Free Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three by Joel Shepherd Page A

tribes, with differing tongues, beliefs and ceremonies. Now, thinking of just how many people Lenayin actually had, Jaryd wondered if any other human land possessed the sheer scale of fractious diversity the gods had granted his homeland.
    No wonder we’re always in such a mess, he pondered, gazing about at the long, settling column. There was no thought of fortified camps here on the Telesian plains. Telesia had few people, and had only escaped conquest by Bacosh neighbours because it possessed so little that anyone wanted. Mostly it made a bulwark between the Bacosh and southern Lenayin, and there was no threat to a Lenay army here.
    Jaryd set his boots aside and rose barefoot. “Come,” he said to Andreyis. “We’ll spar while there’s still light.”
    Andreyis looked tired too, but he removed his boots and rose all the same, withdrawing his practice stanch from within his bundled gear. They took stance on a clear patch of grass, shields laid aside, and practised in the traditional Lenay style—two hands, no shields and little mercy.
    Some other men did the same, and most of those pairs were also made up of a youngster and a more experienced warrior. Jaryd now had twenty-two years, but he had once been heir to the province of Tyree, and perhaps the most celebrated sword- and horseman in that region. Since then, he had been deposed, his family dissolved by ancient clan law, his youngest brother murdered and his siblings married off. He had taken refuge in a Goeren-yai village, sought revenge, and found something perhaps greater than that which he had lost. He remained uncertain of exactly what it was that he had found. So many things, he was still discovering every day.
    Sparring over, he and Andreyis returned to the campside, and took their places in the circle.
    “You should train with those damn shields, lads,” Teriyan told them. “We’ll have to use them soon enough.”
    “Foundation first,” said Jaryd. “Shields later. The lad has to walk before he can run.”
    “I can walk fine,” Andreyis muttered, rubbing a bruised arm where Jaryd’s stanch had caught him. “I’ve been doing nothing but walking for weeks.”
    “When I was a noble,” Jaryd said, lounging back on the grass, “my father once received a travelling entourage from Larosa. Some bunch of idiot lowlands nobility seeking trade, horses and powerful friends in Lenayin. Anyhow,this lord’s heir was seventeen; I was fifteen at the time. He was boasting to me about what a great swordsman he’d become, of how he’d trained with a master-at-arms from his father’s army since he had barely ten years, and how he thought himself more than a match for anyone in Lenayin.”
    Men grinned or snorted. In Lenayin, boys held the stanch and learned footwork from the moment they could walk. “I challenged him to spar,” Jaryd continued, “and beat him black and blue from one side of the circle to the other. Then I handed off to my brother Wyndal, who’s another two years younger again, and not much of a fighter, but he did scarcely worse.”
    “What’s your point?” Andreyis asked. The lad was a little touchy where his swordwork was concerned. Well, Jaryd supposed, it couldn’t have been easy having the stuffing smacked out of him all through childhood by Sashandra Lenayin. Now, fate had afflicted another great and cocky warrior upon him. Probably he was getting sick of it.
    “My point is that everyone can improve. That little lowlands snot thought he was great, but he learned that greatness in the Bacosh and greatness in Lenayin are two different things. Perhaps somewhere out there is another kingdom of warriors who make Lenays look foolish with a blade. Always assume you’re not as good as you will be tomorrow, if you work at it.”
    “Listen to the pup,” Teriyan remarked, “spouting wisdom like he knows what it means. You come and talk to me when you’ve seen even half the battles I’ve fought in, youngster.”
    “Aye,” said