Chapter 16 #2
But he had already pushed her towards Kipp.
So he knew she had feigned her defeat.
‘Here,’ Kipp said, passing her a shield.
Her arm buckled beneath its weight. ‘Gods,’ she muttered.
‘Heavy aren’t they?’ Kipp replied, fitting his own shield to his forearm. ‘The cavalry ones are much lighter, not that it makes a difference to me. I’m more of a strategist myself.’
Esyllt cleared his throat. ‘As you all know, combat is as much about endurance as it is about skill with a blade. You need to not only be able to wield a sword, but a shield as well. There will come a time where you are on horseback having to do both, or a time where you need to run the length of a battlefield to serve one of our own.’
Thea grit her teeth and hoisted her shield up, her muscles already straining.
‘Spar!’ barked Esyllt.
Kipp’s false victory must have instilled a sense of confidence within him because he attacked Thea harder this time, though with no improvement to his form. She lifted her shield against his blows, once, twice, and a third time before she parried to one side and struck with her own blade.
If the weapons master thought her messy before, she was a disaster now. The shield had her off balance and her movements lagging. While Kipp wasn’t much better, he was at least more practiced than she was and could keep the shield upright for the duration of their match.
Gods, she’d been so cocky. How could she have thought that spying on training sessions, doing drills by herself in the dark and spending a few days with a Warsword would amount to anything resembling the type of skill one needed to become a great warrior of Thezmarr?
The shouts and clashing of practice swords from the rest of the shieldbearers faded into the background as Thea focused on raising her shield to meet each blow.
Now, it seemed, Kipp was taking it easy on her.
The blows of his practice sword landed softly, the impact still setting her teeth on edge as she fought to maintain her grip.
Sweat beaded at her hairline and the back of her shirt grew damp as she attempted to lunge again at Kipp. He evaded her strike easily, which only served to infuriate her. Had she underestimated him? Or was it simply the shield she struggled with?
Thea rolled her neck, trying to stretch out the tension there. Had it truly only been an hour or so ago that she had been riding alongside one of Thezmarr’s Warswords, intent on this very destination, eager to hold these very things in her hands? She made to lunge again —
‘Enough,’ roared Esyllt and the sparring ceased at once. ‘I’ve never seen a more sorry excuse for shieldbearers in all my life.’
‘It’s not our fault they let a girl in,’ someone called from the back.
‘Have you seen her? She’s no girl.’
‘Who said I was talking about a girl?’ Esyllt snapped. ‘Worry about your own abilities, Lachin. Or lack thereof.’
Thea couldn’t help exchanging a grin with Kipp.
‘That will be all for today,’ Esyllt said sharply. ‘I can only stand the sight for so long. Kipp, Thea and Callahan, you’re on clean-up duty.’
The grin vanished from Kipp’s face. ‘But —’
‘If that is anything other than gratitude on your lips, Kipp Snowden, I would think again.’
Kipp bowed his head. ‘Yes, Sir.’
As the other shieldbearers staggered away, sweaty and dishevelled, Thea waited with Kipp by the shed.
‘What is it we have to do?’ she asked.
‘Clean up the armoury. Polish the weapons. Make sure everything is in order so we can mess it all up again tomorrow,’ he replied.
‘That’s the spirit, Kipp,’ came another voice. A young man strode towards them, lean and muscular, chestnut hair pulled back into a short tail.
‘You know me, ever the optimist.’
‘Ever the fool, more like,’ the man clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh. He turned to Thea. ‘I’m Callahan Whitlock – Cal,’ he told her, offering a hand.
She took it firmly in her own. ‘Thea,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Nice to meet you under such happy circumstances, Thea. We’d best get started if we want to eat any time this century.’
Somewhat baffled, Thea followed their lead. It turned out the task at hand was exactly as Kipp had described and Thea found herself ordering the shields from largest to smallest along the wall and wiping them down with a wet cloth.
‘Was there a reason Esyllt picked us?’ she asked, wringing out the square of fabric.
‘Well, Cal suspects he always picks the worst performing shieldbearers of the day…’ Kipp answered as he rolled a large shield into its place. ‘But personally I think it’s because he only knows a few people’s names.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what Kipp tells himself,’ Cal said.
‘Well, I don’t know why you’re objecting. It would at least mean you’re not as terrible as you think.’
‘You know my strengths lie in the long-range weapons. I’m never on clean-up duty after those sessions.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Kipp replied with a shrug.
