Steel And Flame (Book 1) (30 page)

Harlan watched Marik execute a slashing strike against
a training dummy, rocking it back, sending its bound straw innards flying.

“He’s improving still.   His control seems better.”

“Mmhmm.”

“He seems to have gotten a better sword as well.”

“That piece o’ trash he had before was fine for basics,
but he had enough smarts to find a better one, an’ right quick too.  I guess he
learned a lot from his old teacher!”

“If by that you mean Maddock, then yes, he did.”

“Yes, well, o’ course I meant him too.  Anyway, look
at him go down there.  I’ve been up here for two candlemarks already an’ he
hasn’t slowed down none.”

“He’s driven.  If he intends to look for his father
through the Kings, he must qualify for the band first.”

“I suppose so.  I’m rather fond o’ the boy actually.”

“You can’t call him a boy anymore.”

“No, I suppose not.  He’s grown already since he
landed his position last month.  He’ll be towering over that friend o’ his
soon.  It should be nice an’ interesting to see how he does in the real thing,
come the sunny summer days.”

“If he lasts that long.  I’ve heard he’s been having
trouble.”

Chatham finally shifted his gaze toward Harlan.  “You
like to play the distant acquaintance free o’ emotions, don’t you?  I know you,
buddy o’ mine!  You’ve been keeping an eye on him since we got here, haven’t
you?”

Harlan’s brows knitted together.  He did not deny it. 
“He hasn’t said anything when we all meet for an evening on the Row, but I’ve
heard a rumor or two.”

“About that mammoth ox stalking him?  The Homeguard’s
broken up their scuffles so far.”

“They can’t be around all the time.”

Chatham eyes gleamed.  “Maybe we should ‘bump’ into a
certain walking side o’ beef.”

“If he never works out his own problems, he’ll never
learn how to.”

“Perhaps, perhaps.”  Chatham sounded distant.  “The
winter months do stretch on.  Who knows what could happen with summer still so
far off yet?”

*        *        *        *        *

Marik brushed his hair back out of his eyes.  He would
need to cut it soon.  Funny how he never noticed it until it suddenly blocked
his vision at every slight movement.

“Hurry up, Marik!  Mylor’s going to hang us from the
stable rafters if we’re late!”

“I’m not dragging my feet,” Marik retorted, though in
fact he was.  He fiercely desired anything except to repeat the experience with
the mages’ spells cast on terrain in the training areas.  The first time, in
the swamp, had been bad enough.  Marik had felt his neck hairs spiking while
the mage from the Tower, Yoseph by name, performed his unnatural spells.

Marik knew not what Yoseph did or how, and never
wanted to, but as the man completed his work, he imagined he could feel the
change rising from the marshy ground as steam rose from hot soup.  The simple
land had been transformed into a raw sore in reality’s fabric which he wanted
to move away from quickly.  Step into it?  Madness!

He had stood on the swampland’s edge with the other
men required to attend this ridiculous contrivance.  It had taken all his
willpower to raise a foot, then step across the dividing line where solid
ground ended in a knife’s edge and the muddy quagmire began.

The entire experience unsettled him.  It felt akin to
sitting on an anthill.  Under his mail and leathers, his skin itched and
crawled.  He offended Dietrik by snapping harshly at him after his friend tried
to explain it was all in his mind.

Marik apologized later, but he strongly desired to
avoid a subsequent performance with the snowfield today.  Located adjacent to
the swamp, the snowfield existed as a plain stretch of ground similar in every
respect to the other non-specialized areas.  Nyla had explained, though he
scarcely cared, that the mages used the moisture in the swamp to create a
realistic snow covering, except during the rare times it really did snow on
Kingshome.

Why waste the time and risk exposure to this
witchery?  Contracts came in during the summer!  Who ever heard of snow in the
summertime?  He offered these opinions to Hayden one afternoon while they ate
lunch in a tavern, the awful noodle dish having made a reappearance.  Though he
had heard the brew’s name again, he could never remember it.

“There’s the odd winter fight going on at times. 
Mostly it’s good practice for fighting a mage.”

“What?”

“Anything might happen in a fight against one. 
Weather would be a good weapon if they can use it.  It’s smart in the long run
to be ready for anything.”

Marik asked how often before Hayden had found himself
caught in freak weather.  He still waited for an answer.

Now he was off to give random chance a second
opportunity to wreak havoc on him.  Was this what he truly wanted?

“Hurry up!  I’m about to leave on my own!”

With a heavy exhalation, he finished pulling on his
boots and retrieved his cloak.  “All right, let’s go.”

“At last!  I was beginning to think you’d turned into
a woman, taking so long.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, never mind.  Let’s hurry on our way!”

The two arrived on time, if last.  Yoseph had already
begun working his spell.  They took a place with the others in time to overhear
Jussler’s grumbling.

“What’s the point?  It’s already colder’n a wife’s
widowed sister out here.”

Marik would have heartily supported the view except
the mage chose that moment to finish his work.  He could almost
feel
the
unnatural change across the stunted grass.  Tiny sparkles appeared by the
millions, hovering in space.  Snowflakes formed in midair, coming to settle on
the ground faster than seemed possible…but then this was magic after all. 
Magic, which made the impossible possible, and Marik shuddered, the reaction
having nothing to do with the cold.

Dietrik knew it, too.  “Again?  You know mate, if
you’re serious about battling your way across the kingdom, you need to get over
this aversion of yours.  It’s just—”

“
Don’t
tell me it’s all in my mind, Dietrik!”

Dietrik coughed slightly before resuming.  “I was
going to say, it’s just the way of the world.”  The lie was apparent.

