The Ranger's Path: The King's Ranger Book 2

by AC Cobble

  As Graewald finished explaining the restrictions, Rew bit the inside of his lips, trying to stop a smile as he watched the faces of Raif and Cinda.

  “Captain,” said Cinda, drawing herself up, “we lived in Yarrow for three years, you know. We were safe then, and I’ve no doubt—“

  “Lass,” said the Captain, “when you lived in Yarrow, was Baron Worgon preparing for war with Duke Eeron? Was your father a captive of the duke, and did you think that Duke Eeron hoped the same for you?”

  “Well, no…” replied Cinda, her voice trailing off.

  “We are to be part of this battle as well, Captain,” declared Raif. “Duke Eeron has our father, and we’re going to make him pay. The duke will regret ever starting a fight with the Fedgleys.”

  “Will he, now?” asked the captain, setting his fists on his hips. “If it wasn’t for Baron Worgon and our army, what would—“

  “Enough,” said Anne.

  The captain turned and blinked at the empath, surprised at the interruption.

  “Thank you for showing us our rooms, Captain Graewald,” said Anne. “Please let the servants know we’d like some refreshments on your way out, will you?”

  The captain opened his mouth then closed it. He offered a shallow bow to Anne and a nod to Raif and Cinda. He avoided looking at Rew again, and he’d been ignoring Zaine since the moment he saw her in the corner. Turning on his heel, the captain marched out of the room, and the door banged shut behind him.

  “That man is insufferable,” said Anne the moment the captain’s crisp bootsteps faded from hearing.

  Rew grinned at her, and the younglings nodded agreement.

  “What do we do now?” asked Zaine.

  “We wait while Baron Worgon assembles his men,” said Rew. “Shouldn’t take more than a day. In the meantime, I hope the serving staff will bring ale.”

  “No ale,” said Anne.

  “What?” exclaimed Rew.

  “Worgon is preparing his men to march, and we should prepare as well,” said Anne. “You men clear the furniture from the center of the room. Cinda and I will practice her casting. Then, Rew, you take Raif and Zaine out onto the balcony and start arms training.”

  The rest of the party looked at each other before, as a group, they shrugged. There wasn’t much time, but they had nothing else to do, and no one could argue the sense of preparing themselves for what was to come.

  Rew and Raif bent their backs to move all of the furniture in the room to the sides, and then the two of them, followed by Zaine, stepped outside.

  They were halfway up a tower, high in Worgon’s keep. Their living quarters opened onto a large balcony that was the roof of a room below. It afforded plenty of space to practice and an excellent view of the town of Yarrow and the land beyond.

  Raif and Zaine glanced out over the land to where they could see Baron Worgon’s troops, mustering into their units, readying to march. Row after row of tents were staked neatly down, and huge depots had been set up for supplies. Wagons and livestock were on the fringes, carts filled with weapons and women were being unloaded for the soldiers’ use. Baron Worgon had been preparing, Rew saw.

  Rew looked between the two youths and called for their attention. “We’ll take turns. First, Raif.”

  The big nobleman pushed back his hair, looked around, and said, “We’ve no practice blades, no sparring armor, and no dummies for striking. What are we doing, Ranger?”

  “We’ll use our swords,” said Rew, and he drew his longsword.

  Raif frowned at him.

  “Come on, lad. We don’t have much time.”

  “Hold on,” said Raif. “You want me to attack you?”

  “Yes.”

  The big youth blinked at him uncertainly.

  “You won’t hurt me,” asserted Rew.

  “What if you trip, or something gets in your eye, or…” began Zaine. She shook herself. “Before, you told me not to practice like this. Do you remember? By the river, you said—”

  “Practicing with real blades is a foolish idea,” growled Rew, “except when it’s an emergency. If you insist on this path, you should understand that it is an emergency. More people than I care to think of want you dead. If you want to learn to defend yourselves, we’ll have to dispense with caution and common sense. It’s the path you’ve taken.”

