The Blooding

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Time for our nightly sword lesson, no?” Falon asked coyly, knowing she should try to keep the satisfaction she felt over pulling a fast one on her training master off her face, but she was unable to completely avoid some good old fashioned gloating. She had won, after all!

  Darius’s face turned thunderous, “A sword alone doesn’t count,” he snapped and Falon had just stuck her face out in response when he reached over and grabbed hold of her mustachio and chin whiskers gave a savage tug.

  Falon cried out in pain and lost her footing. Crashing into the Imperial man, she had to wrap her arms around his middle to keep from falling into the ground.

  “That hurt, you tool,” Falon yelled, holding her hand to her face.

  “That didn’t come off,” Darius looked at her in what looked like shock.

  “Of course it didn’t,” Falon glared, guarding her face with her free hand. She had never realized how painful someone tugging on her face could be before. She probably would have felt guilty over the implication that the facial hair was real, except that after the way he had just hurt her by trying to pull off the fake beard, she wasn’t feeling much of anything other than pain and a little self-righteous anger.

  “I don’t believe this,” Darius said flatly.

  “Duncan, Ernest and John all have real beards a Witch spelled on their faces,” Falon said with a sniff, and then stomped her foot to relieve some tension.

  “You’ve deliberately tried to cheat yourself into something you know I never had any intention of doing,” Darius said coldly.

  “You said if I had a beard and an Imperial sword you’d train me how to use it,” Falon said evenly. “Are you a man of your word or not?”

  Darius regarded her coldly for several seconds before thrusting his outstretched arm toward their training area. “Into the circle,” he said coldly. She did as he had bidden and went to the torch-lit space as Darius stomped over to it himself. When they had arrived, he turned around and glowered at her, “You’re going to regret backing me into a corner like this,” he assured her in a grim voice.

  “Probably,” Falon admitted, realizing for the first time that this might not have been the smartest idea she could have come up with to learn how to properly wield a sword light enough for her to actually use.

  “En guard,” Darius said removing his very much non-blunted Imperial sword and pointing its very sharp end in her face.

  “We aren’t going to use practice swords?” Falon gulped, holding her new sword in suddenly trembling hands. When her left leg started to quiver she knew she was in trouble—bad trouble.

  With an inarticulate battle cry, the Imperial charged at her with his sword held high.

  Yelping in terror Falon, raised her new sword in self-defense.

  Falon came to with a gasp and felt hands on the bare flesh of her belly. She immediately started to struggle; she had to get away!

  “Hold still,” the Healing Wench grunted and then, in a rising voice when Falon continued to squirm, called for help, “hold him still!”

  “Stay still, Fal,” Ernest yelled, spittle flying into her face as he leaned on her shoulders trying to hold her down.

  Seeing Ernest and feeling a great weight on her legs, Falon went limp. However, the growing heat in her side soon had her wanting to shift from side to side and squirm again.

  “What happened?” Falon said looking around wildly.

  “Darius almost killed ye is what happened!” Duncan shouted, and from the position his voice was coming from, he was the one laying across her legs.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t bear the heat any longer, the Healing Wench slumped and removed her hands from Falon’s stomach.

  “Ye’re lucky the moon is close to full,” the Wench told her after resting for a few moments, “the rest of ye can let him up now.”

  Falon was just in a sitting position when a pair of boots thumped up to her field of vision. Looking up, she saw Darius staring down at her without pity.

  “You tried to kill me,” Falon said, unable to believe her own words.

  “You want to train like an Imperial, then you’ll train like one,” Darius replied, his voice completely without remorse.

  Falon’s lip quivered with fear.

  “Unless you’re not man enough to continue with the training,” the Imperial added, his eyes burning into hers.

  “I can still do it; I can learn the sword,” Falon whispered not sure if she really could.

  “Then we’ll continue this tomorrow. Think about getting some armor,” Darius said flatly, and with that the Training Master turned and stalked off.

  “This is insane; ye can’t keep training with him,” Duncan told her angrily.

  “He’ll kill you, Fal,” Ernest said wide-eyed, “I don’t know what you said or did to him, but he’s been looking fit to kill you ever since we first saw him drag your bleeding carcass over to the Wench.”

  “If he wanted me dead I’m sure he could do it,” Falon’s voice trembled as she said this.

  “What did you do?” Ernest asked urgently, “what could you have said to him. He’s never been like this before.”

  “I tricked him into teaching me Imperial style swordplay,” Falon explained, and then threw her face in her arms. Her side shuddered as she cried into her arms, the pain and fear of the last few moments finally finding release.

  “Just tell him it was a mistake and you’ll go back to training with a regular sword,” Duncan advised her.

  “Or better yet, just focus on the spear; they say we’ll meet the Ravens on the battlefield any day,” Ernest threw his two coppers worth of good advice in also.

  Unable to articulate why she couldn’t stop the training, and too scared of what they would think if they saw a ‘boy’ crying into his arms in front of them, Falon just shook her head.

