Steel And Flame (Book 1) (27 page)

Ignored for the most part, Braydon handed her a thin
blade from the cart’s stock.

“In essence, a rapier is a one-handed blade.  You’ll
see most of these have a basket hilt made of shaped bars curving around the
grip in various designs.”  She ran her finger along sweeping steel curves,
weaving around the thin-gripped hilt in an artistic spider web.  “This protects
the hand as well as providing balance for the sword since many have no
distinguishable pommel.

“They’re light-weight swords, and the blades are
always thin, narrow and long.  Their greatest strength is their speed.  They
are the fastest blades you’ll ever see.  In the hands of a master, they are
very, very deadly.”  Nyla stopped caressing the sword to whip it before her in
a whistling slash.  Its point targeted the nose on the man nearest her, only
six inches separating flesh from steel.  She twinkled when he flinched
backward, then continued as though she had never stopped talking.

“Their weight is not much of a weakness.  They’re
light enough to be pushed away by the opposing blade rather than broken, but
that means a wielder will be using dodges instead of blocks for their defense. 
The sweet trick to remember is never focus solely on the armed hand.  Most
rapiers have a companion blade; a small dagger of similar design usually
carried in a belt behind the wielder’s back.  Concentrate only on the hand
wielding the rapier and the dagger will let your guts out.”

All that morning she demonstrated on the men how to be
killed by a rapier with greater enthusiasm than Mylor.  The blades were passed
around.  Marik’s appreciation arose from how light they were.  Many had ridges
rather than fullers running their length.  It decreased their flexibility, but
increased the thrusting strength, the rapier’s strongest attack.  Not all had
the basket hilt design, many sporting ring guards like most of the
hand-and-a-half blades.  He noticed Dietrik appeared enraptured with the
blades.

Nyla let them go early for their meal, giving them an
extra half mark.

Marik’s head felt heavy.  The effort of straining to
memorize everything he heard for the last day and a half blunted his
capacities.  He was not about to mention it to Dietrik, knowing what the man
would probably say.  All in all, it was a bad time for a confrontation.

“Hey!  I been looking for you!”

Marik wished the voice were unfamiliar.  He looked up
to see Beld The Not So Beautiful approaching with his two siblings in spirit. 
Unsurprisingly, and proving the wisdom of Mylor, all three giants carried big
two-handed claymores.

Dietrik stopped behind Marik.  He could not tell if
his new friend stood with him or only waited for this conflict to run its
course.

“Dellen was bounced because of your skinny ass!  You
think I’m going to do nothing about it?”

Beld reached a meaty hand for his shirt.  Marik
stepped beyond the huge man’s reach.

“You have a funny sense of justice, Beld.  It was a
competition and he lost.  I fail to see how that’s my fault.”

Beld’s brows knitted together as he advanced.  “You
think those dirty tricks was fighting?  Dellen could pound your ass like a tent
stake!”

“Then why didn’t he?”

Marik anticipated Beld’s reaction, yet once again the
huge man’s speed surprised him.  Beld lashed out with a fist and Marik only
dodged half the distance he had meant to before the blow made contact with his
shoulder.  The attack’s strength hurled him backward.  He landed near the doors
to the Twelfth Squad’s barracks.  Men who had been going about their business
stopped to watch the fight.  A few called cheers.  Others jeered.

Marik regained his feet unsteadily while a voice from
much further away joined the fray.

“Hey!  You two knock it off!  Hey!  Look up here, damn
it!”

Beld saw him first, a man atop the southern wall.  He
was pointing at them.

“No fighting off the training areas!  Break it up
before I have the Homeguard drag you off to the holding cells!”

He shouted to be heard across the distance but his
faint words made his meaning clear.  Dietrik decided to further elaborate for
those of slower wit.  “Perhaps you should listen to the man.  Unless of course
you care to join up with your friend Dellen outside, that is.”

Beld’s furious gaze turned on Dietrik.  “And don’t
think I forgot about
you!
  Sucker-punching bastard!”

Dietrik’s reply burned in his eyes although he held it
behind his teeth.  Beld’s two cronies muttered quietly to him.  They
reluctantly retreated.  The fight having ended before it had fairly begun, the
disappointed spectators resumed their interrupted business.

“I don’t think you have a friend there, Marik.”

“You neither.  Let’s steer clear of them as best we
can.”

“Agreed.”

Marik rolled his shoulder to loosen it while they
walked back to their barracks and lunch.

*        *        *        *        *

The rest of the second day and all the third contained
similar lectures.  Mylor covered battle axes and war hammers while Nyla dealt
with different flails.  Braydon actually took a turn and spoke about various
pole arms in a quiet voice that soon had men sneering at him to relieve their
impotent frustrations.

Mylor ran roughshod over them, allowing Braydon to
finish, though the information on pole arms was sketchy, less thorough than the
other weapon types.  Marik mentally noted to try and expand his knowledge in
this area by spring if time allowed.

They were left very little time outside the training
hall.  Both Marik and Dietrik kept meaning to visit Ale House Row except the
days wore them both out.  The short time left combined with their efforts to
avoid Beld’s group conspired to keep them on the town’s east side, close to
their barracks.

“Which squad was Beld and company assigned to anyway?”

“I don’t know, mate.  A higher number than ours or we
would have seen him called up by old Janus.”

“Which means he probably knows where I am.  How
typical.”

“Pardon?”

Marik sighed.  “I left Tattersfield to get away from
this kind of thing.  If I wanted an enemy, I had plenty to choose from back
there.”

“I thought you were the pious son, filled with filial
responsibility to discover the lost fate of your father.”

“Don’t sound like Chatham.”

“Like who?  Oh, that mate of yours?”

