The Talented (9 page)

“
What about you?” Adrienne
asked. Ricco was older than Adrienne, and had already been at Kyrog
for six years.

Ricco shook his head
vehemently and held his hands up in defense. “I don’t want the
responsibilities of being an officer.”

She laughed and shoved his
shoulder. “Good, because you’d make a lousy lieutenant,” she joked,
causing Ricco to laugh.

“
And you’ll make a great
one.” He slung his arm around Adrienne and hauled her up against
his side. “This calls for a celebration.”

Adrienne smiled. “What
have you got in mind?”

Ricco’s eyes cut toward
her appraisingly. “I suggest a bunch of us go to Nils’ Tavern and
get drunk.”

Adrienne shook her head on
a laugh. “I’m a lieutenant now. I have to be responsible. It
wouldn’t be right to spend my first night as lieutenant getting
drunk in a tavern.”

Ricco snorted. “Getting
drunk is exactly the right way to spend your first night as a
lieutenant. This is your last day before taking on more duties. Who
knows when you’ll have another chance to get ripping
drunk?”

She thought it must be
overexcitement that made that idea sound so appealing, but Adrienne
found herself agreeing with Ricco and planning to meet him at the
tavern after the evening meal in the mess.

Hours later, Adrienne was
sitting at the bar in Nils’ Tavern, one of the few permanent
structures in the large camp, surrounded by well-wishers and empty
mugs of ale, and was well on her way to meeting Ricco’s
expectations of drunkenness. She liked the warm glow left by the
alcohol and the continuous congratulations she was receiving, and
wondered why she did not go out with Ricco more often. Even
watching him flirt with the serving women had become more amusing
than embarrassing.

“
It’s about time,” a man
announced in a booming baritone. Adrienne focused her eyes on
Lieutenant Curtis Turric, a man who before tonight she would have
said was only a casual acquaintance at most.

“
Thank you, sir,” Adrienne
responded automatically. A smile still came to her face with every
congratulation she received, and her response to the dark-skinned
lieutenant was no exception.

“
Curtis,” he corrected with
a grin. “Or Turric, if you’d rather. You don’t ‘sir’ a fellow
lieutenant.” He shifted his drink over to his left hand and
extended his right. “I’ve been wondering when Captain Garrett would
get around to promoting you.” He motioned for the bartender to
supply Adrienne with another mug of ale. “You’re one of the best
soldiers in Kyrog.”

“
She damned well is,” Ricco
agreed, raising his mug in cheers. “She’s bloody
brilliant.”

Adrienne accepted the mug
with a smile before turning to Ricco, amused by his current state.
The stocky soldier was imbued with a wry humor when sober, but when
drunk his joking nature came out full force, and she knew she was
not the only person in the tavern being entertained by Ricco’s
behavior that night.

As for herself, Adrienne
didn’t like the idea of entertaining anyone, and decided to make
the mug of ale from Turric her last one of the night. As it was,
she was sure her head would be awful in the morning. Despite the
warm glow she was feeling from the alcohol, she wasn’t fond of how
her senses were already dulled by it. She preferred a clear
head.

Adrienne scanned the room,
and when she spotted Jeral she gestured for him to come
over.

“
Congratulations,
Lieutenant, sir,” Jeral said.

Even through the pleasant
haze of alcohol, Adrienne could tell that his words and smile were
forced. “What’s wrong, Rosch?” she asked.

Jeral seemed momentarily
taken aback by her bluntness, as if he had expected the alcohol to
affect her perception, but he recovered quickly and answered her
question with the honesty she had come to expect from him over the
past eight months. “I was wondering if you were still going to be
my trainer.”

“
Of course I will,”
Adrienne said, forgetting herself and accepting another drink from
the barkeep. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“
Well, I heard you would be
training other soldiers now. Other Yearlings.”

Adrienne shoved Jeral
lightly. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop training you. I
haven’t finished with you yet.”

