The Talented Read online

  Ricco looked uncomfortable for a moment, and then he did something that took Adrienne completely by surprise. He hugged her, pulling her up tight against his massive chest. “Be careful,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”

  Then he was gone.

  Meeting with Jeral Rosch was almost as hard as meeting with Ricco, though not nearly as confusing. Ricco was her longtime friend, but Jeral was her student, and one of the main reasons Adrienne had finally attained the rank of lieutenant. Jeral was nice, and his admiration and respect for her were always apparent. He was her friend, and Adrienne would miss the shining young man when she left.

  “Lieutenant, what can I do for you?” Jeral asked. Adrienne had pulled him from the barracks to take a walk with her around Kyrog. Even at night, the training camp was full of life, but people gave Adrienne and Jeral the space she wanted. Something about the two of them must have indicated that whatever conversation they were having was private, because soldiers that might normally have stopped to greet Adrienne and Jeral kept their distance and gave them what privacy the busy camp allowed.

  “Tomorrow morning, you’ll join Ricco for training instead of me.”

  “Okay,” Jeral said easily. It was not the first time since becoming a lieutenant that Adrienne had been unable to meet with him in the morning. There had been whole weeks that Adrienne had been too busy to see to his training herself.

  Adrienne saw that the Yearling did not understand. “Rosch—Jeral. Ricco is going to be your new trainer.”

  “What?” Jeral asked, appearing completely blindsided. “What do you mean? Did I do something? I—” Jeral halted his words, pulling himself together. “May I ask why?” he said in a more moderated tone.

  “I’m leaving Kyrog,” Adrienne told him.

  “Leaving?” Jeral’s expression made it plain that he still didn’t realize what she meant.

  “I’m going on a mission, and I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  She watched Jeral process that information. Finally he nodded, and Adrienne was impressed to see that, whatever he was feeling about the news, he was containing himself. She was proud of him for that, and proud of the part she had played in his growth. “I assume you told Ricco,” Jeral said.

  “Yes.” Adrienne smiled. “You’ll need to help him. You know everything I’ve put you through, and you’re friends with the newer recruits. He’ll need your support, and the others will need you to set an example.”

  “Ricco will be in charge now?” Jeral asked.

  “Yes. I chose him to continue training the Yearlings while I’m gone.”

  “That’s good. He is a good teacher. A good soldier.”

  Adrienne examined his dark face, his countenance even and unguarded. “So are you,” she said. She rarely complimented the men outside of the ring, but she didn’t know the next time she would see Jeral, or even if she would. He had already been in Kyrog nine months, and she could not be sure how much longer he would stay. It was strange, to think Jeral might be gone back to Roua before she returned. “Keep working hard, Jeral. I can’t wait to see your progress when I get back.” She smiled, as if the thought that he might not be there when she got back had never occurred to her. And she knew that if she never saw the full soldier he would become, there would always be an incomplete place inside of her.

  Jeral smiled too, but she could see in his eyes that he was as aware of the possibility that this might be their last meeting as she. “I’m going to miss you, Lieutenant. There’s no way I can thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  Adrienne reached out and put a hand on his arm, looking up into his tawny eyes. “There is. Help Ricco, help the recruits. That is all the thanks I require.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  ••••••

  When Adrienne left the next day with Ilso and Tam, she was as confident as she could be about the continued training of her Yearlings. Everything she could do in the short time allotted her had been done.

  As much to comfort herself as her horse, Adrienne patted the neck of the strong chestnut stallion she rode. Strider was a parting gift from Captain Garrett, and the magnificent destrier had no trouble keeping up with the considerably shabbier mounts Ilso and Tam rode. Strider had been bred and trained for the art of war, and even at rest stood out from the other horses.

