Exile's Honor

immortal. An attitude like that would get them killed—

Unless Dethor and I can knock some better sense into their heads.

'Sir,' Alberich acknowledged, and picked up a practice sword and shield from the piles at the side of the salle, while the boys did the same. They looked cocky. Alberich figured that they must have had sword training from the time they were barely old enough to hold a practice sword and shield. Five or six, maybe. From families of wealth or the nobility, he figured these were part of that 'flock' of youngsters that Kantor had described; they had that particular healthy, confident, well-fed look that only being well-nourished from infancy imparted. Maybe only someone who as a child had never been certain whether there would be a next meal would have noticed the difference, but Alberich had learned early which were the well-fed children (and thus, dangerous, for they could bully him with impunity) and which the starvelings like himself (which he could defend himself against without fear of retribution).

'Standard or—special, sir?' he asked Dethor, when the boys had finished arming themselves. He had not bothered with padding, arm- or shin-guards, or even a helmet; they had prudently taken advantage of all of these. At least that showed some sense of self- preservation. They were shortly going to be very glad of every bit of that protection.

'Oh, special, Second,' Dethor replied airily—and he must have known or guessed just what Alberich meant by 'special.' 'Tammas and Jahan have had plenty of standard training. I believe it's time they learned what real field fighting is like.'

'Sir,' Alberich replied, and without a pause, whirled and laid into the nearest.

He didn't go at them as if this was a pitched battle, because he'd have taken them both out in moments. They'd been expecting the usual polite exchange of salutes, followed by a measured opening to the bout—not an attack right out of nowhere, with no warning, and that had been enough of a shock for them; he didn't need to go after them full-out.

And the way they reacted was telling; they both stood their ground, but neither close enough to defend each other, nor far enough apart to make him work harder to reach both of them. They might think they were trained, but they weren't, not really. So Alberich knocked the first one's shield aside with a brutal blow that nearly knocked it from his arm, without regard for 'lines' and the 'rules' of swordplay. He followed it up by ramming the boy with his own shield. The lad stumbled backward, and before his friend could come to the rescue, Alberich sidestepped, made a wide, low sweep with the flat of his practice blade, and knocked his legs right out from under him. It was a good thing the boy was wearing shin-guards—though he couldn't have been expecting the low blow, or he'd have guarded against it.

He turned back toward the first as the second scrambled to his feet. Once again, Alberich rushed the boy, this time herding him toward his friend with a flurry of blows. Predictably, they got tangled up with each other, and he backed off to let them sort themselves out, though the next time he did this, he wouldn't give them the respite. Then he simply chased them around the salle for a full circuit of the place, using all the dirty tactics he knew, and hitting them just hard enough that they would have bruises to show for it, even under the padding and protection. He made their ears ring a time or two as well, with unexpected blows to the helm. Neither of them, of course, got so much as a love tap on him. He hadn't bothered with a helm, because he wanted to be able to see them easily; he trusted to his reflexes to keep him out of trouble. Oddly enough, he would have worn the helm and padding had they been utterly untrained, for there would be no predicting what they would do. Part of their problem now was that they were rather too well-trained. If they were going to come up against lads who'd been trained by fighting and killing, instead of by self-styled Masters of the Sword or fellows with equally fancy titles, they were going to have to unlearn some of what was now ingrained. Good habits—if all you were doing was fighting other gentlemen. But very bad if you were going out to kill brigands.

By this time he was just feeling warmed up, and beginning to enjoy himself. Not a chance that they could even get a tap on him; not only because he was a far better fighter, but because they were so shocked by his tactics that they couldn't think. They were shocked, the patterns they knew were all disrupted, and they hadn't yet seen that what appeared to be random attacks had patterns of their own, more primitive and brutal, but the patterns were there.

Not that fighting—in the frontline, basic, dirty fighting—had much to do with thinking. It was all muscle memory at that point, because before a mark was up, you'd be so tired that it had better be your muscles that remembered what to do—your mind would be numb with fatigue and no longer working properly. But what Alberich was doing was what any good bandit fighter would do, two-against-one. He certainly wouldn't stand in one place and slug it out, nor would he move forward and back in a single, straight line.

The other Trainees stopped their practice and watched him chase his two victims around the perimeter of the salle. They watched with their mouths hanging open in amazement, and no little shock and surprise. Dethor didn't make them go back to trading blows, so Alberich concluded that this, and not what they'd been assigned to do, was the real lesson today.

Good. Let them think about it. Not now—they were as shocked as his two victims—but they would remember, and talk about this in their rooms together, later. If they were smart enough, they would learn from what they watched now, and the next pair he chased around the salle would be better prepared for what he was going to do to them.

He drove the boys back for a good while, which probably felt like an eternity to them, taking on first one, then the other; they fought as two separate individuals rather than a pair. Another mistake, for he could hack at one long enough for the other to take heart and try something, then move on the second boy before he'd rightly got his move started. And oh, they were not anticipating the shrewd blows to shins, the absolutely rude blows to the groin....

The latter he pulled, and pulled hard; he didn't want to lay them out, he just wanted them to know what he could do if he wished.