The Elder Lands

Lucan walked into the training yard and paused as his foot squelched in mud. A sense of foreboding came over him as he looked around the yard, finding that nowhere was dry.

It hadn’t rained.

“You’ve been fortunate to fight in favorable conditions so far,” his father’s voice came from behind, the knight passing him by and marching out into the yard. “It won’t always be so. In battle, you may not even rely on the ground to be your ally. That Skill of yours, for instance, how well do you think it will do in wet conditions?”

Lucan, still frozen mid-step, gaped at his father before mustering a reply. “I don’t know.”

“Then let us find out,” the knight said, gesturing at the muddy yard around them.

Lucan allowed himself to continue walking, squelching his way to the middle. His father had raised the intensity and duration of their training since word arrived of the prince’s campaign. It had been only a few days, but Lucan had been thrashed during them more than he’d been thrashed for a year.

Lilian was walking around the rim of the training yard, where it was reasonably dry. Still, she was raising the hem of her dress and eying the ground with distaste. It wasn’t the first time she’d come to watch them. Lucan doubted the beatings he was suffering were doing well for his image, but he couldn’t very well tell her not to come. He also had to admit that she observed most of the customs when it came to her presence as a betrothed. She clapped politely whenever he did something of note, and she carried a handkerchief to hand to him once he was done training.

Lucan took up a training sword that he was growing more familiar with than his real one. His father stood in front of him with a similar weapon. They both wore leather armor to dull any hits they may receive, though his father rarely needed it.

“Begin,” his father commanded.

Lucan kept his eyes on the knight as he circled and sought a weakness. A delay in his father’s turn announced an opening which he suspected was a ruse. Regardless, he would try. Lucan lowered his body and ate the ground forward…and ended up quite literally eating the ground. The mud had been too thick and wet between them and he’d ended up slipping and diving into the muck.

He pushed himself up, spitting out some mud. His father was giving him a familiar look. “I didn’t say that everywhere was equally wet. Mind the terrain.”

As he climbed back to his feet, Lucan grimaced at the taste of muck and nodded at his father with some exasperation. The knight gestured for him to return to his beginning position and Lucan obeyed.

They began anew, circling each other. This time, Lucan eyed the ground cautiously, scrutinizing every bit of it, and that was how he got slapped in the face by the flat of a sword. His cheek exploded with pain and his neck snapped to the side as the knight’s weapon swung by. Lucan couldn’t help but yell in response.

“They say it’s good to keep track of your enemy,” his father said, circling him with a leisurely gait.

Lucan held his cheek and gave his father an incredulous look. “Do they?”

The knight responded with an easy nod.

“And who are they?” Lucan ground out as he circled in the opposite direction.

“Folk who don’t make getting a sword to the face habit,” his father said.

Was he goading him? It was uncanny, but in a way, it was working. He wasn’t about to charge into his father. He knew better than that. But he was feeling irritable, that was for certain.

He feinted to the right then used his Star to move to his father’s left instead. The Skill took him the distance as was intended, but he hadn’t accounted for his landing and the Skill didn’t aid him in that. He slid through the mud, creating a wave of it that bathed a nearby dummy; then he was on his side, hugging the ground. When he tried to get up quickly, he found his father’s sword already at his throat. He cursed, raising his hand in surrender and climbing to his feet to continue with the unpleasant affair.

The rest of it wasn’t all that different. Eventually, though, he learned that he needed to find purchase on deeper ground when the mud was thin and to stay on the defensive in thicker mud if he couldn’t avoid it altogether. In the end, his father’s purpose had been fulfilled. Lucan learned how to fight should he ever find himself in a pig’s pen.

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When he finally walked out of the training yard, every part of him was covered in mud, some of it wet and some of it already drying.

Lilian met him as he marched out, and with barely contained mirth, she handed him a handkerchief, gesturing towards his body. “You’ve got a smudge.”

Lucan tried to appear unamused, but he couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping him. “Thank you. Without this,” he raised the cloth, “I don’t know what I would’ve done.” Then he went on to wipe his face with it, but even that little ended up ruining the poor piece of cloth before it could fulfill its purpose.

As Lucan made to take his leave and go wash himself, he saw one of their men-at-arms approaching his father–who was spotless save for his boots–and whisper something. They exchanged a few hushed words, then Lucan saw his father pointing at him and nodding.

“Lucan,” his father called, gesturing for him to approach.

