One of the squires blurted:?Artos has to return with the Sword. Only that can save Montival!? ?He?s right, Mother,? Mike Havel Jr. said, before Tiphaine could blast her subordinate for speaking out of turn.
Gray eyes met blue. Tiphaine spoke slowly and reluctantly. ?I have a horrible suspicion that may be correct.?
And the Gods alone know what Rudi and the others were doing. Mary, Ritva, is it well with you?
A Bearkiller couldn?t show weakness.?It would be a help,? she said.?An army or two with it wouldn?t hurt either.?
FREE REPUBLIC OF RICHLAND SHERIFFRY OF READSTOWN (FORMERLY
Being impatient and not showing it is even more of an unpleasantness than being impatient alone, Rudi thought.
He suppressed an impulse to jig from foot to foot, like a small child in school bursting to ask permission to visit the jakes.
The best cure for it being some sweat. Luckily that also serves our purposes, since we want to be well remembered here. Not just remembered kindly, but remembered well, as folk worthy of respect. Worthy of alliance against a common foe.
He kept a smile on his face as he strode out to the drill field. Partly that was natural to him-he liked most places and most people he met-and partly it was politics.
The which I will never be able to escape, now, all my life. Fortunately I?ve been assured that won?t be overlong…
Most of the drill field was exactly that: fields, now reaped and empty of crops, but busy with the local folk. Some of it spilled up into the forested edges of Readstown, to give a realistic variety of ground. Only parts of it were permanent, like the row of oaken pells-thick posts used as targets for practice with sword and ax. Mathilda and Odard were at a pair of them. ?How?s the arm?? he asked. ?Healing,? Mathilda said shortly.?Nearly healed. Still hurts a bit, but it needs to be stretched or it?d heal tight.?
What?s got into her? he thought. Aloud: ?Well, careful while it?s still weak, acushla -you always did push yourself too hard when you were injured.?
She nodded without meeting his eyes and continued the routine she?d started with a light wooden practice blade. This was an overcast day and chilly, but sweat was still running down her face, and doubtless down her flanks beneath the mail hauberk and the padding. He didn?t bother repeating the warning to Odard as the baron slammed his own drill sword into the pell again, smashed at it with his shield, set himself and repeated the pattern. The young lord of Gervais worked conscientiously at maintaining his skills at the warrior?s craft, but he didn?t have Mathilda?s driven will and was less likely to overwork.
Over to the archery range…
Edain had just lowered his bow after a ripple fire that left the pop-up targets shaped like outlaws and Eaters neatly feathered. ?And how?s Aylward the Archer?? Rudi asked. ?Doin? well enough, Chief. Just showing these lads and lasses how it?s done, so to speak, and keepin? me hand in.?
That got him a chorus of groans and hoots from the locals; he grinned at them and replied with a mocking gesture. It had taken only a day or so before he couldn?t find anyone willing to take a friendly bet on a session at the butts. Jake sunna Jake and his Southsiders leaned on their bows and basked in the young Mackenzie?s reflected glory. Those bows had been substantially improved; Edain had run joyously amok spending Iowa?s gold in Readstown?s well-equipped archery shop, and had ordered a set of portable bowyer?s tools as well to take with them. They should all be ready before the party left.
The former wild-men had also become noticeably better archers with Edain to instruct and bullyrag them; already they were as good as the average run of the Readstowners.
Rudi took a deep breath of the chilly late-October air laden with the damp smell of fallen leaves and turned earth; it smoked when he exhaled. Then he passed on to the practice circles where the trainees worked with the sword; they were sensibly marked out on sections of irregular pasture, complete with low brush in some or set around trees or big rocks. In his experience, battles rarely took place on neatly level ground raked and rolled for good footing. The Readstown arms master-they called him a Drill Instructor here-gave him a slight wink. They?d already met.
He was a thickset man about ten years older than Rudi and three inches shorter, with hair of dark yellow closer-cropped than most locals and the tip of his nose missing. His father had been a retired Marine noncommis sioned man, like Rudi?s sire, Mike Havel, and had run a martial arts club and store in Racine before the Change came and set him on a road that ended here. His son had fought in some of the same wars as Ingolf, but returned home to inherit his father?s employment and pass on what he?d learned. A scar from the slash that had marred his nose also split a lip and drew a corner of his mouth up into a constant sneer, turning a face not notably lovely to begin with into something most men would blink to see. ?Hello, Mr. Mackenzie,? he said.
Then he indicated three big young men in practice gear. That meant mail shirts to the thigh here, and helmets like brimmed hats, with round shields and wooden drill shetes. ?Care to give some of our local boys a bout?? he said, elaborately casual.?I see you?re kitted up.?
The Mackenzie was wearing his brigandine, plus mail sleeves, mail-clad leather gorget, plate vambraces and greaves, visored sallet helm and breeches beneath his kilt with mail on the outsides. It was all more elaborate than anything Readstowners were likely to have seen before and enough to let him fight like a knight afoot or ahorse, though it gave a bit less protection than a modern suit of articulated plate and weighed slightly more. The gear did have the advantage of being modular, and you could put it on yourself. ?It would be less than a guest?s duty should I refuse,? Rudi said gravely.?That being the work of the season.?
October wasn?t exactly the easy time of year here. There wasn?t such a thing, amid the thronging tasks of a farming settlement that also made most of what it used and wore. But it was as close as any, with the grain and root crops in, the last hay and silage cut, and stock culling over and the meat steeping in the vats of pickle brine or turning in the smokehouses or freezing amid underground blocks of ice. What was left was the sort of thing that could be attended to anytime, mostly even in the hard dark cold of winter.
That gave time for the arts of war; like any manual skill, they rusted if not used. Their main rival in the fall was hunting. Which also trained you in fighting, and doubly if the quarry were boar or bear or wolf. ?Just a moment, then,? he went on, and hung up his sword belt.
He?d had a training sword made up in precisely the length and balance of his longsword, an oak batten around a rod of old rebar, the wood thickly wrapped in wool rags. Now he tossed it up spinning, caught the hilt with a slap of leather on hard callus, and slid the big kite-shaped Association-style shield onto his arm. ?Which one of us first?? the brashest of the young men said. ?All of you at once, I think,? Rudi said pleasantly.
He snapped down the visor, and the world shrank to the narrow horizontal bar of the vision slit; by reflex his head began to turn slightly right and left, to make up for the way it cut his peripheral vision. The Readstown youths suddenly looked a little thoughtful as his smiling face disappeared, and left them confronting only the smooth curve of the steel. The visor tapered slightly on the bottom edge in a way that suggested a beak, and its surface and the helm as well were scored and inlaid with niello to hint at raven feathers. A real spray of those black pinions stood up at either temple. Rudi went on: ?Why waste time when we can all fight at once? Ready??