"Why not?"
"Broadsword? It'd break my arm," he replied.
"Oh, yes. I forgot, you humans are fragile things."
"You just keep talking," he warned with a grin. "I've got the gloves right now."
Tarrin grinned back, nudging him with his elbow. "I know. I can smell them."
"You came out to grind off the rust?"
"Yes," he replied. "That fight I had yesterday reminded me how important it is for me to be able to defend myself."
"Dolanna told me about that. She said that the Keeper about had a conniption after it happened. I even heard that the Tower is going to run every other magic-user out of Suld in punishment. I know that they're doing something," he said. "The priest didn't show up this morning for morning prayers, so the Lord General had to conduct the service." The Lord General of the Knights, their leader, was a strapping man of advanced years named Darvon. Despite his white hair and wrinkled face, he could still swing a broadsword and run wearing armor, and there wasn't a craftier fighter among the Knights. His many, many years wearing the armor had taught him more tricks than most of the Knights put together knew. Tarrin had fought him only once on the training field, and it had been quite an educational experience for the young Were-cat. Tarrin didn't think of Darvon as old. Tarrin thought of Darvon as experienced. What made Tarrin laugh at Faalken's declaration was that Darvon despised conducting service. Tarrin had no doubt that it was very short, very blunt, and very interesting.
"It must have been, fast," he mused.
"I think it sounded something like 'Lord Karas, Amen'."
Tarrin laughed. "That sounds about right," he said. "I think that the Church will start worrying about the moral standing of her Knights if that keeps up."
"We're not paid to pray," Darvon's voice piped up from the side. Tarrin and Faalken turned to look, as the white-haired, broad-shouldered commander of the Knights of Karas walked towards them. Darvon was a man of slightly more than average height, and despite his years, he was still very burly. He moved with the grace of a man half his age. He was wearing a mail shirt and a pair of leather chausses, with his old, battered broadsword on his belt. His face had been handsome once, but his face was about the only thing on Lord General Darvon that showed his age. His skin was permanently browned from exposure to the wind and the sun, and his eyes and mouth were surrounded by a myriad of deeply etched wrinkles. His face wasn't very full, but lacked the gauntness of an old man, with only a little bit of sinking about his cheeks and eyes. Those eyes were a very light shade of gray, quite striking, and they were as clear and lucid as they had been twenty years before. Tarrin bowed as he approached, and Faalken saluted his commander sharply. "Good to see you back, Tarrin. You ready to give up on the Tower and come over here, where you belong?"
Tarrin laughed. "I'd love to, my Lord General, but I don't think that the Tower is going to give me up just yet."
"Such a waste," he said with mock disappointment. "Where's that pretty little she-demon? You two are usually together."
"I think she's still in class, Lord General," he replied. "I left her a note to come out here when she's done."
"Good. I miss seeing you two try to kill each other. It was very entertaining."
"I think my Lord General is just glad that Allia won't single him out with Tarrin on the field."
Tarrin laughed, and Darvon fixed Faalken with an icy stare. "I do very well for my age. Allia said so herself."
"Still, though, it looks very bad for the Lord General of the Knights to have his face planted in the sand."
"I seem to recall seeing you in that same position," Darvon said stiffly.
"Yes, but I'm not carrying the honor of the Knights on my back either," Faalken said airily, waving a hand negligibly before him.
"Let's see how the honor of the Knights weighs on your shoulders, Sir Knight," Darvon warned in a voice promising death, drawing his sword.
Tarrin scrambled out of the way, then he got a very nice view of watching Darvon systematically beat Faalken into the ground. The curly-haired knight fought well, which was to be expected, but Darvon proved quite succintly just who the better man was with a broadsword. It ended when Darvon struck Faalken on the arm with the flat of his sword, with enough force to knock the man down. Then Darvon grinned at him evilly as he slid his sword home. "It looks like the honor of the Knights is intact," he rubbed it in. "You need more practice, Faalken. A one-armed baby could have bested you."
"I was just being nice to my Lord General's advanced age," Faalken retorted with an outrageous grin as he regained his feet.
