Passages

by Passages (epub)

  But what was most notable about this place was the quiet aura of order. There was some smoke—that couldn’t be helped at this season, the wind would come from uncertain directions, and not all the smoke from the fireplace would go up the chimney. But spills got mopped up immediately, orders taken and delivered quickly, and there was a general feeling that while high spirits were expected, excess would be dealt with by means of expulsion—and there would be no appeal to the Captain afterward.

  That, combined with her impression of Lerryn, left her with a favorable feeling about the Skybolts.

  She finished her meal and headed for the door that led into a double row of—well, they couldn’t be called rooms, they were more like enclosed bunks with wool mattresses, one up, one down, with wooden shutters that could be pulled down and latched, and room at your feet for your belongings. There were sixteen of these things, eight on each side of the narrow corridor. Right now, she was the only one availing herself of this luxury of relative privacy. In most places like this, everyone staying overnight bedded down in the common room after the tavernkeeper closed down and went to bed himself. On the way, she retrieved her packs from behind the bar where the barman was keeping an eye on them for her, tipped him by way of thanks, and sought her upper bunk, carefully selected as the warmest of the lot. It was quite comfortably warm—so warm, in fact, that she suspected the tavern’s ovens were on the other side of that stone wall.

  Her bedroll was already laid out, ready for her to get some sleep. She climbed in, latched the shutter down, kicked off her boots, and rolled herself up in her blankets. It had been a long, hard day of riding, and if what Tarma had told her was anything to go by, things were about to get . . . interesting.

  * * *

  * * *

  Kero was glad of her thick woolen coat with its overlapping fronts; it was cut in the Shin’a’in style, though she didn’t expect anyone here to recognize that. Although there wasn’t any snow on the ground, the grass in front of the Skybolts’ gate was dead and yellow and furry with a hard frost.

  The recruiting sergeant eyed her and Hellsbane with a bored expression. As instructed, Kero had presented herself at the gate of the Skybolts’ winter quarters and asked for him. This had been a reasonable amount of time after the trumpet had sounded for reveille and she could be certain he’d eaten his breakfast. It was never a good idea to get between the man who could decide whether or not to hire you and his breakfast.

  Sun shone down out of a cloudless sky but didn’t impart anything in the way of warmth. “So, ye think ye’ve got the makings of a Skybolt, do ye?” he asked rhetorically. “Got any combat experience?”

  “A little, Sergeant, sir,” she said. “Bandits.” True, that.

  “Training?”

  “Grandmam rode with Idra’s Sunhawks. She trained me.” Also true.

  The sergeant cocked an eyebrow at her. “No good in th’ kitchen then?” he asked, with just a hint of mockery. If I didn’t already know a third of the Skybolts are women, I might take offense at that.

  She didn’t rise to the taunt. “Burned the oatmeal, Sergeant. Every time.”

  He guffawed. “Ye wouldn’t be the first t’ trade a frying pan for a sword, gir-rul,” he said. “Well, I can see ye got yer own horse an’ kit. Let’s see how well ye handle ’em.”

  He signaled for the gates to be fully opened, and Kero led Hellsbane through.

  The winter quarters for the Skybolts was surrounded by a wooden palisade—not unusual for a merc company that could actually afford its own dedicated winter quarters. This was as much to keep gawkers out as anything else—and was mostly for the safety of the gawkers, since they never seemed to know not to wander in the path of charging horses or pairs of fighters. Most of the enclosed area was devoted to practice grounds; the barracks, kitchen, warehouse, and stables were all lined up on the side to Kero’s left, and there were lookouts stationed on a walkway just below the top of the palisade on that side. Besides those watchers, each of the four corners of the palisade had a watchtower above it, with a lookout stationed in it. It was good practice to keep a standing watch at all times, and if anyone was stupid enough to attack Bolthaven, the watchers could sound a warning, and everyone in the village could get inside that palisade before damage could be done. A good percentage of the villagers would be retired mercs and their families living on their savings and people who worked for the Skybolts when they were in quarters. There might even be a few spouses and partners of the mercs living in the village, since Lerryn didn’t have quarters for families.

  “I’m gonna figger anything ye can do a-horse, ye can do afoot, so get aboard that ugly mule ye brung with ye,” the sergeant said. “And give me four passes on the archery targets. Make it at thirty paces. Walk, trot, canter, an’ gallop.”

  Kero swung herself up into the saddle, retrieved her short horsebow from the sheath and strung it, and slung her quiver of arrows over the pommel of her saddle, securing the reins there as well. With a touch of her heels, she sent Hellsbane off on the first pass at the targets. Reins were more of a suggestion for Hellsbane; she responded to leg pressure and touches on her neck. Kero didn’t bother with a bit and doubted if Hellsbane could have been persuaded to tolerate one. Shin’a’in warsteeds never used one and certainly didn’t need one.

  Walking—that was no problem. She managed to center all four arrows in their respective targets. Trotting, however—that was another question altogether. Hellsbane was a superbly trained Shin’a’in warsteed, but that did not mean she had a smooth trot. Kero considered herself lucky she got arrows in the target circles at all. The canter was a relief after that. The gallop had its own challenge of getting four arrows off in such rapid succession that she had no time between them.

