Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (84 page)

Dietrik grumbled while he stirred.  Marik worked hard
not to laugh when Cork shifted, keeping a warier eye on him than the
untrustworthy mage.  After Dietrik barked about leaving a tale unfinished, he
resumed the story of how he had come to be apprenticed under Tollaf.

By the time he finished, Cork acted as Marik
remembered from his first day assigned to the Fourth Unit.  Marik excluded a
few specifics, such as his ability to enhance his strength.  The men were
rolling into their blankets by the time he concluded with his receiving Duke
Ronley’s sword as a battle prize.

Settling into a weary sleep after the long candlemarks
of walking, he reflected that Dietrik knew a bit about people after all.  Give
them their time, and the new recruits would start accepting him.  Hopefully
Cork would be the first.

Over the next several days, he had reasons to wish the
other man had simply kept away.

His story spread among the yearlings as Cork recounted
what he had learned.  This Marik expected, since what had happened was hardly a
private secret. The older veterans knew his history from having been there
while it unfolded.

No, what twisted Marik’s tail was the way Cork
presented the facts.  Not as simple gossip about another band member, but as a
demonstration of how Cork’s bravery surpassed theirs. 
He
dared to
approach the weirdling mage and pry into his personal affairs while
they
all lacked the guts to meet Marik’s gaze.  Cork sounded like a man bragging
about his courage in sneaking through the woods to poke a sleeping bear with a
stick.

Far more first year band members drifted into his
vicinity than before, likely as the result of whatever stories they heard. 
None from the Fourth Unit in the Ninth Squad, yet from nearly every other unit
marching the Southern Road.  They tended to loiter when the column stopped
early enough that a quick practice could be stolen before the light faded.

He knew Cork had admirably refrained from
embellishment.  This, of course, left others free to indulge in the practice
while they traded words.  New men came to steal a glimpse of the Nolier Knight
Destroyer and see what impressive sword skill he must possess.  Most watched
from further back in the trees, thinking to remain unnoticed.  The aura flock
that surround him during his practices with Dietrik or Chiksan made him feel as
though he stood nude in the center of a Thoenar public square.

Why now?
, he
kept wondering. 
They had the first half of winter to watch all they wanted
on the training areas.
  Dietrik speculated that the amount men talked
increased when on the road, since nothing else filled the dull time nearly as
well.

Their eyes were a weight on his shoulders.  It upset
him greatly when he made minor mistakes for no better reason than he was
conscious of their stares.  Marik was determined not care one whit what
interest anyone else might take in him.  Colbey certainly did not, and look
what incredible fighting talent the scout possessed.  Despite having narrowed
the gap between their skill levels, the scout would always be the bar by which
he measured his ability.

In spite of the nervous slips he continually made when
the number of spectators grew, both on the sideline and in the woods, he felt
just as glad the scout had abandoned his relentless sparring sessions.  The
morning they left Kingshome, Colbey had become serene.  His intense drive had
abated, for all appearances.  He still hovered near Marik at times.  Mostly he
wandered wherever he felt the urge to go.  It relieved Marik to see the fire
dampen.  Dietrik reserved judgement.  Marik chalked that up to Dietrik’s
over-cautiousness, remembering well how his friend had hesitated to accept
Ilona at first.

The band left the road only once, in order to skirt
around Spirratta’s walls.  They had no business within, and the entrance
procedure for the enclosed city with so many men would consume far too much
effort.  Far quicker to plow through the snow drifts and regain the road on the
opposite side.

Every day new recruits trickled nearer to Marik.  Most
said little, if anything, contenting their curiosity with a short study before
drifting away.  Only a handful pestered him with questions, and the ones who
did were always awestruck youths barely of age.  To counter this, Marik took
Dietrik and waded through the crowd until he found Maddock, Harlan and Chatham.

The trio walked with the Sixth Squad.  Maddock
welcomed Marik with a friendly smile.  Harlan acted indifferent.  Chatham took
the opportunity to bewail at length what he considered a great tragedy.  With
so many men, they would never be able to stop over for an evening at the Randy
Unicorn and partake of the inn’s splendorous comforts.

With his friends surrounding him, the exuberant
curious tended to keep their distance.  The passive wall held steadfast and
Chatham’s belittling comments did much to keep this unsought attention from
inflating Marik’s ego.

Several times the band intercepted small groups riding
for Kingshome.  Torrance always stepped off the road to speak with these
representatives who usually hailed from lords close to the border.  The riders
would return from whence they came after learning King Raymond had already
secured the entire band for border patrol services, pleased at the prospect of
receiving extra protection at no cost to their coffers.

