Dragon's Trail

III: FUGUE-12

“That might be the worst sales pitch I’ve ever heard,” Jarrod admitted.

“I don’t want you to come back here asking for your money back, telling me your horse is stupid. I’m telling you now. This horse is stupid. But he’s as brave and as tough as I’ve ever seen. He will carry you through the gates of hell if you ask him to.”

“If you don’t buy him, I will,” Javal told Jarrod, walking around the horse the other way, “I’d have to sell my summer home, though, I’d bet.”

“You might, sir,” said the trainer. “We’ve got a lot into him. He just took so long to train. He’s ten; we’ve had him five years, sir. Five years. The plus side, though, is that he’s good on all his commands by now. But we’re not letting him go cheap. A couple of border lords have their eye on him, but they can’t quite cough up the money just yet.”

“Money’s no object,” Javal assured the trainer. “This man is a King’s Rider. Jarrod, buy this horse. Right now.”

“You’ll take a promissory note from the crown, I trust?” Jarrod asked.

“With pleasure, sire.”

“Done,” said Jarrod, and shook the trainer’s hand. “I’ll send a man around this afternoon with it. What’s his name?”

“Horse,” said the trainer. “You want to give him a name, we’ll start working him with it.”

Jarrod looked the horse in the eye. He didn’t care if the roan wasn’t smart. He could use some dumb luck, anyway. Able to kick a man in half, and completely clueless about the amount of danger he’d be in. They clicked.

“Call him Perseus,” said Jarrod.

Over the next two weeks, Jarrod kept a professional distance from Daelle and made it a point to talk to other girls around the castle, which he found was no problem, being a foreigner and the best swordsman in recent memory.

He put in long afternoons getting to understand Perseus.

He’d had some instruction in horsemanship back home; as a stunt coordinator for sword and sorcery films he at least had to know how they worked. Now, however, he got into the finer points not only of horsemanship, but of caring for, saddling, and armoring an animal that weighed three quarters of a ton.

For the first week, he was terrible at remembering everything—a strap not cinched again after Perseus blew out, mail barding or the coat of plates not tied in just right at an arming point—and he’d have something fall off the damned horse ten seconds after getting into the saddle and kicking him into gear. Real tough to look badass with your horse’s armor dragging in the dirt.

Of course, that was when he could get up into the saddle at all. Perseus was so tall that when Jarrod ordered his own custom war saddle with right-side frogs for his warhammer and gran espée de guerre—the first thing he’d done after leaving the royal stables having agreed to buy Perseus—he also ordered it built with knotted leather braids that dangled down the flanks from either side of the saddle horn. He had to grab one of these in both hands to pull himself high enough to get a foot into the stirrup.

He also had to mount his horses from the right side, opposite everyone else, so as not to tangle up his arming sword. Perseus didn’t seem to mind but many other horses did, some going so far as to side-step while he tried to swing up.

The war saddle had a short coat of plates integrated fore and aft over the skirt and it strapped in two places around the belly, with iron rings at each corner to tie into barding. More than once he’d forget to snug something down and end up pulling the damned saddle sideways, busting his ass. A few times he’d brought fifty pounds of armor or more down on himself.

At a weekend course in horsemanship at the Hollywood Stunt Academy, Jarrod had learned to do a flip into, and out of, a saddle, but on a fourteen-hand Arabian that was one thing; it was a fool’s errand in thirty pounds of armor on a horse the size of Perseus. The seat of the saddle was above his head. They were impossibly huge animals. A knight leaping into his saddle was Hollywood bullshit.

The trainers were decent to Jarrod, though. He wasn’t the first rider to come from a city, and he wouldn’t be the last. He was getting better day by day.

No one made fun of the big blue horse. He actually got compliments on owning a roan. That helped.

On the downside, Perseus required a larger stall than other horses, and he was going to be a logistical nightmare on the road. It would take a second stout pony to pull a cart just with his food, water, and barding; a barrel with a day’s supply of water took two strong men to lift. Christ, my horse needs his own horse.

He ordered a cart.

And two good ponies.

And he started making notes of which stablehands he’d consider bringing along on the road if need be, because damn, once he bought a riding horse he would be traveling with four horses and a cart; his own circus.

The romantic image of the lone knight crossing the vast and arid wasteland on his trusty steed involved a remarkable amount of artistic license.

He didn’t see how he’d get Perseus out of the valley. It was half a day’s ride to the far end of the city across the lake and he’d have to stop to feed the damned horse just to get that far.

They were pals, though. All the bumps, bruises, and false starts were bonding time. He’d find a way.

When he, Daelle, and Javal arrived at the gymnasium one morning long after they’d all concluded that Jarrod had, in fact, smoothed things over with Urlan, Jarrod found few of the smiles, handshakes, and rock signs he’d grown accustomed to. In fact, the mood overall was quite sullen and apprehensive. He expected that someone had died, or perhaps war had been declared.

