Payne laughed. He clapped Ming Tang on the shoulder, meant to be a gesture of camaraderie, but he nearly threw Ming Tang off balance with the force of it. As they stood there in the driving rain, a shadow of a ship began to appear through the clouds and water.
The Viking and his trainees were approaching.
“I’m with you, Payne.” Creston de Royans, a trainer known as The Avenger, came up beside him. The man had a club in his hand and he held it menacingly. “I’ll help you with the onslaught. Remember that I had these recruits last year, so I am well acquainted with their tactics.”
Payne looked at the big, blond knight. “I had them two years ago,” he said. “I spent an entire year teaching them what I know best.”
“And what’s that?” Creston said drolly. “How to offend women? Or how to be obnoxious?”
Payne sneered at him. “Ye’re jealous I took that dark-eyed lass from yet at the Black Cock,” he said, referring to the local tavern they used as their relaxation haven. “She dinna want a blond beast, Cres. I told ye that.Shetold ye that.”
Creston waved him off. “You got her drunk and told her I had already outlived six wives,” he said. “No wonder she ran from me. But do not worry. I do not hold a grudge. Not much, anyway.”
Payne started to laugh. “Do ye mean I have tae watch my back even now, at this moment?”
“You’ll never known until it’s too late.”
That brought a roar of laughter from Payne. But the continued repartee was cut short when the enormous cog drew nearer to the shore. The boat was one that the Lords of Exmoor, the men who owned and operated the Blackchurch Guild, had purchased from a ship builder in London and brought out to the wilds of Devon, in pieces, and then reconstructed in the lake. It was quite large, easily holding a hundred men, but the class of recruits on it was about twenty men and one trainer. The vessel moved by rowing but also by sail, and out of Blackchurch’s thousand-man army, about a hundred of them were in the hold, rowing it toward the shore where the Blackchurch trainers, allnine of them plus three assistant trainers, were waiting. Perhaps twenty men against twelve didn’t seem like fair odds, but when one was dealing with the men who trained the most elite warriors in the world, the odds were fairly even.
“Spread out,” Payne boomed to the men around him. “They’ll come from the bow, so watch both sides of the ship.”
The trainers moved into position, spreading out in layers. Payne and Ming Tang and Creston were closest to the ship while the others were strategically positioned up the hill, all the way back to the cottage where one of the assistant trainers was stationed to protect the banner that the trainees were supposed to capture. Once they had it, the exercise was up, but unfortunately, any trainees knocked to the ground and failing to get to their feet unaided would be drummed out of Blackchurch. The rules were harsh, but not without hope. Anyone who failed would have the opportunity to try again in another year. But all trainees feared that rule—if one failed at any point during the five-year training course, they were finished until the next recruit class was formed.
Therefore, this was an important moment.
As the ship went aground on the edge of the lake and men began leaping from the bow and into knee-deep water, approaching the shore with clubs in hand, the trainers of the Blackchurch Guild braced themselves. As the wind howled and the storm surged, the moment of truth was upon them.
Chaos ensued.
*
“It’s loose, butit should tighten up.”
Payne had just had Ming Tang look at one of his teeth. He’d been hit so hard in the face because of the rain and the darkness that he hadn’t seen the club flying at him until it wastoo late. Fortunately, he didn’t go down, but his fury in being struck landed the man who’d hit him on his backside, knocked unconscious by the raging Scotsman. It had been enough to fail the man out of Blackchurch, a man that everyone had thought was a sure bet to finish the training, so the night of battle and cottage capturing had had some unexpected moments.
And some glorious ones.
Even now, the Blackchurch trainers were sitting in their usual alcove at the Black Cock Tavern, a rather large and well-used establishment in the village that wasn’t even a mile south of the Blackchurch Guild. Some, like Payne and Creston and an assistant trainer named Axton Summerlin, were sporting some physical evidence of what had been a surprisingly brutal fight, but others were unscathed on the surface. At least, they weren’t admitting the injuries that could be covered by a tunic or breeches. Everyone was gathered around the table, ale and food between them, speaking of their experience against The Viking’s trainees.
Eleven had survived and captured the banner.
No one was prouder of that than The Viking himself.
“It was a difficult task, my friends,” Kristian said, lifting his cup to the group. “Well done, all of you.”
Cups were lifted in Kristian’s direction. “Well doneyou,” Tay said. “You helped get them this far, Kristian. Your teachings are not exactly simple. It is one of the more complex segments that we put our recruits through.”
Kristian smiled, pleased with the acknowledgment. Very tall and very blond, as one might expect of a Northman, he was a prince of his people, something he’d left behind long ago. In that respect, however, he was actually the only royal member of the Blackchurch trainers. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he had a strong magnetism about him, an authority and charm that drew people to him in a way other men lacked.
“I would not have a class at all were it not for most of you training them to reach this point,” he said, lifting his cup to his comrades. “That is why we are the best in the world,pojkar. That is why we are legendary.”
Pojkar.It was an affectionate term in Kristian’s language, something meaning boys or lads. Soft chants of agreement to his statement could be heard around the table, a table that did, indeed, contain the most legendary and impressive trainers of warriors that the world had seen.
That was Blackchurch—legendary and impressive.
In addition to Payne, Tay, Kristian, Sinclair, Creston, and Ming Tang, there were others—Fox de Merest, a former royal knight who was known as The Protector, Cruz Mediana de Aragon, a knight from Zaragoza who trained men in covert thinking and tactics, and a glorious warrior named Aamir ibn Rashid. Known as The North Star, Aamir was from Egypt, his father was a great Egyptian warlord, and it was his task to teach men about different armies, cultures, and fighting techniques.
There was no one better at it.