  “Go away,” she cried when they wouldn’t stop pestering her, and she put her hands up over her ears to block them out. They eventually did as she had asked.

  It was a sleep filled with nightmares such as she hadn’t had since she was a little girl, and she only managed to keep her head on her pillow for a few hours.

  Chapter 40: Late Arrivals and Meeting the Enemy

  Darius never again ran her through with his blade, but each and every night after the first she was on the receiving end of a type of training such as she had never experienced before.

  If this was what Imperial style sword training was usually like then she truly pitied the Imperial regiments—and despised the Taurus Emperor for doing this to them. Whether his soldiers were willing or not, it didn’t matter.

  As for Darius, she found that she hated him with a passion such as she had never felt before. For his part, he seemed to return the favor—with interest—whenever they were within the sword ring. Outside it he was more aloof and reserved than before the new training, but the moment he stepped into the training area he mercilessly drove her around the ring before eventually pounding her into the ground.

  There was hardly a night when she didn’t need a trip to the Healing Wench. It didn’t matter how quickly she picked up her heels, or what arm strengthening exercises she performed during the daylight hours of the march; upon Darius explicit orders, he still beat her black and blue before he was finished with her.

  She would have quit after the second night except that strangely, she seemed to actually start getting some genuinely respectful looks from the other men. As Duncan explained it to her, she might not have a lot of skill with the sword, but anyone who was willing to be run through with a sword and keep on training despite that was considered tough enough to be a leader—no matter how young and inexperienced he was.

  Each day seemed to pass in a haze as Darius began drilling them on the march, not only in marching formation but in actual battlefield drills as well. It seemed being at the tail end of the column and constantly eating everyone’s dust, or slipping through an already churned to mud road, had its own limited advantages—if one co
uld call having more time for spear and marching drills an advantage, that is.

  It was a day just like any other, and the army had been marching for most of it when the horns to the very front of the army began to sound.

  At first Falon thought they were going to be making camp a few hours early, but the horns and drums just kept sounding.

  Someone came running up to the head of the column where she spent most of her time astride Bucket, except when they were doing spear drills.

  Looking over her shoulder she saw Darius, with Aodhan and Vance lagging behind, come to a stop beside her.

  “Trouble?” she asked, looking back up towards the front of the army, or what little of it she could actually see from their spot in the rear.

  “Those are war horns,” Darius replied, shading his hands over his face to try and catch a better look up forward. But being shorter than the rest of the men, he seemed doomed to failure as far as Falon could see. She was actually high up on a donkey—well, relatively high up anyway—and she could see very little through the bend in the road. There was too much scrub brush blocking her line of sight.

  “What do those horns say?” Falon asked, feeling a sense of urgency come upon her.

  “I don’t know all your war signals yet,” Darius admitted, showing a lack of knowledge that surprised her. She had somehow always though the Imperial knew everything there was to know about warfare.

  “It’s a fall into formation call,” Aodhan explained, puffing up visibly, “they call us to battle formation.”

  “Yes, but we’re too far away,” Vance nodded his head in agreement before falling into step with the other two men.

  “So what do we do?” Falon demanded, feeling at a loss for what to do and not liking it.

  “As long as the army keeps moving forward, we stay on the march,” Darius said with such certainty that something inside Falon eased. She might hate him as a murderous Imperial sword master but, when it came to fighting and killing, he had her trust.

  Just then a runner came charging down the line and Falon could see him stop at the head of the each militia band ahead of her further up the road. After speaking with each group, the band began to pick up the pace.

  Falon’s blood began to course through her veins and her hands trembled.

  “Steady,” Darius told her in his iron, drill instructor voice and for some reason, even though this caused her to glare at him, Falon felt reassured.

  Several minutes later it was their turn. “Compliments of Captain Smythe,” the runner said, coming to a stop beside her group and breathing heavily. As soon as he had caught his breath he continued, “The enemy has been sighted encamped on the opposite side of a meadow two miles down the road. Orders are to proceed to the meadow at the quick step and assemble into battle formation.”

  “Do you think we’ll be moving to battle today, or will we encamp across from them and fight tomorrow?” Falon asked, feeling her eyes go wide.

  “The Captain says that there’s still enough time in the day left to set up in formation, have a formal parlay with the Ravens and then come to grips with enough daylight left for a battle,” the Courier explained, knuckling his forehead and taking his leave.

  “They’re hoping to take us while we’re still tired after coming off the march and they’re well rested,” Darius said exchanging significant looks with Aodhan.

  “I don’t know why we can’t all just wait until tomorrow,” Falon said, hating how small her voice sounded as she said this.

  “Knowing our noble Generals, they’ll want to have the battle as soon as possible; waiting until tomorrow afternoon will probably seem too long for them,” Darius shook his head.

  “I still don’t understand why common military practice is to have large battles in the waning hours of the day, when everyone has already put in a full day’s work,” Falon said with a sigh, “it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “It’s all about the healers,” Vance interjected, “ye want to give yer wounded the best chance to survive, which means no one can be healed before moonrise. Even the most hard-charging Noble Knight would rather do his charging in the evening, when that also gives him the best chance at making it into the hands of the Healing Wenches with life still in him.”

