by Glenn Wilson
Ian admitted he could see the wisdom in that. Taking a quick chance, he glanced down at the end of his line where Corporal Wesshire was quietly regarding the captain. He showed no particular emotion and his stance was easy, not quite dismissive—
“—they are therefore an excellent resource,” Captain Marsden continued, “for anyone desiring additional assistance in their swordsmanship, which,” he paused, not glancing at Ian but nonetheless managing all the airs as if he had literally done so, “some of you of course very much should.
“Now then,” the captain stopped to look down Ian’s line, “this line here shall take three steps to the east.”
Ian and his line did as they were instructed, ending up being straight across from the gaps between the people across from them.
“All men take the thrusting stance.” The captain waited only for a moment for them to step their weight forward and bring their swords up to their right shoulders, pointing straight ahead. “Attack straight from that stance until my mark. Proceed!”
Ian started a little more immediately than the others around him, crouching forward to let his weight pull forward with him as he thrust his blade ahead. First he would lunge it forward from one shoulder, bring it up over his head to slash down, then bring it to the other shoulder to repeat the process in reverse.
It wasn’t easy to concentrate wholly on what was in front of him, as Ian also had to be mindful of any potential snares in the grass that his boots pushed through. And he was intensely wary of Rory and Kieran, who passed him at unsynchronized intervals, doing the same thing with their swords. It was a little unnerving, and Kieran’s blade flashed just inches from Ian’s right ear when they passed. Ian knew it hadn’t been intentional though, and not just from the sharp look of fear that came over Kieran’s face and his subsequent corrections.
But only a few moments and they were past. The captain called them to a halt and an about face once they reached roughly where the other line had been.
“Again,” Captain Marsden barked out, having drifted much closer to their end, as Ian noticed.
Lieutenant Taylor was also free to prowl on the other end of the line where Corporals Wesshire and Hanley were paired up. From what Ian could spare to see, and that wasn’t much as he had to dodge the captain’s eyes more than once, both officers were carefully scrutinizing their movements, one person at a time and then back again.
“Pick up the pace,” Captain Marsden said. “Again.”
Wiping the dampness at his brow, Ian couldn’t tell if the captain was that unimpressed with them or if it was all for the airs. Going through the routine again with some variations, several more times actually, another time, then another, one more past what he thought the captain was going to have them do—Ian began to perspire. He could see the same effect on the others, and he realized to what sort of dependence they had on their regulators.
But the breeze was consistent and the sun mostly down behind the mountains to the west. As they went, his legs growing tired with all of the crouching that he wasn’t really accustomed to, the air felt good in his lungs, moving against his skin and hair. And as natural as he liked to think his sabre should immediately feel in his hands, the weight wasn’t nearly as reconcilable in motion as he would have imagined. But that would change, he promised himself. He would add some of these exercises to his normal routine, hopefully in private to avoid looking foolish. He would get better, more familiar with it. It did feel good in his hands.
“That’s enough,” Captain Marsden said after a length. He had them go through another round of shorter exercises involving low and high sweeps in the standard dueling stance. But that brought their opening maneuvers to a close. “All right then. We have a long ways to go before we fend off any Hallmer tribes, but that’s a start. Face up with your seconds again, blunders out. We’ll see how well you men can handle something more substantial than the air.”
Ian reset himself across from Rory and slid his sword back into its sheath, being careful to catch up his breathing without looking like he had any need to be breathing hard. Locking the blade to the blunder that was waiting inside, he pulled it back out with the safety measure securely fastened. The blunder consisted of two thin but tough molds of rubber-like material fitted to either side of the blade’s length, effectively straddling the sabre’s point and edge and making it very difficult to actually be cut by either. Experimentally moving it around, Ian found that the weight felt virtually unchanged, though his sabre no longer looked nearly as impressive.
