Chapter 3
Cole
A horse whinnied, jerking Cole awake. He opened his eyes and squinted at the golden light from a lantern hanging at the apex of the tent. Movement by his feet made him jump, but it was only Kurtz, his back to Cole, looking out the door flap.
The man had issues with the dark, hence the lantern. Cole much preferred it to an open flame. Months ago, a candle Kurtz had left lit one night had nearly burned down their tent.
“What are you doing?” Cole asked, his voice groggy.
Kurtz didn’t move. Not even a twitch. “Watching.”
“Who’s out there?”
“Just some travelers. Look to be merchants. They didn’t see us.”
That anyone could miss an entire army camped on the side of the road seemed strange to Cole, but it was the middle of the night.
Kurtz stepped deeper into the tent and sank onto his bedroll, draping his arms over his knees. “What woke you?”
“I heard a horse.”
Kurtz grunted. “You were ten minutes too late. They’d have killed you and taken everything you own.”
“I own very little.”
“They’d have taken your lute.”
Cole rubbed his face and scowled at Kurtz. “How can I make myself wake if I’m asleep?”
“That’s another thing to practice.”
Cole rolled over and put his back to Kurtz. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your training. I do. I simply question the fairness of learning everything at once. In the middle of the night.”
“We’ll reach Tsaftown before you know it,” Kurtz said. “If you’re not ready, it’ll be too late to learn, it will.”
“How do you know? Have you posed as a minstrel spy before?”
“Have you ever had to keep yourself from being killed in your sleep?”
“Of course not.”
“Then we both have lots to learn. Get up, eh? We’ll run some drills.”
Cole groaned. But his lack of skill had nearly gotten Kurtz killed. That couldn’t happen again. He had to learn—whatever it took—so he pushed himself out of bed and followed his friend out into the darkness.
Steel clanged through the quiet dawn as Cole parried Derby Wenk’s longsword. The impact sent a jolt up his arm, and he repeated Kurtz’s mantra: Distract, disable, don’t overthink.
But Derby’s strikes were too fast, too precise. Cole couldn’t keep up. The squire had two years on him and had earned his place as Lord Livna’s squire through years of training—unlike Cole, who’d only had Achan’s pity.
With each step Derby forced him back, the squire’s grin widened.
“Hold your ground!” Kurtz yelled from the sidelines. “Push back with the shield. When you retreat, you give your opponent control.”
Cole tightened his grip on the shield, breath fogging in the cold.
Derby lunged, blade arcing down. Cole blocked with his shield, but the impact rattled his teeth. Before he could recover, Derby feinted left, then deftly twisted his blade around Cole’s sword.
The weapon flew from Cole’s grasp and slapped into the muddy snow.
“Blazes,” Kurtz muttered.
Derby stepped back, smirking as Cole scurried over and snatched up his sword.
“Again!” Kurtz crossed his arms. “And this time, hold on, because Wenk isn’t going to yield long enough for you to pick it up.” He shifted his gaze to Derby and nodded.
Cole squared his shoulders, raised his shield, and set the flat of his blade against the wooden edge. He had to do better, but his arms were already jelly.
Derby lunged for Cole’s legs. Cole dropped his shield to block, but Derby’s blade shot up. Cole barely had time to lift his shield before Derby caught the top edge with the cross guard of his sword and yanked down.
Again, Cole’s shield ripped away. It rolled in a circle before thumping into the snow.
“Don’t let up on him, Wenk,” Kurtz said.
Cole gripped his sword with both hands, the way Derby held his longsword. When Derby attacked, Cole sidestepped, narrowly dodging the blow. Without the shield’s weight, he moved quicker, more precisely, and felt stronger.
He parried another thrust, then managed a counterattack that forced Derby back a step. Now, that was more like it. Maybe he didn’t need the shield after all.
Still, Derby’s swift footwork left Cole scrambling. A high feint drew Cole’s blade up, then Derby lunged, slamming his shoulder into Cole’s chest. Off-balance, Cole barely registered the sharp crack as Derby’s longsword struck his forearm.
He cried out, faltered, and Derby disarmed him.
“Better,” Kurtz said gruffly.
When Cole turned to find his sword, Derby slipped up behind him, hooked an arm around his chest, and pressed his blade to his throat.
Kurtz lifted his arms, letting them fall back and slap his sides. “Well, now you’re dead.”
Derby chuckled and lowered his sword. “Lord Livna says never let anyone sneak up behind you.”
“He’s right about that, he is,” Kurtz said. “If a blade is at your skin, it’s over.”
Cole rubbed his sore forearm. “There’s no way to defend against it? Ever?”
“Nope,” Kurtz said. “You do nothing and hope for mercy, eh? Of course, if your attacker is holding you there and hasn’t slit your throat yet, could be he never intended to. In that case, talk your way out of it and try to get some distance between you and the blade. Let’s go again.”
Cole nodded toward the circle of wood on the ground. “I could move faster without the shield, and it helped to hold the sword with two hands.”
“You can’t wield a short sword with two hands,” Kurtz said. “How will you hold your shield?”
Cole didn’t want the shield. “Can I switch to a longsword?” he asked.
“You don’t have the arm strength,” Kurtz said.
“He could practice using the short sword like a longsword until he’s stronger,” Derby said. “He did fight better without the shield.”
“But he needs a shield because he has no armor,” Kurtz said.
Cole ran a hand through his damp hair. “But I think—”
“It’s not just strength,” Kurtz said. “You need control. And if you can’t hold a short blade for three minutes, you can’t control a longsword.”
The weight of Kurtz’s truth drained what little energy Cole had left.
“Pick them up,” Kurtz said, nodding toward the discarded weapons. “Again.”
Cole swallowed the retort burning his tongue and bent to retrieve his sword and shield. His fingers ached, his arm throbbed, and his pride? Battered to shreds. Yet he wasn’t about to let Derby—or Kurtz—think he couldn’t handle the training.
“Grip them both like your life depends on it,” Kurtz said, “because one day, it will.”
Cole had no worry for his own life. But should Kurtz be hurt worse next time because of Cole’s weakness…He couldn’t bear being a liability to anyone.
He had barely taken his position across from Derby when a small man in a farmer’s hat trudged toward them.
“Finally!” the man said.
Something in the timbre of his voice gave Cole pause.
The farmer sighed deeply, as if he found them all horribly tedious, and set his hands on his hips. “Six different men said, ‘They’re right over there,’ yet all six pointed in a different direction.”
Kurtz frowned. “Are you lost?”
“I’m not now.” The farmer swept off his hat, which revealed he was not a farmer at all, nor a man. “Hello, Cole.”
The blood drained from Cole’s face as he took in the woman standing before him. Ginger hair trapped in a knot atop her head, freckles as numerous as ever, pink lips twisted into a smirk, and those green eyes pinned on him.
Mistel Wepp had followed them from Armonguard, and—blazes!—even in trousers, she was stunning.