03- A Sip of Magic

by Guy Antibes

  “Like my note said, I ate something bad this morning. I tried to hold it in, but I was sick not too far from here for hours. I finally fell asleep and…” Pol said. The excuse sounded lame, but he couldn’t come up with any other reason to write down on the message he left behind.

  “You missed a lovely meal.”

  Pol shook his head. “No, I didn’t.” His hungry stomach told him otherwise, but Pol had to keep from saying that he went back to Val’s camp. The walls of the tent did little to stop voices, and he slept in the midst of his enemy.

  Shro snorted. “Horker kept me busy with your duties, but he didn’t think you had deserted. I think he likes you.”

  Pol just grunted as he collapsed on his bedroll in the dark, and tried to sleep. With the disappearance of Val and Darrol, the escape of Demeron, and not eating a bite for sixteen hours, he couldn’t keep his eyes closed for long. His mind kept whirring, but his thoughts didn’t lead him anywhere productive.

  Outside, a conversation between two men got close enough for Pol to listen in.

  “Sometimes Onkar talks so long. I think it’s because he’s in love with his own voice. He could have just said we won’t be leaving for a few days while his forces continue to muster.”

  Pol recognized the next voice as Horker’s. “He never would have dared keep us up so late before he left the monastery. There are those of us unhappy that he has risen so high so fast.”

  The other monk laughed. “It’s because he knows good people and takes the best ones from us to help him.”

  “I found a gem in the acolyte, Nater. He can beat any of us with a sword. I had him spar with Spinner.”

  “He defeated Spinner?”

  “He did,” Horker said. “He’s much smarter than his records showed. I was surprised that out of all the monks, he was the one who selected the few Shinkyan weapons that we had collected. He had a Shinkyan tutor, so he must have picked up some tricks from him.”

  “Shinkyans,” the other monk snorted.

  “Quiet. That Shinkyan roommate is sharing his tent. His parents must have filled the Abbot’s pockets to get accepted.”

  “Oh. Maybe that’s why your acolyte picked that weapon.”

  Horker made some kind of sound in disagreement. “That roommate isn’t any better with a sword than the rest of the acolyte rabble. I’m afraid the monastery will have to stock the barracks with a lot of new acolytes when we are finished.”

  “When we’re finished, we’ll have the pick of all Baccusol, maybe all of Eastril, eventually.”

  Pol heard a pause. “I wonder if the boy made it back from wherever he went.”

  At that Pol closed his eyes and breathed a little heavier. He heard the tent flap pulled back. It closed.

  “Good. He’s asleep.” Another pause from Horker. “It’s time we both slept. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Shro moved closer to Pol. She whispered in his ear. “My work is nearly done,” she said. “It sounds like Shinkya is on their list, but after they have taken down the Empire. Where were you, really?”

