L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

A squad of junior guards was running through warm-up exercises as Saryn left the practice field behind. They were the newest of more than two companies of guards-nearly two hundred armed women-and another hundred who had some weapons training. Saryn shook her head. Who-except Ryba and Nylan-would have believed Westwind could have mounted an effective armed force of so many women? And who among the marines and ship’s officers who had landed more than ten years earlier would have realized that those ten years would have been filled with fighting off attack after attack-largely because Westwind was controlled by and for women?

She kept striding up the stone-paved road, and, shortly, she stepped through the half-open door into the far warmer air of the smithy. Both anvils were in use. Cessya and Huldran worked a short-sword blade on the larger, and Daryn and Ydrall used the smaller to forge arrowheads, with Zyendra standing by. Nunca and Gresla-two junior guards-alternated working the forge bellows. Neither Huldran nor Cessya looked up until Cessya took the partly worked blade from the anvil with the tongs and returned it to the forge for reheating.

Daryn gave Saryn a quick glance and a nod, but did not miss a beat with his hammer. The year after Nylan and Arylyn had departed Westwind, Daryn had asked to be allowed to help at the forge, pointing out that his artificial foot made him a poor field worker and an even poorer hunter, but that it mattered little in the smithy. Because he’d been willing to undertake the dirtier work and pump the bellows whenever asked, Huldran had agreed…and Ryba had said nothing. Although Ydrall had begun almost a year before Daryn, after nine years she and the one-footed man were about equal in smithing skills, and both were adequate smiths.

Daryn had also become a father twice, and both his son and daughter were with Hryessa, the brunette local who’d shown such fire and such a zest for arms that she’d become the guard captain of the second company. Saryn had no doubts that Hryessa was actually a better leader than Llyselle, the captain of first company, but Llyselle had been one of the original angels from the Winterlance, and her experience-as well as her silver hair-had resulted in her becoming the first guard captain, after Istril had refused to take the position, noting that her healing skills made it ever more difficult to kill.

Saryn stopped well back of the anvils, then asked Huldran, “How long before you can provide the last twenty blades?”

“Arms-commander,” Huldran replied, “with everything else, it’s going to be midsummer.”

The master smith might have asked why Saryn had pressed over the past year for another two hundred blades-enough to equip another full company with the twin blades-when there was only a handful of guards even available to begin forming a third company. But such decisions were made by the Marshal of Westwind, and none questioned Ryba.

“Arrowheads?” Saryn asked, her words directed at Daryn.

“We’re still way ahead of the fletchers, ser,” replied Daryn.

“As for the bows, Commander,” Huldran said, “we’ve tried everything, but if we start with the composite strips, we burn what little of the composite is left. If we try to forge even the thinnest iron around it, we get something that separates when there’s any tension on the bow.”

“So how can we get bows with power and compact enough to use from the saddle?”

“Falynna comes from Analeria. She was a bowyer’s apprentice because her father didn’t have any sons. They use horn bows there. They can pierce armor. She’s been working on several since last summer, and I’ve got some ideas about strengthening the central core…”

Saryn listened as Huldran explained before asking, “How soon will you know whether this will work?”

“Two weeks at most, ser.”

Saryn hoped the idea would work because wooden bows with penetration power were too long and only a score or so of Nylan’s smaller composite bows remained.

Once she finished with the smiths, Saryn headed back down toward the practice field. Above her on the road, two squads of the newest recruits were walking toward the stables, doubtless for their tour at mucking out the stalls and using the wheelbarrows to cart the manure down to the fields, largely for root crops that would last through the long and cold winters.

Three other guards walked up from the practice field. Flanking Hryessa were the two more experienced guards acting as squad leaders for the newest recruits.

“…keep them working on the exercises to build their arms and shoulders.”

Saryn smiled.

“Ser!” offered Hryessa, catching sight of Saryn.

“Guard Captain,” returned Saryn. “A moment, if you will.”

“Yes, ser.” Hryessa gestured uphill toward the stables. “I’ll be with you two shortly.”

Saryn waited until the two guards were several yards away. “How are the recruits in your newer squads doing?”

“About the same as any others after their first winter on the Roof of the World. Vianyai looks to be the most promising.” Hryessa had picked up Temple well enough to be conversant in both Old Rat and Temple, one of the reasons why Saryn had made the spitfire a guard captain.

“She’s the one that brought in the snow cat after the blizzard?”

Hryessa nodded. “She’s not the strongest, but she wants to be the best.”

“That sounds like someone else…”

The faintest touch of a smile appeared at the corners of Hryessa’s mouth, then vanished. “We’ll see. Jieni works hard, too. They all do, I’d have to say.”

Saryn nodded. The remoteness of Westwind and the reputation of the angels weeded out women who were not serious about changing their lives long before they reached Westwind.

“Of the latest to come before the snows last autumn, there are twenty-six from Gallos, and nine from Analeria,” the arms-commander said, not quite conversationally.

“Relyn, you think?” Hryessa pursed her lips. “It could be. The only one to mention the one-handed man in black was Saachala. She claims she never heard him, but her cousin did. Vianyai said that Saachala had only brothers, and that was why she fled Passera.”

“Passera? She crossed all of Gallos, then the Westhorns?”

“It cost her dearly. Her child will come due by summer. The healer says it will be a girl.”

Ryba might appreciate another future guard, but every local woman who had arrived in Westwind had paid dearly in some way. That might also be why few declined to be trained to bear arms. “I need to report to the Marshal.”

“Yes, ser.” Hryessa nodded, then hurried up the stone road toward the stables.

As she walked swiftly down toward the causeway, Saryn caught sight of three slender figures in gray at the eastern end of the practice field, practicing bladework with wooden wands. Kyalynn and Aemra were pressing the third-Dyliess, the daughter of the Marshal, who, at almost eleven, already could handle the twin blades better than most of the Westwind guards. But then, she’d been trained from birth, not so much by Ryba as by Saryn and Istril. The three silver-hairs-that was the name the locally born guards called the trio of Dyliess, Kyalynn, and Aemra, the daughter of Istril and a year younger than the other two, so alike that they might have been full sisters rather than the half sisters that they in fact were.

“Technique!” called Saryn. “All three of you are relying on speed and not your technique! If you’re going to practice by yourselves, do it correctly.”

All three lowered their wands.

Aemra smothered a grin. Dyliess and Kyalynn inclined their heads solemnly.

“Do you three want to join the recruits up at the stables?”

“No, ser.”