“So you see, Lieutenant, all is well. You can go back to whatever you were doing.” The noble made a dismissive gesture.

Allen debated what it would take to throw the noble off the battlements.  He supposed he’d get in trouble for that, but he’d probably have the king on his side. The king didn’t much like his nobles, which meant there was at least the possibility of a pardon. Service to the throne and all that.

He’d been sitting at lunch when he saw this fop and his pack of lackeys surround one of the younger women in the Guard. When he’d interrupted them and got a glimpse of her, he’d had to admit that she was stunning. She wasn’t one of the Guards that he recognized, but that didn’t mean much with the number of transfers going through Rylar.

His muscles twitched at the noble’s tone, but as much as he detested the corruption that infested the kingdom, it didn’t pay to be rude to them. Not unless you felt like spending the next twenty years looking out for assassins as they tried to avenge their honor.

“You must enjoy hunting,” he said, trying to distract the noble. The nobles were always making up poetry about how courtship and hunting were cousins. He’d never quite understood it. In one you ate the thing you killed. And in the other? That’s where the metaphor fell apart for him.

“Of course,” the noble replied, his eyes narrowing, “my hounds are the finest in the kingdom. They will run a wild hart to exhaustion in the woods and straight into my arms. But for finer game, different hounds are required.” He cast a lazy glance across his men who had drawn back.

Allen glanced at the pack of retainers and then back to the woman. “This hardly looks like a fair hunt.”

“That’s what I call life, lieutenant.” The noble glanced over at his men.“But I think it’s time you took yourself elsewhere.” He flicked his fingers to the side and away, and his pack of dogs moved back towards the table.

Allen ignored the approach of the retainers. If they surrounded the table again, it would probably escalate into a fight, but that escalation would be on their heads. The Guard didn’t take kindly to the nobles, even when they were behaving. There was too much bad blood between them and the king. And right now they were in a room full of Guards eating lunch. He supposed that bad blood might have something to do with why he was standing here threatening the noble who’d been bothering one of the Guard. Valiant, but not very bright.

“Maybe you should find another place to pick up women,” he suggested. “It’s not the most amiable settings around here.”

“But I do love your Guard,” the noble said, smiling slightly. “It’s like a walking harem. Delightful.” The noble looked Allen up and down, and his lips curled into a smile. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Allen’s muscles twitched again, but he tried to keep it off his face and out of his voice. The noble had just as good as admitted that he was only there to harass the Guard, despite the King’s peace. He often felt like boiling over at the questions of where he had come from and how he had arrived in Aciel, but he had learned to wall it away.

Allen nodded to the girl; his face felt like a mask. “I suggest you leave her be.” She hadn’t asked for his help in this, but he’d come over anyway. The Guard stuck together.

“Ahh, but women are not like deer, lieutenant. It is the mind that you have to hunt. It’s much easier to restrain them until you find it.” He leaned lazily back against the table, seemingly in no rush to leave.

Again, words designed to provoke. And they had an effect. The noble’s words brought to mind the memory of the women in his past. He thought of them so often he no longer knew if the memories were accurate. Sometimes he would see the images changing in his mind as he watched, their hair changing from blond to brown, then fading to dark. A mother and a sister, he thought. The idea of them as deer for this noble eroded his self-control.

“I would expect that from someone like you,” he said, the words grating like ice on his tongue, and he slammed his fist on the table beside the noble to punctuate his words. “You think the only thing that matters in life is what you can take from others.” He slammed his fist against the table again as he waved a hand towards the room behind him. “Look around you. Your men are outnumbered twenty to one here. And unlike you, the Guards know the meaning of honor.”

The noble’s face turned dark at that. “Guards!” he shouted. Apparently he thought he was in some castle where his guards would throw out this interfering peasant. Too bad.

It was an unfortunate choice of words. Even as his retainers ran over and surrounded Allen, and a few blows began to land on his stomach and head, the Guards in the room came running and ones who had been within earshot began to pour in.

Allen tried to dodge out of the way of the retainers, but he was standing between them and the door and there was enough time for one fist to take him in the eye and another in the short ribs, causing him to huff out a breath. Cheap blow. He didn’t even try to strike back. If there was a repercussion for being in a fight in the barracks, he wanted the observers solidly on his side. A couple of swift kicks landed on his legs and shin, but he kept his knees flexed and spun out from between the attackers into the open. Guards quickly surrounded him and put themselves between him and the retainers to end the fight.

The noble glared at Allen, but a moment later called to his men, calling off his pack of dogs. “Leave him. Come.”

Allen gave him a chill smile on the way out, which got him another angry glare. Good riddance. The group picked up sidelong glances from the gathered Guards as they disappeared out of the hall.

“What happened? What was the shouting about?” one of the Guards asked. Allen didn’t say anything. He figured he’d done enough damage.

