The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (35 page)

*              *              *              *

They made an afternoon of the fishing. Then they were led by the victorious Maddy back to camp with their supper. The rest of the time before supper was devoted to cleaning all the fish they’d caught, yet another thing that Ian had never actually done, but Lieutenant Taylor was gracious with his time and instruction.

Ian had always liked
to eat fish, but he’d never had anything quite so wonderful. Wilome was of course the causeways for many famed varieties of fish, some of which he’d been able to have from time to time. But they paled in comparison to the lean, steady sort of spice that this meal made. As he reclined afterwards, he wondered at how much of the feeling was because he’d helped to catch it.

And while he thought that the rest of the day and the fishing had done the company a great deal of good,
a sort of unwinding after all that they’d indulged in at Bon Sens, the upper echelons of their party were definitely not the better for it.

Captain Marsden was in an especially planning kind of mood, and his talk never ceased from it, no matter what other topics rose to sidetrack it.

“And you wouldn’t believe,” the youngest of the margrave’s daughters was saying, “how long it took to bring in the biggest one, father. At least ten minutes, he had so much fight in him.”

“I can only imagine,” the margrave said, his hands on his tea and his eyes on the fire.

“Yes, I do think so,” Captain Marsden said, quite unshaken from the conversation he seemed to be having with himself, “we will fly the trails extra quick first chance we get. Keep it expedient.”

“Quite right,” Lieutenant Taylor said.

“And so,” the captain went on, his eyes restless, “first chance we get—and I think we’ll run the sabres tonight. Haven’t gotten to that yet.”

Ian perked up out of his thoughts and saw several of the others do the same. It was a perfect evening for it, he reflected. A steady breeze had taken off the heat’s edge earlier than usual. Looking around, he tried to measure out how good everyone would be with their
sabres, something he hadn’t really done since they’d first set out, so focused on hunting and shooting as they’d been. Settling on Rory, Ian saw that his second looked as eager as the others. But Ian thought, knew that Rory couldn’t be nearly as good at close quarters fighting as he was at shooting. And that was a pleasant thought.

“We’ll run them straight through tonight,” the captain said, still musing. “That will do well.
Quite right.”

*              *              *              *

Their company took up two lines facing each other not long after supper, discarding their overcoats and regulators and bringing out their sabres. Captain Marsden went on about the long and splendid history that the front arm had played in combat a little longer than Ian thought was necessary. He and the other enlisted men fiddled with the hilts of their sabres, eyeing each other and trying to look like they weren’t anything but excited, blusterous, and maybe a little scared.

Setting his eyes back on Rory, who was listening a bit closer to their captain and keeping a firm hand on the end of his sword, Ian measured out the paces in his mind, maybe fifteen between them.
He tried to chart what might be the quickest route through the grass, then what might be the safest if he were to try for a less direct and more strategic approach.

“—
And we’ll just have to see what sort of quality you’re made of,” Captain Marsden said, pacing along the end of their rows. “So let’s see it now. Sabres up.”

Ian flipped his thumb along the
trigger on his sword’s hilt, releasing it from its sheath. He took care to raise and then turn it up in one motion, holding the hilt just below eye level. The shaft of the blade pierced upwards as he looked straight across at Rory, who finished doing roughly the same thing.

“Hold,” Captain Marsden said, and they all brought their swords back against their chest
s, the blades just in front of their noses. “Up—down, left. Left, right—that’s good.”

Ian followed through the fairly basic commands easily, listening to the sound of his blade cutting through the air and focusing on focusing, keeping his motions contained and concise, imagining what it would be like if
he were attacking an opponent who—

“Very well,” Captain Marsden said, “I am glad to see they
can still teach commands at the academy. While many of you are straight from there, rest assured that the rest of your company is well-seasoned, and has actually had to swing at something that wasn’t interested in teaching them. But, as it is, would have rather killed them.”

Ian admitted he could see the wisdom in that. Taking a quick chance, he glanced down at the end of his line where
Corporal Wesshire was quietly regarding the captain. He showed no particular emotion and his stance was easy, not quite dismissive—

“—they are therefore an excellent resource,” Captain Marsden continued, “for anyone desiring additional assistance in their swordsmanship, which,” he paused, not glancing at Ian but nonetheless managing all the airs as if he had literally done so, “some of you of course very much should.

“Now then,” the captain stopped to look down Ian’s line, “this line here shall take three steps to the east.”

Ian and his line did as they were instructed, ending up being straight across from the gaps
between the people across from them.

“All men take the thrusting stance.” The captain waited only for a moment for them to
step their weight forward and bring their swords up to their right shoulders, pointing straight ahead. “Attack straight from that stance until my mark. Proceed!”

Ian started a little more immediately than the others around him, crouching forward to let his weight pull forward with him as he thrust his blade
ahead. First he would lunge it forward from one shoulder, bring it up over his head to slash down, then bring it to the other shoulder to repeat the process in reverse.

It wasn’t easy to concentrate wholly on what was in front of him, as
Ian also had to be mindful of any potential snares in the grass that his boots pushed through. And he was intensely wary of Rory and Kieran, who passed him at unsynchronized intervals, doing the same thing with their swords. It was a little unnerving, and Kieran’s blade flashed just inches from Ian’s right ear when they passed. Ian knew it hadn’t been intentional though, and not just from the sharp look of fear that came over Kieran’s face and his subsequent corrections.