"Keep talking like that, and you'll never make it to my age," Darvon warned. "Tarrin, I want to you spar with Azakar. The boy gets a bit smug with himself sometimes, and I want him to learn a lesson. Make sure you surprise him early on. I want him to learn how to size up an enemy."
"Yes, Lord General," Tarrin said with a bow.
"What keeps him from getting smug?" Faalken demanded.
"Allia," Tarrin and Darvon replied in unison.
Darvon called the massive young man over, and Tarrin was again impressed with his size. He was very tall, true, but he was also exceptionally well developed. Muscle rippled through his arms and along his bare chest and stomach, and he moved with a belying grace that warned Tarrin that he was much faster than he looked. The young man stared at Tarrin for a moment, but to his credit, he was not obvious about it, nor did he seem put off by Tarrin's obvious nonhuman nature. "Azakar, I want you to spar with Tarrin here," the Lord General said. "Full contact."
"Yes, Lord General," the young man boomed in a deep bass voice, bowing gracefully to him. He looked at Tarrin, looked at Tarrin's staff, then he raised his wooden practice sword. "I'll be careful, Sir Tarrin," he said calmly. His voice was not boastful, though his words said much about who he thought was going to win. And for that reason, Tarrin took no offense. Thinking one was going to win was very important when it came to fighting. If you didn't think positively to win, then you'd almost certainly lose. "I will do my best not to hurt you."
Faalken and Darvon broke up laughing, and Tarrin had to supress a grin. Azakar obviously had no idea what he was about to get into. The young man gave his two superiors a curious look, then he turned his attention on Tarrin and assumed a ready stance.
"You're not going to hurt me," Tarrin promised him in a casual voice, as he assumed a ready stance with the staff held in an end-grip.
"Begin!"
It took only two swipes. The first blasted the wooden sword aside, knocking the big man off balance, and the second took him full in the side. The breath wooshed from Azakar's lungs as he was carried off of his feet, to land heavily on his back in the sand nearly ten spans away. He slid another five spans, rolling over a few times until he came to a full stop. He didn't move for several seconds. Tarrin grounded his staff and calmly waited. He knew that he hadn't hurt the young man seriously, just bruised his ribs. Tarrin had struck rather carefully to ensure no bones were broken. The young man groaned and rolled over, then he sat up clutching his side. He gave Tarrin a wild look of shock. "H-H-How?" he managed to wheeze.
"Azakar, Tarrin's about twice as strong as you," Darvon told him with a grin. "This was a lesson, boy. A lesson about underestimating your enemy."
"A…wise lesson, it seems," he panted as the breath returned to his lungs. "You certainly…don't look…that strong."
"It's handy sometimes," Tarrin shrugged.
Azakar wobbled to his feet, then leaned over with hands on knees until he had his breath back. Then he picked up his wooden sword. "Now that I know what to expect, we can try again," he smiled.
"Don't fall into the same trap, boy," Darvon warned. "Tarrin's a very nasty opponent. When you fight him, you damn well better expect the impossible."
"I think my Lord General is getting a bit far afield," Tarrin told him with a smile.
"I think not. Now shut up and fight."
Tarrin bowed, and then engaged the massive youn
g man. After about ten minutes, Tarrin had to admit that he was impressed. The big man was fast, he was strong, and he was smart. He was well trained. He never fell for the same feint twice, and he was excellent at guessing out the actions of his enemy. The problem was, Azakar had never seen many of the moves and forms that Tarrin used, so those guesses just barely managed to save his backside. He spent almost all of that time on a defensive footing, trying to puzzle out the Were-cat's quick, precise thrusts and strikes that seemed to come from impossible angles, all the while suffering from stinging slaps and jabs from Tarrin's staff, or light rakes of his claws, or impact from Tarrin's feet and paws. To his credit, he managed to protect himself very, very well. From the way he reacted, Tarrin was pretty sure that he'd sparred against Allia a few times. But that was Allia. Tarrin may have been trained by his sister, but his size and power meant that his own use of those forms was somewhat different. And many of his moves had roots in his Ungardt training. He slipped backwards a bit, then baited the young warrior into a classic trap, then a quick strike to the inside of the ankle from the staff knocked his foot out from under him. Azakar tumbled to the ground in a heap, collapsing over his lost foundation. He ended up on his back, with the tip of Tarrin's staff about a finger's width from his nose.
