The Talented

by J. R. McGinnity

  “I don’t think anyone really knew what to expect of blacksmiths,” Louella said. “Not that they knew what to expect of the first healers, either, of course.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Everything Pieter creates while using his Talent is better. It works better, lasts longer, stays sharper.”

  “Like a weapon?”

  “He made my sword,” Adrienne said, unsheathing the first couple inches so that he could see the blue-tinged blade.”

  “The color…”

  “Part of his Talent,” Louella explained. “He doesn’t try to make things blue, but that just seems to be part of it.”

  Malokai nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and Adrienne realized that in a strange way it did. As much sense as any of what they were telling the M’bai warrior. They told him more, and he sat and listened attentively, asking questions occasionally.

  Malokai might not be a soldier, but she knew from experience that he was an exemplary fighter. The commission might have doubts about him as a potential Talented, but to Adrienne that quiet intensity, that focus, was as important as the active skill of fighting when it came to making war. And to developing a Talent.

  Pieter arrived while Louella was telling Malokai more about the Talents manifested by others in Kessering, and it wasn’t until after the four of them had eaten lunch that Adrienne said she needed to see how the guards were doing without her there.

  “Hopefully they kept up their training,” Adrienne said as she rose from the table. The guards were getting better at obeying her even when she wasn’t around to enforce their behavior, especially since the day Malokai had arrived and some of them had missed the impromptu three-on-one sparring session, but she didn’t trust them for too long without her. Charles still refused to fully accept her command, and there were other guards who tended to follow him when the opportunity arose. They preferred sloth over the rewards of hard work.

  She wanted to get rid of Charles, but could think of no way to do it that the commission would accept. Explaining to them why she removed an experienced guard from the watch would not be easy, and could wind up hurting her long term goals for the guards.

  “How long are you going to keep them training all day every day?” Louella asked. “It’s no wonder that they tire of it.”

  Adrienne knew that Louella didn’t mean any offense, but the healer could not understand the time it took to become truly proficient in the art of fighting. “They don’t train every day,” Adrienne said. “Six of them are now on duty at all times, which means every five days they get a day to do little more than walk the streets or watch the gate.”

  “That still isn’t a day off,” Louella pointed out.

  Adrienne ground her teeth. “Maybe if I had more than thirty guards I would be able to give them more time off.” Adrienne’s voice had come out more sharply than she had intended, mostly because she knew that Louella had a point—a good one. But Adrienne knew her own point was just as valid. Eventually, she would cut back on the training time, but not yet. The guards were too new, too undisciplined to be given time off. Too vulnerable, if there was another attack. If she eased off on their training early and one of them was killed because of it…

  “I would like to see these guards,” Malokai said in his musical voice, cutting through the tension between the two friends.

  Adrienne had been hoping to get Malokai involved with the guard’s training since his first day in Kessering, and she allowed herself a small smile. “Then follow me.”

  When they got to the training grounds, all of the guards who were supposed to be training were present, and all practicing as they had been instructed. Satisfaction turned to confusion when she realized that one of those men training was Edward, not Flynn.

  “Guardsman Witter, aren’t you on duty today?” she asked Edward. He was not the kind of man to skip out on guard duty, but she couldn’t figure out why he would be at practice instead of where he should be.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Edward answered, sheathing his sword with practiced moves and snapping to attention. “However, due to your absence, I thought it prudent to oversee the training myself. Flynn agreed to take my place today.”

  Adrienne nodded. It was a smart decision on Edward’s part; the other guards were more likely to listen to him than to young Flynn or anyone else besides Charles. Adrienne had been considering making Edward Captain of the Guard, and she knew that she would have to do so soon. He was a natural-born leader, and one of the most talented of the group. “Good work,” she told him before turning to the group at large.

  “Everyone, this is Malokai Kyzeka. He will be observing today.” She hoped that he would also be participating, but she kept that hope to herself.

  Everyone paired up for sparring, using only bare hands and knives at this point, and Adrienne pitted herself against Charles. Out of all of the guards, new and old, he had shown the least improvement in the last three months. She hoped that some more one-on-one training would be beneficial for him.

  Or convince him to quit.

  After twenty minutes Adrienne was frustrated to the point of screaming. Charles kept making the same mistakes, and no matter how many times she corrected him, he kept falling into the same pattern. She cursed ripely. “Malokai,” she said, knowing he had been watching the pair of them the whole time. “Would you help me demonstrate this?” It came out sounding more like an order than a request, but Malokai just gave a small smile and stepped forward.

  All activity stopped when Malokai stepped up to face her, but Adrienne did not tell the men to get back to work—more than just Charles could learn something by watching her and Malokai spar today.

  “I’ll be Charles,” she said, explaining that they would run the same pattern as before. Malokai nodded and, without further words, slowly enacted the sequence Adrienne and Charles had run through again and again. It ended the same way it had before: with Malokai’s knife pressed against Adrienne’s stomach.

  “Now I’m dead,” Adrienne said. “Or at the very least out of the fight and in serious danger unless a healer gets to me soon.”