  Ilso’s mount, taller than Strider, had good legs but a shallow chest, and Adrienne thought the mare’s bad temper was due as much to Ilso’s whip as natural inclinations. The plodding gelding Tam rode was more suited to pulling carts than being ridden, but with the haphazard way Tam sat his horse, Adrienne thought it was probably fortunate that the animal was not more spirited.

  Tam and Ilso were as disparate as their mounts. Tam seemed nice enough, if distant, but it was clear to Adrienne that Ilso would never be a friend to her. She had heard him commenting to Tam that they should have requested a different soldier, or gone to a different camp, before agreeing to take Adrienne.

  When Adrienne had asked to hear more about the mission, now that she was committed to it, Ilso had told her to wait until they reached their destination to ask any more questions.

  If Captain Garrett had given her a command to wait to find out, she would have obeyed because she trusted the man’s judgment. Had the captain made such a decision, it would have been because he had good reason to do so. She had no such trust in these men. They would not reach their destination for another three weeks, and Adrienne was not content to simply wait. Since it was Ilso who had rebuffed her first request for information, Adrienne heeled Strider up alongside Tam’s shaggy gelding.

  Hopefully the scholar would be a more receptive audience.

  “I was hoping you would tell me more about this mission,” Adrienne said in what she hoped was a reasonable, friendly tone. She tried to keep her face smooth and friendly as well, void of the snarling lieutenant look she had perfected even before she had attained the rank that went with it.

  “You don’t need to worry about that yet,” Tam told her, blinking his owlish, mud-colored eyes at her. “We have a lot of ground to cover once we begin, but it can wait until we reach Kessering.”

  Adrienne was not familiar with any town or city called Kessering, but that meant little. Much of the countryside was unknown to her. Her interests in geography were limited. It was Tam’s words, not the place, that caught Adrienne’s attention. “If you mean that there is work for me to do, or things to learn, I would like to start as soon as possible,” Adrienne told the older man.

  “That really isn’t necessary.” Tam’s smile was kind but distracted. “Three weeks won’t make a difference, really.”

  In Adrienne’s experience when it came to training, three weeks could mean the difference between the ability to defend with a sword or the ability to trip over one. “Please, I would like to begin as soon as possible.”

  Tam sighed, long and weary. “I suppose there is no harm in beginning your instruction now,” he told her in a voice completely lacking in enthusiasm. “I know the history as well as any of the scholars in Kessering.”

  “History?”

  “Yes. What you will hopefully become a part of is the result of a commission of scholars—and men and women of influence—who are trying to find a way to end the war with Almet. This conflict has been going on for quite a long time, you know.”

  “I know all of the pertinent details regarding the conflict between Samaro and Almet,” Adrienne told Tam. “If that is the history you are referring to, it isn’t necessary to teach me. Not unless you are going back before the Fuirons, but that was centuries ago. Nearly a millennia.”

  Tam regarded her with some surprise. “Not too many people are that knowledgeable about the long and bloody history between our country and Almet,” Tam said. “Are you sure you know more than the popular facts? Many people feel that they know more than they do.”

  The ongoing conflict and on-again off-again war between Samaro an
d Almet was the main reason camps like Kyrog existed. Most of the battles Adrienne had studied had involved Almet, and to understand an enemy’s battle strategy, one had to understand the enemy. Adrienne had spent considerable time studying the history and culture of Almet, initially under the tutelage of Karse, so that she might have a full vision of the conflict and what influenced Almet’s armies. Someday, she planned to ride to the Almetian battle lines and fight that evil herself, and when she did, she wanted to know what her enemy was fighting for.

  “I am aware that in the distant past, Samaro and Almet were allied by a mutually beneficial and lucrative trade agreement. Almet was considerably smaller at the time, more of a size with Samaro. Then the Fuirons rose to power in Samaro and abolished slavery. When Almet refused to do the same, the trade agreement with Almet was ended.”