Jeral’s smile became
genuine at the news. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“
Adrienne, I would like a
word with you,” Lieutenant Nissen said, stepping in front of Jeral
as if the boy wasn’t there. His expression lacked even the parody
of charm that it usually had.

Adrienne’s first instinct
was to evade the officer. Then she remembered that Nissen was no
longer her superior, and she no longer had to avoid a confrontation
with him. He could not intimidate her any longer, especially not
over drinks in the smoky tavern where people had gathered to
celebrate her promotion.

She relaxed back onto her
stool, resting an elbow on the bar and taking a slow sip of ale.
“Sorry, Craig, I’m having a conversation with Rosch here,” she said
coolly, using his first name as a subtle reminder that they were
equals now. “We will have to talk some other time.”

His green eyes went hard
and stormy, and his face filled momentarily with surprised anger
before he managed to control it. “Very well. I wished to
congratulate you on your promotion.” He turned and spun away,
ignored by the other soldiers who were too busy joking and drinking
to care about any one person, even a superior officer.

The man had probably
thought Adrienne would be easy prey in her sotted condition. She
snorted at the thought. There was not enough alcohol in all of
Samaro to make that true.

“
Lieutenant?” Jeral asked
curiously.

“
Go back to the barracks,
Rosch,” Adrienne advised as she absently finished her ale. “I don’t
want you tired for tomorrow’s training.”

Jeral looked around the
tavern, probably for someone worth spending time with, then
shrugged and headed out as Adrienne had told him.

As Adrienne soon found
out, her responsibilities as a lieutenant were not limited to
training the Yearlings. On top of training the young and often
fractious recruits, Adrienne also had to divide the duties of the
soldiers under her command and administer discipline when
necessary.

As a lieutenant, her
opinion was asked for more frequently and given more weight by her
superiors and the other lieutenants than it had been when she was
merely a private. Even more surprisingly, people came to Adrienne
for answers and advice, something that had rarely happened in the
past thirteen years, even once she had been old enough and
experienced enough to offer such advice.

The responsibilities of
being a lieutenant kept her busy, and the job was more difficult
than Adrienne had expected, but there were benefits as well. When
she had call to interact with Lieutenant Nissen, he no longer tried
to intimidate her or make veiled threats. She no longer worried
about what would happen if she found herself alone with him. He no
longer had any power over her, and there was immense satisfaction
in that.

Altogether, being a
lieutenant sat well with Adrienne, and as she watched Jeral handily
dispatch one of her newest recruits, she was pleased with what she
was accomplishing at the camp. Nine months ago, Adrienne had been
furious after what she had witnessed when sparring with Jeral for
the first time. Now that same young man was helping to train
others, and was one of the main reasons Adrienne had been promoted
to lieutenant.

“
Lieutenant Rydaeg? Captain
Garrett wishes to see you,” a young man who probably had to shave
no more than twice a week interrupted her observation to tell
her.

Adrienne smiled. “Thank
you, Kyle.” Unlike the recruits, who were as green as their ages
suggested, Kyle’s age was deceiving. He had come to Kyrog at the
age of eleven, and five years later Adrienne was employing him and
his considerable skills in the training of her recruits on a
regular basis. Like Adrienne, Kyle’s abilities were often
underestimated, to the detriment of his opponents. He was fast, and
he was ruthless. More than one recruit had had to be helped from
the training ground after a match with Kyle.

Another recruit was
stepping up to face Jeral, who had broken a sweat when fighting his
last opponent but was nowhere near his limit, and she was about to
issue instructions to the pair when Kyle cleared his throat. “The
captain said I was to bring you back straight away,” Kyle said
apologetically.

Adrienne had wondered
momentarily why Kyle was doing a job most typically left to
messengers, but she realized that Captain Garrett knew her well
enough to know that she would be less likely to ignore a soldier
with a message than one of the pages usually used as messengers.
She studied Kyle and saw a hint of amusement in his dark
eyes.

