He really did not expect to see Lena again, despite offering to become her friend. It was one thing for her to have flung herself on the mercy of a strange Trainee when she was so distraught. It was quite another for her to actually seek him out and take him up on that offer.
So he went on to his riding practice and weapons practice without giving much thought to her.
He had found over the last couple of days, somewhat to his own amazement, that he liked both. More than that, he was getting good at both.
Riding, well, that was all because, for the first time in his life, he felt in control of something. And powerful. Up there on Dallen’s back, he wasn’t puny little Mags anymore. And there was the whole sense of freedom he got when Dallen really cut loose and ran or jumped. Their mental link was so strong that he was able to anticipate Dallen’s every move and move with the Companion to the point where it sometimes felt to him as if they were one creature. He could scarcely remember now how frightened he’d been, perched uneasily on Dallen’s back a few sennights ago. Now, well, he might as well have been sewn to Dallen’s saddle, and Dallen had taken to more than just simple running and jumping the past couple of sessions. The Companion called these acrobatic exercises “battlefield moves,” and Mags could see where they would come in handy if a lot of people with sharp things in their hands came at you to do you wrong.
Today was like that. Half a dozen of the Guards had been borrowed from the barracks (and Mags suspected, bribed with the promise of drink) and were standing in for enemy fighters. Each of them in turn was set upon by fellows with blunt wooden swords, with ropes, with spear-poles with heavy wads of rag and wool tied to the end, and one man with a very long pole with a padded hook on the end. The object was for Companion and Chosen to hold them off for one turn of a very small glass. This was not as easy as it sounded.
These men knew Companions and warhorses both, and knew what they could do. The first three Trainees that were set upon lost their seats and were dragged down out of the saddle before half the sand had run out. Then it had been Mags’ turn.
By then, he and Dallen had had more than enough time settle into that peculiar merging of minds that left them so aware of each other that the rope around Dallen’s hock might is as well have been around Mags’ ankle. When the six Guardsmen popped up out of “ambush” to take them, the two of them were ready to show what real riding was all about.
Dallen leaped almost straight up into the air, lashing out with his hind hooves as he did so. The men behind them threw themselves to the ground to avoid those hooves, even though Dallen was in no danger of hurting them.
Landing on all four hooves, Dallen spun in a circle, pivoting on his hind feet, snapping at the Guards as Mags flailed the air above their heads with his own wooden sword.
As they scrambled out of the way, Dallen caught sight of the man with the hook. Rearing up on his hind legs, he “hopped” forward, lashing out with his forehooves viciously, aiming for that man alone of the dozen. Unnerved, he dropped the hook and dropped to the ground. Since that was exactly what Mags and Dallen had been waiting for, the two of them soared over his body in a huge jump, whirled again, then bolted for the open spaces of Companion’s Field. They didn’t return until they were well and truly sure the sands had run out.
As they ambled back, finally, they could see the Guardsmen making short work of another Trainee. The Herald who was in charge of the instruction gave them a brief glance and an approving nod, then waited for the unseated Trainee to pick himself up out of the snowbank he’d been tossed into.
“People,” the Herald said, with just a hint of impatient his voice, “Show some sense. This is not an exercise in fighting back, it’s an exercise in escaping. Stop trying to prove you can out-fight any six attackers, and do what those two did.” His eyebrow rose. “So far they’re the only ones of the lot of you that beat the turn of the glass.”
Mags felt a flush of accomplishment, and Dallen tossed head and arched his neck a little. Then the Herald sent them to do the jumping course before they could bask in the envy of the others, and at that point they became much too busy to think about anything else.
Mags gave Dallen a good rubdown and turned him loose when the time for weapons training came around. Dallen trotted off with his tail flagged proudly, presumably to take in the congratulations of the others, while Mags shouldered the burden of his practice arms and armor and trudged off to the salle.
His growing expertise with weapons was more of a shock than his aptitude for riding. The revelation that he had a knack for such things literally came out of the blue. When he had been beating on that padded pole for a few days, the instructor had looked him over, then, without any warning at all, had picked up a stick of his own and come after him. Startled, Mags had held onto his stick and scrambled out of the way. And somehow, blocked the teacher’s blows. He had been graced with a grim smile and a nod of approval, and suddenly the stick was taken from him, a hilt shoved at him, and before he knew it, he had found himself with a practice sword in hand.
He had frozen then, every memory of every person who had ever been punished at the mine for daring to even raise a hand in self-defense flooding to the fore.
But the instructor had no intention of letting him stay that way.
“Here! Euston!” the Herald had called. “This lad has the parterns down, so come show him how the patterns become fighting!”
A young man with bright red hair, dressed in the Bardic Trainee rust, disengaged from his current practice partner and came straight over to Mags. Without saying a single word, he simply saluted Mags with the “blade,” and launched straight into an attack.
Mags reacted without thinking, getting his guard up in time and deflecting the blows. Before he knew it, he was bouting with the Bardic Trainee, a boy who gave no quarter, nor asked for any, and he was too busy defending himself to think about how it was all wrong to be holding, and using, a weapon.
Maybe the fact that he himself had never been punished for using anything weaponlike was the reason why this fear broke down so quickly. After all, he had never even given the Pieters boys so much as a threatening look. But as he got used to the feel of the thing in his hand, those fears and inhibitions melted away. Having a weapon made him feel as powerful as being on Dallen’s back. Being able to use it made him feel more confident that no one would be able to treat him as Master Cole had, ever again.
And his aptitude for weapons work was no more of an illusion than his aptitude for riding. His body seemed to have a better memory for things than his mind; he only had to be shown something once to be able to do it himself. It felt like a kind of magic, but the Weaponsmaster said that it was just a natural thing that some people had. It certainly explained why he had been so skilled at harvesting sparklies.
Today the Weaponsmaster took him aside and actually put him to drilling some of the others at his old friend, the padded pole, which he now knew was called a “pells.” And the two he was asked to help were—Beren and Lyr. The poor fellows were as clumsy with their wooden batons as a pair of puppies. Mags felt horribly sorry for them, for they were clearly feeling terribly humiliated, and he did his earnest best to get then sorted out.