  There were murmurs amongst the men. Charles snorted. “Why would I be fighting without a sword?” he asked.

  Adrienne had wanted them to fight only with knives because different weapons presented different weaknesses, but this had been Charles’ argument all along. He had stated repeatedly that he would not go into a situation like this armed with only a knife. “Are you always wearing your sword?” she asked. “You never have it away from your person, even on the other side of the room?”

  Since his sword was along the fence on the north side of the training area, the answer to that was obvious. “You told us not to use swords,” Charles said, casting the blame back on Adrienne.

  “And if we were attacked now, armed only with knives?” She didn’t give the guard another chance to answer. “Same moves,” she told Malokai. “Faster.”

  The speed with which she moved now was probably faster than Charles could manage, but Malokai’s moves were equally fast, and the result was the same. Speed and agility were not the problem, or the solution.

  “Fighting is about adapting,” Adrienne told the men. “If you can’t adapt and change your moves based on your opponent, you’re going to end up dead.”

  She and Malokai repeated the moves again, but where Malokai performed the same move as before, Adrienne turned sideways and took half a step back at the last second. The knife went past her, and Adrienne was able to grab Malokai’s arm and unexpectedly flip him over onto his back.

  An experienced fighter, Malokai moved with the flip and rolled onto his feet, but he made no move to attack her. The exercise was over; Adrienne had proven her point.

  “That time, I avoided getting stabbed,” Adrienne pointed out somewhat wryly. “Being able to flip him was another advantage. Some men might have stayed down,” she added, eyeing Malokai speculatively out of the corner of her eye, “but even if they don’t, it
buys time.”

  All of the assembled guards but Charles seemed pleased with the demonstration and impressed with Adrienne’s abilities. Charles looked characteristically angry. “You expect me to flip you?” Charles asked. “You’re a woman. You might get hurt.”

  “Then fight me instead,” Malokai suggested, stepping forward. “Your lieutenant already has.”

  Another laugh nearly escaped Adrienne as Charles’s eyes grew wide. He had backed himself into a corner with his last excuse, and could not get out of sparring with the large M’bai warrior without revealing his cowardice. “You’re going to want to keep your center of gravity low for the flip,” Adrienne advised Charles, hiding her smile with effort. Despite her dislike of the man on a personal level, she was in charge of his training, and that was more important than watching him get hopelessly flattened by the M’bai warrior.

  Malokai went easy on Charles, letting him evade the knife as Adrienne had, but nothing short of Malokai jumping over Charles could help the guard complete the flip. There were a few laughs amongst the watching men, no doubt as they remembered the ease with which their short, much lighter instructor had flipped the large warrior. The guards had probably expected the flip to be the easiest part for Charles.

  Adrienne knew there was value in knowing how to flip an opponent, but it wasn’t a necessary skill for the guards, and was frankly more trouble than it was worth to teach them. “Luckily, Charles did not need to flip Malokai. Just grabbing the other man’s knife-hand can be hugely advantageous.” Adrienne caught and read the glint in Malokai’s eyes. “Of course, it is important to be sure that your opponent has only one knife, and is not equally skilled with both hands.”

  Malokai pulled another knife from where it had been secreted behind his back. He rolled it end over end in his left hand—not the hand that he had been using before—with all the skill of a performer. Then he drew back and threw the knife so that it stuck in the fence post some twenty feet away.

  Since knife-throwing was a skill Adrienne admired but did not possess to any great degree herself, she deigned to retrieve the knife while the guards clamored to ask Malokai how he had done that. By the time she returned—she had taken her time examining the expertly balanced blade—Adrienne thought she detected a hint of desperation in Malokai’s typically unreadable expression.

  “I think that is enough training for today,” Adrienne said, mindful of what Louella had said earlier. “Report tomorrow at ten o’clock. Edward, see that the men on duty today learn of the new time.”

  “I will, Lieutenant.”

  The men seemed pleased that they were being released early, and that they would have a shorter training period the next day. Adrienne figured it was good for their morale, if nothing else.

  “Some of them call you ‘Lieutenant,’“ Malokai said when they were on their way back to the inn.

  “I’m a lieutenant in the army,” Adrienne said. “It’s a sign of respect from the men.”

  “Not everyone calls you that.”

  “Not my friends,” Adrienne agreed. She couldn’t imagine Louella or Pieter addressing her so, not in any serious way. Not only were they her friends, but neither of them truly understood the title or the achievement it had been to earn it.

  “Master Rynn and the other commissioners? Do they refer to you as such?”

  “‘Lieutenant’ is a sign of respect, and the commission doesn’t respect any soldier,” Adrienne said. Ben had called her lieutenant before the commission, on the occasions that he had found it necessary to speak up in support of her, but she knew he did not think of her that way. It was all a show.

  “Do you respect them?”

  Adrienne opened her mouth to say yes, that of course she respected the commission, but the answer did not come as quickly as she had expected. She hesitated. “I try to,” she finally said. “I recognize their authority. I respect what they were assigned to do here.”

