Bitchin' cold sometimes, too, he thought with satisfaction, fondling the ears of a hound that came over and laid her head in his lap.
"Good dog, Louhi," he added, as she slapped the ground with her tail.
There was very little point in learning to fight unless you made the training conditions as realistic as possible, and the enemy-the dirty dog-often refused to meet you at a convenient time and place. Right now the weather was good, and so most of the action was in the broad fields around the building, lit by a high, hazy blue sky; only the foot-fencing and unarmed-combat classes were inside. On the bright green grass beyond riders galloped by targets, loosing arrows from their stiff recurved bows, or using sword or lance; sometimes at rings suspended on ropes, or trying to pick wooden pegs out of the ground, or at straw figures-that served to train the horses out of their fear of charging home, too. Mock mounted combat was done under careful supervision, riders hammering at each other as the mounts circled and snapped; the training was as much for the horse as the rider.
Not far away a section of newly mustered military apprentices were starting to sweat their way towards the coveted A-list status; stretching, tumbling and running courses in weighted armor, working out with free weights or practicing stances before some tall mirrors. A dozen more staggered in from the ever-loathed cross-country run in armor and pack; that included a trip up and down the steep scarp behind Larsdalen, popularly known as "Satan's Staircase."
Havel grinned nostalgically as he listened to the distance-muffled scream of the training-cadre instructors: ": stop puking, Apprentice Latterby! You can puke on your own time! You make me want to puke, the way you'll bring disgrace on my beloved Outfit! You idle little maggots aren't home on Daddy's manor anymore! Bearkillers can fight on horseback, on foot, or while we fucking swim, and we don't get tired. The enemy gets tired and then we kill their sorry ass. Move! Move!"
It took him back-back to Parris Island, in fact; he'd managed to acquire several other graduates or Camp Pendleton alumni as part of his training staff.
It'll be interesting to see how performance goes when everyone's the product of the apprentice program. They've already lots of motivation; getting on the A-list means climbing into the top drawer. You can throw anything at these kids and they'll still kill themselves trying.
There was a damp earthy smell; pine-wood sweating tar, old sweat, horses, leather and metal; the noise was booted feet on dirt, hoof-fall from outside, the clash of metal and wood, grunts of effort-it all reminded him of a very martial health center, the sort they'd improvised in the Iraqi desert back in ninety-one, waiting for the dance to start. By now it had become homey, almost comforting.
A little stir went through the watchers as two men came in. Havel looked up, dipping another mug of water from the plastic barrel fastened to one of the Salle's posts.
"Hi, Ken," he said, nodding to his father-in-law. "Eric," to Signe's brother.
Father and son made their greetings. Eric Larsson straddled a bench, elbows on knees. He was Signe Larsson's twin and as tall as their father, several inches over six feet; broad-shouldered and long-limbed, but rangier in build than his male parent. Much like Havel, in fact, but scaled up-a tiger to the Bearkiller bossman's leopard, and with a similar smooth ease of movement. Scars showed as white lines in his short blond beard, or as seams against the tanned skin of hands and neck. When they'd met just before the Change, the younger Larsson had been a sullen jock teenager-but even then, he hadn't known the meaning of "quit."
I thought he'd turn out to be a dangerous man, Havel thought, reading the calm blue eyes. We could have used him in the Corps. A natural for Force Recon. Well, he's had a lot of pounding on the anvil to test the metal since the Change. All that does not kill us, makes us stronger, as Conan said: that was Conan, wasn't it?
"We scouted up north around McMinnville, as per plan," Eric said. "While Will took a troop into the Amity Hills, visiting and distracting any attention headed our way-"
Havel grinned. "Good news there, if you haven't heard. The Brigittine monks have decided to tell Arminger's pet pope in Portland to go to hell, and get square with Abbot Dmowski. Your father-in-law sort of persuaded them."
Proving Will Hutton is twice the diplomat I'll ever be, he added to himself.
"They've got a good little fighting force and some useful farms and craftworkers and they're right between us and the enemy," he went on aloud.
"That is good news," Eric said, but his face stayed grim. "The word from McMinnville itself is worse than we thought, though."
"It is a new castle? Not just an earthwork fort?"
"It's a fucking nightmare-bad as the one at Gervais, and bigger. South of town."
"Just north of the Yamhill River, on the road by the old gauging station, I'll bet?"
Eric looked mildly startled. "Yeah, Mike. How'd you guess?"
"It's where I'd put it," he replied absently, his eyes hooded in thought as he called up terrain and distance. "Kills two birds with one stone: plugs the gap between the Coast Range and the Amity Hills, and gives them a base that's perfectly placed to launch raids on our farming country down south at Amityville and Rickreall; it'll be staring right down our throats. On the good side, it probably scares the bejayzus out of those idiots in Whiteson. Neutrality, my ass: they'll have to make up their minds now, or at least as soon as the walls start to rise."
Signe cleared her throat. "Careful how you go at the neutrals, Mike. Honey and vinegar and all that."
Havel shrugged and grinned. "Yup. I can control my natural disgust with their yellow-bellied wavering, you bet." He turned his head back to her brother. "Details?"
"They're working on the foundations now, but you can see the outlines. It's concrete again; no more of those telephone-pole motte-and-bailey specials that burned so nice. Ferroconcrete. Accent on the ferro. We got close enough to see that they're stacking I-beam as well as rebar; they must have a couple of hundred workers on twenty-four-hour shifts. Josh"-that was Josh Sanders, an ex-lumberjack and ex-Seabee and their expert on field fortifications-"got detailed sketches and extrapolated what the finished product will look like, based on the way they're digging and standard Protectorate practice. Says he'll debrief tomorrow, he's working up his notes."
Ken Larsson nodded and held up a sheaf of papers covered with pencil drawings. "I think Arminger's working from historical models."
"Hand 'em over, hubbie dear," Pamela said. She flicked through the pages. "Oh, yeah. Kerak des Chevaliers, I'd say, maybe Shobak." At their blank looks she sighed and went on: "Late Crusader types, from the Middle East. Add in a bit from Harlech and Edward the First's other Welsh castles, and modern touches like barbed wire. As good as you're going to get for pre-gunpowder fortifications. Or post -gunpowder, in our case."
"Nice to have an expert," Havel said, smiling crookedly.
"Hey, bossman, remember I was a veterinarian."
"At a zoo," Ken Larsson put in. "And still are, in a manner of speaking."
Pamela thumped him on the shoulder and went on: "The historical stuff was my hobby, like prancing around with swords. The Protector's the guy who was a real gen-u-wine history professor."
"The Demon Professor: from hell," her husband said. "We would get one who specialized in medieval history, too. It gives him entirely too many clever things in his bag of tricks."