by Damien Lake
“That doesn’t sound likely in a border war.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t happen! Where’s the lad?” Finally spotting him, he flagged the boy down and dropped his empty tankard atop many others in his hands. Marik felt slightly disappointed when the boy recovered, saving the tower from collapse. That would have been a spectacular crash.
“And more bread too!” If the boy heard Hayden’s shout, Marik saw no sign of acknowledgement. “It’s good bread here.”
Dietrik mentioned, “We’ve noticed the food here is higher quality overall. This afternoon was the exception of course.”
“It’s mostly fresh at least,” Marik added.
“Yeah, one of the early band leaders read his tea leaves right or something and decided to buy up all the fields around here a long time ago. The ones that aren’t full of rocks, anyway. Spent every last coin the band earned for a decade to do it, too. The Kings actually own more land than a lot of barons! Now we lend the fields out to different sharecroppers and livestock ranchers who give us half the yield in exchange for not charging them taxes or fees or anything for the land. Our yearly food cost is almost nothing. It’s a bargain!”
“So I imagine! A sharp bunch of chaps running the show.”
“Ever since the first one anyway. I told you about that, didn’t I?”
“You did, yes.”
“Where’s that boy?”
The ale seemed to be catching up with Hayden. Also the rowdiness in the common room increased by the moment. Given the Kings’ attitude toward outsiders in their town, Marik doubted any entertainers would take the floor to play their instruments or regale them with tales in exchange for a spot by the fire. He and Dietrik called it a night, leaving Hayden to his tankard and bread which arrived as they rose.
They experienced a slight delay during their return to the Ninth’s barrack due to avoiding Beld. He and his gathering were intent on reaching the Row in time to drink themselves into greater feats of violence and temper. The two managed to arrive home without mishap.
Marik said, while he settled on his cot to remove his leather boots, “I suppose tomorrow we should start to get serious.”
“I agree. Let’s start by the shacks in the Second Area with our new toys. It’s flat and we can get each other’s measure. We haven’t truly done that yet, have we?”
“We did well against Harlan on the slopes, but you’re right. We need to see where we stand.”
Dietrik retrieved his new sword and began inspecting the blade closely, rubbing a blemish on the metal. “Then we had better be ready, hadn’t we?”
* * * * *
The weather grew colder as winter deepened, increasing its hold on the world. This region rarely had snowfall but the wind still cut in knife slashes through Chatham’s cloak where he perched in an opening between log spikes atop the eastern wall, watching the men below exercise their combat skills. He wrapped his cloak tightly about his body, gripping the edges to keep it from flapping.
Harlan walked along the wall. He noticed the slight upturn at the corner of his companion’s mouth. Rather than ask, he dropped into a sitting position as well and followed Chatham’s line of sight.
“Marik?”
“Indeed my friend,” replied Chatham, his voice lower than its usual ringing call to the kingdom at large. “I was depressed with nothing to do in that cave o’ a barracks an’ decided to take a walk. I noticed my young protégé down there an’ decided to squat here for awhile.” He kept his gaze on the distant training area while he spoke.
Harlan watched Marik execute a slashing strike against a training dummy, rocking it back, sending its bound straw innards flying.
“He’s improving still. His control seems better.”
“Mmhmm.”
“He seems to have gotten a better sword as well.”
“That piece o’ trash he had before was fine for basics, but he had enough smarts to find a better one, an’ right quick too. I guess he learned a lot from his old teacher!”
“If by that you mean Maddock, then yes, he did.”
“Yes, well, o’ course I meant him too. Anyway, look at him go down there. I’ve been up here for two candlemarks already an’ he hasn’t slowed down none.”
“He’s driven. If he intends to look for his father through the Kings, he must qualify for the band first.”
“I suppose so. I’m rather fond o’ the boy actually.”
“You can’t call him a boy anymore.”
“No, I suppose not. He’s grown already since he landed his position last month. He’ll be towering over that friend o’ his soon. It should be nice an’ interesting to see how he does in the real thing, come the sunny summer days.”
“If he lasts that long. I’ve heard he’s been having trouble.”
Chatham finally shifted his gaze toward Harlan. “You like to play the distant acquaintance free o’ emotions, don’t you? I know you, buddy o’ mine! You’ve been keeping an eye on him since we got here, haven’t you?”
Harlan’s brows knitted together. He did not deny it. “He hasn’t said anything when we all meet for an evening on the Row, but I’ve heard a rumor or two.”
“About that mammoth ox stalking him? The Homeguard’s broken up their scuffles so far.”
“They can’t be around all the time.”
Chatham eyes gleamed. “Maybe we should ‘bump’ into a certain walking side o’ beef.”
“If he never works out his own problems, he’ll never learn how to.”
“Perhaps, perhaps.” Chatham sounded distant. “The winter months do stretch on. Who knows what could happen with summer still so far off yet?”
* * * * *
Marik brushed his hair back out of his eyes. He would need to cut it soon. Funny how he never noticed it until it suddenly blocked his vision at every slight movement.
