Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (77 page)

“Watch it!” Dietrik shouted at the same time the boy
pulled back on the triggering lever.  The quarrel shot forward so fast it
disappeared from sight.  Marik heard the loud
thunk
and felt splinters
dig into his neck.  His jerking lunge to avoid being killed started long after
the bolt planted itself in the wall below his window.

Belatedly Marik lifted his face from his tangled
sheets, searching for the little bastard.  The boy had dropped the crossbow
nose to the floor and placed his foot through the stirrup attached to the
front.  At the back he spun the cocking winch.  Twin handles, one high when the
other hung low, twirled rapidly as he cranked.  His impressive strength quickly
bent back the thick bow.  Marik leapt to his feet and the boy dropped a fresh
quarrel into the notch the instant the thick rope cleared the stop.

He centered the crossbow on Marik’s chest.  Marik
froze beside his cot.  Fury swelled, overcoming the exhaustion.  What in the
hells was this scruffy little brat doing?

Marik nearly attacked when a hand gripped his
shoulder.  Dietrik hissed, “Don’t overreact!”

“Over—” Marik began, his incredulous reply cut off by
Dietrik’s harsh squeeze.

The boy raised the crossbow, propping it against his
shoulder.  “Eh,” he sneered.  His glare at Marik held nothing except
challenge.  He left off there, abandoning the return to his cot in favor of
departing the barracks.  Marik started after him until Dietrik held him back.

“Let him go,” Dietrik advised.  The rest of the men
returned to their personal business.

“Go?  After trying to kill me?”  He could still hardly
believe what had just happened.

“If he really wanted to put one in you, he would
have.  He missed on purpose.”

“I don’t care!” Marik yelled.  “What is the matter
with him?”

“He is angry.”

“What have I ever done to him?  Nothing!”

“I did not say he was angry with you.  I’d say he is
angry at the world in general.  Though you might be a close second.  And
Colbey, I suppose.”

Marik shifted his gaze from the half-wall to his
friend.  “What?”

“As I started telling you, mate,” Dietrik resumed
while sitting down on his cot, “I went out of my way to speak with him this
afternoon along with the others, after he finally cracked his shell enough to
speak.  His name is Churthington.  He grew up in the Hollister Garrison.”

“Hollister?  You mean the tower at the end of the
bridge?”

“Galemar has always maintained a force of soldiers in
the facilities there, yes,” Dietrik affirmed.  “His father was a soldier.  When
the Noliers made their bid for the gold mine they killed most of the garrison
during the surprise attack.”

Marik sat on his cot facing Dietrik.  “And his family
died.”

“Yes.  That duke in charge of the Nolier forces headed
the invasion personally.  Probably because it was so important to their plans. 
Everything hinged on taking the Hollister Garrison.”

“So the kid must have run.”

“No, you’ve got the wrong flap there.  Churt watched
the invading knights slaughter his father and everyone else.  The men escaping
grabbed him up and carried him away with them, but he didn’t want to go.  He’s
been a first rate shot with the crossbow for most of his young life.  You know
how children can learn things easier than most adults.  Well, after that he
escaped from the escapers, then spent the next months in the Green Reaches
shooting whatever Noliers he could until one of our army units picked him up. 
After the war he stayed near the bridge so he could start hunting the Noliers
when they rallied back across, but after a year that looked bleak.”

“I still don’t see what any of that has to do with
me.”

Dietrik sighed.  “You can be startlingly thickheaded
at times, mate.  What would you have done?”  Before Marik could answer, Dietrik
continued.  “What Churt did was vow to kill the Nolier knights.  That might
sound laughable to the likes of us, but that’s what he did.  He kept hoping to
get close enough.  Of course he never could pin down their location.  Then
along comes our heroes,” Dietrik announced with a mocking gesture of the hand,
as if he were presenting a horse at a drive fair.

“Hey!  You’re not going to tell me he’s mad at us
because we beat the knights, are you?”