  Her whispering in his ear gave Pol goose bumps. He didn’t know why, but it felt kind of nice. He turned and whispered in hers. “My contacts have left, and my Shinkyan horse has escaped. I nearly rode all the way to Tesna and back. I guess we are both on our own.” He hoped his voice didn’t convey the dejection that he felt.

  ~~~

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ~

  POL’S OUTLOOK HADN’T IMPROVED A WHOLE LOT by morning, but a full stomach helped take the edge off his worries. He found that he wasn’t welcome among the monks, so he ate next to Shro with the rest of the acolytes.

  Someone nudged him in the back. Pol turned around to see Horker standing above him.

  “Are you through with your meal? It’s time you did some work. What happened to you yesterday?”

  Pol told him about his upset stomach.

  “It probably won’t be the last. Soldiers have to develop strong stomachs,” Horker said. He laughed to himself. “Or so I’m told.” He nudged Pol again. “Up. I want you with me when I attend the morning briefing. General Onkar talked into the early morning hours, and now he wants us again.”

  Pol quickly shoved the last of the food in his mouth. “Can you?” he looked at Shro, who nodded.

  “I’ll take care of your stuff,” she said. “I am the servant’s servant, after all.” She gave him a smile to indicate that she didn’t mind.

  He followed Horker back to the officer’s section and entered a large tent. Pol noticed that some of the other officers had assistants standing back next to the wall of the tent behind them. The officers all had chairs. Horker sat down and put his hands in his lap.

  They all stood for the Abbot’s entrance and remained standing until Onkar strode into the tent.

  “You may be seated,” the General said. His eyes scanned the room. They paused on Pol, but then moved on. He bowed to Abbot Festor and then began to speak. “We talked about the state of the army last night. I’m afraid there will be another delay. We will be headed north next week.”

  “Why is that, General?” Abbot Festor said. Pol could sense tension between the two men. “Tesna will not appreciate any holdup on our timetable.” Pol could feel the pressure of the Abbot’s mind-control. He put his hand to his head, still playing the role of resister.

  “I am sure Tesna will understand,” Onkar said. Pol suspected the General used a shield to keep the Abbot from controlling him. “We can’t train all of our forces in the same place. There are too many of our allies, so we train them apart. Some of our units have fallen behind, and others have added more men than anticipated. It adds up to another week before we combine our armies.”

  Pol knew a solution to that, but kept his mouth shut. There was no good reason to travel as one large army. Logistically, splitting the armies meant less impact on the food supply along their respective paths. A large army would devastate the farms and the farmers’ recently laid winter food storage.

  South Salvan had a longer growing season than North Salvan, but that wouldn’t mean anything to the thousands of mouths to feed along the way. He hadn’t seen much in the way of supply wagons. Again, he questioned the experience of the Tesnans.

  After some banter about the arriving soldiers, Onkar waved their objections aside. “King Astor will be joining us in ten days close to the North Salvan border.”

  “We don’t need him to clutter up our chain of command,” Abbot Festor said.

  Onkar shook his head. “He’s bringing with him two hundred wagons of food and supplies. That is an important reason to wait. Until that happens, I want you to train the acolytes and monks to use pike and shield. I have taken the liberty of reorganizing the command structure. When you exit the tent, take the roster of your trainees and get them working right after the midday meal. That is all.” Onkar nodded to the Abbot and walked out.

  Horker lifted his finger and crooked it. “Here, Nater.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know anything about using spears and shields?”

  Pol shrugged. “I’ve read books about tactics, sir.”

  “Then spend the rest of the morning coming up with a training regimen. Have your Shinkyan friend assemble our acolyte troops. I’ll work on the monks under my command.”

  This was a heck of a time to train, but they had a few days more than a week to teach the acolytes enough to give them a chance in the field.

  ~

  As he looked across at the acolytes assembled on a fallow field a mile away from the camp, Pol realized that he was the only one wearing a monk’s uniform, but it didn’t make him feel any more important than those he addressed. All of them were older than Pol, but then he realized that he had probably fought more than all of them combined.

  “How many of you have killed another man with a weapon?” Pol said from atop a wagon that held their midday meal.

  Four hands went up, including Shro’s.

  “
