Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (13 page)

But it was the first two that held Alberich's attention.

:Arrogant in some ways, because they're ignorant and don't know it,:
he supplied.

At least he wouldn't have the problem with these boys that he often had with recruits—bad attitude, bad breeding, either spoiled by indulgent parents and thinking that everything should be given to them, or beaten as youngsters, figuring it was every man for himself. Too many of the Sunsguard troops were like that; hardened, with no morals to speak of.

:Why, Chosen—I believe you are beginning to
like
your decision to stay with us!:
Kantor said with gentle mockery.

Alberich ignored him.

“I Alberich am,” he said gravely, and waited for Dethor to give him his direction. Dethor, after all, was the Weaponsmaster here; it was Dethor who should set the lessons, and Alberich who should carry them out.

He didn't notice any reaction to his name, which was nothing like a Valdemaran name, or at least, so he supposed.

“It is the new Weapons Second I am,” he continued, meeting their eyes, each in turn. “Chosen by Master Dethor. Himself. Who now, direct us will.”

Dethor quickly divided the group into pairs and set them working with each other. Interestingly, he paired the girls, not with each other, but with two of the brown-haired boys. The last two—the boys Alberich had marked as being a possible source of trouble—Dethor motioned to join Alberich.

“Sword and shield, and make them work, Alberich,” he said shortly. “These lads are ahead of the rest by a bit; treat them as trained, because they are. They can go two-on-one against you.”

The boys exchanged a look; the darker, more muscular one with a touch of smug glee, the other, (the one who was taller, less blocky, and brown-haired) with a look of dawning misgiving, which was replaced by anticipation when he saw the expression on his friend's face. His friend was wildly optimistic about their chances, and he had come to trust his friend's judgment.

Alberich knew that look of old. Overconfidence, poor young fools, because they were large dogs in a pack of small dogs, and had never been shown any better. They thought that they were the kings of the world, and immortal. An attitude like that would get them killed—

“Sir,” Alberich acknowledged, and picked up a practice sword and shield from the piles at the side of the salle, while the boys did the same. They looked cocky. Alberich figured that they must have had sword training from the time they were barely old enough to hold a practice sword and shield. Five or six, maybe. From families of wealth or the nobility, he figured these were part of that “flock” of youngsters that Kantor had described; they had that particular healthy, confident, well-fed look that only
being
well-nourished from infancy imparted. Maybe only someone who as a child had never been certain whether there would be a next meal would have noticed the difference, but Alberich had learned early which were the well-fed children (and thus, dangerous, for they could bully him with impunity) and which the starvelings like himself (which he could defend himself against without fear of retribution).

“Standard or—special, sir?” he asked Dethor, when the boys had finished arming themselves.
He
had not bothered with padding, arm- or shin-guards, or even a helmet; they had prudently taken advantage of all of these. At least that showed
some
sense of self-preservation.
They
were shortly going to be very glad of every bit of that protection.

“Oh, special, Second,” Dethor replied airily—and he must have known or guessed just what Alberich meant by “special.” “Tammas and Jahan have had plenty of
standard
training. I believe it's time they learned what real field fighting is like.”

“Sir,” Alberich replied, and without a pause, whirled and laid into the nearest.

He didn't go at them as if this was a pitched battle, because he'd have taken them both out in moments. They'd been expecting the usual polite exchange of salutes, followed by a measured opening to the bout—not an attack right out of nowhere, with no warning, and that had been enough of a shock for them; he didn't need to go after them full-out.

And the way they reacted was telling; they both stood their ground, but neither close enough to defend each other, nor far enough apart to make him work harder to reach both of them.
They
might think they were trained, but they weren't, not really. So Alberich knocked the first one's shield aside with a brutal blow that nearly knocked it from his arm, without regard for “lines” and the “rules” of swordplay. He followed it up by ramming the boy with his own shield. The lad stumbled backward, and before his friend could come to the rescue, Alberich sidestepped, made a wide, low sweep with the flat of his practice blade, and knocked his legs right out from under him. It was a good thing the boy was wearing shin-guards—though he couldn't have been expecting the low blow, or he'd have guarded against it.

He turned back toward the first as the second scrambled to his feet. Once again, Alberich rushed the boy, this time herding him toward his friend with a flurry of blows. Predictably, they got tangled up with each other, and he backed off to let them sort themselves out, though the next time he did this, he wouldn't give them the respite. Then he simply chased them around the salle for a full circuit of the place, using all the dirty tactics he knew, and hitting them just hard enough that they would have bruises to show for it, even under the padding and protection. He made their ears ring a time or two as well, with unexpected blows to the helm. Neither of them, of course, got so much as a love tap on
him.
He hadn't bothered with a helm, because he wanted to be able to see them easily; he trusted to his reflexes to keep him out of trouble. Oddly enough, he would have worn the helm and padding had they been utterly untrained, for there would be no predicting what they would do. Part of their problem now was that they were rather too well-trained. If they were going to come up against lads who'd been trained by fighting and killing, instead of by self-styled Masters of the Sword or fellows with equally fancy titles, they were going to have to unlearn some of what was now ingrained. Good habits—if all you were doing was fighting other gentlemen. But very bad if you were going out to kill brigands.

By this time he was just feeling warmed up, and beginning to enjoy himself. Not a chance that they could even get a tap on him; not only because he was a far better fighter, but because they were so shocked by his tactics that they couldn't think. They
were
shocked, the patterns they knew were all disrupted, and they hadn't yet seen that what appeared to be random attacks had patterns of their own, more primitive and brutal, but the patterns were there.

