Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 Read online

  "Fight from ambush, maybe run away, fight again later," agreed Sammi. "One time whole plains tribe—not Teddy tribe but up north— come to hill country because we find poor little lost cows and take home to care for them. They get all their friends to come thank us for taking such good care, but in Ganesha's Gorge all rocks come tumble down, make big cairn overtop them."

  The Wisdom gaped at him and Anya stared in horror. "You threw boulders on warriors? From the hilltops?"

  "Best place throw boulders from."

  "That is not how an honorable man fights!"

  "That what you call him, 'honorable'? Our word 'dead.' Mean same thing?"

  The Wisdom turned to Teodorq. "What of your countryman? Is he also a fell fighter?"

  "Kal? Maybe the best in the Serpentine clan, which means any Scorpion can beat him, but... Sure. Your guys fought him. What did they say?"

  "He tried to deceive our prince. What should we do with him?"

  Teodorq placed his hands together, though he did not bow over them. "Could you ask yer boss not to do Kal no permanent damage, like sitting him on top of that Spit?" More than the iron shirts and swords, that cruel method of execution drove home to Teo the alien nature of the people he had found himself among. A keen knife across the throat was far more merciful. If it were done, the Lore commanded, best that it be done quickly.

  The chief minister cocked his head and stopped working his beard. "You surprise me, westerman. I thought he wanted to kill you!"

  "Sure. But I don't hold it against him. I killed his brother, and I'm responsible for another brother getting himself killed. Hard to get kissy-face after that."

  The princess spoke up. "Then why ask my father's mercy for him?"

  "Y'see, it's like this," Teodorq explained. "Kal and me, we gotta fight. The singers won't have it no other way. And I don't want it sung that when the time come I had an unfair advantage, like he was dead or maybe walkin' funny. It ain't good art. Kal, he's a hero. He kept up a stalk cross half of World and all the way practically to the edge. So he ain't no weenie, even if it was half dumb luck we crossed paths. And me... Well, I am Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand and modesty prevents me from numbering my stunts. But a final stunt needs two foes even-matched. It ain't too much to ask—and might be more entertaining."

  The Wisdom gave that some thought. "If our kospathin does as you ask, plainsman, you could die."

  "Hell, Wiz, everybody dies. Only question is whether anyone sings about it afterward."

  The Wisdom tugged on his beard. "Maybe your kind would fight well against the greens."

  The three westerners were put in the charge of Yar Yoodavig, the son of a swamper who had come north to Cliffside Keep years before. The yar—for it was a title and not a name—managed to conceal his deep delight at being given their care, and showed this in the tenderness with which he taught them.

  "This here's the kospathin's Foreign Legion," he told the new recruits, who in addition included a shortgrasser named Hidaq Upperbrook, on the run from someone's husband, and the swamper P. Z. Emersavig. "Whatever you were before, makes no never mind," the yar said. "Whoever you were before don't matter none. Why you come here to Cliffside Keep, we don't give a crap. This here's a clean slate. Only matters if you can ride well and fight like a daemon."

  "Made in the shade," whispered Kal to Teo. It was whispered under his breath and barely audible, but the yar heard him and sent Kal on a run around the training field. The men standing guard on the walls laughed, but none of the veterans in the compound cracked a smile.

  "We gotta break you down into little pieces," the yar explained, "so we can put you back together the way we want. This is the meanest, toughest company in the kospathin's service and..."

  Teodorq raised his hand, and the yar stopped his harangue and stared at him. "You gotta question, savage?"

  "When do me and Kal get to fight?"

  The yar looked as if he had sipped vinegar. "You in some kind of hurry? Soon as you learn how. If you're gonna entertain the high and mighty you gotta know how to put on a decent show."

  "What I mean," Teo said, "is that Kal's gonna be a little winded when he gets back, and I don't want it sung that I had unfair advantage."

  The yar showed his teeth. "That can be fixed." And he sent Teo on a run around the grounds in Kal's wake.

  They trained at swordplay—at first with stout wooden rods against posts, then against Yoodavig himself, and many were the welts that Teodorq wore back to the barracks. The purpose of the long drills was what the yar called "muscle memory."

