Knights Magi (Book 4) (36 page)

Rondal slowly walked to the center of the circle chalked out for demonstrations, trying to loosen up his arms before the contest. 

I’m not any happier about it than you,
he heard Tyndal say mind-to-mind, as he entered the ring.  He swung his mock mageblade around a few times.

I’d wager otherwise
, Rondal sent back. 
Why would it bother you?

Because now they’ll all think I’m taking advantage of you after I already beat your face in last night.

Who beat whose face in?
Rondal quit worrying about Tyndal’s strength, reach, and aptitude.  He suddenly wanted to fight him very much.

“Gentlemen,” Master
Renando said, serenely, “prepare your spells.  Take your guards.  Salute . . . and begin!”

Rondal felt the effect of the augmentations take hold of his body and mind just before Tyndal did, but he did not attack until he was sure both of them were affected.  He didn’t have long to wait.  Once Tyndal heard the command to begin, he aggressively began his approach.

Fighting against another augmented warmage was tricky; in many ways it was similar to regular sparring.  But Rondal’s spell worked a little faster, he noted with satisfaction, and therefore his was the first strike to fly.

Tyndal neatly caught it on his wooden blade and spun another in response, and for the next several moments they traded parries like their first day of swordplay.  Then Tyndal apparently grew weary of the monotony and began varying his attacks.  His footwork kept him coming in on three main approaches, Rondal noted as he did his best to block the flurry of blows.  He couldn’t fault Tyndal for his footwork – it was flawless – but it also lacked imagination.  It was swordplay.  It wasn’t close combat.

That was his advantage, he realized, as he bore the impact of the well-placed blows.  Tyndal knew swordplay, and he knew a lot of it.  But this wasn’t – technically – swordplay.  This was warmagic.  Combat magic.  The mageblade was the focus, but it was by no means the only weapon at his disposal.

And he doubted Tyndal realized that.  He was too busy showing off what a good swordsman he was

When Tyndal made his next attack, instead of parrying Rondal allowed the other boy’s momentum to carry him forward a few steps, nearly into the slowly chanting crowd.  Rondal turned to strike from behind, only to find Tyndal’s mock blade already blocking the blow in anticipation, even as he fell.

That was fine – and it confirmed his theory.  Rondal would have tried to move out of the way to avoid the strike instead of blocking it.  Tyndal was thinking of this as a sword fight.

Rondal spun back around, pivoting on his heels and turning his shoulders to snap a second attack at Tyndal’s exposed legs.  Once again the Haystack twisted and parried an artful block . . . when he
could
have just moved an inch and allowed the sword to miss him altogether. 

It was what his masters in the Mysteries had called a ‘failure to appreciate the outcome.’  Thinking you were in one kind of a fight, working for one goal, when in actuality you were fighting a different way for a different goal than you started with. 

If he was an adept swordsman, Rondal knew, he would have tried a complex combination of blows designed to try to push his opponent out of his rhythm and make a mistake.  That’s what the swordmasters he’d heard, including Master Renando, usually counseled.  But here he was with a perfectly good opportunity to kick Tyndal in the padded shoulder with his boot . . . so he did.

Rondal had timed it well.  Tyndal was slightly off-balance and moving in that direction anyway.  Rondal’s augmented foot pushed against the other boy’s shoulder, hard.  Tyndal skidded to a halt almost fifteen feet back.  The moment he stopped he was right back on his feet again, rushing Rondal hard.  He had enough sense to avoid a full tackle, which Rondal could have thrown, and instead hammer at him with his blade in increasingly sophisticated ways.

And not just his blade.  Once Tyndal understood the fight and the goal, he threw himself into it.  Rondal was not just blocking sword blows, he was now dodging elbows, knees, and fists.  They weren’t always well-thrown, but any of them had the potential to knock him back if he let them land fully.  He had to focus mightily on keeping his body out of the way of Tyndal’s onslaught.

Tyndal had the initiative, Rondal knew.  He had the momentum, and he had sufficient motivation, apparently, to fuel a powerful attack.  Rondal found himself merely able to defend for a while.  He did an adequate job, prohibiting anything solid from hitting, but he was nowhere close to winning.

