L. Modesitt - Natural Ordermage

Introduction

Manual of the Mage-Guards

Cigoerne, Hamor

1551 A.F.

Rahl evaded the blade thrust and parried. The padded end of the staff caught Zastryl’s hand, and the long hand-and-a-half blade went flying.

“Enough!” Zastryl shook his head. “You know more than enough about the staff and truncheon, and trying to teach you more is getting too hard on these old bones of mine.” He rubbed his hand. “Now, you’re going to get to the painful part of your arms training. You’re going to learn to use a blade, or blades. The sabre, the falchiona, and a blade like that one.” He nodded toward the blade on the floor. “You won’t be as good, and it will be painful to use them, but you need to know something about them.”

Rahl wondered if Zastryl just wanted him to suffer a little.

But then, he really couldn’t complain. For the past two eightdays Zastryl had been working hard to help Rahl perfect his abilities with the staff and truncheon, just as Magister Thorl had been inundating him with words and information about Hamor, both in the mornings and evenings.

What he didn’t understand was why everyone was willing to spend so much time and effort preparing him for exile and yet why no one had expended a fraction of that effort in trying to teach him what would have prevented him from making the mistakes that had led to his sentence of exile.

Zastryl walked over and picked up the blade.

“Magister Zastryl!” The loud call came from the naval marine, Khaesyn, who had often been at the training hall.

“Yes, Khaesyn?” Zastryl bent and picked up the blade.

“How come you don’t let Pretty Boy spar with anyone except you, Magister Zastryl?” Khaesyn made the title sound like an expletive. “Don’t you think he needs some variety?” The marine swaggered across the stone floor toward the armsmaster. The other marine followed. Both were smiling broadly.

Zastryl glanced to the muscular blond man, then shrugged. “I take it that you wish to provide that variety?”

“Well…me or Stendyl here.”

“You want to use staff or truncheon?”

“Why not blades against his staff?”

“You need the work with the truncheon,” Zastryl said dryly. “After you try the truncheon, if you still want to, you can try the blade.”

“That a promise, Magister Zastryl?”

“So long as no one gets hurt first.”

Khaesyn grinned. “You got to keep Pretty Boy in one piece so you can deliver him to the merchants, that it?”

“Something like that.”

Rahl could sense two strong emotions from Zastryl-both amusement and distaste of the marine. Neither were reflected in the armsmaster’s voice.

Zastryl tossed a truncheon to Rahl and one to Khaesyn. Rahl caught his one-handed, then extended the staff to the armsmaster.

“Only to disarming or to surrender,” Zastryl declared.

“That’ll save someone,” muttered Stendyl.

Khaesyn just grinned. “You about ready, Pretty Boy?”

Rahl dropped into the sense of being just where he was, all senses focused on Khaesyn.

Khaesyn’s first move was a feint, and Rahl eased to one side, slightly, just enough not to reveal he knew it was a feint.

Then came a slash thrust, one that Rahl evaded, sensing the possible trap.

“Don’t fight by running,” taunted the marine.

Rahl said nothing, instead offering a lightning jab to the marine’s free forearm, and pivoting away.

The bigger man charged, clearly willing to take a hit, as he brought a cut-slash that would have snapped bones had it struck.

Rahl slipped it.

The blond’s arm was overextended, and he was off-balance, with all his weight on this right foot. Rahl could have snapped his knee, but instead he pivoted and yanked Khaesyn’s tunic, driving the bigger man into the padded mat face-first, then jumping back.

A laughing titter came from somewhere, then cut off abruptly.

Khaesyn jumped to his feet and circled toward Rahl. “Little dancer…dancing doesn’t win.”

The marine jabbed again, and Rahl avoided the jab and delivered a slamming blow across the side of Khaesyn’s hand, so that the blond’s truncheon took some of the force. Khaesyn’s truncheon dropped to the mat, and he looked at Rahl, who had stood back but not lowered his truncheon.

Then Khaesyn grabbed his weapon.

“Enough!” snapped Zastryl.

“I was just getting started,” bellowed Khaesyn.

“You were just getting started on the way to getting yourself permanently maimed or killed. Perhaps you didn’t notice, Khaesyn, but you never touched Rahl. At one point, he considered breaking your leg, but only put you on the mat. If you keep trying to kill him, at some point you’re going to get hurt very badly. You might even get killed.”

Rahl noticed how the magister used a touch of order to emphasize the last few words, enough so that Khaesyn finally shook his head.

The two marines turned.

“Wouldn’t last a moment on a deck…can’t dance like that…”

Rahl lowered the truncheon and waited.

“He’s right about that, you know,” said Zastryl.

“Yes, sir, but I wouldn’t have waited in that kind of fight.”

“I didn’t think you would.” Zastryl paused, then frowned before speaking again. “I have a question for you, Rahl. It’s one I don’t want you to answer. In fact, I forbid you to answer me. I just want you to consider it.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You clearly respect me. Just as clearly, you do not respect most of the other magisters. Why is that so? I’d like you to think that over.”

Rahl pondered the question.

Why had Zastryl asked the question? Was it that clear that Rahl respected Zastryl? But why did he respect the armsmaster? Because Zastryl didn’t hide behind words? Or didn’t patronize Rahl?

“Not now,” said Zastryl with a laugh. “We need to start you with a blade. That’s going to be much, much more difficult, and you’ll have a much harder time using it against someone like Khaesyn.”

But why would Rahl have to? He could carry a truncheon anyplace he could carry a blade.

“Because,” Zastryl answered the unasked question, “you may well be someplace where the only weapon is one you can take from someone else, and that is most likely to be a blade. In weapons, as in many things in life, we don’t always get the choices we want.”

That was becoming increasingly clear, Rahl admitted. He didn’t have to like it, though.

After the midday meal on sevenday, Rahl took a nap, then washed up and headed down the long road to the harbor. He was looking forward to the evening because Magister Thorl had invited him to the evening meal-it was dinner in Hamor, not supper-at a harbor eatery that served Hamorian food. While Rahl had avoided the harbor for a time, even after that, he had never really properly explored the area around it, and now he did finally have a few coppers to his name, not that he intended to spend them. Some few were to go to send the letter to his parents that he had yet to write, and the rest were for what he might need in Hamor.

After walking a few hundred cubits downhill, Rahl took a wider road on the right, one that seemed less traveled for all its width.

Shortly, he arrived at a small park, square in shape. Low trimmed hedges, no higher than midthigh, formed an outer wall. Almost hidden within the hedge were tiny yellow and orange flowers. Stone walks circled through the grassy area within the hedges, and carefully trimmed evergreens, with soft and bushy long needles, were set almost at random within the space, but somewhere near each of the evergreens was a stone bench.

At the west end, where there was one of the larger grassy spaces, five children played hoop tag. After watching the game briefly, Rahl crossed the park and took the street nearest the southwest corner, which looked to run close to the western end of the harbor. Instead of the haze that usually blurred the western piers, where the black ships were moored, he thought he saw almost a light shadow. He glanced skyward, but there were no clouds that could have cast such a shadow.