Bastion (10 page)

Amily’s bunch, however . . .

Amily herself was setting the bar for each flight of arrows. She would shoot first, then the rest were to place their arrows as close to hers as possible. They were all Herald Trainees, and they were using man-shaped targets with multiple hit spots marked out on them. Amily was consistently placing her arrows in the lethal zone.

He felt himself grinning at her with pride, his smile fully wide enough to make the corners of his mouth hurt a little. The Weaponsmaster turned at that moment and caught his expression, and nodded with evident satisfaction.

He had to turn his attention back to his own pupils, though; they sorely needed it. Evidently the Weaponsmaster had not yet had the time or opportunity to press them past their current state of achievement, and being, like most younglings, a little lazy, they hadn’t pressed themselves. Well, he could understand that. The Weaponsmaster was only one man, and there were a
lot
more Herald Trainees now than there had been in the past. They were certainly adequate for fieldwork, and even battle conditions. Mags just wanted them to be excellent rather than adequate.

He kept his group on the archery targets, but Amily’s group moved on to throwing knives, then axes, then javelins. She was superb with everything but the ax, which didn’t seem to be much of an issue to him. The ax was a weapon for someone with a strong arm; it took an entirely different sort of skill to throw it than to throw a knife. Heralds didn’t carry axes for anything but cutting wood, and the likelihood that Amily would be in a position where that was the only weapon she had to hand was pretty slim.

And if it was the only weapon she had to hand, it would be pretty foolish of her to throw it away anyway. He remembered the Weaponsmaster’s admonition to all of them the first time they began using throwing weapons.
The person who throws his only weapon at the enemy is an idiot. A few moments after that, he will be a dead idiot.
Facing someone with a bow, her best bet would be to drop and roll and knock the assailant’s legs out from under him if she could, and at least make herself a harder target to hit if she couldn’t. Against someone with a sword or a knife and no option to run, her best bet would be to wait for him to attack, take his measure, and use the ax as a hand-to-hand weapon.

He sent his group away to try out some more bows, admonishing them to look for ones that had a harder draw than the ones they were using now. He reckoned it was about time for them to try more powerful bows. While he waited for them to come back, the Weaponsmaster left his group for a moment to come talk to him.

“Amazing, is it not?” the Herald said with what—in anyone else—Mags might have called “glee.” “Who would have guessed? It is as if a natural warrior, not unlike you, was simply sleeping inside her, waiting for her leg to be repaired before leaping out fully formed.”

“She’s a natural, that’s for certain sure,” Mags agreed, watching as she set her pupils another challenge. “There’s nothin’ magic about it, though,” he continued. “She’s been playin’ darts t’pass the time since she was about old enough to fling ’em. And her pa made her a little grapple on a cord she could use to fetch things to her so she didn’t have to struggle to get ’em. Clever bit of kit, that. Wonder who thought of it?”

The Weaponsmaster gave him a long look, as if to make certain that Mags was not trying to pull some sort of joke on him. “Darts, you say?” He repeated, sounding a bit incredulous. “And a grapple?”

“Well, think about it. When you gotta drag a near-useless leg around, so yer pa set you up a target you can pull to you, and pull back into place, you got a lot of incentive to learn to hit it, so you don’t haveta go chasing scattered darts,” he pointed out reasonably. “And if you got a way to hook a basket, or a book, or an apple and bring it to you, well, you get good hooking things real fast.”

The Weaponsmaster nodded thoughtfully. “The skill of hand and eye would translate somewhat to the sword as well,” he mused. “But not, say, the staff. Which explains why she is not much better than I would expect in staff.”

“I dunno about that, but I’d have her at my back with a bow any time,” Mags said with open admiration. And then his pupils returned with their new bows, so he moved them closer to the target to begin all over again.