Ian waited as the captain waited for everyone to secure their own blunders, Rory seeming to have some difficulty with his. Taking a moment, Ian pinched his fingers up along the blunder, glad to find that it was firmly fastened.
“Very well,” the captain said, a moment or so before Rory was completely through with his sword. “I trust that those blunderbusses had the mind to teach you a thing or two about civilized dueling. While there’s no such thing off of the academy grounds, we’ll begin there. Touch blades and circle. Let’s see how you men are on your feet.”
Advancing forward, far more directly than Rory did, Ian came forward with his blade up. Meeting Rory’s blade, he tapped it twice, once right and once left. They then began to circle, fairly traditionally, in the traditional, clockwise manner.
Immediately seeing that he would have to take charge of their direction, Ian gladly guided them away from where Kieran and Brodie were circling. All the while, he continued to make slow, steady attacks with his blade against Rory that the other easily met and countered. It was all very gentle, very Ellosian. But the point was to keep his eyes up and on what was happening with their blades while maintaining consistent movement with their feet. It wasn’t exactly effortless, especially in terrain like this, but it was close enough that Ian could start critiquing Rory, who wasn’t struggling, but definitely wasn’t managing it effortlessly either.
“Keep your feet up,” Ian said, “even steps.”
“Mind your own feet,” Rory said, involuntarily speeding up his attack for a moment.
“Mind yours,” Ian said, “the captain is coming this way.”
And indeed, it wasn’t a pair of moments before the captain’s critique came.
“You’re leading too fast, Kanters,” Captain Marsden said, “this isn’t a duel, keep even with him.”
“Yes, sir,” Ian said, slowing a little despite himself.
“Williams, stay level,” Captain Marsden said, sounding a little more annoyed. “Well, I can certainly say you both need the most work.”
Ian felt no emotional response to that. He supposed he was merely getting used to it.
“Step on—the—swing,” Captain Marsden said, clapping his hand to the pace he wanted. “Touch, step, touch—that’s a bit better. Keep at it.”
And so they had their own instructions while Lieutenant Taylor did the rest of the rounds. This mostly consisted of Kieran and Brodie, since the corporals seemed fine, if not bored, from what Ian could see.
The daylight continued to wane, the mountain shadows looming. Somewhere in the middle of this, Ian noticed that a couple of the Bevish servants and the margrave’s daughters had come, and they sat on a slight incline some small ways away, watching.
This distressed Ian only slightly, but that was more than he would have guessed. He obviously didn’t want Elizabeth to think any less of him, but he had thought and hoped he had left most of that behind him.
Thankfully, all this instruction only lasted another twenty minutes or so. Ian was able to match, and as he thought, exceed all but the most unreasonable of the captain’s orders, and he could tell his superior was getting irritable, and a little bored with the proceedings.
“That’s enough squabble for one evening,” Captain Marsden said. “We can’t always be dull Jacks, obviously. We have a bit of light left, let’s make a sport of it.”
A quick whoop ran through the company, a relief through Ian. The excitement he had started with had dul
led, but it was able to revive itself in admirable fashion.
“What say we set a pot at a shilling apiece?” Captain Marsden said. “Every man should be good for that much. We will hold all of you good to it.”
“Shall we keep to blunders, sir?” Corporal Hanley asked, not looking quite as thrilled as everyone else.
Ian was already thinking of what it would be like to have a whole quarter of a sovereign more than he did. Not so much for the money, but the feeling of having won it from everyone else. At least he had a couple moments of that idea, before he remembered Corporal Wesshire. The corporal had the natural build for swordsmanship. He was tall, broad enough to be strong, but not too heavy or dawdling to lose any speed for it. And Brodie had said he was a great swordsman the first night Ian had met them.
The others were talking in excited whispers, but Ian waited as the captain and lieutenant briefly conversed about rules.
