Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (8 page)

This time he advanced with greater caution and
instigated his best strike series.  Every blow was met and deflected, and Marik
sensed Colbey refrained from striking out in a counterattack between each.

Colbey had always treated those around him with mild
contempt.  This had annoyed Marik tremendously when he’d first been required to
work with the scout, but the teachings he received at the Hollister Bridge were
enough to make him tolerate the attitude.  Even so, the old emotions returned
despite the control Marik had mastered over his temper since joining the band.

Marik pushed his speed, striking with alternating high
and low blows before eating the dirt a second time without warning.

Gods damn it!  I haven’t let anyone walk over me like
this since Chatham instructed me!

When he caught his breath, he noticed Colbey remained
as impassive as before.

“You see what comes of this?” he asked.

What sense did that make?  “Comes of what?” Marik
snarled.

The scout squatted to crouch on his ankles.  “These
mercenaries take the strongest they find, according to them.  They put them in
this town with a sword in their hand and say ‘Now get better.  But we won’t
teach you how.’  And these men spend an entire winter hacking at straw,
learning nothing.”

“What are you talking about?”  The comment attacked
Marik’s pride after all the effort he had put forth.

Colbey glared at him.  “No one learns how to wield a
sword simply by holding it.  You may get stronger, yet strength and skill are
not the same.”

“The Kings don’t take anyone who doesn’t know how to
use a sword already!”

“Learning the basics does not make you advanced.  Look
at you.  After years in this band, you still don’t know anything beyond what
you did when you joined, I’m certain.”

Furious heat rose to Marik’s face.  “I’ve improved
tenfold since I joined!”

“Oh?  How so?”

“I’m stronger!  Faster!  My endurance is higher!  My
precision better!”

Colbey nodded.  “The basics, in other words.  You may
have improved your body, yet you have not improved your knowledge.  This town
of sheep suffers from the illusion of power.”

“We’re the best in the kingdom!”

“A kingdom full of sheep breeds only strong sheep. 
Unsupervised training will never allow you to be more than that.”

Marik surged to his feet, his knuckles white around
the hilt.  Colbey stopped him with a strange smile.

“I think you
might
be capable of more than
that.”  He raised his sword to a guard position.  “You say you want to be a
swordsman rather than a mage?  Then come at me.  We will practice everyday
until I leave.”

That brought Marik up short.  “Leave?  Are you
quitting the band?”

“Do not concern yourself with other matters!” Colbey
barked.  “Concentrate on the present!  If you want to become capable, then we
start now!”  And with that, Colbey descended on him.

On a steep, treacherously loose scree-covered slope,
men swung ironwood swords at one another.  Exerting all their effort, they
strove to overcome their foes, striking hard, slamming into sharp rock
outcrops.  Injuries abounded while twelve stony-faced men sat impassively atop
the slope, watching the controlled chaos rage bare yards away.

“Time!” shouted Janus, and the six men below stopped
to claw their way uphill.

“I say,” Dietrik commented.  “There look to be several
strong fellows giving it a go this year.”

“Mmm,” Marik grunted.  Exhaustion sapped him, the
result of spending dawn to dusk either with Natalie’s book or being beaten by
Colbey.  He paid the proceedings no attention.  He’d only escaped to the town
walls for half a mark of rest and fresh air.

“Ah, here we go,” Dietrik exclaimed.  He peered down
from atop the north wall, watching the second day’s trial for applicants
wishing to enter the band.  “I’ve been waiting to see him.”

“Who?”

“I saw him yesterday while you were buried in your
tome.  See him down there, next to the judges’ table?”

The sun shone brightly as ever despite withholding its
usual warmth.  Marik shaded his eyes to see a large man dwarfing those he
waited with.  “Is that who I think it is?”

“Indeed!  Look over there a mite.  You’ll see Beld
cheering him on.”

He followed Dietrik’s finger to find his old nemesis
shouting with both his cronies by the slope’s edge.  “I haven’t seen much of
him since our last go-around.”

“I still like to keep a close watch.  He will cause
trouble if he ever gets the opportunity.”

Marik blew that away with a
phssew
.  “Why waste
your time?  He can’t do anything to us, much as he probably wants to.  He would
have kept coming after us if he could.”

“Caution is the wise man’s ally.”

“And over-caution is the paranoid man’s friend. 
Beld’s not actually as dumb as he looks.  He got the message last time he
jumped us.”

“If he is that smart, then all the more reason to be
careful.  Look, they’ve started.”

Janus sent the two three-man teams to red boulders on
opposite sides of the steep slope.  They slowly picked their way through the
uneven terrain until he called a start.  Marik and Dietrik watched Dellen The
Ox try for his third year to qualify.

