by Guy Antibes
“I don’t like Lenis,” Trak said.
“That makes all of us,” Neel said looking over at the two Toryans. “He’s either a minder from the men who wanted you to stay in Kizru or he will want to assert leadership on your mission to Bennin. I’ve seen his type before, the spoiled noble given the command of a guard unit. You should ask Tembul if someone else could take his place.”
Trak hadn’t thought of that, cursing his inexperience. “I’ll do that. Now let’s talk about the flyers. We can let Ben and Tembul figure out the proper shield pose. I thought if we could make purpose-built flyers with wings, like outriggers on a boat, that we could pull out and lock before we take off, it would help us keep the platform from rocking if we have to make a lot of turns.”
“I noticed that when Ben and I tried to turn. There was a lot of wobble that took him out of his wind pose a few times. Maybe some kind of apparatus to lean on rather than rely on foot straps alone.”
Trak remembered leaning against the rail fence to the open-air horse pasture that he had built at The Blunted Sword. “Two short posts and a crossbar to lean against rather than one big post.” He drew his idea in the dirt. “Wings that can move on a pivot and lock into place with a dowel, like this.”
“We still need to keep the weight down,” Able said. “Don’t you get tired moving the platform around with the wind?”
Neel nodded. “So we change the structure, so the platform isn’t a heavy thick door but more of a sandwich, like a second story floor, trusses inside and thin boards on both sides.”
“With the metal sheet on the bottom to protect against fireballs,” Trak said.
Neel stared at the ground. “Maybe a magical shield can replace the sheet.”
“Good idea.” Trak knew that the more weight to push around, the less time a magician could keep the flyer moving around.
~
“I’m reluctant to teach you the pose,” Tembul said, scratching his head, “but I see your point. Just don’t perform it in front of Lenis. I don’t exactly trust him.”
“When we test our shields, you’ll have to do the pose, but if the Western Toryans fight, they will know how to bring us down, right?”
Tembul nodded and then took Trak aside and taught him the pose and the power word. Tembul made sure Trak did it correctly by bringing one of their floating platforms up and then down.
Trak decided he would take the risk of making the shield that Ben had refined on an old flyer one-story high. He took it just above the heads of the rest of their group and created a shield. “Ready,” he called.
Nothing happened.
“Take it up three stories,” Ben said.
Trak did that and just as he moved the flyer up, it drifted down.
Ben pursed his lips. “Two magicians on each flyer. One for movement and the other to shield it. As soon as you started moving the flyer up, I had Tembul throw the neutralization spell.” Ben made a thumb-down sign. “That was it.”
Blood rushed into Trak’s face, as he felt embarrassed that he didn’t think of it. “Two. That’s more weight and less time aloft.”
“Maybe not,” Neel said. “Nothing can reach you at twenty stories in the air. It takes less effort to maintain a shield than to make the wind move, at least that’s how it works with me.”
“Wind is easier than a shield, in my case,” Ben said.
“Then we make our groups based on the strength of the magician. What are Lenis’s strengths?” Trak asked Tembul.
Tembul began talking to Lenis, who began to argue with him.
“He won’t go up in the air,” Tembul said.
“Is he afraid?” Neel said, his face set in anger. “If he won’t fly, then he shouldn’t be included in our trip to Bennin.”
Tembul looked at Lenis talking with Honor and Rasia across the field. “He is not happy to be forced to work with outsiders. I checked around and his magician skills are barely mediocre and Lenis fancies himself as more of a swordsman.”
Neel looked at Trak. “A sparring partner!” Neel said. “Let’s see how good Lenis is.”
Tembul furrowed his brow. “You are swordsmen as well?”
Both of them grinned. “We are,” they said together. Trak looked at Neel, who wouldn’t know how much Trak had improved during his time with Misson Dalistro. They all walked over to Lenis.
“He knows a little bit of Santasian,” Honor said.
“You know how to use a sword?” Neel still said through Tembul.