  Tam seemed impressed, and Adrienne continued with what she remembered from what Karse had told her. “The Fuirons were the ruling family for several centuries after that, and are still regarded as perhaps the best monarchal family Samaro has ever had,” Adrienne continued. “However, even after the trade agreement ended, Almet continued to grow in size and power by spreading its influence into the countries surrounding it, and the relationship between Samaro and Almet grew more antagonistic, in part due to the fact that Almet, for all of its size, is landlocked.” Adrienne quirked an eyebrow. “Need I continue up to the conflict under King Burin’s current rule?”

  The doubt that had covered the scholar’s face was gone, replaced by a beaming smile than even seemed to brighten his muddy eyes. “I am surprised by your knowledge of the subject. Many people find history boring, though it has always interested me. It is quite impressive that you would know so much.”

  Adrienne felt it was unnecessary to point out that she was especially knowledgeable due to an old mentor’s proclivity for dead languages. Most known texts written in Old Samaroan were from the time when the Fuirons were still in power, and Adrienne had read many of those texts.

  “What is the ‘commission’?” she asked instead. “You’ve mentioned it before. Who started it?”

  “Why, King Burin started the commission, of course,” Tam answered, seemingly delighted to impart that bit of information.

  Adrienne wanted to roll her eyes. Since the death of the last Fuiron two centuries ago, no royal family had kept the throne for more than a single generation. Most of the kings and queens since then had ruled for only a handful of years before losing the throne, and often their lives along with it.

  King Burin was only the latest in a line of poor or unlucky rulers who paid for a personal guard while all but forgetting the encampments like Kyrog that kept the countryside safe. Were it not for private backers and wealthy lords like Lord Neecham, places like Kyrog would not exist, and Samaro would be overrun by the bandits and rogues roaming the plains long before Almet came to enslave the survivors.

  Adrienne remembered again the young girl buried in a grave outside of Pelarion, and wondered if her life might have been saved had King Burin not neglected the armies so.

  Tam, however, did not seem to share Adrienne’s poor opinion of their current ruler. He was practically glowing with the importance of being a part of King Burin’s plan.

  “King Burin has decided that, since the old ways have proven unsuccessful when dealing with Almet, it is time to look for an alternative solution.”

  Adrienne was fairly certain that the king’s hope for a successful ‘alternative solution’ to dealing with Almet had more to do with wanting to keep his head on his shoulders than concern over the conflict itself. “So he put together a commission to find a solution?” Adrienne asked skeptically. “What exactly do you do?”

  “I am not a member of the commission, per se,” Tam admitted. “The commission asked me to go on this errand for them, as they are all much too busy with their work to leave the city themselves. However, I have been privy to a great many of their discussions and know as much as anyone who is not a commissioner himself.”

  Adrienne nodded, wondering if the scholar was really as important as he thought himself to be, or if was no more than a gofer to the rich and privileged.

  “You see, after it was decided that a peaceable agreement with Almet is not likely at this point, it became apparent that what needed to change was the means of warfare.” Tam looked uncomfortable, as if the subject of warfare was distasteful to him, but Adrienne became keenly interested.

  Many different strategies had been used in an attempt to finally put an end to the fighting, with the implementation of new technology and strategy being foremost among the changes. Still, the basic means of fighting had always been the same: soldiers armed with weapons versus soldiers armed with weapons.

  “Go on,” Adrienne urged.

  “It was decided that scholars would begin looking through the histories to see if there was an alternative to the current means of warfare employed by the armies.”

  Adrienne’s excitement leached out of her, and Strider tossed his head as if sensing his rider’s disappointment. Changes in warfare evolved and improved. There was little use in looking back in the histories to find different means. What use could history be here? Adrienne had studied battle history almost her whole life, and some of what she had studied had involved battles before bows and arrows—and even cavalry were implemented. Battles where spears were the main weapons, before the invention of swords. Such battles offered great insight into military strategy, but there was nothing there that would change the way that Samaro should fight Almet. Strategies could be learned from studying history, but there was nothing new in the old books and stories.