“Hurry up, Marik! Mylor’s going to hang us from the stable rafters if we’re late!”
“I’m not dragging my feet,” Marik retorted, though in fact he was. He fiercely desired anything except to repeat the experience with the mages’ spells cast on terrain in the training areas. The first time, in the swamp, had been bad enough. Marik had felt his neck hairs spiking while the mage from the Tower, Yoseph by name, performed his unnatural spells.
Marik knew not what Yoseph did or how, and never wanted to, but as the man completed his work, he imagined he could feel the change rising from the marshy ground as steam rose from hot soup. The simple land had been transformed into a raw sore in reality’s fabric which he wanted to move away from quickly. Step into it? Madness!
He had stood on the swampland’s edge with the other men required to attend this ridiculous contrivance. It had taken all his willpower to raise a foot, then step across the dividing line where solid ground ended in a knife’s edge and the muddy quagmire began.
The entire experience unsettled him. It felt akin to sitting on an anthill. Under his mail and leathers, his skin itched and crawled. He offended Dietrik by snapping harshly at him after his friend tried to explain it was all in his mind.
Marik apologized later, but he strongly desired to avoid a subsequent performance with the snowfield today. Located adjacent to the swamp, the snowfield existed as a plain stretch of ground similar in every respect to the other non-specialized areas. Nyla had explained, though he scarcely cared, that the mages used the moisture in the swamp to create a realistic snow covering, except during the rare times it really did snow on Kingshome.
Why waste the time and risk exposure to this witchery? Contracts came in during the summer! Who ever heard of snow in the summertime? He offered these opinions to Hayden one afternoon while they ate lunch in a tavern, the awful noodle dish having made a reappearance. Though he had heard the brew’s name again, he could never remember it.
“There’s the odd winter fight going on at times. Mostly it’s good practice for fighting a mage.”
“What?”
“Anything might happen i
n a fight against one. Weather would be a good weapon if they can use it. It’s smart in the long run to be ready for anything.”
Marik asked how often before Hayden had found himself caught in freak weather. He still waited for an answer.
Now he was off to give random chance a second opportunity to wreak havoc on him. Was this what he truly wanted?
“Hurry up! I’m about to leave on my own!”
With a heavy exhalation, he finished pulling on his boots and retrieved his cloak. “All right, let’s go.”
“At last! I was beginning to think you’d turned into a woman, taking so long.”
“What was that?”
“Oh, never mind. Let’s hurry on our way!”
The two arrived on time, if last. Yoseph had already begun working his spell. They took a place with the others in time to overhear Jussler’s grumbling.
“What’s the point? It’s already colder’n a wife’s widowed sister out here.”
Marik would have heartily supported the view except the mage chose that moment to finish his work. He could almost feel the unnatural change across the stunted grass. Tiny sparkles appeared by the millions, hovering in space. Snowflakes formed in midair, coming to settle on the ground faster than seemed possible…but then this was magic after all. Magic, which made the impossible possible, and Marik shuddered, the reaction having nothing to do with the cold.
Dietrik knew it, too. “Again? You know mate, if you’re serious about battling your way across the kingdom, you need to get over this aversion of yours. It’s just—”
“Don’t tell me it’s all in my mind, Dietrik!”
Dietrik coughed slightly before resuming. “I was going to say, it’s just the way of the world.” The lie was apparent.
“Right, all of you,” Mylor shouted to the group at large. “Same drills as last time. You need to put in two candlemarks minimum! After that, you can go or stay as long as the snow lasts. Get going!”
Mylor found a comfortable spot beneath one of the trees lining the training area’s edge beside the western wall.
“Let’s get this over with. Come on,” Marik griped to Dietrik. Everyone collected an ironwood practice weapon from the untidy pile nearby. With gritted teeth, Marik stepped into the snowfield. The act alone would have been strange without the accompanying wave of sensation so like grass itch over his whole body. Stepping from grass and dirt into snow reaching his knees truly counted as a new experience in his life.
“That’s the right spirit! This will make for great exercise!” Dietrik accompanied Marik as he trudged through the snow to join Jussler and a man named Miles from the Eighth Squad. Together, they faced off against another group of four several yards away, starting the drills they had first practiced in the swamp.
Their task required them to attack their enemy while defending each other. Any solid strike on the body counted as a kill. The person so struck had to stand aside until one group or the other won. Each side would then exchange a member and start over.
Fighting in the deep snow required excessive stamina. They were quickly tired. The afternoon slowly progressed, the snow becoming trampled. It transformed into an icy sheet which presented new difficulties altogether.
By the required time’s end, Marik’s labored breathing along with the bruises and muscle aches from heavy exertions combined to help him ignore the strangeness of the spell he stood inside. He left the moment Mylor allowed, leaving behind those who chose to continue.
“It wasn’t a loss,” Dietrik chirped. “It was rather enlightening to tell the truth.”
“Some of us like the dark.”
