Parry, strike, guard, parry, parry....
...the rain beat down, hissing like snakes, turning the street to mud.
His opponent, an outline barely visible in the mud, closed again.
Light from a distant window glinted from the damp metal of his saber as
he thrust it forward...
...guard, parry, feint low, block high, thrust, strike for the face,
guard...
... a hundred men and women practiced swordsmanship in the courtyard,
honing their skills to their peak. There were no finer warriors in
the world, he knew. He had picked many of them himself...
...block, backpedal, step to the left, swing to the right, feint
low, strike high, parry, guard...
...the town was burning below. All day the cannons had thundered,
pounding the west wall into little more than a high pile of rubble.
The push would come soon. In the light of the burning buildings he
could see the blocks of swordsmen forming up, archers and arquebusiers
lining up in support. He checked once more to the left and right.
The Roaring Drachen, all the siege had spared, were ready...
...forward, press the attack, strike, strike, close, beat aside the
defense, thrust, cut, parry, cut...
...all was lost. The castle ruined, the fields so trampled that
they would take years to recover, the town burned to the ground.
He had begged the Eisenfürst to listen, to take a hand in shepherding
his königreich away from the doom that was rapidly engulfing
them all. But the Eisenfürst was lost, somewhere within his
own heart, and there was no one who could stand in his stead...
...strike, strike, strike! Keep the enemy off balance, strike
him hard! Forward, ever forward, inside his guard, knee to the groin,
guide the blade towards the face, the neck, the heart! Push him,
push him, push...
...a trick of the ground, a trick of fate, a brief misstep in the fetid,
liquid mud. A lightning flash illuminating the descending saber,
too late. Pain, a red haze, falling...
...molten agony shot up Johann Mueller's leg and his knee collapsed,
sending him sprawling in the dirt and hay. The heavy saber
flew from his hand to crash against a nearby stall, causing the horse within
to snort and stamp. For a moment the big Eisen just lay there, half
blinded by the pain, chewing his lip to keep from crying out.
A Roaring Drachen does not cry out. A Roaring Drachen must always
be a reflection of the bravery of his Eisenfürst.
The pain began to recede. Johann sat up.
"Overdid it again?" A woman's voice from the stable door.
Johann grumbled and stood without wincing, but the effort caused beads
of sweat to burst across his forehead.
At least I can stand, he thought sourly. At least I
don't have to ask Aidel for help getting up. He eyed his saber,
trying to judge whether he was sound enough to bend over to pick it up,
then stepped gingerly towards it, gauging the strength in his leg.
"It does no good to pamper it," he said, trying to distract his observer
from noticing how badly he was limping. "It will never heal if I
favor it." Having reached his saber he eyed it sternly, as though
willing it to rise to his hand. Behind him, the woman in the doorway
took a step forward.
"Johann," she began, but Johann waved her back, slowly bent at the waist,
reaching for the saber that lay in the hay.
"Johann," she said again, but Johann just grunted, hoping it would silence
her. His hand was three inches short of the hilt of the saber.
He would have to bend his knees, but that was all right. Just a couple
of inches, just a little bit more...
Once again the knee gave way, sending him sprawling. Face down
in the hay he could hear the sound of Aidel's boots as she walked into
the stable and knelt beside him, but he couldn't bring himself to look
at her.
"Johann," she said gently, "you are a fine man, brave soldier, and the
best commander I ever had, but for the love of the Prophets get it through
your head. It isn't going to heal. You're lucky not to have
lost the leg. You're luckier still that you didn't bleed to death
before we got the wound cauterized. If you don't stop pushing yourself
so hard you are going to wind up a cripple."
"I AM a cripple," Johann said softly, into the mud and hay. "I
limp, my knee won't hold me anymore, I've lost so much speed, so much dexterity.
My leg is weak, I couldn't march five miles."
Then he said no more for a moment, because Aidel kicked him in the ribs.
It wasn't the sort of kick that brothers give brothers or friends give
to friends during a tussle. It was the sort of kick that could break
bones, delivered by a skilled street fighter wearing heavy riding boots.
Against less well trained opponents such a kick might have been crippling,
but Johann had learned long ago how to take a blow, even one he hadn't
seen until it connected. Instinct took over and he curled around
the kick, grabbing Aidel's foot and flinging her away to crash against
the far wall. He rolled up to one knee, snatching his saber from
the ground and coming on guard. Across the narrow stable Aidel had
dropped into a fighter's crouch.
He took a moment to study her, trying to gauge her mood. She was
a muscular woman in her early thirties. Johann had always thought
that she was too small for all the strength she had, only her hands – large
and heavily calloused – betraying the strength in her arms and upper body.
Blonde hair cut short to fit beneath a helmet, delicate features.
One eye of steely blue, the color of the sea.
One eye forever closed beneath a scar that ran down her face, and hidden
by a patch of black silk.
"I am a cripple," she said slowly, never shifting her gaze from
his saber, "You've just slowed down a little if only you'd realize it.
If you ever have any doubts about the difference then put this damned patch
on and get into a bar fight with a farmer. Or take a swing with that
saber of yours. Stay on my left and I'll never see it coming."
Johann began to lower his saber, but Aidel lunged forward and he instinctively
raised it again.
"Come on, cripple, take a swing. If you don't land the blow I'll
concede you're a cripple after all. We can head off into the countryside
together – maybe go to Freiburg and beg in the streets, or join a waisen
pack." Aidel held her stance for a moment more, then abruptly straightened.
"We've all been put out to pasture, Captain. Too many mouths to
feed – you know you would have done the same if you had been in Wilhelm's
boots. Maybe you limp now and maybe you always will. But that
bastard traitor in Siegsburg DIDN'T kill you, and you have a lot of nerve
working so hard to finish the job for him when we fought like demons to
save your life."
Pointedly ignoring his saber, she turned and walked from the stable
with the air of a hausfraü strolling through the marketplace.
Something in the back of Johann's mind told him to stand up, to go after
her, to tell her that he was sorry, that he would honor her always for
saving him, that he would trust her at his back above any other.
But the moment passed and she was gone, back to the inn.
Johann stood, came on guard, and began going through his saber drill
once again.
Slowly. Carefully. Preserving his strength.
"Vaticine or Objectionist?"
"What?"
"I said 'Vaticine or Objectionist?' It was never any of my business
to ask before, but now it is, so I'm asking. Which are you?"
"Does it matter anymore?"
"It might matter to her."
"Objectionist."
"Tsk, tsk. Not good, my friend. She's almost certainly a
Vaticine – Castille is crawling with them."
"If it's a problem then I don't want to work with her anyway."
"Ah, but you may not discover that it's a problem until you are sitting
in port in San Cristobal, and then what will you do?"
"Walk home, of course."
