by Damien Lake
Marik gazed at the burlap corn sacks filled with coin. Mostly copper in there, but still…
“How in the world did you get this much? Don’t you ever lose?”
“On every bet!” Kerwin admitted cheerfully.
“I’m not following.”
“I give my three primary bets the same one-to-one odds of happening. The betting is spread fairly even across them. So the engineers throw another rock, and I pay out on the bet that landed with the coin from the second and keep the third for myself!”
“So if it goes over the wall, you collect all three?”
“Yeah! I’ve got so many soldiers betting that usually one or two lay a coin down on the long shot. But after I make a show of paying out bigger coins for the longer odds, I still clean up, and then everyone bets double for next several rounds!”
“What else do you bet on?”
“Oh, I’ll lay odds on the size or shape of the next boulder, or if the engineers will decide to load up on hailstones for the next shot, or if there’ll be five consecutive hits in a row against the wall.”
“And they hand you their purses.” Marik shook his head.
Kerwin grinned broadly. “Just about! It makes a nice change from spending the day ironing the seams on your uniform to kill the lice, don’t you think? I’m taking these sacks over to the army clerks tomorrow to exchange it for larger coin. The payroll chests can have all this copper back. Landon and Floroes are coming along to watch my back and help carry sacks for drinking funds. Want to come along?”
“Sorry, but I already have a pan on the fire.”
“Your loss. Stop by the table later if you get a chance.”
With a glance at the three heavy sacks on the tent floor that would form Kerwin’s bedroll tonight, he asked, “So are you going to retire from the Kings after this season?”
“I’m thinking about it. If I get back to Kingshome alive, I’ll have to examine all my options, don’t you think?”
“Well if you do, then set up near Kingshome. Most of the season’s pay will end up in your lap!”
Kerwin laughed. “You know it! I’ll have the largest dicing room in Galemar! That’s a solemn promise! I hope that wall lasts until winter!”
“I believe it.” A separate thought struck. “What happens when the boulders piling up on the ground start blocking the wall? I wouldn’t want to charge across the field when it’s covered by so many obstacles.”
“Considerations for a distant day. Worry about tomorrow when it gets here.”
Marik left to eat supper while Kerwin pondered opening a second table near the northern catapult and splitting the profits with a partner. He would go hungry tonight unless someone brought him a bite, since only a fool would leave his takings unguarded. Ironic that the richest man in the camp would be the only one starving. There must be a moral buried in that, Marik imagined.
Edwin and Hayden spent the respite with the hunting groups. At first the hunting had been serious and, as Landon predicted, primarily destined for the plates of the nobles. Venison haunches landed in the common cook pots yet the few who received fresh meat slices were those in the right place at the right time. The odds on being one of those men would have sent Kerwin to calculating and salivating.
Since the fighting had temporarily ceased and the danger grown minimal, the nobles among the army officers decided that nearly two seasons without their normal sport was unhealthy. They took to the woods the way the common soldiers took to Kerwin’s table.
Hunting parties were the order of the day. There were no game masters in charge of the Green Reaches so the hunters who had professionally tracked the game were reassigned as guides or beaters. Descending from actual hunting to beating the underbrush to flush out prey for full-of-themselves nobles who could not tell the difference between a raccoon’s footprints and a donkey’s struck them a low blow. Still, no one flapped his lips in complaint where the nobles could overhear, unless they were fools.
“This bites my ass,” Edwin complained, away from where the nobles could overhear.
Hayden nodded his agreement while they followed the fresh deer spoor, mildly surprised there were any left in the area after the last fifteen days.
They acted as lead men for this group, guiding two young nobles, tracking their quarry. The beaters along for the hunt were silent. It was senseless to spook the game until they knew in what direction to send them. Patches of brown eventually flashed between the leaves crowding the deer path they followed.
The noble pair also spotted the movement. They spurred their mounts, bullying past Edwin and Hayden. Annoyed, insulted, for proper procedure demanded no one passed the lead men, they chased after their young charges. Undoubtedly these two barely-men were fourth or fifth sons, here to demonstrate their house’s loyalty to the king by sending their own, while risking none of the immediate heirs.
And both spoiled rotten too, no doubt. The two shouted and hollered, scaring the nearby game worse than the beaters would have. Startled, the deer, a young buck growing its first rack, leapt away while they began shooting.
If either could shoot with any accuracy, they concealed the fact well. They did manage to hit the young stag, except it was an ugly gut wound. It would not kill the animal until it had run in pain for several miles, terrified and suffering. The youngsters spurred after it, one heading his mount straight into a patch of blackberry brambles.
Angry at the horse’s hesitancy and not caring one whit for it, he kicked it repeatedly with his spurs until it tore itself loose with several shrill whinnies. Its coat bled in places from nose to tail, from withers to fetlocks, but the moron hardly seemed to notice.
Edwin rode forward to retake the lead. The first youngster, the one who had not just nearly ruined his mount for good, snarled at his presumption. “This is my kill, huntsman. Stay back with the rest of these bush-beaters and out of my way!”
He charged into the Reaches after the young stag while his friend ripped free from the last brambles to tear along after.