Lenis puffed his chest up a bit. Trak could read the body language well enough. He wondered how well he would do matched up with Rasia. “I think it would be a good idea for those of us who know how to use a sword to do some sparring,” Neel said. Trak readily nodded his head.
Tembul translated for Neel. Lenis reddened and replied in Toryan, obviously incensed at the suggestion.
“He says we wouldn’t be sufficient competition for him,” Tembul said. “He places well among the best swordsmen in the capital. He feels it beneath him to fight a boy, a middle aged man, and a woman.”
“How good are you?” Trak said. “Rasia, Neel, and I are more than proficient.”
Tembul’s eyebrows rose. “All three of you? But you and Neel are powerful magicians!”
“Count it as a hobby,” Neel said breezily. “Rasia is a scout leader for the Colcannans, much the same as you are.”
The Toryan reddened. “I had no idea. She wears a sword, but some women like the personal protection wearing a weapon gives.”
“If he won’t play with us, then we’ll have to show him. You and I can spar and show him what we can do.”
Tembul’s eyes widened in surprise. “You fight me?”
“You’re a magician who wears a sword, right?” Neel said.
“I am better than most,” Tembul said. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”
Trak looked intently into Tembul’s eyes. “It’s not you I want to embarrass.”
“I’ll run and get some swords. Lenis won’t use practice swords.” The Toryan looked a bit worried.
They all sat around. Lenis said he didn’t know how to speak Pestlan, so that’s what the rest of them spoke until Tembul returned. Lenis stalked off and sat by himself.
Five Toryans returned with a variety of swords. “Others want to see how I do and how Lenis does against you. I’m sorry about the audience.”
“Fine with me,” Neel said. “That will make it harder for Lenis to come up with excuses when asked about our matches.”
Trak looked at the swords and tested the balance of each one. A curved sword, longer than what the Kandannans used, reminded him of one of the swords he had mastered when Gio taught him in Misson’s conservatory. The balance was very good, and the blade looked serviceable.
“You know how to use that?” Neel said. He looked at the blade, concern written on his face.
Trak just grinned and began to use some practice forms, making it simple and purposely introducing mistakes.
Rasia finally walked over and picked up a straight-bladed sword. “This was made in Colcan,” she said, testing the balance. “I’ll use this one.”
Neel picked up a straighter single-bladed sword unlike the one Trak had chosen. Tembul had already strapped a sword to his waist and one of the other Toryans gave an ornately-sheathed sword to Lenis.
“One question,” Neel said. “Will Lenis be augmenting his sword or using magic in any way during the sparring?”
Tembul blinked. “It is considered a dishonor to do so.”
Neel nodded.
Tembul said something to Lenis, who glared at Neel after the exchange.
“He wants Trak to spar with me, first, and then he will perform with Trak .”
Rasia spoke up. “Not fair. Trak may be winded and Lenis will be fresh. He should spar with Neel or me to make things the same.”
“Let’s see how it goes first. If I am exhausted after Tembul, then I think it fair to rest,” Trak said. “But I’ve sparred in consecutive matches
before.”
“You have?” Neel said.
Trak smiled. “My training has been thorough, Neel,” he said. “Just watch.” Trak hoped he hadn’t been too cocky with his statement. He didn’t mean it that way, but he did have thorough training.
Trak and Tembul stretched and continued to warm up.
“How do you want to score a win?” Trak said.
“Two out of three touches?”
Trak nodded. He stood and saluted Tembul, Santasian-style. The Toryan just nodded and lifted his sword up to a guard position. Trak let Tembul come to him.
The more compact Toryan came at Trak with a series of feinted thrusts where he jumped back each time. Trak had never seen a style quite like that. The next time he came at him with a feint, Trak slapped the blade aside and stepped inside and poked Tembul with his finger.
“Does that count as a touch?”
The bewildered Toryan nodded.
They parted again. Trak stutter-stepped, feinting a feint, and slapped the flat of his blade on Tembul’s sword shoulder before Tembul had a chance to react.
“That’s two?”