“Keep to blunders. We shall keep it traditional then,” Captain Marsden said after their short conference. “Any sort of bodily touch with the sabre will win, which Lieutenant Taylor and I shall judge. We will be at either end of the boundaries. Anyone who strays outside of them will be disqualified. And I think we shall start from the end. Private Kanters and Williams will spar first. Prepare yourselves, we don’t have a good deal of time.”
First, Ian thought as he stepped around and wiped his palms over each other. He had half-hoped, half-anticipated that the captain would slate him first. If he did win, Ian wondered if the captain would make him keep sparring until he lost. But in any case, Ian was glad to start with Rory, and he liked the way his heart felt in chest and through his stomach.
“You make mince of him, Williams,” Kieran said to Rory.
“Don’t listen to him, Kanters,” Brodie called, “I’ve got my shilling riding on you.”
“Don’t spend your bob before you even start,” Ian said, grinning more at himself than Brodie.
“Step lively,” the captain prodded a little impatiently.
Their two officers having stepped to either end of them, the rest of their company gathering at one side, Ian measured Rory out and the way to start at him. Rory was dominantly right-handed, so Ian would keep him turning on his left, or Ian’s right. And he would do it fast.
“Touch them then,” Captain Marsden said, “you can walk all around once that’s done.”
They both obliged, meeting, shaking hands—Rory’s hand feeling damp—raising and touching their blades once, then they both withdrew backwards. Rory much more aggressively.
“You were first in your class for marksmanship?” Ian asked, something he’d actually been meaning to ask for a while. Ian made a quick, requisite glance toward the margrave’s daughters.
“Yes,” Rory said.
Ian smiled, trying not to sound taunting. “First in your class for swordsmanship?”
“Ready?” Captain Marsden asked.
“No,” Rory said, not nearly as quickly.
“Duel!”
Ian heard their company’s voices rise to the rhythm of the long, quick steps he took at Rory. His second came on, but not nearly as quickly or directly. The initial plan was to go hard at Rory’s left side, but seeing his second’s reaction, Ian kept his aim straight after Rory, even compensating some to follow Rory’s drift—
Raising his blade high, Ian lunged the last bit and brought it down hard on Rory’s waiting blade. The blunders created a sharp, slapping noise on impact, the sound of the metal buried between them almost audible. And almost before Rory could regain himself, Ian swept around his second’s left side, striking high and horizontal, then again lower and again even lower.
Twisting around him, Ian caught catches of Rory’s face, set and grim. And that’s about how Ian wanted it. He didn’t want to scare Rory, but he also wanted to show him how things were.
“Holy Baal,” he heard someone saying in surprise. Kieran, Ian thought.
Even as Ian kept turning Rory, his arms swinging in measured, nearly rhythmic strokes against Rory, Ian kept mostly to high attacks to give him the bit of extra weight. He could feel the definite edge Rory had over him in strength, but as long as Ian kept him on his heels, there would hopefully be no room for Rory to fully employ it.
The first handful of seconds having passed, Ian found no real reason to change tactics. He was turning Rory with every step and every other stroke, pushing forward closer and closer at Rory, forcing his second to keep retreating.
And then so quickly that Ian almost hesitated to take it, Rory’s foot caught a little on the grass and he lost his balance for a moment, nearly falling backwards.
There was disappointment in the way Ian’s next swing came slower, but the efficient part of his mind quietly quenched that. Ducking in lower, Ian thrust his blade down toward Rory’s middle. The other man was able to half-knock it away, but Ian quickly parried that around and then wrenched it off to Rory’s side. Before his second could recover, Ian swept it hard and fast across Rory’s bent knee.
“Touch!” Lieutenant Taylor called.
“That’s enough,” Captain Marsden broke in. “That was a stolid match, but there’s no call for roughness.”
Taking a deep breath and realizing that he didn’t really need to breathe hard, Ian nodded. He guessed he should take whatever he could get from the captain. He took a step forward and offered his hand to Rory, who took it and stood, looking more downed than hurt. Watching him carefully as Rory nodded and walked out of the center of the match, Ian couldn’t see any signs of a limp, even though he knew he had given Rory a sound crack.
