Exile's Valor

as he did so, and stalked out, followed by a suddenly subdued tail of Trainees of all four colors.

Out into the snow they went, out past the practice grounds and into Companion’s Field, following a path beaten by others into the thigh-deep snow. It was another cloudless, bone-chilling day, and sunlight poured pitilessly down through the skeletal branches of the trees. He led them to one of the frozen ponds in Companion’s Field, one that had been cleared off so that it could be used for skating, but was far enough from the Palace and the Collegia that it wasn’t in use very much. In a welcome release for his temper, he kicked three basket-sided holes in the snow at the edge of the ice, one at each point of an imaginary equal-sided triangle laid on the pond, then divided the class into two teams. He made sure that the Trainees were fairly evenly distributed between both teams, and he made a point of dividing up friends as much as he could. If they were mad for sport, well, he’d give them bloody sport indeed. . . .

:Chosen, I hope you aren’t releasing a wolf from a trap, here,: Kantor said, full of amusement. :Are you sure you know what you’re doing?:

:No,: he said honestly. :But at least they’ll get some stave practice out of this.:

Then he dropped what he had picked up onto the ice in front of them.

It was one of the little round cushions that they used over their knuckles when they were practicing bare-fist fighting. They looked at it, then at him, then back down at it, without any comprehension at all.

“Pah. You are two teams of fighters now. There are your goals. First team—there, second team, there.” He pointed, He thought he saw comprehension beginning to dawn. He hoped so. They’d all seen the broom-ball competition. He hoped they weren’t so dense that they couldn’t figure this out! “The third goal neutral is. Either team may score there. The cushion, into the opposite goal, or into the neutral goal, you are to put,” he said icily and moved carefully off the slippery surface of the ice with as much dignity as he could muster, heaving a sigh of relief when he reached the bank and could stand there with his arms folded over his chest, under his cape.

“But is this like broom-ball? What are the rules?” someone asked, and “But we don’t have skates!” protested another.

“There are rules in war? I think not,” he retorted. “Skates you will be carrying in the field? Enough. No rules. The cushion, in the goal, you will put. How it comes there, your problem is. Hit it, you may. Kick it, carry it, I care not. You have staves. Use them. Fight with them. No rules.”

He hadn’t been altogether certain what their response would be. On the one hand, they were Trainees, and had a modicum of training in organization. On the other hand, they were overstimulated adolescents with too much restlessness to settle down. They could settle in and make some rules, assigning tasks and responsibilities before they set to their new version of broom-ball.

They could. But they didn’t.

With a yell, someone broke and swatted at the cushion with his stave, and the melee began as someone else jumped for the cushion, and half of the other team piled onto the one making the move. It was, in a sadistic sort of way, rather entertaining for the onlooker. Staves went everywhere—though not as successfully as if the fighting had been on solid, unslippery ground. Bodies went everywhere. Most of them ended up sprawled on the ice. The cushion tended not to get anywhere near a goal.

He had been counting on the ice to ensure that no one was able to get in any dangerously hard blows with the staves, and the ploy worked. Even the ones that were good skaters found the going slippery, and none of them were used to trying to stay balanced on the ice while simultaneously swatting with a stave. And all of them were fairly good at stave work to begin with, so if someone swung for an opponent instead of the cushion, there was a good chance that he’d find the blow blocked. But none of them were doing much in the way of coordination or teamwork; it was pretty much every man for himself, and Alberich had ensured that the little amount of teamwork that might have occurred naturally was sidelined by breaking up friends onto opposite teams.

It got pretty wild out there, though, before it was all over. He didn’t know if any of them were keeping track of the number of goals that were made. He certainly wasn’t. All he was interested in was to make sure that no one was injured beyond falls and bruises and bumps on the head. Putting them on the ice had another effect; even when someone connected with a stave, most of the force of the blow went into sending the opponent flying like a giant version of the cushion. Oh, they were going to be aching and stiff when it was over.

:There’s going to be competition for the bathtubs today,: Kantor observed, sounding highly amused. :And calls for liniment, I suspect.:

:They wanted excitement,: he told his Companion.

:So they did.:

If they were going to act like a lot of wild hill brats, then by the Sunlord, they were going to learn why discipline and organization were necessary if you wanted to win a fight.

By the time that class was over—more to the point, by the time he broke up the melee that the “game” had turned into and sent them all back to their other classes—it didn’t appear that the lesson had sunk in yet.