Trak’s performance was met with silence. His victory took less time than he had taken warming up.
Neel began to clap, followed by the rest of his group. The Toryans still looked amazed.
“No magic?” Tembul said.
Neel stepped up and clapped Trak on the shoulder. “Impressive, son.” He turned to Tembul. “The magic of hours of practice and expert instruction.”
“I don’t need any rest,” Trak said in Santasian, looking directly at Lenis. “Your turn.”
Lenis gritted his teeth, understanding enough of what Trak said. He performed some elaborate practice routines.
Trak looked at the grin on Neel’s face, who also noticed that most of Lenis’s forms were merely for show.
Lenis walked up to Trak and looked him in the eye. If he thought to intimidate him, Lenis would have to do better than that.
Trak saluted Lenis in the Santasian style, again. Lenis made an elaborate pose and muttered a word. Magic. His opponent wanted to cheat? Trak stretched a little more and looked at Lenis while he muttered the word ‘worry’.
Lenis began a flurry of attacks, somewhat similar to the collection of feints that Tembul used, but these were not all feints and Lenis was much faster. Trak saw openings in Lenis’s actions and tried to slip in touches, but Lenis’s spell held up as a tight shield around his body that sloughed off any direct contact.
Trak had to evade and began to assume a more defensive strategy. It gave him the opportunity to pick apart the Toryan style of swordplay. He thought of it as flurry and retreat done over and over again until an opening occurred. Lenis had honed the technique more than Tembul, who, Trak knew, was the better magician. Where Tembul didn’t resort to cheating, it appeared that Lenis had no compunction about doing so.
After another flurry of the same kind of attacks, Trak finally noticed the shield spell weakening when he pressed in. Lenis had begun to slow up a bit, and his footwork had finally begun to break down. Trak moved underneath a slash, and holding his sword above his head, defended while he tripped Lenis, touching the fallen man on his chest with the point of his blade.
His opponent turned red with fury. Lenis said something to Tembul.
“Lord Lenis doesn’t want this match to turn into a grudge match and has asked if you would give him a few minutes to recover.”
Trak shook his head. “No. He gets up and continues immediately or I will win.” Lenis almost certainly wanted time to incant another shield spell. “That’s how it is done in Pestle and Santasia.”
Ben translated for Rasia, who blurted, “And Colcan, as well,” in Pestlan.
“Up, Lord Lenis,” Tembul said as he proffered his hand. Lenis slapped it aside and rose to his feet.
He glared at Trak and continued to use the same series of feints and thrusts. Trak jerked back time and again. Toryan fighting was very aggressive, but that aggression led to the fatigue he could now plainly see as Lenis introduced too many openings. Trak easily slid past a thrust and tapped his sword on Lenis’s shoulder. “That’s two.” He had to give Lenis a high grade for attack, but the man would never defeat the worst of Gio’s swordsmen. The Toryan technique did not match well with other styles.
Trak put out his hand to Lenis. “In other lands it is customary to touch hands as a way to show the match is over and the players wish each other well,” he said.
Tembul translated, and one of the other Toryans said something to Lenis, who grudgingly shook Trak’s hand before stalking out of the meadow. Now that the match was over, Trak recognized one of the men who had brought the swords as the one who had offered him a position in Kizru’s court.
“We underestimated you, boy,” the man said in Pestlan. “You should be the Court Champion, not the Magician. There is no one in Kizru who can handle a sword at your level,” he looked at the departing Lenis, “even a magician-swordsman.” He talked to the other Toryans who left the visitors and Tembul standing in the meadow.
“Have you ever lost?” Neel said.
“To Misson, and I lost a few sparring matches under various unique circumstances to my classmates. Thanks to your instruction when I was younger, I became proficient in learning a number of weapons.”
“Me? I didn’t teach you all of those moves.”
Trak put his hand on Neel’s shoulder. “It’s not the moves that count, it’s the discipline of practicing all the forms for years and years. I don’t have to think to defend, just to pick apart my opponent’s weaknesses. The forms also helped make me into a decent magician, too.”
