Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 Read Online Free PDF

portentous events. Every people thought themselves at the center of World, and never was it actually so. Events of which no plainsman had ever heard—the war among the ironmen, the descent from the great plateau, the chivvying west of the shortgrassmen—would echo and redound on the Folk of the Great Grass. And even here, among so puissant a people as the iron men, events beyond their horizon had sent greenies to torment them.
    In the barracks, Sammi spoke to Teodorq privately while the two of them cleaned and sharpened their blades. "Hey, stupid plainsman. Why you watch Kal so close during works out?"
    Teo looked about the barracks, saw Kal at the far end with the other recruits and the gaming dice. He ran the whetstone along the upper edge. "You know what the yar says. 'Eyes on the enemy.' 'Fight the opponent not the sword!'"
    "Plus profanity. Sammi hear him say it."
    "Well, every man thinks different," Teo told the hillman. "So every man fights different. The best place to beat a man is in his own mind. I need to know how Kal fights, get into his head. Which I grant you is tight quarters. You notice how he likes to swing his sword with
both
hands? Bad habit. The follow-through on that stunt leaves his right side exposed, which he ain't got no guard."
    "Yeah?" said Sammi. He finished cleaning his weapon, returned it to his scabbard, and hung it on the rack. "Well, case you not notice, Kal studies Teddy real good, too. What bad habits you got?"
    Teodorq could handle the swords more nimbly than even some of the more experienced legionnaires, who prior to coming to Cliffside Keep had known only bows or pikes. But Teodorq was accustomed to knife f ights, and this was only a longer, sharper knife. He began to add knife tactics to his swordplay when Kal was not around.
    Now and then, the princess would come down from the Keep to watch the men at practice, sometimes with the Wisdom, but other times with only her women as escort. There was a set of raised benches from which others might watch the yard, and she usually sat in the center of the lowest tier, chin cupped in both her hands. Teodorq always tried to put on a good showing when the princess was watching. In one mock combat against the wooden fencing post, he managed to land his blows in such a way as to carve out a tolerable face from the grain of the wood.
    "Show-off," Kal muttered.
    "She comes to see Sammi," the hillman explained in barracks that evening. Hidaq and P. Z. expressed skepticism. "Why you?" Hidaq asked.
    "Sammi prettiest man in Cliffside." He said this with the air of one stating the patently obvious.
    "They must have some mighty ugly men here, then," Kal answered.
    Sammi looked around the barrack room and spread his hands as if his point had been proven.
    Teodorq snorted derision. It seemed to him that the princess looked on the men as a trader at the Horse Fair looks upon a new remuda of stallions. Any time, he expected, she would come down from the viewing benches and check out at their teeth and inspect the soles of their feet.
    And maybe take one of them out for a ride.
    "When you think they gonna let us outside the fort?" Kal asked.
    Teodorq looked up in surprise from his needlework. He had been repairing his vest. "They keeping us in?"
    Kal blinked and cocked his head. "I see yer point, Rabbit. You an' me, and even yer hill-man here, could leave anytime we wanted to. But they probably think the guards and the walls are enough to stop deserters."
    The hillman smiled. "Sammi getting three meals and exercise, so no rush. Bide time. Consider options."
A Point of a Sword
    Because the Legion was primarily a scouting force, they trained on horseback as well, and here Teo and Kal excelled from the start, since they had been very nearly born in the saddle. Although the horses were larger and clumsier than their own prairie ponies, and both plainsmen were accustomed to fighting with the compound bow, they learned to swing their longswords from horseback without