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

Jaryd, smiling, “you’ve fought in so many battles that last time we sparred, I could hear your bones rattling.”
    “Sparring is not warfare, boy.” Teriyan looked less than his usual good-humoured self at that reminder. “When the formations line up, and you see nothing but Rhodaani Steel from one end of the horizon to the other, then you’ll learn the value of experience.”
    Jaryd just smiled, and stretched out on the grass. Andreyis joined him, stretching an arm above his shoulder.
    “Am I better than that Larosan boy?” Andreyis asked sombrely.
    “That little fool? No contest, you’d kill him one-handed.”
    “I know I’ll never be great,” said Andreyis. “I’ve had some of the best training of any man my age in Lenayin, with Kessligh and Sasha, and now you. I should be better than I am.”
    “Not true,” Jaryd insisted. “Kessligh and Sasha fight with svaalverd, you’ll not learn a thing from them. I think it might have hurt you, truthfully.” Andreyis looked doubtful, but did not argue. “Look, you’re a tall lad, you’ve not filled out properly yet. Your technique is fine, you just need to get quicker, and that’ll take care of itself as you get older.”
    “I’ve heard it before,” Andreyis said quietly. He said nothing more, and lay on his back gazing at the sky.
    Jaryd watched him. In truth, the boy had a point. His technique was quite good, and he did quite well in set, predictable taka-dans. But when forced to improvise it often broke down, and he simply wasn’t very quick. Jaryd had never considered what it might be like to be born without the skills he took for granted. Andreyis’s admission bothered him. In Lenayin, for a young man to admit to anyone, even his closest friends, that he did not think himself much of a swordsman, was akin to admitting himself a coward.
    Andreyis was an unusual boy. He was clever, but seemed to have no particular skills at which he excelled. He was good with horses, thanks to a childhood working on Kessligh and Sasha’s ranch, but even there, his natural skill with the animals was not the same as that of his younger workmate Lynette, Teriyan’s daughter. Popularity in Baerlyn eluded him, despite (or perhaps because of) his friendship with Baerlyn’s two most famous residents. He had fought in Sasha’s rebellion, and gained manhood, but not the respect that came of a man making his own way, and standing on his own two feet.
    When the Baen-Tar herald had called on Baerlyn in the winter, Andreyis had been amongst the first to put forth his name. His father ran a wagon and harness trade with an elder son, and the younger son was dispensable.
    This young man expects to die, Jaryd thought, watching Andreyis now. He seemed to find it preferable to continuing to live the life he had. For the first time in his life, Jaryd found himself questioning the obvious truths that all young men of Lenayin had shared since they were old enough to understand such words as “honour,” and “manhood.” Andreyis would perhaps never be a great warrior, but he was a good young man all the same. Was goodness worth nothing to a man, if greatness could not accompany it?
    Jaryd’s fingers went to his left ear, and the rings that decorated from the lobe about the outer rim. Still they felt odd, even after the inflammation had died. The rings said that he was Goeren-yai, and no longer a Verenthane noble…but what did his heart say? Once he had been the heir to great wealth and power. When those were taken, he had been heir to honourable revenge. But that heirship too he had failed to claim. Was he now merely a villager, content to live out his days on a Baerlyn farm, to wed some local girl and raise half-blueblood children? And if he was to be content, why was his heart still so full of questions?
    When the herald had arrived in Baerlyn, Jaryd had been second only to Andreyis in putting his name forth. His old injuries recovered, he could best even Teriyan in sparring