Steel And Flame (Book 1) (26 page)

He tossed the blade to Orbier who, surprised by the
move, fumbled with it before tightening his grasp on the hilt.  Mylor stood
oblivious to the gaze leveled on him while he spoke to Orbier directly.

“Show me how you attack with that chicken killer
there.  I’ll show the crowd how to defend against it.”

Whether it was the rude reference or the implication
Orbier’s skills were nothing to his own, Mylor offended the man to the point of
not needing to ask twice.  Probably that had been his intention.

Orbier struck with a horizontal slash that Mylor
easily saw coming.  He blocked with the demonstration sword, then slid the
blade quickly up before Orbier could recover.  Mylor turned the sword hard so
his opponent’s blade caught between his own and the curved guard.  Angry,
Orbier jerked his blade.  Only a few inches pulled backward.  With a sidestep
and a harder yank, he retrieved his blade.

He prepared to retaliate when Mylor halted him with a
raised hand.  “As you can see, the curved guard really does add an advantage to
a group fight.  It doesn’t hold the opponent’s blade for long but if you can
trap it for a few moments in battle, he is defenseless and one of your unit
mates can deliver a fatal blow.  In a one-on-one, as here, you can hold the
blade, but unless you have a secondary weapon in your other hand, like a
dagger, it doesn’t do much good, does it?  And in case you were thinking you
might lift a foot and stomp your enemy in the nuts, think again.  The instant
you shifted your weight, the strength trapping your enemy’s blade will be
gone.  It’s not smart to be fighting one-on-one and suddenly be standing on
just one leg after he frees his sword.  Now, come at me again.”

The morning lessons continued until the noon bell
rang.  Orbier showed the skill that had gained him entrance to the band, but
Mylor obviously possessed far superior abilities and demonstrated many other
maneuvers to showcase the sword’s strengths and weaknesses.  Once he finished
with the one-handed short sword he displayed other blades of similar type.

“There are minor differences in width and length, grip
and guard, but at heart, the differences don’t matter much,” he said.  “Learn
one well and you can handle most the others.  The guards are what you really
need to be most aware of, and the points.  Those are what most amateurs pay no
attention to.”

He let them return to their barracks for lunch with
the admonition to return in a candlemark or not return at all.

*        *        *        *        *

 Marik and Dietrik retreated to the Ninth’s barracks
along with their few fellow D Class squad members.  They had dined in a tavern
on the Row with Hayden last night.  This would be their first experience with
barracks food.  Baskets with bread, hardboiled eggs and small cheese blocks had
been sitting on the tables that morning.  Bread and cheese hardly reflected the
quality of a kitchen’s culinary expertise.

Most tables in the dining area bore one or two men. 
Nowhere near as many as Marik would have thought.  Perhaps twenty men in all. 
Each table held pitchers filled with different drinks.  Once he had retrieved
his plate, bowl and tin cup from his closet, he returned with Dietrik to the
window between the mess area and the kitchen.

On the other side, two large pots containing a red
substance rested on a counter beside a sizable basket covered by a white
cloth.  Two men ahead finished and left for their tables before Marik could
determine the fare.

A dark olive-skinned man in the kitchen held out his
hand for their utensils without saying a word.  Onto Marik’s plate he scooped
inch-long meat strips in a red sauce with white swirls.  The bowl received a
mixture of cooked vegetables and two lumpy bread rolls from the basket were
dropped on top.  Under an Olander accent so thick Marik could barely
understand, the man asked, “Watte or shuse?”

Marik struggled for a moment before figuring it out. 
“Water.”

He filled Marik’s cup from his own bevy of pitchers,
then loaded Dietrik’s plate and bowl.  “I think I’ll try a smattering of that
juice, if you don’t mind.”

They found a table empty except for a man at the other
end they did not recognize.  Marik studied the concoction before him and
ventured, “Well, it doesn’t
smell
bad.”

“No, it smells rather delectable, in fact.”

Marik dipped his spoon into the meat dish.  He brought
the mixture to his mouth…then smiled.

“Hey, that’s pretty good.  It’s pork strips, in a kind
of tomato sauce I think.”  He tasted the white swirls.  “And some kind a cheese
too.”

Dietrik nodded after tasting his own.  “Very good.  I
wasn’t expecting much.”

“I’ve always heard stories about the food in the
army.”

“I assure you that it managed to live down to every
tale ever told.  This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I suppose it gets worse out on the road though.”

“Most likely that’s an accurate forecast.  Still, the
Kings must make a bloody fortune to afford this kind of food on a daily basis.”

“Probably, but the dish seems a simple one.  The real
difference is probably the cooks.”

“Hmm.  Let’s ask Hayden about it the next time we
cross paths with the fellow.”

The rolls also turned out to have cheese cooked into
them, though a yellow type instead of the white in the pork dish.  The
vegetables were fresh, if from the last crops.  All in all, it proved to be a
better meal than Marik had eaten in quite awhile.  He sipped his water and
asked Dietrik how the juice tasted.

“Interesting,” he replied.  “It’s tart, but not sour
at all.  I’ve never encountered it before.  It must be local.  I believe it’s a
berry juice.”

“Probably the berry is all we can get now that most of
the fruit crops are over.”

“It’s not bad.  I think I like it.”  He reached for a
pitcher placed in the table’s center and refilled his cup.  “Definitely not bad
at all.”

“I’ll stick to water.”

They took their dishes to a set of large water basins
next to the kitchen window.  The pair rinsed the dishes and dried them with a
rag left there for the purpose.  After stowing them in their closets, they
hurried back to the training hall.

*        *        *        *        *

“Before we go to the next sword, I want you to keep a
fact in mind.  I’m saving most of the technique and method for after the
displays, but I want you clear on this one point before we go any farther.

