Conflict and Courage (10 page)

He needed an
assistant to help him with the extensive training plan; there was
not enough hours in the day for him to do it all himself without
exhausting himself in the process. The training timetables were
full to overflowing and he couldn’t be in two places at once.

Ross was
waiting in the practice field with trepidation. He knew full well
why he had been summoned. He knew he was above average when riding
Lililya in battle, but afoot and compared with Wilhelm Dahlstrom he
was a rank amateur.

After a
strenuous workout, when Ross lost his sword to the Weaponsmaster no
less than eight times, Wilhelm called a halt.

“Good,” Wilhelm
said. “Good. You have a natural talent for this kind of work. With
practice you will be very good. Every morning before breakfast we
will meet here and I will give you a thorough workout. The cadets
will see nothing of this. When their formal practices begin you
will assist me, thus you will learn more and also how to teach.
Soon you will be ready to take classes on your own, to begin with,
the juniors then with those who are older.”

“I’ll do my
best Weaponsmaster,” replied Ross, mopping his brow; the sweat
streaming down his face. He had thought himself fit, but the
hour-long bout with Wilhelm had proved otherwise. Wilhelm noticed
this. He, himself, had not even broken sweat, “and you must get
fitter. The Weaponsmaster and the Assistant Weaponsmaster never
show their exhaustion to the pupils. Calm, cool and collected is
what you must strive for. Your goal must be faster, fitter and
better than all your pupils.”

Ross looked his
disbelief.

“I think you
will do just fine,” said Wilhelm with a sudden smile that lighted
up his rather stern face. “Together we will make the Vada
invincible. Training and practice. I will teach you and you and
Lililya will teach Mislya and me how to fight cavalry style.”

“I am your
Assistant?”

“Have I not
said so? Now, let us begin,” Wilhelm announced and beckoned Mislya
and Lililya over, “we have three weeks before the timetable
commences. The cadets are arriving. Although there are more than
enough jobs in the stronghold to keep them busy I think it best
that they begin training as soon as we are ready. We will spend
this time getting your skills honed and those of the other training
officers. Now we will practice some more.”

Ross sighed; it
was obvious that rest wasn’t on the Weaponsmaster’s agenda.

At the end of
the most demanding lesson Ross had ever experienced, the two men
sat down to talk. Francis and Asya joined them and Jim and Larya
sauntered over.

“We appreciate
your decision to come here,” began Ross, stretching his long legs
out on the turf, “if Francis here is right, the Vada will become
the mainstay of the north’s defences. Those of us who followed
Francis and Asya in the charge of the Lindars know what a near
thing it was and how close we came to annihilation.”

“Goodness knows
I did my best,” said Francis, “but I’m not a professional.
Fistfights were what I was good at on the ship. The first time I
picked up a sword I admit I didn’t even know how to hold the
blessed thing. All I knew was that the sharp end was the dangerous
one.”

Wilhelm
guffawed. He appreciated the joke. He remembered Francis from the
ship.

“Asya and I
worked out what to do between us,” continued Francis.

“You did well
for an amateur,” said Wilhelm, nodding his head. “Next time there
is a battle your vadeln-pairs will be trained properly. Even the
adults must practice and correct any bad habits. You will not lead
untried and partly trained troops into battle again, I swear
it.”

“Next time?”
ventured Ross.

“Next time,”
confirmed Francis. “Make no mistake about it. The Larg known as
Aoalvaldr will be back.”

“Robert
Lutterell is keeping up his infantry training?”

“He has
problems, already some colonists are becoming complacent and it’s
only been a few months.”

“The rest of
the Council don’t see the need for a permanent force,” said Jim.
“They think part-time militia is enough, that there will be time to
get organised. Robert is standing by his guns though. I only hope
that when the time comes he will be ready.”

“You don’t
think they will be back this year?”

“Who? The
Larg?”

“Yes.”

“Not the Larg,
no, but I think the convicts will.”

“How do you
work that out?” asked Wilhelm.