  "The last thing you got time for in a battle," he told the trainees, "is for thinking about how to fight. Your body got to know how to do that without any help. Your mind..." And he thumped Emersavig's skull with a thick forefinger for emphasis. "... assuming you got one, is for strategy and tactics, listening for orders, watching for banners, and all the rest of our craft."

  They learned the parts of the long sword— the supple fore-blade, sharp but easily cleared, and the stout aft-blade, on which an opponent's stroke might be caught; the lower edge for cutting or hacking on the forehand service and the upper edge for doing so on the backhand. The blades were amazingly light for their length, which was about an arm's reach, and Teodorq spent much time with the smith watching how they were made in a special furnace blasted with air from a bellows. The ironmen called this kind of iron stall, a word that meant "stubborn" in the sprock.

  They learned the various guards and attacks, and how to dance seamlessly from one to another. They learned when to "go hard on the sword" and when to go soft; how to stab and hack and cut, and how to get out of a bind. And how to use the off-hand on the pommel for extra leverage.

  It was every bit as nuanced as knife fighting and wrassling, which every plainsman sucked up with his mother's milk.

  "Too complicated," Sammi complained one day, carefully outside the yar's hearing. He counted on his fingers. "Spring from ambush, slit throat, run away. Much simpler. Not so much to learn."

  But nowhere in the practice yard was outside the yar's hearing. "There's no hiding on a killing field, stupid hillman!" he gently informed Sammi. "How you plan to spring from ambush on an open meadow?"

  "Easy," Sammi replied. "Not fight in open meadow. Ambush best in dark, crowded place."

  He won four laps around the practice field for that one—in helmet and breast-and-back.

  World was a bigger place than Teodorq had ever imagined. World had always been the Great Grass, rolling off as far as the eye could see. The hill country to the west and the distant plateau to the north had only served to mark the boundaries; the center had remained the limitless prairies. There, great events had taken place. The rivalry of the Scorpion and Serpentine clans. The Great Trek West of the Gudawan Adyawan at the dawn of time. The war with the Pheasants and their allies when the hero Bardremow sunna Iyash had declared himself First-of-all-Firsts and tried to bring all the Great Grass under him, and bows had sung from the foothills to the Breaks.

  But he had learned since leaving home that that had been only one small corner of world, and people elsewhere had never heard of any of these portentous events. Every people thought themselves at the center of World, and never was it actually so. Events of which no plainsman had ever heard—the war among the ironmen, the descent from the great plateau, the chivvying west of the shortgrassmen—would echo and redound on the Folk of the Great Grass. And even here, among so puissant a people as the iron men, events beyond their horizon had sent greenies to torment them.

  In the barracks, Sammi spoke to Teodorq privately while the two of them cleaned and sharpened their blades. "Hey, stupid plainsman. Why you watch Kal so close during works out?"

  Teo looked about the barracks, saw Kal at the far end with the other recruits and the gaming dice. He ran the whetstone along the upper edge. "You know what the yar says. 'Eyes on the enemy.' 'Fight the opponent not the sword!'"

  "Plus profanity. Sammi hear him say it."

&
nbsp; "Well, every man thinks different," Teo told the hillman. "So every man fights different. The best place to beat a man is in his own mind. I need to know how Kal fights, get into his head. Which I grant you is tight quarters. You notice how he likes to swing his sword with both hands? Bad habit. The follow-through on that stunt leaves his right side exposed, which he ain't got no guard."

  "Yeah?" said Sammi. He finished cleaning his weapon, returned it to his scabbard, and hung it on the rack. "Well, case you not notice, Kal studies Teddy real good, too. What bad habits you got?"

  Teodorq could handle the swords more nimbly than even some of the more experienced legionnaires, who prior to coming to Cliffside Keep had known only bows or pikes. But Teodorq was accustomed to knife f ights, and this was only a longer, sharper knife. He began to add knife tactics to his swordplay when Kal was not around.

