“You get to do the second set,” Nylan said. “We have to get the point across that either one of us is deadly.”
“You could kill one a piece,” said Tonsar.
Nylan wasn’t sure he was jesting. “No. That lets them off too easily. They need to suffer.”
As Tonsar studied Nylan to see if he were joking, Ayrlyn rolled her eyes.
The silver-haired angel managed to keep a straight face.
When it appeared as though most of the armsmen, save the obvious stallers, had finished eating, he nodded to Tonsar. “Line them up.”
“Line up!” bellowed the burly subofficer. “Now. Dersio! That be you! And you, Ungit!”
“He sounds like every other noncom,” said Ayrlyn.
“But they’re worse,” answered Nylan, almost under his breath. “This will be worse than a dozen Mrans.”
“I hope not. We can’t afford to kill that many.”
Nylan took a slow breath and walked toward the group, his eyes focusing on the front row. He stopped and took another long look before he spoke. “I’m not one for beating around the bushes.” Nylan glanced across the score of dubious and unfriendly faces. “You’ve all been assigned to Ayrlyn and me because you’ve been judged as untrained or as troublemakers. I frankly don’t care about what others think. If you follow instructions and work hard, I can give you a much better chance to survive and go home.” He shrugged. “If you don’t want to, fine. You’ll be dead meat for the Cyadorans in the first skirmish, and I won’t have to worry about your being a problem.”
He took one of the wooden wands from Tonsar. He and Ayrlyn had managed to rough-craft eleven, and he wished they had more. There was no safe way to train this lot with real weapons, not without killing or maiming most. “This is a training blade. Why do we use wood? Because you live through your mistakes. It stings. Sometimes, it even hurts, and once in a while you still might get injured. Hopefully, the pain will help you improve.”
“Easy for him to say…”
Nylan looked across the red dirt toward the big rawboned youth with the scraggly beard. “You said something?”
“Begging your pardon, ser, but you’re not all that tough, ser.”
Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan and shook her head. The engineer knew what she was thinking, and agreed, even though he hated what would come next. Some people never learned until it was beaten into them or they were killed.
“Fuera-it is Fuera, isn’t it? Take the wand and see how you do with it, then.” Nylan tossed the wooden wand to the youth.
Fuera scooped the wand up and started toward Nylan, waving it wildly.
The smith edged aside, easily avoiding most of the wild slashes, parrying a few, before knocking the wand out of the man’s hand.
“Pick it up.”
Fuera glared, but picked up the wand and charged toward Nylan.
Nylan cracked him across the back of his wrist, and the wand dropped a second time.
Fuera turned with a bellow and charged Nylan.
The engineer, triggering full step-up almost unconsciously, dropped his own wand and blurred, ducking aside, and letting the few moves he knew nearly automatically take hold.
The youth went over Nylan, almost in an arc, and hit the ground with a dull thud. He lay still for a long moment.
Nylan bent and picked his own wand back up, then walked over and tapped Fuera on the shoulder, hard enough for it to smart. “Get up and pick up that wand. You don’t get to quit because your pride’s hurt. If I’d been using those crowbars the professionals in Lornth use, you’d be dead or maimed for life.”
The youth glared at Nylan, then scrambled to his knees, gathering his strength for another charge.
Nylan forced a smile, waiting in step-up.
With a bellow, Fuera charged again.
The score of recruits stood silently.
Nylan flashed aside, using his elbow to club the youth into the ground, then he stood, waiting, as the brown-haired would-be armsman rose drunkenly to his feet.
“Pick up the wand, or not, as you please,” Nylan said. “I’m trying to teach you enough to keep you alive. You seem to want to die young.”
Snickers ran through the onlookers.
Fuera charged Nylan. This time the smith stepped inside the bearlike rush, and using open palms, dropped the youth onto the clay with two quick blows.
Fuera did not rise.
“…never saw…so fast…”
“…coulda killed him easy…”
“…friggin’ mean bastard…”
Nylan let the murmurs die away before he turned to the others. “I would prefer not to keep making this point. In a fight, I wouldn’t have bothered. Fuera would have been dead with about one blow.” He looked at the unconscious man, then at the others. “One reason why he’s still alive is that we’re short of fighters. Now…is there anyone else here who would like to prove that he’s the toughest, meanest, and nastiest idiot in Lornth?” Nylan’s green eyes raked across the group of the nearest nineteen arrayed in a rough arc.
Each man looked away as Nylan fixed his eyes on each in turn.
LXII
Lephi leaned forward in the silver-trimmed malachite chair. His brown eyes were flat as the slim, balding, and white-haired wizard walked across the polished white stones, then bowed.
“You summoned me, Your Mightiness?”
“I did. Have you a solution for the Accursed Forest, Triendar? One that does not cost me the double handful of white mages remaining? Or more troops that I do not have?”
“Has Your Mightiness rediscovered the secrets of the iron birds? Or how to make iron feathers that reflect the sun? Or perhaps you have found the means to create the ice lances of the ancient angels to place upon your fireship?” Triendar’s voice was mild, even.
Lephi raised his hand. “Do not mock me, Triendar, unless you wish…”
The white-haired wizard bowed again. “I do not mock Your Mightiness. What you have asked of me is as easy as what I have asked of you.”
“You are the wizard, not I.”
“Can I lift myself into the sky, Sire? Can I turn the Great Western Ocean into steam and leave the fishes gasping on dry sands and seaweed?” Triendar bowed once more.
“I set you a task, and I bid you leave until you can return and tell me it is done.” Lephi’s voice was hard and flat, but his hands gripped the armrests of the malachite throne so hard that they trembled.
“Very well, Your Mightiness. I shall not return.” Triendar bowed once again.
Lephi raised his right hand, then lowered it. “What mean you that you will not return?”
“Your Mightiness,” offered the white wizard. “All of us are bound. You cannot fly. I cannot turn all the seas to steam nor hold back the Accursed Forest without white wizards and fire and men with torches and mattocks. You can bid and command all that you desire. You can have the Archers of the Rational Stars turn me into a target, but I cannot do what I cannot do, and I will not deceive you into thinking it is so.”
Lephi’s hands gripped the armrests again, tightly, and for long moments there was silence. Not even a whisper nor a sigh caressed the cold white polished stones.
Finally, the Lord of Cyador spoke. “You have always been honest, and you risk your life to be honest. I cannot say I am pleased, but I cannot ask more of any man nor wizard.” Lephi paused. “Bring me a plan. Tell me what you can do with how many wizards and how many men. Tell me how many it will take-forever, is it not-to keep the forest in check?”
Triendar bowed a last time. “It will be done, Your Mightiness.”
After the white mage left, Lephi wiped his forehead, then crumpled the perfumed white towel and dropped it beside the chair, where a girl in white silently retrieved it.
“At least…I will bring back the fireships…and the fire cannon.” He smiled. “Then, then they will all fear great Cyad again.”
LXIII
Nylan reset the last stone in the forge bed, then paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, glancing out at the training yard.