I didn’t realize I needed this backup until a little wrinkle disappeared from between Dagwood’s brows. Apparently he hadn’t been as keen on the magical training until linked to combat. Oh boy, Mary was going to have her hands full with this one. I had a notion that it would be like raising a young Bannen, or a young Gill. She might skewer me for volunteering her for this.
A porter came through the café, calling out, “Ferry to Z’gher, all aboard!”
“That’s our cue,” I noted, gathering up my bag and standing. “Dagwood, have you been on a ferry before? No? First rule, then, don’t fall off.”
Dagwood gave me a grin that did not reassure me. I had a feeling he was half tempted to jump in just for the adventure of it. His father could have warned me that his son was a rapscallion.
Perhaps thirty other people also boarded the ferry to cross the channel. We had a few animals, as well, mostly a dog and some sheep, and one parrot that squawked out interesting insults if anyone jostled his cage. The people seemed irritated to be crossing in such drizzly, miserable weather. The ferry had a covered overhang to sit under, but it wasn’t large enough to seat everyone, leaving more than a few clustered around the edges, taking what shelter they could.
“Really glad the ride is only about an hour and a half,” Bannen mentioned idly. He stood with his back to the sea, protecting me and Dagwood from the worst of the rain and sea spray. “By the time we arrive, it’ll be what, about seven hours till sunset? We’ve got time to move on, except that it will land us in the middle of nowhere if we leave now. You think we should catch a train or stay here for the night?”
“Stay here. I need to send another message to the railroad and get more information. All they gave me was the outline of where it was, who the foreman was, and the pay. But I need to know travel details, if we need to find our own way up there or if someone from the job site will come down to fetch us.”
“That’ll take time, to get a telegram to them and back. Let’s stay here, then. Dagwood and I will work on a little training while you’re playing tag with the new boss.”
Agreeable to this, I shrugged. “Fine. Get his hair cut too while you’re at it.”
“Cut?” they objected in unison, wearing nearly twin expressions on their faces that clearly questioned my sanity.
Patience. I must have patience. “Gentlemen. Unless Dagwood is interested in braiding his hair back—and it’s basically long enough to do it—then I suggest a haircut.”
Bannen, of course, didn’t believe in cutting hair and was intrigued by the idea of braiding it. He reached a hand out to ruffle Dagwood’s hair one way, and then another, nodding to himself at whatever mental image he entertained. “Maybe not full braids, but definitely we can do a few to draw the front of it back—”
Ducking away from that hand, Dagwood glared, shaking his head firmly and guarding his head with both hands. “No way. Braids are for girls.”
I bit my bottom lip, determined not to laugh because I knew that line was going to get quite the reaction.
Sure enough, Bannen glared right back. “Braids are not for girls, they are for warriors, and everyone in Z’gher wears them. Where’d you get that stupid idea, anyway?”
“Only people in my village who wears braids are the girls,” Dagwood argued back.
“Kid, your village is like fifty people, you can’t judge what’s fashionable or not by fifty people.”
“Braids are for girls,” Dagwood maintained, chin jutting out stubbornly.
“Are not.”
“Are too.”
I watched them argue, in each other’s faces, ignorant of the fact that everyone around them silently laughed at their exchange. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of surprise that Bannen had fallen to an eight-year-old’s level. Vee and I had already established last year that Bannen and Chi were perpetually twelve, after all. What was four years either way?
When they progressed to the point of just yelling, “Not!” “Too!” at each other, I interceded with a firm hand over each of their mouths. “Stop. You’re literally being laughed at by everyone on the ferry, which is ridiculous. Bannen, it’s not your head, you don’t get to decide what to do with Dagwood’s hair. Dagwood, it’s your choice whether you want to pull your hair up or get it cut, but we have to do something, it’s hanging in your eyes all of the time.”
Bannen licked my palm, which I expected, because he’s still a child. I stuck mine out at him, making him laugh, and finally lowered my hand to wipe it on his shirt.