"Consider yourself educated, cadet," Darvon told him in a gruff voice. "No matter how good you are, there's always someone out there who's better. Never forget that you may end up facing a backwater yokel with a little stick, and he is capable of beating you."
"Yokel?" Tarrin demanded.
"I'm not talking about you, Tarrin," Darvon assured him, "I'm talking about anyone Azakar may end up fighting as a Knight. It's also good for him to learn that there are more weapons than just swords and axes."
"He is good with that little toothpick, isn't he?" Faalken remarked with a cherubic grin.
That toothpick whistled through the air like an arrow, until the point of it was about a span from Faalken's grin. To his credit, Faalken didn't flich. Tarrin was holding the Ironwood staff by the very end, straight out, and the sandy wood didn't so much as quiver as it pointed at the curly-haired Knight. "Why don't you draw your sword, Faalken, and show me just what kind of toothpick I'm holding?" Azakar, not being a fool, made an attempt to scramble out of the way, but Tarrin put a foot down on his back as he rolled, pinning him to the ground.
A whiff of scent and a flash at the edge of his vision was all Tarrin received by way of warning, but it was enough. With a swift twist and lunge, he slipped underneath a foot that was flying towards the back of his head. Allia landed on the far side of the prone giant young man, her short swords in her hands an an expectant smile on her face. "If I would have struck you, you would have deserved it," she teased, waggling the tip of a sword at him. "I thought at first that you were hopelessly out of form, letting me get so close to you."
It was a very important return for Tarrin, and for Allia. A return to the field, to the familiar surroundings and routines of sparring and training with his blood-sister, gave Tarrin a sensation of normalcy. He had two months of rust to shake off, but he was surprised at how well he did against her. They danced in the sand-filled pit of the training area for the entire afternoon, getting a new feel for one another. Tarrin's staff fended off Allia's two short swords for hours, as they shuffled and wove and slipped around, by, and through one another. Selani fighting was as much unarmed combat with a weapon as it was weapons fighting with an occasional kick. Allia could kick a man about fifty different ways, and her legs were as much weapons as her swords. But Tarrin had learned well from his sister, and his own feet struck out at her about as often as they touched the ground.
Allia's best trick of the day was to jump up and above a stright thrust from his staff, then land lightly along its length. Her weight didn't make the staff's tip dip very much, as Tarrin adjusted. He didn't want to spill her to the ground. She was showing off for Darvon's benefit, no more, and he knew it. But when she gave him that look, he simply let go of the staff and let her drop. He sidestepped around a sword thrust aimed at his ear, and his tail swished out and hooked her foot as she landed. His tail wasn't that strong, but it was strong enough. It yanked her foot out and dropped her on her backside onto the ground.
"I still cannot get used to that," she grumbled as he helped her up. "I do not have a tail, so I keep forgetting how you use it."
"It's the longest limb I have," Tarrin told her with a grin. "Are we done for today? I'm hungry."
"Yes, I think so," she said. "You have not forgotten what I taught you. I am content with that."
"Good. Let's go eat, and then I need to wash all this sand out of my hair."
"Stop putting your head on the ground, and you won't have that problem," she said impishly in Selani.
"Stop knocking me down, and I won't have to worry about it," he replied pugnaciously, winking at her.
"Picky picky," she grinned. "Let's eat. You worked me to starvation."
Later that evening, as Tarrin and Allia sat in his room playing stones, there was a knock at the door. Before he could even ask who it was, the door opened. It was Keritanima. She didn't say a word, she simply pointed towards the outside, then closed the door and walked away.
It took about an hour for Allia and Tarrin to drift into the courtyard at the center of the maze. Keritanima arrived a few moments after Allia entered. She looked somewhat unsettled. "What's wrong?" Tarrin asked.
