19
HIDDEN TALENTS
Kale heard Dar and Bardon fencing long before she wanted to leave her bedroll. The questing party had been camped by the kimen falls for almost three weeks, and each dawn Dar and Bardon engaged in mock combat. She knew Leetu Bends and Lee Ark would soon step in to give instructions.
At first, all of them had tried to get Kale to join in. They might try again today if they knew she was awake. She refused to open her eyes. Birds twittered in the branches of the rootup trees. She covered her head with the blanket.
Metta and Gymn awoke within the folds of their pocket-dens. They squirmed toward the opening, disturbing Kale as they wiggled between her and the bedroll. They reached her clenched fists and butted their scaly heads against her fingers.
I don’t want to get up, she told them sternly but loosened her grip so they could slither out. One of them stepped on her nose. Gymn. His tail slapped her cheek as he took off to find a better place to watch the mock battle.
A weight landed on Kale’s side. Too big to be a minor dragon. Toopka.
“Dar’s going to teach me to use a small sword right after Bardon beats him.”
Kale threw back the covers. “What?”
“Bardon always beats him. He’s had years more training.”
“Not that. What did you say about fencing with a small sword?”
“I’m not big enough to fence. Dar’s going to teach me how to duck and jab.”
Kale propped herself up on an elbow and glared at the two warriors as they parried and thrust with practice swords, weapons made of wood but capable of leaving nasty bruises. “You’re too young to be doing any such thing.”
Toopka’s eyebrows scrunched together in a serious frown. “We’re going on a quest,” she said. “It’s best to be prepared.”
“You aren’t going on the dangerous part. You’ll stay here in the camp.”
“Robbers could come.”
“Not in Ordray,” said Kale. “The urohms and kimens run a tidy province. There is next to no crime.”
“Next to no crime. That means there is some, and crime is likely to happen where innocent people are unprepared.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.” Kale threw herself back down and jerked the blanket over her head.
“Bardon says you should be honing your skills as a fighter.” Toopka waited for a response.
Kale pressed her lips together.
“Bardon asked you to spar with him. You really should. He might have to report to Grand Ebeck.”
Kale pushed back the covers again and sat up, knocking Toopka off her perch. “What made you say that? Did you hear something?”
Toopka gave an exaggerated shrug and purposefully studied the two young men.
“Toopka.” Kale poked her furry arm.
She sighed. “Wizard Fenworth says you’re mopey. Mopey o’rants don’t make a good princess.”
“Apprentice.”
“Librettowit says you are suffering emotional strain.”
“And?”
“Leetu Bends says you need a kick in the pants.”
Kale rubbed the sleep from her eyes and studied Bardon and Dar as they circled each other. Dar swept in, attacking the taller man’s legs. Bardon leapt in the air and landed out of the doneel’s reach.
Kale scowled. Where have I seen someone move like that? He wasn’t an o’rant. Not a marione either. At Lee Ark’s! Two emerlindians did a demonstration match.
Kale stood and moved closer. She curled her toes against the chill of the dew-drenched grass. The moonbeam cape kept her body warm, but still she wrapped her arms around her torso.
Lee Ark and Leetu also approached the impromptu training field from their tents. Even before they reached Kale’s side, Leetu cheered when Bardon lightly jumped over Dar’s low swung sword.
“Dar, vary your approach,” ordered Lee Ark. “You’re too predictable.”
Fenworth strode over the rise and advanced upon the two practicing with swords. “Let’s see what Bardon does with a pole.”
Kale had been among Paladin’s soldiers long enough to know that the emerlindians, not o’rants, were masters of the pole and longbow.
Startled, both Dar and Bardon turned to the old wizard. Fenworth held a six-foot prime-pole in each hand. He extended one arm to offer a weapon to Bardon.
Dar looked up with a grin on his face. “Do it, Lehman. I bet you’re good at it.”
Bardon’s usual stoic mien relaxed. He clapped Dar on the shoulder, handed the doneel his sword, and took the weighty pole from the wizard.
“What are they doing?” asked Toopka, clinging to the leg of Kale’s trousers.
Kale put her hand on the soft fur between the little girl’s ears. “They are going to battle with prime-poles. If they had two shorter sticks, that would be lackey-canes. And shorter lackey-canes that have a strap attached to one end are called dodgerods or dodders.”
“I want a dodder.”
“They’re for fighting. They’re dangerous.”
“I want to be dangerous.”
Kale looked at the big brown eyes staring up at her. She clamped down a grin that would betray her amusement, but she couldn’t help teasing.
“Should a bisonbeck warrior ever catch sight of you with a weapon in your hand, he’d turn tail and run for the hills, howling all the way.”
