The Ivory Star

Chapter 13

"Hai!" Angus leaped to the side, and the whistling iron blade slid just past him. He followed with a slashing counterattack.

"Waugh!" Daarton gasped as he staggered backward.

Angus's breast swelled with sudden pride. What a blow! If the blade had been sharpened, Daarton would have had his chest cavity cleft open. Finally Daarton had tasted of his frustrated blade! For two weeks Daarton had taught him the sword nearly every daylight hour, and never had Angus so much as touched him. He felt himself grinning, and his sword point dropped only a bit ...

CLANG!

Daarton's heavy iron sword crashed into Angus's metal helm.

He was awakened by cold water dribbling into his face, and he opened his eyes to see the cold gray sky above and Aylok squeezing a sodden rag above his face. Angus sputtered and spat and tried to sit up.

Daarton towered over him. "Fool! Never, never lower your blade if your opponent is still standing!"

Angus shook his head, trying to clear the stars from his vision.

Daarton offered his hand, and Angus took it to stand up unsteadily, like a willow in a storm. A sticky rivulet trickled down his cheek, and his gaze began to cloud again, so he closed his eyes until his equilibrium began to return. Daarton was speaking, "... learned much, sir. As much as any man can be taught. The rest comes with the first test of steel and battle, and scars across your body." He patted Angus on the shoulder brotherly.

Then Daarton bellowed, "Sigmunnd!"

Angus winced at the noise in his ringing ears.

From across the yard, "Ho!"

"He's yours!"

A golden-locked man of medium height and hardly twenty years, clad all in buckskin, strode toward them from the archery range, long bow and quiver of arrows slung across his back.

By the time Sigmunnd had reached them, Angus's vision had cleared and equilibrium had returned.

Sigmunnd looked Angus up and own, rubbing his fair-stubbled chin with a callused finger. "He is not an archer, but he will learn. Come."

* * *

The skies grew increasingly overcast as the days and weeks passed. Varying amount of cold rain fell daily, rain that would shortly be turning to snow, driven by the biting north winds. As he was passed from teacher to teacher, learning one weapon after another, Angus always managed to discover new muscles to tire, new places to blister. The weeks passed in a frigid whirlwind with the approach of winter. A thick covering of furs and coarse blankets kept him warm in the Red Dragons' barracks during the cold autumn nights with the wind slicing through the compound outside, and a hot, though sometimes distasteful, meal always filled his empty belly. The comradeship of the other Red Dragons helped him fill the emptiness of the absence of his friend, embracing him as one of their own. He had never before experienced such a bond between fighting brothers as this, not even at the Academy. The lonely life of a deep-space surveyor which he had chosen did not foster such companionship, except with his partner. All he had had before was Eric, and now Eric was gone.

* * *

"No, this way," Robinius said. "The battle axe is not like a sword. It's heavier, more for brute-strength armor-bashing than a deft round of fencing. A quick man with a rapier is likely to cut you to pieces, bit by bit."

Angus nodded, hefting the weapon again as he watched Robinius's movement. Then he gripped the weapon as Robinius had shown him and chopped into the straw dummy, neatly hacking off one of the arms.