Then he realized . . . just by
not getting hit
, he was winning.

He didn’t have to knock Tyndal out.  All he had to do was keep Tyndal from knocking him out.  If he could patiently keep up the parries, not extend himself recklessly or foolishly, conserve his energies and momentum and wait for the big haystack to make a mistake . . .

And soon enough, it happened.  Tyndal put a little too much power into a chopping overhand blow.  Instead of parrying it, Rondal slipped into the swing, grabbed Tyndal’s arm . . . and threw him over his hip.  Once again the boy skidded to a stop, and once again he was on his feet again.

Only this time it was Rondal advancing, pushing his advantage against the taller boy while he was still rising.  He swung his mock blade with a furious motion from the top and sides, and even attempted a quick thrust.  Tyndal, frustratingly enough, managed to avoid them all.  Soon enough he was back to pounding away at Rondal’s defense and slowly pushing him back across the room.  Rondal could see by the look in his eye that he wasn’t about to over-extend himself again.  At least, that’s what Tyndal was telling himself.

Rondal knew his opponent better than just about anyone, and as he kept up his desperate defense against him he figured that if he gave Tyndal enough bait, he could coax him into making another serious mistake.

His opportunity took a while to come, but once again he was ready for it.  One of the senior apprentice’s blows came in short and underpowered, and Rondal used the chance to push back – hard.  The blow was hard enough, in fact, to push the blade out of line.  Rondal had a great opening – which Tyndal could have blocked or avoided.  Instead, Rondal leaned in and punched Tyndal in the stomach, hard.  Hard enough to double him over, and as his practice helmet swam below Rondal’s field of vision, he brought the pommel of his practice sword down on it.  Tyndal went down like an anvil off a bridge.

“Victor!” Master Renando said, when Rondal dropped the augmentation and could hear properly again.  “Well done, lads!  That was more than
eight minutes
– I’ve
never
seen an augmentation held so long before!”

Rondal was panting for breath as he slid his helmet off.  “Can someone check on his head?” he asked, his arms tingling after such effort.  “I hit him kind of hard.”

Tyndal was fine, of course, but it took a few moments for him to return to consciousness.  He rubbed the back of his neck confusedly as he sat on the floor, a warbrother tending to his head.  It wasn’t bleeding, but it was hard to discern under the brilliant bruises he still wore.

“An excellent job, Sir Rondal,” murmured Master Valwyn, who had elected to sit in on the class.  “It appears you have discovered something, something you needed here at Relan Cor.”

“Skill?”

“Strength,” corrected the old warmage.  “Skill is respectable, but strength is
respected
, even if you lose.  When you arrived here, I was anxious that you would not find that strength in yourself.  Once again I was gratified that the gods saw fit to see you through the Mysteries.  Many a man has discovered his strength there.”

“I am a lot stronger than I was when I got here,” he agreed, as he stripped off his padded armor. 

“Not just in your body,” agreed Master Valwyn.  “Your Master’s letter gave me some hint of your difficulties when it asked for your inclusion in the Mysteries.  He told me of your . . . rivalry with Sir Tyndal.  He suggested that your greatest deficit lay not with your lack of skill in war – although he did address that – but in your lack of confidence in your own strength.”

“But I didn’t beat him because I was strong,” he pointed out.  “I . . . sucker-punched him.”

“You took unorthodox action which ended the engagement,” Master Valwyn corrected, helping him with his armor.  “And you wouldn’t have done it if you were afraid of him.”

“I was never afraid of him!” Rondal said, viciously.

“Weren’t you?  Not of him, personally.  But the idea of him.  Sir Tyndal the Golden Warrior.  He’s handsome, he’s tall, his shoulders are broad and so is his smile.  He’s skilled in swordplay – even if he lost, he still bears more skill with a blade than you.  But you won because you were confident of your own strength, and you stopped being scared of the shadow of the man and confronted the man himself.”

“I . . . I sucker-punched him,” Rondal repeated, dazed.

“Yes, yes you did,” smiled Master Valwyn.  “And no doubt part of you thinks he deserved it.  Part of your face, in any case.”

