Mercedes Lackey - Exile's Valor

Grumbling, and in a straggling line, they ran, while he tried to remember who of this lot had gotten the prime spot during the last indoor lesson, and who hadn’t gotten it in a decent while. By the time they finished their warm-up run, he thought he had it sorted, and before they could get up to any immediate devilment, he separated the most likely troublemakers and paired them up with the more tractable for this practice session.

“Short swords, no shields,” he ordered. “Single line for equipment, by pairs. No pushing.” Those who had headed for the storage room, eager to be at their practice, got the best choice of equipment, while the stragglers got what they deserved. Not that any of it was bad—Alberich saw to that—but those who got first choice got the padded armor and helms that fit them best, and those who brought up the rear paid for being laggards by getting equipment that Alberich would make them add extra padding to, so there would be no slippage.

With his pairs of youngsters distributed across the salle and trading blows, Alberich began his slow walk up and down the lines, giving the call.

Every blow had a corresponding number, starting from “one” for a straight thrust to the center of the enemy’s body, and the two students in a pair were designated “odd” and “even.” Alberich called out sequences of blows, beginning with “odd” or “even” for the students to follow, rather like a dancing instructor calling out a sequence of dance steps. Beginning students, of course, were taught one blow at a time, and specific parries for each. At the level these students had reached, the active student was given a pattern to follow, and the defensive student could use any sequence of parries he or she chose. Alberich began slowly, but as muscles warmed up further, and reactions quickened, he slowly sped up the pace of the call. And, as the students concentrated on what they were doing, the clatter of wooden sword on sword, which had started out rather ragged, became a single beat, just a fraction off the rhythm of the call.

Meanwhile, Alberich circled the floor like a hunting cat, watching the students, alert for any weaknesses, any bad habits. He wasn’t going to interrupt the call just yet to correct them—this was part of the business of making blow-counter sequences automatic and instinctive—but he watched for them and noted them for later,

Now that they were up to speed, he added the next variation to the call. They had been fighting toe-to-toe. Now he ordered them to move.

“Odd! Five-seven- advance -four-two- retreat —five-seven- step right-one-eight. Even! Four-three- step left —” Now it really did look like a dance, and with movement added, some parries were not always working, some blows were getting through. Still, he was not going to make corrections just yet; this was the point in the practice where experience was the teacher, and there was nothing quite like the experience of a good bruise to drive the lesson home.

Again, he sped up the call, forcing them to move a little faster than they were used to. But now they were beginning to tire. The response was getting ragged again, and some of the students began dropping some of the sequence as weary muscles failed to keep up with the cadence. Time to stop, and go on to individual lessons.

“ Rest! ” he barked, and at that welcome command, the points of a dozen wooden practice blades dropped to the wooden floor with a loud thwack.

“Kiorten and Ledale, center! The rest, circle!” That order called the first of his pairs into the middle of the floor, with the rest around them to observe. It was not as unfair as it might have seemed, to order a pair straight into the next part of the lesson when the rest were getting a breather. Kiorten and Ledale were the strongest and had the most endurance; a Blue and a Heraldic Trainee, and as alike as brothers. They were still relatively fresh after the call. That endurance needed to be tested; they needed to learn what it was like to fight real combat while they were tired.

Now Alberich took up a wooden long sword, to separate them when he saw something that needed either correction or scoring. The two combatants squared off, standing warily, balancing on the balls of their feet. They’d fought often, of course. Though Alberich made a point of rotating partners in practice, he tended to put these two against each other more often than not, just to keep things even. They enjoyed the practices, too, and he had more than a suspicion that they practiced against each other recreationally.

He held his sword out between the two; they tensed, waiting. “One—” he counted, “Two—three— heyla! ”

He pulled back the sword and jumped back in the same instant, and they both went on the offensive, which was what he expected from them. They were aggressive fighters, and neither one had learned yet that immediate offense wasn’t necessarily the wisest course to take.

He didn’t separate them, even though they immediately tangled up in the middle of the wooden floor, with Kiorten seizing his opponent’s sword in his free hand and Ledale grabbing the front of Kiorten’s padded jerkin with his. Neither could do anything against the other when they were bound up like that, and a moment later, they broke apart by themselves, circled for a moment, then began an exchange of blows.

Kiorten got a hit, and Alberich stopped the combat for a moment. “Na. Let me look—” He made a quick judgment of position and strength. “Ledale, you are losing the free hand; struck it truly, Kiorten has. Tuck it behind you. Heyla.” Let Ledale judge for himself that he had left that hand out there as an easy target. With the wooden blade, the blow probably only stung a bit, but had it been a real short sword, even with an armored gauntlet, the hand would have been seriously injured.

But Ledale wasn’t taking this lying down; he launched himself at his opponent with a flurry of blows that drove Kiorten back, and scored a hit himself, that made Alberich stop the combat again. “Na—a flesh wound, but you bleed. If this goes on, you weaken. Heyla.”

It didn’t go on for very much longer. Ledale was at a disadvantage with that hand tucked behind him; it made him turn a little too far to the right, leaving his body more open to attack. Kiorten saw that, and saw also that Ledale was going to go aggressive again. So this time, he wisely let it happen, and by the way he avoided the blows, led Ledale in the direction he wanted, until he got a good opening for a body shot. He had to commit everything to that, but he made the full commitment, and the sword thwacked home against Ledale’s torso with an impact that made him grunt in pain.

“Enough!” Alberich called, although he hadn’t really needed to. Ledale backed up immediately, saluted his opponent, and pulled off his helm in surrender.

“Curse you!” he said amiably, though his face was a little white. “I’m going to have a bruise the size of my head for a week, even assuming you haven’t cracked my ribs!”

“See the Healers,” Alberich directed brusquely, as Kiorten pulled off his helm and extended his hand for his defeated opponent to shake. “After lessons.” He knew full well that no ribs were cracked; if they had been, the lad would not have been able to breathe, and what was more, the Trainee’s Companion would immediately have told Kantor, who would have told Alberich. “Ledale, observe. Kiorten, you drop your point too often; go to practice lunges at the mirror. Aldo and Triana, center.”

Two more students came out of the circle to face off against each other in the center, while Ledale took a vacant spot in the circle and his erstwhile partner obediently moved to the side of the room to face one of the full-length mirrors set into the back wall of the salle, and began lunging with his sword fully extended, watching his reflection the way he would watch an opponent.