The Talented (4 page)

“
Well done,” Lieutenant
Nissen announced to the soldiers standing ready near the outer wall
of the camp. “Today was a drill, and we had the perimeter defended
in less than ten minutes. Excellent job.” The self-satisfaction in
his voice made Adrienne sick. He wasn’t proud of them and the fact
that they would be able to defend Kyrog, he was proud that his
section had been ready so fast.

It would make him look
good for the captain.

“
A drill?” Rosch asked,
looking at Adrienne suspiciously.

Adrienne looked away from
the lieutenant and forced a smile, hiding her reaction to Nissen’s
presence. She slapped the Yearling on the back in a show of
reassurance. “We have drills periodically to test our preparedness.
You did well.”

“
You knew what was going
on?” Rosch demanded. “You knew it was a drill?”

Adrienne shrugged and gave
a slight shake of her head. “I suspected that it was a drill. The
horns would sound the same, and I wasn’t warned ahead of time, but
I doubt Kyrog will be attacked anytime soon. Even bandits are not
so foolish as to attack a fully armed camp as large as
ours.”

“
I didn’t know what the
horns meant.”

Adrienne had never thought
to instruct him on camp procedures, and realized as his trainer
that she should have done so. Mylig doubtless taught the new
recruits camp procedure their first day of training—perhaps he even
had them run drills like today’s in preparation.

“
There are always scouts
and horn-blowers on watch around Kyrog, as well as on the walls. If
there is ever an enemy force approaching the camp, three long
blasts from a horn is the signal to guard the
perimeter.”

“
Like today,” Rosch
said.

“
Yes. I—and by extension
you—am assigned to the middle-west edge of the camp. Wherever you
are, whatever you are doing, when those horns blow you grab your
weapon and get to the perimeter, whether you think it is a drill or
not.”

Rosch nodded, his eyes
serious as he processed her instructions. There had been similar
drills in Roua, but he could not remember one ever being carried
out with the serious air that this one had. In Roua, drills were
simply that. Drills. In Kyrog, drills were treated as seriously as
an actual attack.

“
Now we need to get back to
your training. If it’s not a drill next time, I don’t want you
tripping over your own feet.”

Rosch laughed until
Adrienne gave him a look that said she hadn’t been joking about him
tripping. Adrienne ran Rosch through kicking exercises, as well as
various maneuvers to hone his jumping and dodging, until her own
stomach protested putting off lunch for so long.

“
And we’re done. Take two
hours,” Adrienne advised. “And sit with your legs up. They took a
beating.”

“
Yes, sir.”

With Jeral gone, Adrienne
went in search of lunch and someone she could practice against. It
was hard for her to find time to practice against other soldiers
when she was devoting so much of her own time to Jeral.

“
Adrienne,” a too-familiar
voice called out, interrupting her search for a likely
opponent.

Adrienne cringed,
remembering the last close encounter she’d had with this man, but
on the surface she was calm and unconcerned as she turned and stood
at attention. “Yes, Lieutenant?” she asked, keeping her voice
coolly professional.

“
I see you have gotten rid
of your boy shadow,” Nissen said.

Adrienne couldn’t stand
his eyes on her, and crossed her arms over her leather-clad breasts
in an unconscious gesture of defense. “I dismissed Jeral Rosch for
lunch, Lieutenant.” And she wished now that she hadn’t. If she’d
waited even a couple of minutes, she wouldn’t be alone with Nissen
now.

“
We never got a chance to
talk,” he said, glancing around for observers. The street was not
deserted as it had been last time, but no one was paying them any
attention. “Maybe you should come with me now. I have a lot to say
to you. Especially after last time, when we
were…interrupted.”

Adrienne could not believe
that this was happening again. He was not touching her, but she
could see in his eyes exactly what he was thinking, and what he
would do to her if he got her alone. “I have to go,” she said,
turning and walking away from him. She pretended that she did not
hear him call her name, and kept walking until the lieutenant was
far behind her.

“
I was looking for
you.”

Startled, Adrienne looked
up in surprise at being caught off guard. It was Ricco, his voice
full of the easy confidence that was so much a part of him, his
posture relaxed and unconcerned. “I was wondering if you wanted to
practice with me.”

Adrienne shook her head,
trying to rearrange her thoughts.

“
No?” Ricco asked, clearly
surprised. He gave her a more careful study, wondering what was
wrong with her. “You sick or something?”

“
What?” Adrienne asked as
Ricco’s initial question finally registered. “Practice. Right. We
should practice.”

Ricco looked at her
askance. “I would guess the kid got in a lucky punch, but no punch
rattles you that much.”

Adrienne gave a jerky
shrug in response.

“
Hey.” Ricco scanned their
surroundings suspiciously. His eyes narrowed when he saw a familiar
figure in the crowd. “What’d he do this time?”

“
Nothing,” Adrienne
answered, too quickly.

“
What did that
bastard—”

“
I can’t do this now,”
Adrienne nearly shouted, her eyes blazing. She regretted the harsh
tone almost instantly, but she couldn’t talk about it, and she
couldn’t tamp down the anger entirely. “I can’t.”

Ricco took a deep breath,
and contrary to his nature, he seemed to let it go. “Still want to
practice?”

Despite being suddenly
tired, Adrienne smiled. Ricco knew her well.

“
Yes, please.”

Adrienne had planned to
practice using swords, but after the most recent incident with
Nissen she didn’t want to be careful with sharp blades, nor did she
want the steel-cored wooden practice swords that could still hit
hard enough to break bone. She wanted the feel of flesh on flesh,
of bruised skin and torn knuckles, of having her hands on an
opponent.

