The Talented (30 page)

Flynn frowned. “Then why
did you let us spar today?” he asked.

“
How long would your fellow
guards be content practicing without swords?”

“
So you don’t think we’re
ready for swords,” he asked, sounding disappointed.

“
You’re about as ready to
use swords as a bunch of children are,” Adrienne answered roughly.
“Having the lot of you spar is a joke, but the commission will
replace me if they’re not satisfied with my methods, and I’m the
only person in the city qualified to train you.”

“
I want to be trained
right,” Flynn said softly, staring down at his scuffed boots with
an expression very close to shame.

“
What?” Adrienne asked,
sure she’d misheard him.

Flynn looked up and locked
his determined brown eyes on hers. “Lieutenant, I want to be
trained right. The way you would train someone meant to be a
soldier.”

Adrienne looked the young
man over again. He was just under six feet tall, by her estimate,
and starting to replace the gangly build of youth with muscle. He
was probably a year or two younger than she, around Jeral’s age.
His eyes were an unremarkable shade of brown, but there was a
passion in them that Adrienne recognized. A desire to be the
best.

It was something they
shared.

“
If that’s what you want,
you should go to Kyrog,” she told him. “I can write a
letter—”

Flynn shook his head. “I
want to be a guard here in my city,” he said, “but I want to
be…good. Great.” He flushed beneath his dark skin. “I heard about
what you did with those men who attacked. Before the fire part,
when you were just using your sword like a regular sword, I mean. I
want to be able to do that.”

Adrienne remembered taking
out the first two men. She was surprised that anyone had repeated
that tale in a complimentary way. That anyone even remembered that
part in light of what had come after. “I can train you,” she told
Flynn. “You’ll have to do what the other guards are doing when we
practice as a unit, but meet me outside my inn tomorrow morning,
half an hour before sun-up, and we’ll begin your private
lessons.”

“
Really?” Flynn asked.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“
Don’t thank me
yet.”

Of the thirty men Adrienne
trained every day as guards, six of them had decided to join Flynn
for extra training, and only one of those had been a guard before
Kessering had been attacked. Edward Witter had been seriously
injured in the attack on Kessering, and this time he planned to
improve his odds of not getting stabbed in the gut, a wound that
would have been fatal in any city that was not home to Talented
healers.

“
You’re all showing a lot
of improvement,” Adrienne told the seven men engaged in extra
training before she released them for breakfast. They would meet
again, with the rest of the guards, in just over an hour. “You did
a good job today.” A brisk five mile run, in addition to the
meditative moves and sword forms, had become their morning ritual.
Their stamina and balance had improved the most; their ability to
handle swords was impressive only when compared to those that did
not join them for extra practice, but they were improving just the
same.

“
I want to thank you for
this,” Edward said. At thirty-eight, he was also the oldest of the
small group receiving extra training, and their unofficial
spokesman. “Training us like this, it’s as much extra work for you
as it is for us.”

Adrienne nodded her head,
not bothering to deny that truth. “I wish more of the men were
willing to put in the extra effort.”

It was both frustrating
and baffling to her that so many of the guards were not interested
in learning more than the basics necessary to deal with the average
thief or drunk. It was as if the attack had taught them nothing.
Even those who had been guards before and seen firsthand what
happened when they went up against more skilled adversaries were
not much interested in improving.

Training in Kyrog had
spoiled Adrienne. She was astounded by the reality that many people
would choose ease and mediocrity over the effort it took to become
truly accomplished at something. “I’ll see you all in an hour,” she
said.

She made her way through
the city streets, and despite the people on the streets, she felt
oddly alone. Some of the people meandered through the street with
no clear destination, stopping to browse the carts and tables
selling wares or to look in the shop windows. Others hurried on
their way, blind and deaf to those who made their livings as street
hawkers. No one looked at Adrienne.

Adrienne pushed away the
loneliness, refusing to feel it, as she instead took in the city as
a whole. She had become accustomed to the chaos of Kessering. Not
that it was loud and noticeably unruly, Kessering was hardly big
enough to have the true noise and bustle of a large city, but it
lacked the unity of purpose that Kyrog had. Perhaps that unity was
why Adrienne had never felt lonely in Kyrog, even when her friends
were out on a mission and she was not. The commission had a
mission, and Adrienne was supposed to be a part of it, but she
didn’t feel like it.

She saw a child running
down the street, being chased by two others in what she took to be
a game based on the laughter from all three of them. It had taken
time, but after half a year in Kessering she had become accustomed
to the disorganized nature of civilian life. She might not feel a
part of it, but it was familiar now.

Adrienne turned onto
Market Street and became aware of a new tension. Individual
tensions over pricing and arguments were common on the busy
commercial street, but this was…more. It was unified. Something had
happened to bring these disparate people into a group
mindset.

She had not felt such
intense group thought since before she had started training the
guards. Before then, as a group, the people of Kessering had viewed
her as a dangerous outsider, and they had come together in such a
way. But Adrienne knew that this time it was not her that they were
reacting to.

Adrienne looked around,
but she could not see anything in the crowd of people that would
warrant such behavior. She heard no screams or shouts to signal
another attack, and it would be nearly impossible to find the
source of this tension in the crowded streets. She was suddenly
grateful that Kessering was not a typical city where newcomers
could fade into anonymity by entering an inn or tavern or moving to
a less populated street. In Kessering, all visitors to the city
made an appearance before the city leaders sooner rather than
later.

She changed directions and
headed for the library, no longer meandering through the crowds to
pass the time. She cut through the milling people with a clear
purpose, wondering what she might discover when she reached her
destination.

