"Besides which, I'm starting to slow down a bit," Pamela said. "Hell, I'm forty-one now, Mike, and it was a real struggle getting back into shape after the last baby. I don't think I've got much left to teach you."
Signe Larsson looked over from where she'd been practicing lunges at a leather target hanging from a timber frame, with an apprentice pulling on a rope to make it swing unpredictably. The point went home with a hard crack every time, aimed at a spot six inches behind the man-shaped rawhide cutout.
"You still beat me most matches, Pam. Mind you, I've had three babies to your pair since the Change," she said. "Granted, the twins were a twofer time-wise, but the principle's the same."
"You're twenty-seven," Pamela said. "You recover faster. I'll keep sparring with you-unlike your maniac of a husband, you're not a third again heavier than me and strong enough to bend horseshoes with your hands. Whacking great bruises distract you from the finer points of swordplay. Also childbirth's easier on you because you've got better hips for it than I do."
"You calling me wide-assed, Oh Wicked Stepmother?"
"Compared to my skinny backside and snake hips, you've got the Great Butt of China," Pamela said, grinning as she pulled off her practice helmet. "Or Sweden."
"There's Astrid, though: " Signe said, with a sly smile. "She doesn't mind sparring with Mike."
"Your younger sister is a goddamned mutant," Pam grumbled. "Some rogue virus infected her with nonhuman DNA."
The helm had a mask of thin steel rods across the face, rather than the simple nasal bar of combat gear. The face beneath it was slender like the woman's long whipcord body, olive-skinned, with a beak of a nose and large hazel eyes; sweat plastered a lock of dark brown hair with russet highlights to her forehead.
Mike Havel let one of the apprentices help him out of his armor-he could do it himself, but it was slow and awkward; putting it on was much easier, since gravity helped there. Then he stripped off the sopping gambeson and leaned back on a bench with his back against a rough board wall, a towel around his neck and a mug of cold water in one hand, feeling the heat come off him in the cool damp air like a horse steaming after a hard ride. He'd built what Pam called the Salle d'Armes in the same style as a timber-frame barn, to give the maximum open space; the high roof of the giant building was watertight, but the plank walls let in a lot of light and weather, and the floor was packed dirt-this was where the garrison and apprentices did a lot of their advanced-skill training in winter.
Bitchin' cold sometimes, too, he thought with satisfaction, fondling the ears of a hound that came over and laid her head in his lap.
"Good dog, Louhi," he added, as she slapped the ground with her tail.
There was very little point in learning to fight unless you made the training conditions as realistic as possible, and the enemy-the dirty dog-often refused to meet you at a convenient time and place. Right now the weather was good, and so most of the action was in the broad fields around the building, lit by a high, hazy blue sky; only the foot-fencing and unarmed-combat classes were inside. On the bright green grass beyond riders galloped by targets, loosing arrows from their stiff recurved bows, or using sword or lance; sometimes at rings suspended on ropes, or trying to pick wooden pegs out of the ground, or at straw figures-that served to train the horses out of their fear of charging home, too. Mock mounted combat was done under careful supervision, riders hammering at each other as the mounts circled and snapped; the training was as much for the horse as the rider.
Not far away a section of newly mustered military apprentices were starting to sweat their way towards the coveted A-list status; stretching, tumbling and running courses in weighted armor, working out with free weights or practicing stances before some tall mirrors. A dozen more staggered in from the ever-loathed cross-country run in armor and pack; that included a trip up and down the steep scarp behind Larsdalen, popularly known as "Satan's Staircase."
Havel grinned nostalgically as he listened to the distance-muffled scream of the training-cadre instructors: ": stop puking, Apprentice Latterby! You can puke on your own time! You make me want to puke, the way you'll bring disgrace on my beloved Outfit! You idle little maggots aren't home on Daddy's manor anymore! Bearkillers can fight on horseback, on foot, or while we fucking swim, and we don't get tired. The enemy gets tired and then we kill their sorry ass. Move! Move!"
It took him back-back to Parris Island, in fact; he'd managed to acquire several other graduates or Camp Pendleton alumni as part of his training staff.
It'll be interesting to see how performance goes when everyone's the product of the apprentice program. They've already lots of motivation; getting on the A-list means climbing into the top drawer. You can throw anything at these kids and they'll still kill themselves trying.
There was a damp earthy smell; pine-wood sweating tar, old sweat, horses, leather and metal; the noise was booted feet on dirt, hoof-fall from outside, the clash of metal and wood, grunts of effort-it all reminded him of a very martial health center, the sort they'd improvised in the Iraqi desert back in ninety-one, waiting for the dance to start. By now it had become homey, almost comforting.
A little stir went through the watchers as two men came in. Havel looked up, dipping another mug of water from the plastic barrel fastened to one of the Salle's posts.
"Hi, Ken," he said, nodding to his father-in-law. "Eric," to Signe's brother.
Father and son made their greetings. Eric Larsson straddled a bench, elbows on knees. He was Signe Larsson's twin and as tall as their father, several inches over six feet; broad-shouldered and long-limbed, but rangier in build than his male parent. Much like Havel, in fact, but scaled up-a tiger to the Bearkiller bossman's leopard, and with a similar smooth ease of movement. Scars showed as white lines in his short blond beard, or as seams against the tanned skin of hands and neck. When they'd met just before the Change, the younger Larsson had been a sullen jock teenager-but even then, he hadn't known the meaning of "quit."
I thought he'd turn out to be a dangerous man, Havel thought, reading the calm blue eyes. We could have used him in the Corps. A natural for Force Recon. Well, he's had a lot of pounding on the anvil to test the metal since the Change. All that does not kill us, makes us stronger, as Conan said: that was Conan, wasn't it?
"We scouted up north around McMinnville, as per plan," Eric said. "While Will took a troop into the Amity Hills, visiting and distracting any attention headed our way-"
Havel grinned. "Good news there, if you haven't heard. The Brigittine monks have decided to tell Arminger's pet pope in Portland to go to hell, and get square with Abbot Dmowski. Your father-in-law sort of persuaded them."
Proving Will Hutton is twice the diplomat I'll ever be, he added to himself.
"They've got a good little fighting force and some useful farms and craftworkers and they're right between us and the enemy," he went on aloud.
"That is good news," Eric said, but his face stayed grim. "The word from McMinnville itself is worse than we thought, though."
"It is a new castle? Not just an earthwork fort?"
"It's a fucking nightmare-bad as the one at Gervais, and bigger. South of town."
"Just north of the Yamhill River, on the road by the old gauging station, I'll bet?"
Eric looked mildly startled. "Yeah, Mike. How'd you guess?"
"It's where I'd put it," he replied absently, his eyes hooded in thought as he called up terrain and distance. "Kills two birds with one stone: plugs the gap between the Coast Range and the Amity Hills, and gives them a base that's perfectly placed to launch raids on our farming country down south at Amityville and Rickreall; it'll be staring right down our throats. On the good side, it probably scares the bejayzus out of those idiots in Whiteson. Neutrality, my ass: they'll have to make up their minds now, or at least as soon as the walls start to rise."