“Right, all of you,” Mylor shouted to the group at
large.  “Same drills as last time.  You need to put in two candlemarks
minimum!  After that, you can go or stay as long as the snow lasts.  Get
going!”

Mylor found a comfortable spot beneath one of the
trees lining the training area’s edge beside the western wall.

“Let’s get this over with.  Come on,” Marik griped to
Dietrik.  Everyone collected an ironwood practice weapon from the untidy pile
nearby.  With gritted teeth, Marik stepped into the snowfield.  The act alone
would have been strange without the accompanying wave of sensation so like
grass itch over his whole body.  Stepping from grass and dirt into snow
reaching his knees truly counted as a new experience in his life.

“That’s the right spirit!  This will make for great
exercise!”  Dietrik accompanied Marik as he trudged through the snow to join
Jussler and a man named Miles from the Eighth Squad.  Together, they faced off
against another group of four several yards away, starting the drills they had
first practiced in the swamp.

Their task required them to attack their enemy while
defending each other.  Any solid strike on the body counted as a kill.  The
person so struck had to stand aside until one group or the other won.  Each
side would then exchange a member and start over.

Fighting in the deep snow required excessive stamina. 
They were quickly tired.  The afternoon slowly progressed, the snow becoming
trampled.  It transformed into an icy sheet which presented new difficulties
altogether.

By the required time’s end, Marik’s labored breathing
along with the bruises and muscle aches from heavy exertions combined to help
him ignore the strangeness of the spell he stood inside.  He left the moment
Mylor allowed, leaving behind those who chose to continue.

“It wasn’t a loss,” Dietrik chirped.  “It was rather
enlightening to tell the truth.”

“Some of us like the dark.”

“Don’t be so negative.  Not even you can claim it
wasn’t worth the while.”

“I suppose.  Let’s get inside and find a hot meal.  My
mail’s frozen.”

*        *        *        *        *

Marik and Dietrik’s first challenge from an officer
came one afternoon while they practiced among the shacks in the Second Area. 
Lieutenant Piccary, commanding Squad Eleven, had come to the training area
looking for nobody in particular.  He wanted all the men present to gather
whereupon he briefly sparred one-on-one with each.  An efficient clerk had been
brought along for the purpose of taking notes and adding them to the personnel
files once he returned to his habitat in the records office.

The only comment they received after the brief match
was, “Not bad.  But you should work on linking your strikes into successive
hits.”

Piccary vanished once he completed his duty, as
quickly as he had appeared.  The other fighters either returned to their
exercises or quit for the day.  Marik and Dietrik relocated to the practice
dummies.  Most were mutilated things that would have been mercifully put out of
their misery were they on a true battlefield.

The two retrieved fresh straw men and mounted them on
posts after dumping the old ones on the used pile.  A stable hand would
retrieve the chopped straw stalks for the animals in their care.

“I suppose the real trick involved is to strike fast
enough that your foe does not have time to recover.  He is always on the
defense.”

“Makes sense to me,” Marik replied.  “That’s what I
did to Beld’s friend Dellen to keep him from mincing me while I was waiting for
you.”

“So we need to find a nice combination of strikes that
are quick, successive and lead into each other.”

They practiced all that afternoon before stopping for
a break.  The pile of dead straw men had grown considerably.  Marik panted on
his back in the grass, letting his heart slow down.

Dietrik, ever the optimist, offered, “I think that’s a
good start.”

“I sort of doubt ten thrusts in a row will work.”

“It’s the strong point of my blade.”

“Which is why anyone you face will be expecting it.”

“Maybe I should concentrate on pushing my speed. 
Getting the first strike could turn the trick.”

A new thought arose, irritating in that it had waited
so long to do so.  Marik mused aloud, “Most of my good combos relied on using
the momentum of the previous strike to set up for the next one.  I just
realized that against a real foe that can block me, the sword will get stopped
and not follow the path into the next strike.  Damn it!”

“That’s true.  The best course of action is to find a
series of strokes that rely on the sword being blocked.”

“How can you go into a new strike from a stand still? 
Pulling back and striking all over is what we’ve been doing.”

“Perhaps if you start the next move in the series as
the blade strikes, you can use the force of the rebound?  Or perhaps if you
time your strikes correctly, you can make your foe respond the way you want him
to?  There’s a thought.  You can maneuver him into dropping his defense in a
specific area and have the final blow land there.  I believe that is what Mylor
was saying about fancy techniques.”

Marik thought on that for several moments.  “Maybe.  I
need to think that one over.  Let’s ask Hayden when we get back.  He’s been
promising to join us since we met him.”

“He could show you a thing or two.”

Marik frowned.  “That’s kind of arrogant, don’t you
think?  You were still a D Class yourself the last time I checked.”

“But I use a different type of sword, so my style is
different.  He’s a nice enough fellow, but I don’t think he can tell me
anything about rapiers I haven’t already learned myself.”

Marik sat up to pull his sword from its leather
sheath.  He swung it twice, trying to visualize an effective combination.

“You know what the hardest part about this sword is?”

“Do tell.”

“The guard has very long arms here, sticking out from
under the rings.  You see?”

“Yes.  I imagine they are wonderful for protecting
your hand, but they could get in the way.”

“They do sometimes.  Look.”

Marik raised his arm, bending his wrist back in
preparation to deliver a blow.  Before his wrist bent very far, the guarding
arm struck the side of his wrist.

“It’s fine if I turn the grip slightly as I do it; the
guard goes down the side and then I can strike full force.”

“Maybe you should trade it with Sennet for a better
one.”