Chapter 4
Bending painfully, Aaron picked up his practice sword with cramped fingers, the one move that had become increasingly familiar. Rising carefully, he favored his side where bruised ribs let him know they were very unhappy with his performance.
Sarah Townsend shook her head, smiling wryly. She breathed evenly, looking fresh even after the last hour's workout. Of course, Aaron reflected, she should look fresh since she had worked less than half as hard as he. She possessed an economy of motion and a precision of movement he could only admire with unhappy envy. The extent of her skill and speed were impressive, yet she claimed to be nothing more than a poorly trained soldier.
Gripping the practice sword with very sore fingers, Aaron looked around the empty land surrounding them and felt very glad Miss Sarah Townsend had brought them a half mile outside of town to practice. Instead of a crowd of jeering spectators having fun at Aaron's expense, they were surrounded by tall weeds and grass, a few scraggly trees, distant hills which eventually rose into the cloud capped mountain range, and of course, the far off outline of the town itself.
In other words, since it was early spring, they were surrounded by the fragile scents of opening wild flowers and budding weeds, which meant plenty of pollen, which meant Aaron had a stuffy nose and the beginnings of a nagging headache. Just what he needed when he was getting the crap beat out of him.
"I aimed six inches below your eyes," Sarah said. "You raised your shield way too high, and then you took too long to lower it again. Okay, you've rested enough. Back to work."
Sighing, Aaron readied himself. His arms and shoulders ached even from the light weight of the wooden practice equipment. He thought briefly of begging for mercy due to extreme exhaustion, but the marshal was probably the type of instructor who did not want to hear about such trifles.
Sarah tried to connect with his left shoulder. With a slight shift, Aaron caught the precise horizontal cut across the face of his shield. Taking the initiative, he tried a strike of his own. Damn. Six inches off his mark. Thank the Gods he managed to maintain some semblance of balance or she would have given him another of her stinging lessons. She swung back, quick, but slow enough so he could get his blade up in time to catch hers against it. Looking good, Aaron. Gods, his arm hurt.
"Ward yourself," Sarah called. Wearing a sly grin, she quickly swung her sword too fast for him to see. Leaping forward she cracked her wooden blade into his left shin.
"Hey!" Aaron cursed. "That hurts!" Within moments his shin knotted, making him want to sink to his knees. Thick mucus flowed from his nose. He sniffled, trying to clear his sinuses, but it felt like he had a wooden dowel shoved up each nostril.
"Use your sword to block, Mister Turner. It isn't just for cutting. Keep up like this, and we'll be burying you within the year"
"Why," Aaron panted back, "don't you give the blamed sword to someone who can use it? I'm too small for this thing."
"What?" she asked as she looped around his guard one more time to thump his bruised ribs. "Do you think we expect you to give up personal equipment that's worth more than two months of my wages? No, Mister Turner. We would never ask that of you." Catching an overhead blow, she bent her wrist and deftly twisted it aside.
"For the public good," Aaron gasped, "take the thing and give it to someone who can use it."
"Nope. I'm having too much fun."
Aaron staggered beneath another blow.
"You're doing good, Mister Turner. We're almost ready to take it up to half speed."
"What!"
Using a move too quick for him to see, her practice sword flickered and then slapped against his arm.
"Ouch!" His sword flew from his hand and landed six feet away. "Hey!"
"I've always found it awkward to be in a sword fight when I don't have a sword, Mister Turner, but then you are a man, so you probably know more about these things than I do."
Inching sideways, he reached his blade. Once he stood over the thing he was not sure what to do. His arm ached, and every time he moved to pick the practice sword up she grinned and raised her weapon. Finally accepting that he was going to take punishment, Aaron lowered himself slowly and reached for his blade. She sidestepped and swung.
"Damn it!" Aaron's voice was muffled by a clump of daisies stuffed into his mouth.
His butt hurt.
Sarah laughed gaily.
"Miss Townsend, did you really have to do that?"
She stopped laughing. "Oh yes I did. You needed a lesson on how to commit. Down! Up! Like a streak of lightning. As slow as you moved, I could have left, had dinner, done the dishes and still had time to get back here to kick your butt."
