“But a spy would know who Will is,” Rowan pointed out.
“A spy might be able to figure it out but there are a fair few squires in this castle and there’s no point in making it easier for them to find Will.”
“Marl’s done fine finding me on his own in the past,” Will said coldly. He scowled at the book on the floor at Rowan’s feet. “Why wouldn’t he just show up himself and try to kill me?”
“I don’t know,” Colin said, sounding frustrated. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “But whatever it is, the Ranger’s worried and how often have we actually seen the Ranger worried? That’s what makes me think this isn’t something to take lightly.”
“Who said we were taking it lightly?” Rowan asked, puffing out his chest. “I take the defense of this castle seriously.”
“It’s not the castle that the Ranger seems worried about, is it?” Colin snapped.
“And what about the Kelkor knight?” Will asked. “Why would I have to worry about her and why the blazes does he think I’d want to tell her anything? I don’t even know her.”
“Maybe he thinks you’ll be so breath-taken by her stunning charm that you’ll spill all your darkest secrets?” Rowan suggested, snorting with laughter as he avoided Will’s swipe at the back of his head.
“Or he thinks that she’s going to try to get answers out of you herself somehow,” Colin said darkly.
Will snorted. “Like fight me? She’s in the healing chamber, I don’t think that’d be a fair fight.”
“I don’t know, Will,” Colin moaned, burying his face in his hands. “I really don’t know.” He raised his head again, grimacing and fixing Will with a steely green gaze. “But, whatever’s happening, whyever that Kelkor knight is here, the Ranger’s worried it’s going to come back after you.”
“Which means,” Will said slowly, cold dread running over his spine and making his skin shiver, “it’s all got something to do with Marl.”
“Oh, come on, what bad thing could be happening that’s that important?” Rowan rolled his eyes. “We just got through a battle, for Thornten’s sake, and you’re going to tell me some random woman on a skin and bone nag is the bigger threat?”
“Not to the castle, but to Will maybe,” Colin hissed. “Look at the knights even; whatever news she brought, whatever’s happening, it’s serious… and from what the Ranger’s saying, I think that Marl might be involved in it.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Pick yourself up, we try again,” Haru ordered, stepping back.
Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, Will pushed himself to his feet, brushing the dust from his padded leather practice armor. Not that there was much point. He didn’t doubt that he would, in a matter of minutes, be flat on his back again.
Haru, a few paces ahead, was already crouching into position again, spinning one of the short batons that they used as a practice dagger in one hand, waiting for Will to be ready to spar again.
It was the following day. Will’s entire body ached with exhaustion. When he, Rowan, and Colin had finally gone to bed–when Rockwood found them and told them off for being up late–he had been plagued with his old nightmares of Marl. Nightmares where he approached the fallen rider only to have the face turn toward him and Marl’s black eyes bore into his very being, that evil twisted smile rushing toward him until he woke in a sweat. Even now after a day of practicing footwork, swords, and now hand-to-hand fighting, he couldn’t fully shake the haunting dream.
“I don’t think this style of combat is my strong point,” Will grumbled, spitting out a string of gritty dirt. “Disgusting…”
Haru snorted. “Even people who are naturally good at fighting start as beginners. You have to get better at the hand to hand and dagger combat, seeing as you don’t get a sword until you’re seventeen. If something happened, you’d be stuck with a dagger right now and, judging by this,” he said and waved to take in Will’s dirt covered appearance. “You’d be doing poorly.”
Will had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping back. It was hard at times to remember that Haru wasn’t just an older squire anymore. He was a knight now, commanding a certain level of respect. And he was not just any knight either but Will’s knight, his mentor, the one in charge of seeing that he learned all he could before becoming a knight himself.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I fall, Sir.”
Haru raised his eyebrows so they disappeared behind his sweat-dampened hair. “Was that a tone of sarcasm? Watch it, when I was a squire, Richard used to have me run laps around the jousting arena if I mouthed off. I might take a leaf from his book.”
