The Talented

by J. R. McGinnity

  “We can see now who the better fighter is,” Adrienne said smugly, pressing down a bit harder on his chest.

  There were chuckles from the crowd and more money was exchanged. The fight had not been a long one, but the strikes and evasions had been great examples of skill. The crowd was obviously pleased by the show, and even those who had placed bets on Ricco and lost joked as they handed over their money.

  “To the Abyss with that.” Ricco’s voice was only slightly stronger than his hands were as he tried to displace her foot again, and Adrienne reduced the pressure on his chest. “I can take you any day. Rematch.”

  The crowd seemed to like that idea, and though Adrienne wouldn’t mind another go at Ricco, she shook her head.

  “Rosch needs you in one piece,” she told her friend. “Maybe after he has a go at you we can give this another try.” She removed her foot and offered Ricco a hand to help him get to his feet. He glared at the soldiers who were gleefully collecting money they had won by betting against him.

  “Tonight,” Ricco said, pointing a finger at Adrienne. “We’ll have another go tonight. See who wins then.”

  Adrienne raised one amused eyebrow, then nodded. “Tonight.” She looked toward Rosch, who was watching the byplay with interest. He didn’t look ready to step into the sparring ring and face Ricco himself. She actually thought he looked a bit green under his naturally dark complexion.

  She took another look at Ricco, who was covered in dirt and sweat with knuckles beginning to bruise, and could understand why the Yearling might hesitate. “Rosch, are you planning to fight today or just watch?”

  Rosch started and looked sheepishly at Adrienne. Like Ricco, she looked even more imposing than usual with bruised knuckles and blood on her face. When she crossed her arms over her chest, he felt oddly grateful that it was not her that he was about to face. Though he had no delusions that he stood a real chance against Ricco, Adrienne looked the more dangerous of the two. “I’m ready,” he said, turning to take measure of Ricco as he would an opponent rather than a teacher.

  “Very good.” She stepped away from Ricco and gestured for Rosch to take her place. “Have at him.”

  ••••••

  “I’ve seen great improvement in you these last few months,” Adrienne said one morning after she and Rosch had completed their run. What had once been a short morning run that would leave the young man breathless had evolved into an easy eight miles that he could finish with energy to spare. They were sitting on a bench just outside of the mess hall, resting before breakfast and their next training session.

  Adrienne had pushed him hard in their time together, and his body had adapted just as she had known it would. She knew a day would come where his new strength and endurance would serve him well.

  “Thank you,” Rosch said. His words were simple, but Adrienne could see the surprise and pleasure warring in his eyes. She was not free with her compliments, and it was rare for him to receive one.

  Rosch’s mind and attitude had adapted as well. He no longer questioned Adrienne’s methods, or pushed to progress faster than she allowed. She knew that weekly practice sessions with other experienced soldiers had helped Rosch better understand and respect her skill, just as she knew that he benefited from having variety in his instruction.

  And today she would provide even more variety. “After breakfast, bring a quarterstaff with you to the sparring ring.”

  “Sir?”

  Adrienne could understand his confusion. Despite four months of training, they had not used more than daggers when they were sparring together. She pretended to reconsider her decision. “Unless you don’t think you’re ready for real weapons.”

  “No, sir, I’m ready,” he said quickly, before Adrienne had a chance to change her mind.

  “Then get going.”

  When Rosch was well out of hearing, Adrienne felt a presence settle into the space beside her on the bench. She turned to see Ricco sitting there looking after the Yearling’s retreating form.

  “He didn’t even complain that the weapon isn’t a sword,” he said, letting her know he had been close enough to eavesdrop for quite some time.

  “Just because you don’t appreciate the proper use of a quarterstaff doesn’t mean that Rosch is so narrow-minded,” Adrienne told her friend.

  Ricco snorted. “He’d be glad for any weapon at this point.” Ricco was more than a little amazed that Rosch had lasted so long without complaint.

