The White Order (The Saga of Recluce #8)(82)

“Remember this is white-bronze. Good steel is heavier.”

Heavier? Cerryl wasn't sure he could have carried heavier armor.

“And this is only partial armor.” Eliasar picked up a long heavy blade and a pair of gauntlets and marched out, as if expecting Cerryl to follow. “You won't wear this, probably not ever, but you'll wear it today.”

The youth followed the older mage back out and across another courtyard, along yet another corridor and out into an empty practice yard where a heavy wooden post, more like a heavy slashed tree trunk, stood. Eliasar stopped a half-dozen cubits short of the post. “How do you feel?”

“It's heavy,” admitted Cerryl.

Eliasar handed Cerryl a pair of bronze gauntlets. “Put them on.”

Cerryl pulled on the gauntlets, flexing his fingers. Surprisingly, the fingers of the metal gloves moved easily.

“Take this.” Eliasar extended the blade, then pointed to the wooden post. “Go ahead. Take a whack at it.”

Cerryl just looked. “I don't know how.”

“Just lift the blade and chop.” Eliasar stepped back several paces.

Awkwardly, Cerryl lifted the blade and swung it. The white bronze bounced off the wood, and Cerryl staggered back a step, trying to keep his balance.

“Strike again.”

Cerryl levered the blade around, and his whole arm ached as the blade struck the post and rebounded.

“Do it again.”

With both hands on the big hilt, Cerryl forced another thudding blow to the post, followed by yet another, further numbing Cerryl's arms.

“Keep at it!” demanded Eliasar.

When the arms mage finally allowed Cerryl to stop, the youth was drenched with sweat, and he could barely lift the blade to hand it back to Eliasar.

“It's not so easy, is it?” asked the blocky mage, taking the gauntlets back as well.

“No, ser.”

“You barely swung that blade for a tenth part of a morn, and some battles last all day. Best remember that when you order armsmen to fight.” Eliasar turned, clearly expecting Cerryl to follow, leading him to yet another courtyard that Cerryl had no idea existed.

A line of straw dummies was set up before canvas hangings.

“Archery. There's three sets of hangings. Easier on the shafts and heads that way.” Eliasar picked up a curved stave from somewhere, or so Cerryl thought. “Now ... here's a bow. Here's how you string it.” In a fluid motion that Cerryl could barely follow, the arms mage had the bow strung. “You try it.” As quickly as he had strung the weapon, Eliasar unstrung it and handed it to Cerryl.

Cerryl had to use his knee and most of his weight to even bend the bow, and scraped skin off the sides of two fingers in somehow stringing the weapon.

Eliasar took the bow, inspected it without words, then nocked an arrow and put a shaft through the left arm of the center straw figure. “Little off there.” A second shaft went through the middle of the figure's chest. “Here you go.”

The first shaft popped off the string on the draw because Cerryl's sweaty fingers lost their grip. He wiped them on his trousers and tried again. That shaft skidded along the sand in front of the targets. It took five attempts before a shaft even hit the hangings.

By then blood streaked the fingers of his right hand.

“That's enough. Clear you've had no training in arms.” Eliasar took back the bow, unstrung it, and wiped it down with a cloth he produced from somewhere.

“You'll never raise a blade-or a bow. So why do you suppose I made you do all this?” Eliasar grinned. “And you'll do it a score or wore times before you ever ride with the lancers.”

“So that I understand what lancers do?”

Eliasar smiled coldly. “So you don't do something that kills them or you because you don't understand. You don't understand. You haven't even started to understand.” The grin returned. “Least you can Wear armor and move. Might be some hope for you.” Eliasar turned.

“Let's get that off you and get you back to the common.”

Cerryl forced his steps to match those of the older mage, although he found himself practically panting to keep up.

“Be another eight-day or two. Mayhap longer, if you get sewer duty but I'll see you again. Then we'll be showing you how to ride proper-like. That's something you will do, and we'll make sure you know that.”

Cerryl had the feeling that Eliasar would, and that the mage enjoyed making life difficult for students.





White Order





LV




Cerryl looked down at the map outline lightly penned on the vellum spread across the table before him. He almost felt like jamming the quill into the smooth wood of the table or banging his head against the wall-or better yet, picking up Kesrik or Bealtur and pummeling either into a pulp, or tying them to a log and running through Dylert's big saw.

Already one eight-day and two days had passed, and all he had was an outline on vellum. His fingers still ached from his morning with Eliasar, and that hadn't made copying any easier or quicker. He'd had to develop a real scale of distances, one that fit on the size vellum he'd been able to get from Arkos, and that had taken almost two days because none of the maps in the books or the bigger ones in the mages' library really agreed, not that well.