‘How long have you both been training for?’ Thea asked, listening to the ease between them with increasing curiosity.
‘Nine months for me,’ Cal told her. ‘Ten years for poor old Kipp. He needs a lot of repetition.’
‘Ease off,’ Kipp argued before turning to Thea. ‘It hasn’t been ten years, I swear. I’m useless but I’m not that useless.’
Cal snorted.
Shooting him a filthy look, Kipp continued. ‘I’ve been here since I was ten. But I only started training as a shieldbearer… a few years ago.’
‘Try five,’ Cal quipped.
‘Have you tried the initiation test then?’ Thea pressed.
But Kipp shook his head. ‘Weapons master insisted I give it more time. Said I’d wind up dead if I attempted in my first year. In my fourth year he said, “what’s one more year of training?”…’
‘Wonder what he’ll say this year,’ Cal laughed.
To Thea’s surprise, Kipp just shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Who knows, Callahan… Who knows.’
‘You’re not bothered then?’
‘Depends what day you ask me,’ Kipp replied. ‘But personally I’ve never really seen myself as a Guardian of the midrealms.’
‘Then why the training? Why not stay on as fortress staff?’ Thea couldn’t believe that there were people in the training program who didn’t wish to be there, while she had fought tooth and nail for her place. She kept that thought to herself.
‘Dwindling numbers, isn’t it? The intake of shieldbearers each year gets less and less. So they take who they can.’
Thea had heard as much, but it was another thing entirely to have it confirmed directly from the source. The conversation dwindled, and they finished up with the shields, moving into the armoury.
‘What now?’ Thea asked.
Cal tossed her a clean rag. ‘Esyllt likes things really shiny,’ he said.
Thea groaned. ‘This is turning into a very long day…’
They set about cleaning the countless blades in the armoury, and the questioning turned to her.
‘So… You went to Harenth…? With a Warsword?’ Kipp prompted.
‘To petition the rulers of the midrealms?’ Cal added, impressed.
Hawthorne’s dimple, the scar through his brow, and then his scowl flashed before Thea in a blur.
‘Uh… yes,’ she managed. ‘With Wilder Hawthorne.’
Cal let out a low whistle. ‘Some say he’s worse than the Bloodletter.’
Paying far too much attention to polishing a mark from a blade, Thea shrugged. ‘He wasn’t so bad,’ she said defensively. And then, ‘Perhaps I’ll tell you about it another time.’
‘Fair enough.’
And she was grateful to them for not pushing her.
‘We should tell her about the code…’ Kipp was saying.
‘Code?’
Cal nodded. ‘You know, the usual shit… What happens between shieldbearers, stays between shieldbearers.’
‘You mean, don’t tell the commanders when someone is hazing you?’ Thea said.
‘Pretty much,’ Kipp sighed. ‘There’s a lawless side to Thezmarr’s regime and it lies within the shieldbearer training.’
‘Good to know,’ Thea replied. ‘Though I can’t say it would have been my first instinct to go running to Esyllt.’
‘Perhaps not now,’ Cal said seriously. ‘But I’ve certainly found myself in a situation or two where a commander’s interference would have been welcome.’
‘I’ll say,’ Kipp agreed.
The warning left a hollow pit in Thea’s stomach.
It took forever to clean the weapons in the armoury to a standard that Cal and Kipp thought Esyllt would find acceptable.
By the time they finished, not only was Thea starving, but she was dead on her feet.
She’d been up since sunrise and had journeyed a long way, only to be completely battered by the sparring session.
When they reached the fortress and entered the lively Great Hall, Thea turned towards her usual table. She could see the messy knot of her sister’s bronze hair from here.
Gods, she wanted to talk to Wren, to tell her about… well, everything.
‘Where are you going?’ Kipp asked.
‘To my place at the —’
But Cal was shaking his head. ‘You’re a shieldbearer now, Thea. You eat with the shieldbearers.’
A sinking feeling settled in Thea’s stomach as she craned her neck to see if she could catch her sister’s eye. How had she not realised this sooner?
‘Come on, people are starting to stare,’ Kipp muttered, nudging Thea towards the table.
Reluctantly she tore her gaze away from where the alchemists sat. She would have to wait until the whole bloody fortress retired to speak with Wren.
‘Thea…’ Kipp whispered in warning, pointedly glancing at the crowds whose eyes bored into her.
But the inhabitants of the fortress weren’t staring because they were late.
They were staring because a woman was with the shieldbearers.
Whispers broke out across the hall and Thea wished she could melt away into the background.