  Adrienne bit back her smile. “Do you wish to be excused from the training rotation until we’ve progressed to swords?” she asked her friend. “Or at least until we are done with quarterstaffs?”

  After the first time Ricco had sparred with Rosch, he had started to train with the Yearling once or twice a week. Adrienne was sure that the extra practice Ricco provided was part of the reason Rosch was progressing so quickly. Even when Adrienne could not train Rosch herself, he was being taught by other Kyrogeans. The other Yearlings were still being taught by Mylig and a small group of others, but Adrienne had been able to convince some of the soldiers that they wanted to help her. As she had heard no complaints from Mylig or the captain, she felt comfortable planning Rosch’s training as she saw fit.

  “Not if that means waiting another four months,” Ricco said. Of all the soldiers Adrienne had talked or coerced into practicing with Rosch, Ricco was the one who needed the least convincing. She thought Ricco must enjoy working with the Yearling.

  Adrienne certainly did, although she had not expected to. She had wanted to teach Rosch to fight after she had so easily beaten him that first time, but she had not expected to care for the Yearling, or to take such pride in his accomplishments.

  Ricco and Adrienne stood up from the bench and got into the mess line, accepting fruit and oatmeal as well as an egg each. Ricco took a thick slab of side pork, but Adrienne declined and went to claim a table that was more removed from the others, where they would be able to talk uninterrupted and without the need to shout over the other men in the mess. Despite the serious nature with which the soldiers devoured their morning meal, they did so in a loud fashion, calling out to each other between mouthfuls of food.

  “Not four months,” Adrienne assured Ricco when he had joined her. “We were laying ground work then. Two weeks with the quarterstaff should suffice, and then we will move on.”

  Ricco frowned. “Two weeks?” He took a bite of side pork and half-chewed it before resuming talking. “That isn’t very long.” Adrienne made a face at the food still in his mouth and he swallowed before speaking again. “I thought you planned to train him to expert level, the way you were going about it.”

  Adrienne knew that, despite Ricco’s dislike of quarterstaffs, he was more than competent with them. And he was right, years could be spent mastering the oft underappreciated weapon.

  She picked up a sweet red berry and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully as she considered her response. “He can’t become an expert in everything,” Adrienne said once she had completely chewed and swallowed the berry, “especially not within our time frame.”

  “Then why even bother with the quarterstaff?” Ricco asked, shoveling in some of his egg. Ricco ate at the speed with which most soldiers consumed their food, as though they might be called away at any moment.

  “You learned the quarterstaff, though you don’t use it when given the choice between that or a sword,” Adrienne pointed out. “Is the knowledge you have of the weapon wasted?”

  “No. If I didn’t know how a quarterstaff was used, I wouldn’t be able to defend against one.” A look of realization dawned on his face and he smiled. “Clever.”

  “I want Rosch to have that knowledge. A couple of weeks working with the quarterstaff will hopefully help prepare him in that regard.”

  Ricco gestured vaguely with a spoonful of oatmeal. “Since you’re only going to be using the quarterstaff for a couple weeks, you can count me out for training the boy. Try Oliver.”

  Adrienn
e shook her head. Oliver might be the most skilled with the quarterstaff in Kyrog, but he was not the best of teachers. “I know enough to teach Rosch the basics.”

  Ricco shrugged and resumed eating his food, scraping the plate clean and going back for more before Adrienne was halfway done with her own plate.

  ••••••

  “Can’t you just threaten them with a sword?” Rosch asked. “They won’t know you don’t want to kill them, and that way no one gets hurt.”

  Adrienne looked to the sky and wished for patience. Sometimes, when she was introducing a new idea to Rosch, she thought the young man might have come to Kyrog from Roua just to test her. “People are stupid. Remember that.” The quarterstaff could be lethal when used correctly, but it was the non-lethal opportunities that it presented which Adrienne liked most about the weapon. “You might know it will be easier on them if they just sit down and shut up, but half the time some stupid, inexperienced civilian is still going to try and get past you. And stupid people are liable to skewer themselves on swords by accident.”