“As I mentioned, I believe our young shieldmate is
angry at the world.  He is angry because the chance to avenge his father was
stolen by a stranger.  As such, he holds little admiration for you.  Odd
though,” Dietrik mused, “that he would happen to land in our squad out of
sixteen possibilities.”

“Odd?”  The rage returned, redirected, though no less
potent.  “There’s nothing odd about that at all!  That nasty snake
Janus
had a hand in this…I can
see
it!”  He punched his closet wall, which
made the candle jump on the shelf.

“Janus?” Dietrik inquired.  “I know he has the final
word when the clerks assign new recruits, but what makes you think this might
be deliberate?”

“He’s had it in for me since I first arrived,” Marik
growled.  “He still does.  I can see it every time I’m near the old bastard. 
He loathes me!  This Churt brat must have mentioned on his application about
that whole story.  I bet I know how he happened to learn
I’m
the one who
killed Ronley, too!”

“That’s a tad paranoid, don’t you think?  It is not exactly
a secret in the band.  He could have learned it from anyone.”

“In less than a day?  You think he’s been wandering
around since he first walked through the gate, asking about that before any
other questions about the band?  Not too damn likely!”  He struck his closet a
second time.  “I’m going to have to deal with this on top of everyone hating me
already because I’m a mage!  That…that jackass probably thought it would be
amusing to put the kid in the same squad and unit as the man he had a grudge against!”

Dietrik tried to sooth him, but Marik’s ire wrapped
around him in a thick blanket.  Eventually his friend surrendered for the
night, retiring to find a spot of entertainment along the row, leaving Marik to
stare at the rafters in dark imitation of Chiksan.  His thoughts ran in
fruitless circles.  They returned relentlessly to the one question most on his
mind.  Why did the eldest band members choose to single him out?

It was a question without an answer.  He rolled over
to fall asleep, his last murky thought a pondering of what new ways the
geriatric dictators in his life would next select to make him miserable.

*        *        *        *        *

Dietrik dodged the slash Marik sent at him.  A quick
hop to his left stopped short when the smaller man’s shoulder collided with a
low-hanging branch.  Marik brought his blade around to take advantage of it but
his larger sword could not be redirected instantaneously.

The extra split second enabled Dietrik to spin
backward.  Once he disentangled from the branches, he thrust forward, pulling
back faster than a popping ember to thrust again at a slightly different
angle.  Dietrik’s speed might amaze others, yet Marik easily saw the repeating
thrusts that came at less speed than he knew his friend capable of.  His
chainmail would not protect against the lunging rapier tip the same way it
would against slashes.

Marik backed off in order to avoid the invading
blade.  To counter Dietrik’s move, he instigated a series of swings, each
designed to come around into a new slash.  Though this simple defense would
never connect with his sparring partner, it would keep the other man at a
distance.

Sparring all morning helped Marik ignore the rest of
his life.  Tollaf wanted him to advance, most likely as the result of whatever
conversation Celerity had subjected him to.  Toward that end he set Marik to
practicing dual channeling, a technique as basic to an intermediate apprentice
as ordinary channeling was to the beginner.  Marik felt as though he were
restarting his apprenticeship all over.

As exhausted as this made him, he refused to slack off
in his strength training.  Adding to his woes, the barracks was no longer the
haven it once had been.  Wyman sat alone flicking his coin, peeling apart
whoever he looked at with his gaze.  Arvallar thought himself above the rest of
them and Cork became intensely interested in his boots whenever Marik neared. 
The capper existed in Churt, who awakened him every morning by firing a quarrel
into the wall above his sleeping head.  Fresh splinters peppered him as he
scrambled to fight free of his dreams.

All in all, he needed release before he trudged back
to the Tower this afternoon.  His friend had agreed to spar in the Second
Training Area’s trees.  Of his various battles on contract to date, forest
combat had only occurred once.  Dietrik could count the battle for the Nolier
forest depot as a second experience with tree fighting.  In a kingdom as
heavily forested as Galemar, it seemed to Marik they should be spending more
time in the wooded areas.