“Hey!” he protested, chuckling and ducking away from me.
“I don’t want your slobber, you can keep it,” I informed him. “Dagwood?”
The boy stared up at Bannen, eyes narrowed for a long moment, then nodded decisively. “I’ll get it cut short.”
“Alright, then.”
“Prepare to disembark!” the ferry master called out.
As Dagwood turned, grabbing his bag and settling it on his shoulder, Bannen waggled his eyebrows and lifted a hand. I gave it a very soft high-five, firmly biting back a chuckle. He really was good with kids.
Aside from settling Dagwood on a haircut, the mock-argument seemed to loosen him up a little. Perhaps he felt more connected to us, or at least, he knew where we stood with him. This time, as we left the ferry, he grabbed my arm to keep from losing me in the crowd. I shifted my hand to hold his and gave him a wink. “Good idea. Don’t want to lose you.”
“Yeah.” He walked at my side, hand sometimes pulling in mine as people crowded in around us.
The ferry dock had more people around it, the street crowded along the water front by restaurants, hotels, and street kiosks. Bannen had been here a few times, so he led the way. I just followed, making sure that I had Dagwood and my bag. Bannen had the two larger suitcases tucked under each arm, carrying them about as if it was only a minor inconvenience. Better him than me. Moving just one nearly flattened me.
Dagwood watched him for several minutes. “Those are heavy.”
It took me a minute to realize he meant the suitcases. “Yes, very heavy. We crammed a lot in there. It’s why he’s carrying them and not me. Just one weighs as much as I do.”
“So he’s not a sissy?”
Absolutely positive that Bannen could hear every word of this conversation, in spite of the noise of the street cars nearby, I answered candidly, “He’s not. You heard about how I defeated Toh’sellor, right? Well, what the rumors didn’t say was that it took Bannen and a large team of MISD agents to fight all of the minions to get me to Toh’sellor. I wouldn’t have been able to get there without them. They fought for two days straight against monsters of all sizes.”
Dagwood seemed only half-impressed by this. “Big monsters?”
“Some of them.” I cast about, looking for something of comparable size, but most of the buildings next to us were only a story or two tall. Off in the distance, however, there was a clock tower and I pointed to it with my free hand. “See that big tower over there, the one with the clock in it? Some of them were that tall.”
That impressed him. He stared at it so much that he tripped over a street trolley track and nearly face planted. Only his grip on my hand saved him. Without more than a grunt, he pulled himself back up and kept walking as if nothing had happened. “But he didn’t fight Toh’sellor?”
This lack of reaction to nearly falling disturbed me a little. I remembered when I was very new under Tarkington’s care being like this. I was so accustomed to falling, to losing track of where I was and the surface of things, that it didn’t bother me after a while if I ran into something. It hurt, but the pain was something normal, or at least it was a normal consequence of being outside. His eyes looked ridiculously similar to mine, but I hadn’t realized how much until I saw him interact with his environment. With a small jerk of my head, I mentally returned to the conversation. “No. That was my job, after all. It took a Void Mage to be able to deal with Toh’sellor. Swords wouldn’t do anything to it.”
“Perhaps. You’ll certainly have the potential to. Depends on how well you train.” There, that should be the right answer, to encourage him to pay attention to something aside from swords.
As Dagwood mulled on this, I returned my attention to Bannen and the street we were on. He’d gotten off the main road and onto a slightly smaller side one that seemed to be hotel road. I counted seven just within throwing distance. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“The Golden Crown Hotel. It’s a chain hotel business along Z’gher’s coastal cities. They’re usually decent to stay in and don’t charge outrageous prices.” Bannen used his head to incline it further along the street. “There’s a telegraph office about five doors down, or at least there used to be, so you can go there.”
