Chapter 8: The Practice Block

The Guard Yard was full by noon.

Ladies in furs stood along the east wall, and lords in velvet along the west.

Three hundred soldiers lined the north side in grey tabards.

In the middle sat a straw dummy on a wooden block, dressed in a grey prison shift.

Someone had pinned a strip of copper-coloured ribbon to its head.

Haruka looked at the ribbon for a long time.

Then she looked at Prince Aldric, who sat on a velvet chair under a white canopy with Marguerite beside him, pale and straight as a candle.

"Captain Delamere," he called, pleasantly. "The court wishes to see your form."

Corwin stepped out of the line with a long bundle in both arms.

It was wrapped in black cloth.

"The Mercy Axe, Captain," he said quietly. "From the vault."

She took it.

And Haruka, who had spent six years lifting things for a living, frowned.

It was far too light.

She had expected a headsman's weapon, forty pounds of steel on a thick oak haft.

This weighed about as much as a sack of rice.

She unwrapped the cloth and held it up to the winter sun.

The blade was wide and gleaming and polished, but where it met the haft, a flake of black paint had chipped away.

Under the paint was pale wood.

The core of the head was wood, wrapped in a thin skin of silver.

She ran a thumb along the edge.

It was as thick as her thumb, and it was not sharp at all.

Her stomach dropped.

"Begin," said Aldric.

She walked to the block.

She had no choice, so she lifted the axe over her shoulder and brought it down on the straw neck with every ounce of control she had.

It did not cut.

It struck with a flat, heavy thud, and the dummy's head sagged sideways, half crushed, still attached.

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