“If Rockwood did that, do you know how much running Rowan would do?” Will asked, grinning.
Haru chuckled. “He’d either be the fittest squire to have ever lived or he would run to death. Now, enough stalling, Will. Pick up the baton, we go again.”
Will swiped up the short baton from the earth and braced himself, watching Haru carefully. The knight nodded and Will sprang forward, diving to strike with the baton like it was a knife. With a speed Will could not have imagined of Haru’s muscular frame, the knight spun to the right and ducked, catching Will in the chest with his shoulder. Will staggered, twisting to catch him before he felt Haru grab his shoulder and push, shoving him, again, into the dirt.
The air knocked from his lungs, Will pushed himself gingerly into a seated position, wheezing slightly. “I’m getting worse.”
“That one was, yeah,” Haru agreed, nodding. “You didn’t look for a strategy, you just attacked with your arm up like you thought you could stab me to death. Not how it works, sadly. You’ve got to keep your elbows close to your body, knife blade angled for quick strikes and swipes, none of this stabbing nonsense. Don’t let your back turn to me for a moment, that’s how you get a knife to the throat. If this was a real fight, I could have slit your neck right there or held you captive. It’s better to fall because at least you can roll.
Once there’s a blade at your neck, you’re a goner. If your back is to someone and they’ve got a knife to your neck, about the only way to get out is if they’re distracted and you can shove yourself backwards hard enough to knock them down or wrong foot them. Then you can try to get the upper hand, providing you did it right and aren’t getting your throat cut instead.” Haru held out a hand, helping Will clamber to his feet again.
Will snorted. “Does that actually work?”
“Not if you’re fighting someone my size, but someone smaller than me, just a bit bigger than you, and then it would.” Haru grinned and his eyebrows almost vanished in his disheveled fringe of red hair. “Maybe one day you’ll get to practice it. Knocking someone backwards, maybe Colin? Rowan?”
“I don’t see Colin falling for that.” Will grimaced, running a hand over his back and wincing. “Still not sure I believe it works though because you pushed me right down.”
“Only way to know is if you get to try some time.” Haru shrugged. “Right, we give it another couple of goes and then call it a wrap because I’ve got to get to the barns shortly. I’m on the afternoon patrol.”
“Am I going?” Will asked hopefully.
Haru shook his head with an apologetic grin. “Eastern patrol, sorry mate. No squires under seventeen still. I can’t imagine that rule will last much longer though. We haven’t had raiding parties on our lands in weeks and the ones we do have are pretty half-hearted, like they did it on a dare opposed to on orders…the morons.”
Feeling somewhat disappointed, Will braced himself again, his feet apart, knees bent, body crouched forward like Haru had been doing. Once his knight nodded again, Will fought the instinct to lunge and strike. Instead, he circled, moving slowly to the left. Across from him, Haru moved the same way, matching his circle, the grey-green eyes calculating. Will’s eyes flitted from Haru’s face to his stance, trying to gauge what he should be looking for. If there was an opening, he had to find it but…
Haru moved, striking forw
ard, and Will scrambled backwards, tripping over the uneven earth of the jousting arena. Catching himself with one hand, he brought the other hand holding the baton up in a block to catch Haru’s next strike. The wooden cudgels made a dull cracking noise as they collided, sending vibrations down the bones in Will’s arm.
“Nice one.” Haru stepped back slightly, nodding at Will to straighten. “More thought out. But you won’t win defending all the time. And watch your footing a bit better.”
Sweat stung Will’s eyes and he swiped his baton-free hand over his forehead irritably. The padded practice armor, heavy and uncomfortable in the beating sun, felt as though it were made of lead. Haru was stepping back into position again and Will watched him calculatingly.
An opening. He needed an opening. Haru shifted his weight, turning the circle in the other direction and Will saw his chance. He sprang forward, twisting as Haru had done before, and trying to come under Haru’s guard. The knight grunted as Will’s shoulder collided with his chest. With a rush of giddy exhilaration at the idea of finally beating Haru, Will turned to strike with his club. Haru was turning away though, snaking aside and, next thing Will knew, he was flat on his back, coughing in the dirt once more.