  At least they all hit. She rode Hellsbane up to the targets and collected her arrows, then gathered up the reins and returned to the recruiting sergeant, whose face was utterly unreadable.

  By this time she had an audience, which was to be expected. While mercs in winter quarters would be expected to keep in training, that did not mean they spent all day training. Mercs were no different from anyone else, really; they’d train just as much as they had to, and laze about as much as they thought they could get away with. Watching a potential new recruit get put through her paces was as good an excuse as any to slough off.

  “Do the same with them javelins I see ye got,” was all he said. So Kero repeated the exercise, with the only difference being that since she only had eight of the javelins, she had to pause between the trot and the canter to retrieve her weapons. She took the opportunity to examine her watchers out of the corner of her eye.

  They didn’t appear impressed, but they didn’t appear unimpressed either. Good. Not that she was doing any less than her best! These were supposed to be some of the best fighters in the Mercenary Guild, and if she could impress them—that would not be a good omen for the quality of Lerryn’s people. Tarma hadn’t just sent her out to earn her living. Tarma had sent her out to keep learning. If the reactions of the Skybolts lounging behind the recruiting sergeant were anything to go on, skillwise, she’d probably be just about their average. Which should be good enough to get her in and still give her plenty of people she could learn from.

  When she finished retrieving her javelins the second time, the sergeant directed her to go up against the training dummy for mounted fighting. “I’ll call the shot, you take it,” he told her. This was a comfortable drill, familiar, enlivened only by the fact that this dummy was on a pivot, and when you hit the arm or shield, the thing would spin, potentially cracking you in the head with one of its arms as it did so. This wasn’t the sort of dummy she’d trained on, so it took a couple awkward ducks out of the way before she figured out that an un-called block was expected of you.

  This was probably as much of a test of Hellsbane as it was of her; a recruit could, potentially, turn up with a green horse that wo
uld be no damn good in the field without a lot of extra work between now and spring. A warhorse had to endure a lot, and do so as calmly as her rider.

  Most fighting horses were mares or geldings. Bardic songs about heroes on “their mighty stallions” were full of crap. No one with sense was going to go into battle on something that would turn unreliable at the first whiff of a mare in season.

  Her guess was affirmed when the next thing the sergeant asked for was to “put your mare through her paces.”

  So she had Hellsbane wheel on her heels sunwise and widdershins, rear and lash out with her fore hooves, kick back low, kick back higher, gallop in tight circles, then in tight eights, rear and pivot at the same time, and finally jump nearly vertically from a standing start and lash out with her hind hooves at the top of the jump.

  All the while she was sticking to Hellsbane’s back like a burr.

  Now the sergeant was impressed. As well he should be. I’ll bet there isn’t a horse in the Skybolts that can match Hellsbane.

  When she was done, Hellsbane had barely broken a light sweat. The sergeant came up to her stirrup and looked up at her.

  “Any experience fightin’ with a unit?” he asked.

  “No, Sergeant, sir,” she said, shaking her head. He tsk’d, but with a faint smile. “Well, that’s easily remedied with drillin’. Yer in, gur-ril.” He looked over at the spectators and beckoned to a dark-skinned, black-haired woman with shoulders many men would envy. Kero couldn’t tell if there were muscles to match those shoulders under all the layers of wrappings she wore, but there probably were. “Lidreth! I’m assignin’ Kay Taldress to you! Get her squared away.”

  The woman snapped to attention—not a crisp sort of “attention,” like you’d find in, say, the Rethwellan army, but brisk and efficient. “Aye, Sarge,” she said, and crooked a finger at Kero. “With me, recruit.”

  Kero dismounted and followed her, leading Hellsbane across the barren practice grounds toward the stable. Lidreth was not the talkative sort, it seemed, and was disinclined to point out the obvious—like which buildings were which.

  Kero approved of the stables as soon as she entered the door. There weren’t a lot of windows open, but the predominant smell was straw, not dung or urine. The horses all had loose-boxes, and all the beasts that she could see were warmly blanketed against the cold. Lidreth took her to an empty stall about the middle of the back row and indicated with a nod that this was where Hellsbane should go. It was already furnished with a water bucket and a thick layer of straw. Under Lidreth’s gimlet eye, Kero rid Hellsbane of her tack and the saddlepacks, brushed her down, blanketed her, and got her food and water from the common stores.

  She was just finishing the job when someone—had he been one of the lurkers?—came nosing up to the stall. He was almost exactly Kero’s height, knotty and balding and missing a couple of teeth, which was scarcely unusual in a merc. He surveyed Hellsbane with the air of someone who thought he knew everything about horseflesh and guffawed. Kero stepped outside the stall to put herself between him and the gate at the entrance.

  “What kinda mule did ye come in here with, gir-rul?” he chortled, reaching over the wall of the stall toward Hellsbane, who flattened her ears with a warning snort.

  “Don’t touch my horse,” Kero replied, shortly.