  Now and then, the princess would come down from the Keep to watch the men at practice, sometimes with the Wisdom, but other times with only her women as escort. There was a set of raised benches from which others might watch the yard, and she usually sat in the center of the lowest tier, chin cupped in both her hands. Teodorq always tried to put on a good showing when the princess was watching. In one mock combat against the wooden fencing post, he managed to land his blows in such a way as to carve out a tolerable face from the grain of the wood.

  "Show-off," Kal muttered.

  "She comes to see Sammi," the hillman explained in barracks that evening. Hidaq and P. Z. expressed skepticism. "Why you?" Hidaq asked.

  "Sammi prettiest man in Cliffside." He said this with the air of one stating the patently obvious.

  "They must have some mighty ugly men here, then," Kal answered.

  Sammi looked around the barrack room and spread his hands as if his point had been proven.

  Teodorq snorted derision. It seemed to him that the princess looked on the men as a trader at the Horse Fair looks upon a new remuda of stallions. Any time, he expected, she would come down from the viewing benches and check out at their teeth and inspect the soles of their feet.

  And maybe take one of them out for a ride.

  "When you think they gonna let us outside the fort?" Kal asked.

  Teodorq looked up in surprise from his needlework. He had been repairing his vest. "They keeping us in?"

  Kal blinked and cocked his head. "I see yer point, Rabbit. You an' me, and even yer hill-man here, could leave anytime we wanted to. But they probably think the guards and the walls are enough to stop deserters."

  The hillman smiled. "Sammi getting three meals and exercise, so no rush. Bide time. Consider options."

  A Point of a Sword

  Because the Legion was primarily a scouting force, they trained on horseback as well, and here Teo and Kal excelled from the start, since they had been very nearly born in the saddle. Although the horses were larger and clumsier than their own prairie ponies, and both plainsmen were accustomed to fighting with the compound bow, they learned to swing their longswords from horseback without nicking their own mounts. Hidaq also performed adequately, but both Sammi and the swamper were learning new skills.

  One day, the yar came onto the practice field and counted only four recruits. "Where the hell's Sam Eagle?" he demanded. "He shirking?"

  P. Z. looked around the meadow. "He was here just a while ago."

  The yar crossed his arms and glared at them. "He better put in an appearance real soon now."

  The grass at his feet rustled and seemed to come alive, and Sammi rose and held the point of his knife to the yar's throat. He had decked his jerkin and trousers with grasses so that he had blended in with the ground.

  The yar didn't blink. "Good camo job, Sammi. You're in the point guards, starting tomorrow. Report to Thewèhdarosh."

  "Good. What point guards do?"

  "They go out ahead of the Legion and scout things out."

  "Not so good."

  "And Sammi? Five laps."

  The recruits were issued their own swords at a ceremony attended by those of the Legion not out on sweep or garrison duty. Teodorq decided to call his sword Lifesaver. Kal called his Rabbit-killer. Sammi only shook his head. Hillmen did not name their weapons.

  "Maybe tomorrow," said Kal off-handedly while the shaman sprinkled the recruits with a sprig of holly dipped in water. "Maybe tomorrow they let us kill you."

  "Us?"

  The five recruits stood in a row with their swords in fool's guard, points straight down resting on the ground in front of them. Kal stroked the haft of his sword. "Me and my friend, here."

  "Maybe," Teodorq answered. "But yuh gotta know these ironmen here are spreadin' west. Old Wiz, he been asking you questions about the Great Grass, ain't he?"

  Kal spat on the ground. "Yeah, them sod-busters won't be much to stop 'em. What about it?"

  "Think somebody oughta tell the Gudawan Adyawan?" He meant the tribe to which both the Serps and his own Scorpions belonged. "All the clans gotta work together if these kettleheads come west."

  "I'll tell 'em ya said so when I see 'em, bein' they's yer last words an' all."

  "Just saying, sunna Vikeram. Remember, there's one song finer even than the two heroes who finally fight."

  Kal frowned. "Yeah? I wouldn't count on it, was I you." He swung his sword straight up in salute and Teodorq tensed, just a little. Kal laughed and Teodorq remembered he was supposed to do the same as part of the ceremony. Kal kissed his blade.

  "Don't you agree, Rabbit-killer?"