The next class was swordsmanship again, and Amily tired quickly after teaching two classes in a row. The Weaponsmaster put her to correcting the youngest and least experienced in the class, something she could do without having to partner them, while Mags took another group of mixed Heralds and Guards. And then it was time for luncheon—or, rather, it was just time to get themselves clean before going to luncheon. They all set off for the bathing rooms and filled the place. No Trainees ever wanted to present themselves at the dining hall stinking of sweat.

The afternoon was much the same as the morning, except one of the classes was in staff rather than sword, and Mags saw for himself that Amily was barely adequate. In a way, that was a little bit of a relief—it would have been just a bit depressing to discover she could outfight him in every aspect of weapons work!

At least he could be sure she would never be able to scramble across rooftops the way he could. She didn’t have much of a head for heights, and with her leg still strengthening, she would likely never be able to climb and leap the way he could.

Just as well. Her pa’d murder me if I took her roof-walkin’.

:He would murder you and find a way to bring you back so he could murder you again, Chosen,:
Dallen chuckled.

Amily arrived at the dining hall at almost the same time as he, both of them with wet hair from a good dousing, and Mags had the feeling they even looked much alike: tired, but satisfied. Lena and Bear gave them startled looks as they sat down at the table, took plates, and began helping themselves.

“Dare I ask what you two have been up to?” Bear ventured.

“We’re the Weaponsmaster’s new chew toys,” Amily said dryly.

Bear looked confused, and Mags chuckled. “She means we’re his new assistants. All day, every day. Tell you what, we’re getting more’n our share of exercise.”

“I can believe it!” Bear explained. “But . . . why?”

“Dean Caelen wants t’hold me outa classes for a while. Dunno why,” Mags said, making it public knowledge for the first time. “Weaponsmaster reckoned he can use the help, and I ain’t arguing with
him.”

“Don’t blame you, but that doesn’t explain Amily,” Bear retorted. Amily shrugged. “What else have I got to do?” she asked reasonably. “And you wanted me to exercise more to strengthen the leg before the snow came. This is certainly exercise.”

“It’s all of that,” Bear replied, though he sounded a little dubious. “Just don’t overdo it—”

Mags and Amily looked at each other and burst into simultaneous laughter. “Don’t tell
us,
Bear,” Mags choked out. “If yer really serious ’bout us not overdoing, you need to tell Weaponsmaster!”

Bear looked away for a moment. “Not sure I’d dare,” he confessed.

Amily patted his hand fondly. “That’s all right, Bear,” she said. “Not sure I would either.”

•   •   •

Whatever else the new regimen was doing for him—and Mags was pretty certain he was getting very damned good at weapons work, and his stamina was increasing—it also wore him completely out. Despite being with Amily all day, he was untroubled by fantasies about her at night because the moment his head touched the pillow, he was asleep. Sometimes he wondered if it hadn’t been Herald Nikolas’s idea to put them both to work like this, because it left them neither the time nor the energy for “getting up to mischief” as some people delicately put it.

But Amily swore that when she’d gone back to the rooms she shared with her father that first night, it had all been news to him. So maybe it had been a completely legitimate need of the Weaponsmaster, after all.

Mags was discovering, however, that there were some very physical memories that he had picked up among all the others that the assassins had tried to shove into his head. He discovered it when, two fortnights after they had begun as his assistants, the Weaponsmaster had brought out a new sort of knife to throw, small, heavy, and looking a bit like a dart without a feathered end. Mags had picked up several, and with a sideways flick of his wrist that he had
never
been taught, he sent them in rapid succession—one, two, three—into the center of the target. The three had been placed so closely together that their tips touched.

Weaponsmaster had given him a
look,
but had said nothing, except to order him to teach the others the same throw. Mags was pretty certain there was a lot being said between the Herald and his Companion, and from there onward—probably being relayed on up to Nikolas. He expected a new interrogation after dinner, but all that happened was that Dallen nudged him a little as he was parting from Amily.

:Nikolas says if you come up with anything else useful, be sure to let him know.:

He agreed wordlessly. Nikolas seemed satisfied.