  “I’m not insisting on any path,” protested Zaine.

  Raif reached behind his shoulder and unsheathed his greatsword. “Ranger, this blade is enchanted. If I swing hard, it will shear through your steel like I’m hacking into stale bread.”

  “No, it won’t,” said Rew.

  The big youth frowned at him in consternation. “Ranger, I haven’t had time to test the properties of the enchantment, and my father made efforts to ignore that part of our family history, but this is a powerful blade. I’ve used it enough to know that common steel cannot stand against it.“

  Rew walked to the edge of the balcony where there were several large planters. In the spring, they would hold blooming flowers, but in the autumn, they were empty. Grunting, Rew dragged one closer to another and laid his longsword down across them.

  He turned to Raif. “Strike my sword as hard as you can.”

  Shaking his head, the nobleman complained, “Your longsword will shatter with the impact.”

  “If it shatters, I can buy another,” said Rew.

  Raif glanced at Zaine, as if he wanted her to protest as well, but the thief merely looked on in interest. Finally, Raif shrugged and stepped forward. He raised his greatsword above his head and swung it down. Not with all of his might, but hard enough.

  The two blades clanged together. Rew’s longsword bounced with the impact, and Raif’s greatsword was jarred from his hands when he was caught by surprise at the resistance from the other blade. The two weapons fell to the tiled balcony with a clatter. Raif stared open-mouthed at the lengths of gleaming steel. There wasn’t a mark on either one.

  “I don’t understand,” said Raif.

  “Your sword is enchanted!” cried Zaine, pointing at Rew. “I remember now. Vyar Grund said the same! What can it do?”

  Rew winked at her without answering, walked around Raif, and picked up his blade. He moved back into the center of the balcony and said, “Let’s begin.”

  Raif collected his sword, hefting the giant weapon that was nearly as long as the big youth was tall. He turned and eyed Rew’s blade. “Do you know the properties of the weapon?”

  “Of course,” responded Rew.

  “Tell us what they are?” asked Zaine from the side of the balcony.

  Rew shook his head and settled his feet in front of Raif.

  Raif grunted, tentatively approached, and swung a strike at Rew. The ranger didn’t move, didn’t bother to defend. Raif’s blow whistled by half-a-pace away from him.

  “You can do better,” he told the nobleman.

  Raif swung a few more desultory strikes, and Rew began to parry them, not speaking, letting the confidence of his movement communicate that he was prepared for more. Slowly, the force and speed of Raif’s attacks increased.

  Rew continued to comfortably defend. He did not attack; he just waited as Raif swung at him. It was no real sparring practice, and it would teach the boy little, but Rew wanted to understand what the youth was capable of. So far, he’d only seen Raif in action during the brief moments they fought the narjags, and it was little evidence of the boy’s training.

  Raif, perhaps frustrated with the ease Rew defended his attacks, began to strike with more force, and Rew began to see yawning gaps in the youth’s style. The nobleman struck with vigor, making good use of his strength, but he did so with all of the grace of a blacksmith hammering against an anvil. Raif tried to use the weight of his blade and the muscle behind it to batter Rew into submission. Perfectly adequate when striking an unmoving object like a practice dummy, but Rew had little difficulty shunting the blows aside and leveraging his skill to keep himself well out of reach of t
he greatsword. In a short time, Raif was panting and wheezing, exhausted by the strain of lifting and swinging his huge weapon. Rew let him continue for a moment longer and, not wanting to waste all of the boy’s energy, called for a rest.

  Raif put his blade point-down onto the tiles of the balcony and leaned against the cross guard. Between ragged breaths, he said, “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?” asked Rew.

  “With that effort, I could have shattered two dozen wooden practice dummies,” rasped Raif. “I could have beaten half a dozen sparring partners into submission. You look as comfortable and as rested as when you stepped away from the table after breaking your fast this morning back at the inn. What magic is this, Ranger? Is it a property of your longsword?”

  Rew shook his head and waited while the big youth gathered his breath to continue.

