The Talented (3 page)

“
Uh, no, sir. Not
really.”

Adrienne smiled. “Because
you’re young and stupid, like yearling stallions.” His face fell.
“But you’re also strong, and able to learn a lot in the short time
you are here. If you are serious about wanting to learn, I will
teach you.” Lieutenant Mylig was in charge of training soldiers in
Kyrog, but she doubted he would be opposed to her taking over the
training of one Yearling.

Rosch’s look of shock did
not surprise Adrienne overmuch. Although she made a point to ignore
the Yearlings when possible, she still knew what they said about
her. She participated in testing the recruits, but she never
trained them, and it was well known that she preferred it that way.
She was a good soldier, and could contribute positively to a group
when necessary, but she was not a sociable sort, and she did not
seek out relationships with the recruits.

“
What?” Jeral asked.
“Why?”

“
If you want to be the
best, you have to train with the best,” Adrienne told
him.

“
I will not be an easy
teacher,” she warned. “I have spent years learning what you must
learn in months. I will push you hard, every day, and I will expect
you to give me everything you have to give.” Her eyes narrowed. “I
will know if you hold back.”

Rosch nodded, his
golden-brown eyes dazed by the unexpected turn of
events.

“
If you train under me, I
will see to it that you too become one of the best,” Adrienne
promised, her eyes locked on his, looking to see the resolve that
would be necessary to make her promise come true.

Rosch licked lips gone
suddenly dry. This was why he had left Roua: to train at Kyrog
under the best soldiers Samaro had to offer. And he was being given
a chance no one else ever had. “When do we start?”

••••••

For the third morning in a
row, Adrienne had Jeral up before dawn. She led the Yearling
through her meditative morning routine: a series of slow,
controlled movements that flowed from one position to another like
a dance. It stretched the muscles, elongated the limbs and spine,
and—most importantly—it improved the practitioner’s
balance.

Adrienne called out the
name of the next move in Old Samaroan and Rosch grumbled that he
couldn’t understand her. An old soldier named Karse had first
taught her the moves, and the names that went with them, when she
was barely four-years-old, and he had never bothered to translate
them for her. She would let Rosch learn as she had—by
doing.

Adrienne owed much to
Karse, who had taken her under his wing when all the other soldiers
were trying to figure out what to do with a little girl who was too
young to understand why she was away from her family, too young to
help with camp chores or begin any meaningful training.

“
Why are we doing this?”
Rosch asked, as he had asked the last two days.

Adrienne gave up on the
usual explanations and took a new track. “To teach you discipline,
which you obviously lack. If you ask again, you won’t like the
other way I teach discipline.”

Rosch fell silent and
copied her moves. Adrienne called out another name.

Practicing those moves,
teaching them to Rosch, brought back memories of the soldier who
had been like a father to her after her own father had given her
up. Karse had been a talented soldier, but he’d had the heart of a
historian. She knew that without him, she would not have been the
person she was. Without him, she might not have made it through
those first rocky years after her mother’s death. She would have
been just another orphan shoved into a world that had no place for
her.

She thought Karse would
have approved of her decision to train the Yearling, though he
would have probably been baffled by it as well. Even as a child she
had preferred her own company over the company of
others.

Adrienne was amused by
Jeral’s somewhat pained expression as he tried to copy her moves.
The stretches were not easy for him, nor were the five mile runs
that followed. But the slow moves would teach Jeral balance and
flexibility, and running would give him speed as well as endurance.
Both were essential skills if a soldier was hoping for a long
life.

Adrienne’s arms came down
by her sides on her final exhalation, and she opened her eyes as
the sun broke over the horizon in a brilliant show of lights and
colors.

She was amused somewhat by
Rosch’s pained expression, and knew that it would not improve
during the run that followed.

Though her legs were
shorter than Rosch’s, she moved in an economical way, using minimal
effort to match his pace. Adrienne would have liked to pick up the
pace or go on a longer run, but Rosch’s body was not ready for
that. Adrienne was well aware of the capabilities of the human
body, and though she had regularly pushed Rosch to his limits in
the past three days, she had been careful to never cross the line
that would lead to injury. An injury would only slow his progress
and shake his confidence.

When they arrived back at
the camp Rosch was breathing heavily, his face dripping and shirt
soaked with sweat.

“
Go get breakfast and drink
some water,” Adrienne told him. “Meet me back in the Pen in one
hour.”

Rosch nodded. “Okay.” His
breath was strained from the morning workout, and Adrienne wondered
how long it would be before an easy run did not deplete Rosch’s
reserves so considerably.

After sending Rosch away,
Adrienne decided she had best follow her own advice. She went to
the mess hall usually frequented by the more senior soldiers, and
was pleased to find Ricco eating at one of the long wooden
tables.

Adrienne sat beside her
friend and grabbed a piece of fruit from his plate. She bit into
the sweet, pink flesh of the fruit, chewing and swallowing before
smiling at Ricco’s disgruntled look. “This is good.”

“
I know.” He chuckled and
slid a piece of sausage her way. “Have this; you’ll just steal it
otherwise. How’s the kid?”

Ricco had been amused to
find that Adrienne had decided to train one of the Yearlings
herself, and liked to ask how “the kid” was progressing. Adrienne
had decided to take his comments as a challenge rather than an
insult to her training abilities.

“
He tires quickly, and
doesn’t know how to control his body,” Adrienne informed her
friend, biting into the sausage and contemplating getting a plate
of her own.

“
Tires quickly compared to
other people, or compared to you?” Ricco asked. “We don’t all start
our days the way you do.”

Adrienne frowned. “You can
keep up with me, though.”