She suppressed a sigh.
“Very well,” she said to Kyle. In a louder voice, she addressed the
recruits. “Break for one hour,” Adrienne told them. That should
give her more than enough time to discuss whatever the captain had
in mind.

Now that she was a
lieutenant, it seemed that she was always meeting with the captain
about something or other. He usually managed to arrange the
appointments for times when Adrienne wasn’t busy, but as Captain
Garrett was much busier than she, his convenience was more
important than hers.

“
Yes sir, Lieutenant,” was
the general chorus as the men scattered. Only Jeral and one of the
more experienced Yearlings remained, content to spend their free
hour training. Adrienne nodded her approval of their decision
before heading to the captain’s office, thinking that although not
all of the Yearlings had Jeral’s promise, there were a few that she
thought would make exceptional soldiers, and the rest would be more
than passable with proper training.

The page had been waiting
impatiently for Adrienne to arrive, and he announced Adrienne’s
arrival at once, all but pushing her into the small room that was
the captain’s office. The room had never seemed big enough,
considering the importance of the man who inhabited it, but it
seemed even smaller now that the captain was not the only other
person in the office. He sat behind his desk, as was customary, but
there were two unknown men occupying the chairs across from
him.

The larger of the men wore
a sword low on his left hip, but Adrienne dismissed the idea of him
being a proper soldier immediately. He was in his middle years if
he was a day, but looked and held himself less like a seasoned
soldier than even her rawest recruits. At best he was a merchant’s
guard.

The other man was more
interesting to Adrienne. Dressed simply, he appeared unarmed and
utterly nonthreatening. He was short and rather rotund, slouched in
his chair with his hands clasped over his stomach. He was balding,
and a beard of tight black curls decorated his round face. He did
not look wealthy or important, and Adrienne’s curiosity was aroused
by the necessity of a guard for such an unassuming man. Perhaps he
had come here bearing some news important enough to need guarding.
Or perhaps he was just afraid to travel the plains of Samaro alone.
Many were, with good reason, but one ill-trained guard was unlikely
to be of much use if they ran into trouble.

“
Lieutenant Rydaeg
reporting, sir,” Adrienne said with a quick salute, making all
appearances of ignoring the men, though she was aware of every move
they made.

“
What’s this?” the large
man with the sword demanded. “Captain, we came here to Kyrog
seeking your best soldier and you give us this-this slip of a
girl!” The man looked about to fly into a rage, something Adrienne
could relate to. Adrienne was not a slip of a girl by any stretch
of the imagination, standing at attention as she was—wearing her
well-used
swa’il
and a sword on her hip—she was every inch a
soldier.

Captain Garrett merely
quirked an eyebrow at the man’s words. “You told me you were on an
important mission,” the captain said, clearly for Adrienne’s
benefit, “and that you had come to Kyrog for the best soldier
available. You then gave me a list of qualifications, which are
mutually exclusive in most people. You wanted a skilled,
intelligent soldier with the capability and drive to learn new
things. You preferred a soldier of rank, but it was necessary that
the soldier also be young.”

“
If you had no one here who
could fit the specifications, you could have told us and saved us
time.” The guard’s fists clenched into balls and his dark face was
turning an interesting shade of purple, much like a bruise, as his
temper peaked. “This farce is disgraceful for a man of
authority!”

Adrienne thought briefly
of stepping up to defend Captain Garrett, but she knew that he
would disapprove. And she was interested in seeing how the man
would react to the insult.

“
We do have one person who
fits the specifications of the ideal soldier you asked for,”
Captain Garrett said, his voice turning from genial to icy.
“Lieutenant Rydaeg is an exceptional soldier and officer. She is
highly skilled in multiple areas of combat as well as tactics. She
is naturally intelligent and has the all too rare ability of being
able to think on her feet.”