Blood Song

“Five years training at the Order House,” she said softly. “Four more on the northern border assailed by savages and ice storms. And what is my reward? To live amongst the dregs of the Realm and tend to their doxies.” She shook her head. “Truly the Departed have cursed me.”

“Sister, I meant no offence..!”

“Oh good!” She said, beaming suddenly. “I’ll get my bag. The guard won’t be necessary, though I’ll need someone to show me the way.” She arched an eyebrow at Vaelin. “You don’t know it do you, brother?”

He grimaced at the memory of his stuttering denial. Sergeant Krelnik had been right, the incidents of pox fell away quickly and the men stayed content, or as content as they could be after weeks of training under his brothers’ bruising tutelage. He opted to forget to appraise the Aspect of the incident and there was a tacit agreement it was not discussed amongst the brothers.

“Is there anything you need?” he asked Gilma. “I can send a cart to your Order House for supplies.”

“My stocks are sufficient for now. Master Smentil’s herb garden has been a great help. He’s such a dear. Been teaching me to sign, look.” She made a series of signs with her plump but nimble hands that roughly translated as: I am a bothersome sow. “It means ‘My name is Gilma.’”

Vaelin nodded, his face expressionless. “Master Smentil is a gifted teacher.”

He left her with the wounded and went outside. Everywhere men were training, clustered in companies around brothers struggling to impart skills learned over a lifetime in the space of a few months. It was an often frustrating task, their recruits seemed so slow and clumsy, ignorant of the most basic tenets of combat. So much so that his brothers had complained bitterly when Vaelin forbade use of the cane. “Can’t train a dog if you can’t whip it,” Dentos had pointed out.

“They’re not dogs,” Vaelin replied. “Not boys either, most of them anyway. Punish them with extra training or menial duties, cut their rum ration if you think it appropriate. But no beatings.”

The regiment was now at full strength, numbers swelled by the pressed men from the dungeons and a steady flow of new recruits who, true to the king’s prediction, had been drawn to a soldier’s life by Vaelin’s legend, some having travelled great distances to enlist.

“More times than not it’s the rumble in a man’s belly makes him enlist,” Sergeant Krelnik observed. “This lot seem hungry only for the glory of serving under the Young Hawk.”

As the weeks passed the training began to take hold, the men growing visibly stronger, aided by a healthy diet which many had never known before. They stood straighter and moved faster, handling their weapons with greater skill, although they still had much to learn. Gallis the climber soon recovered much of his physique, his spirits brightened by repeated visits to the whores’ camp. He became one of the regiment’s characters, ever-ready with a cynical quip to draw laughter from his comrades, although he was wise enough to curb his tongue during the training sessions. The brothers may have been forbidden the cane but they knew a thousand ways to hurt a man in the tumble of a sparring match. Most gratifying for Vaelin was their discipline, they rarely fought amongst themselves, never questioned an order and there had been no attempts at desertion. He was yet to order a flogging or a hanging and lived in dread of the day when he had no option. War will be the test, he decided, recalling the miserable months in the Martishe and the many men who had chosen to risk escape through the Cumbraelin infested forest rather than face another day in the stockade.

He found Nortah teaching the bow to a group of their more burly recruits. All newly enlisted soldiers had been tested at the butts and most found wanting, the more keen–eyed collected into a company of crossbowmen, but a few had shown sufficient skill and strength to warrant further tuition. They numbered only thirty or so, but even a small number of skilled bowmen would be a valuable asset to the regiment. Nortah again proved an able teacher; all his charges could now sink a shaft into the centre of the butt from forty paces and one or two could repeat the feat with the rapidity only usually displayed by brothers of the Order.

“Don’t kiss the string,” Nortah told a student, a brawny fellow Vaelin recalled from his trip to the dungeons. His name was Brak or Brax, a renowned poacher before the King’s wardens had caught him quartering a freshly felled deer in the Urlish. “Get the arrow back behind your ear for every loosing.”