“
Sometimes. There’s a
reason I don’t go running with you in the morning.” Ricco picked up
a piece of sausage, took a bite, and then gestured with it. “And
don’t get me started on that dancing thing you do every morning. No
man should be flitting and twirling about like that.”

“
You’re just unhappy
because my moves make me hard to pin in the ring.” She grabbed
another piece of fruit off of her friend’s plate. “Anyway, I think
Rosch has promise.”

“
Really?”

“
He’s eager to learn and
prove himself.”

Ricco nodded. “Long as
that eagerness doesn’t get in the way of him actually learning, the
two of you might accomplish something.”

Adrienne frowned and
reached for another sausage. Ricco slapped her hand
away.

“
Do I need to get another
plate?” he asked, pulling his food farther away from Adrienne and
hunching his shoulders over it protectively.

“
No, I’ll get my own,”
Adrienne said. “Stay here.” Adrienne walked through the line and
got a dish of fruit and some oatmeal sweetened with honey. When she
returned to Ricco, two other men were just leaving the
table.

Ricco turned back to
Adrienne after the two men had gone. “Ade, a few of us are getting
together for cards tonight,” he said. “Want to join?”

Adrienne didn’t typically
join Ricco and his friends for drinking and games, but she had been
so busy with Rosch that she knew she was neglecting Ricco. And she
missed him. “Why not?”

“
Good. Meet us at Nils’
Tavern?”

Adrienne agreed, thinking
it had been too long since she had unwound at the tavern with a few
pints of ale and a group of friends. “See you there.”

The noonday sun shone down
bright and hot on the small sparring ring adjacent to the Yearling
training ground. Adrienne had already spent three hours at her own
training before meeting up with Rosch to continue his.

And now he was questioning
her methods. “I don’t understand why we can’t use weapons,” Rosch
grumbled under his breath as he headed back to his side of the
ring.

Adrienne heard him anyway.
“Your hands and feet, your body, are weapons in their own right.
They are the only weapons that cannot be taken away from you. It
would be foolish for me to train you with other weapons before you
master the ones you were born with.”

Rosch felt his face grow
hot in embarrassment, but he squared his shoulders and turned to
face her. “I know being able to fight without weapons is
important,” he said. “But I have training with weapons, so I don’t
see why I can’t practice with both. Variation is good, isn’t
it?”

The young man might have
had a point, Adrienne thought, had she not known that he was still
participating in practice fights—with weapons—against the other
Yearlings. She had no reason to worry that whatever skills he might
have obtained in Roua would grow dull through lack of practice.
“You will master the tasks I give you before moving on to the
next,” she said firmly. “In time, we will use weapons other than
our bodies. For now, we use what we were born with and nothing
else.”

Rosch looked unhappy, but
he nodded and settled into a fighting stance. The position looked
awkward to Adrienne’s trained eye. She took her own stance a pace
from him, settling into it with the ease of long
experience.

“
You have to be
comfortable,” she reminded him impatiently. “Balanced. This is your
base, the position you will always come back to. Do you
understand?” Rosch nodded and shifted into a slightly more natural
position.

“
Good.” Adrienne took a
step forward and shoved him hard in the chest.

He stepped back, groping
for balance.

“
No, keep your stance.
Shift your balance lower and push against me. Never give up ground
if your new position will not be a better one.”

Rosch resumed his position
and Adrienne pushed against him again. She pushed harder, putting
her weight behind it, and Rosch pushed back, digging in his feet.
Adrienne shifted quickly, grabbed his arm, and pulled
hard.

He tripped over the leg
she shot out and wound up sprawled on the ground.

“
Very good,” Adrienne said
with the slightest smile for the recruit.

“
I still ended up on the
ground,” Rosch said as he picked himself up off the dusty ground.
Dust mixed with sweat and ran in muddy runnels down his dark face
and caked his hands.

“
I did,” Adrienne agreed.
“But how?”

Rosch’s brow furrowed in a
look she had come to recognize well since starting his training. It
was the look he wore when he was running over a past event and
analyzing it. “You changed your move. You couldn’t push me over, so
you pulled me down instead,” he said as he replayed the incident in
his mind.

“
Yes. I’m smaller than you,
and you outweigh me significantly, but size is only a hindrance if
you don’t know how to use it.”

“
I guess you’d know,” Rosch
said with a grin that revealed straight white teeth.

Adrienne smiled back,
pleased with the changes she was seeing. “I’ve learned to use my
size, rather than let it be used against me.” She looked over the
tall youth from head to toe. “I have a lot of experience, and you
can learn from me, but you have to trust what I am doing. Body now,
weapons later. Resume your stance.”

Rosch sank down and
Adrienne began instructing him on how to avoid having his feet
kicked out from under him. After a few unsuccessful attempts, which
resulted in Rosch falling to the ground repeatedly, Adrienne had
him do the kicking.

The Yearling completely
lost his base, and his balance, on the first kick, and Adrienne
easily sidestepped him as he concentrated on not falling after the
unfamiliar move.

“
Sink further into your
fighting stance,” Adrienne instructed. “I didn’t tell you that was
your base for nothing. Kicking someone’s feet out from under them
doesn’t help if you both end up on the ground.”

Rosch shook his head to
clear it and was just sinking into his fighting stance when blasts
from the warning horns filled the air. “Flaming Abyss,” Adrienne
swore in disgust. “Follow me.” She ran for their things on the edge
of the sparring ring.

She picked up her own
sword, tossed Rosch his, and they ran toward the western edge of
the camp. Soldiers were lined up around the perimeter in various
states of readiness. Most of the Yearlings, Rosch included, seemed
to be in a mixed state of confusion and alarm, but all of the
Kyrogeans were calm and ready for battle, even the man wearing only
his smallclothes and holding a bared sword.