Dragon's Trail

III: FUGUE-9

Obediently, and quite cheerily, Jarrod knelt and swung the calf from his shoulders. It wandered off, not far. “I stink,” he warned.

“Yes,” Javal agreed. “Here, we can talk.”

“Talk, huh?” Jarrod stretched his hamstrings against an apple tree. Standing, he could squeeze his shin within three inches of his forehead, straight up over his head like a dancer.

Javal whistled low in appreciation of the feat, then walked over and sat on one of the fallen chunks of marble. “Yes. Talk.”

Jarrod tossed him an apple. “Hey,” he called. Javal was mooncalfing as it arced toward his face.

With the pointed disinterest Jarrod would attribute to a Zen master, Javal caught it with an indifferent flick of his hand.

“That was him, today,” he announced, rubbing the apple against his trouser leg.

Jarrod leaned away from his foot momentarily. “What?”

“King Sabbaghian. He was with Loth at the Keep.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell a foreigner just by his walk. You didn’t see him?”

“I didn’t look.”

“He didn’t want you to,” said Javal. “That wasn’t Loth’s style, kicking you to the ground like that. That was King Sabbaghian behind him. He wanted a diversion. He made his exit during the fight. I’m pretty certain he knows who you are. I don’t know how, but, ah—Good ol’ Alby,” he nearly laughed. “The look on his face—he figured we wouldn’t be here for twenty days, yet. Oops! Order of the Stallion’s here.” Then he grumbled, “It actually wouldn’t surprise me if Albar tries to kill us both.”

“He hates us that much, huh?”

Javal took a bite of the apple and chewed thoughtfully. “Albar has a chance at something great. He doesn’t want us to muck it up. I hate to think this way, but he has a lot to gain by siding with Gavria if things go badly for us.

“You see, Princess Adielle rules Falconsrealm. Alby’s family rules nothing, though they control a great deal of the trade in Falconsrealm. They’re ore barons.

“When they marry, she’ll still rule, and Alby will merely be an ornament. He won’t have any more actual power than he does now. Oh, we’ll all have to salute him, but,” he set the apple beside him on the rubble, “If he, if . . .” he stammered for a moment or two, re-organizing his thoughts. “I believe that Gavria is going to enlist Albar’s aid, and eventually they’ll use him, and those allied to him, to claim Falconsrealm. I don’t believe they can do it without his help. They’ve been trying to take all of Falconsrealm for a thousand years, and they just don’t have the resources to hold it. But if they can enlist the Falconsrealm chivalry, and the mercenary hordes of those loyal to Albar—and there a lot of nobles loyal to Albar, never underestimate him—they can launch the principality into essentially a civil war, and overrun it in the midst of it all.”

“What does Al—? I see,” Jarrod answered his own question. “And Albar becomes prince. Or king, or whatever, if the secession succeeds. A-hah! The succession of the secession,” he punned merrily. “Da-dump.”

Javal lobbed his apple at him. “Wiseass. You must be feeling better.”

Jarrod ducked it with a laugh. “Much. No, but I think I understand.

“No, wait,” he said. “Check that; I don’t. Where’s the princess in all this? I’d think she’d be pretty torqued if it goes down that way.”

“I’d guess there’s trouble in paradise. I’ll be surprised if the wedding happens, and if it does, frankly—and don’t breathe a word of this—I don’t expect her to live a year.”

“I’ll kill that motherfucker.”

“She’s my cousin. You’d have to get in line.”

“Wait—you’re royalty?” asked Jarrod.

“It doesn’t leave this glen,” said Javal. “My father was brother to the king. I’m fifth, but really more like tenth, in line for the throne.” He ticked off on his fingers, “Adielle, Damon, either Albar, or Damon’s wife when he marries, any children between any of them, then me after all of them. I don’t want it. I set it aside to join the order.”

“Jesus,” said Jarrod under his breath.

“Very few people know, especially among the soldiery. I don’t want them thinking they’re being ordered around by a man like Albar. When you meet him, you’ll understand.