But only a few moments and they were past. The captain called them to a halt and an about face once they reached
roughly where the other line had been.

“Again,” Captain Marsden barked out, having drifted much closer to their end,
as Ian noticed.

Lieutenant Taylor was also free to prowl on the other
end of the line where Corporals Wesshire and Hanley were paired up. From what Ian could spare to see, and that wasn’t much as he had to dodge the captain’s eyes more than once, both officers were carefully scrutinizing their movements, one person at a time and then back again.

“Pick up the pace,” Captain Marsden said.
“Again.”

Wiping the dampness at his brow,
Ian couldn’t tell if the captain was that unimpressed with them or if it was all for the airs. Going through the routine again with some variations, several more times actually, another time, then another, one more past what he thought the captain was going to have them do—Ian began to perspire. He could see the same effect on the others, and he realized to what sort of dependence they had on their regulators.

But the breeze was consistent and the sun mostly down behind the mountains to the west. As they went, his legs growing tired with all of the crouching that he wasn’t really accustomed to, the air
felt good in his lungs, moving against his skin and hair. And as natural as he liked to think his sabre should immediately feel in his hands, the weight wasn’t nearly as reconcilable in motion as he would have imagined. But that would change, he promised himself. He would add some of these exercises to his normal routine, hopefully in private to avoid looking foolish. He would get better, more familiar with it. It did feel good in his hands.

“That’s enough,” Captain Marsden said after a length.
He had them go through another round of shorter exercises involving low and high sweeps in the standard dueling stance. But that brought their opening maneuvers to a close. “All right then. We have a long ways to go before we fend off any Hallmer tribes, but that’s a start. Face up with your seconds again, blunders out. We’ll see how well you men can handle something more substantial than the air.”

Ian reset himself across from Rory and slid his sword back into its sheath, b
eing careful to catch up his breathing without looking like he had any need to be breathing hard. Locking the blade to the blunder that was waiting inside, he pulled it back out with the safety measure securely fastened. The blunder consisted of two thin but tough molds of rubber-like material fitted to either side of the blade’s length, effectively straddling the sabre’s point and edge and making it very difficult to actually be cut by either. Experimentally moving it around, Ian found that the weight felt virtually unchanged, though his sabre no longer looked nearly as impressive.

Ian waited as t
he captain waited for everyone to secure their own blunders, Rory seeming to have some difficulty with his. Taking a moment, Ian pinched his fingers up along the blunder, glad to find that it was firmly fastened.

“Very well,” the captain said, a moment or so before Rory was co
mpletely through with his sword. “I trust that those blunderbusses had the mind to teach you a thing or two about civilized dueling. While there’s no such thing off of the academy grounds, we’ll begin there. Touch blades and circle. Let’s see how you men are on your feet.”

Advancing forward, far more directly than Rory did, Ian came forward with his blade up. Meeting Rory’s blade, he tapped it twice, once right and once left. They then began to circle, fairly traditionally, in the traditional
, clockwise manner.

Immediately seeing that he would have to take charge of their direction, Ian gladly guided them away from where Kieran and Brodie were circling. All the while
, he continued to make slow, steady attacks with his blade against Rory that the other easily met and countered. It was all very gentle, very Ellosian. But the point was to keep his eyes up and on what was happening with their blades while maintaining consistent movement with their feet. It wasn’t exactly effortless, especially in terrain like this, but it was close enough that Ian could start critiquing Rory, who wasn’t struggling, but definitely wasn’t managing it effortlessly either.

“Keep your feet up,” Ian said, “even steps.”

“Mind your own feet,” Rory said, involuntarily speeding up his attack for a moment.

“Mind yours,” Ian said, “the captain is coming this way.”

And indeed, it wasn’t a pair of moments before the captain’s critique came.

“You’re leading too fast,
Kanters,” Captain Marsden said, “this isn’t a duel, keep even with him.”

“Yes, sir,” Ian said, slowing a little despite himself.

“Williams, stay level,” Captain Marsden said, sounding a little more annoyed. “Well, I can certainly say you both need the most work.”

Ian felt no emotional response to that. He supposed he was merely getting used to it.

“Step on—the—swing,” Captain Marsden said, clapping his hand to the pace he wanted. “Touch, step, touch—that’s a bit better. Keep at it.”

And so they had their own instructions while Lieutenant Ta
ylor did the rest of the rounds. This mostly consisted of Kieran and Brodie, since the corporals seemed fine, if not bored, from what Ian could see.

The
daylight continued to wane, the mountain shadows looming. Somewhere in the middle of this, Ian noticed that a couple of the Bevish servants and the margrave’s daughters had come, and they sat on a slight incline some small ways away, watching.

This distressed Ian only slightly, but that was more than he would have guessed. He obviously didn’t want Elizabeth to think any less of him, but he had thought and hoped he had left most of that behind
him.

Thankfully, all this instruction only last
ed another twenty minutes or so. Ian was able to match, and as he thought, exceed all but the most unreasonable of the captain’s orders, and he could tell his superior was getting irritable, and a little bored with the proceedings.

“That’s enough squabble for one evening,” Captain Marsden said. “We can’t always be dull Jacks, obviously. We have a bit of light left, let’s
make a sport of it.”

A quick whoop ran through the company, a relief through Ian. The excitement he had
started with had dulled, but it was able to revive itself in admirable fashion.

“What say we set a pot at a shilling apiece?” Captain Marsden said.
“Every man should be good for that much. We will hold all of you good to it.”