“Don’t be so negative. Not even you can claim it wasn’t worth the while.”
“I suppose. Let’s get inside and find a hot meal. My mail’s frozen.”
* * * * *
Marik and Dietrik’s first challenge from an officer came one afternoon while they practiced among the shacks in the Second Area. Lieutenant Piccary, commanding Squad Eleven, had come to the training area looking for nobody in particular. He wanted all the men present to gather whereupon he briefly sparred one-on-one with each. An efficient clerk had been brought along for the purpose of taking notes and adding them to the personnel files once he returned to his habitat in the records office.
The only comment they received after the brief match was, “Not bad. But you should work on linking your strikes into successive hits.”
Piccary vanished once he completed his duty, as quickly as he had appeared. The other fighters either returned to their exercises or quit for the day. Marik and Dietrik relocated to the practice dummies. Most were mutilated things that would have been mercifully put out of their misery were they on a true battlefield.
The two retrieved fresh straw men and mounted them on posts after dumping the old ones on the used pile. A stable hand would retrieve the chopped straw stalks for the animals in their care.
“I suppose the real trick involved is to strike fast enough that your foe does not have time to recover. He is always on the defense.”
“Makes sense to me,” Marik replied. “That’s what I did to Beld’s friend Dellen to keep him from mincing me while I was waiting for you.”
“So we need to find a nice combination of strikes that are quick, successive and lead into each other.”
They practiced all that afternoon before stopping for a break. The pile of dead straw men had grown considerably. Marik panted on his back in the grass, letting his heart slow down.
Dietrik, ever the optimist, offered, “I think that’s a good start.”
“I sort of doubt ten thrusts in a row will work.”
“It’s the strong point of my blade.”
“Which is why anyone you face will be expecting it.”
“Maybe I should concentrate on pushing my speed. Getting the first strike could turn the trick.”
A new thought arose, irritating in that it had waited so long to do so. Marik mused aloud, “Most of my good combos relied on using the momentum of the previous strike to set up for the next one. I just realized that against a real foe that can block me, the sword will get stopped and not follow the path into the next strike. Damn it!”
“That’s true. The best course of action is to find a series of strokes that rely on the sword being blocked.”
“How can you go into a new strike from a stand still? Pulling back and striking all over is what we’ve been doing.”
“Perhaps if you start the next move in the series as the blade strikes, you can use the force of the rebound? Or perhaps if you time your strikes correctly, you can make your foe respond the way you want him to? There’s a thought. You can maneuver him into dropping his defense in a specific area and have the final blow land there. I believe that is what Mylor was saying about fancy techniques.”
Marik thought on that for several moments. “Maybe. I need to think that one over. Let’s ask Hayden when we get back. He’s been promising to join us since we met him.”
“He could show you a thing or two.”
Marik frowned. “That’s kind of arrogant, don’t you think? You were still a D Class yourself the last time I checked.”
“But I use a different type of sword, so my style is different. He’s a nice enough fellow, but I don’t think he can tell me anything about rapiers I haven’t already learned myself.”
Marik sat up to pull his sword from its leather sheath. He swung it twice, trying to visualize an effective combination.
“You know what the hardest part about this sword is?”
“Do tell.”
“The guard has very long arms here, sticking out from under the rings. You see?”
“Yes. I imagine they are wonderful for protecting your hand, but they could get in the way.”
“They do sometimes. Look.”
Marik raised his arm, bending his wrist back in preparation to deliver a blow. Before his wrist bent very far, the guarding arm struck the side of his wrist.
“It’
s fine if I turn the grip slightly as I do it; the guard goes down the side and then I can strike full force.”
“Maybe you should trade it with Sennet for a better one.”
“I’m getting used to it, and I like this sword. Only it makes it a little awkward when I adjust for the next blow in the combos.”
“Let me see that.”
Dietrik stood and took the sword, experiencing the same problem as Marik. “If you have to turn it anyway, maybe you can use it to an advantage. Let’s see…”
He raised the sword, turning the blade, letting the guard pass his wrist without meeting it. After a few practice movements, he turned back.
“Watch this.”
He swung the sword forward in a quick strike, then raised it to deliver the follow up blow. Dietrik turned the blade so as not to hit his wrist with the guard, then suddenly moved his arm in a new gesture. While bringing his elbow closer to his body, he continued twisting his wrist, turning it into a horizontal slash at the level of a foe’s head rather than his torso.
“That might work,” Marik admitted. “The blow is certainly coming from a different direction than it looked like at first.”
Dietrik returned the sword, adding, “It might. Your wrist is turned almost as far as it will go, though. A hard blow in the wrong place might break it.”
“I’ll see what I can do with it.”
They were thinking of returning to the barracks when a voice interrupted.
“I been waiting for this. Those pricks won’t interrupt a training match, will they? You little snots got this coming!”
Beld had found them.
Chapter 12
“Why do you have a problem with me, Beld?”
“There’s no place in the best for punks like you. Dellen should have knocked you off that rock and been here with us!”