“Another thing: I worked my way up through the ranks. Never forget that. Once you’re knighted into the Order of the Stallion, any consideration for commission will be strictly on merit. Your lordship, your lands, your family, your wealth, all get set aside because of what we do. The other orders, not so much.”

“I won’t say a word,” said Jarrod. “What does Gavria get out of helping Albar take Falconsrealm?”

“Long Valley, the Shieldlands, the fertile lands. They wouldn’t have to pay us for their food. And those on the Gavrian War Council get their names sung around the fire for the next fifty or hundred years, until we kick their asses and take it back.”

“Doesn’t Gateskeep already have farmland? That whole area north of Long Valley.”

Javal winked at him. “You’re sharp. Our people wouldn’t starve, not even close. But the lords of the Shieldlands would be killed, and once we don't have to trade with Gavria, Gateskeep would lose its primary source of iron and gold. Our wealth is in the Shieldlands. The Hillwhites control most of the silver for Falconsrealm, and what iron Gateskeep has.”

“Well, s**t,” Jarrod said. “If Gavria takes the Shieldlands, the Hillwhites control the war. If they control the money and the iron, they could effectively hand Falconsrealm over to Gavria with a handshake. If they decide they don't like us, we're in a lot of trouble, my friend.”

“They don’t like us,” said Javal.

“Then we’re in a lot of trouble,” said Jarrod.

“You grasp complex things quickly. I'm going to enjoy training you.”

“Let's keep going. Tell me about King Sabbaghian.”

“Oh, yes,” said Javal. “King Ulo Sabbaghian, ruler of Ulorak. Lord Sabbaghian, now. They’re calling him Sabbaghian the Silver. He’s a Gavrian. Raised in your homeland.”

“Crius said that. I remember now.”

“I think I only know what you already know. He’s the son of a great sorcerer. Some say the greatest that ever lived.”

“Naturally,” Jarrod muttered under his breath. “So, this guy’s a sorcerer too?”

“And a good one. He probably wasn’t much to speak of on your world, but here . . .” as Javal’s voice trailed off, Jarrod fought back a shudder. Javal said, “I imagine Gavria is just as scared of him as we are.”

“Yes, but they’re giving him a seat on the war council,” said Jarrod. “When he becomes Lord High Sorcerer, his power is only going to increase. He’s now part of the problem. At least, that’s how I understand it.”

“You’re probably right. But he’s heavily guarded, hence Loth’s presence. I imagine Loth’s true mandate is to slay him if he gets any ideas.

“Usually, our fail-safe with regard to Gavria is to have members of our spy network assassinate the masterminds of the enemy’s campaign, and then we counterattack as chaos ensues. However, Loth’s presence—and Loth is of value to us, now, in his duty as Sabbaghian’s shadow—negates this. We can’t get an assassin near him because of Loth, and we can’t kill Loth because he’s the only thing keeping Sabbaghian in check. That’s why I didn’t duel with Loth this morning, or let you.”

“So you figured this all out while we were kneeling, there?”

Javal arose, and said, “Yes, and I’ll teach you to do it, as well. Get your calf.”

“Northboy!”

“Whoo-ee! Hair like a pretty girl!”

“Arms like a pretty girl!” joked another. Jarrod received a clap on the back from Javal and went to stand with the twenty or so other knights, riders, soldiers, and hopefuls. This was not free sparring; this was military training for field soldiers. Toughs in piecemeal armor sent from the remotest keeps puffed out their chests and licked their lips with faux bravado. Knights were designated by steel spurs and cloak pins; officers by shoulder braids.

Mercenaries on scutage were conspicuously absent, Jarrod noted.

He wore his battered practice armor over a bull-rider’s vest. This armor was the most protective thing he owned—maybe moreso than the man-at-arms harness he’d left behind—and was the least authentic: a cuirass and pauldrons of black high-density polyethylene cut from chemical barrels with memory foam glued behind, the whole belted together with scalloped lames for his upper arms and broad hanging tassets to cover his hips and upper legs. He had leggings to match. It was crude, lightweight, ugly, and damned near bulletproof. He carried a dented sugarloaf helm under his arm and his larger roundshield. He hoped that the dings and slashes on his practice armor would give him some street cred. He’d left his rider’s pin off; he didn’t want to get his nice cape muddy.