“We questioned
the prisoners. It’s not common knowledge yet, but we learned a lot
from them, much of it unintentional on their part, I’m sure. One of
their leaders is one called Brentwood. He’s built a dockyard just
inland from the main river delta. One of the prisoners talked about
boat plans; he had caught sight of boats with a narrow keel, sleek,
slim and fast.”

“Attack
boats?”

“That is my
guess. Ever heard of an ancient people called Vikings?”

Francis and
Ross shook their heads.

“I’ll put young
Emily on to you. She is an avid devotee of history. She will
explain how these marauders ravaged Europe’s coastlines in a time
long ago, rowing ships whose hulls appear to resemble those
Brentwood is building.”

“Geraldine
mentioned them at the farm and again during our journey here and I
will speak to Emily,” promised Wilhelm. “She and Ilyei helped build
Mislya’s daga.”

Francis
wriggled a bit and took out the much-crumpled timetable from his
pocket. “Better have a last look at this before we copy it
out.”

“Regretting
your offer to help?” asked Wilhelm.

“I’ve spoken
with Jim here,” he said with a tight grin ignoring the question,
“and he has offered to help with tactics, at least to begin with,
and Afanasei and the other three home rtath have offered their
Lindars for battle practice. We shall manage.”

* * * * *

Two weeks
later, after Laura had struggled long and hard to make sense of the
scribbled timetable and make out three fair copies, Francis tacked
one up on the cadet notice board. When the cadets returned hot and
dusty from their chore sections, all thoughts of baths and food
were forgotten as they jostled closer to see what it said.

Brian was at
the front of the crowd by dint of much pushing and shoving and
announced the news, “it’s the timetable at last. We start lessons
after rest day next week.”

“Have we still
got to do chores?” asked a voice from the back.

“Of course we
do you chump,” answered Brian, “you didn’t expect anything else did
you?” He looked at the notice in more detail. “At least they have
stopped the wall-building although volunteers are requested for
this on the days classes end at noon.”

There were
disappointed groans though most recognised that the walls had to be
built and that many other buildings were still not complete.

“Well,” said
Emily cheerfully through the tumult of voiced complaints and
comments, “if anyone thought the Vada an easy option they must have
realised by now the error of their ways.”

“Its no harder
than breaking the ground for planting on my father’s farm,”
interjected Duguld, “and I think I’d much rather be here than
there.”

Emily looked at
her year-mate, they were much of an age and had both been listed as
members of the sub-section that held the oldest junior cadets. An
active type, academic pursuits, apart from music, bored Duguld to
the marrow and he had been most disgruntled to hear that junior
cadets would be required to attend the general curricula classes
required by law.

When asked,
Francis had been adamant.

“I don’t want
to lead groups of ignoramuses into battle,” he informed the cadet
delegation in no uncertain terms, “do not come to me complaining
about this again.”

And that was
that. In Vadath the educational exams may have been suspended up
until now but that was going to stop. The juniors would be required
to work as hard at their academic lessons as they did at
weaponscraft and teachers were on hand to ensure that they did. The
cadets would share all classes, except those relating specifically
to the Vada, with unpaired children under the age of sixteen.

Emily was more
than happy with this. She hoped to be selected for Holad training
when she passed out of junior cadetship. A study programme had been
prepared by Laura and young Doctor James for such pairs, merging
the needs of fight training with that of their medical studies. As
trained medics it was foreseen that they would patrol and fight
with the Vada troops or Ryzcks as they were becoming known.

“What have we
got first day?” she asked trying to see over the heads of those
taller and bulkier than she.

“Dismounted
arms practice,” Brian informed her, “then riding, then general
lessons. A break for lunch, thank goodness a free period, then
first aid followed by mounted arms practice for those passed out of
the riding class. Chore duties are in addition to this. They intend
that we are kept busy. Weaponsecond Ross did say that riding
practice is only temporary though. Once Geraldine and Jsei have
pronounced us competent, that becomes a free period as well.”