  “You sound like you have experience with this.” Rosch was no doubt hoping for an interesting story.

  “I’ve encountered such things on patrols.” She remembered with a pang the foolish farmer who had come at her with a kitchen knife on one of those outings. There had been bandits in the area, and Adrienne had only wanted to check and make sure that everything was all right at the out-of-the-way farm.

  The farmer was lucky to have escaped with only the deep gash on his arm, a wound which had probably affected the use of his hand permanently. The injury had been self-inflicted from when he had fallen into her sword while trying to “defend” his pigs. A wild lunge with his knife had forced him off-balance, and he had reached out for support and connected with her bared sword instead.

  She had been only sixteen, and it was not a story that she wanted to share. “Just focus on learning how to use a quarterstaff, and worry about when you’ll need one later.”

  Rosch still looked somewhat unsure, but he got into a semblance of his typical fighting stance, facing her.

  “No, here.” Adrienne put her hands on Rosch’s hips, moving him into a slightly more balanced position. “You need to shift your balance a little lower. The power of your strikes it going to come from your core, so it needs to be strong.” Another minute adjustment to his hips and she pulled back, putting her hands on his and moving them along the quarterstaff until they were far enough apart. “Range is important with the quarterstaff. For optimal range, you should keep your hands like this whenever both are on the quarterstaff.”

  After a few adjustments, all of the physical groundwork Adrienne had laid out made holding the general stance easy. The mental groundwork made Rosch more biddable, so that she no longer had to justify every instruction she gave. Adrienne wasn’t sure which pleased her more. The skills he was learning would serve him well and keep him alive in the battles he would inevitably face. And he would be an asset to Samaro in a way that he never would have been had he stayed in Roua for the duration of his training.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Adrienne sat on a wooden bench looking out over the plains from her seat on top of one of the guard towers. She was on duty for the next four hours, and when she saw a cloud of dust in the distance she almost thought it was a result of the heat playing tricks on her eyes. She squinted against the afternoon light and saw that the dust was being kicked up by a lone horse moving quickly down the otherwise deserted road to Kyrog. She signaled to her fellow guardsmen that someone was approaching, then settled back down on her bench to wait.

  The wait was not as long as Adrienne had expected, and when the rider finally pulled the horse to a stop outside of Kyrog’s gates she saw that the beast was lathered from too many miles covered too fast.

  The woman riding the horse looked to be in little better shape. She was slumped over with weariness, and Adrienne recognized the glazed eyes as a mixture of fear and fatigue. A ripple of apprehension traveled down Adrienne’s spine as she scanned the countryside for the slightest movement that might indicate a pursuing force. She saw nothing, and motioned toward the guard standing next to the gate mechanism. “Let her in,” Adrienne said, climbing down the ladder of the guard tower so that she could speak to the woman.

  It took two men to help the woman down without her falling off her mount and even then she had to cling to the footsore horse to keep from collapsing.

  “What happened?” Adrienne asked, standing directly in front of the woman so that the exhausted traveler would have something to focus on.

  “A group of men,” the woman said in a voice devoid of emotion. “They came to my home and attacked. I got away.”

  The woman fell silent, and Adrienne wanted to shake her to get her talking again. They needed to know if Kyrog was in danger.

  One of the more patient men on guard duty stepped forward, taking a spot between Adrienne and the stranger. “Ma’am,” he said, keeping his voice low and soothing, “where is your home?”

  “Pelarion.”

  Adrienne recognized the name of the village. It was not far to the west of Kyrog. She turned to one of the soldiers who had come to see what the commotion was about. “Tell Captain Garrett that Pelarion has been attacked.”

  The woman from Pelarion shuddered slightly at Adrienne’s raised words, and Adrienne wished she was able to offer some comfort.

  “Can you tell us more?” Adrienne asked, moving so that she could see the woman more clearly, trying to imitate the soothing tone of the other guard’s voice. From the woman’s expression, she was not successful.