At the Varmeese River, the band split, two-thirds
walking north to where the cargo ferry docks were, where caravans loaded or
offloaded merchant goods to or from the Southern Road.  They would travel north
by boat.  Where the Varmeese and the Pinedock merged, they would depart
westward, separating as each squad angled for their destination.  The Kings
would be strung approximately a third Galemar’s length, with the Thirteenth
Squad covering the northernmost point by the Whetstone Mountains and the Ninth
Squad covering the southernmost point by the Stoneseams near the Rovasii
Forest.

Squads peeled off the closer they drew to the border. 
Only four squads remained on the snow-flanked road when they came to
Tattersfield at midday.  Marik felt peculiar walking past the town, and not
merely from Chatham’s enthusiastic suggestion that they walk to Pate’s woodshop
and order an entire furniture set they would never return to pay for.

Maddock walked by his side, stoically silent as was
his habit.  Marik appreciated it but also thought it unnecessary.  When he’d
first set out into the wider world with these three, their guiding hands had
kept him from untold blunders.  Their experience had shielded him from the
rougher consequences inherent to life.  He had matured considerably since
then.  No longer did he need a sturdy presence to support him.

Still, he appreciated both his and Dietrik’s gestures
when they stayed near at hand until they passed beyond the town.

Little of what he could see in it had changed during
the three years since leaving.  Hardly a surprise, except for one significant
difference.

No townsfolk paid attention to their passage beyond a
quick glance.  Most stayed inside the town unless they had business with the
mills or other fringe enterprises on Tattersfield’s outskirts.  There were
always two or three townsmen to be seen near the road, though.  Marik gazed as blandly
as any other mercenary, uninterested in calling attention.  None of the locals
cared about the passing fighters, let alone him.

Around each waist dangled a weapon.

Before, hardly anyone in the town had bothered to
carry a weapon during their daily life.  Most men possessed weapons of various
sorts, hunting spears as often as old blades.  Those arms usually rested on
pegs over doorways or hearths if they had escaped being stuffed into a storage
crate in the rafters.  He despised Tattersfield, yet its people were never soft
the way the city dwellers were.  They had taken out their blades, honed the
edges, then gone about their normal lives.

Tattersfield was prepared to fight in case trouble
flared.

Riley’s stories had worried him.  The various rumors,
so wild he discounted most he heard, had left him concerned.

Nothing had struck him so deeply as this.

The sight of a sword dangling from a sawmiller’s belt
awakened him to danger far more effectively than a border captain’s troubled
countenance.  For the first time, he pondered whether a simple border
patrolling contract was what they were truly walking toward.

Chiksan’s spearhead whistled under Marik’s blade, the
tip rushing past so close to Marik’s tunic he felt the wind pulling at the fabric. 
He leaned back from the Tullainian while pushing off from the cold, hard-packed
dirt.  The short leap earned him a moment to ready the next assault, but
Chiksan pressed him in only half the time he expected.

This time the spear slashed diagonally upward from his
lower left.  The veteran warrior held his spear shaft with one hand near the
base, the other halfway to the steel head.  When Marik danced away a second
time, Chiksan held the back end stationary as his forehand described a broad
circle, still clutching the shaft as he slid forward on one foot.

The spearhead rotated so fast it blurred, arcing over
Marik’s head to spin around and slam into his ribs when he had expected the
follow-up strike from the opposite direction.

“That,” Cork announced to the yard at large, “is why a
sword fighter should never go one-on-one against a spearman.  It doesn’t matter
than Marik’s blade is longer.  You just can’t beat the spear’s reach!”

Arvallar ignored Cork’s typically decisive statement
and approached Chiksan, who had stepped back to his honor position immediately
upon striking Marik’s chainmail.  He wore his usual expensive ensemble, today
sporting a green silk button-shirt, only half the buttons fastened despite the
cold.  A broad V-neck resulted from this, baring his chest to the winter
morning.  His tight pants, tucked into his turned-down boots, did nothing to
hamper his movements the way Marik had first expected they would, and he wore
an impressive hat as well.  Its brim extended a foot all around the crown.  The
ends curled up in a half-roll.  Marik always saw phantom roses bedecking it. 
Apparently Arvallar drew the line before completely imitating the court poofs.

The man of taste halted five feet from the two
sparring men, his finger and thumb rubbing his chin in thoughtful
contemplation.  Arvallar finally spoke while Cork continued commenting in the
background to the others watching the match.  He addressed Chiksan.  “Most
curious indeed.  But I hardly expect a Tullainian line to perform with
such…agility, in the turmoil of battle.”

Chiksan held his spear horizontally in both hands,
parallel to the ground at waist level.  He shifted to return Arvallar’s
statement.  The spear butt thumped into the ground.  “No, we do not.  Such
tactics as for duelists are not suited for battalions.”

Arvallar nodded, still fingering his chin.  “But no
style is flawless.  Even your Tullainian Spear Forms.  Come and I will
demonstrate the weaknesses I noticed in your style.”  He withdrew his rapier
from its sheath.

