Free King's Shield by Sherwood Smith

got two single-armers,” Mutt said coaxingly. “Well, one’s missing a hand, not an arm, but still. They fight good, and Sock isn’t any bigger’n you.” He added in a mumble, “Your brother misses you. We miss you.”
    Nugget drew in a deep breath. The salt water, the rocking of the ship, her old friends—so much older now—the two years on land, learning all about wool, seemed part of a long strange dream that had begun as a nightmare.
    She glared at her damp palm and shaking fingers. Fear, well, that happened anywhere. Fighting? She could think about it later.
    The feeling that she couldn’t get over—didn’t want to get over—that felt like wine inside, like the first time you hear a wonderful song, was belonging.
    “Let’s go talk to Fox,” she said.

Chapter Eight
    THE sounds and smells of home reached down into childhood habit and woke Inda before dawn. He had a slight headache, but carried his clothes down to the baths at the lowest level of the castle. He splashed about, enjoying a Marlovan bath again, though it seemed to smell more dank than he remembered his home being. Maybe it was just this castle.
    When he emerged, the familiar cadenced sounds of drill drew him out to the enormous courtyard between the stable against the castle walls and the long line of the Marlo-Vayirs’ castle.
    There he found Buck and the other two in the front line as the Marlo-Vayir riders performed morning drill under the steady rain. Inda was stiff from the days of riding after so much time away from horses, and his head still ached from the combination of rye cider and powerful emotions.
    Glad for a chance to stretch, he took a position at the back. As he worked through the drills, remembering old patterns from childhood, he wondered why they seemed so slow, the combinations clumsy. He recognized that the drills all benefited the man on horseback, slashing with the curve-tipped sword. The close-in work, he saw with experienced eyes, was intended mostly for finishing off an enemy, not for foot engagement.
    At the end he followed Cherry-Stripe and Cama inside to the roaring fire, where hot steeped leaf was waiting.
    The old arms master who’d led the drill stopped Buck. “That one in the vest. That’s the Algara-Vayir laef?”
    Buck opened his hand. “So?”
    The arms master rubbed his jaw. “From the look o’ him, he ought to be runnin’ drill.”
    Buck whistled softly. “What, was he strutting back there?”
    A shake of a grizzled head. “No. Held himself back, all proper. But the others move heavy, he moves like an arrow through the air, especially with the knife, and the other hand, too. You get him to run us once, if he stays, we all learn something.”
    Buck grunted, remembering what Inda had said about the Venn coming in summer. We’d better learn everything we can. Winter was barely over. Surely one day wouldn’t make a difference. “I’ll do that.” He walked in, absently wringing the rain from his hair, mentally rehearsing what to say.
    Upstairs, Signi woke at the sounds of steel clashing, and found herself alone. Alone in a huge room. She rose and performed a full visan varec —the strenuous set of stretches and exercises the hel dancers of the Venn performed each day. She’d not been able to do the complete routine for many days, confined as she’d been on the little scout ship Vixen, and then in the small chambers shared with Inda whom she might disturb. As yet she had never let anyone see her do the exercises, nor had she danced; now she could no longer bear to hide her first self away, and so, accompanied by the sound of the rain, she danced out the complicated emotions of the last weeks.
    Her muscles were warm, smoothed of the knots of passion, anger, regret, and grief, her blood flowed with the quiet of contentment when she had finished, leaving her mind clear. She bathed and made her way to the dining room, where she was relieved to find that Tau and Jeje had arrived ahead of her. Despite