“No matter what weapon you’re using or defending
against, there are only nine different types of attack.  High and mighty
fighting masters pass their styles on to apprentices, especially among the
upper classes, but no matter how fancy the technique is, all the attacks are
one of the following nine.  First, North.”

Mylor raised the short sword and struck from above, as
if crushing the head of an invisible foe.

“Northeast.”

He slashed at an angle from his right diagonally
downward.

“East.”

A horizontal slash this time from right to left,
stopping the blow where an opponent would have stood.

“Southeast.  South.”

This last formed a strike upward from below that would
have ended the possibility of his enemy siring any children.

“Southwest. West.  Northwest.  And Point.”  With the
last, he thrust the blade forward to skewer his imaginary foe through the
chest.

“On a bloody field or in the civilized fencing duels
of the aristocracy, any attack is, at heart, one of these nine.  Any technique
you ever encounter, disregarding speed and accuracy, is one of these nine.  Any
weapon you ever see will use one of these nine.  A fancy technique’s power only
stems from how it combines these simple attacks to fool an enemy into lowering
his guard in a specific area.  My only advice for your next few months of
training is to master these nine attacks, then once you have done that, work on
increasing your speed, accuracy and strength.

“So, moving on.  The next sword type we’ll examine are
the hand-and-a-half blades.  On the whole, the uses are the same as the
one-handed swords but with a few significant differences.  Braydon?”

The assistant handed Mylor the larger sword.  He took
the short sword and stowed it back in the cart.

For the rest of the day Mylor spoke about longer
swords, slowing only to humiliate several reluctant volunteers.  Around him,
men were restless and kept glancing out the door, hoping the day had passed
faster than it seemed within this wooden box of a room, but not Marik.  To him,
time flew on silver wings.  When the twilight bell sounded he needed to peer
through the open doors before he could believe it.  Mylor sent them back to
their barracks, his surly attitude harsher than ever as his battle instincts
were choked into submission.

“Dawn!  Anyone late is late for good!”

This time the dining area nearly burst to overflowing
when they entered, looking forward to the next meal if it turned out to be as
delicious as the last.  It not only turned out to be as delicious as the last,
it turned out to
be
the last meal, the pork in red sauce making an
encore appearance.

After questioning others at their table, they learned
that the kitchen cooked the main dish for the day in the afternoon and kept it
warm until evening.  The bread and vegetables were freshly made for supper, and
the meat remained as tasty, having toughened none at all despite the marks it
sat in the cook pot.  Marik and Dietrik hardly minded the repetition of such
delicious fare.  Most squad members, aware of the routine, chose to have either
lunch or dinner in the barracks, taking their other meal in a tavern along Ale
House Row.

“Lunch is cheaper, so I saved the extra metal for ale
tonight!”  This comment emitted from a large, muscular man wedged beside Marik
with food dried into his beard.  Marik had missed the man’s name and tried not
to look at him while he brayed laughter, spitting food chunks from his mouth as
he did so.

Oddly, considering he spent the day sitting on a mat,
Marik found himself exhausted.  He thought he ought not to be so tired as he
stored his eating utensils.

“It’s all that mental exercise, mate.  You shouldn’t
work an underdeveloped muscle that hard without a good warm up first!”

“Thanks.”

He turned his back on the grinning Dietrik to fall
like a man shot by an arrow onto his cot.  Marik only had long enough to wonder
if Mylor would leave him any time at all to track down Maddock and the others
before succumbing to a deep sleep.

*        *        *        *        *

Nyla reappeared the next morning.  She seemed content
to sit in a small office with the door open, listening to Mylor’s
presentation.  Today they began with the giant two-handed swords nearly tall as
Mylor himself.  Marik listened as attentively as the previous day, except this
time he discovered nothing he had not already learned from Maddock and Chatham
on the road.

Mylor’s opinion of anyone who chose such a blade as
their primary weapon ran low.  As he put it, “There are only two real uses for
these monsters.  Running up and cutting off the spear heads of an enemy line
with your unit defending you, or taking on a mounted enemy.  This cludge is too
big and far too damned heavy to swing quickly and leaves you wide open,
inviting death.  The leather wrap on the blade immediately fore of the hilt is
called a ricasso.  Its purpose is to provide a shorter grip.  Once the spear
heads are all hacked off, you adjust your grip like so, with one hand on the
ricasso and the other on the hilt.  That let’s you wield the monster like an
awkward hand-an-a-half until you retreat far enough that you can switch to an
actual combat sword.”

After scorning the weapon with his vitriolic derision,
he effectively brought down three ‘volunteers’ with it.  A short break later
they reassembled to begin interesting discussions on rapiers, made all the more
so since Nyla took over while Mylor claimed her seat in the office.

“None of you men carry a rapier.”  She paused for a
moment, leaving the men to wonder if that had been a statement or some sort of
obscure question.  “A rapier is not a very effective field blade.  It’s favored
by the privileged classes more than us deprived serfs, so we don’t encounter
them often.  We only bring it up because you might encounter them in specific
circumstances.

“For most contracts, at least one unit is sent, and
most times multiple units are assigned.  Hardly ever is a fighting force
smaller than a unit sent, but it does happen.  Most of the time it’s for
bodyguard duties, in which case a unit suffering from heavy casualties is
usually assigned until the new recruits arrive.  This last summer, units were
broken up and assigned to the nobility’s sons who competed in the Arm of
Galemar tournament; nobles who needed extra men and were willing to pay our
fees.

“If you ever pull duty like that, the blades carried
by those around you will likely be rapiers of one variety or another.  Braydon
has a few for you lasses to play with.”