“I hope they stumble over a root and crush their heads,” Edwin swore to Hayden during their pursuit.
“The horses don’t deserve that.”
“Then I hope they take a branch across the throat and break their necks!”
Hayden nodded in agreement.
Miles later, the stag had run itself to death. They found the noble pair both gloating and disappointed. How anybody could express pride in such an unclean shot went beyond both hunters. Also, the boys’ disappointment stemmed from the stag’s youth. Too young to have fathered any offspring, the buck’s antlers were still small and growing. Only four points graced his crown. The first fool kept nudging it with the toe of his boot while they talked about what a poor trophy they had captured.
Neither showed the slightest bit of respect for their kill. Edwin wanted to send an arrow through both their windpipes.
“You,” one addressed Hayden. “Have those men haul this back to the camp. It can go into the soldiers’ cook pot and give the men a taste of fresh meat.” He clearly thought this to be a tremendous act of charity. Nose held high, he turned to his friend. “Come on, then. Let’s go find a real trophy!”
The other eagerly agreed. Hayden placed a restraining hand on Edwin’s arm.
If Balfourth had a taste for hunting, that is other than hunting Fielo, then he did not indulge it. Instead, he chose an equally popular recreation among the nobles, known as ‘Proving You Are Better Than Everyone Else’. The skill he might or might not possess in this instance was boxing.
He had been chatting with one of his blue-blooded peers in the pavilion when the subject came up, ending in a challenge to be carried out the next day. Word spread, and Kerwin felt torn between his table and the match. In the end, he elected to stay with his table as the catapults provided hundreds of betting opportunities while the match would only present a handful. The downside, the very real downside, was it meant forgoing the pleasure of watching Balfourth get beaten in
to the ground.
Both combatants arrived with their seconds. They chose two umpires from their gathered peers, whose job it would be to judge the match and maintain fairness, and soon both had their hands wrapped in thick gauze they had likely stolen from a supply stock somewhere.
A different young noble marked a chalk square on the ground while the spectators swelled to a sizable crowd. The two seconds each stood on their combatant’s side. Balfourth and Roxbury, another baron’s son, shook hands.
They backed to their sides, the two umpires gave the nod, then they advanced as one.
Amazingly, Balfourth proved to be a capable boxer, or at minimum a well trained one. He kept his hands up, blocking Roxbury’s swings, sending several back that staggered his opponent. Roxbury fell first.
Balfourth backed off after the umpires called a fall. They started the count, yet Roxbury leapt up before they reached ‘two’. Their seconds led them back to their sides, ending the first round.
The umpires signaled a start and the two advanced for the second round. It too ended with Balfourth felling Roxbury after the two circled, exchanging jabs for several minutes. Roxbury sported a greater number of bruises and swellings than Balfourth, who acted fairly smug about it.
Roxbury sprang to his feet as quickly as before. The third round began but ended in moments when Balfourth ate the dirt with a split lip. Roxbury shook his hand and blew on his knuckles while his second led him back to his side.
At the end of the twenty-eighth round, Balfourth claimed victory when Roxbury stayed down for the thirty count, and the umpires declared him a Defeated Man.
His face looked a mess and his body felt uniformly sore, but Balfourth had proven himself before the cheering crowd. In his exuberance, he ignored the few boos and hisses that ordinarily would have set his blood to boiling.
Marik and the rest were not exuberant at all when they heard about it.
“I would have bet against him if Kerwin had been running the odds,” Marik said when he learned of Balfourth’s victory. “This proves he’s out to make my life miserable.”
An agreeing chorus filled the small tent.
As for Sloan and the others in the Fourth Unit, they remained wary during the holiday under the enemy’s nose. They sat sharpening their blades, waiting for the blood to begin flowing, as it always did in the end.
* * * * *
“Let’s go!”
In the clearing where Marik received instruction from Colbey, he and Dietrik faced each other. Marik used his new technique to see how long he could hold it during a battle.
Once initiated, it required minimal thought to maintain, but a run differed from a battle. During a run he could let his mind wander while his body performed its repetitive motions. During a fight, if he sacrificed any concentration, he would be dead in moments.
Dietrik opened with a few slow strikes, letting Marik set the sparring pace while he switched his concentration back and forth, testing the limits of his new stamina-boosting technique.
After several blows, Marik suddenly felt the new energy through his body disappear. His attention had wandered too far from maintaining the flow.
“Hold up,” he told Dietrik, who backed off immediately. Marik studied himself.
“It’s no good. After I’ve done this a few thousand times I might not need to think about it. For now I can only keep it up under easy conditions.”
“Too bad,” Dietrik allowed. “It sounds like a right nice trick to be able to pull off.”
“It is, but it’s not going to grant me inexhaustible stamina during the next battle.”
“Maybe you still have time to practice. We’ve been camped here for two and a half eightdays, and that bloody wall doesn’t look ready to fall anytime soon.”
“I guess, but I want to try something else. Give me a moment.”
“Certainly,” his friend replied and began working on a new strike series he had been considering.
Marik sat on a fallen tree and opened his magesight. He watched his hands while he began the visualizations Colbey had taught him.
