Squire of War

by M. H. Johnson

  The man then turned a concerned eye toward Jessica, helping her to her feet. “My Lady Calenbry, are you fit to continue?” he quietly asked.

  Feeling a bit shaky, Jess collected herself, spat out a gob of blood and nodded, this time locking her visor once she slammed it shut once more.

  The overseer gazed coldly at Jess’s opponent. “Why did you not cease immediately, as per rules, once your opponent scored the point?”

  Mord had already raised his own visor, his honey-laden voice designed to soothe, even as Jess could feel the cold hatred of his eyes burning into her own. “Forgive me, overseer, but in actuality the match is not over until the whistle is blown, and of course it is for us to act with all vigor while in the midst of the contest. Now, as the whistle had not been blown, I had assumed it was your intent we continue, as we all know such weak cuts delivered at a poor angle to the temple are rarely fatal.” Mord flashed a condescending smile. “Surely, good overseer, that is time enough for a man whose life was in peril to seize the Vor and charge into his opponent, snatching life and victory from the jaws of defeat. Would you not agree?”

  Jess fumed inside, despite her dizziness and creeping nausea. Her snapping strike had been neither weak nor off angle. Had her blade been sharp and he not wearing a finely forged helm, it would have cleaved deep into his skull, killing him instantly. She wondered if the judge understood this, or if it even mattered, really, at that point.

  The overseer paused, considering. “Even were that the case, young Mord de Plaga, it does not justify why you went out of your way to raise your opponent’s visor whilst pummeling her. You could have simply grappled.”

  Young Mord actually had the gall to fake thoughtful surprise. "A good point regarding the grapple, overseer. But as you know, we who train for war are taught to act with ruthless efficiency, to seize any opening. I suppose in the heat of the moment I did what I had been trained to do. Yank up the visor before striking in close quarters, a viable tactic whilst battling the common masses. But surely any knight worth her salt would have a helm that precludes such a maneuver, or at least have the common sense to lock her visor before the battle?"

  Jess fumed as the young lord smirked, somehow implying it was her fault for not having locked her visor, never mind the fact that they were mimicking an unarmored bout for this first contest. His actions had been clearly designed to hurt and demoralize her far more than they were to win the match.

  He hated her for scoring a point against him and had wanted to make her suffer for it, and that was all there was to it.

  Bitterly, Jess swore to herself she'd never go into a challenge or even a training bout without locking her visor shut in the future, and could well imagine her father's rueful smile. "The lessons of war are often hard ones, my Jess. Best you learn them well, and count yourself lucky to be able to do so, no matter how humiliating the lesson or bitter the defeat." Those words echoed through her as a memory came unbidden, her father sighing, gazing off into the hearth fire one night, haunted by visions only he could see. "All too often, a poorly taught student's only chance at redemption is in the next life. As long as you live to see another day, my Jess, you should always count yourself lucky."

  Jess realized then that she had never before had to worry about securing visors or expecting dirty blows from corners unseen. Safe in the warm bosom of her family, secure in their love, Jess had never before faced a formal bout with opponents who wished to do her actual harm. She would never take an opponent’s sense of honor for granted again, she promised herself.

  The overseer gazed coldly at the young man for a few moments more before speaking. “Point and match go to Jessica de Calenbry. Your helm rang with the blow, sir. Unarmored contest decided in Jessica de Calenbry’s favor. Next match is armored.”

  The judge’s sympathetic gaze was one Jess found oddly touching for all that it shamed her. Jess wondered if he’d take such pity, were she other than a girl. “Are you fit to continue, Lady Calenbry?” he asked quietly.

  She gave a slow nod, not trusting herself to speak. She carefully breathed out of her mouth as the blood dripped down her throat, knowing she would rather die than cry yield to the hateful man before her, shattered nose or no.

