Natural Ordermage (25 page)

“Enough!” Zastryl shook his head. “You know more than enough about the staff and truncheon, and trying to teach you more is getting too hard on these old bones of mine.” He rubbed his hand. “Now, you’re going to get to the painful part of your arms training. You’re going to learn to use a blade, or blades. The sabre, the falchiona, and a blade like that one.” He nodded toward the blade on the floor. “You won’t be as good, and it will be painful to use them, but you need to know something about them.”

Rahl wondered if Zastryl just wanted him to suffer a little.

But then, he really couldn’t complain. For the past two eightdays Zastryl had been working hard to help Rahl perfect his abilities with the staff and truncheon, just as Magister Thorl had been inundating him with words and information about Hamor, both in the mornings and evenings.

What he didn’t understand was why everyone was willing to spend so much time and effort preparing him for exile and yet why no one had expended a fraction of that effort in trying to teach him what would have prevented him from making the mistakes that had led to his sentence of exile.

Zastryl walked over and picked up the blade.

“Magister Zastryl!” The loud call came from the naval marine, Khaesyn, who had often been at the training hall:

“Yes, Khaesyn?” Zastryl bent and picked up the blade.

“How come you don’t let Pretty Boy spar with anyone except you, Magister Zastryl?” Khaesyn made the title sound like an expletive. “Don’t you think he needs some variety?” The marine swaggered across the stone floor toward the armsmaster. The other marine followed. Both were smiling broadly. ,

Zastryl glanced to the muscular blond man, then shrugged. “I take it that you wish to provide that variety?”

“Well… me or Stendyl here.”

“You want to use staff or truncheon?”

“Why not blades against his staff?”

“You need the work with the truncheon,” Zastryl said dryly. “After you try the truncheon, if you still want to, you can try the blade.”

“That a promise, Magister Zastryl?”

“So long as no one gets hurt first.”

Khaesyn grinned. “You got to keep Pretty Boy in one piece so you can deliver him to the merchants, that it?”

“Something like that.”

Rahl could sense two strong emotions from Zastryl— both amusement and distaste of the marine. Neither were reflected in the armsmaster’s voice.

Zastryl tossed a truncheon to Rahl and one to Khaesyn. Rahl caught his. one-handed, then extended the staff to the armsmaster.

“Only to disarming or to surrender,” Zastryl declared.

“That’ll save someone,” muttered Stendyl.

Khaesyn just grinned. “You about ready, Pretty Boy?”

Rahl dropped into the sense of being just where he was, all senses focused on Khaesyn.

Khaesyn’s first move was a feint, and Rahl eased to one side, slightly, just enough not to reveal he knew it was a feint.

Then came a slash thrust, one that Rahl evaded, sensing the possible trap.

“Don’t fight by running,” taunted the marine.

Rahl said nothing, instead offering a lightning jab to the marine’s free forearm, and pivoting away.

The bigger man charged clearly willing to take a hit, as he brought a cut-slash that would have snapped bones had it struck.

Rahl slipped it.

The blond’s arm was overextended, and he-was off-balance, with all his weight on this right foot. Rahl could have snapped his knee, but instead he pivoted and yanked Khaesyn’s tunic, .driving the bigger man into the padded mat face-first, then jumping back.

A laughing titter came from somewhere, then cut off abruptly.

Khaesyn jumped to his feet and circled toward Rahl. “Little dancer… dancing doesn’t win.”

The marine jabbed again, and Rahl avoided the jab and delivered a slamming blow across the side of Khaesyn’s hand, so that the blond’s truncheon took some of the force. Khaesyn’s truncheon dropped to the mat, and he looked at Rahl, who had stood back but not lowered his truncheon.

Then Khaesyn grabbed his weapon.

“Enough!” snapped Zastryl.

“I was just getting started,” bellowed Khaesyn.

“You were just getting started on the way to getting yourself permanently maimed or killed. Perhaps you didn’t notice, Khaesyn, but you never touched Rahl. At one point, he considered breaking your leg, but only put you on the mat. If you keep trying to kill him, at some point you’re going to get hurt very badly. You might even get killed.”

Rahl noticed how the magister used a touch of order to emphasize the last few words, enough so that Khaesyn finally shook his head.

The two marines turned.

“Wouldn’t last a moment on a deck… can’t dance like that…”

Rahl lowered the truncheon and waited. “He’s right about that, you know,” said Zastryl. “Yes, sir, but I wouldn’t have waited in that kind of fight.”

“I didn’t think you would.” Zastryl paused, then frowned before speaking again. “I have a question for you,

Rahl. It’s one I don’t want you to answer. In fact, I forbid you to answer me. I just want you to consider it.“

“Yes, ser.”

“You clearly respect me. Just as clearly, you do not respect most of the other magisters. Why is that so? I’d like you to think that over.”

Rahl pondered the question.

Why had Zastryl asked the question? Was it that clear that Rahl respected Zastryl? But why did he respect the armsmaster? Because Zastryl didn’t hide behind words? Or didn patronize Rahl?

“Not now,” said Zastryl with a laugh. “We need to start you with a blade. That’s going to be much, much more difficult, and you’ll have a much harder time using it against someone like Khaesyn.”

But why would Rahl have to? He could carry a truncheon anyplace he could carry a blade.

“Because,” Zastryl answered the unasked question, “you may well be someplace where the only weapon is one you can take from someone else, and that is most likely to be a blade. In weapons, as in many things in life, we don’t always get the choices we want.”

That was becoming increasingly clear, Rahl admitted. He didn’t have to like it, though.