“That was much, much better,” panted Haru. He stepped forward and offered a hand to help Will to his feet. “Just don’t let your head get you out of focus, got it?”
“Right.”
Will shook dirt from his hair. He could feel clumps of earth congealing with his sweat and turning to mud along the collar of his tunic. “Are we done yet?”
Haru grinned, thumping him on the shoulder. “We’re done. Just go wash off the practice armor and get it hung out at the hitching rail to dry, alright? Then you can take it easy. Richard mentioned something about reviewing your takes on the Maridia war later today with Rowan and Colin, but I’d like you to get Visra out for exercise before then. That horse doesn’t need two days off in a row or he might decide to start eating people.”
Will nodded, peeling away the leather padding and sighing in relief as cool air rushed against his sweat-soaked clothing. “I think this is the worst thing ever, you know that? It’s like wearing a brick oven and expecting me to be able to focus on footwork.”
“Wait till we practice without it,” Haru said, laughing darkly and leading Will back along the side of the castle toward the barns. “You will miss the heat when you’re waking up with bruises and busted knuckles. Sweat doesn’t stick around as long as swelling.”
At the edge of the courtyard Haru and Will parted ways, Haru heading for the barn and Will crossing to one of the horse tanks that stood at the courtyard edge. He slung the padded armor over one of the nearby hitching rails and reached for the cloth slung over the side of the tank, watching a group of soldiers unloading what seemed to be a new stock of arrows from a cart.
Turning away, Will scrubbed at the leather armor, gritting his teeth as he worked a particularly tough bit of dried dirt from one of the shoulder plates. For the second time in as many days, a shiver ran through him and he turned, glancing back around the courtyard. He felt again, like the night before, that someone was watching him. But there was no one there, just the soldiers, two of whom were now chatting animatedly some ways off, the taller one leaning on the cart, the shorter shaking his white-blond head.
His eyes darted to the shadows along the wall but then he silently chastised himself. The Ranger isn’t here, he will have already left on whatever it is that he keeps thinking is so bloody important that he can’t answer a simple question, Will thought bitterly. He redoubled his cleaning efforts, annoyed.
“You look like you bathed in a mudhole. You don’t have to act like an animal. We’ve got perfectly normal human baths in the castle–you know, the ones that aren’t full of dirt?”
Will started with a yelp and wheeled round. Rowan was sauntering toward him with a jaunty spring in his step, an evil grin stretching his mouth. He came to a halt on the other side of the hitching rail, propping his elbows on the post and watching Will clean.
“Aren’t you supposed to be training on archery?” Will asked, trying to cover his embarrassment. Maybe the Ranger was right, and he should be a bit more observant.
“Rockwood is on the same patrol schedule as your knight this week, nitwit, so I get the same break you do. Colin does too, whenever he stops being a goody-two-shoes and gets over here.”
“Where is he?” Will turned on the spot, not seeing the familiar tall squire amongst the jostling life of the yard.
“He’s in the Hall of Records letting Sir Henry talk his ear off about the original treaty with Phersal,” Rowan said, rolling his eyes. “I mean, like any of us truly give two damns and a rotten egg about Phersal. They’re all a bunch of traitorous gits with a carrot as a King…I hate carrots.”
Will snorted, wringing the rag out and slinging it over the hitching rail next to the padded armor to dry. “I’m taking Vis out, so he doesn’t get two full days off. You coming along or you going to go hang out with Sir Henry and chitchat about carrots?”
“Like the blazes I’m staying here.” Rowan pushed himself off the rail. “I’ve seen Phersal, met their King, didn’t like him. History won’t change that. Anyway, Naja needs a chance to stretch his legs. I’ve been riding in that stupid jousting arena for a week now it’s getting real boring.”