“Doesn’t look as though the old fellow’s learned much,
does he?”

Marik agreed.  “I wonder what he does all year?  He’s
still as dumb as when we knocked him down the hill.”

“I would hazard to say he is so convinced of his ability
he believes his losses were not his fault.  So why bother bettering yourself?”

Dellen made barely any progress.  His head swung up
slope to look for danger, then quickly swiveled to gaze downward.  As if
watching jays fighting, his head would jerk all around before finally advancing
a pace or two.  After that short span, he restarted his searching.

Dietrik grinned wickedly.  “I’d say he has become a
rather nervous chap.  Past experiences must weigh heavily on him.”

His large friends shouted loudly, but not loud enough
for Marik to understand exactly what the giants said.  Confrontations occurred
between the two miniature units, none of which included Dellen who crawled
slowly along, still short of the halfway point.

One man from the other team drew near and crouched
behind a concealing outcrop once he spotted his enemy.  Obviously he intended
to let Dellen pass him by, then make a dash to capture the enemy base.

“I think he may be there for a spell.”

“Probably,” Marik agreed.

The last minute finished and Janus called time. 
Neither side had seized their objective, yet many had demonstrated their
talents, which was all they were meant to do.  Dellen, at the halfway point,
nearly fell down the slope when the irate croucher abruptly stood from his
cover to climb back to the judges’ tables.

It quickly became apparent who the judges had accepted
and who not.  “Hah!” Dietrik crowed, and slapped the wooden points lining the
wall top.  “He missed out again!”

Marik looked at his friend.  “You don’t like him at all,
do you?”

“Not one in their whole bunch!  Let’s go.  It’s
lunchtime, and I hear the menu is going to be meatloaf today!”

“I guess that’s all right.”

“You have no appreciation for good, solid food.”

Marik saved the argument by keeping silent.  Instead
he concentrated on the plank stairway down the interior wall.  Few men had
chosen to scale the heights and watch the trials, the depression of so many
losses during the war still clouding every barracks.  Usually the walls would
be crowded.  Kerwin’s attempts to start betting pools had fallen flat.  Very
few were enthusiastic about life in general.

“Come on, mate.  I want to be first in line.”

Dietrik’s eagerness made him grin despite his mental
exhaustion.  He followed after.

*        *        *        *        *

Beld’s teeth ground in frustration.  Always, Dellen
kept being screwed out of his rightful due!  Why did Lady Fate keep casting him
snake eyes?  What did the world have against them?

He cast his gaze skyward in frustration…and saw two
men on the wall, turning away.  Recognition struck him in an instant.  Beld’s
eyes narrowed, his thoughts roiling.

Copping mage trickery…

*        *        *        *        *

When Marik and Dietrik entered their bunk area to
retrieve their eating utensils, they found it overrun with clerks and
Homeguard.  Marik had never seen them in the barracks before.  Dietrik shrugged
and unlocked his closet.  It was quickly clear what the intruders were doing.

One clerk with a key ring that must have weighed ten
pounds commanded the Homeguard men.  He read from a list, directing the muscle
who assaulted the unoccupied bunks.  They unlocked Hayden’s closet and stuffed
his belongings into a heavy sack before carrying it away, the burlap marked
with a chalk number.

Their work proceeded with brutal efficiency.  Marik
and Dietrik watched the lives of men being casually swept away like so much
leftover garbage.  In moments they finished and departed.  Over half the Fourth
Unit’s closet doors stood open, representing a sickening number of deaths.

The dark interiors struck Marik as holes in the world,
empty spaces where the people who should fill them had vanished.  They drew
him, as though he could step through to wherever they led and find the men who
once had filled those voids.

Dietrik stepped forward, unusually silent with heavy
emotions.  He closed Hayden’s door.  Marik agreed with that.

After lunch, while putting away their dishes, Marik
broke the long quiet.  “Come on.  Let’s get out to the training areas.”

Dietrik studied him.  “Are you sure you’re up to extra
practice?  You look ragged out, mate.”

“I’ll be fine.  I need to help you with the stamina
trick.”

His friend shook his head.  “I doubt I’ll ever be able
to manage it.  Maybe you should concentrate on your own efforts and not worry
about it.”

Marik opposed that notion.  “I promised to teach you. 
Just because Colbey’s feeling frisky doesn’t change that.”

“You still need to peruse your mage lady’s diary.”

“I wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful winter,”
Marik sighed.  “Every one here so far I’ve had to push harder than the last to
make one deadline or another.”

