Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (16 page)

    
In the SCA, we had practiced with rattan swords and heavy, wooden shields that covered us from our nose to our knees.  Our whole strategy had been to swing the sword around the shield and try to catch the opponent in the back.

    
Here if you trained with a shield, you used a metal circle, never wider than eighteen inches.  You employed it at the last minute when you couldn’t dodge your opponent’s sword.  Mostly, you were trying either to overpower your opponent, or to wear them out so that they dropped their guard and you could hit them.

    
“Fancy tricks, waving your sword around, wrist spins and such,” Tezzen told us, never less than once per class, “all of that is fine for theater, but in a fight it gets you killed.  Watch your enemy’s hips like you would the hips of your lover, because like hers, his will tell you what he plans to do.”

    
Tezzen cost a gold coin a week, and you could stay all day if you wanted to.  I learned to spar, to parry; to advance and to retreat, and that I had an awful lot to learn about swordplay.

    
I stopped next at Bawser’s Shipping, my employer.  Rourke had been right – they hired me at a silver a week as I dismounted, my second day here, and had little for me to do until this month began.

    
It was the second day of Law – an entire holy month to Aileen – and the crops had been rolling in from Sental for two days.  The streets were abuzz with merchants and wagons, bidders and barterers, sailors and ships and warriors like me looking for jobs.

    
Anyone whom Bawser - another of these dark, fat, city men of Myr - thought to hire had to spar with me, as his lead warrior.  I had no idea how I had earned the title, except by size.  As expected, most warriors were better than me, though most were smart enough to hold back.  I would say that I was twice the swordsman now that I had been when coming in the gates.  I had grown bigger, stronger and faster than any of them, but didn’t have their skill yet.

    
If things had been different, if it had been me as the challenger instead of as the lead warrior, then I would have bested the lead warrior if I could have.  I would have done this to distinguish myself as a better warrior and to get a better deal.

    
It would have marked me, instead, as an arrogant show-off with no self-control.  The point of matching swords with the lead warrior is to show that you knew the pointy end from the cross guard, and nothing else.  Caravan guards are there to keep the goods safe, not to chase off and fight wars.  Fortunately, I learned this lesson before it cost me this opportunity, although it left me reflecting on how many others I had lost before learning it.

    
My size no longer surprised me in relation to the natives.  I remember my first trip to the Philippines, where the average height seemed to be about five feet two inches.  I had Filipino friends in the U.S. who were taller than me, but their parents were small like the natives of the islands.  The difference could be found in that high-protein American diet, critical to our growth development.

    
I entered the shipping compound and dismounted.  I nodded to the other warriors, most of whom slept there in their bedrolls and washed in the river, waiting for their pay and the first wagons out.  Drelg, a Volkhydran from the city of Senta, stood only four inches shorter than I and seemed to be a very good swordsman.  He had shown me some wrist moves that made my sword dance in my hand.  He stood next to Blizzard’s head (the stallion still bit anyone who touched him or, more likely, stomped them with his new steel shoes) and put his hand on my armored shoulder.

    
“I’m glad you’re in armor,” he told me, his eyes serious.

    
“What’s up?”

    
He looked up immediately.  Slang!  It had been woven so deep into my language that I didn’t realize it.  At least there was swearing.  I don’t think I could have survived without the swearing.

    
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

    
“There are some Uman mercenaries here trying to bid Bawser’s whole shipping business.”  He nodded toward a stand of horse by the feed trough, with armed and armored Uman warriors standing near them.

    
“So?”

    
Drelg spat.  “So?” he asked.  “So, how about if they bid it and win? Then Bawser won’t need the lot of us, how about that?”

    
I nodded.  “Well, what are they offering?  Are we going to have to take lower pay?”

    
Drelg shook his head.  “Bawser doesn’t mind paying if he is getting the best protection for his wagons.  The mercs have men and armor and say that they can fight in unison.  Their Boss wants to fight Bawser’s champion, which is you.”

    
I groaned.  My swordsmanship had improved but I doubted that I would be able to beat a trained mercenary.  You can only learn so much in a couple of months.

    
“Hey, Rancor!” someone shouted.  I turned to see a wide-shouldered Uman in a chain mail shirt and carrying a heavy, double-edged sword, standing next to Bawser.  I checked my sword over my shoulder and unclipped my helmet from my belt.  Aileen had just polished the horns.  I walked to them, leaving Blizzard loose.  He would usually just wander over to the other horses and eat with them.  They were smaller than he and, though one stallion had snorted at him once, they got out of his way when he went to eat.

    
I did
not
want to lose this gig.  It would be inconvenient and humiliating to try to get another shipping company to pick me up; most had tried to hire me from Bawser and I had turned them down out of loyalty.

    
Bawser put his hand on my upper arm and turned me away from the main force of hired warriors.  The Uman looked me up and down and smiled.  I didn’t feel like returning his smile and didn’t

    
“I’m told that you have a girl you are pretty fond of, lad,” he said to me.  Bawser had never called me “lad” before.  I saw some gray in the Uman’s green hair and Bawser’s black hair was salt and pepper, on his head and growing up out of his loose-fitting cotton shirt and from the backs of his hands.  He was about fifty by my reckoning, so I guess “lad” wasn’t too far off base for him.  But he had hired me to fight for him.