“Are you sure
you want to enter the Holad?” asked Duguld of Emily. “Look at
their
timetable, only two free periods a week. You must be
mad.”

“I’m sure,”
answered Emily with conviction. “If you had seen what Ilyei and I
saw on the battlefield.” Her eyes grew distant with remembered
horror.

“I was
considered too young to man the settlement walls,” said Duguld.

“So was I, so
was Tara and Thomas too.” Her eyes filled with tears. The trauma
she had suffered from Thomas and Stasya’s deaths was taking a long
time to heal. “Still,” she added with a small smile, “many of us
lost loved ones. We are here to make sure it doesn’t happen again,
right?”

“You should
pass out of the riding class pretty well immediately,” said Duguld
to both Brian and Emily with whom he was forming a close
friendship. “What’s the small notice at the top?”

“Geraldine is
giving a lecture tonight after tea about riding,” Brian answered
with a grin, “every single cadet is requested to attend.”

“Requested?”

“I think that
translates as ‘ordered’,” observed Emily with some humour.

“Bang goes my
ride beside the river then,” groaned Duguld, “I was going to
practice.” By common consent, Duguld practiced his trumpet well
away from the stronghold proper.

* * * * *

The hall where
the lecture took place was full to capacity and not only with the
cadets; even Susa Francis was there.

“With and
without the harness,” Geraldine informed her audience, “you must be
able to stick on like glue.”

“Can’t we hold
on to the straps?” asked a voice from the back.

“What happens
if an enemy with a sword or sharp knife cuts them? Are you going to
say, ‘excuse me while I fix it’? I think not, unless you wish to
die very young.”

That got
everyone’s full attention.

“In my classes,
you will learn to dismount and mount, first when standing still,
then when your Lind is moving, eventually at full gallop. In a
battle situation the fighting won’t stop while your partner comes
to a gentle halt and you take the time to mount. He or she may be
fighting at the time, trying to keep the Larg away from you. A
vadeln-pair dismounted is at his most vulnerable. The Larg, as many
of you know well, especially those who fought during the battle,
are heavier, bulkier and taller than the Lind. You have to be able
to remount no matter what is happening around you.”

Yvonne and
Brenda, a duo of senior cadets and who were more indolent by nature
than many of the others, looked very blue at this and they were not
the only ones.

“It will come
with practice,” Geraldine announced with a bright smile, a smile
that only a few of her listeners returned.

It looked like
Vada training was going to be very hard work.

* * * * *

Francis
McAllister and Jim Cranston were standing outside enjoying the cool
breeze. Francis was thinking about the way his life had turned
upside down during the past year and a half. From being the worst
troublemaker in the
Argyll’s
crew and the thorn in every
warrant officer’s side, Francis had become one of the most
respected men on Rybak. As Susa of the Vada, he had led both the
vadeln-pairs and the Lind of the Lindars to victory over the Larg,
now he had a wife and their first child was on the way.

“When did I
change?” he asked, half to himself. “I suppose it began when the
children were kidnapped, but I was already halfway there and
pairing with Asya completed the process.”

It was at this
point that Asya herself padded towards him.

Thus
recollected to his duties as Vada Susa, he came to himself. The
arrival of some new recruits was imminent and one of these was
posing, not just him, cause for concern.

: They come
:
she told him.

: How many
today? :

: Three.
Geraldine is not happy but Jsei is not troubled because Dahlya says
he a good man underneath :
Francis grunted as he started his
walk to the courtyard to greet them, Asya at his heels.

Jim was
beginning to get an inkling of who was coming. He decided to tag
along.

“The ex-con is
it?” he enquired, “I wondered when he would arrive. It was bound to
happen some time you know. Bet this pairing stirred things up a
bit.”

“It seems that
Dahlya cut him out of the work-gang. I’ve had outraged messages ad
nauseam from the Councillors, not Robert Lutterell I may add and
the Lind can’t understand what the problem is. They have respected
Dahlya’s right to choose her life-mate and expect us to do the
same. I don’t have a problem, but some of the Vada have, well,
expressed their displeasure.”