The Tattered Banner

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Although obviously injured, Ranph was well able to make his own way, or could have waited until morning. Soren recognised the gesture for what it was. As soon as they got out of the cover of the dining hall, Ranph draped his arm over Soren’s shoulder and began to feign a pronounced limp. It was well that he did for they were barely half way across Dining Hall Square when the warm orange-yellow glow of a mage lamp appeared around the corner with the shadowy figure of a steward attached to it.

  At one time, the nocturnal misdeeds of Academy students had made it a danger for them to move about the city alone. The Academy was being brought into such disrepute that harsh measures were enacted. The curfew was imposed, and it was made an expellable offence to be out after dark. What angered wronged citizens even more was the fact that students enjoyed immunity from the City Watch and the laws of the city. They led a privileged life, raised hell in the city and had the ability to maim or kill almost anyone who tried to stop them. All the Watch could do was arrest them and deliver them to the Master, which once would have amounted to nothing more than an irritated telling off, but now would be far worse. Dishonourable expulsion from the Academy was a shameful stain that a man would never be able to wash from his character so long as he remained in the Duchy of Ostia.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, out a bit late aren’t we?’ said the steward. He was careful to remain polite.

  Ranph groaned as though he was dazed, giving Soren his queue.

  ‘My friend was injured training. A drone caught him a bad one in the face,’ Soren said. It was a well-delivered lie, but the steward seemed well used to tall tales.

  ‘I assume neither you nor your friend has a pass to be out this late?’ the steward asked.

  ‘No, steward, we don’t,’ Soren replied.

  The steward let out a long ‘hmmmm’

  ‘Got hit more than once, by the looks of ‘im,’ he said slowly, stepping closer and holding his lamp up for a better look. He scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment before moving his head closer to Ranph’s and inhaled deeply through his nose. ‘Well, no smell of booze anyway. Not so sure I believe your story, but I don’t reckon the young gentleman’s been drinking. Get ‘im to the infirmary as quick as you can and don’t let me catch you out again after hours.’ With that, the steward shuffled off, the glow of his lamp bobbing around in the darkness.

  Ranph painfully stifled a laugh as they made their way to the infirmary.

  C h a p t e r 1 6

  THE GIRL

  It tended to only be the wealthier and more senior students that sneaked into the city at night regularly, although most students did at some point or another. Since Soren’s steady rise in popularity had begun after defeating dal Dardi in the duel, he had been getting occasional requests to accompany the group sneaking out of the campus and finally decided to go along. While the idea had never really appealed to him before, he eventually relented to Henn and Jost’s entreaties and agreed to go once they had assured him that there was another way over the wall that was closer to River House that Soren would fit through without difficulty.

  The Sail and Sword was a large tavern in Docks, the warehouse district of the city that fronted onto the harbour. The tavern was a favourite with the Academy students and had been for some time. The long history of custom that they brought to the tavern meant that the owner turned a blind eye to some of their drunken excesses and would provide an easy escape for them on the rare occasion of the tavern being raided by the Watch, who would happily hand over what they viewed as the spoiled Academy students to the Academy Provost.

  The tavern was large but not particularly full, although it was early in the week and Soren expected it would be fuller when the stevedores and other dockworkers received their wages. There was a mixed crowd there, with the Academy students occupying the tables and booths near the fireplace away from the rest of the patrons, who were a mix of merchants, sailors, off duty watchmen and a variety of other difficult to pin down denizens of the city.

  Soren sat quietly in a corner of the booth while the other students chatted. House divisions seemed to be present here as well as on campus, as students tended to congregate at tables according to their houses. As he sat sipping at a glass of ale, a girl working behind the bar caught his eye. She was cleaning glasses with a cloth before returning them to the shelf behind the bar and worked with the practised nature of one who had done the job many times before and no longer needs to give it any thought. She was slender and of average height, with long curly, dark brown hair and pale skin. She was quite simply the most beautiful girl Soren had ever seen.

  As though she sensed his stare, she turned abruptly and looked in the direction of the booth in which Soren sat with a slightly bemused look on her face. She paused her cleaning and Soren looked away quickly, feeling his face flush slightly with embarrassment.

  ‘Would you consider entering for it?’

  Jost was speaking, but it took Soren a moment to realise that he was speaking to him. Eager for the distraction, he asked Jost what he had meant.

  ‘The Competition of course. The thing I’ve been talking about for the last ten minutes. Are you going to enter it?’ asked Jost.

  ‘I hadn’t really given it any thought,’ Soren replied. ‘I don’t really know very much about it. I thought you had to be in the Collegium to enter for it.’

  ‘No, usually someone from the Collegium represents the Academy, but it isn’t a requirement. They just tend to be the best, but with your speed and another year of training, you’ll easily be up to that level by then,’ said Jost.