    
“OK,” I said.  The Uman chuckled and Bawser looked into my eyes.

    
“Her father is calling you his future son-in-law, Rancor, so be careful with that,” he warned.  Inside, I groaned.  What a pain this had turned into.  Regardless of what happened today, I needed to leave Myr.

    
“Are we shipping Terok’s Beer?” I asked.

    
“Well, that is the thing of it, Rancor,” Bawser said.  “Jerarl, here – Jerarl, this is Rancor, and back.” We took each other’s wrists in our hands.  He had a sharp dagger up his sleeve.

    
“Jerarl’s mercenaries say that they can do a better job protecting my wagons,” Bawser continued.  “But that will leave me needing a local Master at Arms.  I am expanding and have no son – it is an important position.”

    
Wow
, I thought.  I wouldn’t have put Terok setting me up like that.  I was impressed and nodded, frowning appreciatively.

    
“That is high praise, Bawser,” I said.  “If I have an interest in the business, though, I have to wonder two things.”

    
I looked Jerarl up and down.  “What are you paying him and his men,” I said, and before Bawser could object to the personal question, added, “and what it would cost to turn his coat.”

    
They both knit their brows.  “What coat?” Jerarl asked.

    
“Sorry,” I said, “not a local expression.  What is the lowest bid it would take to get you to look the other way from someone who was going to take Bawser’s wagons from him?”

    
Now Bawser frowned, but Jerarl seemed upset.  “You think you are going to find a lot of people coming up and negotiating with these wagons, lad?” he hissed at me, hand on his sword.

    
“Only takes one,” I countered, looking in his eyes.  “Mercs are men for hire, and don’t call me ‘lad.’”

    
Jerarl raised an eyebrow and Bawser stood between us.  “Jerarl has a long reputation that would be ruined if he sold someone out, Rancor.”

    
“It wouldn’t be ruined with the one he sold out to,” I said.  “I know you are the biggest, Bawser, but why doesn’t everyone use mercs, then?  Because you can’t trust them, that’s why.”

    
“No,” Jerarl said, “because we cost too much – but Bawser Shipping can afford us.  If he’s offering you a chance to put up your sword, settle with a good woman and a solid job, Rancor, I really suggest you take it.”

    
I did not in any way have enough information to make a solid decision here.  I did know that I didn’t want to settle in Myr.  This wouldn’t be War’s purpose for me.  I hadn’t dreamed since coming here, but I could imagine War starting those dreams up again if I didn’t do what He wanted.  I knew what He could do – that moment of the most severe pain that I could possibly imagine – and I wasn’t going to go through it again.

     Some men had faith, and they could hem and haw about what their god expected of them.  I had proof of what mine could do – and I wasn’t going through
that
again, I didn’t care why.

    
So rather than bravery, I showed cowardice when I said, “No.”

    
I looked at Bawser.  “It makes no sense, Bawser.  Mercs make most of their money from plunder.  They must be taking a huge pay cut to work for you, at no less risk to themselves and no better lifestyle.  This man has more than a dagger up his sleeve.”

    
Jerarl’s lip curled.  Bawser seemed pensive now.  “I didn’t know that.”

    
“You don’t
need
to know that,” Jerarl said.  “We have our own reasons to guard wagons instead of trekking all over Fovea looking for work.”

    
“You said it,” I noted.  “Your own reasons, not Bawser’s Shipping’s reasons.”

That tore it and he drew his sword.  I drew mine, keeping it between him and me.  Blizzard’s head came up and he watched us.  I focused my eyes on Jerarl’s body and cut everything else out.

     Well, that isn’t true – you want to know what is around you in a sword fight.  It might not be fair for one of his men to step in on your enemy’s behalf, but that didn’t make you any less dead with his sword in your kidneys.  In a sword fight, your opponent’s eyes and hips told you what he would do.  You can shoulder fake to make your opponent think you are going to swing when you aren’t, but you have to set your hips before you really
do
swing – and that is a fact.

    
Jerarl jumped hot out of the gate with a downward sweep that missed my shoulder and turned up toward my ribs.  He was going for the leather strapping in my armor to put me off my guard.  Cut the straps and the breastplate falls half-off, and then the armor is more hindrance than help.  Tezzen had pointed that fault out in my armor, and had replaced the outer straps with inners.  The outers were decoration now – a false target.

    
My sword came down across his forearms, as I made ready to take the hit to the ribs.  He wouldn’t penetrate the armor.  His eyes widened as he pulled back, nicking my rib protection and with me gashing his forearm.

    
“First blood!” Bawser said, stepping in.  “Enough – done fast, but done, Jerarl.”

    
“The hell it is,” Jerarl growled, looking at the severe cut he’d suffered.  I don’t think that he expected the sword to be so sharp or the armor so tough.