The Guards looked around the room and at each other, but since no one was answering the question and the area seemed calm, they dispersed with mutters about unnecessary shouting.

Only the few who had been in the room had seen what happened, and they cast a few glances in Allen’s direction as they returned to their meals. But they too said nothing.

After they left, the lieutenant was still sitting there. She still seemed wary, but she didn’t look as rigid as she had been when the noble and his guards were surrounding her.

“That was not what I expected would happen when he came over,” she said, looking him over, “but at least he’s gone. Thank you for the, ah, help, but you really should have left it alone: that was Count Thaesil…the fifth most powerful noble in the kingdom.”

Allen gingerly felt at where the retainers had hit him, and his right eye already felt hot and swollen. Thaesil? He’d heard of a Count Thaesil before, but it didn’t match with what he’d just seen. “I thought Thaesil was an older man, and the ambassador to the South.”

“He was. He died last month. That was his only son.” She nodded at the chair across from her. “You could at least sit down.” After a moment he sat down.

She reached out brush her hand in front of his sore eye. “That’s going to be black inside an hour without healing.”

Allen shrugged off the attention. “It’s not the worst that could have happened, I guess. He’ll probably stay quiet about the fight out of pride. I’m just a lieutenant; it would tarnish his reputation to be caught fighting with me.”

“I wouldn’t be entirely sure of that. From what I’ve heard, Thaesil is spiteful. And you’ve insulted him. You’re distinctive with that tattoo too. There aren’t many Marks in the Guard. All Thaesil has to do is ask around for you, a marked lieutenant who might have been in a fight recently. He’ll probably know who you are by tomorrow. And as for the few Guards who saw what happened, that word will be all over the barracks by this evening. You know how Guards talk to each other.”

Allen glanced up at the ceiling through the hazy vision of an eye that was swiftly closing. She was probably right. He hadn’t intended to insult the noble, but his temper had got the better of him. But it didn’t seem like there was much he could do except wait and see how it turned out over the next couple of days.

The eye was a different matter. At least the small things in life were easy. He concentrated for a moment, and opened the gates that bound the energy in his blood. A crackle of heat ran through him and in its wake his skin knit and bruises faded. When he felt the damage vanish, he willed the current to settle and set it back where it belonged. Bruises were a snap. Blades caused a problem. They did too much damage.

The lieutenant watched the bruise fade with a slightly bemused expression, and then shook her head. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to do that. Are you a priest of Anya as well as a Guardsman?” The lieutenant held out a hand to him. “I’m Jaella, by the way.” Her hand was cool and light in his.

“Allen Delais,” he returned, nodding politely to her. “I’m not a priest of Anya. Just Marked. Apparently that means I can heal a few wounds myself.” Nothing major though. It took too much energy. “No insult intended either. I just thought you might like a hand getting rid of that bunch.”

She waved one hand through the air in a graceful dismissal. “You’re going to want to watch your back, Allen Delais. You’ve seen what the new count is like. I hope you have a powerful patron.”

She stood up with her tray still half-finished before continuing, “Thank you for the help, but a word of advice if you’ll take it. Help sometimes just makes things worse for the helper. I hope it’s not true for you. Perhaps we’ll see each other again, in different circumstances.”

She dropped her tray off at the cooks on her way out.

There was time left before afternoon training began, and Allen worked his way through another tray of food to replace the energy he’d used in the healing. Even a few bruises took a good bit of energy to heal.

He wondered if Jaella were right, and if Thaesil would try to get back at him for the insult. Her recommendation of a powerful patron was probably accurate, but it didn’t help him. He didn’t really know any of the nobles in the kingdom. All of the guards had to be sponsored by an aristocratic family, and his old captain, Raeli, had managed to get him a recommendation from one somehow, but after that requirement he had paid no attention to sponsorship. Now, it seemed he should have.

The idea struck doubly home since promotions for the junior guard had been that morning. His roommate Kilin had advanced from junior lieutenant to senior, while he’d remained at the same rank. Even though he’d been in the Guard longer. He knew Kilin came from a fairly aristocratic family, even if they weren’t the highest ranking. Had Kilin’s family connections gained him the promotion, despite that he was not that good with a sword and relatively average in other respects?

Allen pushed the thought out of his mind. He didn’t like thinking of his friend as undeserving. The other lieutenant was charismatic, and perhaps that was enough.

When he finished his lunch, he headed to the training grounds. He had a weapons class with the other junior lieutenants; then a tactics and logistics discussion with Senior Captain Ferril and a field-exercise on defensive emplacements that would stretch into the evening.

The weapons class was in a section of the training quarters that looked like a tornado had gone through it. Some rooms of it were bare stone, others dirt, others with ruined walls and covered in a mixture of shale, straw, loose boards, and gravel, some were designed to simulate decking, and others had stone pillars or trees with branches in the way. It was intended to replicate varying battle conditions. There was even a way to create a fake rainstorm or flood in one area by opening a cistern on the roof and a sluice gate.

