8 Days Left

Harek sat straight in his chair. He’d worn his finest clothes, which unsurprisingly happened to be his parade uniform given after five long years at the front lines. His beard, while scraggly, were showing signs growing into a thick and full one, the few white hairs among his natural brown standing out clearly.

Ragnar cleared his throat and opened the folder again. He’d been reading it before Harek’s arrival, but had closed it before allowing the potential new teacher into the room.

“Barely six months out of alliance’s military,” Ragnar commented, “Twenty-eight years old and already seeking gainful employment. Here, nonetheless, at the Royal Academy of War,” he looked up from the report.

Harek had run a tight section, his squads were all well behaved and efficient during combat. There’d been a few hiccups in the beginning, but they had relatively quickly smoothed out. As far as Ragnar could tell, Harek knew how to handle army men. But could he handle students?

“Yes sir,” Harek said. His voice was much like his attire and his posture, stiff and formal.

“But,” Ragnar said looking his prospective hire dead in the eye. Two vibrant and aware blue eyes met half-lidded dull brown. “You’re an obsidian, the most common of tethered and therefore the most fought over position,” his dark eyes sharpened on the youth, “And you’re not a master,” he tapped his thumb on Harek’s advancement in the folder for effect, two taps on Sword.

“Sir,” Harek nodded and diverting his gaze from Ragnar’s persistent glare. “After hearing about A— Master Ayvir’s early employment before his own breakthrough to Lance—“

“You figured we would allow you as well?”

Harek swallowed again and with an effort returned to glare at the old general, “It was worth a try.”

Ragnar didn’t show it but he was impressed with the young man’s composure, even more so with his ability to regain it. Older men had crumpled under Ragnar’s stare, forced to look at his worn face twisted by scars and time.

“Do you know Master Ayvir’s advancement before he was hired?”

“Um, no sir, that’s restricted information, isn’t it?”

“Not freely available isn’t the same as restricted,” Ragnar corrected. The citizens had a right to know of the tethered that lived among them, that didn’t stop the Masters’ Council from making the information hard to get, though. “He had Flesh, Sword, and Cloak.”

“Sir?”

“A full complement of Disciplines with two at the second-stage,” Ragnar let the moment sink in before continuing. “Ayvir’s slated to become a twin master within the next decade. He’ll be the first elusrian twin master below forty in almost a hundred-and-fifty years. You think you can match that?”

Harek sighed, his shoulders sagged, and his posture fell apart. In an instant his front dissolved and the confident man disappeared. Suddenly, he was just a kid who’d spent far too much of his youth fighting other people’s fights. He was nearly thirty and had nothing to show for it. He probably still lived with his parents.

“No, sir. I can’t,” Harek admitted rubbing his hands over his face.

Ragnar tapped a finger on Harek’s folder as the man started to get up, “It says here that your squads were solid. As a Section Commander you did well, tell me about it. What did you experience? What did you learn?”

Harek sat back down a tentative look of hope on his face, then he began talking about his military career. Ragnar didn’t talk much, only asked a few specific questions. A few times he stopped the man to dig into him. The first time a member of a squad died, the first man his orders got killed.

Ragnar didn’t hold back. He questioned him, closer to interrogation than interview, but he needed to know if there were some trigger points the soldier had suppressed. Of course, he was a veteran of the war and there were plenty. However, Harek never turned violent or even overly angry. He tried to hide his tears and his disappointment in the way the war’d progressed and Ragnar allowed him some leeway in that regard.

“Harek,” Ragnar said as he leaned back in his chair. “What I’m beginning to see as the most important aspect about being a teacher isn’t your ability to master the subject to its highest, but your ability to make someone else understand the basics.”

Harek nodded wary hope clear in his blue eyes.

“I’m going to set you to shadow Fastulf,” Ragnar said offering him the teacher’s schedule. “You’re not going to like each other,” he warned the young man, “But Fastulf is an honest man. If we do hire you beyond a trial period you will face ridicule and dislike from other teachers, especially since you’re not a master like them.”

Harek nodded, though, he didn’t restrain his smile, “Yes sir.”

