The afternoon of Duelsday was spent in correcting the forms of thirteen people learning to wield the battle-staff.

"Breathe!" He reminded them, walking between their lined up ranks. "Do not hold it in, do not force it. Remember the guiding forms and breathe naturally with each movement."

"Ha!" came the concerted shout from thirteen throats, finishing the routine.

He stepped in front and smiled briefly. "Good. Rest a quarter-hour."

There was a relieved sigh from multiple mouths. Vesen groaned, planted his battle-staff on the ground and leaned wearily against it.

Defi smirked at the seventeen year old. "Regretting it?"

"Very much."

"Want to quit?"

"I dream about it every night."

Defi laughed lightly, studied the younger man. "You don't seem to be as enthused about the military as the others. I thought you only wanted to join because Boone is going. Yet you're persevering so hard?"

Vesen nodded, closing his eyes in tiredness. "I've been thinking about it for a while now. My sister's smarter than me, do you know? After I could feel myself getting stronger, I thought: I want to send her to university. Ambitious, I know. But a military officer has a subsidy for education."

Defi glanced at Sedni, who was gulping down vital milk with her friends. The fourteen year old was very bright, yes. Her brother was the same. He wanted to say that in the long-term even a year of university would do more for his earning potential than ten years in the military, but he remembered the first time he met them.

They were joining the military because there was no other path for them. Of all the people here, who could afford even the entrance exams much less the university tuition?

So he only nodded. "You're smart as well. But be clever also, and watchful. When you are at the bottom of the rung, those above you can only tolerate a certain amount of intelligence. When you gain an officer rank, then show more of your wit and ability but still have caution and be mindful of person and situation."

Defi had not joined the ranks of Ontrean warriors, but as the son of the lord and holder of an apprentice position in the ranks of civil officials he had still been part of many military occasions as a spectator. He had seen more than one person in the civil service and military rise and fall in two years of apprenticeship.

The military in Ascharon was even more hierarchical than in Ontrea, more political in its movements. Its officers schemed like the bureaucracy. How could they win a war like this?

He mentally shook his head.

There were many aspects of Ascharon that were really beyond Defi's understanding.

Vesen sighed. "It's not going to be easy even if we learn the sword, huh?" He perked up. "Speaking of swords, when are we learning that?"

Defi huffed in amusement. "You're still mastering the second form of staff training. Not for a while yet. We'll be starting the last of the Guiding Forms this winter."

He already had training halberds prepared. Training a halberd art would only be piling technique onto the battle-staff basics they already knew.

He learned over the months that he couldn't teach them Current training by substituting their Shades, and the Guiding Forms that used the Current were scrapped. He could only teach them the Forms for breath and serenity, to take advantage of speed and dexterity.

After the last Form he could teach them was learned, they'd have enough foundation to learn the StormHawk Sword. Barely enough foundation for the basics, but enough just the same.

They'd have to finish the style themselves, but that was fine. The StormHawk Sword was ever-evolving. An Ascharonian StormHawk sword art – he actually wanted to see what it looked like.

He wondered if his students would be the one to create something like that.

Maybe.

He could hope. As a teacher of warriors, who wouldn't want their students to be outstanding?

Boone came over to toss bottles of vital milk at both of them.

Defi considered the bottle. The students had gotten together to cadge a wholesale deal for the beverage out of Adan and Rocso. They were now paying nearly half the cost, with Defi paying the other half.

If he hadn't insisted that food and drink was part of teacher obligations, the older students would be working longer hours at their jobs to take on the entire cost. As it was, even the younger students now took on part-time work to pay their part.

They were determined to earn every bit of his teaching. Defi could only teach them as best he can, unable to stop them. He approved of their determination, after all.

He opened the bottle and gulped down the cool liquid.

He really must teach them well.

*

The last of the students who didn't live at the orphanage left, chattering quietly. Defi placed the training staves back into the shed, before going around the house to the stables.