Holding out her right arm, she grasped his hand and helped him rise. Her grip was strong. Her calluses felt hard against his rising blisters.
"Enough for today. I'll walk you to the Traveler's Rest where you can buy me an ale." Glancing around, she frowned at the sight of two half naked figures watching from a distant hill. "The savages are watching us again. I don't like that."
"Will there be trouble?" Aaron asked, feeling the worms in his belly wiggle once more.
"No more than normal. They always have someone watching." Her frown lessened. "You owe me for the profanity, Mister Turner, though I guess I'll forgive you this time."
Aaron flushed when he remembered his words. "Sorry for the mouth."
"Not the first time I heard a trainee curse," Sarah admitted. "It won't be the last either. Still, it's a bad habit to get into."
The walk to Flo's took only ten minutes. Even in that short time Aaron's muscles began setting up, but his headache began easing, and that, at least, was good.
"You show promise," Sarah said after drinking half her ale. "Given time, you might even become a decent swordsman."
"Right." The woman was impossible. She could lie with a straight face.
"No," she admitted. "To tell you the truth, you are really terrible. You are slow and inaccurate, and your blows lack any force. You also lost your temper and released profanity in my presence. If you had done that within my hearing inside the town limits, I would have been forced to fine you. Mister Turner, you seem uncomfortable. Is something wrong?"
"I am sitting on a very painful place." Frowning ruefully, Aaron pointed a finger at her. "You play rough Miss Townsend. I am not entirely sure I approve."
She laughed lightly and eyed him coyly. "Few people do. I have an ointment that can help. If you like, I'll even rub it in for you. Why, Mister Turner, you are blushing. It's been twelve years since I last saw a man blush on my account and me being only seventeen at the time. I wasn't the least bit serious."
"It's warm in here." Feeling very warm indeed, Aaron lowered his finger. "I need to get back to the store and see how Miss Bayne is getting along." He painfully raised his cup and quickly finished it off because past experience had proved that the slight buzz the ale gave him would finish getting rid of his headache.
Sarah's face turned serious. "It's a good thing you are doing."
"Thank you." He thought about her statement for a moment while he lowered the empty cup back down to the table. "What good thing?" With a slight groan, he shifted so his right cheek hung off the chair's edge. Better.
"For helping Miss Bayne and the kids. They've had it rough since their parents died in that raid a couple years back. We all know that you've been overpaying them and giving them food to help with their support. Now you are doing this. Just want you to know, it sits well with us because their parents are dead."
Aaron frowned. "Dead? All her mothers too?"
Sarah shook her head. "Hard to imagine that, though I suppose most people don't talk about it much. Lots of bad memories there." Leaning forward slightly, she lowered her voice. "Happened during that Mover raid two years ago. Before the militia was formed. We fought back when they tried to take over our town, and we started winning, but then that Talent Master rose up, and he threw fire all around. A lot of us were burned, and some
were killed. I've no doubt all of us would have been if Mister Bayne and his wives hadn't returned from a wagon ride right about then. He saw Cathy and the kids right in the middle of it all, Doyle crying over Jan's body, Jan being his oldest sister. Cathy and Missy were dragging him away, but they weren't dragging him fast enough because there were armed people all around them. When he saw what was happening Mister Bayne whipped his horses up to full speed. Ran them right into that Talent Master. That Master, he burned Mister Bayne and his wives real bad, but Mister Bayne kept those horses running until they crashed into the Talent Master, only the Bayne's were all dead by then, and so were the horses. Broke the Talent Master's back when one horse fell on him. Took the fight right out of him, that did. Took the fight out of the Movers too. They took off, and we buried our dead right after I cut the head off that broken-backed Talent Master and thanked the Lord and Lady he was not particularly powerful."
"Oh--Well." Aaron shifted nervously and wondered what a Talent Master was. Some sort of illusionist? "I knew there had been trouble, but I didn't know the particulars of it."
"We've a lot of new people since then. The rest of us, we don't like to talk about it much."
Feeling uncomfortable, Aaron sat silent for a time because he did not know how to respond to the telling of tall tales. "I really have to go," he finally said.
"Then go. Just remember, in two days you belong to me again."
"Why does that make me uncomfortable?"
She gave him a wicked smile. "You tell me."