A voice from outside his window wakes him up. “Hold it steady,” the voice says again. Getting out of bed, he goes over to the window and sees Illan there with the eight recruits. Each of the recruits is holding a sword in their right hand at exactly a forty five degree angle. To his surprise, one of them is a girl. As he watches for a moment, one of them lets their sword droop a fraction. Illan notices and gets right in their face.
“You will hold it steady until I tell you to stop!” he yells at the lad. The recruit grits his teeth as he strains to raise the sword to bring it back into line with the others. James can see the strain and struggle in all their faces as they attempt to keep it up and in the correct position. “You are going to learn to use your sword, and by god you’ll learn to use it well. The first thing you must learn is endurance.” Another allows their sword to droop a fraction and he’s right on top of him until it rises back in line with the others.
The girl manages to maintain the correct angle of her sword throughout the drill. The determination clear upon her face.
“In combat,” Illan continues, “the first one to lose strength, the first one who can no longer swing their sword, is the first one to die!”
“Lower them,” he commands.
James watches as they bring their swords down, relief evident upon their faces. Then Illan says, “Switch hands!”
“What?” one of the boys asks. “I don’t use my left hand?”
Illan comes over to him and says, “What if your right arm is wounded? Are you going to tell the man trying to kill you to stop attacking because you don’t fight with your left hand?” Staring straight at the boy, he yells, “Left hand, now!”
Gulping, the lad passes his sword to his left hand and joins his fellows in holding it up at a forty five degree angle.
Moving away from his window, James gets dressed and then goes out to the kitchen for breakfast. He finds Tersa and Jiron there finishing up their meal. “I see Illan has them working hard this morning,” he says.
Smiling, Jiron replies, “They’ve been at it for over an hour now.”
“May have to construct a barracks of some kind if they’re going to be here permanently,” says James as he sits down at the table.
Tersa gets up and brings him over a plate with eggs and tubers.
Seeing the eggs, he asks, “So Ezra has the new chickens laying already?”
“Most of them never even stopped as she was afraid of,” Tersa replies, sitting back down next to her brother
“Good,” James says as he takes a large bite of eggs.
“While the recruits are training, the rest of us are on patrol duty,” Jiron informs him. “Illan says they must have at least three hours of practice a day, maybe more when all of us are here. They didn’t really expect all this training when we first asked around for help, but it makes sense.”
Nodding, James adds, “After what we’ve been through the last week, any and all training can only help.” He eats a couple more bites in silence before continuing, “I saw a girl out there with the others.”
“Oh, that’s Errin,” he says. “She’s the daughter of some farmer on the far side of town. When her father heard we were asking for help, he brought her over to us. Said she was a hellcat and would fit right in.”
“He did, did he?” James asks.
“Yeah, he did,” answers Jiron with a grin. “In fact, he seemed right glad to be rid of her. But she’s caused no problems and she can shoot a bow better than any of the others. You probably didn’t see her yesterday because we have her mainly patrolling the woods.”
“Does she want to be here?” he asks, concerned about forcing someone to do something against their will. Especially something that could endanger their lives.
“She’s taken to it with great determination,” Jiron tells him. “Yern says that she was wasted back on the farm and that’s where she would have most likely spent her days seeing as how the Cardri army doesn’t allow women recruits.”
They spend the remainder of breakfast catching up on small details that have cropped up since James was gone, thankfully nothing of any real importance. Just before he’s done eating, Roland comes in from the front room.
“Oh, there you are,” he says to James. “I need to talk to you.”
Getting up, James says to Jiron and Tersa, “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Of course,” Jiron says.
He follows Roland as he exits the kitchen and moves toward James’ room. Once inside, he closes the door and comes over to the chest and lifts the lid. What had once been a chest filled to the brim, now contains only a few coins.
“What happened?” asked James, shocked.
“What happened?” echoes Roland. “We’ve got construction going on and that seems to be a constant drain on our coins. New recruits for security, not to mention arming them and feeding them, plus just the maintenance of this place, it all costs. We’re fast running out of money.”
“I’ll go down to Alexander’s and get some more,” he tells him.
“Do that,” he says. “Also, you need to tell him that you’ll allow me to withdraw funds while you’re gone so I can keep this place going. I tried to while they were hunting for you, but since you hadn’t made that stipulation, he wouldn’t release any to me.”
“Sorry, I hadn’t thought of that,” apologizes James. “I’ll take care of that today.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Roland says with a worried look.
“Oh?” asks James.
“The money you have with Alexander will last awhile, but at the rate we’re spending, it probably won’t last more than a few months, maybe less. We have to find a source of income, one that’s consistent and which we can count on.”
“Do you have any suggestions?” he asks.
Shaking his head, Roland says, “No. The only one I can even think of is for you to make similar objects like your shaving knife that Delia could sell for us.”
“I really don’t want to do that,” he says.
“I know, we’ve discussed it before,” Roland replies. “But try to come up with something, and don’t take too long about it.”
“Alright,” James tells him. “Anything else?”
Giving him a smile, he says, “Just that we’re all glad you’re back.”
“So am I,” agrees James.
Roland leaves him there in his room alone, shutting the door behind him as he leaves. He moves over to his window and looks out at the recruits. Jorry and Uther are demonstrating sword techniques while Illan explains them, how to achieve them and their various merits.
Errin is watching the exhibition with keen attention and is unconsciously pantomiming with her hands the motions she sees.
He leaves his room and makes his way out to his workshop. On the way, Illan sees him and waves him over. As he approaches, Uther and Jorry come to a halt and lower the wooden swords they’ve been using for the demonstration.
To his recruits, Illan says, “For those of you who don’t know him yet, this is James, the master of The Ranch.”
Eight pairs of eyes stare at him as he comes to a stop in front of them. “James,” Illan continues, “these young men and lady, have all agreed to help in keeping the security and to warn of any possible attack.”
“You know Devin,” he says. Devin gives him a smile and a nod.
“Yeah,” James replies, returning the smile, “we’ve met once or twice.”
“The other ones are, Orry, Caleb, Errin, Jace, Nerrin, Moyil, and Terrance.” He points to them one by one as he makes his way through the group.
When he’s done, James nods to them all and says, “Glad to have you aboard. I just have a couple things you need to know. First of all, I do magic.” Pointing over to his workshop, he continues, “Over there is my workshop and when I’m inside, don’t disturb me unless it’s for an emergency. It could prove disastrous. Second, I may have