Farbar was smoking a pipe serenely, watching clouds while seated on a strawbale. He turned and watched Defi come toward him curiously. "You have good technique."

"Thank you." Defi sat beside him on the bale and looked up at the sky, watching the late afternoon clouds cover the last bit of blue sky. It was going to rain again shortly. He wondered at the old man's words for a while before remembering. "You were a hunter."

"And a soldier before that. Auxiliary brigade volunteer, so I didn't sign their stupid twenty-year contract. You're training those kids for the army?"

"Just some of them. The others have reasons of their own to know combat."

"With the draft, most of them will be enlisted sooner or later."

"That's out of my hands."

Farbar sighed bitterly. "So it is. This is a good thing you're doing."

Barham was going to enlist then. Defi sighed, conflicted.

As a scion of warriors, instinct and honor said he should fight alongside his students. But he was not joining the army. What business did he have training children for a path he would not walk?

Even so, could he stop? The skills they learn will only keep them alive.

Ever since he learned about this edict from Ascharon's emperor, he'd been having second thoughts of this training. But at the same time, he could only train them harder.

Farbar seemed to sense his disquiet, and tapped him on the shoulder. He stood and stretched. "We should be going. Your starcherries might rot at the docks."

"There aren't a lot bringing them anymore. People are busy with festival preparations."

"Come help me with this big lump then." He nudged the sleeping boar-lizard with the toe of a boot. "Wake up, you!"

Defi looked up at the darkening sky. "Do you know if Miss Adtra went back to the last farm already?"

The boar-lizard huffed and rose to its feet, nudging Farbar back in irritation. Farbar elbowed it with a cluck of his tongue, before backing it toward the wagon.

"We could stop by to ask," he answered.

"You know where she lives?" Defi was surprised.

"It's a small town. Those siblings..hm, they've had too little fortune these last years. They live with relatives now."

"Oh." Defi's brow furrowed slightly. He didn't know Haral's parents were gone. "They all live with their grandfather?"

He dimly remembered the old intense man at the dried seafood shop.

Farbar shook his head. "That grouch Breth had a bridge made for him some months back."

Eh, a bridge?

"His grandchildren live with some cousin or other now."

Ah.

Defi took the bridge comment to mean Haral's grandfather had died.

The world was indeed not kind.

He entered the orphanage to get his satchel and the mini-papyrif tree that everyone called a trident bush, making his goodbyes before returning quickly to the stables.

With Defi and Farbar working together, the wagon was harnessed in a trice. Farbar eyed him suspiciously as they settled on the wagon bench. "I'll have the reins today."

Defi sighed audibly.

"You can't drive a wagon?" Sarel caught them as they guided the wagon out, nimbly climbing to sit beside Farbar.

"Yes I can."

She got it immediately. "Never handled a boar-lizard before?"

"It's not about strength, is it?"

She smiled a little. "They're trained to react to a number of Shade tricks."

"Ah." The sound was despondent.

He knew it.

His strength, despite his slenderness, was on par with the average Ascharonian. There was no way that overgrown scaly pig wouldn't be able to fling an Ascharonian driver around at its own pace if it wanted to.

"You can't use Shade?" Now it was Farbar's turn to be surprised.

"Show," Sarel corrected. "Can't show Shade."

Farbar made a sound of comprehension. "I had friends with your problem before. Do you want to know some of their tricks?"

"Sure."

Sarel lifted her brow at him behind Farbar's back. But Defi was really interested. Even if it didn't work for him, he'd still like to listen.

Ascharonian sorcery was fascinating.

**

**

Notes:

the Bridgemaker – this is one of the names of the god of Ascharon, the Seven-Colored God, the Harmonium, Tirralod.

The expression of 'having a bridge made for you' is from the legend of the Hundred Bridge Mountains in the north of Ascharon. There is a geologic formation of stones there that look like the protruding ribcages of numerous gigantic beings (it could actually be from numerous gigantic beings, in fact). The legend is also called the Ballad of the Lucky Prince, who was lucky in everything but love.