  “You’d think there was a better way to manage these things, so that your men would be both fully rested and have access to healing magics,” Falon said primly.

  “I hear thy Imperial brethren fight many morning battles,” Aodhan observed, causing Falon to swivel on her perch atop Bucket and fix both him and Darius with her gaze.

  “With certain preparations, our healers are not limited to the moonlight hours,” Darius said with a shrug, “we fight whenever is most advantageous to us.”

  “How?” Falon asked feeling wildly curious.

  “It’s a secret,” the Imperial who was their training master splayed his hands to indicate that he either didn’t know, or couldn’t say.

  “That would be a real advantage,” Falon said wistfully.

  “Superior tactical flexibility has won many battles,” Darius agreed easily.

  With effort, Falon dragged her mind back to what they needed to do. “John,” she called loudly.

  “Yes, Lieutenant Falon,” John replied, popping up right beside her with only a couple steps.

  Trust him to be hanging around wherever the action was most likely, she thought.

  Falon frowned down at him, “Just in case any messages from his Lordship or the Prince have been waylaid, I want you to run back and spread the word to the camp followers that the enemy have been sighted.” She was unhappy at the thought of sending her runner away just when she might need him, and it occurred to her that she might have been wise to employ more than one runner, but that was a thought for later. “Just make sure not to take too long and come right back; we’ll be moving fast.”

  “Yes, Mister Falon,” the former Page snapped off what he probably thought was some kind of crisp salute, and with a click of his heels turned around and raced back the way they had come, toward the camp followers.

  “Any orders for the rest of us,” Darius prompted, and Falon jumped in her saddle. She had almost forgotten, and she had half expected the Imperial Training Master to issue the orders without her needing to be involved.

  “Pass the word,” Falon said, trying to sound like a real Lieutenant and knowing she was probably failing miserably. She sounded far too stiff and stilted as far as she could tell just from listening to herself, “we march at the double time to catch up with the rest of the army.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Darius acknowledged, bracing to some strange Imperial posture before turning and yelling at the rest of her friends and neighbors—the fighting men.

  Face turning red, Falon bounced up and down as her noble steed seemed to pick up the excitement in the air and increased his pace to keep up. She started to wave, trying to catch the attention of the Imperial but he was too busy issuing orders and making sure everyone was moving in order. When Darius was finally done reissuing her movement orders, she finally caught the attention of the training master.

  “I’m not a Knight,” Falon reminded him.

  The Imperial looked blank, “I know that,” Darius said, looking at her questioningly.

  “That means I’m not a ‘Sir,’ I’m a—” she almost choked on the words, “-Mister,” Falon said firmly. Technically, she was a courtesy Lady, which meant that this too was a lie but it was one appropriate for her position.

  A light seemed to go off behind Darius eyes. “Old habits from the Regiments; all officers are ‘Sir,’” he said with a shrug, “I’ll try to remember when the action heats up.”

  Falon wanted to continue the conversation, but somebody in the back of the group stumbled and the Imperial ran back to help the young man back to his feet, all the while scolding the boy, at least from what she could hear from up at the head of the Two Wicks Militia.

  Trotting up the road on the bouncing back of her
noble steed, Falon felt like her teeth were going to be smashed together and shattered into thousands of tiny pieces thanks to Bucket’s increasingly jarring gait.

  Before she had even realized it, Bucket the Magnificent had outstripped the rest of their people and was on the heels of the next militia band just ahead of them.

  “Whoa,” she called out, pulling back on Bucket’s reins, “he stop. Slow down!” Falon cried when she realized that Bucket had the bit in his mouth and was eagerly determined to stretch his legs at high speed for the first time in days. The frisky donkey was having no part of this whole slowing down business; if everyone else was running down the road, then her Donkey seemed bound and determined to do the same!

  “Racing us to the front, Lieutenant?” called out one of the men along the road.

  “Run away, donkey-boy,” hooted another one closer to the front of the next militia band, and then everyone in their group broke out into laughter.

  Face aflame, Falon tugged ineffectually on Bucket’s reins, but her brother’s infernal donkey had his head down. If anything, he increased his speed to a full-blown donkey gallop.

  Seeing heads start to turn all along the road at the thunder (or perhaps patter) of Bucket’s magnificent charge, Falon just wanted to curl up and die.

  “Gone to join the Cavalry, Lieutenant?” one of the Sergeants called out as she passed his loose formation of men, “I thought they required bigger steeds, though!”

  “You ca-all that a forma-mation, Sergeant?” Falon rallied and shot back, stuttering from the jarring bounce of bucket’s gallop.

  “Says a man who can’t even control his own horse—er, Donkey!” the Sergeant scoffed back at her as she passed before turning back to his own men, “All right tighten it up you sorry lot of sodbusters!”

  She and Bucket raced past several other militia bands, enduring similar taunts, before reaching the turn in the road. His breaths coming in loud pants now, Bucket slowed and started trotting off to the side.