  “You’re the better swordsman. I knew that,” admitted Raif, “but even a veteran soldier would have collapsed under the strain of defending those strikes.”

  Rew nodded. “You, and I suspect those you’ve sparred against, use your strength and the size of your weapon to hammer an opponent. It’s not a terrible strategy when facing a single, heavily armored, slow-moving, and slow-thinking opponent, but it’s an awful way to combat someone like me. I didn’t meet your attacks. I merely let them slide to the side, which is far less exhausting.”

  Raif frowned.

  “I’ll teach you. For now, understand we have much to do and much to unlearn,” said Rew. He saw the protest in the boy’s eyes, so he added, “I didn’t bother to swing back, Raif. I didn’t even try. It was your own efforts which have worn you down. Think about that while you rest, and we’ll practice more later. Now, it’s time to assess Zaine.”

  “Same plan?” asked the girl, sliding off the edge of the balcony where she’d been sitting.

  Rew frowned at her. “What, ah, what’s on the other side of that railing?”

  Zaine turned and looked down. “The courtyard before the keep’s gates.”

  Rew shuddered at the thought of sitting on the railing with his back to such a great fall. He took a couple of steadying breaths then raised his weapon. “Attack.”

  Zaine moved toward him with none of the fervor or the anger that Raif had. It made her more dangerous, but it was quickly apparent she didn’t have the boy’s training or anything like his strength. Before long, she stopped.

  Rew grinned at her. “With those two daggers you’re at an extreme disadvantage to my longsword. If I’m ready, the only way to approach me is to knock my blade aside with one of yours and try to get inside of my guard with the other. You have to learn to use the two blades in tandem. You’ll never beat an opponent with a longer weapon as long as they can keep the pointy tip aimed at you.”

  “Knock it aside?” questioned Zaine.

  Rew nodded.

  She swiped at his longsword, and her dagger clanged off of his steel.

  “Harder,” he encouraged.

  She swung again, ringing his blade with hers. Over and over, he instructed her to attack, and she struck several more times before he stopped her.

  “Now, instead of striking my sword,” he instructed, “place your dagger against the tip and try to force my weapon out of your way.”

  Doing as he asked, she put her dagger against the mid-point of his longsword and tried to shove it away. Nothing happened.

  “Right at the end, lass.”

  She moved her dagger toward the tip of the longsword, and as she pushed on it again, he allowed the sword to waver, letting her shove it aside.

  “See,” he explained, “the further from my grip you put your force, the easier time you’ll have turning my weapon from your path. It’s the simple physics of leverage. I mean no offense, but you’ll never be stronger than me or many of the opponents you face. You’ll have to use your speed and your wits. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get stronger. You should, but learning to use that strength effectively is how you’ll survive.”

  “How do I get stronger, then?” asked Zaine.

  “Practice,” said Rew. “First, I’m going to teach you both some simple exercises we’ll use to begin our day. This will build your muscles as well as endurance in your heart and lungs. Every day, until this is over, we’ll begin with these exercises. After that, Zaine, you will start work on a sparring dummy if we can borrow one from Captain Graewald—or some of Baron Worgon’s furniture if we cannot. You’ll practice aiming your strikes and putting your weight behind them. Raif, we’ll work on your positioning and your dexterity. Against a slow, weak opponent, you’d do quite well. Against a fast, skilled opponent, you’ll be dead.”

  “That’s unfair,” muttered Raif. “I survived the narjags.”

  “With Anne’s healing,” reminded Rew.

  “He’s got a point,” chimed in Zaine.

  Raif rolled his eyes at her and then turned back to Rew. “Fair enough, Ranger. You’ve proven you’re a superior swordsman, and since we’re not going anywhere right now, I’ll do as you say.”

  Ignoring the boy’s haughty tone, Rew nodded and told them to put aside their weapons. “First, we’re going to get your bodies working. Drop onto your bellies and put your hands flat on the ground. You’re going to push yourselves up. No, no, keep your body flat as you do. You want to feel it in your chest. That’s… Well, not that awful. Do twenty more.”