Ricco must have read her
mood, because he stripped off his own sword when they got to one of
the small training grounds and set it aside. “Any rules?” he
asked.

Adrienne shook her head.
“No. Let’s fight.”

Adrienne didn’t pull her
punches, and neither did Ricco. By tacit agreement they didn’t hit
each other in the face. The bruises and swollen skin where fists
connected with flesh were left for less visible parts of the
body.

Her booted foot connected
with Ricco’s solid thigh in a kick hard enough to send vibrations
up her leg, and she felt some of her stress melt away. Ricco
grabbed her and threw her to the ground, and her blood fired as she
rolled back up to her feet, burning out the last remnants of stress
and worry. All that existed was her and Ricco and the battle
between them.

••••••

A week later, Adrienne
knew something was deeply wrong. Tension was not at all unusual in
Kyrog, people were being trained for war—to kill or to die—and it
was not a restful process, but Adrienne could not remember a time
of such sustained tension, and all directed at one person, in her
twelve years at the camp. Though no one was directly defying his
orders, it was clear that a large percentage of the unranked
soldiers at Kyrog had suddenly developed a problem with Lieutenant
Nissen.

“
What did you do?” Adrienne
demanded when she was finally able to corner Ricco after dinner one
night. He had been successfully avoiding her for days, even going
so far as to cancel their training sessions.

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

Adrienne swore, shoving
ineffectually at his broad chest. “You know exactly what I’m
talking about.” She couldn’t remember ever being more furious at
her friend, and she pushed him again, infuriated that she could
barely budge him.

“
I had to do something,”
Ricco said. “You wouldn’t tell the captain, and after the second
time…”

Adrienne briefly
entertained the thought of strangling Ricco. “Then tell me what you
did!” Adrienne had told Ricco what had happened because she had
trusted him to keep it to himself. It had never occurred to her
that he would betray her trust.

“
I might have told a couple
of men that the lieutenant made some inappropriate comments to
you,” Ricco admitted, looking over her shoulder rather than meeting
her eyes.

“
You what?” Adrienne
shrieked. It was a surprisingly girly sound coming from her mouth,
but the fear and the sliver of shame that ran through her was
equally surprising and unwelcome. She glanced around to see who
might have heard her, but for the moment they were
alone.

Ricco shrugged. “I didn’t
tell them what happened in the alley…what he did or said,” Ricco
defended. “I didn’t tell them about your reaction.” Adrienne took
her first easy breath when she realized that the men did not know
how shaken she had been, or how her hands had trembled after the
encounter. “All they know is that Nissen disrespected
you.”

She closed her eyes and
hoped to recover some of her calm before she gave in to the urge to
strangle her friend. Ricco might not have told anyone exactly what
had happened, but it wouldn’t have been that hard to guess. She
comforted herself with the fact that Ricco was right, none of the
soldiers would ever guess that Adrienne had been scared. She was
known for her ability to stand calm and steady in the face of enemy
swords. A woman who could do that would never be seen as the sort
of woman to be scared by a man’s advances, unwelcome or
not.

“
Did you tell the men to
act like this?” she asked, wondering how that conversation might
have gone and what further explanation he might have
given.

Ricco shook his head. “No.
I didn’t expect half of this. But the men here respect you,
Adrienne, and if they believe Nissen was out of line then they
aren’t going to ignore it any more than I am.” He shrugged.
“Besides, no one likes the bastard anyway. What he said to you is
merely an excuse.”

Adrienne still couldn’t
believe that Ricco had told anyone, but it was somewhat heartening
to know that so many in Kyrog were behind her without question,
even if it meant walking the line of insubordination to treat the
lieutenant the way they were. “You’re an idiot,” she said, “but
thanks.”

Ricco flashed one of his
face-rending grins now that she seemed less likely to pull a knife
on him.

Adrienne rolled her
shoulders to relieve the tension lingering there. “Any clue when
things will go back to normal?” she asked. It was nice that the
other soldiers supported her, but she didn’t like so much tension
in the camp. What would happen if they were attacked? Would the
divide between the enlisted and one of the officers put them in
jeopardy?

Ricco rolled his eyes. “I
didn’t know any of this was going to happen,” he admitted. “Who
knows when it will stop?”

Since it seemed unlikely
any action she took would help, Adrienne decided the best course of
action was inaction. She would act as though there was nothing
unusual about the current mood of the camp and wait for everything
to go back to normal. “Want to train with me and Rosch tomorrow?”
she asked.

“
The Yearling?” Ricco
seemed surprised, and Adrienne realized it had been almost a month
since she had begun training Rosch, and she had not invited Ricco
to so much as observe their training sessions.

“
Why not? Besides…there
might be some question about how the techniques I am teaching will
work against soldiers larger than myself.”

Ricco laughed until he
realized she was serious. “He said that?” The look of disbelief was
gratifying and justified the frustration Adrienne had been feeling
at the Yearling’s constant doubting and questioning of her
methods.

“
Words to that effect.” She
recalled the recent conversation she’d had with the Yearling. “I
believe it is my ‘short stature’ that worries him, like we have
progressed far enough in his training that I’ve refined his moves
based on a particular opponent’s size and skills.”

Before Adrienne worked
with Rosch on how to adapt his moves toward different opponents, he
would have to internalize the basic moves to the point of instinct.
He was still learning the basics, not the fine adjustments
necessary to be most effective against people of different sizes
and fighting styles. That training wouldn’t come until much
later.

“
How is fighting me going
to prove to him that your training is effective?” Ricco asked
skeptically.

Adrienne understood the
skepticism. Rosch would have no more chance of beating Ricco than
he did of beating Adrienne. It was something Adrienne had already
considered when planning to pull Ricco into the training
program.