As she neared the library
where the commission convened, Adrienne caught snatches of
conversation from the crowd. Most of it was just excited whispering
that Adrienne did not stop to listen to, but one word was repeated
again and again. M’bai.

Adrienne picked up her
pace until she was nearly running through the crowds. People jumped
out of her way, and a cynical part of her wondered if she would
again be feared for such action, or if the people of Kessering
would accept it as normal simply because they expected
inappropriate behavior from a soldier.

The clerk waiting at the
door of the commission’s meeting room didn’t bother trying to stop
her, but he did rush forward to announce her presence to the
commission before she could enter the room herself. “Lieutenant
Adrienne Rydaeg,” he said stiffly as she brushed past
him.

“
I hope that your presence
does not mean trouble in the city, Adrienne,” Elder Rynn said
patronizingly. Unlike the guards, or even the uptight clerk, he had
never deigned to address her by rank. Instead, his tone often
suggested he was speaking to a misbehaved child.

Adrienne ignored him and
scanned the room. Ben seemed surprised to see her, no doubt because
she had made it a point not to cause trouble since being placed in
charge of the guards. Franklin, dressed today in florid orange,
looked as though he disapproved of her presence; the faint smile on
Lady Chessing’s face suggested she was hoping Adrienne got in
trouble for barging in the way she had.

But it wasn’t the
commissioners’ varied reactions that held Adrienne’s attention. It
was the three unknown men standing off to the side that captured
her interest.

One of the men was older,
perhaps forty, with a tall, slender build. He was dressed plainly
in a brown shirt and darker brown trousers. The man beside him was
shorter, burlier, with a cudgel at his hip and a longbow strapped
to his back. Amazingly, Adrienne thought he could probably use
both. The first was a scholar, Adrienne surmised, and the second
served as his guard. It was a setup similar to the one Tam and Ilso
had had when they had gone to Kyrog looking for a soldier, and she
dismissed both men as momentarily unimportant.

It was the other person
who captured her attention. He stood slightly apart from the other
two, and she knew it was this man who had caused the unified
tension in the people of Kessering. The man was tall, well over six
feet, with shoulders broad as an axe handle. His short-cropped
black hair was tightly curled, and his eyes were a stunning
ice-blue in comparison to his ebony skin. Though he was not as
heavily muscled as Pieter was, there could be no doubt of his
strength.

“
No, but there is a
problem,” Adrienne said heatedly, tearing her eyes away from the
stranger to rest the Elder. “You placed me in charge of the city’s
defense, but didn’t tell me when a potential threat arrived in the
city.” Her eyes shifted from Elder Rynn to the stranger and back
again. She clenched and unclenched her hands to keep them from
shaking with anger, and knew she would have to speak with the
guards who had been assigned to watch the gates. They should have
informed her the instant the trio entered the city. She had told
the guards to alert her to any group that they thought might pose a
danger to Kessering, and they had failed to do so.

“
Do you think he is a
threat because he is a soldier?” Lady Chessing asked. “A bit
hypocritical of you.”

Elder Rynn looked
irritated by them both. “We do not consider this man to be a threat
at this time,“ Elder Rynn told Adrienne in his calm, dry
voice.

Adrienne looked at the
stranger again and thought that he just might be the most dangerous
man she had ever seen. Sleek as the jungle cats to the south, he
stood just as stealthily, watching her and the rest of the room
with an unreadable expression.

The weapon that the man
held, though unfamiliar to Adrienne, was reminiscent of a spear.
The butt of it rested on the ground, but the iron tip which came up
to his shoulder was more long-bladed dagger than spear-tip. Though
the weapon was strange to Adrienne, the man held it like an
extension of himself, much the way Adrienne wore her
sword.

“
Perhaps he’s not a
threat,” Adrienne said, “but if my suspicions as to why he is here
are correct, I should have been informed. I am the only other
soldier in Kessering.” Adrienne had been awaiting the arrival of
another soldier since her first day in Kessering, when she had been
told other parties had been sent out to bring back soldiers as
well. But she had expected a soldier from another camp, or maybe
even a soldier from King Burin’s army, not one of the legendary
M’bai.

She knew of the M’bai only
through stories, but what she had heard of the mysterious tribesmen
of the Modabi Mountains had only served to increase her curiosity.
Tales said they were giants; that they could disappear in one
shadow and reappear in another; that they were not human at all but
something more. Whatever the truth about the M’bai was, Adrienne
could see for herself that this stranger was no ordinary
man.

“
We would have contacted
you when and if we deemed it appropriate,” Elder Rynn said. “We
have only just begun our interview process, and have not yet
decided if he will qualify.” The way Elder Rynn stared at the man,
eyes cool and remote in his wrinkled face, sent a shiver down
Adrienne’s spine.

“
Then I ask to be allowed
to stay for the interview process,” Adrienne said. “I may be able
to offer insights.”

“
You may stay,” Elder Rynn
said, ignoring Lady Chessing’s strangled gasp of outrage. “However,
you will remain silent. If you speak out of turn, you will be
removed from this room immediately. Understood?”

Adrienne nodded and saw
Ben let out a relieved sigh.

“
This interview will now
proceed.” Elder Rynn focused his attention on the tall M’bai man.
“What is your name?”

“
Malokai Kyzeka.” Malokai’s
voice was like dark velvet, deep and smooth.

“
How long have you been a
soldier?”

“
I am not a
soldier.”

There was murmuring
amongst the commission members, and the scholar who had brought
Malokai before the commission leapt to explain. “The M’bai do not
have soldiers the way we do,” he said quickly, his hands grasping
each other at his waist. “He is one of their best fighters,
however. I was assured of this fact before I brought him.” The
man’s words tripped over each other as he rushed to defend himself
and his choice of soldier—warrior.