Little actual training took place in the special rooms. Practicing in them was inevitably more dangerous and dependent as much on luck as on skill. The classes would rotate through them every once in a while, and discuss tactics that might be of use in the various environments, but the majority of the training was on straightforward dirt, gravel, or wood.

The training salles that made up the practice ground surrounded an open courtyard of dirt and gravel where classes were held. An extensive selection of armor and weapons filled the first room and more was racked wherever there was space.

This afternoon was a free-style rather than standard formation, so Allen dressed in the chain and plate mix that he’d learned to favor while on the Dhara. It was not far different from the standard armor for the Guard, which favored a full breastplate, but it offered a reduced weight and better maneuverability. Chain hauberk hung from his shoulders, was buckled at the waist by a heavy belt, and split into leggings covered by plate greaves. Pauldrons, bracers, and vambraces protected his arms and shoulders.

He pulled on the steel-backed gauntlets and picked up a falchion and medium kite shield. Guard infantry typically used wall shields, but they were unwieldy outside of a formation. The kite shield was equally adaptable to fighting on foot or riding, and its long tail covered his knees.

The falchion was edged on one side and curved slightly, with a fairly heavy blade. It had sinuous quillons that curled around to protect his hand. The front side of the quillons made a loop to meet at the pommel and was studded with small pyramidal spikes. The combination made for a free-style that was very similar to what he’d learned on the Dhara.

The rest of the class trickled in while he was dressing, and eventually the dozen junior and senior lieutenants were gathered on the courtyard in front of the Guard’s Master at Arms. The Master at Arms had several assistants, but he rotated through to teach every class at least once a week.

“You’ve done this before,” he said, after he nodded a greeting to them. “Pick a partner and warm up for a bit, and then we’re going to have a general melee. Last one standing gets a drink on me.”

There were a few cheers at that, and the Armsmaster grinned; then he gestured for them to begin. “Get to work. Drinking later.”

Allen faced off against Senior Lieutenant Relin, dressed in standard armor, who had been standing closest to him. They’d sparred many times before. Relin was one of the officers permanently assigned to the palace, and he sometimes doubled as an assistant for the supply classes. Allen had worked with him very briefly before he’d been assigned to Felim’s office.

“Afternoon, Relin.” Allen said as he saluted him.

“Not a good one though.” Relin frowned as he saluted him in turn. “Something’s in the air today and it has the whole palace jumping.” He moved into a guard position and began to circle to Allen’s left.

How quickly could word travel in the castle, Allen wondered. Surely rumors about Thaesil at lunch hadn’t started already.

“Any idea of what?” Allen ignored a feint to his right, parried the following overhead strike and slid Relin’s blade off to the side. He kept turning to keep Relin in view.

“Not sure. Something about the South. You can bet the increase of the new legions are going to be stepped up.”

That eased his mind a bit, but it was still early. “You think Karn is going to advance through the Kestrel?” The Kestrel Pass cut through a barrier mountain range that divided the north and south and served as the major point of conflict for the two nations. Each nation held one side, and the traditional first act of war was to try and grab the other. His blade rose above Relin’s head, trying to draw his blade up and out of line, and then swooped down to strike at the lieutenant’s shoulder. Relin missed the parry but managed to dodge out of the way.

“I haven’t heard anything about it, but I’d say it’s more to do with treaties and trade. War might come from it; it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s not there yet though.” He closed and slammed his shield into Allen’s, trying to knock the kite shield out of line.

Allen shifted into the blow, spun on his foot, and used Relin’s momentum to toss him off to the side. Relin was already moving out of range, but he tagged him with his falchion just enough to make his armor ring.

“Good. It’s too hot down there to fight.”

“Hah, you just like the women better in the north.” Relin recovered and darted in again, this time leaving a slash along Allen’s shield before he returned to circling.

“Unlike you, I don’t see the attraction to the women in the south. Dark hair, mysterious…. No, give me an honest one anytime.” He took a slash against his bracer as he closed and used his hilt to hammer at Relin’s head.

“It’s the charm, the grace…. Danger and all that too. I bet they’re wildcats in bed.”

Allen snorted. “There are real wildcats in the far north you know, great white ones.”

“Ahh, but not so nice to sleep with.” Relin retreated from a strike and returned one, which Allen parried.

“Point. But I wouldn’t trust the women in the south not to have claws of their own. Poison and deceit are art forms down there.” He parried and delivered a kick to Relin’s stomach that earned him a grunt.

“Ahh, but it’d be worth it. One night of fire. What a way to go out.”

“Break!” the Master at Arms shouted. “You mangy dogs are all out of shape. I won’t need to buy any beers tonight, since you’ll all collapse of exhaustion halfway through the melee!”