But that was not the way of things. Between Cal and Kipp, they managed to make room for her on one of the benches, much to the disdain of the other shieldbearers.
There was considerable shoving and swearing before Thea was settled between her two new companions.
The staring didn’t stop.
Suddenly she felt more like an intruder here than she had amidst the nobles in the palace.
As Thea reached for the food, someone snatched it away.
As she reached for the mead, someone grabbed it to fill their own tankard.
Her ravenous appetite abruptly vanished.
Across the table she met scowls, pinched mouths and arms crossed over chests. Then there were the barely concealed whispers and soured expressions. Thea kept her shoulders squared and her chin high.
Though her appetite was well and truly gone, she reached again for the food, this time, a bowl of greens - the least popular dish on the table, only to have it yanked out of reach.
‘Really?’ she muttered.
‘Here,’ Kipp said, scraping half his plate onto hers.
‘You don’t have to –’ she started to object.
But Kipp just shrugged. ‘Usually they do it to me,’ he said. ‘Thick bastards get bored, eventually.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, touched by his kindness.
She ate quickly, daring to glance around the hall as she did.
The first thing she noticed was that Hawthorne was not at the head table.
The seat he’d occupied before they’d left was empty.
Audra however, was at her usual place and locked eyes with Thea from across the room.
Though she didn’t smile, there was a gleam to her eyes that Thea caught before the stern-faced librarian looked away.
Chatter had resumed at her table, but it wasn’t pleasant.
‘Three gold coins say she’s done by the end of the week,’ someone – the one Esyllt had called Lachin said, slamming a palm down on the surface.
‘Five coins say she’s done by the end of tomorrow. And that she cries,’ said another.
‘You don’t have five gold coins you stupid git,’ Cal retorted.
‘I’ll wager ten gold,’ Seb’s voice sounded, drowning out the rest, ‘that the stray will spread her legs just to stay in the program.’
Thea was on her feet in an instant, a fistful of Seb’s shirt bunched in her hand. ‘You —’
But Kipp and Cal were already hauling her back.
‘Not a good idea,’ Kipp muttered. ‘Definitely not a good idea.’
‘Leave him, Thea.’ Cal forced her back down onto the bench. ‘This is exactly what he wants.’
‘What’s going on down there?’ Esyllt demanded from his seat at the head table.
‘Nothing, Sir! Nothing at all,’ Kipp called back.
‘A likely tale,’ Esyllt said, shaking his head. ‘If I see a hint of trouble again down there, so help you all, I’ll let the commanders use you for archery practice.’
Esyllt’s threats were enough to cool the blood boiling in Thea’s veins, and thankfully, Seb and the other idiots seemed to decide that the weapon master’s wrath was not worth the joy of aggravating Thea further.
All Thea wanted now was for the meal to end so she no longer had to look at Seb’s ugly, smug face. Gods, she never thought she would long for the confines of her sleeping quarters with Wren and the others, but that was not to be.
When the bell sounded, Wren approached her with a hessian sack of her belongings. There was no time to talk, other than Wren’s hushed words of warning.
‘I was told you’re staying with the men now. May the Furies keep you safe, Thea,’ Wren hugged her tightly. ‘Sleep with one eye open.’
Thea squeezed her back, dazed. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, though she wasn’t sure if it was for Wren’s sake or for hers. She patted her chest, where her sister knew her fate stone rested. ‘Time to test the fates again, isn’t it?’
Wren’s face paled. ‘You’re running out of lives, Althea.’
Suddenly finding her sister’s fear suffocating, Thea pulled back, gathering herself. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said again. ‘See you around, Wren.’
But as Thea peeled away from the cohort and made her way towards the shieldbearer dormitories, she started to come apart at the seams. If the evening meal represented the general attitude towards her, then…
Well, she didn’t like her chances. Any notion of a safe space had been stripped away from her, there was nowhere to go where she could breathe.
From now on, she was to be on her guard at all times.
‘You wanted to be a shieldbearer, Althea Nine Lives,’ she muttered to herself, rallying her courage. ‘You got what you wished for. Now you live as one.’
When she reached the door, hearing the raucous laughter and shouts from within, she paused and squared her shoulders, digging deep for any comfort that might see her through the night.
Audra’s voice filled her mind then. ‘ The original Warswords were women. The Three Furies were what our whole culture was based upon, what everything the guild stands for started with them… ’
And with those words echoing, Thea pushed open the door and stepped into the drake’s den.