They walked together toward the barn, both laughing at the idea of Colin politely stranded with Sir Henry in the Hall of Records. At the barn, they skirted the edges of the alleyway to allow the knights leaving on patrol to pass them. Rockwood gave them a wink as he strode by with his lanky chestnut and Haru shot them a broad grin in passing. Ross and Don, the last two to be leaving, were talking in low voices. Noticing the two squires, they stopped, Ross giving them a stony glower but Don lifting his hand in friendly greeting.
“Getting out to ride, I hope?”
“Yes, Sir,” Will answered politely.
“Excellent.” Don nodded. “Just stay out of trouble,” he said, chuckling.
“We always do,” Rowan replied with his best attempt at an innocent expression.
Ross gave a low growl, shaking his head. “Don’t lie, Rowan, it’s unbecoming of a future knight.” But as he turned away, Will could have sworn he saw the knight hide a smile.
“Grouchy git,” Rowan mumbled when Ross and Don had followed the others out to the courtyard.
“He’s not bad,” Will said, shrugging. “And he’s got a point. When was the last time you didn’t go looking for trouble? You literally just said you’re going to be the master of disaster, or whatever the stupid title was, for the two new squires.”
“It’s mentor in mayhem and it’s not stupid,” Rowan said with mock offense. “It’s a vital position in this castle.”
“Either way, we should probably get Strider saddled as well so when Colin gets free of history lessons he can come long,” Will suggested, turning his attention to the lines of stalls. No matter how many times he came into the barn, he wasn’t sure he’d ever stop being in awe of the place. The ceilings reached high above them, the tiles along the peak propped open to allow air and sunlight to filter through. Dust motes curled in the gentle breeze, glistening in the light like magic while horses leaned over their stall doors to take in the two squires. Horses in every color–dark bays, subtle greys, chestnuts with gleaming red coats, paints, roans, black, palominos, buckskins, and duns–all sizes, from pony to cart horse all attentive.
“Aw, your monster looks peaceful today,” Rowan commented when they neared the stall of Will’s large bay warhorse.
The bay flattened his ears to his neck, baring his teeth at Rowan who scrambled backwards. “Scratch that, he’s still a monster.”
“Visra, knock it off,” Will snapped.
The horse snorted, raising his head to glower more menacingly down at Rowan who took another step away. “Always pleasant to see him. It’s like being greeted with a knife to the neck, really wakes you up.”
&
nbsp; “He just likes to keep you on your toes,” said Will, grinning. He reached for Visra’s halter on its hook outside the stall. “Back up, beastie, so I can get this open.”
“Right, so you deal with that menace and I’ll get Naja, and Strider saddled,” Rowan grumbled, taking several more steps backward. “I don’t trust that he’s not actually a dragon.”
Will laughed, slipping the halter onto Visra’s head. “Alright, I’ll come help with Strider when I’m done getting Vis taken care of.”
“If you can get him sorted. I think that horse is going to murder you. No getting things saddled when you’re dead.” With that he turned and hurried across the barn to where his horse, Naja, watched them curiously over the door of his own stall.
Visra pricked his ears forward again when Will shook his head, opening the stall wide enough for them both to leave. “Mind not being a git?”
The horse only huffed in response, shoving his nose roughly against Will’s pocket to check for snacks. Laughing, Will pushed his head away and made to lead him toward a set of nearby crossties. He was reaching for the first rope of the crosstie when an almighty crash made him jump, almost letting go of Visra’s lead. Whipping round, Will saw the commotion had come from two stalls away where a horse was raising his head, ears flat, seeming to challenge the bay that Will was leading.
Visra made to surge forward but Will pulled back, yanking on the line and quickly fastening the crosstie to the side of Visra’s halter.
“Oh no you don’t, we’re not picking fights today, Vis,” Will snarled. After a few more minutes of struggling, he managed to get Visra to stand still enough to connect the other side of the crosstie to his halter before turning to glower at the horse who’d caused the commotion. He had to bite down an urge to laugh.
The Cutthroat Prince (William of Alamore Series Book 2) Page 5