  “Very well then. Ready yourselves… Begin!" And with a sharp clap, Jess faced her nemesis once more, even as Mord favored her with a mocking wink before slamming shut his visor and making a deliberate show of locking it, approaching her in half-sword grip much as she held her blade; one hand on the hilt and one on the blade itself. Armored gauntlets protected their palms even as they prepared to use their blades as half spears of sorts. The grip allowed for extra precision and power when attempting to ram the point into chinks in their enemy's armor, or crack bones and bruise vulnerable flesh under mail, even if the links themselves proved difficult to rupture. Of course, the training blades they had selected their weapons from were all blunt with deliberately rounded tips, but the overseer would score points judging on how effective their maneuvers appeared.

  Jess grimaced, knowing in her gut that Mord wouldn’t settle for half-swording. There were other ways to use their blades and bodies to deadly effect even against armored foes, and she had no doubt that Mord was just as well versed as she was in the implementation of those techniques.

  Jess gripped her blade cautiously, waiting for him to commit before she tried to seize control of their contest. Sure enough, the moment he met her half-sword to half-sword and felt her tense against him, he adroitly stepped back, expertly flipping his sword as he spun around with the hilt of his blade now raised high over his head. Mord gave a terrific roar as he swung his weapon thunderstrike style, the blade itself gripped near the point, allowing for devastating blows against even a well-armored opponent, as the center of balance was but inches from the crossguard.

  Jess felt a fierce moment's exhilaration as she crashed into him, having sensed his feint, instinctively propelling herself forward to close the gap before his weapon could complete its deadly arc, fluidly darting under his overreaching blade even as her own half-sword slammed with considerable force into the lightly mailed gap in his armpit. For all that thunderstrikes could be devastatingly powerful, they were also slow. Having sensed what Mord had intended, she had countered perfectly, or so she had thought for that single triumphant moment.

  “Half point to Jessica de Calenbry,” the overseer dutifully called even as Mord bellowed, dropping his torso, and ramming into Jess’s gut with such terrible, unexpected ferocity that she was left breathless, her blade utterly unable to counter the force of his body crashing into hers.

  Jess found herself slammed to the ground in a dazed heap, chilled by Mord's unnatural strength even as he raised his blade high. A blade she had thought wrenched out of his grip, yet somehow, he had hung onto it. And with a hideous laugh that clawed at her brain, Mord began pummeling her supine body with a berserker's fury.

  Over and over again he slammed the crossguard of his sword thunderstrike style into her torso and legs with mad, frenzied abandon, yet still possessing the cold discipline to avoid her off-limits helm.

  Terror instantly replaced disorientation, and Jess’s desperately raised sword, even gripped in two hands as it was, was barely sufficient to ward off the worst of his furious onslaught, knocked flat as she had been by the force of his slam, the occasional blow that got through a fierce bolt of pain hammering into her, even well armored as she was.

  For all that she knew she should roll over and stumble to her feet, she was both stunned and overwhelmed. Worse, she was coldly certain that blood price be damned, if she dared lurch to her feet he would slam the crossguard of his blade into the back of her neck and skull with every ounce of his awful strength, happy to kill her even if he was expelled.

  In those nightmarish moments Jess kept her blade gripped like a quarterstaff in a desperate bid to ward off the madman’s blows. She realized that she was no longer fighting to win, she was fighting for her very survival. And Mord with his t
errible strength was happily savaging away at whatever parts of her body she could not protect with her sword, her back flat upon the ground.

  She screamed as she heard something crack, even as the overseer’s fierce whistle shrieked loud and shrill.

  “Mord de Plaga! Withdraw!” And as abruptly as if someone had pulled the strings of a marionette, the berserking lord did just that, halting his terrible thunderstrike in mid-swing, spinning about and walking back with a chilling precision. Jess was coldly certain Mord would have deliberately slammed his crossguard into whatever bone he had managed to break with furious savagery as many times as he could have gotten away with, had the overseer not blown his whistle at that very instant.

  The overseer’s rough, concerned features soon filled her visor. “Lady Calenbry, are you all right? Let me get that for you.” Carefully the man unlocked her visor. His fingers, bare of armor, were far more agile at the maneuver than a knight’s gauntlets would have been. Jess felt her gut plummet to see his suddenly grim expression. He gazed at her carefully. “My lady, can you carry on?”