That makes five of us. I have another question. Would you rather kill or be killed?”

  “Kill,” most of the acolytes said.

  “What did you say?” Pol asked. He restrained a smile. Monks had used the same technique at Deftnis to have the acolytes state the obvious in a single shout.

  “Kill!”

  Pol nodded and bent down to pick up a shield and a spear. “How many of you picked up a sword on your way out of the monastery?”

  About half of the hands went up.

  “You will need a long knife or a sword with you. Why? When you confront the enemy, if they have any experience, they will try to pull your spear out of your hand in the formation that we will learn. If that happens, you need another weapon to keep the enemy from killing you.”

  “What about our shields?”

  Pol thought about that, going through the tactics that he had remembered. “You can use a shield to push a man away, but it doesn’t take him out of the fight. He just gets up and comes at you again.”

  The acolytes began to talk to each other, but Pol pulled his sword out and pounded the hilt against the shield to get their attention.

  “We will fight in teams of six soldiers. Captain Horker calls us Guardians, but we are using soldiers’ weapons, so I’ll be calling you soldiers. If you link your shields in a line, you protect each other from the enemy. Would you rather have an arrow hit the soldier’s shield next to you or strike you in your exposed arm?”

  “Exposed arm,” a few acolytes said.

  “What?”

  “EXPOSED ARM!” Most of acolytes shouted out the wrong answer.

  Pol hopped off the cart, shaking his head in dismay after sheathing his sword. He took Shro’s spear in his hand. All of them weren’t long enough to be called pikes since the spears were only about six feet long.

  “I want you to stand like this.”

  Pol tucked the end of the spear under his arm and held onto the shaft with his hand. He then exaggerated moving into a position with his shield in front of him and the spear pointing directly ahead.

  “Now you practice getting in and out of that stance.”

  Pol walked among the soldiers standing and then assuming the stance that Pol had demonstrated. He inspected the acolytes’ foot positions and grips on their spears. Every few inspections he tugged on the spear, and most of the time he was able to pull it out until the acolytes caught on.

  “Stand at attention.” He grabbed Shro’s weapons again and put the end of the shaft on the ground, with his eyes above the top of the shield. “Then get into the ready stance.”

  He drilled them for an hour going from at ease to attention to the ready stance and back to at ease. Pol smiled. He really had no idea if his training was effective, but he had read tactical books and even novels that helped him figure out what these acolytes needed to do to become soldiers.

  “Break into groups of six soldiers according to your height,” Pol announced, once he was standing on the cart again. He jumped down and helped speed up the process until everyone had a group.

  “Now I want you to come to attention and show your arms at my command,” Pol said. The unit spent another hour moving as a group, walking forward, backwards, and to the side, while keeping their shields together.

  “Time for a break,” Pol said.

  He and Shro distributed food and waterskins from the cart. The recruits would have to share the water. Shro sat down with him, leaning against either side of a wagon wheel.

  “Why are you drilling these soldiers? They are the enemy, after all,” she said.

  Pol gave Shro a blank look. “I guess so. I suppose I want to give them a chance to live. Just thrown into a battle with a shield and a spear would guarantee their deaths. I can’t take responsibility for that.”

  “Give them a fighting chance, then, so your Emperor’s army can kill them?”

  Pol nodded. “A week’s worth of training isn’t enough to do much good, but they’ll be able to recognize when their lines break down, as they probably will. Then they can defend themselves rather than be stranded on the battlefield with a heavy shield and a spear.”

  “But you are training them to fight with those weapons,” Shro said.

  Pol didn’t have a good answer other than he was doing as he was ordered.

  After eating, the acolytes regressed a bit and Pol dismissed them. “Practice your moves back at camp, but don’t fling your spears around.”

  Pol and Shro clambered on board the meal cart after all the acolytes had left the field. As they rode down the track back to the camp, Captain Horker joined them.

  “I couldn’t have done as well as you,” he said. “You’ve never used a spear and shield before?”

  “I’ve seen my father’s troops training with them,” Pol said. He really had, but those were North Salvan troops heading towards the country of Tarida. “A shield line has its uses, but if our opponents, whoever they are, use mounts, the acolytes will be in trouble.”

