Riding was something reserved for nobility, soldiers, rich merchants, and the occasional traveller, but farm hands and town boys got from place to place by shanks’ mare or in the back of a wagon. Still it was something new to contemplate and anything that would break the tedium of this journey was welcome.
Tad shrugged then Zane grinned, his face lighting up as he said, ‘Maybe we can become fast messengers?’
Caleb laughed. ‘In that case you’ll have to become very good riders, and how is your sword work?’
‘Sword work?’ asked Tad.
‘Fast messengers get paid all that gold for getting their messages through in a hurry and safely. That means avoiding highwaymen, but also being able to fight to the death if attacked.’
The boys looked at each other again. Neither had touched a sword in their life and both thought it unlikely that they ever would. Zane remarked, ‘Young Tom Sanderling went to soldier in Ab-Yar, and he learned to handle a sword.’
‘Kesh trains all their dog soldiers to be swordsmen,’ said Caleb, ‘but, if memory serves, Old Tom wasn’t happy about seeing his son go a-soldiering.’
‘True, but what I’m saying, is that if he could learn, so could we,’ said Zane.
Tad said, ‘You could show us. You carry a sword, Caleb, so you must know how to use it.’
‘Maybe,’ said Caleb, realizing he’d probably have to teach them a few basics when they camped that evening.
Tad swung wildly at Caleb, who easily moved to the side and smacked the boy hard across the back of his hand with a long stick he had cut a few minutes before. The boy yelped and dropped Caleb’s sword on the ground. ‘The first rule,’ said Caleb, bending down to retrieve the fallen weapon, ‘is don’t drop the sword.’
‘That hurt,’ said Tad, rubbing his right hand.
‘Not as much as it would had I been using a blade,’ said Caleb, ‘though it wouldn’t have hurt for as long, because I would have gutted you a few seconds later.’ He reversed the sword and tossed it to Zane, who caught it deftly. ‘Good,’ said Caleb. ‘You’re quick and have a steady hand. Let’s see if you can avoid repeating Tad’s mistake.’
The sword felt as if it were alive and deadly in Zane’s hand. It was heavier than he had expected and its balance felt odd. He moved it around a little and flexed his wrist one way and then the other.
‘That’s right,’ said Caleb as he circled the fire to face Zane. ‘Get used to how it feels. Let it become an extension of your arm.’
Suddenly he lashed out with his branch, intending to smack the boy on the hand as he had Tad, but Zane turned his wrist and caught the branch on his blade.
‘Very good,’ said Caleb, stepping back. ‘You may have a knack for this. Where did you learn that?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Zane with a grin, lowering the sword. ‘I just tried to keep the stick from hitting me.’
Caleb turned to Tad. ‘Did you see how he did that?’
Tad nodded.
Caleb motioned for Zane to drop the point of his blade, then stepped over to the boy and gripped his wrist. ‘By turning your wrist, like you did, you achieve the most efficient use of your arm-strength and energy. You’ll see men who use their entire arm, sometimes up to the shoulder, and sometimes you have to do that for a particular block, but the less strength you use early on, the more you’ll have should the battle wear on.’
‘Caleb, how long does a fight usually last?’
‘Most are short, Tad. But if two men are evenly matched, it can continue for a long time and endurance becomes vital. And if you’re in battle, as soon as you kill the man in front of you, another will take his place.’
‘I don’t know much about battles,’ muttered Zane. ‘Maybe I should get a really fast horse …’
Tad laughed and Caleb said, ‘Not a bad way to look at it.’
After a few more minutes of sword practice, Caleb said, ‘Time to turn in.’ They had been sleeping under the wagon, so he motioned for them to take their usual places. ‘I’m going to keep watch tonight. I’ll wake Tad first, then he’ll wake you, Zane.’
‘Watch?’ asked Tad, his face looking particularly ruddy in the firelight. ‘Why? We haven’t had one so far?’
‘We were close in to Stardock.’ He glanced around, as if trying to see something in the darkness beyond the fire’s glow. ‘From here to the village of Ya-Rin, things might be less civilized. We’re heading deeper into the Vale.’
The Vale of Dreams was a lush series of rich farmlands, orchards, and villages benefiting from a seemingly endless series of streams that ran from the Pillars of the Stars Mountains to the Great Star Lake. The region had been the object of conflict between the Kingdom of the Isles and the Empire of Great Kesh for over a century. Both sides maintained claims, and both sides sent patrols into the Vale, but the Kingdom observed an unofficial accommodation with the Empire, and the Kingdom patrols did not venture too far south, and the Empire patrols did not wander too far north. As a result, the region had spawned a host of bandit gangs, mercenary companies, minor robber barons, and constant struggle. Finding a pillaged town or a burned-out village at any point was not unusual. If banditry got too out of hand, one nation would look the other way while the other sent troops deep into the Vale to punish the malefactors.
Zane looked around as if suddenly aware of a potential menace behind every tree bole. Tad seemed less convinced. ‘What would bandits want with an empty wagon?’
Caleb’s smile was indulgent. ‘Anything that you can sell, they’d want to take. Now, get some sleep.’
The boys turned in and Caleb took the first watch. The night passed uneventfully, though Caleb roused himself twice to ensure the boys were not falling asleep while keeping watch. Both had, and he gently chided each, promising not to tell the other about the dereliction.
By the third night, both boys were keeping alert and Caleb felt comfortable sleeping until dawn.
The wagon bumped down the road and Caleb said, ‘One more night under the wagon, boys. By mid-morning tomorrow, we’ll be within sight of Yar-Rin.’
Both boys nodded with a lack of enthusiasm. Riding in the back of the wagon for days had taken its toll. Both boys were bruised and sore from the constant jostling over what passed for a road in these parts. Caleb had observed that with the constant strife in the region, neither nation was taking great pains to repair what passed for highways in the region. Occasionally a town or village might elect to send out a gang to repair a stretch that had fallen into such disrepair that it was impairing commerce, but unless a significant loss of income was involved, the locals tended to ignore the problem.
Which meant that at times the boys were thrown around the back of the wagon without mercy, hanging on to the sides to keep from bouncing right out of the wagon bed. Finally Tad said, ‘Don’t bother stopping to camp, Caleb. Just get us there. I’ll sleep in the stable if it means not having to endure another day in this wagon.’
As Caleb suspected, the wagon journey had conspired to make the boys a great deal more amenable to learning how to ride. He knew he could probably find three saddle horses in the village and that after a couple of days the boys would be sore in a whole new array of places, but that eventually they would be happy to be travelling on horseback.
They were travelling slightly uphill, as the terrain rose from flat farmland and pastures and scattered woodlands, into a more heavily forested range of hills. Rising up to the south of them on their right hand was the Pillars of the Stars, the range of mountains that served as an absolute marker for the border of the Empire of Great Kesh. Yar-Rin was located in the foothills of the eastern terminus of those mountains, in a lovely valley that separated the mountains from the mammoth forest known as The Green Reaches.
But