  11

  For three days, they’d been languishing in Yarrow. Each morning, Rew would walk out onto the balcony outside of their rooms and look over the sluggish preparations of Baron Worgon’s men. The encampment beyond the city walls had the look of the beginnings of a major military endeavor, but as men and women occupied the rows of tents, new provisions arrived, and the numbers swelled, they never actually lined up to march. It was a source of frustration for all of them, so they communicated it in looks and guttural grunts. They all felt the simmering need to do something, and no words were necessary to give their emotion shape.

  The waiting did give them time to train, though. Rew set Raif and Zaine a series of exercises designed to build their strength and stamina. They cycled through the movements each morning, and then they’d work on combat skills, erasing the bad habits the pair held and replacing them with effective theories of how to defend oneself and how to kill. In the afternoons, they practiced what they’d learned in the morning until the younglings dropped from exhaustion.

  It wasn’t enough to turn them into expert warriors. That would take years of repetition and experience, but Rew hoped he could lay a foundation to build from. Back in Eastwatch, he would spend months training his rangers, and it was years before they were considered adequate, but he simply did not have that much time with the younglings, so he did what he could.

  Indoors, Anne taught Cinda as best she could. Fortunately, the girl had some of the theory from Arcanist Ralcrist and the other tutors she’d been exposed to. She knew what to do but didn’t have the strength to do it. That changed when Rew suggested they stop invoking and begin necromancy. The girl’s mother had been an invoker, but it was her father’s blood and his talent that surged through Cinda’s veins.

  Anne had scowled at him. He realized the thought had already occurred to her, but as an empath, she had a natural aversion to necromancy. He understood, but Anne had dragged him along for the journey, and while he was there, he would do the best he could. He insisted they give it a try.

  From that point, instead of sending pathetic charges of energy or wobbling balls of heat across the room, Cinda began practicing the cold chill of death. She could not yet call to the spirits, and it was too dangerous to practice in a crowded city, but Anne found the girl could draw on the power of the departed, and so they began practicing that.

  Late the evening on their third day confined to the tower, after the younglings had fallen limply on the couches, worn from the day of training, Anne spoke to Rew out on the balcony. “It feels wrong, teaching her these t
hings.”

  He shrugged. “It is who she is.”

  Anne pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders. “That doesn’t make it right. It’s the antithesis of all that I’ve practiced in my career. Besides, necromancy is what got the Fedgleys into this mess. Why take the same road trying to get out of it?”

  “Necromancy is what got everyone into this,” acknowledged Rew. Anne’s head twisted to the side, and he saw the reflection of her eyes as she looked at him in the dark. Quickly, before she could ask what he was alluding to, he added, “How is Cinda holding up? Raif is going mad at the delays. He’s ready to storm out and command those soldiers to march.”

  Anne looked past the walls of the town below them and out to the fields where Worgon’s soldiers were camping. During the day, they could see a hundred tents spread out around the road that led from Yarrow. At night, they could only see the campfires. The fires flickered like a reflection of the stars above, except they burned an angry red-orange in the black of the night.

  “Cinda is ready to leave as well,” said Anne. “She’s fuming that Worgon has left us out of his councils and that all we know is from what we can see standing on this balcony. I think if Captain Graewald says one more time he’s only sharing what we need to know, Cinda’s going to strangle the man. That, or we’ll find out what she’s really capable of.”

  Rew watched the campfires below, not responding.

  “Why hasn’t Worgon marched?” wondered Anne. “When we first arrived, he was cackling about the element of surprise, but every day we sit and let his army mull about is another day for Duke Eeron’s spies to report and for the duke to respond. If Duke Eeron has called his men back from Falvar, we may have already lost our advantage. Three days… It’s been too long. I’m no tactician, but even I can do the math. If we wanted to arrive outside Spinesend before Eeron’s men returned, we should have left already.”