He pressed through the ring to find Albar in the center of the gymnasium with a courtsword. A sharp, heavy courtsword, not one of the oil-slaked, blunted iron practice blades.

Albar was not in armor. He was, in fact, nude from the waist up, though he had heavy boots on, and loose trousers. Albar was slender and undefined.

Jarrod took his arm from Daelle and strode out to the middle of the gym.

“I’d draw, were I you, sir,” Urlan recommended, from the crowd behind Albar.

Jarrod spoke evenly and firmly. “If you have a problem with me, Sir Urlan, you can settle it yourself. I’m not fighting this man.”

Albar kicked clear a place in the straw. “Mortal combat is allowed during peacetime. You’ve insulted me, sir. And Sir Urlan as well. I demand you pay for it.”

Jarrod cleared his throat. “For starters, sir,” he said, “I have not insulted you.”

“Your very presence,” said Albar, “insults me.”

“Be that as it may,” said Jarrod, “I have no intention of killing you.”

“And you won’t, I assure you,” Albar menaced with the blade. Urlan offered Jarrod a courtsword of roughly equal length. Jarrod waved it away, instead snugging down his bazubands and pulling on his gloves, and drew his arming sword. Those in the room who hadn’t seen it before took an apprehensive breath as the blade threw beams into the dust motes across the gym.

“Seriously, sir,” said Jarrod. “Put that thing away or I’m going to find a new scabbard for it.”

Big words, but he was glad he had the medical kit on his swordbelt.

“Alby,” said Javal, “When he kills you, it will make him very unpopular with your future wife.”

“He won’t kill me,” Albar snorted.

Jarrod’s voice was level. “Says you.”

“Jarrod,” ordered Javal, “do not kill the heir presumptive.”

Jarrod muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Can I just hurt him a little?”

“Suits me,” said Javal quietly.

“This is your big answer, huh?” Jarrod asked Albar from behind his sword. “This just locks it all up for you. You can kill me fair and square and I’ll finally stop embarrassing you in front of your good friends from Gavria. What’s that all about, anyway? You and our enemy, just hanging out, holding hands and strolling in the gardens together.”

“You die,” growled Albar.

“Bring it, Skippy,” said Jarrod.

Javal stepped aside. Albar lunged.

The courtsword was light, deft, and lethal. Jarrod parried, pivoted, and let him pass, taking the offensive and driving him back several steps at the end of his range.

Jarrod’s sword was longer, and with the bazubands he had considerable reach on Albar. He kept his parries forward of the balance. He had no intention of getting cut.

Jarrod broke his attack.

Albar moved through a couple of guards, just out of long attacking distance. He was definitely Argyul’s student, heavy on his feet and deliberate in his motions, and—Jarrod found with a couple of quick, probing attacks—with the same predilection for anticipatory maneuvers.

Albar charged. Jarrod feinted, enveloped, and slung Albar’s sword far off to the weak side. He placed the tip of his sword at Albar’s eye as Albar recovered, the bigger man wildly out of proportion and stance, Jarrod showing the room—and Albar—that he easily could have ended him, or given him a really great scar.

Jarrod broke off, struck a guard, and waited as Albar composed himself. “You need to stop this, right now,” Jarrod advised as Albar fell into a guard, grinding his teeth, rattled.

Urlan drove into Jarrod from behind, knocking him forward with an elbow. Albar charged again, fast and straight, lunging.

Jarrod parried the courtsword, double-stepped to get his balance, lunged at Albar driving him back, then spun and slashed behind him. The tip of the sword opened a wide hole across Urlan’s shoulder, missing his neck only because Urlan had flinched.

Albar lunged again, dropping into the same Agrippa thrust that Argyul had used—long and heavy and potentially lethal, but static and oh-so-slow to recover—and Jarrod side-stepped, countered hard, enveloped again, and this time, as Albar slid back to his guard, Jarrod followed him back, got the bind, and punched him in the mouth.

This was not a boxer’s snappy cross, but a fight-ending overhand whose center of effort lay a few inches behind Albar’s skull. Albar hit the floor hard, his head bouncing off the planks. His sword clattered away.

Urlan was pinching off the wound in his shoulder.

“You got any other bright ideas?” Jarrod asked him, menacing with his sword.

“Nothing comes to mind,” Urlan admitted.

Jarrod turned his attention back to Albar, who spat a lot of blood carefully into his hands. “Kill me,” he drooled.

“No chance,” said Jarrod. “But you will quit f*****g with me, sir. I am here because I have work to do.”

Jarrod turned to Javal, and sheathed his sword as four of Urlan’s sergeants leaped on him from behind and took him to the floor. When they were all pulled away from each other, one was unconscious, one was weeping, and another was coughing up blood. Jarrod’s face was a thing of nightmare, swollen and smashed.

“Come on!” Jarrod roared. “I wanna fight some more!”

It was Javal and several knights who had broken up the fight. “Show them out!” Javal put his hand on Jarrod’s shoulder. “Jarrod, enough.”

“Never,” Jarrod rasped.