After the midday meal on sevenday, Rahl took a nap, then washed up and headed down the long road to the harbor. He was looking forward to the evening because Magister Thorl had invited him to the evening meal—it was dinner in Hamor, not supper—at a harbor eatery that served Hamorian food. While Rahl had avoided the harbor for a time, even after that, he had never really properly explored the area around it, and now he did finally have a few coppers to his name, not that he intended to spend them. Some few were to go to send the letter to his parents that he had yet to write, and the rest were for what he might need in Hamor.

After walking a few hundred cubits downhill, Rahl took a wider road on the right, one that seemed less traveled for  all its width.

Shortly, he arrived at a small park, square in shape. Low trimmed hedges, no higher than midthigh, formed an outer wall. Almost hidden within the hedge were tiny yellow and orange flowers. Stone walks circled through the grassy area within the hedges, and carefully trimmed evergreens, with soft and bushy long needles, were set almost at random within the space, but somewhere near each of the evergreens was a stone bench.

At the west end, where there was one of the larger grassy spaces, five children played hoop tag. After watching the game briefly, Rahl crossed the park and took the street nearest the southwest corner, which looked to run close to the western end of the harbor. Instead of the haze that usually blurred the western piers, where the-black ships were moored, he thought he saw almost a light shadow. He glanced skyward, but there were no clouds that could have cast such a shadow.

The black-stone houses along the street seemed far older than those along the more traveled main route to the harbor, and several, neat and well kept as they were, looked old enough to have dated back to Nylan’s early days. One bore a brass plaque, but Rahl would have felt strange crossing the street just to read what it said.

Just above the harbor, he came to a walled area where the street he had followed ended at another street perpendicular to it. The wall rose at the edge of that street’s sidewalk. All Rahl could see above the wall were three long slate roofs. There was no gate in the northern section of the wall, which stretched almost half a kay to his left and right. ,

Rahl turned west, walking a good three hundred cubits before coming to another street that ran southward to the harbor. Small neat stone dwellings stood side by side, separated by only narrow gardens, on the west side of the street, opposite the wall. Belatedly, he realized that the wall enclosed the engineering hall and its outbuildings.

When he reached the end of the wall, he looked eastward, then nodded. A large gate stood in the middle of the southern wall. He decided against walking back to view the gate, because just ahead, past a cluster of workshops, he could see what looked to be a harbor wall and the vague outline of piers beyond.

As he passed the closed doors of the workshops, still smelling of hot oils, metal, and even sawdust, he could see that the street he followed also ended at a black-stone wall. Several hundred cubits to his right, at the intersection of the street in front of the wall with another street was a guard post. It stood in front of the open iron gate manned by two soldiers or marines in black uniforms.

Since Rahl couldn’t see the piers or through the gate from where he was, he turned and began to walk westward. The closer he got to the gate, the more puzzled he was because the guards bore strange-looking weapons. Were they rifles? Why would anyone bear a rifle when loading one of the clumsy weapons was slow and when even the hint of chaos would cause gunpowder to explode?

He frowned. The large barrels were of black iron. Would that contain chaos? Still, the barrel seemed too large for a rifle. In addition to the weapon each guard bore, there were racks beside them that held similar weapons.

He refrained from shaking his head, but he couldn’t help but wonder what the weapons were if they weren’t rifles. He glanced through the gate but managed to keep walking. Afternoon sunlight fell on the piers, and yet there was a shadow of some sort—an order shadow!

Rahl had to remind himself not to use any active order investigation. He definitely wasn’t ready to go to Hamor. Even so, he could sense the solidity of several vessels at the piers, although he could not see them with his eyes— clearly some sort of black magery. He wished he dared explore that, but shook his head. Not now.

Ahead of him was another black-stone wall.

He shrugged and turned, walking steadily, but not hurriedly, back eastward, staying on the sidewalk across the street from the guards. He could feel their eyes on him, but he did not hesitate. Before long, the wall to his right made a right angle into the harbor. He glanced at it, but since it ran well into the water, he could not see the vessels tied at the piers.

He had no doubt that they were the feared black ships, but why did they need to be hidden? Especially in Nylan? Was that because so many vessels visited Nylan and because it would be easier to study them closely when they were moored? Or was it to add to their mystique?

Rahl laughed silently. So much for seeing the black ships.

There was a wide expanse of water, a good half kay, if not more, between the walled mooring of the-black ships and the next set of harbor piers. Only a small fishing boat was moored on the west side of the first pier, clearly battened down and empty. On the east side was a larger schooner, and crewmen were carrying crates of. fish to a wagon on the pier.

Rahl didn’t want to see any more of the piers, not for the moment. He turned to his left, away from the water, at the next lane, immediately, he found himself walking up between the small shops that lined both sides of the way. The first offered scarves of all sorts, in more shades and colors than he could have dreamed possible.

The next held leather goods—vests, belts, scabbards, sturdy belt wallets, and even small decorative leather boxes, some of them gilded. Then came a shop filled with decorative brasswork.

Rahl took his time, looking, because that was all he could do with his limited coins. Even so, he had far from explored more than a few square blocks around the harbor, or so it seemed, looking through shops, then going to the seawall and taking in vessels from Hamor and Candar, as well as from Nordla and Austra, and viewing more goods in more shops, before he realized it was getting close to the evening bell, when he was to meet Magister Thorl.

He didn’t know exactly where he was, but he recalled the directions that the magister had given him, based on starting at the market square. He had to walk quickly, but it wasn’t that far, he discovered, and he reached the bright green-and-yellow awning of the eatery that was less than two blocks from the market square before the magister did.

At least, he didn’t see Thorl when he stepped inside.

A slender graying man dressed in spotless khaki trousers and shirt, with a crimson vest edged in silver thread, turned to Rahl and offered an apologetic smile. “You wish a table, ser? I fear that we cannot…”