“I’ll settle into a room first, then go.” I felt better about leaving these two alone now. Before, I felt like I had to be ready to intercede, in case he proved too much for one person to handle, but Bannen seemed to have Dagwood figured out. More or less. “While I’m there, should I send a telegraph to your parents, tell them that we’re safely on another job that doesn’t consist of monsters?”
Bannen shot me a grateful look over his shoulder. “I love you.”
Laughing, because I knew very well how much his parents hassled him about taking ‘dangerous work,’ I assured him, “I’ll do that, then.”
We got the haircut out of the way first, because I knew very well that if I put it off to later, it would never happen and then Rena would be peeved with both of us. Dagwood looked sharp with his hair buzzed close on the sides, the top part a little longer and combed to the side. It made me realize that the rest of his clothing looked shabby in comparison and was at least a size too small. Likely my wife would realize this as well at some point—if she hadn’t already—and make sure he had new clothes before we took him to Mary and Gill’s.
I had no interest in changing too much at once with him. He dealt with enough change at the moment, no need to add to it. So instead, as we left the barber’s, I steered us toward a small city park in the main square. “Let’s take a break, do a basic lesson on hand-to-hand.”
“Okay,” he agreed readily, a bounce entering his stride.
Dagwood reminded me so much of myself at that age that it was a little scary. Mostly because I remembered what I got into at that age and to this day I wasn’t sure how I’d survived most of it. My job was to keep him alive until we could take him to Turransky, after all. I didn’t think Dagwood would make that easy. Diverting his attention, keeping him occupied so he didn’t find mischief, was my main goal on this trip.
The city park had geometric shapes of grass cut up by sidewalks and pretty flower boxes, with a single fountain in the middle of it. We found a patch of grass no one was on and then I put him side by side with me for a moment. “First, stance. You want your feet to be about shoulder width apart, it helps you stay in balance that way. Angle your body so you face an opponent sideways, it helps limit what they can hit. Right, like that. Now, front hand up to guard, other hand here around waist level to guard as well.”
He followed my instructions, but it didn’t stop him from peppering me with questions. “Why have my hand near my stomach? Which hand do I attack with?”
“You keep your hand there so that if someone tries to punch you, or kick you, you can either block it or catch them. And you attack with your front hand, your legs, and sometimes that off hand, depending on how you move.” These were good questions, and I smiled hearing them, because it meant he was thinking. Smart fighters lived longer. “Good, now that’s a good stance. Remember this. This is the basic stance you always fall back to. Okay?”
“Okay,” he assured me seriously. “How do I punch?”
“Give me a fist.” I waited for the basic mistake, saw it, and pulled his fingers apart. “Don’t put your thumb in the center, you’ll break it. Always goes on the outside. Yes, like that. Now, punch my hand. Harder. Good. Don’t overextend, you’ll upset your balance, and if you’re off balance, you’re screwed.”
He punched my hand again, but it had no force in it. Well, not compared to an adult. This child had been working with fish nets since he could walk. He was naturally stronger than most children his age, and I was sure that if he got in a fight with someone in his age group, they’d have a very different opinion about his strength.
I got his punches into the correct form, let him beat up my palms for a while, then switched to how to kick properly. I felt the force a little more there, but legs were always stronger, so that was no surprise.
We went a good two hours with this practice, varying it up, me randomly throwing a punch at quarter-speed so he could practice both punching and dodging. He was sweating by the time I called a halt, and I had faith I had worn him out enough that he would behave tonight. Mostly. I put nothing past kids.
“I think we’re good for today. We’ll practice again tomorrow. Good job, Dagwood. You’ve got talent.” It wasn’t empty praise. He really picked the techniques up quickly.
Pleased with himself, he gave me a grin. “Swords next?”
“Nope, swords your size are hard to come by. I’ll leave that up to Gill. But we can do knives next,” I offered in compromise. “Knives are actually better in close quarters than swords. Say you’re fighting in an alley; knives work better, swords are harder to maneuver in that tight space.”