“As you desire, so shall I comply,” Chiksan replied,
as he did to every challenge made to him thus far.  Both his hands reclaimed
their grip on the shaft, holding it in a new diagonal slant.  One leg bent
slightly as the other extended in a straight-line.

Marik, rubbing ribs bruised through his chainmail,
offered no protest at Arvallar’s intrusion.  He brushed snow off one of the
many crates piled in the yard’s east side before sitting and shrugged out from
the links.  Once free of the iron shirt, he lifted his tunic to probe the area
Chiksan’s spear had struck.

Three crates away, Cork commented on Arvallar’s
obvious lack of common sense, taking on a long spear with his rapier the way he
did.  No one returned a reply.  Wyman sat on the highest crate in the pile,
endlessly flipping his ten-copper coin.  Churt sat one crate lower, his
crossbow propped against his shoulder from atop his knee.  The boy’s mood had
grown increasingly sour during their long trek, probably, Marik felt, because
he could not practice his precision shooting by chewing new holes in his
bedside wall every morning.

Bancroft sat beside Cork on the lower crate row, along
with most in the Fourth Unit.  The men were more interested in the spar than in
Cork’s opinions.

While shorter in length, Arvallar’s rapier used its
speed well to fend off Chiksan’s spear.  Marik could see Arvallar working
various strikes in a design meant to gradually close the distance to the
spear’s wielder while avoiding blows from the heavier weapon.

It was an excellent display of advanced footwork and
sword control, yet Chiksan had fought all his life and learned a great deal. 
Before Arvallar could close enough distance to render the spear’s length a
hindrance rather than a boon, the Tullainian switched tactics in a flash.  He
dropped low to the ground and lashed out, his spear streaking for Arvallar’s
fancy boots.

Surprised, caught off guard, Arvallar nevertheless
avoided the blow.  By luck mostly, Marik judged.  He yanked one foot off the
ground an instant before the spear would have made contact.  In a bad position,
he was forced to jerk the other one up as well.  The spear sliced through the
inches of empty space between boot soles and dirt.

Arvallar landed off balance with several wobbles.  He
recovered his form while Chiksan followed the spear’s sweep with his whole
body, twisting up in a twirl that brought him back to his feet.  They faced
each other, both studying their opponent, deciding their next strategy.

Marik watched.  Both of their ability as warriors was
impressive.  Arvallar tended to annoy him with his preening and his ‘noble’
attitude.  Yet any implication that he imitated the bluebloods would
unfailingly elicit a challenge.  He felt much more at ease with Chiksan, the
Tullainian veteran who had left his kingdom during the civil war three years
back.  Chiksan usually remained quiet, caring little that Marik possessed mage
talent, and always accepted a challenge to spar.  Though he favored his spear,
he would fight with swords or flails or axes as well depending on the
challenger’s wishes, all of which he could use effectively and sparred with to
keep up his skill in each.

Churt and Wyman remained mysteries, for the most
part.  Marik could not approach the youngster without either having a quarrel
shot at him or having Churt turn his back, eyes tight with anger.  Wyman kept
to himself, a loner who liked his solitude.  Somehow Churt had developed a
loose relationship with him.  If either spent time with another band member, it
was usually with the other.

His ribs were sore.  The cold bit with sharper teeth
at the forming bruise than at the surrounding skin.  Marik lowered his tunic
and shivered.  These yards might be swept free of snow every day, except the
cold could not be carted away with it.

Baron Atcheron’s holding would not impress a
moderately successful merchant, much less the inland nobles.  His personal
manor barely matched the town hall in Tattersfield for size, and the barracks
for his men only equaled a single wing in the Ninth Squad’s building in
Kingshome.  The border baron’s holding also housed the storehouses for the
three nearby villages, storehouses that together required double the space of
his manor and barracks.

Marik had thought the Fifth Storage Depot on the
Galemaran line against Nolier was the smallest holding any noble would
willingly lay claim to.  Seeing Atcheron’s holding, he better understood
Landon’s explanation on the relationship between the inland lords and those
nobles on the kingdom’s edge.

Arvallar and Chiksan closed on each other, the rapier
man turning so his shoulder faced the spearman, providing a narrower target
while enabling him to maximize his blade’s efficiency.  Dietrik rounded a
storehouse corner, pausing to watch the sparring match only for a moment before
commenting, “Our Tullainian brother is keeping busy, I see.”

“There are worse ways of keeping your weapon skills
honed than by accepting every challenge made to you.  I’ve been wondering if I
should start taking up those offers I got on the road.”

Dietrik’s mouth pulled back.  “It’s not a smart chap
who takes offers to spar from strangers, even if we are all members of the
Kings.  For all you know, those buggers might have been best friends with Beld,
and looking for an opportunity to lay you low.”