  She nodded and grimaced before carefully righting herself, then screamed, falling into an agonized ball, her ankle sending out a shrieking blast of pain.

  “Well, my lady? Can you carry on?” Mord’s taunting voice mocked her from the other end of the training circle. Jess spat an angry gob of blood at him and he laughed, cold eyes mocking her.

  “That is enough, Lord Plaga!” the overseer’s voice cracked, the young lord seeing fit only to give the barest nod of his head, mocking smile still firmly in place.

  “I believe, good overseer, that if this lady here is unable to continue the match, victory is mine.”

  The judge’s eyes turned flat. “Such blatantly savage attacks are reserved for enemies of Erovering, young lord. I have never before seen even students, let alone knights, thunderstrike the extremities of fallen foes just to cripple them.”

  Mord’s eyes flashed. “The rules were clear. No thunderstrikes upon the helm. No neck or finger manipulations. I followed those rules to the letter. It is not for you to judge the virtue of a lord’s tactics, sirrah, merely to score the match!”

  Jess could sense Mord suppressing a snarl, looking for all the world like a rabid beast at that moment, and Jess dizzily wondered if he would dare strike the very overseer of the bout. With what looked to be a fierce act of self-control, his fists visibly shaking, Mord put on his fake smile once more. “Besides, good overseer, if there was any problem, why did you not blow your whistle beforehand?”

  And Jess simmered, understanding exactly what had stilled the man’s hand. She had no doubt that Mord would probably have been able to wrest victory from her if he had hooked away her blade or crashed on top of her, placing the leather wrapped batons they both had secured at belt to mimic a thrust under chin or at eye slit. Of course, she might have surprised him, might have flipped over him or somehow turned the tide. By not landing a decisive blow, by not closing, by carefully following the letter of the instructions, Mord was neither breaking the rules nor finishing the fight, so the match could not be called. And by deliberately breaking a bone, he could both cripple her and guarantee his victory. Not just for the bout, but for the match entire and any possible rematches they might both have found themselves in later that morning, this having been but the first contest of the day.

  Mord’s cruel eyes locked with her own. She simmered at his condescending smile. “I believe, overseer, that all else aside, if the Calenbry woman cannot fight, she automatically forfeits the match.”

  The overseer of their contest looked less than pleased even as he nodded. “If the lady is permanently maimed there will be a blood debt to pay, Lord Plaga,” he coldly reminded Mord.

  The arrogant young lord laughed such concerns away. "Come now, sir. All know Highrock possesses the best-trained healers to be found anywhere outside the capital. I have no doubt the young lady will be right as rain, and back in a dress where she belongs, before the week is out."

  The judge spared Jess a single glance, filled with such pity that her heart lurched. She seethed with humiliation at having been so bested by Mord's ruthless savagery, denied any chance to prove her worth that day, having lost her very first contest, unable to fight again until she healed. Their bout had garnered an increasing number of onlookers. She wondered if she would ever live this match down.

  “Match ends! Jessica de Calenbry can no longer continue. Mord de Plaga wins the contest by default.”

  Mord taunted Jess with his laughter, even as he gazed down at her with a look of smug satisfaction at having so soundly bested her. “You have no place in this arena, nor this school! Face it, Calenbry wench. You’ll never make it as a knight!”

  The last thing she recalled clearly about that day, even as gentle hands helped her to remove her armor, Jess screaming at least once in the process, was Mord’s vindictive grin. She could tell he savored her maiming, and she loathed the man with a fierce purity that transcended mere hate.