  Each of the cities of the old Saludorian Empire had an Academy of Swordsmanship. The Competition was one of the few ties that still held them all together. After the Mage Wars, the Empire had dissolved and each city went out on its own, becoming a duchy or principality in its own right. For a few decades they had remained in a confederation, but that too had fallen apart. Each city claimed to have the finest swordsmen, and each year, the finest student from each city’s Academy was selected to compete against the others for the honour of that title.

  ‘Perhaps I will, then,’ Soren said thoughtfully. Winning the Competition was a quick route to celebrity status in the arena. Ostenheim had won the Competition a few times during his lifetime, and each of the winners had gone on to great careers in the arena, each of them becoming wealthy and famous. It was an appealing thought. Even winning selection would be a feather in his cap.

  A tap on the arm and a nod from Jost broke his contemplation. He was nodding toward the bar girl, who was now moving about the tavern collecting glasses and wiping down tables. She moved with ease and confidence, but with none of the haughtiness that Soren had seen beautiful women comport themselves with in the past. She was beautiful, but did not seem to realise it.

  ‘A Competition winner would be sure to catch the eye of a girl like her,’ Jost said, with a grin. ‘Most of us have tried, but she’ll be saving herself for some wealthy merchant I dare say, to whisk her off to a life of luxury. Getting knocked up by an Academy brat with no intention of marrying her isn’t likely to be high on her list of things to do!’

  Soren flushed again a little. She approached their table and Soren could feel his heart begin to race.

  ‘Can I get anything else for you, lads?’ she asked.

  ‘Two pitchers of ale and a kiss!’ Henn said.

  ‘The ale I can get you, but it will take more than a cheeky grin to get the rest!’ she said good-naturedly.

  She left them and came back a few moments later with the two large pottery jugs of ale.

  ‘That’s two shillings, lads!’ she said. As she took the money her gaze seemed to linger on Soren for a moment longer than necessary. His heart raced. She had the same quizzical look on her face that she had had when she caught him staring at her before.

  Jost caught Soren’s expression.

  ‘This new face is Soren. He’s the talk of the Academy. I think he will be the next great swordsman. Greater than Ame
ro even!’ said Henn, who Soren was beginning to realise was prone to exaggeration.

  Soren flushed again. He was pleased that he was being thought of that way, but being the centre of attention made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Hello, Soren,’ she said, smiling as she gathered up the two empty pitchers and wiped away the wet rings they had left on the wooden table. ‘My name’s Alessandra. I hope you don’t spend too much time with these drunken reprobates, they can drag any good man down!’

  The other tyros roared with mock indignation, and then she was gone.

  As the night wore on the house divisions melted away and the students mingled freely. There were so many of them there that they took up half of the room. With so many missing from the Academy, Soren found it hard to believe that their absence would go unnoticed by the staff. It seemed that so long as everyone paid lip service to the rules and did not draw any unwanted attention in breaking them, a blind eye would be turned. Eventually Soren found himself talking to Ranph, with the conversation naturally turning to a discussion of technique, and Soren was eager to impress with his new and expanding knowledge.

  They had not spoken since the night of the fight in the alleyway and neither of them brought it up. The memory of having experienced what seemed to Soren to have been something far more than a random mugging must have been troubling for him, although it was impossible to tell what was going on beyond his calm countenance.

  Soren did not reveal the fact that he had been spending most, if not every evening in the training hall experimenting with, and, he hoped, perfecting new techniques. Despite this Ranph pointed out that he had noticed the dramatic improvement in Soren’s technique and also his progression through the class, and by the end of the conversation, Soren found himself agreeing to train with Ranph outside of class hours.

  Drones were excellent training tools, but were no match for the unpredictability of a person. The strength of the drones lay in their technical perfection and their ability to continue relentlessly and without tiring. A person however, could benefit from imperfect technique and the other creatures of chance that would not be exploited by a drone. Training with Ranph was also a good opportunity for Soren to measure his own improvement, having sparred against Ranph on his first day at the Academy. Ranph was still far superior to him, but the gap had narrowed considerably proving to Soren that his extra efforts were worthwhile, and enforcing his belief that he could rise to the head of his class if he continued.

  Each evening, as they tidied up after themselves, they tended to discuss the session, and how they might both improve upon certain aspects of their swordplay and tactical approach. It bolstered Soren’s confidence for Ranph to discuss these things with him, confirming that Ranph saw him as having a worthwhile opinion on swordplay, rather than as being nothing more than a capable workhorse useful only for sparring.

  As they were putting away the swords they had been using one evening, Ranph steered the conversation in a different direction.

  ‘You know there is a vacancy coming up in the Blades,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ replied Soren. He tried to sound casual about it, but in fact it was an opportunity he had been waiting for. Being a Blade would preclude the repeat of an episode like that with dal Dardi, but he had to admit his motivation was driven as much by this as it was by the status alone of being a Blade.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ranph. ‘Carter dal Galasin’s father died a few days ago and he is being graduated early so he can go home and take over his barony. Applications for his place will be taken from next week. I wanted to let you know that if you decide to put your name forward I will endorse your application.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Soren, ‘but I have to admit that I’m a little surprised. Surely there are others in Stornado that will be going for it.’