“Not likely, Dietrik!  No friend of Beld’s is cause
for any concern to me.”

That brought a look from Dietrik; definite unspoken
opinions.  He kept them unspoken.  “Captain Riley sent me looking for you.”

Marik shifted his gaze away from the match.  “For me? 
Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“No, not you by name.  He sent me to ‘find that mage
running with my pack’.”

“I like the sound of
that
even less!  How did
he know we have a mage in the squad at all?”

“You can ask him when we get there.  He did not sound
overly upset, though.”

Marik rose from his seat, lifting his mail with a hand
and tossing it over one shoulder.  “Overly?”

“The good captain did seem a tad anxious.  About what,
I have no idea.”

They speculated while they walked, but Dietrik had no
information Marik lacked.  Whatever Riley might want, it boded ill that he had
summoned Marik specifically, and especially by such a moniker as ‘that mage’.

Not that Marik had made any effort to hide his
powers.  Nor had he made an issue of them either.  During the last two
eightdays of patrolling under Riley with Atcheron’s forces, they had
encountered no disruptions.  What they had come across was numerous refugees
fleeing Tullainia.  Those ragged people wanted no trouble, much less to cause
any.  Brief words from Chiksan directed them to the Southern Road, along with
short descriptions of what they would be in for as homeless vagabonds when
Galemar was already clogged with such.

Baron Lysendra, Atcheron’s immediate neighbor to the
north, had captured a shady group that proved to be a smuggling collective
looting well-off homes in Tullainia abandoned before the troubles could advance
to their doorstep.  Other than the smugglers, Marik had not heard of so much as
a highway robber anywhere near the border baronies.

As far as the Ninth Squad saw it, this contract was
the easiest they’d ever had.  They were not so foolish as to discount the
terrifying stories on the lips of every refugee they encountered, but trouble,
if it ever came so far, still lay in the future.  Eightdays into the future, if
not months.

Which made his sudden summoning all the more
unsettling.

Dietrik led him around the storehouses to the main
building.  No grand doorways or halls or parlor rooms were to be found in this
noble’s abode.  This holding had started life as a fort to defend against
neighbors who viewed the land as a resource waiting to be carved up and
redistributed rather than as a neighboring kingdom.  That the Stoneseams
Mountains cut between this area and Tullainia offered only limited protection
against annexation to Atcheron’s ancestors.

In the first room off the entryway, they heard Riley
talking.  They entered as he told a man, obviously having only then arrived,
that he was free to bunk in the barracks with the guardsmen.  The captain
looked amused at seeing who Dietrik had fetched in response to his order, yet
made no comment.

Marik waited for Riley to say his piece.  Instead the
captain nodded at the new man to finalize his statement before walking past the
two mercenaries without further comment.

Dietrik shrugged.  Marik started to leave.  The new
man spoke.  “Ah, uh, ah yes.  You would be the mercenary mage, yes.  Yes?”

Marik faced his addresser.  The man was dressed in
white breeches with a soft blue tunic that hung so low it threatened to be
classified as a robe.  A massive pack rested beside his feet, which were clad
in brown slippers of thin leather
.  Too long a walk in those and his feet
will never recover
, Marik thought.

The stranger shifted position, and Marik noticed a
second pack that his hanging tunic had concealed.  Actually, it looked closer
to a fat satchel with a steel clasp handle.

Marik nodded at this person, warily admitting, “I
suppose I would be.  What do you want?”

The stranger started to raise a hand to shake
Marik’s.  When Marik made no reciprocal move, he instead reached into his
tunic.  “I have been assigned to this detachment by the army.  I am also
supposed to—whoops!”

He had withdrawn a flat package.  The wrapping twine
snagged on an emblem pinned to his collar.  His hands fumbling for it and
knocked it away rather than securing their hold.

Dietrik plucked the package deftly from the air when
it sailed to him.  The terrified look on the strangers face melted to relief as
Dietrik handed it back.  “Oh, thank you!  That was…that would not have been
good!”  He flipped the package over until he located the words scribed on the
wrapping vellum.  Having found them, he rotated it until they were
right-side-up.  “Delivery direct to Marik Railson.”

When the stranger cast a silent question with his
eyes, Marik nodded.  “Yeah, that’s me.  What’s this?”

“I was asked to deliver this straight to you.”  He
extended the parcel.

Marik took it.  “And who are you?”

“Ah, yes.  I am Glynn Allegra Eyollandish the Third.” 
He straightened while he said it, tugging his tunic tightly so the emblem on
his collar shifted into prominent display.  He noticed them glance at the Blue
Hand pin, and also noticed their blank expressions.  “I am,” he added, a trifle
impatiently, “a Healer assigned by the knight-marshal to your detachment.”