back, side, forward and threw the sword, catching him as he moved to realign his aim, full on. The point entering his chest, dead centre, just below the sternum and stopping only when the hilt hit him, unbalancing him and the shot as the muzzle pointed upwards made the horse start and bolt. The fallen rider dragged by a foot caught in the stirrups.

The last one stopped short. Turned and ran back in the forest and I was left alone. Looking at the man who was now growing cold. He was gone.

Slowly I descended back into the world. The hyper-awareness of my time ebbing and I felt…alone. I was sad because he was gone. Sad because I knew that no one can understand the love Slingers have for the world. The love we have for others and how killing causes us so much pain.

When I got back to the Great Hall I was late. More than an hour late.

I was flogged.