Seraphina(67)

“Are we leaving soon?” I whispered to Kiggs when the conversation died down. Most of our hosts had wandered off for a nap; others stared torpidly at the fire. Maurizio and Pender, the other squire, had disappeared. “I’m not eager to ride after dark.”

He ran a hand over his head and looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Had you ever ridden before today?”

“What? Of course I—” His look stopped me short. “Am I that bad?”

“You’re allowed to ask for help when you need it.”

“I didn’t want to slow us down.”

“You didn’t, until it became clear you didn’t know how to dismount.” He picked at a fingernail, the silent laugh still in his eyes. “Once again, however, you leave me in awe. Is there nothing you’re afraid of?”

I stared dumbly. “Wh-why would you even think that?”

He began counting off on his fingers. “You bluff my guards and determine to come out here on your own. You climb on a horse as if you know what you’re doing, assuming it will just come to you.” He leaned closer. “You stand up to Viridius and the Earl of Apsig. You ask mad pipers to the palace. You fall in love with dragons.… ”

I did sound pretty crazy, when he put it that way; only I knew how scared I’d been. Sitting there so close to him was almost the scariest thing of all because the kindness in his face made me feel safe, and I knew it for an illusion. For the merest moment I let myself imagine telling him I feared everything, that the bravery was a cover. Then I would pull up my sleeve and say, Here’s why. Here I am. See me. And by some miracle he would not be disgusted.

Right. While I was using my outrageous imagination, maybe I should also imagine him not engaged. Maybe he’d kiss me.

I was not allowed to want that.

I stood up. “Esteemed sirs,” I said, addressing our hosts, who had dozed off on their benches. “We thank you for your hospitality, but we really must—”

“You were going to stay for the demonstration, I thought?” cried Maurizio, popping out of a side room. His head now had a helmet on it.

Kiggs and I looked at each other. We’d apparently been so preoccupied that we’d agreed to something without it registering. “If it doesn’t take too long,” said Kiggs. “It’s going to be dark soon, and we’ve a long road ahead of us.”

Maurizio and his fellow squire emerged, clad all in dracomachia armor. “We’ve got to go out to the pasture to show you properly,” said the other squire, Pender.

“Putting ourselves out to pasture,” said Maurizio with his strange, desperate cheer. “Bring the horses. You can depart from there.”

There was a stirring round the cavern as the old men realized the young ones were about to demonstrate the last vestiges of their ancient pride. Dracomachia was once a formidable martial art; Pender and Foughfaugh may have been the last two able-bodied practitioners in Goredd.

We followed the old knights down the creek into a stubbly field and made a semicircle around a tumbledown hayrick. It had grown considerably colder while we dallied in the cave; the drizzle had turned to light snow, which clung to the stubble, outlining the broken stalks in white, and the wind had picked up. I pulled my cloak closer about me and hoped this wouldn’t take long.

Pender and Foughfaugh carried long polearms with a peculiar hook on each end, angled in such a way that it did not hinder them using the pole for vaulting. They flipped and cartwheeled, leaped and spun, exchanged poles in midair, and viciously attacked the hayrick with their hooks.

Sir James undertook to educate us. “These hooks we call the slash. Now we’ll show you the punch. Squires! Harpoons!”

The squires exchanged their hooks for a more spearlike weapon, demonstrating its use on the poor, abused hayrick.

“Dragons are flammable,” said Sir James. “They developed their flame for use against each other. They don’t cook their meat with it, after all. They fear no other beast—or didn’t, until we learned to fight. Their hide is tough but it burns, given enough heat for enough time; their insides are volatile, which is how they flame in the first place.

“The key to dracomachia is setting the monster on fire. We’ve got pyria—St. Ogdo’s fire—which clings to them and is not easily extinguished. One good puncture and their blood whistles out like steam. Set that ablaze, and they’re done.”

“How many knights made up a unit?” asked Kiggs.

“Depended. Two slash, two punch, fork, spider, swift. That’s seven knights, but we had pitchmen flinging pyria and squires running weapons … Fourteen was full complement, although I’ve taken out a dragon with as few as three.”

Kiggs’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, to have seen it in action, just once!”

“Not without armor, lad. The heat was unbearable—and the stench!”

The squires clambered up on each other’s shoulders, flipping and leaping over top of the hayrick. I found their precision and strength inspiring. Being banished and having little else to do, they’d clearly spent a lot of time practicing. We should all be as dedicated to our art.

“Sweet St. Siucre!” I exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kiggs, alarmed by my sudden beeline for the horses.

I fished around in my mare’s saddle pack until I found the diagram Lars had given me. Kiggs apprehended my thought at once and helped me unfold the parchment against the side of the horse. We stared at the clyster-pipe ballista, then at each other.