Nenia was a woman grown by the time Goridar deemed that there was nothing left for him to teach. Goridar gifted Nenia flexible leather armour, two long knives, a spear, bow and arrows, and bid her to take her leave. Nenia had just mounted her horse- a grey feisty mare with a black mane and tail- when Goridar limped towards her. Cave life had not been kind to him and though loath he was to admit it he was old. Something was grasped in his hand, long and wrapped in old oilskin.
‘This,’ he told her in soft reverence, ‘is my sword.’
He passed the bundle up to her and in wonderment she freed from its captive bindings a greatsword.
‘Talisar,’ she murmured, its name as legendary as Goridar himself. Few had ever truly seen the blade but there could be no doubt that it was this in Nenia’s hands. The greatsword shone red in the sun rise as though still fresh from battles long past. The grip, hilt and crossbar were lain with smooth dragon scales, and a moonstone the size of an egg for the pommel in the likeness of a skull.
‘It is for you.’
Nenia tore tear rimmed eyes away from this greatest of gifts to Goridar.
‘I cannot take this.’ She whispered.
‘You can,’ he told her, ’and you must. Too long has my fair blade been confined to a cage. You can restore her glory again. Wield her proudly, and true, and forever keep the one who gifted her to you in your heart.’
And Nenia swore she would.
And it was thus that they went their separate paths. Nenia would never again see Goridar, and likewise never could he, but he heard tales of Nenia, though she went by many different names, her sword a strike of light in battles dark tides and she never forgot him.
Some months later, in one of the sunnier regions of the North, the king Altord held a tourney of many skills for his soldiers and knights, and anyone could challenge anyone but none yet challenged the king. Three days into the contest Nenia rode, wearing a loose tunic, green trousers and still her old hunting boots, as well as leather armour over her chest and strapped at the arm and leg. A dusty blue cloak covered all, its hood pulled well up to shadow her face, although time and travel had caused her body to become hard and lean, roughening her features enough to hide her true nature without it. With her weapons and Talisar- bound in a simple scabbard- across her back, Nenia rode into the castle courtyard. She past the cheers and yells of crowds and the sounds of splintered shields, right to the platform in which king Altord and his knights were seated.
‘I wish to enter the tourney,’ Nenia called in her affected voice. The knights laughed at this slight, foolhardy stranger but the king, gracious to all, called back:
‘It is a crown to enter the tourney, son, and my soldiers are highly skilled.’
‘But I do not have a crown, and I am more than a match for any of your soldiers.’
One of the knights, Sir Calfrey, looked down at the impertinent, ambitious youth; small, light of voice and bare cheeked by lack of years, and saw his chance for sport.
‘My lord, if you would grant me the right I shall challenge this young lad, and pay his fee as well as my own.’
The king granted his request, yet silently prayed Sir Calfrey Stoic-Sword was gentle on the strange boy all the same.
Sir Calfrey and Nenia mounted their horses to the murmur of the anxious crowd and at the bell toll, charged. Two lances shattered against the others shield, Nenia having borrowed one from a sympathetic soldier, but neither came unseated. Each reared their horse and turned. Sir Calfrey drew his sword but Nenia discarded her shield and spurned her horse bare handed. They neared. Sir Calfrey hefted his blade and aimed a mighty swing- Nenia, however, was no longer there. She had swung over the side of the Goridar-designed backless saddle, under the horse and up, reseating herself on the other side as Sir Calfrey sped past. Sir Calfreys surprise was great, so great in fact that he rode his horse through the barrier in astoundment and was eliminated. Nenia dismounted. The tourney fee allowed three tries to the same or different challengers. Nenia was about to call her next challenger when a knight as close as could be to a true giant and known to all as Sir Balcor, leapt to his feet.
‘Trickery!’ He bellowed- what fame he held for height he lacked in dulcet tones. ‘Fiend! I challenge you to your second fight using only blades and you shall see how true men fight!’
Many in the crowd gasped, yet others closed their eyes and turned away from the inevitable dismemberment of the foolish boy for Sir Balcor wielded a double-headed battle-axe and wielded it well. Nenia shrugged and took her place. She had no love for lances anyway.
When both were mounted, Nenia’s head did not reach Sir Balcor’s elbow. While the knight cried varies pledges and curses in her direction, Nenia judged that, though certainly powerful, Sir Balcor’s size would make him slow, his axe cumbersome, and Goridar had taught her to use her slight frame to an advantage. Nenia drew her long knives, each with a hooked end.
Once more the bell tolled. Once more Nenia charged, this time against the Giants-Might. Sir Balcor aimed a blow over the opposite arm intended for her head. Nenia lent back against her horse’s flank until she was horizontal across its back. The axe glided harmlessly over her. With the hook of a knife, Nenia forced the shaft of the axe into the air and stabbed with the other into the weak spot of armour just beneath the shoulder. Breaking away, they turned, Sir Balcor livid, and spurned their mounts again. Mid-charge, Nenia leapt to her feet atop the saddle, poised and ready. One handed, sir Balcor hefted the axe, this time towards her shins, and cleaved thin air as Nenia jumped. Landing on the flat of the broad blade, she twisted and hit Sir Balcor through the helmet with the base of the heavy knife. The momentum of the swing carried the axe on even as its wielder slumped. Nenia vaulted from it to land seated on her still galloping horse. Sir Balcor slid from the saddle and did not rise. He was eliminated.
