“We have to do what?” Charity asked when Phileas told them what they would do next.
“You will put on this ‘armor’ and run around the courtyard,” their drill sergeant said. “With each lap, you will engage in exactly one bout of single combat over at the arena there,” he pointed toward a series of squares on the far side of the courtyard, “before running around the courtyard again.”
Most of the squad grumbled and cursed, though not loud enough for Phileas to hear. Still, they put the armor on. It consisted of heavy padding with wooden plates inserted in pockets throughout it. It was unwieldy, uncomfortable, and just plain filthy.
“Sergeant,” Arronax said. “This armor is damp.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty head over it, nobleman. In a minute, it won’t matter. Put it on.”
Arronax did as instructed, staring daggers at his feet so Phileas wouldn’t see his glower.
Once the armor was on, the sergeant’s prediction became clearer. Several soldiers standing by threw buckets of ice-cold water over them, drenching them to the skin. Kate wasn’t surprised. She had figured that was why the armor was wet to begin with.
They ran, and they fought with heavy wooden swords, beating each other around the rings, and then they ran again. It wasn’t easy, but Kate had it better than most of the others. She was in better shape, and frankly, she was so skilled that no one else could even land a blow on her. She watched Sampson and recognized that he knew his way around a sword, wooden or not, but wasn’t sure how he’d fare against her. She had no opportunity to find out, though, because she was never matched with him.
Each time they went around the courtyard and finished their combat, they were doused with water again before they started their next lap. By the time they had finished for the day, Kate wasn’t sure if she’d ever be warm again. All the squads that had been subjected to the punishment—and that included all the new recruit squads—had only two things on their mind when they were done. They wanted food, and they wanted a nice, hot bath.
As it turned out, the recruits had to heat and haul their own water for baths, so most settled for going to the dining hall and eating. Kate and a few other women in her barracks ate hurriedly and did have baths. Two of them smirked at Kate as they all soaked in tubs. It wasn’t conversation, but at least it wasn’t outright hostility.
That she found within her own squad, even Charity. Especially Charity.
“Did the duchess enjoy her bath?” the woman said, glaring at Kate.
“I did, thank you.”
That made it even worse. Not only did the only other woman in her squad shun her, but she glared at Kate constantly over the next several days. Charity even shared her thoughts with the others, Kate believed, because soon all of them were sarcastically calling her “the duchess.” She endured it with a tight-lipped smile. She was not about to let them know it affected her in any way.
11
The days stretched on, an endless parade of sore muscles, bruises, and exhaustion. They went through obstacle courses in their sodden armor, they hiked through freshly fallen snow, they traversed a gauntlet of other recruits trying their best to knock them off their feet with wooden swords, and they engaged in shield wall battles. They especially engaged in shield wall battles.
Three days into training, as Kate was falling into her bunk, wanting nothing but to drift into unconsciousness, the voices started.
Die. Kill. Set us free.
It was the demons, she knew. Whatever the firestones did, they didn’t block out the mental attacks. She knew that from her trial. She had hoped the larger talismans would keep the thoughts out, but she was wrong. Could the demons only connect with a set number of minds and so they delayed talking to her at first? She didn’t know the reason she was suddenly under attack, but the constant barrage made sleep almost impossible.
Each morning she went to breakfast and then embarked on the day’s training, and each morning, the bags under her eyes grew larger and the less she felt she could control her limbs.
Others seemed to be having a rougher time of it, and for that she was grateful. Several times, she had struck an opponent down as they stood there staring blankly at her in the middle of a match. One moment they were fighting, and the next, it was like they fell asleep standing up.
If this happened once they got to the gates, no one would survive. Was that why they accepted so many recruits every three years? Was everyone dying?
Kate shook her head to rattle those thoughts out of her mind. For a moment, she had thought it was all a big conspiracy and they were being herded for slaughter. It didn’t make her feel good about the Order or herself.
The fourth day of training, the bell sounded for the first time. She didn’t see it happen, but she heard that the young man who rang it was given some clothes, a bit of coin, and told to leave the fortress. It happened in the middle of the night, when the demons’ sendings were at their worst.
Each time the bell rang at night, everyone gossiped about it during breakfast the next day. This person or that person had quit and slunk out with their clothes and coins.
Despite the pressure, Kate continued to excel, at least in comparison to the other recruits. Her group of a hundred twenty had been the third and final batch of recruits for the cycle, one from each major area of the kingdom, but now they had caught up to the earlier groups. Everyone felt the effects of the training, and of roughly four hundred recruits, Kate was at the top of the class.
Most of the others didn’t care one way or another about Kate. They weren’t exactly unfriendly, but neither were they in a hurry to talk with her. Her squad, though, seemed to find no end to their resentment of her.
“How did the duchess sleep last night?” one of them would say. “Are you enjoying your vacation in the countryside?” another would chime in. A man from another squad actually said, “It’s a good thing daddy bought you fine quality weapons. Maybe they’ll keep you from getting eaten by demons. Surely no one here will help to save you.”