  She knew that none of that was the same as respecting the commissioners themselves. She just could not find it in herself to respect people with such misguided fears and hatreds. The fact that they let their prejudices get in the way of their goals was an obstacle Adrienne found almost impossible to overcome. “Do you respect them?” she asked Malokai.

  Malokai shrugged his broad shoulders as he made his way through the crowd. It was easy for him to maneuver through the milling people in the streets; most people hurried to get out of his way. He didn’t look at Adrienne as he gave his answer.

  “I do not know them. I do not know the ways of cities, of commissions.” He shrugged again, his eyes looking further into the distance than the shops and inns before him.

  “Why are you here?” Adrienne asked.

  “Duty brought me here.”

  “Duty,” Adrienne said, wondering what duty Malokai could have toward the commission. “It traps you every time.” Was it duty that had brought her here? Surely it was duty that made her stay.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Adrienne’s eyes flew open at the sound of a fist banging against the door she had locked before crawling into bed a few hours earlier. The banging was accompanied by the distant sound of screams, and Adrienne leapt from her bed and grabbed her sword. She was halfway to the door before she remembered she was naked.

  She had just slipped on her robe when her door burst open and Malokai came barreling in. “Fire. In the stables.”

  Adrienne swore and took off in the direction of the back staircase. She could smell the smoke, and mingled with the screams from the inn’s patrons were the screams of panicked horses. She could hear Strider’s trumpeting cry of fear and rage, and knew that she had to get to him before he hurt himself, or anyone fool enough to try and lead him out.

  Malokai grabbed her arm to stop her from charging into the stables, but she yanked free and threw open the door with a force that sent it bouncing back off the wall. Horses were kicking at the doors to the box stalls in an attempt to get free, and as Adrienne went by she opened stall after stall, fighting to see through the thick smoke as she made her way to Strider.

  She could see the whites of Strider’s eyes as they rolled in fear, and froth was forming on his mouth as the smells and flickering lights of the fire terrorized him.

  Fire created a primal fear in horses that could overcome even the best trained animal, and Strider was no exception.

  Adrienne knew better than anyone the dangers of the stallion’s hooves, but the destrier was more than an expensive tool to Adrienne. He was the only thing she had from Kyrog, and a gift from Captain Garrett. If he was too overcome by fear to leave his stall now that the door was open, she would have to lead him out herself.

  Adrienne tore a strip of fabric from her robe and slipped into the stall. She had no choice but to get close to the rearing stallion, risking his shod hooves to bind the strip of cloth over his eyes. His hooves caught her a couple times, painful glancing blows along her ribs and legs, but he never made full contact, and Adrienne finally managed to cover the warhorse’s eyes.

  Blinded, Strider stopped his violent plunging and stood quivering in the stall as the air grew thicker and thicker with smoke. Adrienne did not take the time to find a lead rope, but grabbed on to the chin of Strider’s halter and led him out of the stall, past bits of straw that were catching fire in the aisle, to the safety of the street outside.

  Away from the screaming horses and roaring fire, Adrienne could hear again. She scanned the crowd and saw Malokai calming a trembling gray mare with sweat dampening her coat. “Are they all out?” she asked.

  Malokai nodded, then let go of the mare and stepped toward her. Adrienne frowned in confusion until he reached out and pulled the edges of her robe together, concealing her nakedness. “You might want to tie it tighter,” he said, his teeth gleaming white in the flickering light from the flames.

  Adrienne ducked her head in embarrassment as she knotted the belt tightly. She hadn’t noticed the tie coming loose in her struggle with Strider.
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  Once she was covered again, Adrienne began to scan the crowd of people gathered around the burning stable. After the third perusal she realized what it was she was looking for. Thom was not amongst those gathered to witness the fire.

  Adrienne did not realize she had said the boy’s name aloud until Malokai was once more at her side, grabbing her by the arm. “I didn’t see him,” he said.

  “The hayloft!”

  They rushed through the stable doors together. People outside were throwing buckets of water on the flames, but the hayloft was consumed. If Thom was still up there…

  Malokai pushed Adrienne toward the tack room and headed toward the ladder to the hayloft himself. Adrienne bellied down to get under the smoke and searched the small room, then went back into the main aisle. She saw Malokai coming back down the ladder with Thom’s limp form slung over his shoulder and wondered how anyone could have survived up there.

  “Get out!” Adrienne could not hear Malokai, but she saw his mouth form the words through the smoke and hesitated only a moment before doing as he said. Once outside, she hurried through the crowd, looking for someone who could help.

  She saw Maureen standing off to the side and ran toward her.

  Adrienne grabbed Maureen’s arm and began dragging the healer in the direction of the burning stables, ignoring her protests and struggles to get loose. Adrienne was coughing out smoke, and her throat was too sore to attempt an explanation. No explanation was necessary once they got within sight of Malokai and the unconscious boy. Maureen rushed forward, kneeling next to Thom, her attention focused on him to the exclusion of all else.

  Adrienne knelt beside her and gave in to the explosive coughing that had been threatening as her lungs tried to expel the smoke they had inhaled. Malokai was in much the same condition, and Adrienne could only imagine how thick the smoke had been in the hayloft. Just the thought brought on another round of coughing.