Relin grinned. “I like it when he shows up. His assistants are boring.”

“So they are, but good at what they do. They just don’t have as much fun.”

The lieutenants broke into two sections for the melee. Allen knew the names of all of them, and had worked with a couple, but they were either new lieutenants or assigned specifically to the capital. None of them had been on patrol with him, and he hadn’t spoken to most of them outside of the class. Kilin probably knew their life details, but Allen didn’t find it easy to talk to most people outside of work. He’d lost the habit of small talk after he’d arrived in Rylar. It had been easier on the ship, when he had really known everyone, and the casual stresses between the crew and the ship’s guards had been a source of jokes.

The newer lieutenants were likely to go to the 9th, 11th, or 17th Legion, but not until they’d had a tour on patrol somewhere. If they ended up on duty with him, he promised himself he’d make the effort to find out more about them.

“If you receive a strike that would have killed you without armor,” the Master at Arms said, “Fall down, play dead, and don’t stand up again until I say to. That’s the only rule. Feel free to grab feet and try to trip the ones are still standing. We’re going to make this fun. I don’t want to hear any whining if you get stepped on; that’s the way this works. You should have done better.”

“The rest of you,” he continued, “Make sure to step on them to remind them that they should still be alive. Learn to fight on a cluttered battlefield. Now, you’re in two teams, but that doesn’t mean anything except that I can only count to two. Feel free to surprise and betray the guard next to you; it’s a general melee. But I like to call it ‘a good start.’ On my mark.”

“Fight!”

The two groups rushed at each other across the courtyard, and bodies slammed into bodies and shields. There was no disciplined shield wall here like the guards would have usually fought in, just a full-out attack. Names and faces were lost in it.

Allen slammed himself against the figure in front of him, slammed his hilt into the guard’s head, and turned before he could see him drop. A sword slammed against his ribs and he tried to turn with it, but it left him gasping.

He turned in the direction of the blow and locked his shield around the edge of the guard’s, jerked with all his strength to drag it to the side, and stabbed behind it as soon as he had an opening.

He kicked the guard in the side as he turned back to the front, took a blow on his shield, parried another, was smashed against the guard in front of him, and so slammed his forehead into the helmet there since the guard was too close for anything else.

He saw stars for a moment, but went with it. Then his knees were kicked out from under him, and he fell against another guard and grabbed on, punching him in the ribs to distract him as he hauled himself back up.

A sword rang against his helmet and he winced. Then he complied with the Master’s orders and fell to the ground, where he rolled around kicking at knees and grabbing ankles. Most of the guard was down already; he had been one of the later ones. The last few went down under the number of hands and feet attacking them from the ground.

The Master’s laughter rang out above the crowd of fallen lieutenants. “I love this exercise! Get up you lazy bastards and do it again! I owe Jazik a beer!”

The melee continued for the rest of the class until every one of lieutenants was injured and thoroughly exhausted, some were unconscious, and the Master at Arms owed ten of them a beer, sometimes multiple beers. Korel and Perine had four each. He, Peale, Miera, and Relin had two.

“All right,” the Master at Arms finally called. “Drag the unconscious ones to the healer’s and let them sleep it off. Strip the armor off them. Then see the healers yourselves and get off to whatever other class you have.”

Allen helped to drag the unconscious Relin, for whom it had gone badly in the last round, into the healer’s area, which was next door to the training rooms. The man would be fine; his armor had prevented major damage. He left him in the care of the healer, waved away the healer who stopped to check him, and returned to the training salle, where he racked his arms and stripped off his armor before he set about healing himself. The priests and priestesses of Anya were excellent healers. Their devotion to the goddess gave them insight into wounds of all kinds and some ability to heal them through prayer, and they were well-trained in herbs and bandages. But one side-effect of being marked it seemed, was that he could take care of minor injuries himself. He relaxed into the flows of blood and heat within himself and felt the rippling energy of his limbs and arteries, the pulsing core of his heart drumming a beat that filled his mind and world, the spark and release of each muscle. He found the bruises and disrupted pathways in his blood, the broken conduits that swelled where hot blood gathered, and he reached towards the pool of energy that lay somewhere deep in the center of his being and let some of it pour forth in waves that washed through him until his bruises and wounds twisted themselves back into their original shape, leaving no mark on his body.

When it was finished, he stretched his newly healed muscles and felt his skin pull taut and whole where it had been damaged. On most days there were not many injuries in the class and they focused on perfecting their technique and stamina, but the Master at Arms had livened things up today.

A table in the corner held cold food to replace the energy the Guards used in training and needed after healing, and Allen and the others helped themselves to it. Logistics and tactics was next. The melee had driven thoughts out of his head for a while, but now that it was over he worried about the consequences of insulting Thaesil.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm and is filed under A Northern Heart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.