Kate looked forward to the sparring with the wooden weapons. It gave her a chance to take out some of her aggression and frustration on others. She knew it was not the ladylike—or honorable—thing to do, but it was the only thing keeping her from going at her squad with her steel sword.
Most of all, she hoped they would grow tired of it and accept her. There didn’t seem to be much chance of that, but she still wished it would happen.
One day in training, her squad was particularly vicious, attacking her verbally in a long succession of insults. Arronax seemed to be in a vindictive mood—probably because she had trounced him in every test that day—and his common sense seemed to be taking a holiday.
“It is really too bad, Duchess Kate,” he said while shifting his eyes to the other members of the squad surrounding them.
Kate sighed. She had learned that there was no winning in a situation such as this. If she spoke, he would go ahead with whatever childish taunt he had been planning. If she remained silent, he would continue, but he would add jibes about her not being articulate or being afraid to talk. The only time any of the squad talked to her was if they had some new insult for her and wanted to try it out.
“And what is that, Arronax?”
“It is too bad you are so ugly that you had to resort to joining this man’s army to try to prove yourself.” He smirked. “Perhaps if you had the appropriate equipment.” He looked down at her groin area. “Then again, maybe you do. That would explain why no one wanted to marry you and you were stuck joining the Order.”
“I’ve told you before, there were plenty of suitors. I would have had suitors even if I was as hideous to look upon as you, solely because of my family name. A legitimate noble house.”
“Yes,” he drawled. “Your family. It’s really too bad about that also. You’ll bring ridicule and disrespect upon them as well. When you are killed in the first battle, they will remove all reference to your name and hope no one notices. Maybe you
should have taken a new name when you joined. Many people do.”
Kate scrubbed her hand through her hair and gathered it with the clip Dante had given her, just to keep her hands busy. They itched to curl themselves around the idiot’s neck. “Arronax, as much as I enjoy your sparkling personality and boundless intellect, I’m in no mood for your antics. Go bother someone else.”
“Ha,” he said. “So you do realize that you will bring dishonor to your house. Don’t worry, though. Your family is already a joke among the nobles. There were a few men that did moderate things in the Order many long years ago, but it is common knowledge that your family is weak and not worthy of respect. It’s only a matter of time until the king strips you of all your land and your position solely because of the reprehensible way you carry on.
“Why, I’ve heard that because no one else will have you, you have lain with your brother.”
Kate’s body grew hot, despite the chilly weather outside. She knew Arronax was just trying to get her angry, but it didn’t matter. He had succeeded. They could say what they wanted about her, but when they attacked her family, that was something else altogether.
She turned to face him fully. He must have seen something in her eyes because he stopped speaking immediately and gulped. She kicked a sword up from the ground at him, and surprisingly, he caught it.
“Time for a little training,” she said and lunged at him.
Her first strike was half-hearted, not even meant to touch him. He was so inept that it landed, though, the tip of her wooden sword poking his shoulder and spinning him halfway around.
He cried out in pain—the weak loudmouth—and brought his sword up into a ready position.
Good. It was time to show this lump of muscle what it meant to have skill with a sword.
She didn’t prolong the punishment, but instead went in with short, powerful strokes. She batted his sword away easily and struck him four times in rapid succession, once to either side of his ribs, once to his left shoulder, causing him to drop his shield, and once to the bicep of his right arm so he lost grip on his sword.
Kate sniffed at how easy it had all been as she slammed her shield into him with such force that he flew off his feet and landed in a heap several feet away. The air left his body in a satisfying grunt, and he spent the next few minutes trying to get his breath back.
Kate stepped up to him, leaned her head down, and whispered to him. “If you ever disrespect my family again, I will kill you. You know I don’t need steel to do it.”
Phileas had seen the last few moves of the contest and came over.
“What is this all about? Are you fighting amongst yourselves? You know that is not allowed. You can be expelled for fighting in the ranks.”
“No, no,” Sampson said. “Kate was simply showing us some techniques. She is our best fighter, after all, and has a lot to teach us.”
Phileas glared at Sampson, then at Arronax, and then at Kate. “Fine. Don’t let me catch you fighting with each other for real, or I’ll throw every one of you out so fast you’ll forget you were even here.”
12
Almost two months passed, and the insults and stupid names had died down. A little. She figured everyone was tired of trying to taunt her with no discernible success. All of the squads seemed to have congealed into fighting units that worked well together as one, and hers was no different. To her—and even more to Phileas’s—surprise, there came a day when they demonstrated they had actually improved.
Kate’s squad was lined up with two other squads, facing three opposing groups. When the shield wall battle commenced, she sensed that this time was different. They moved more fluidly, cooperating almost without thought. It was almost how she felt when she fought alone, and here she was experiencing the same thing with a group. And her group at that.
Every step seemed perfect, every member doing what they were supposed to do. Even Wilfred, the perpetual weak link in the chain, held his shield at the perfect angle, fitting his slender body into the wall exactly where it was supposed to be.
They bashed the opposing forces, throwing them into the snow.