Nenia strode once more to the dais of the king.
‘I have a single challenge remaining?’
The king nodded. Quite a crowd had gathered by this particular tourney field to watch the strange boy who had bested two of the king’s most prized knights.
‘Then my next challenge,’ Nenia called, ‘is you, my lord.’
The knights that remained exchanged worried glances. They were honour bound to defend the king with their lives, but they were law bound to follow the rules of the tourney by their necks and it was clearly stated a tourney could only be won by yield, incapacitation and the occasional death.
‘What is your name?’ the king asked. Nenia considered.
‘Lartex, my lord.’
‘Very well, Lartex,’ the king stood, removing his cloak and other unnecessary affictions. ‘I accept your challenge.’
Into his hand, someone placed his sword, Trahearn. Legend claimed it was forged of fallen thunder iron. The king strapped it to his waist.
Nenia and the king took their places, once again with lances and shields. The third bell tolled. They charged. At the last second, king Altord swung his lance to the opposite side, catching Nenia with the pole and swept her to the ground. Nenia stood painfully as king Altord Storm-Hand reined in his horse on the far side of the field and dismounted- it was not chivalrous for one to ride if the other was grounded. He drew Trahearn, advancing. Nenia shed her shield and threw her cloak to one side, the memory of her first fight with Goridar burning bright inside her heart. From a pocket she drew a strip of thick black silk and used it to bind her eyes. The crowd laughed nervously. Even the king paused in his strides as she drew Talisar blind. Nenia repositioned her feet and waited- the dance of shadows had begun.
King Altord attacked, striking and feinting again and again but, blindfolded, Nenia knew exactly where he would strike before he even began the move. She evaded his blows with ease, her own strikes falling hard and fast, the king barely blocking them as she became the blade. But Storm-Hand was swift and Traehearn mighty.
Nenia dealt what could well have been a death stroke if the king hadn’t twisted aside and thrust up his sword. Both blades collided and Talisar was shorn in two. Nenia let the shards fly from her hands, that greatest gift falling broken through the sky. She could not falter, not now. Weaponless, Nenia rained down fury on the king with fists and feet instead, stronger and faster than she had ever been before and all the while the memory of her heroic brothers and brave Goridar blazed a flame like lightning inside her. And lightning is forever faster than thunder.
By a mighty kick, King Altord fell to the ground. Traehearn spun from his grip and still blindfolded, Nenia caught it from the air. The crowd froze as the thunder-iron blade was raised high, high into the air above the king. Nenia struck. A blur of silver shot through the sky and the blade embedded itself in the ground at the king’s feet.
‘I yield.’ She said.
King Altord stood carefully, watching the slight young figure with covered eyes kneeling in the dirt before him.
‘Why? You won not by trickery but the greater skill. You have earned your victory.’
‘I wish to fight for you, my lord, and become a knight. As such, I could never have won this challenge.’
Humbled, the king withdrew his sword, thrust deep into the ground. Reverence slowing his hands, king Altord pulled down the blindfold and tilted her chin. His eyes read her heart.
‘You have shown courage and skill far beyond your years and I see no pride to mar your nobility. Arise, stranger, for this day I knight thee Sir Lartex Shadow-Fiend. May you be remembered through song and foe alike as Unseer, Advocate of Night, for such nobility and battle fury have I seen only once before.’
And Nenia arose Lartex, a knight to the king.
‘Might I make a request, my lord?’ She asked.
‘You may, provided it is not my head for you relinquished that right when you yielded.’
‘I do not want your head my lord. I have a perfectly good one of my own. What I now lack is a sword. I wish for my blade to be reforged.’
‘Then it shall be.’
They dressed Nenia all in black leather- as she would take neither cumbersome plate nor clanking mail- studded with silver in mimicry of the stars, and a likewise helmet and a visor without eyes. Her faded cloak was replaced by one of pitch black cotton lined in smooth white silk, fastened by a moonstone pin. To match her sword. She kept her old hunting boots though, as a relic to her past and the path of her future, and the armour and weapons Goridar gifted to her she tended every day and none guessed or cared who she truly was.
 

When her sword was returned to her Nenia found that the heat of the forge had blackened the lower halves of each once blood red scales and the skull of the pommel had cracked, seemingly now to bare the semblance of the moon and stars. Its scabbard was now one of folded silver, studded this time with black stones. The king asked what she would call her blade, for all great weapons need a name. Nenia stared long and hard at the greatest of gifts and the glories that would be assigned to its name. It was Talisar no longer.
‘Goridar.’ And thus she named it.