“Do you think you have enough armor, boy?”

Sir Dahl, a knight of the Order of the Stallion, was today’s instructor. He noted the animosity between the new face and a few of the younger soldiers.

“We’ll see, sire,” said Jarrod.

Sir Dahl picked a tall, raily student with an open-faced helmet as his dummy and, using wooden swords, went on to demonstrate a combination low feint and cutover.

He demonstrated a few more times. Jarrod paid little attention, checking out the others in the stable. Basic stuff. He knew two dozen variations on the maneuver already.

He was looking for the biggest guy he could find, partially to show them that he was not to be screwed around with, and partially to see where he truly lay in the order of things.

Combat athletes on Earth fight in weight classes because when it comes down to grunts and bruises, the larger combatant always has the advantage. Jarrod had seen a nature special about a starling using its maneuverability to fight off a hawk, which was all well and good; on the ground, however, a larger fighter has physics on his side.

From watching pairs of warriors sparring earlier in the day, Jarrod had already gathered that the majority were brute-force fighters. Fights were ugly and awkward with a lot of crashing, a lot of bashing, and a lot of knocking the other guy around and making an opening in his defenses.

It all made sense to Jarrod, and he’d expected as much: swords rarely pierce mail, so armored combat would be a matter of breaking his opponent into pieces inside his armor or wearing him down, not out-fencing him. Good odds presented themselves that the bigger fighters would be the better fighters.

Or at least, he reasoned, the bigger fighters would be held in the highest regard.

He didn’t have to look for long. The one who’d christened him “Northboy” was one of the biggest—at least tallest—and a rider with a swan pin. He pushed the others aside and squared off on Jarrod as the circle broke up.

He wasn’t as big as Carter, though. And Jarrod could give Carter a long, unpleasant afternoon.

Jarrod pulled on his helmet and buckled the chinstrap. He had his longest practice blade with him. He’d swiped his articulated gauntlets from his field armor and he wore them here, over a set of Persian-style leather bazubands.

“Nice gloves,” said the big fighter.

“Tell your mother,” said Jarrod. “Maybe she’ll make you a pair, too.”

Hoots and catcalls from others who’d assembled.

“Ready, Northboy?”

Jarrod smacked himself in the helmet with hilt of the sword a couple of times to seat it, and replied, “I have a name, good sir.”

The rider settled into a stance, behind a large roundshield. “So? You won’t remember it after this, anyway.” He carried his weight a bit too far back, and might as well have announced that his first move would be a deep, low lunge.

Jarrod took his usual stance, reversed, blade forward and low, the shield close to his hip. “You will.” He bit at his mouthguard, seated it, and they saluted.

The lunge came, deep and low and quick, followed by a fleche. Jarrod pivoted and the fighter ended up behind him, swearing as the tip of Jarrod’s blade skipped off the back of his helmet.

“Nearly,” the fighter commended. “You’re fast.”

“Faster than you,” Jarrod grinned as his opponent engaged and pressed, swinging hard. Jarrod’s shield interposed and he relaxed, gauging a rhythm and limbering up. The big guy wasn’t quick, but he covered well and made good use of his reach, making counterattacks difficult. He was driving his blows hard and using the edge of his shield to knock Jarrod around. Which made sense; a big enough guy could bash his way to a startling degree of success.

Okay, chump. Let’s go to school.

Jarrod fused the tip of his blade to the inside edge of his shield and closed in.

By doing this, his sword functioned as a second shield, in a manner that also kept his sword hand protected.

He had theorized—and, at one time, written—that this was the reason that Viking-era swords had had no crossbar.

He’d met with a great deal of pushback in historical circles regarding what he was about to do.

He moved forward with sword and shield together, rotating the sword along the shieldrim in quick slashes: first along the inside, then flipping the shield backwards—a trick that can only be done with a center-held roundshield—and slashing along the opposite side. The shield kept his blade out of sight the way a pitcher keeps the ball inside his glove until he throws.