“Never mind.”  Marik gathered his thoughts.  “I
did
leave for that reason, but not only for that.  If my mother was still alive, I
would have stayed chained to that town, never leaving and enduring the worst. 
I still want to find out about father, but I think I might have used my wanting
to find him as an excuse to leave everything behind.”

“It’s a far sight better than digging in while
bewailing your fate, you know.  At least you are going forward.”

“Maybe, but I don’t feel right about it.  I should
have left
just
to find him and to the hells with all those fools back
there.”

“Not ‘back home’?”

“No.  I don’t think that’s been home for a long time. 
Come on, it’s cold out here.”

They increased their pace to arrive at the training
hall under dawn’s brightening colors.  As usual, they were the first to arrive.

Today should be different.  Mylor had told them the
weapons familiarity sessions were through and they would be working on
technique and method today.  Unsure what to expect, Marik and Dietrik had both
donned double layers of clothing.  They had been lucky thus far, avoiding the
demonstrations which left men kneeling on the floor, yet Mylor’s implications
suggested their lucky streak might end today.

Mylor started as soon as the last man walked through
the door.  He handed the customary papers to Braydon who left, also as usual.

“We’ll spend a few moments on armor, then we’ll start
with killing methods.”

With Braydon gone, he needed to rummage through the
cart himself.  He pulled out a thick leather vest long enough to reach below
the waist.

“You already know about mail, so I’ll skip that.  This
is a brigandine.  It’s a pair of leather vests with steel plates sewn between
them.”  He rapped his knuckles on the coat’s chest.  Everyone heard them
thunking against the metal inside.  “Real plate armor is ten leagues beyond
expensive, so these are becoming popular among the not-as-rich classes.  It
still costs more than you’d want to pay, but it’s not so expensive that you’ll
never encounter it.

“All of you take a good look at it, because if you live
long enough, you’ll end up fighting a man wearing it.  The main feature is its
higher protection against swords.  If anyone in your company has a battle axe
or a war hammer, have them go for the head.  Those giant claymores can cut the
legs out from under your enemy or a good flail can give them a bad day, but
swords are much less effective against the plates.”

He gave the brigandine to a man across the crowd from
Marik, then produced a second set from the cart.

“This is the same, except it’s attached to a
long-sleeved shirt of mail as well to increase protection to the arms.”

He gave this one to Dietrik who sat closest to the
cart.  Dietrik examined it a moment before dumping it in Marik’s lap.

“Ooof!”  The thing weighed as much as he did!  It did
not help any that his so called ‘friend’ had dropped it on his crotch.  Dietrik
winked before turning back toward Mylor. 
I’ll make him remember this!

“No other armors are so deceptive that you can’t
figure them out after a moment’s glance, though you should familiarize
yourselves with any you aren’t familiar with during the winter.”  He
straightened, his posture proclaiming serious work was about to be undergone. 
“Now we’ll talk about how to kill a man.  It takes more than whipping your
blade around, you know.  Who knew about the centerline method?  All right, you
over there, come on up.  Come up!”

Resigned, the man singled out rose to his feet.  Most
had abandoned the idea of taking out their irritation with Mylor’s attitude on
the formidable Mylor himself.  After three days, his skill at fighting had been
made abundantly clear.

Mylor held the broadsword he had used the first day
when introducing hand-and-a-half blades.  He turned his volunteer to face the
crowd, then slapped the flat tip against the man’s chest.  The unfortunate soul
stood completely still.

“Jussler here is going to help us understand.  Hold
out your arms from your body.  Good.  All of you look.  This is your target on
the battlefield.  The objective in open battle is to kill your enemy as quickly
as possible, then move on to the next enemy and kill him as quickly as
possible, too.  Cutting an arm or a leg might disable him for a moment, but
he’s not out of the fight.

“The most effective way to kill him or take him down
for good is the centerline method.  Every single one of the most vital organs
in your body are arranged in a line straight up from your crotch to your neck
to the top of your head.  Even the heart, which is mostly on your left side,
extends over this line.  Strike any point along the centerline and your foe is
either dead or in greater pain than he thought possible for the rest of the
battle.  Then he dies anyway unless a field chirurgeon or a priest finds him
quickly and performs a miracle.”

While he spoke, he kept running the sword tip up and
down the centerline of Jussler’s torso.  The man looked decidedly
uncomfortable.

“If you strike hard and dead on, you can sever the
spinal cord and paralyze your enemy for good.  Out in the training areas, each
of the practice dummies have red lines painted down their center, so practice
the method.  You should also practice breaking point methods for shattering
mail so you
can
strike the centerline.  We’ll get to those later.

“Next is two-handed combat, meaning you hold equipment
in each hand.  We have shields of various sizes, but if you’re going to carry
something in your free hand, I say it’s sensible to carry another weapon.  You
can defend with it and use it for attacks.  Shields can cause more trouble than
they’re worth.  Watch.”

Mylor pulled from the cart a round shield two feet
across.  He tossed it to Jussler, saying simply, “Defend.”

Jussler grasped it by the straps and held it ready. 
Mylor cut languidly toward Jussler’s face, which prompted him to raise the
shield to protect himself.  As soon as the shield covered his eyes, Mylor
changed direction, striking much faster at his legs.  He struck the undefended
limbs with the blade’s flat, eliciting a yelp from his assistant.

“You see the problems with a large shield?  If you can
get your enemy to cover his face with it, he can’t see what you’re doing. 
Shields are most practical against arrow showers.  The rest of the time they
tend to cost you more than you gain.  If you must have a shield, one of these
smaller targes might be suitable.”

He tossed the reclaimed shield back into the cart and
withdrew a much smaller one, less than a foot wide.  A spike protruded from its
center.