  With the rest of the Legion, they practiced turning their horses from single file into columns of four and into line of battle. Apparently, all ironmen fought by lining up and charging at the enemy in unison, yelling lululu! and swinging their swords. The kettle heads used a long pointy stick, but the legionnaires were more lightly armed. "Speed, not weight, is our advantage," the yar explained. "Let the pots and pans crash together. Our job is to ride far and fast, find and harass the enemy, and bring back word to the battle line. Light cavalry, heavy cavalry. Each has a job to do."

  It was during one of these practice skirmishes that Kal decided he had waited long enough. Teo and the Serp had been placed in opposing lines and as the two lines closed, Kal and his mount shouldered aside his neighbor. This opened a hole in his own line, but it put him directly facing Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand.

  They were supposed to be using the wooden practice swords, since the objective of the session was tactics, but Kal had unsheathed Rabbit-killer and swung it at Teo as they closed.

  Teo leaned back flat against his mount's withers—an old prairie stunt—and the blade whistled by harmlessly. That gave him a chance to rein, turn, and pull Lifesaver from over his shoulder all in one smooth motion. Teodorq assessed his situation while Kal completed his own turn. The sun was in the west, which meant the light would be in his eyes when he and Kal closed. The terrain in the meadow was flat but undulated and Kal's first pass had placed him not only with the sun to his back, but on the higher ground.

  "Didn't think you had the smarts, sunna Vikeram," he called out.

  Kal was brave, skilled, but prone to the reckless, so Teodorq fell to considering how he might turn that to his advantage. At some point, he was certain, Kal would swing double-handed as hard as he could and open himself to a counterstroke. Assuming that Teo could dodge that first stroke.

  The other legionnaires had pulled up on the flanks and were watching with varying degrees of professional interest. Some were shouting encouragements to one combatant or the other. Others were taking bets. Sammi was waiting for some sign and had pulled his boot-dagger from its sheath. But no man wants his deeds sung as treachery, so Teodorq shook his head and Sammi reholstered the knife.

  At that point, Yar Yoodavig rode between the combatants with his own longsword on sky guard. He pulled up hard on the reins and shouted. "All right! You two savages been aching for a fight since they first give you to me. Now I hate to put all that training into a man only to see it go down the outho
use, but the kospathin said to allow it, so you have it to do. But you owe the boss-man this much. Wait till he gets here so he can watch." He turned, checked rein, and turned back. "And get off my damned horses! I may got to lose one or both of you, but trained warhorses are hard to come by."

  Teodorq slid easily off his mount and Kal, seeing his initial surprise attack had failed, did likewise. A slap on the rump sent both horses trotting off the field, and the two men faced one another on foot. Kal held his sword "shoulder arms," both hands gripping the handle, the flat resting against his right shoulder.

  Shortly, the party from the Keep filed into the observers' benches. Someone laid down pillows for them to sit on and draped the Tiger banner over the banister. The kospathin sat in the center, flanked by his daughter and his Wisdom, with the other courtiers spread around them. The Wisdom scowled, whispered to his prince, but received a vigorous shake of the head. Teo suspected the advisor wanted to stop the fight.

  Teodorq sighed. He had it to do, and that was for sure. He stood with his sword point down, resting on the ground in fool's guard. He was apparently not on-guard at all, but from this position, he could transition swiftly to any number of other stances. He expected a more straightforward attack from Kal, but hoped he would put on a show good enough to satisfy the First.

  The argument between the prince and his Wisdom concluded and the princess waved a white banner to signal the start of the duel. Sometimes, Teo thought that she was the most bloodthirsty of the lot.

  Kal, as expected, rushed forward with his sword held in the "batter's stance"—the hilt gripped in both hands with the blade over his right shoulder, ready to swing into a hack or a slice as opportunity presented. Teodorq waited unmoving until his foe was three arms-length's away, then he swung Lifesaver up into "the bull," holding the hilt beside his head with his left arm crossed over, ready to push the pommel. This aimed the point of the sword at Kal's face and blocked the downward motion of Rabbit-killer on the aft part of the blade. Kal, disinclined to impale himself, checked his rush, spun to Teodorq's left, and disengaged.