Dietrik shrugged.  “The way you are going, sooner or
later you’ll be good enough to satisfy your various patrons.  Very well, if you
are dead set on it.  But put that away.  Let’s stop by the armory first and
find you a better sword.”

Marik studied the poor blade in his hand and agreed. 
He and Dietrik left for the armory.  In the space separating his barracks row
from its opposite across the way, several hand wagons were being loaded beside
the doorways.  Carts overflowing with numbered sacks were parked five deep
around the water wells.  The sight was a weight on both men’s shoulders.

Before they reached the armory, Dietrik reminded him,
“If we run into Sennet, it will be a good chance to ask him your questions.”

Marik remembered after a confused moment.  “Oh yeah,
about my father.”

“You’ve had bad luck cornering him.”  Dietrik ticked
off points on his fingers.  “First winter we were too busy training.  First
summer he was away in Thoenar with his weapons caravan.  Second winter you were
healing and learning your magecraft.  Second summer found us all on the
border.”

Marik nodded.  “Now were starting our third winter. 
But I don’t need to ask him any questions.”  Dietrik raised an eyebrow. 
“Sennet might have known my father, or he might not have.  He doesn’t get
personal with any of the men in the band.  I doubt he can tell me anything
helpful.  If I can learn this scrying technique, then that’s my best chance.”

“If you say so.  I still don’t entirely understand
it.”

At the armory they found Sennet’s assistants running
the desk.  That was normal.  Sennet only manned the desk if his men were busy
with other tasks.

Digging through the second floor’s weapons produced
many possibilities for Marik’s new blade.  Dietrik kept popping over with
massive claymore types.  Marik always refused.  “With your super strength, it
will be a breeze, mate!  You won’t even know it’s there!”

“If I was using my strength working, then yes!  But I
need to carry the damn thing around all day normally!”

“You need a big sword.  One able to stand up to your
blows without smashing, like your last.”

“Yes, but I’m not convinced one of those crack-brained
things is the best choice!”

The search continued, the time passing at an advanced
rate as it always did when they were poking around the armory.  They dug for
several candlemarks until Marik finally found a decent possibility.

It was a two-handed sword, except neither as large nor
as heavy as the claymores Dietrik kept bringing him.  The grip and hilt were
pure black, a strange contrast against the blade’s silver steel.  This sword
had no ring guards, as his previous had born, sporting instead a simple
T-hilt.  The pommel was neither steel ball nor medallion, but flared,
resembling a miniature mace.

The blade stretched ten inches longer than his first
sword.  Two-and-a-half inches wide near the hilt, it narrowed by an inch before
the tip, where it abruptly rounded to a point.

Marik swung lightly.  He could control it with one
hand, though it required slightly greater force than the smaller swords.  The
hilt felt odd with plenty of room for both palms.  In this, his third year as a
professional mercenary, his strikes had greater precision and power, yet this
blade would require entirely different handling.  All his stances and
combination strikes would need to be adapted.

But the sword felt good in his hands, so that was the
end of the matter.  He searched for a sheath without success.

“That?” Dietrik asked.

“I like it.”

“It’s as big as all those ones you tossed away.”

“No, it’s not.  And it doesn’t weigh as much.  Here.” 
He handed the sword over.

Dietrik held it, stating, “Definitely not for me. 
It’s too long for a waist sheath.  You’ll need one that straps to your back.”

Marik agreed.  The sword was five feet long
altogether, as opposed to the claymores whose blade alone matched such a
length.  They signed it out downstairs under Marik’s name and left a request
for a shoulder sheath to be made at the leatherworks.  Afterward they walked to
the Second Training Area.

Hardly anyone trained today.  The shacks were
unoccupied except for the two friends.  Marik continued swinging his new
acquisition, gaining a better feel for it by the moment.

“You first,” he said to Dietrik.  “You can’t
concentrate if you’re exhausted.”

“As you say.”  A resigned Dietrik sat cross-legged on
the cold ground.  With his eyes closed, he concentrated on the mental exercises
Marik had taught him.

Marik silently urged him on.  Dietrik had yet to
achieve the reshaping of his aura, and this always caused Marik to wonder if
the failing might be his own fault.  Teaching, he had learned, was not a talent
he was skilled in.  His descriptions had proven surprisingly flat, lacking any
substantive explanations that would help his friend understand.  All his words
thus far were nothing except vague instructions that required pre-existing
familiarities with life energy networks within a person’s body.  Familiarities
that the non-magical Dietrik would never possess.

He switched to magesight so he could closely watch his
friend’s aura.  It was too bad he couldn’t see into Dietrik’s head to make
certain he understood what he should be doing.  Comprehension or no, Dietrik’s
aura remained exactly the same.