Not that fighting—in the frontline, basic, dirty fighting—had much to do with thinking. It was all muscle memory at that point, because before a mark was up, you'd be so tired that it had better be your muscles that remembered what to do—your mind would be numb with fatigue and no longer working properly. But what Alberich was doing was what any good bandit fighter would do, two-against-one. He certainly wouldn't stand in one place and slug it out, nor would he move forward and back in a single, straight line.

The other Trainees stopped their practice and watched him chase his two victims around the perimeter of the salle. They watched with their mouths hanging open in amazement, and no little shock and surprise. Dethor didn't make them go back to trading blows, so Alberich concluded that
this,
and not what they'd been assigned to do, was the real lesson today.

Good. Let them think about it. Not now—they were as shocked as his two victims—but they would remember, and talk about this in their rooms together, later. If they were smart enough, they would learn from what they watched now, and the next pair he chased around the salle would be better prepared for what he was going to do to them.

He drove the boys back for a good while, which probably felt like an eternity to
them,
taking on first one, then the other; they fought as two separate individuals rather than a pair. Another mistake, for he could hack at one long enough for the other to take heart and try something, then move on the second boy before he'd rightly got his move started. And oh, they were
not
anticipating the shrewd blows to shins, the absolutely
rude
blows to the groin. . . .

The latter he pulled, and pulled
hard;
he didn't want to lay them out, he just wanted them to know what he
could
do if he wished.

And what a bandit
would
do when they came up against him.

And if he'd wanted to lay them out—helmets or no, he'd have had them measuring their length on the floor first thing. The ringing blows he landed on their helms, he hoped, would tell them that. He used the flat of his blade on the helmets, rather than the edge, but one day, when they were better prepared to counter him. he'd use the proper weapon against a heavily armored man, the mace, against them. He'd known men to die of mace blows to the helm with blood pouring from their noses and ears. . . .

Then he feigned getting tired, though he was barely warmed up—which, since they were feeling the strain themselves, they fell for. They pushed him for a few paces right into the position he wanted them, whereupon he turned the tables on them and dashed right between the two of them, catching both of them with blows in the back as he passed. Then he ran them around the salle in the opposite direction.

They had probably thought they were fit, and by most standards, they were. They were no match for a man who had spent the last seven years fighting and riding and living hard, and years before
that
in an infinitely harder “school” than this one. Never mind the past sennights he'd been flat on his back with the Healers; he'd been in top condition before that, and since he'd been allowed up, he'd been regaining what he'd lost.

Besides, these two were nothing like a challenge.

He took pity on them when he caught the telltale signs of true exhaustion—the stumbling, the uncertain aim, the trembling hands. He backed off—and they didn't follow, they just stood there, like a pair of horses that had been run off their feet and just couldn't go another step. Their weapons hung from hands that were probably numb, and their heads drooped. In a moment, if he let them, they'd collapse on the floor where they stood.

“Enough,” said Dethor (with immense satisfaction in his voice), the moment before Alberich would have said the same. “Now this, my lads, is what I've been too creaky and gouty and damned old to do to you. You've just faced a
real
fighting man in his full fit trim, and what's more, before luncheon, he was giving one of the Guard a similar workout.
This
is what you'll be fighting, when it comes to it, my children,” he continued, raising his voice so that it carried to the rest of the salle. “This is what you'd better be ready to face when you're given your Whites. And this is why Alberich is now my Second, and it will be his job to see to it that you can stand against him before you go out in the field. Any questions?”

Silence, broken only by the panting of the two boys that Alberich had just finished with.

“Right, then. You two—” Dethor gestured at the young men. “Off with the armor, and walk laps around the salle until you're cool.
Then
you can go back to the Collegium and clean up. Not before. You walk out of my door sore, but if you walk out stiff, it won't be my fault.”

A groan issued forth from one of the helmets, but both youngsters did as they were told. Alberich almost felt sorry for them; hard luck on them to be used as examples, but they must have warranted the treatment, or Dethor wouldn't have set them up to be knocked down a peg the way he had. Alberich recalled the expressions that they had worn when the exercise began, and stopped feeling sorry for them.

“Now, Alberich—do you note, my children, that he isn't even
sweating
heavily?—take young Theela here, and show her what she's doing wrong.”

Young Theela, the girl with the short hair, looked as if she would much rather have died than have Alberich show her anything at all, but her problem of telegraphing certain overhand blows was quickly sorted, and Alberich went on to the next problem, at Dethor's direction. And while Alberich was dealing out lessons to each youngster in turn, Dethor was keeping an eye on the first two recipients of Alberich's attention, making them stop and do stretches at intervals to keep from stiffening up.

As the lesson wore on, Alberich paid attention to what Dethor did and said, and when, whether or not it was addressed to Alberich himself. Dethor was brilliant, really. Despite that Alberich was doing the hands-on work of instructing the Trainees,
he
was in control of the salle and the Trainees, there was never any doubt of that. Alberich was merely an extension of his will, precisely as a good Second
should
be. But Alberich had to admire the man, for he manipulated the youngsters and the situation flawlessly, invisible. They never even guessed they were being manipulated.

By the time the Weaponsmaster was ready to let them go, it was time for
all
of them to return to the Collegium, so if the two young men had thought they were going to get off early and sneak off to some sport or other, they were sadly disappointed.