“Uh, yeah,” Rondal grunted.   “But . . . I guess I was afraid.  But not of him.  Of his reputation.  I’ve spent so much time trying to measure myself against him that I was working against myself.”

“Exactly,” nodded the old warmage.  “You have demonstrated your strength.  Even if you had lost the contest, you would have demonstrated your strength today.”

“Thank you, Master,” Rondal said, gratefully, once he realized what the man was saying.  “I guess I did let . . . my own expectations fight half my battle for me, before I even drew my blade.”  He looked down at where Tyndal was still being encouraged to sit.  “Are we . . . are we ever going to
not
want to kill each other?”

Va
lwyn shrugged.  “Only Duin knows.  But regardless of whether or not he’ll kill you, or you he, there is one thing that he will never do again.  Disrespect you.”

Rondal shook his head.  “And I had to hit him in the head . . . a lot . . . to get him to realize it.”

“That’s the only way you get a sixteen-year-old boy to realize anything,” laughed Master Valwyn.  “Rondal, don’t dismiss the importance of this lesson.  And it isn’t about Tyndal, it’s about yourself.”

Rondal scowled.  “Shall I prepare myself for a lecture?” he asked.

“It seems appropriate,” Valwyn agreed.  “The metaphorical scroll in your metaphorical  saddlebag you should ride away from Relan Cor with is this:
being weak makes you despised
.  It isn’t malice, on the part of the strong, it is reaction to the nature of weakness by strength.”

“I . . . can’t seem to understand this metaphorical scroll, Master,” Rondal said, tactfully.

“Let me put it another way,” the man said, walking with the young apprentice, “Nature, as you know, constantly seeks equilibrium.  That means it seeks balance, even in human affairs.  You and your fellow apprentice share a burden and a responsibility, but if you share it unequally that will force the strong one to compensate – over-compensate – in some other area, in order to seek equilibrium. 

“You came here . . . if not weak, certainly not strong.”

“I’ll never be as strong as him, I fear,” Rondal admitted, quietly.

“You needn’t be,” Master
Valwyn said, leading him to an alcove.  “You must merely be as strong as you can be.  That will be sufficient.  Standing up to him like that, after being in the weaker position, you will be tempted to take revenge, or otherwise find redress against him.  But he could no more avoid his behavior than the water can avoid filling the mill’s wheel.  I encourage you not to blame him for it, just as you did not blame another squadron for the theft of your food in the Mysteries.  In avoiding that you found a quicker and more beneficial answer to the problem, one that motivated you all to fill your bellies.”

“You . . . you know about that?” Rondal said, embarrassed.

“I’m an initiate myself – I sit upon the Initiate’s Council,” chuckled Valwyn.  “The Officer’s mysteries, no less, held in the autumn.  Believe me, all of us keep an eye on the young men who make it to the Mysteries.  In them we find the leaders of tomorrow, the marshals and knights and commanders who will see our kingdom to future victories.  You were one of the favorites, though I should not tell you so.  Your special relationship with the Spellmonger, of course, merited the observation, but then you displayed enough native talents and determination to draw eyes of your own accord.”

“That seems unlikely,” sighed Rondal.  “We did fairly well, but we were hardly a model unit.”

“And that is precisely the point,” argued Valwyn.  “You weren’t a model unit.  Yet you did ‘fairly well,’ regularly performing ahead of the other units in some key contests.  Some you never knew you were competing in.  Oh, we watched you carefully, Sir Rondal.”

“So why wasn’t Tyndal invited to the Mysteries?” asked Rondal. 

“He did not need them – not yet.  Sir Tyndal has much promise on his own, do not mistake me, but it was thought that your talents needed the Mysteries more, for now.  Sir Tyndal is bold, brave, forceful and arrogant.  You are cool, calculating, thoughtful, and cautious.  Sir Tyndal is adept at improvisation, whereas you see and can execute a plan to its successful conclusion.  Sir Tyndal is charismatic and inspiring because of his personality . . . but you, Sir Rondal, are inspiring because of your
competence
.  And that is far more compelling, in a military officer.”