Mollified that he would still get something sharp and pointy to play with, Dagwood accepted this with a nod. “Now?”
“Need to go shopping for one.” As he couldn’t have mine. Ever. I glanced up at the sun, but we still had another hour before we needed to meet Rena back at the hotel. “Let’s find a marketplace and see if we can find a good one for you.”
Happy with this idea, he readily followed along. I found myself warming up to the kid. He hadn’t cried, thrown a fit at leaving his family, or been a pain. But sometimes, Dagwood looked a little lost and sad, which naturally he would be, as he’d left everything he’d ever known. He had to miss his family at least a little at this point.
I’d left home at nineteen, to a totally different culture, with people who were relative strangers, and it had been a little overwhelming at times. I knew people apprenticed children at the age of eight all of the time, sometimes to a master in a totally different country, but it didn’t make it any easier on the child. Feeling a little sympathetic, I tried reaching out. “Which do you prefer, anyway, Dag or Dagwood?”
“Dag. Named after grandda. Dagwood’s old,” he stated decisively.
Family name, eh? “Dag it is, then. Rena and I both go by nicknames as well.”
He twisted his head up to look at me, interest piqued. “You do?”
I paused the conversation as we crossed the street, as it contained enough traffic to flatten the unwary. But once across and to the other sidewalk, I responded, “Yup. Bannen isn’t my real name, it’s Xiang Liang.”
Dag’s mouth worked around that, failed, and his nose scrunched up in aggravation. “That’s hard to say.”
“I know it. It’s why I go by Bannen. No idea what my parents were thinking when they named me that.” Not that it’s an uncommon name in Z’gher, but that was beside the point. “Rena’s full name is Renata, but she rarely uses it. But if you want a mouthful, you should try our friend Chi’s full name. It’s Chinnadurai.”
“That’s hard to say too. But he goes by Chi?” Dag frowned, head shaking a little back and forth. “Isn’t that kinda girly?”
“Not really. In Z’gher, Chi is a man’s name. Chi is actually what we call the force that flows through your body.”
“Really?” He ruminated on that, turning it over in his mind.
Dag was really stuck on this ‘girly’ thing, wasn’t he? I tried to remember if I had done that at his age, but growing up with so many sisters, cousins, aunts, and a mother wh
o could beat the snot out of me, I didn’t think of girls as weak. Marrying Rena had not changed that opinion, either.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied a market place, and we dove into it. It took about twenty minutes to find the right type of store, then another few to select the right kind of knife. I chose something with a good weight that was nice and dull to practice with. Then another that was similar in size with a very sharp edge. After paying, I handed the dull knife to my student and warned, “I know it’s going to be very tempting to run around randomly stabbing things. Don’t. If you can prove to me you’re responsible with this one, then I’ll give you the better knife.”
Dag eyed both knives, a slight pout forming. “I can’t use it at all?”
“Sure you can. When you’re practicing. Which means you can stab things I say you can stab.” The smith watched this exchange with a smile on his face, which he tried to cover with a hand. I gave him a quick grin as I put a hand on Dag’s shoulders and twirled him around, marching for the door again. “Thank you, Master.”
“Anytime,” the smith called back to us, laughter vibrating in his voice.
Not at all pleased to have only one toy that might or might not cut things, Dag tried bargaining as we left the marketplace. “But what if we run into monsters?”
“If we run into something dangerous, I will give you the sharp knife,” I promised. Not that I would ever let him near danger if I could help it, but that was not the argument I wanted to enter into at the moment. I’ll stick to one argument at a time, thanks.
“But what if you can’t get it to me fast enough?”
“Then we’re screwed and we’re all going to die, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Bannen,” he whined at me, pulling on my arm.
Rolling my eyes, I prayed for patience. “Dag, we’re heading into giant country, alright? The odds of monsters are practically nil because even monsters are afraid of giants. Practice hard, don’t go stabbity on me, and you’ll get the other knife before we leave for Turransky. Alright?”
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