  ‘Yes, but none of them pulled me out of an alleyway and an attempted assassination. I always try to repay my debts, and being a Blade will bring you a lot of benefits. I can’t promise anything, but my endorsement should carry some weight!’

  Soren found himself thinking of the Sail and Sword, or more particularly the serving girl, Alessandra, as often as he thought of his studies. It was a week before they went there again. As usual, Soren had trained with Ranph after dinner and by the time they had finished everyone else had already gone on ahead of them. They sneaked out together and then continued on to the Sail and Sword, chatting and joking as they went.

  Soren had put in an application for the Blades as Ranph had suggested, but had yet to hear anything more about it. He had found that as the evenings spent in the training hall continued, he was spending more time with Ranph than with either Henn or Jost and Soren was beginning to think of him as a friend rather than just a training partner.

  When they arrived at the Sail and Sword, the night was already going strong. The bar girl, Alessandra, was worked off her feet but just the sight of her was enough to make Soren’s day. He joined in with the others, Jost and Henn among them, but was always hoping that Alessandra would stop for long enough for him to talk to her. While he was scanning the crowd for her, he noticed a man by the bar that was watching them. He was stocky with a weather beaten face and hair pulled back into a short ponytail. He had the look of a sailor about him, but there was something else too, something sharp and calculating.

  After a little while, he made his way over to the table.

  ‘Evening, lads. Can I stand you a round of drinks?’ he asked.

  The students were never ones to turn down drinks, so they accepted and made polite and idle conversation with the man, who introduced himself as Braggock. The name went some way to explaining his slightly unusual appearance. It was a barbarian name, so he was not an Ostian, but would originally have come from the plains to the east.

  It was clear from the get go that the man was working his way to something in particular, and his redundant chit chat was not hiding the fact. Eventually he got to his point.

  ‘I expect some of you lads could use a little spare cash every now and then. On occasion I find myself in need of people who can handle a sword, just for appearances you understand. If you’re ever in need of a little coin, search me out as I may have something that needs doing. I’m here most nights, but you can ask for me at the bar if I’m not. Enjoy your drinks.’ He raised his cup to them and returned to his place at the bar, this time with his back to them.

  ‘I’ll gladly drink his ale, but I wouldn’t sully my blade for a thug like him. Anyway, what do we look like, paupers?’ said Jost indignantly, before casting a glance at Soren and flushing slightly. It occurred to Soren that he was the only one of them around the table without a title.

  As the second term progressed, Soren found himself increasingly busy with all of the demands on his time. There was the regular coursework to keep up with as well as his continuing efforts with reading and writing, although this now took less time and energy than it once had. Matriculation tests were looming in the near future, and the Competition was also occupying his thoughts, distant though it was. All of these things filled him with a frustration at how few hours there seemed to be in the day, and also at the fact that he was being kept from the Sail and Sword and any chance to talk to Alessandra.

  Despite his desire to loiter around the tavern for any and every opportunity to speak to her, he fought to maintain his focus and if anything poured more effort into training and study. He also kept in mind what Master Dornish had said to him before the end of the previous term, about this ancient ability he had called the ‘Gift of Grace’. He had looked out for anything unusual, but it was difficult to know what was unusual, as he did not feel any different, or notice any behaviour that was different, to the rest of his life. How could he identify something when this was all he knew, and even Master Dornish had not been able to tell him specifically what to look for?

  C h a p t e r 1 7

  THE EXAMINATION

  Soren sat outside one of the fencing salons on the first floor of the
front building of the Academy. There was a slight flutter of nerves in his chest, although he knew that he had no reason to be concerned about what awaited him during the exam he was about to take. It was more the uncertainty of what would be asked of him that gave him pause for thought.

  Only the previous week he had finally made it to the front row of the class, and had not even taken a touch in a sparring match in several weeks. While his technique still left something to be desired it was far more functional than it had been, and might even be described as competent. Alone it was nothing to set him apart from his classmates, but when combined with the speed that came naturally to him, which had not let him down since that one occasion fighting dal Dardi in the field outside of the city, he was easily among the more exceptional members of his class. He also took pride in his large and growing knowledge of the theory of swordsmanship that he felt was now superior to that of his classmates.

  The door latch clicked and the door opened. Henn stepped out, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. He raised his eyebrows to Soren when he spotted him sitting there.

  ‘Good luck!’ he said. ‘It’s not all that bad actually; you shouldn’t have any problem with it!’

  Soren nodded and went in. Master Bryn was standing at the far end of the salon. The room was lined with windows looking down into the front square of the Academy along one side and mirrors along the other. It made the room seem far larger than it actually was.

  ‘Take a sword and start with the positions please, Tyro,’ he said.

  Soren nodded and took a sword from the open locker by the door and began. Master Bryn watched him with a sideways glance as he filled a glass with water from a pitcher on a side table and drank. He had a sheen of sweat on his face also, so it appeared that sparring would form part of the examination.