Free Kingmaker by Rob Preece Page A

been training with the sword for as long as she'd been alive. And any warrior culture can develop plenty of its own tricks and techniques with the sword. The basic reality of the sword is this: techniques that don't work don't survive to be taught to students.
    Still, just because she didn't think she could win didn't mean she intended to roll over for Dafed.
    She stepped forward, putting her weight behind her strike, let Dafed's parry beat her blade off target, ducked under his riposte, and then switched hands on her blade, grasping his wrist with her freed right hand and attempting a wrist take-down while, simultaneously striking with the sword in her left hand.
    She not only failed at her takedown, Dafed was so strong he tore himself free of her grip and struck. The tip of his blade rested on his throat.
    "First touch?"
    "Look down,” she said.
    His eyes followed her gaze to where her katana brushed against his thigh. Its ultrasharp blade had sliced through the leather of his trousers and brushed against the naked skin underneath.
    "With your left hand. Very nice."
    "You weren't so bad yourself. Shall we call this a draw, then?"
    Dafed laughed. “Why not. Bring your friend and come meet some of my troop. Oh, but leave the bishop. He doesn't know how to party."
* * * *
    The bishop went back to Moray but he left Lawgrave to keep his eyes on Ellie and Mark.
    Dafed led the three of them to a group of tents. Unlike most of those in the camp, these were surrounded by a wooden palisade and a small trench lined with caltrops.
    "Expecting an attack?” Mark asked. His facility with the language was progressing faster than Ellie could have imagined. Helped, she figured, by the several hours a day he spent with Arnold's sisters.
    "Doing our best to make sure there isn't one,” Dafed answered. “With the good bishop in charge of our army, we never have a clue where the enemy is, what they'll do next, or even, half the time, who the next enemy will be."
    He called for wine, bread and cheese and introduced Ellie and Mark to the other sergeants in his force.
    Once the food had been brought, he put Ellie at the head of an oversized table and took a deep drink from a mug of wine the size of a fire bucket. “So, what's the plan, princess?"
    Ellie almost looked around but she was the only female there. “Huh?"
    "Come on. Just now you as good as told the bishop to lose himself so you burned that bridge. The bishop's big deal about you being the miracle princess means that the Dukes will be looking for you. And even if you weren't on the King's side, the Rissel will declare you a witch and a heretic once they get word of what happened here today. And they're probably getting word about now, because this camp leaks like a sieve. So, either you're a complete idiot or you have some plan. I'm hoping you're not an idiot."
    Ellie hoped that too. “Can I ask you a few questions first?"
    "Ask away. That's why I brought the other sergeants in."
    "I'm going to be straight with you, Dafed. You may not believe the bishop's story about the once and future princess but I'm from a long ways away. I don't know much about the situation here and I more information before I can figure out what to do next. So let's start with the uncles. How many are there, are their factions among them, and who has the biggest army?"
    "You'll have to ask your ex-friend the bishop for the political scoop,” Dafed said. “But in terms of armies and proximity, only two of the four surviving brothers mean anything. Duke Harrison to the north and Duke Sullivan to the south are the keys. Either one of them outnumbers us about four to one. Together they'd roll us up like a cheap scroll. Separately they're afraid to move because we'd do enough damage that whoever attacks first will be easy prey to whichever brother waits. Assuming the Rissel didn't step in first."
    "Okay. About the Rissel. Do they have a favorite?"
    "For the past hundred years, Lubica soldiers have been marching