  “I don’t know what you could have found,” Adrienne said. “War is war.”

  Tam waved away her comment as if it was of no importance. “It isn’t research into war that yielded metaphoric gold,” Tam said, his tone a clear dismissal of the importance of the soldiering profession and Adrienne’s beliefs. “It is the tales that were so important.”

  “Tales?” Adrienne asked at the same time Ilso called out that it was time to stop for lunch, temporarily halting their conversation.

  Adrienne was surprised and a bit disconcerted when Ilso began laying out a fire. “How long are we staying here?” she asked, looking around the open meadow beside the road.

  Tam shrugged, apparently unconcerned by the stop. “A couple of hours, I expect. Ilso will probably make a stew. It gives the horses a chance to rest.”

  Since the horses had been kept at a walk all morning, Adrienne doubted even Tam’s gelding needed more than fifteen minutes of grazing and watering, and maybe as much time again to rest. She had discovered in the few hours she had been with them that, despite what they had told Captain Garrett, they did not seem to be in a hurry to return to Kessering. It was more or less that they had wanted to leave Kyrog as soon as possible.

  “Perhaps you can tell me about the tales before lunch,” Adrienne said after she had unsaddled Strider and rubbed him down. She loosely tied the destrier to a tree branch near the stream, within easy reach of the lush grass that grew there. He lipped over the grass contentedly, too well-trained to move away from the spot his rider put him, even had he not been tied to the branch.

  Tam made a “hmm” sound in his throat as though considering the idea. “I really don’t know if it is appropriate to begin teaching you,” he said at last. “Most of the students in Kessering don’t begin their training until they reach the city and are introduced to the commission, you understand.”

  Adrienne didn’t understand. It seemed pointless for her to wait if Tam knew enough to get her started. “But it may be beneficial for me to begin my training early, when my mind will be more focused,” she said. “What if I have problems learning the material?” Since Adrienne had never experienced much trouble learning before, she deemed it unlikely that she would have trouble with this, but that argument for beginning her training seemed like it would be most effective with a scholar.

  “
Yes, I suppose you may have a point,” Tam said. “I will have to think on it some more before making a decision.”

  Adrienne thanked him, wondering how such a reasonable answer could sound so unreasonable. She usually valued someone who took the time to think before making a decision, but for some reason Tam thinking this over seemed foolish. Perhaps what seemed foolish was that he had made the decision that she be the one trained, yet he still needed to think over whether or not to begin that training.

  Finally Tam went to pester Ilso about lunch, and Adrienne decided to give Strider a more thorough rubdown. “Well, boy, it seems this trip won’t be as easy for me as it is for you,” she grumbled. “Tam seems content to let me sit idle until we get to Kessering.”

  Some of the soldiers in Kyrog had enjoyed time off, time that was their own so that they did not have to practice or engage in any taxing activities. Ricco had always enjoyed a few days of lying around and doing nothing after a big campaign. Adrienne had hated it, and even on the days she did not have practice and drills to run she would always partake in some activity, even if it was just her morning run. The only time she was ever inactive for a stretch of time was when she was injured, and even then she pushed as much as possible without risking re-injury. Activity had been a constant in Adrienne’s life since she was four, and she liked it that way.

  She grimaced as she checked Strider’s legs for swelling and hotspots, pleased to find him sound. Destriers were too valuable to allow them to go lame through negligence. “If King Burin is so eager to get the war over with that he put together a commission for it, you would think he’d want training accelerated, not delayed.” Satisfied that Strider had suffered no injuries that morning, she patted his muscled shoulder. “Maybe I can talk Tam around.” Strider nuzzled her, a response which Adrienne decided to take as encouragement, before she headed back to camp.

  ••••••

  A man throwing balls of fire stood beside a woman who had knives twirling in the air before her. She didn’t touch them, yet they moved in the intricate patterns of an expert juggler, and she was smiling as she watched them spin and dance.