That night, he dreamed briefly in the assassin’s tongue again. He seemed to be witnessing two powerful men arguing. It didn’t last long enough for him to determine what it was they were arguing about; his dream began about the time they were both disparaging each other’s character. And “witness” was all he could do, for he couldn’t move or speak, and they didn’t appear to notice his presence.

When he woke he still didn’t have a clear sense of what had been going on. It had been rather like coming into the middle of a disagreement, so that all he got was the knowledge that the two men were never going to come to terms with each other.

It’d be nice if I were Farseeing,
he thought wistfully,
And those men are the leaders. It’d be awfully useful if that lot were fightin’ among themselves.

He fell back asleep again, to find himself dreaming of training among the assassins, making his way back and forth across a sort of obstacle course, except that it was about a story above the ground. The dream-him was extremely good at this, and he took mental notes of some roof-walking techniques that he had never seen nor thought of. Acrobatics, actually. It seemed that by incorporating tumbling moves rather than simple jumping, you could get more distance.

He was better than the other young men in his dream, and their instructor bestowed sparse praise on him that left him glowing and the others glowering. It appeared that such praise was not often forthcoming, and marked him as something special. It felt good in the dream, but when he woke up, the good feeling faded and was replaced with consternation. That was the first time he’d dreamed something about these people that had attracted him to them and their way of life. Were those memories starting to take root?

He could only repeat to himself that Dallen knew his mind better than he knew it himself, and if something was wrong, Dallen would certainly raise an alarm about it.

:Yes I would,:
Dallen said patiently and sleepily at about the fifth repetition of this.
:Mags, you are still you. There is nothing about you that has changed, just . . . grown. Do you understand what I’m saying?:

:That I’ve had t’grow up?:
he replied, feeling just a trifle irritated.

:That is exactly what I am saying,:
came the reply.
:Trust me, no one likes being forced to grow up. It’s damned unpleasant. You learn you’re never safe. You learn that people you depend on to protect you might not be able to. Not even me. You learn all sorts of things you would really rather not have known. I hated it. You hate it. Everyone hates it.:

Yes, but that didn’t make these things less true. And he hated that, too. Well, maybe hate was too strong a word, but he certainly didn’t like it, not one bit.

He realized at that moment just what it was that was peculiarly attractive about the assassins.

No one ever has to figure out anything. They get told what to do, an’ they do it.

After everything he had gone through, all the uncertainty, there was comfort in that. Heralds were supposed to make decisions all the time. Heralds had to make decisions not only for themselves, but for other people. Big, important, life-changing decisions. Becoming a Herald like Nikolas—effectively a spy for the King—meant he would be making all
kinds
of decisions that would affect people for the rest of their lives. Or shorten those lives.
Could
he do that? Would he ever feel ready to do that?

He’d come here in the first place from the mines, where everyone knew his place and what he was expected to do—and, almost as important, was expected to
keep
to that place and never step out of it. The assassins had a similar life. They didn’t make the decisions and were not responsible for the decisions, only for carrying them out.

A Herald’s entire life was spent finding his own way.

Right now . . . knowing your place seemed a lot more attractive than finding your way.

:Oh come now, you’re too intelligent for that, Mags. Even if conditions at the mine had been good, you’d have been bitterly unhappy being confined like that. And if you were to go join your “cousins,” or whatever they are, even if everything was wonderful, you were never assigned to murder anyone who wasn’t a hideous villain, and you had friends there, you’d be bitterly unhappy at being confined and not trusted to make your own decisions about your own life there.:

“I suppose . . .” he said aloud, into the dark.

:My impression is that—just as an example—if these people decide that someone should be fathering children, they fling a selected woman at you and expect you to breed like a prize bull. I rather doubt you’d care for that.:

Well . . . that was true enough,

:And seriously, can you lie there and tell me that you wouldn’t be questioning every single time you were told to go and murder someone?:

Mags sensed Dallen—laughing?