  “There were so many of them. They came with swords and spears.” A tear welled up in one eye and spilled onto her cheek, but the woman seemed not to notice. “They started killing people. My husband…”

  It was hard to tell from looking at the woman exactly what had happened. Pelarion was a hard two day ride from Kyrog, and the woman’s filthiness could be due to no more than dusty roads and sweating in the dry heat of the Samaroan plains, but there was more dirt on her back and knees than anywhere else, and her skirts were torn.

  Adrienne knew enough of the brigands who roamed Samaro to imagine what the man had died protecting his wife from. She pitied the woman, knowing what it felt like to have someone die so that she might live. It was something the woman would never forget, something that would creep up on her during the night and weigh on her soul. But rather than crippling her, the fear and loss had brought her here, to Kyrog, where she could receive help.

  “Get some of the serving women to arrange a tent and a hot bath for her,” Adrienne told another soldier who had stopped to see what was happening at the gate. “And have someone hot-walk that horse before stabling it. I have to stay here.” Adrienne wanted to question the woman more, or speak to Captain Garrett herself, but she was the senior soldier at the gates, and could not leave her station while on guard duty, not without an order from one of the officers.

  And there were other people in the camp that could offer better comfort than Adrienne.

  She did not have to wait long for new orders to come. Captain Garrett sent for her within the half hour, and she reported to his office immediately.

  “Is this about the woman?” Adrienne asked.

  The captain’s face was serious. “Yes. If Pelarion has been attacked by brigands, they are likely still in the village. I am sending a group of soldiers to deal with the invaders.”

  Adrienne nodded, hoping that she would be allowed to be part of that group. Captain Garrett knew she had been looking for an assignment outside of Kyrog since before Rosch had arrived. Training the Yearling had superseded that, but she still wanted time away from the camp, time to go out and make a difference rather than just endlessly train. Purging Pelarion of the men who had taken over would be exactly the change she had been looking for. “What can I do?” she asked.

  “I want you to lead the group going to Pelarion,” Captain Garrett said.
“No more than twenty, and I want the names of those men tonight.”

  “Of course,” Adrienne said, hardly daring to believe the captain’s words. He’d never had her lead a group on a mission such as this before. “I will make my choices wisely.”

  “And quickly,” the captain told her. “I want you ready to go by dawn tomorrow.”

  ••••••

  “The village is just a few miles ahead,” Ricco told Adrienne and the rest of the group when he rejoined them. The woman from Pelarion had still been nearly incoherent the morning Adrienne and her men had left Kyrog, and had therefore been unable to give a clear report, so Adrienne had sent Ricco ahead to see what challenges they would face in the village. “It doesn’t look good.”

  Adrienne nodded. She had been honored and excited to be chosen by Captain Garrett to lead the group to Pelarion, but she had known that disposing of invaders in a village would not be the same as taking care of outlaws in the countryside. They could not ride in and kill or capture without impunity, their duty was to save who and what they could.

  “I didn’t expect it would.” Adrienne turned to the men she had chosen to accompany her to Pelarion. Rosch was one of the nineteen chosen, and though Captain Garrett had questioned her decision to include the Yearling, Adrienne had been adamant that he was ready to leave Kyrog and the safety of practice in a sparring ring. There would be enough experienced soldiers to ensure that Pelarion would be reclaimed, and Rosch would gain much needed experience. If he wasn’t ready for a real fight by now, he might never be. After talking to Mylig, she had selected two of the more experienced Yearlings as well. They would be leaving Kyrog soon, and Mylig wanted them to experience real fighting before they left.

  “What do we do now?” one of the men asked, looking off in the direction of the village as though he could see the brigands from where he stood.

  There were several suggestions. Some of the men thought that they should wait to go in until nightfall, when they would be able to sneak in unnoticed, while others thought leaving for Pelarion immediately would be the best course of action. They could be in the village by late afternoon if they followed that plan. They knew that the village had already been at the attackers’ mercy for several days.