  The man paid no attention and reached for Hellsbane’s halter.

  Faster than anyone other than Kero would have believed, Hellsbane snaked her head around, extended her neck, and snapped—not at the man’s outstretched hand but at his face peering over the wall of the stall. Her teeth clicked together an inch from his startled eyes.

  With a muffled curse, he pulled his hand back in a fist, clearly prepared to clip her across the nose. Kero’s temper flared.

  But he wasn’t watching Kero, who grabbed his wrist just as he swung, redirected the motion and pulled, sending him tumbling over his own hand and landing on his back on the floor of the stable.

  Breath driven out of him, he could only stare up at her.

  “I said, don’t touch my horse,” Kero repeated, fighting down anger. “She’s war-trained. And I just saved you from losing your hand. If you’d hit her, that would have been the last time you ever hit anything with that fist.”

  “You heard the recruit, Hadrick,” Lidreth drawled, but in a way that made it an order. “Don’t touch her horse. I don’t care if you get mustered out as an amputee, but your squad leader might.” She stared at him as he picked himself up out of the straw. “And a war-trained horse is worth more than you are. If anyone interferes with this beast, I’ll know who to look for.”

  “Yessir,” Hadrick replied, and not in a tone that made Kero concerned that he might try to meddle with Hellsbane once she was out of sight. In fact, Hadrick sounded downright contrite.

  “Follow me, recruit,” was all Lidreth said, dismissing Hadrick by the simple means of ignoring him. “Bring your kit.”

  Kero quickly loaded herself up with everything that didn’t belong with Hellsbane and followed as Lidreth led the way out of the stable, into the barracks, and up a set of stairs to the right.

  “Women’s quarters,” she said, opening the door into a room full of cots with chests at the feet and heads, and pegs on the walls that sported a variety of heavy garments. “We catch a man in here, he leaves singing soprano. If you’ve got canoodling to do, do it in the village, or get permission to use one of the two rooms off the commons for it. The rest of us need our sleep.”

  “Yessir,” Kero said, as she was directed to an empty cot, one already made up with a couple of thick blankets and a pillow.

  “Weapons in the chest at the head of your cot. We have practice weapons to use for drilling. One knife no longer than your hand on your belt. Draw it on a fellow merc, and you’d better have a good reason. Everything else in the chest at the foot of your cot. There’s a lock with a key in it. If you need more bedding, say so; you won’t be impressing any of us if you’re keeping us awake at night with your teeth chattering. Jakes are through that door,” she pointed to the far left corner. “We take it in turns to clean ’em twice a day. I’ll put your name on the rotation. There’s a steam bath next to the kitchen. Take one not less than once a week, and we’d all take it kindly if you did it more often than that, preferably after drill or just before lights out. It holds ten, and it’s generally full from noon to lights out, and under no circumstances should you ever use it to get frisky. We take it in rotation with the men to clean it every morning. The men have it for the next month, so don’t worry about that for now.”

  As she spoke, Kero was stowing her things: weapons in the designated chest (and she thought she sensed a faint grumble from Need as the lid closed down over the sword), everything else in the other chest, key on the leather thong around her neck that held a Shin’a’in talisman, and her bedroll added to the bed.

  “Meals at the bugle call. We have a kitchen staff, so there’s not much kitchen-patrol duty. Strongest drink allowed in quarters is mild ale. You want anything different, you go to the tavern.”

  Kero took up a semirelaxed stance—not at attention but not “casual” either. Lidreth gave her a once-over, probably assessing her from her clothing, now that her coat was hung up on the wall.

  Kero was pretty sure she was going to fit in just fine; her boots were good but not too good, her woolen trews, leather tunic, and thick, knitted shirt were neither too old and mended nor too new and unworn. The trews had the proper leather patches inside the thighs that anyone who spent a long time in the saddle would have, and those patches showed the right amount of wear. The only thing about her that was “odd” would be the Shin’a’in talisman that marked her as a member (or at least an ally) of Tale’sedrin Clan, which, technically, she was, since White Winds Mage Kethry was her blood grandmother and Tarma shena Tale’sedrin her grandmother by adoption. And she very much doubted anyone here would r
ecognize that little token, with its stylized vorcel-hawk.

  The point was, Lidreth was not going to see someone who didn’t fit the mold of “capable fighter looking to go up in the world by joining a merc company.” And Lidreth’s next statement, or rather question, matched that. “Got your Guild membership?”

  Membership in the Mercenary Guild took a one-time fee and a cursory sort of background check. That is, they’d hold you for a couple of days in the Guild Hall to make sure you weren’t a habitual drunk or a drug addict, and they’d make sure you didn’t have any debts chasing you. The fee alone usually was enough to sort most of the wheat from the chaff.

  What that fee got you was the right to get hired through the Guild—which meant better jobs—and a chance that the better merc companies would take you.

  Kero nodded and showed the little tattoo on the back of her wrist. Oh, you could have that faked, of course, but if it was found out (and it would be) the pain of getting it removed with prejudice and without painkillers wasn’t worth it.