When it happened, Kate’s group stopped and stared, still in a perfect line with shields touching those of the team members around them. No one seemed sure what had happened. They were all standing, and their adversaries were scrambling in the slushy snow, trying to get up.
“We…won?” Wilfred said, managing to make it sound like an exclamation and a question at the same time.
“We did,” Arronax said. “Of course. Did you see how I started the charge that eventually pushed them all into the snow?”
Kate rolled her eyes, catching sight of Sampson doing exactly the same thing. She chuckled and he gave her a rare smile. A small one.
“You goat-kissing, gnat-herding gorillas somehow beat another team in the shield push,” Phileas told them later. “As a reward, you will be given leave for a day and will be allowed to go to Leydford for some R and R.”
“Leydford?” Arronax asked. “What is a Leydford?”
“Stupid, swine-stealing, shite-shoveling…” Phileas muttered. “Leydford, you moron. The town.”
“There’s a town?” Charity asked tentatively.
“Of course there’s a flaming town. Didn’t I just tell you?”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Sampson said, stepping in front of Arronax, who was opening his mouth to speak again. “We are unfamiliar with this area and did not know there was a town nearby. How may we get to this Leydford, if you please?”
Phileas eyed the Icirusian as if trying to figure out if he was being mocked. The sergeant apparently decided he was not.
“There are only two roads out of the fortress: the one we came in on, and the one going to Leydford. You can’t miss it. Just walk until you run into a building. It’s three miles to the southeast.
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Phileas turned and left, muttering something Kate couldn’t quite make out. She wasn’t sorry she missed it.
“It looks like we are to have some recreation,” Arronax said, his face breaking out into the biggest smile Kate had seen since he disappeared with one of the few women in the fortress several nights back.
“There are rules,” Phileas said loudly, causing everyone in the squad to jump. Kate hadn’t even realized he had come back. “Two rules, basically. Do not fight, and even more importantly, do not kill anyone. I hope you can understand that with your feeble minds. Do. Not. Fight. Some of the townies like to try to pick fights with the soldiers to prove they’re men. Don’t do it. If you do, it would probably be better for you if you turned around and headed home.”
He left again, that time for good.
Everyone looked at Arronax. He swung his gaze over them one at a time.
“What?”
“You’re the one most likely to break the rules,” Charity said. “Don’t. If you get us in trouble, I’ll personally smash your face like it’s a frog.”
“I’ll cause no trouble,” the minor noble said, straightening up and lifting his chin high. “I have no idea why you would think I would do such a thing.”
“Shall we go, then?” Sampson asked. “I need only to wash, change my clothes, and retrieve some money from my chest.”
Kate wanted to take part in the conversation but was afraid if she did, they would tell her she couldn’t come with them. She held her tongue and waited.
“Yes,” Arronax said. He always acted as if he was the squad leader. “Let us say, half an hour? Then we can all travel there together.” He looked toward Kate and then Wilfred. “I suppose the whole squad can go together, God help us.”
Kate’s heart jumped, but she didn’t show it on the outside. Instead, she nodded and headed toward her room. She would bathe, dress, and be ready in twenty minutes just in case they tried to leave early.
Forty minutes later, the six squad mates were strolling down the well-worn but narrow road toward Leydford. There were a couple of signs along
the way—just a wooden plank nailed to a thin stake driven into the ground—but they were unnecessary. There were no forks and no other signs of civilization around.
The distance passed quickly, and as they came over a slight rise, they got their first view of the sheltered little glade and the hamlet within. Wooden structures with sharply pitched roofs covered in wood shingles were scattered about. It all had a homey feel after the cold stone of the fortress. The trails of smoke emitted by the buildings made Kate want to get out of the cold and in front of a fire.
They walked through what seemed to be the main street of the town, passing inns, taverns, brothels, and gambling halls. There was even a separate theater, though there didn’t seem to be any activity there.
Kate wondered what the people who lived here did. Sampson must have seen her curious looks, because he started speaking. Not necessarily to her, but to the open air.
“I have seen towns like this near army bases. Their sole purpose and means of living is entertaining the soldiers. If the soldiers didn’t come in on their leave, there would be no town, no money or food or supplies.”
“Yes, yes,” Arronax said. “Where shall we go? I believe a tavern will satisfy our needs. Unless you’re wanting a brothel.” He grinned at Wilfred but elbowed Charity. “Huh, huh?”
The stocky woman pushed him away. “You’re foul,” she said, but she was too busy looking around at the buildings to put any fire into it.
“The tavern is a fine choice,” Sampson said. “I could do with a drink that doesn’t come from a bucket.”
“Hear, hear,” Arronax said.
“Me, too,” Jasper added. The muscle-bound lump was so quiet normally, Kate often forgot he was around. Until he threw some insult in her face about being a noble, that is.
The decision made, they entered the closest tavern and arranged themselves at a table with mugs of ale or cups of wine in front of them. A man was playing some kind of stringed instrument—Kate thought it was a lyre, but it looked unlike the ones she’d seen minstrels playing—and singing a song about a farmer who was outsmarted by his cows. Kate laughed when he added farm animal sounds as he sang.
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