Toopka’s expressive eyes widened for a fraction of a second and then narrowed. “Harrumph.” She turned back to watch Bardon and Fenworth readying.
The tyke sounded so much like old Wizard Fenworth that those standing close enough to hear burst into laughter. Toopka put her hands on her hips and stomped a foot.
Lee Ark, who had many children at home, swooped the tiny doneel up into the air and settled her on his shoulder.
“Watch, little one,” he said. “The men are wrapping soft leather around the knuckles of each hand. That’s to protect against blows.”
“Will Bardon beat the wizard? Bardon always beats Dar.”
Lee Ark tilted his head to look up at her. “He’s never beaten me.”
“You fight with swords and those hadwig thingies.”
“Still, he’s never beaten me.”
“But you are only old. Wizard Fenworth is oldest.” The marione general chuckled and patted the doneel’s knee with his large, broad hand.
Kale gave Toopka a hard look. Sometimes she suspected the child said things more out of orneriness than innocence.
Toopka, how old are you?
Toopka’s head jerked around to find Kale. “I told you I don’t know.”
Did you mean to be disrespectful to General Lee Ark? You should know better than to tell a person he’s old. It’s not polite.
Toopka’s lower lip jutted out in an angry pout. “I don’t think it’s fair for you to expect me to know things that we didn’t learn on the streets. No one ever talked about being polite. We talked about which shopkeeper had too much fruit in his stand, and when the brown spots were coming on, so we’d know where to forage.”
“Watch now, Toopka,” Lee Ark said, unknowingly interrupting. “They’ll touch their poles once at the top and then once at the base, then the match will begin.”
Wizard Fenworth and Bardon stood straight, gave a ceremonious salute, nodded solemnly, and shifted their feet into the fighting stance. Each man tilted the top of his pole forward. A sharp snap echoed across the meadow as the wood made contact. The men then angled the bottoms of the poles forward. The second snap sounded stronger than the first.
With no more preliminaries, the men attacked with full vigor. The poles clacked and snapped with an occasional thud from a glancing hit.
She winced a couple of times when it looked as though Fenworth was about to land a strike, but Bardon whirled gracefully out of the way and returned a clout against the old man’s pole.
The fighting intensified. Bardon began to sweat. Water dripped from Fenworth’s brow, and his robe soon bore dark streaks where perspiration soaked the cloth. The more he sweat, the more limber his body became.
Fenworth missed Bardon twice in quick succession and grinned. “You waltz, young man. You should visit the courts of the land, not the battlefields.”
Bardon rained a rapid rat-a-tat-tat on Fenworth’s well-coordinated defense. “I must admit, Wizard, I expected your moves to be stiff.”
“I’ve always been known for my fluid touch.”
Kale shook her head and laid a hand on Lee Ark’s arm. “Something is wrong. I’ve never seen Wizard Fenworth actually fight. Even when surrounded by blimmets.”
The general grunted an assent. “I’m amazed by both of them. I’ve never watched Bardon against such a skilled opponent. Fenworth’s right. He has the grace of a dancer. He moves more like an emerlindian than an o’rant.”
She nodded, watching Bardon’s moves through an intricate attack. “The other students made fun of him because his style of fighting didn’t match the instructors’ criteria. But he’s good. I think they bad-mouthed him because none could beat him.”
With her eyes on the bog wizard in front of her, she jumped when his booming voice resounded at her shoulder.
“This is ridiculous!” Fenworth’s gnarled hands pushed Kale and Lee Ark aside. The old man glared at the combatants. “Who told you you could borrow my form?”
The wizard sparring with Bardon turned toward the interruption. Bardon’s pole had been positioned for an onward thrust. He could not stay his hand when his opponent suddenly abandoned the match. The young lehman pulled aside, but not enough. The pole struck the old wizard’s shoulder. To Kale’s horror, it sank into the coarse cloth and on through flesh and bone.
She blinked. As Bardon withdrew his weapon, the wizard’s body appeared to ripple outward from the point of impact, much as water does when a stone is thrown into a pond. The ripples reversed to converge on the center. The wizard merely brushed the spot as if he were wiping away dust.
Wizard Fenworth pounded his walking stick upon the ground. Bees swarmed out of the top notch and flew away in a mass.
“I demand you release my form this instant. It’s bad enough having two wizards, but two wizards in the same form is ridiculous. Show yourself, man.”
The other wizard casually waved a hand in Fenworth’s direction. Water sprayed over Fenworth and those standing behind him. “I would like to change into something more comfortable.”
A mist arose around the stranger until the air was so dense with moisture, he couldn’t be seen.
“Aha!” said Fenworth. “Just as I thought, and I can’t say I’m happy to see you.”