Exile's Valor

The third pair, Healer and Heraldic Trainees, also bouted and retired; one went to the mirrors, the other to point practice on a ball suspended from the ceiling. The fourth pair, however—

Well, both of them were high-spirited most times, and today, truly full of bedevilment. One was a Heraldic Trainee, the other a Bardic Trainee, and between them, the two were responsible for half the pranks that were pulled at the two Collegia. Both were slender and agile, both possessed of so much energy that their teachers sometimes despaired over trying to get them to hold still long enough to learn something, and envied their inexhaustible verve at one and the same time.

So Alberich knew he was going to have to be sharp to keep these two within bounds today.

If he could. Adain, the young Bard, and Mical were harder to keep control of than a bushel of ferrets today; he saw that within moments of their bout.

The two went at each other with the same concentration and will as the first two, and a great deal more energy and enthusiasm. As a consequence, they didn’t stay inside the circle of observers, and those who had been quietly practicing found themselves scrambling out of the way as their combat ran from one end of the salle to the other.

Alberich had heard some rumors that these two were in the habit of experimenting with new moves—well, here was the proof that the rumors were true. It looked less like a practice bout and more like an acrobatic exhibition. Very few of their blows actually connected with anything. They weren’t actually parrying each other; they were tumbling and spinning and jumping about so much that they never even got near each other with their wooden blades.

“Stop!” Alberich roared, just as Adain, by more luck than anything else, bound Mical’s blade in a complicated corkscrewing parry—

—and with a wild flip of his arm, disarmed his opponent and sent the wooden sword flying—

—straight at one of the precious panels of mirror.

Alberich opened his mouth to shout, and knew it was already too late.

It was one of those moments when time slows to a crawl, and the coming disaster is observed in painful detail without anyone being able to actually do anything about it. Adam’s grin of triumph slowly turned to one of horror, Mical clawed the air in futility after his lost sword as it headed straight for the mirror, its own reflection seeming to fly to meet it in midair. As the heavy, weighted stick flipped over and over in midair, Alberich just braced himself for the inevitable.

And, with a terrible crash, it came. The weighted end hit with the sound of a hundred hand mirrors hitting a pavement; the mirror spiderwebbed—and shattered.

A profound and dreadful silence fell over the salle, broken only by a belated series of musical chinks, as a few of the shards that were left detached themselves and landed on the wreck of the rest of the mirror.

Chink. Chinker-chink. Chink.

“Uh-oh,” said Adain, in a very small voice.

Chink.

***

Alberich stood behind the two miscreants with his arms crossed over his chest, as they faced the desk of the Acting Dean of Herald’s Collegium. Elcarth was not alone; the Dean of Bardic Collegium, Bard Arissa, had joined him for this particular conference. While Elcarth, slight and birdlike, with an inquisitive face and mild manner, was not normally the sort of person who might inspire trepidation in a student, the look he wore today would have frozen the marrow of anyone’s bones.

The two boys huddled unhappily in their chairs. It was the first time within his knowledge that Alberich had seen these two subdued. Their shoulders, under gray and rust-colored tunics respectively, were hunched with misery; their dark heads were both bowed, and two sets of hazel eyes were bent upon the floor.

“What, precisely, possessed you two to demonstrate your—new fighting techniques today?” That was Bard Arissa, a slim, autocratic woman, dark as a gypsy and resplendent in her full formal Scarlets, and you could have used the edge in her voice to cleave diamonds.

“It seemed like a good idea?” Adain suggested, in a whisper.

“And why did you not ask Herald Alberich if you could show him these things in private?” asked Elcarth, his voice like a wintry blast from the snowstorm outside.

“Um. He’s very busy?” Adain seemed to be doing all the talking; Mical was sitting like a stone. Alberich knew why; Mical was from a family prosperous enough to possess one or two real glass mirrors and he knew just how expensive they were, although he probably had no idea that the price increased exponentially with the size. Adain