Dietrik stayed well back.  He drifted through the
trees while Marik advanced, leading the fight into denser growth areas.  Branch
tangles quickly interfered with Marik’s ability to swing in the defensive
pattern.  Marik paused to reconsider while Dietrik peeked around an oak.  The
harsh bellow of laughter from behind startled him badly.

“You amaze me, you know?  You fight that crappy and
you’re still alive after all this time!”

They whirled to discover three overlarge shapes
forming a small grove of their own.  Beld glared at them with challenging
malice, as did the crony standing to his left.  Only the third giant, to Beld’s
right, looked uneasy.  Marik thought he might be the one he’d fought during
their last scuffle a few years back.

“Beld,” he replied congenially, sensing Dietrik
stiffen by his tree.  “It’s been so long since you stopped by to say hello I
was beginning to worry about you.  Thought you might have met a nasty end out
on a contract.”

The giant standing to Beld’s left stepped forward. 
Beld restrained him with an outstretched arm.  “What do you take me for?  A
green boy fresh off the farm?  No limp-wristed pissant who thinks his sword
means he’s a man will be the end of me!”  He wrenched his face into a horrible
attempt at a smile.

Marik returned the hard gazes idly.  “What do you
want?  Still sore over what’s-his-name?”  The hothead behind Beld’s arm
twitched satisfactorily.  “It’s unbecoming to hold grudges over trivial
matters.”

Fire flashed through Beld’s eyes before the big man
choked it down.  Instead, he broadened the grimace in a pose of good cheer. 
“Nah.  Dellen’s…kept busy.  Just bad luck, eh?”

“That’s what I said before.”  Marik jabbed his sword
into the dirt so he could rest his hands atop the T-hilt.  He narrowed his eyes
and added, “But I find it hard to believe you tracked us down to express your
change of opinion.”

“What?” Beld asked.  “You think we want to square off
over that
now
?”  He pushed back on his friend, then stepped closer to
Marik, adopting a superior air.  “We were walking past and saw what passes for
skill in your squad.”

“I beg your pardon?” Dietrik piped up, taking a place
beside Marik.  “Exactly what are you implying by that?”

“You call that forest fighting?” Beld remarked with a
wave at Dietrik’s tree.  “I saw you dancing there.  Jumping around like a
frying tick.  How’d you survive three years in the Kings if that’s your best?”

“Yeah,” the hothead growled while the other swiveled
his head between speakers, “Don’tcha even know how to use the woods?”

Beld’s eyes flicked left briefly though he choked down
his obvious displeasure at his sidekick’s speech.  He spoke quickly to direct
the conversation.  “You two jesters don’t know how to bring your surroundings
into play.  It’s embarrassing to watch.  You’re a disgrace to the Kings.”

Dietrik started a hot retort.  Marik answered first. 
“Are you challenging us?  The old, ‘I’ll show you how it’s done,’ bit?”  He
cocked a grin and flexed his knuckles over the sword’s guard.

“If that’s your best, then yeah.  I can show you how a
real fighter uses trees and bushes.  You’re bringing down the band’s name like
that.  But not here,” he declared when Marik hoisted his sword.  “Hardly any
real woods in this corner.  Let’s go to the real thing.”  He raised a hand to
massage his chin as he pretended to consider for a long moment.  “Yeah, the
trees up top the horses ought to be good for this.  Let’s go on.”

Beld walked away with his men, pausing only to ensure
Marik followed.  When he found them still rooted in place, he sneered, “What’s
the matter?  Can’t handle a real training?”

Marik started after.  This satisfied Beld.  The huge
man led them west toward the main gate since the stable hands were picky about
letting others use their private entrance.

Dietrik trotted beside Marik.  “Why are you letting
him bait you?” he whispered.  “His acting skills are deplorable.  I know you
were not fooled for a moment.”

“Of course not,” Marik returned the whisper.  “But I’m
curious.  He must have mastered a new attack to be so confident of beating us. 
I want to see what it is.”