  Captain Horker turned in his saddle to see the practice field disappear behind a bend in the road. “They will be in trouble anyway. Having acolytes fight in the front line is a waste of valuable magical talent.”

  “I agree with you, Captain. Can’t they be assigned to logistical duties like they are at the monastery? Armies generally have a number of their troops not directly involved in the fighting, at least not at the start of a battle. You can use South Salvan farmers in the front lines,” Pol said. “Then the acolytes are used for fetching and carrying water and grooming horses rather than facing trained soldiers. They have been trained to do that.”

  Horker raised his eyebrows. “That’s an effective case to make. I’ll bring it to the Abbot’s attention first and have Abbot Festor talk to Onkar.”

  Pol pressed his lips together. “With all due respect, sir, I think Onkar would be a better place to start. It seems he might have experienced battle before and understands the big picture better than the Abbot. It’s not about gaining battle experience for the acolytes, since I don’t think they’ll be ready to do much more than stop an enemy for a few minutes.”

  “If your suggestion works, it won’t get you out of battle. I want you by my side.”

  “I do have a tiny bit of battle experience and know how to fight. It’s different for me,” Pol said. He thought that Horker would be disappointed at the point in time when Pol would ride over to the other side, but that was for a day that would arrive sooner than later.

  ~

  “Out!” Captain Horker said. “I have orders for us.”

  Pol rubbed his eyes as he emerged from the tent. The sun hadn’t yet risen. “What do I need to do?”

  “We do. I talked to Onkar, and amazingly, he agreed. We will take our unit to Covial to accompany King Astor’s supply train back to our forces. On the way, the acolytes will continue their training, but that will change once we get to Covial. Then they will be taught how to support the army by King Astor’s support troops.”

  “Are you disappointed about splitting off the main force?”

  Horker laughed. “We’ve never been part of the main force. If you’re worried about not getting a chance to bloody your sword, don’t be. There will be more than ample opportunity as we move through the Empire.”

  Pol forced a grin.

  “Get our tents broken down and have Shro assemble the acolytes.” Horker nodded to Pol and left to find his horse.

  Pol crept back into the tent. “Did you hear that?”

  Shro nodded.

  “We are heading west, away from Shinkya. If there would be a good time to leave, now is the time,” Pol said quietly. “You’ve learned enough, haven’t you?”

  The Shinkyan rubbed her eyes. “I can’t leave you.”

  Pol couldn’t believe his ears. “What nonsense is this?”

  “We still don’t know the strength of King Astor’s army and neither of us has had the time to read all of the spell books.”

  “You’ve got your own cop
y of mind-control,” Pol said. “Isn’t that enough?”

  Shro looked up at Pol. “No.” She took a deep breath. “You stand a better chance of survival with me by your side.”

  “Not really,” Pol said. He felt like a ten-year-old having an older sibling telling him that the sibling would protect him. Pol could feel his pride being challenged.

  “Don’t be an infant,” Shro said.

  She was acting like an older sister.

  “I’m not an infant.”

  “No, you are sixteen years old. You are probably the youngest person in the entire army, and yet you think you can defeat them all.”

  Pol snorted as he could feel himself lose control. “I’m not here to fight. I’m gathering information…Seeking. When I get enough information, I’ll be leaving, too.”

  He had to take a deep breath, and then he remembered how he learned to control his temper at Castle Borstall. Pol didn’t want to regress in dealing with his anger. He looked out the sliver of the open flap at the colors of the dawn. He sighed again.

  “Okay. We are together in this. I’ll protect you, and you will protect me.”

  Shro giggled. “We’ll have each other’s backs. Isn’t that a Baccusollian term?”

  “It is,” Pol said. “I don’t know how much yours is worth, but I’ll take it.” He finally smiled. He still thought she’d be better off leaving now, but he realized he only had a single friend, if he could call her that, in the army, and it would be a good thing to keep her for a while longer.

  Pol didn’t say another word while he dressed and took down Horker’s tent. The Captain still rated a cart for his tent. By the time Pol finished, Shro had theirs rolled up and put their bedrolls and the tent at Pol’s feet. He tossed his tent in with Horker’s stuff. No sense carrying it on his horse, if he could help it. The poor beast likely still suffered from his ride two days ago.

  The prospect of visiting Covial didn’t improve Pol’s outlook. He still hadn’t found a purpose for staying in the midst of the enemy army, but then he didn’t have the specific information that he’d need to help anyone else, other than the report of an illegal army mustering in South Salvan.