It was good to know that Ian had a stolid second.
“Privates, square off,” Captain Marsden said to Kieran and Brodie.
With a little less enthusiasm than they’d shown elsewhere in the competition, the privates moved across from each other in their company’s temporary arena while Ian made no excessive hurry to leave it. Picking up his overcoat where he had left it, Ian wiped at his face and was aware of the margrave’s daughters still watching them.
It had been a good, fast match. Thinking about it, he really wouldn’t have asked for it to turn out any differently. He looked over at Rory, who was sitting on the ground at the end of the ring, looking back at him. But Rory quickly looked away.
“Begin.”
Turning back to the match, Kieran and Brodie started with no initial contact. They slowly circled each other, watching and occasionally making motions that the other would shy away from.
The rest of the match passed much the same way, Kieran growing more aggressive, but in a passive way that Brodie was able to mostly match. As it ended up, Kieran got a lucky tap in at Brodie’s shoulder as he was trying to duck away.
“Touch!” Lieutenant Taylor said.
“Well, that wasn’t terribly exciting,” Brodie said, grinning.
Ian idly kicked at the ground, wondering what kind of person it took to be happy after losing.
But as disappointing as that match was, the next turned out to be much more fascinating for Ian.
“Right,” Corporal Ellis Hanley said, more to himself than anyone it seemed as he stepped into the middle. He didn’t seem nervous—expectant was the word that came to Ian’s mind. And not a good sort of expectant, as the corporal took long moments to absently eye everything but the other corporal, who calmly came in across from him.
“A good pair, I should think,” Captain Marsden said, as the corporals briefly touched their swords. “The best of our company. We shall have to see how they match up tonight.”
“Ready here,” Lieutenant Taylor said from the other end of the match.
“Very well then,” Captain Marsden said. “Duel.”
For a moment neither did anything, Ellis raising his sword a little higher, tighter, and Corporal Wesshire seeming to measure him out. Ian couldn’t read anything from his expression.
“Go on, corporal,” Brodie said, “have a game.”
Ellis began to step forward
to do just that, but Corporal Wesshire was also in the motions a moment before. Bringing it to two precisely measured steps, Wesshire gave the opening swing. Ellis met it easily, Wesshire continuing with a couple more before Ellis got in one of his own, and then fell to getting every third or so swing.
Ian tried to focus on watching Corporal Wesshire’s form, and though he was impressed with the fluid, easy way the corporal was leading most of the fight, nothing about it leapt out as extraordinary either. Except perhaps for the way that Wesshire was able to carry and transition a continuous series of smartly placed attacks, Ian couldn’t foresee much trouble if he tried to replicate what Wesshire was doing. Though of course neither was attempting anything too strenuous, hardly moving at all in fact—
Ellis suddenly bolted to one side after parrying Wesshire’s sword at the other, his blade slashing down at Wesshire’s legs.
But instead of either getting hit or being forced back, as was no doubt Ellis’ hope, Wesshire easily countered the attack and actually stepped a little closer and around the other side of Ellis. Abruptly it was a completely different match. There was a furious few seconds of close quarters fighting, Ellis trying to hold his ground and keep up, but that was clearly beyond his ability, and he began to retreat.
Hanley is competent, Ian thought as he watched Wesshire continue to pursue the other corporal. Try as he might, Ellis was unable to regain any momentum or even slow Wesshire, who seemed content to match Ellis’ attacks so long as his were in the majority. Corporal Wesshire wasn’t moving all that fast, or even dodging all that fast, and during more than one series of blows he simply stopped for a moment and let Ellis’ blade swing through the empty air their pattern would have dictated that he would be occupying.
This, being something of a real match, had gotten the others quite built up. Ian could feel it too, saw it well-etched even in their superiors’ eager faces.