He pictured every inch of his body, every muscle, every sinew. His breathing slowed to a regular rhythm. Soon, he imagined the strength already flowing through the muscle, drawing on his stamina. In his mind he pictured this and increased the flow. While he imagined it, he felt his muscles drinking in new stamina as his imaginings became reality.
With his magesight he saw the same thing that had happened to Colbey. His aura had reshaped into a perfect copy of himself rather than a glowing nimbus surrounding him. This was the technique’s secret, Marik now knew.
The whole technique was an exercise in self control, the way certain monk sects were able to control their own heartbeats during meditation. With the visualizations as the key, Colbey had redirected the excess energies that naturally bled off into the etheric plane, forming his aura. By refocusing them back into his body, he tapped an additional source of strength. One he depleted only slightly faster than it formed.
Marik studied his hands while opening his magesight to its utmost. When he did so, his vision showed him the world as it had that first time in Tollaf’s workroom. Rather than seeing the general aura glow, his vision sharpened until he could discern each individual vein, every minute forking in the paths of his personal energy network. He saw cool, white life flowing through his body inside the blood streams, yet it went beyond that. Within his muscles ran smaller networks of impossibly narrow lines. When he flexed his arm, his careful scrutiny revealed the thin lines bulging slightly.
He released his control over his aura and watched closely. His aura lost its new shape, expanding until it formed its usual ovoid surrounding him. No changes occurred in the smaller energy lines flowing through his muscles, which confirmed his suspicion.
The new strength granted by his reshaped aura was general rather than specific. Shaped as himself and seeming to exist within the same space, the redirected energies covered his body, seeping in the way rain soaked through a cloak that had been insufficiently waterproofed. They did not flow along the actual channels within his muscles. Instead they coated the muscles in a layer of fresh, usable energy that the channels absorbed only as need dictated.
Which meant his idea might work after all.
“Dietrik.”
“Yes?” He had run through his various patterns and performed the series he’d created the day they were first challenged by an officer in Kingshome. Simply ten to twelve thrusts straight at an enemy’s chest, except Dietrik had increased his speed impressively, completing the full dozen in four seconds.
“I’ve thought of a great name for that move.” A faint bearing in Dietrik’s posture, him leaning back with his hand daintily extending the rapier, made him feel like teasing his friend.
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“I think, ‘The Dastardly Woodpecker’s Strike’ fits it perfectly.”
Dietrik glared. “If you’re so interested in birds, how do you fancy this one?” He flipped a rude gesture at Marik that made them both laugh briefly.
“Come over here.”
Dietrik did. “What’s in the wind?”
“Hold out your arm. Next to mine.”
“Why?”
“I want to compare something.”
Dietrik shrugged, holding his bare arm steady while Marik compared the energy network running through his muscles with Dietrik’s. Marik’s physical strength surpassed Dietrik’s, if not by much. As he guessed, the channels in Dietrik’s arm were slightly thinner than his own, if only by the slightest margin. It required several moments of close examination before Marik felt certain.
“Right. I’m going to try my idea, and if I blow it I might need you to carry me back to the tent.”
“That doesn’t sound good, mate. Should I be worried?”
“I don’t think so,” Marik answered. Dietrik claimed a seat beside him on the log. “You know how I told you Colbey’s trick increases your strength?”
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“Yes. As I said, it sounds useful.”
“On occasions, it is. But really, it only increases your stamina so you can last longer, it doesn’t actually increase your strength. You can’t go flinging boulders at the walls yourself when the catapult breaks down.”
“Now that would be an impressive sight.”
“I have an idea. I got it the other day when I was thinking about why Colbey’s trick works the way it does.”
“Another new technique?”
“No. An improvement, I think, on the original idea. Or maybe a variation.”
“I’m all ears.”
“First, I want to use this.” He reached down and retrieved the sword he had taken from a wagon carrying the weapons confiscated from the Nolier prisoners. As swords went, it might measure up to Sennet’s lower standards for the Kingshome armory. Its quality surpassed Marik’s first sword but its craftsmanship fell short of his current blade.
“I was wondering about that. What’s the flap?”
“I don’t want to damage my sword while I test this. First though, I need a target.”
“You need me?” Dietrik began to rise, then sank back down when Marik shook his head.
“No. It’s too bad there’re no pells or any of our straw dummies. I suppose this will do.”
‘This’ was a smaller tree at the clearing’s edge. A young ash, it looked to be only a few years old. Marik took the sword he had spent half the night sharpening and held it level with the trunk.
“Are you sure about that? A sword isn’t exactly the right tool for cutting down the forest.”
“I’m not going to,” Marik said before he reared back and struck the tree as hard as he could in a slashing chop.
“You could have fooled me,” Dietrik replied after Marik left the blade protruding from the trunk and stepped closer to examine it. Bark had chipped away when the steel struck. The blade only bit a third its own width, half an inch, into the trunk. Marik yanked it free and readied a second strike.
For this blow, Marik focused. His stamina rose when his aura reshaped. With a repeat swing, Marik buried the blade anew in the trunk, with the same result.