"I need to talk to you two," she said brusquely, walking into the courtyard, pausing to stare at the statue, then sitting down on a bench. "We need to arrange things."
"What do you mean?" Allia asked.
"I was thinking," she started. "If we're going to work together, it's going to be bloody hard for us to communicate outside of this place unless we come to an arrangement."
"Sounds like you already have a plan," Tarrin said.
She nodded. "I'm a brat, but I do have acquaintances. Do either of you think you could be fond of the brat? If she was nice to you?"
Tarrin thought about it a minute. "As long as you didn't try to pull any stunts with me, probably," he answered honestly. "I put up with Allia, after all."
He got a smack in the back of the head in payment for his remark. Keritanima laughed richly as he gave Allia a cold look, and she stuck her tongue out at him. As he thought many times before, Allia was a completely different person when they were alone.
"As long as you are cordial to me, I would not have that much trouble being nice to the brat," Allia answered.
Keritanima clasped her furry hands together and sighed. "Thank Misha," she exclaimed in relief. "I've already worked out how I'll cunningly work myself into your good graces. I won't tell you, so it'll be a surprise," she said winsomely, giving them a toothy grin.
"Whether we can talk to each other, we still can't really say anything," Tarrin reasoned. "They could be listening with magic."
"True, but Jervis won't think it unusual if he sees me talking with you," she said.
"Who's Jervis?" Tarrin asked.
"The man my father sent to watch me," she replied. "He looks like a completely ridiculous fop, but Jervis is one of my father's best spies and diplomats. When I found out it was Jervis, I couldn't help but start coming up with new plans. And looking forward to it," she said eagerly. "Jervis is the best. And to be the best, you have to beat the best."
"The best what?" Allia asked.
"The best liar," she replied with a grin. "If I can lead Jervis around by the nose, everyone back home will realize that I was never the spoiled princess they thought me to be. That's my own measure of revenge in all this."
"I thought the idea was to keep yourself secret," Tarrin said.
"When I leave here, I'm not going back," she said bluntly. "And I want them to know just who I am."
"Fair enough," Tarrin shrugged.
"And, of course, I'll appreciate the company," Keritanima admitted. "My maid and bodyguards know about who I am, but she's only one girl a
nd they always kept my rooms under surveillance, and it gets tiring being nobody but the brat for months on end. Back home, I had two or three people that knew who I was. They worked for me, so I could always talk to them. But here, I'm alone."
"Worked for you? As in, did your sneaky work?" Tarrin asked.
She nodded. "Kalina looks just like me, so she worked as my double. Ulfan is a high-level member of the thieves' guild, so he could always arrange to have people disappear. He's the one who taught me all my tricks."
"You do tricks?" Allia said with a smile. "Like rolling over and begging?"
Keritanima snorted, stepping up to her. She patted her on the shoulder, then stepped away. Then she turned back around and held up Allia's ivory symbol necklace, dangling from its gold chain from between two of Keritanima's fingers. "Tricks," she said with a impish grin. "Ulfan thought I was Kalina one day when I'd snuck out of the palace, and dragged me off to the guild. That happened when I was about twelve. That's how we met. After he realized I was the princess, he let me go. But I went back the next week and started harassing him into teaching me all about thieving things. Like picking pockets and other dirty tricks. I figured that they'd be very handy later on." She handed the necklace back to Allia, then sat back down on the bench.
"What else can you do?" Tarrin asked curiously.
"Oh, pick about any lock made," she said grandly, polishing her claws on the front of her dress. "Take anything from anyone without them knowing about it. I'm also very good at signing my father's name. I learned that right after I stole one of the royal seals."
Tarrin laughed. "What more could a girl ask for?" he chuckled. "The royal seal and being able to forge the king's name? That's like being able to make your own decrees."
"It has been unbelievably useful," she said modestly. "I pestered my father for such important lessons such as juggling and tumbling when I was younger. They were good fronts for learning how to control my hands, and sneaking about without making alot of noise. And I can still juggle," she winked.
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