Free Impossible Things by Kate Johnson Page B

black chain mail that went under the plate armour. The stuff wouldn’t stop a rubber arrow, but unless things had radically changed at the Tower, he didn’t expect he’d need it for actual bodily defence. Dress armour was all about putting on a show.
    ‘They’ll meet you outside, sir,’ said the boy. He was maybe twelve or thirteen, the nephew of one of his men. Kael didn’t need to ask if he could fight – he could probably best half the lads in the training ring. He didn’t take helpless children along in his horde.
    ‘Did you get me a horse?’
    ‘Yes, sir, a black destrier. He’s used to armour, too. Sir Verak has a chestnut who bucked and reared when we tried to dress him.’
    Kael smiled. ‘He’ll love that.’
    ‘We’ve just caparisoned him for now, sir, although Sir Verak says we can try for the armour if you really want.’
    ‘No, the caparison is fine.’ Let Verak ride a horse wearing skirts. The spectacle was the thing.
    The boy – Kael thought his name might be Lars, but wasn’t about to embarrass either of them by getting it wrong – began to fasten the ornate plate armour over the top of the mail on his legs. Kael’s dress armour was made from steel containing an ore that turned it to a matte black, and he’d had replicas of his marks carved and enamelled in red over his arm and chest. At every join, the plate was studded with red and black crystals that flashed in the light. Unlike some Warriors, he had decided against bearing his sigil on his breastplate, which made the black and red all the more stark.
    ‘How’s the ship?’
    ‘Shipshape, sir. Almost nothing to do to it.’ Lars buckled plate armour to his legs. ‘Steward wants to know when you want to leave next, and where to, and he’ll get it provisioned.’
    ‘Soon as possible. We’ll sail on the tide tonight if we can. We’re already cutting it fine, this time of year.’ Kael rolled his shoulders and pulled on his mail shirt. It was made from the same black steel as the plate armour and seemed to suck the light from the day.
    He shook his head when offered the coif, however. He wasn’t actually going into battle – and what was the point of dressing like Krull the Warlord if no one could see his face?
    Over the mail shirt went the enamelled breastplate, buckled to the backplate at the shoulders and sides. Kael took a deep breath to test the fit, and nodded. He hated being trussed up like this, truth be told. A man couldn’t fight half so well when he was wearing half a ton of steel.
    Lars tied on the vambraces, then laced the shoulder plates to the breastplate. Kael knew all this stuff had special fancy names, but he’d be buggered if he was going to sit around learning them all like a first-year Tyro.
    ‘Will you want the gauntlets, sir? Or just gloves?’
    ‘Gauntlets,’ Kael said. He’d take them off as soon as he’d made his entrance. ‘Carry my helm, would you?’
    The boy nodded and scrambled into his surcoat. Every man of the horde who marched with them on these occasions wore the same coat: black on the left, red on the right, with the crest of Krulland emblazoned across the chest in bright silks.
    Kael marched from the changing rooms across the training ground and was gratified to note that this time, everyone stopped to look. Even Glorius’s boy, although his handsome face was schooled into a sneer.
    Waiting at the gates to the Academy, causing a hell of a disturbance to traffic, was a century of his men, each of them armoured and coated and helmed, the relentless darkness of their dress armour like a black hole in the noon light. They saluted, fists to breastplates, with a deafening clang.
    Kael saluted right back and swung himself up into the saddle of the huge black destrier Lars held ready for him. Behind him to the right, Verak stilled his horse, with Karnos flanking to his left. Ahead of them, Johann the signifer stood with Kael’s mighty banner.
    ‘Stand you ready?’ Kael roared, and a hundred