  Yet her father had spoken nothing less than the truth. Highrock was home to more than one famed general of the Velheim Wars, one in particular so reviled for his savagery upon the battlefield that he was wanted for war crimes in nations that actually recognized such accords. Yet his brilliant ruthlessness had been the key to Erovering's victory, and the king himself had nothing but praise for the general who knew that the ability to instill terror in one's foes was but one more weapon in a tactician's arsenal. One that could spell the difference between victory and defeat. And for three long years since the day he had first discovered the eccentric girl skipping classes to take on all challengers with her practice blade, Jess had trained in the arts of war under General Eloquin with fiercest dedication, determined to make her mentor proud.

  It was only now that Jess realized, after reading aloud the unexpected letter from her mother, that her place in the world she had fought so hard to make for herself could be turned on its head in an instant. That her sense of independence and empowerment was no more than an illusion. A transient thing based on nothing more than her own desperate hopes and dreams.

  Fiercely earned, effortlessly taken away.

  The Plaga Clan sought an alliance with the Calenbrys, one sealed in marriage vows.

  Her family had not turned them down.

  2

  General Eloquin's voice rang through the clearing. “Squires, enemy pike stand ready to meet your charge, archers have outflanked and ambushed you. Death is but a spear shaft away. If you are to live, you must plunge through your enemy's forces under arrow fire. More than that, I expect each of you to deliver killing blows! Neal, prepare your men.”

  "Jess, are you ready?" Asked the acting captain of their band.

  Jess could see her reflection upon Neal's polished breastplate, bright blue eyes filled with worry, a strand of golden hair slipped free from helm nibbled by nervous lips. She shook her brooding thoughts away. Her friends were counting on her, and she would not let them down.

  Jess took a deep breath, focusing only upon the forest of long spears before her, feeling a fierce shiver of anticipation run straight through her and into Mercy, her piebald mare. Left hand holding reins and the light wooden shield that was her only divergence from the suits of steel, mail, and hardened rawhide worn by each of her fellow Squires of War, her right hand held her lance ready for the charge.

  Focused at last upon what mattered, she turned and caught Neal's gaze, giving a crisp nod.

  “Vanguard is yours, Jess. When the whistle blows, charge and ward. As always.” He grinned.

  Jess dipped her head. “Yes, Captain.”

  Heart racing, she gazed at the scores of mock pikemen before them, dozens of posts mounted with swine carcasses wearing a mix of mail hauberks, rawhide boiled in water and glue, and gambesons of tough, quilted linen. All in all, their mock opponents represented the types of armor most likely to be seen upon the battlefield, though few save knights would have access to shirts of mail o
r breastplates of steel.

  “Jess.” But one word, all she needed to hear. Jess turned and gave her closest friend in all the world a grateful smile. Malek winked, and Jess pushed all random thoughts aside, focusing only on the task at hand.

  Her heart jolted as Eloquin blew sharply on his whistle. A click of her heels and Mercy was racing for the cluster of training dummies ahead, even as Jess caught sight of the two score spears mounted to coiled springs to best represent an infantryman's posture. They could be knocked aside by a shield in the hands of someone well-trained in the maneuver, though they would spring back for the next student, and even with their blunted tips they could crack the bones of men or mounts and send Squires toppling to the ground, risking serious injury.

  Even as she took in the threat rapidly approaching, she heard the whistling twang of two score arrows raining down upon her and her fellow Squires.

  “Jess!”

  The slightest tinge of concern, but Neal need not worry, for the arrows fell short of the band of charging Squires, as if shot off course by the gentlest of winds.

  It was then that Jess spotted none other than Knight Commander Hyve, leader of the Knight Aspirants and General Eloquin's counterpart, gazing down at their training session. Though used to training free of spectators, Jess accepted this particular witness, knowing all too well what Hyve's presence meant. But what made her almost lose focus as she charged the deadly forest of spears before her was Hyve's favored protege, and Jess could swear his gaze was fixated upon her, even now.

  Mord.

  His arrogant gaze peering so intently at their tactics, the absolute last person Jess wanted to see.

  “Jess!” Malek's voice. The first twinges of panic.

  Jess hissed, cursing herself for a fool, allowing herself to be so distracted. Her panicked surge was far stronger than the subtle gesture she had intended, the exact opposite of what she wanted.