“Yes, Father?” Lucan said as he came up to them.

“Cordell says that we have two brothers evading the levy, camping somewhere in the western forest. Take Blake and go pull them back by the scruffs of their necks.”

“Yes, Father, but…” Lucan looked meaningfully at his mucked-up armor.

“Wash up first, of course,” his father said. “And, Lucan,” he stopped him as he turned to enter the keep.

“Yes?”

“Since they’ve chosen to defy a lawful levy, then instead of one, both of them are to be pressed into service.”

Lucan turned to his father with wide eyes. “But…”

“We can’t have every wayward fool running into the wild to avoid the levy. Examples must be made. Either they’re both levied or one of them pays for this wrong here. Today.”

Lucan pressed his lips and nodded. Once they’d affirmed that indeed a campaign was beginning, his father had told him that when a levy began, even the most compliant families could turn stubborn. Whenever a levy was raised, some attempted to avoid it or even resist it. Three days ago, Lucan had had to attend to a resisting family with his father. In the end, they’d dragged the family’s third son out of their home by force, thankfully without hurting the family too much. Lucan hadn’t enjoyed dragging the son who was as old as him away from his family. He was in no way young for war, but it had still felt like they were nabbing a child from the embrace of his mother; only so they could throw him into what all historical accounts agreed to be a grinder of human life.

Lucan wasn’t foolish enough to think tales of war entwined with glory were of any truth. What little he’d seen of violent conflict had cast light on how much worse a wider clash could be. Perhaps to princes who wielded their politics and commanded their armies, war could be glory, war could be opportunity; but it wouldn’t be so for those who knew little of combat and were still obligated to fight. And even for those who knew how to fight, it seldom was, as experience had proven.

Unsurprisingly, Lucan spent the rest of his day on a wild chase through the western forest. Even when their hideout was found, the two brothers weren’t keen on giving in. But when they chose not to split up as they fled, they sealed their fate. The tracking party caught up to them eventually. Lucan was forced once again to drag someone’s sons into the growing troop that was being raised, though one of them was quite a bit older than him.

An expanding camp had been formed outside of the bailey, and their men-at-arms were hard at work training and preparing their levied troops. They would march out perhaps twenty days from now, meeting the prince’s army in Epiza. Before then, their raised troops had to be trained and equipped. Men were expected to bring their own armor if they wanted any, while their estate provided the arms, mostly shields and spears for those without experience with another weapon.

One good thing through all this was that the new buildings in the bailey were all but finished, including the granary; which if they didn’t succeed in this campaign would be filled with nothing but dust.

Lucan had had Sawyer also begin building the structure that would later be the Merchant House with which he could hopefully lure more merchants into making the estate their home. But work was still beginning on that building.

His day ended in his father’s study, where the knight and his steward were discussing the coming campaign, and Lucan was attempting to give his head a rest. It was never so simple with his mind though, and it always ended up wandering.

“How long do you think it will be?” Thomas was saying.

“Two months at most,” the knight said. “Only fools bog themselves down in a prolonged war with the Wildermen, and the king knows that.”

“Still not without its risk,” Thomas said.

“Naturally,” Sir Golan nodded. Then he grew silent. When the silence stretched, Lucan realized that the knight was staring at him. “You’re oddly quiet today.”

Lucan shrugged.

“What are you thinking then?”

Lucan sighed. It was a worthless thought but…”I was wondering why Master Saltner chose me. We’re not the only landed knights in the realm. We’re not the richest or the most powerful. Why was he all too happy to tie himself to us when I haven’t even been knighted yet?”

His father and Thomas looked at him as if he was the village idiot and then his father guffawed. Lucan looked askance at him, but the knight kept chuckling and nodded at Thomas.

The steward went on to explain. “You’re not just the son of a landed knight, Lucan. You’re the son of a landed knight from a family already ennobled. They’re not only marrying into this estate, they’re marrying into House Zesh. If nothing else, it comes with its own prestige. There are other considerations to keep in mind too. To raise a knight to lordship is an affair worthy of the realm’s attention. It’s of less note and difficulty when said knight is of prominent noble lineage. Master Saltner knows what he is doing, I can assure you.”

Lucan’s father nodded along with said words.

“I see,” Lucan said. “So it’s nothing of note about me.”

“You have not done anything of note yet, Son,” his father said. “But perhaps soon. Very soon.”