“Decent?” Ben snorted.
Tembul joined them after escorting the Toryans from the meadow. “You did yourself nothing but good. How did you overcome Lenis’s shield spell?”
“I thought you said no magic?”
Tembul grinned. “I knew he would cheat, and I wanted to see how you would handle him. He is one of the best men with a sword in Kizru, but he stretches the rules. It’s well known.”
“It’s a spell that I learned.” He looked at Honor. “It doesn’t require a pose, but you know how dangerous those kinds of spells are…”
“I do. That one seemed to make the shield slowly melt away,” Tembul said.
“Yes, call it my melting spell. I always worry that it will backfire.” Trak smiled a bit. “Maybe I can teach it to you when we are on the road to Bennin.”
“We?”
“I won’t go on that quest with Lenis as the only Toryan. I want someone I can trust.”
Tembul pulled at his lower lip. “You trust me?”
“More than Lenis, and I know I can beat you with a sword, too.” Trak grinned.
~~~
Chapter Eleven
~
Floating high above a large pasture, Valanna and Nullia looked down at nearly a thousand men drilling. Most of the men wore their own clothes and practiced with spears. Sandy had said that making spear points would be fast.
The muster had taken a week, and now that they had practiced for ten days, it was time to move north.
“Garono sends his congratulations,” Nullia said.
Valanna wondered about the intensity of the Senior Dalistro’s good wishes. They now had a real army. Navino had given Sandy command of the irregulars, as he called them.
“We have played enough, Nullia. It’s time for us to move northward. Sandy said he’s finally assembled enough supplies to get us all the way to Espozia.
“Then let’s get going. The two women separated and flew down to where Sandy and the Lieutenant monitored the training activities.
Sandy broke into a large smile. He wore a uniform of sorts, a dark blue coat with bright brass buttons and gray trousers with a black stripe down the outside of each pant leg. “We are to go now, correct?”
Valanna nodded her head. “We can collect more men along the way.”
“Indeed we can.” Sandy grinne
d. “What will you ladies be doing as we march?”
“Scouting,” Navino said. “They can cover much more ground than a mounted rider. What does it look like to the north?”
“All clear,” Nullia said. “There are no signs of an opposing force for ten leagues to the northwest.”
“And the same to the northeast,” Valanna said. “Our activities are not foolproof, however. We can’t see through the canopy of forests, but we can look for tracks leading into them.”
Sandy nodded his head. “So we should send out conventional scouts as well, then.”
“Its only prudent,” Navino said. “We’ll end the drills today and head out tomorrow morning.”
~
Valanna wondered why they couldn’t move as quickly as Navino’s original force. It seemed to take three or four times longer to get everyone marching on the road. Nullia had gone ahead and scouted to the northeast. Valanna would cover the west once every soldier marched out and every supply wagon began rolling north.
Just before midday, she rose to twenty stories and began her scouting. In a few hours, she had gone north far enough and began to head westward. She passed over a large forest, and when she got to the other side, she could see a procession of supply wagons, poking along the road. She noticed trampled earth on either side.
She dared not hover any lower than her present altitude and returned above the forest. She could make out the clinking and rattling of armor and weapons and the faint noise of voices and animal sounds. Frustrated that she had no means to determine how many men were under the leaves of the forest she returned to the vanguard of her forces that had just passed the road that the oncoming army traveled.
Nullia hadn’t yet returned from her scouting, so Valanna landed her flyer on the cart that carried the platform and went to find Lieutenant Navino.
“A large force is heading toward us on the road you just passed. I couldn’t tell how many there are, but we might be outnumbered.”
Lieutenant Navino called a halt to the column. “We should confront them at the crossroads. The field is flat and that will give our opponent no advantages.”
“The men aren’t fully trained yet,” Sandy said rubbing his hands together with worry. He looked very anxious, nearly afraid. With his background, she didn’t expect that. Had he been discharged for cowardice?