Ragnar was going to get into a bit more detail but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Hesitating for a moment, he considered waiting until the interview was finished.

“Yes?” He asked, deciding he needed to know. Through his Veil he grabbed the obsidian embedded into the door and lock.

“Sir,” the administrator said as the door swung open in front of him. Ragnar had worked with him before when Pashar wasn’t available so he didn’t boggle at the door moving on its own. The short man lifted a letter sealed with black wax, “It’s started, sir.”

Ragnar pulse picked up, until the tips of his fingers pounded with it. Summoning his cane, he pushed out of the chair and nodded to Harek. “You begin tomorrow,” then to the administrator, “Please, find him a bed in the tower.”

“Immediately,” the man bowed, offered Ragnar the letter then waved for Harek to follow.

“I didn’t bring my luggage,” he heard Harek say, “I didn’t think I’d start so soon.”

“Letters go out this evening,” the administrator said as they turned up the stairs, “if you send one tonight you could have a relative get on the carriage tomorrow and deliver…” the words faded as they passed too far up the steps.

Ragnar headed downstairs, instead of up. But he didn’t stop on the ground floor, instead he kept going. Down to the breakthrough rooms. The hallway was filled with small rooms, just big enough for a pre-stage to advance in without reaching through the door or walls, so long as you turned any Daggers away. At the end, it turned to the right revealing an even longer passage with even further spaced out rooms, accounting for the second-stage advancements increase in reach. For third-stage advancements it was better to just hike into the wilderness rather than attempt to build a facility to handle their reach and strength.

He stopped at the third door on the right and knocked twice, “Siginye,” he paused for a long time, until he heard a faint chink of obsidian against obsidian then knocked twice more. The door was opened almost before his second knock had sounded out.

“It’s begun,” Ragnar growled holding up the envelope, “They took the bait,” he growled hobbling in. He no longer cursed his crippled leg, it wasn’t worth the effort. He’d grown too used to it. If someone fixed it now he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

The inside of the chamber was not as barren as those around it. A large table had been setup in the center with maps of the city and surrounding area, ranging from detail drawings showing individual buildings of the city, to a wide creation that displayed the lay of land all the way out beyond the academy. A bright-torch hung from a tall thin post secured against the wall and shed perfect light on the table without casting any shadows.

Ragnar offered the letter to one of the men already occupying the room. He cracked it open and read through it quickly before moving markers on the precise map of the city. Ragnar watched intently as forces were shifted around. It was for the most part subtle work, though, some of the maneuvers were completely illogical and a few that were just plain blunders.

Frowning, Ragnar tried to pick through the exact mindset of the person who enacted this plan. “This wasn’t Sworden’s work,” he muttered looking over the family’s troop movements. “Too subtle, but not clever enough.”

“What about Serpent-vein?”

“Thinly veiled military maneuvers,” Ragnar muttered, “It’s plainly Grimar,” he scanned the map once more before he began a smile creeping onto his face as he returned to his element. “We’ll start over here at Virrel square, we have a secret outpost on this corner. Throughout the day, a few ‘drunkards’ are going to enter this tavern and make their way into the house. Over here, I need a layer of rime during the night just enough to get the road nice and muddy, Grimar will already want to avoid the area as it’s hilly without the risk of slipping.”

As Ragnar began tracking his battle plan and ran his finger through the street, purpose filled him. There were many things that Ragnar worked very hard at, but there was only one thing where his natural inclination and talents aligned fully.

“Over here a merchant’s going to lose the wheel on their cart tomorrow morning, it should sink well into the muddy dirt as well, enough that it’ll be cheaper and easier to just get a new wheel made and mounted rather than move the cart. Looking at the whole map, it would be smarter to rime this whole south-western area… so we’re going to rime this area here even harder and have a few troop movements, soldiers in civilian clothing, get caught entering the barracks up near the first Queen’s statue…”

The replies of his men dulled into vague assent or disagreements, they knew enough to loudly decline if they found a flaw with his plan, but it didn’t waver his concentration when it happened and time soon began to drift as the plans gained a momentum of their own.