RavensDagger

  Chapter Sixteen - New Names

  52nd Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden EraThe shores of Yellowfield, the Sapphire Ocean, Draya Calyrex

  "Must be nice, not needing to sleep," Mage-Knight Jorvin said as he climbed up the rearmost deck of the ship. He had a tin mug in one hand, a thin stream of steam coming off the top, and under his other arm was a leather-wrapped bundle with several handles sticking out of it.

  "Hello," Green--no, her name wasn't Green any longer. She had to override that thought. It was Viridian now--said. "Good morning."

  "Good morning," the puppet next to her said.

  The third and st just nodded.

  Telling her companions apart might have been tricky, what with the three of them having identical bodies, but their personalities shone through anyway.

  "So, I heard through the grapevine that the old man insisted on getting you lot proper names?" Jorvin said as he set his mug down, then pced the bundle of weapons he carried onto the floor.

  "Viridian," Viridian said. She was quite proud of the name. Perhaps there was some truth to what others had said, about gravitas and dignity.

  "I am Lazur," the puppet formerly known as Blue said. Lazur crossed her naked arms and stood a little straighter, her head tilting up proudly. The name was supposed to make allusions to some sort of gem, while also being close in sound to a particur shade of blue. It had taken her the longest to find a name she was satisfied with, and Viridian wasn't sure if she was going to stick to this one for long.

  "Carnel," Red said.

  "Carnelian," Lazur corrected, but all that did was earn her a ft look from Carnel, which was impressive, as they all only had one look to give.

  Jorvin let out a short breath from his nose. "Right. Well, nice to meet you. We're going to have to skip past most of the pleasantries though. We have a busy day ahead of us. The Magus wants you out again at first light tomorrow. That leaves us with one day to train you back into fighting shape. How are the new bodies?"

  Viridian raised her hand up, then opened and closed it. The new bodies were nice in some ways. Her joints had a much wider range of motion, and were a lot more complex. She hadn't realized how stiff and limited her previous body had been, and how much that contributed to how clumsy they were. Now any clumsiness was entirely her own fault.

  She found herself a little shorter. Where before her eyes were even with Jorvin's, now she met his nose, but that change in height wasn't as bad as the sudden shortening of her arms. It wasn't too much, but she had the impression that she couldn't reach as far, and it was throwing her off.

  The only other issue was the weight.

  Her first body had been... not very good, she realized. But it was light. Thin straps of wood and small joints. This body had thicker, sturdier limbs, more like a human's in form and function, but they came with a lot more mass.

  She didn't feel that much stronger. So just standing up, walking, swinging her arm out, or turning, felt like it required a lot more effort and came much slower.

  "I am... not as fast," she said. "Heavier, too."

  "Huh, we're going to have to work on that. Heavier can be good, in a fight. Mass has a way of deciding fights sometimes. But your reach looks worse and if you're slower, you won't be able to make up for the difference as easily." Jorvin nodded, then he undid a thin leather strap holding the bundle he carried.

  It revealed three training swords. The same they'd used before.

  "Short swords, still?" Carnel asked.

  "Yes," Jorvin said. "But I'll be offering you a wider selection of choices as well. But if you want to survive, then it's better to know one weapon well then a hundred with only passing familiarity. I saw the swords you used during your st excursion. The edges were all nicked, the tips blunted, and one of them had the point rolled so hard I'm not sure it could puncture a toad's skin. Still, it looks like they came in handy."

  "They worked," Lazur said. "I don't prefer them, but they worked."

  "Good," he said. "Besides, our arsenal is a little limited, at the moment. Had I known more about what was going on here, I'd have brought more weapons aboard. As it is, short swords, small spears, and boarding axes are your weapons of choice. The offices have some cutsses as well, but they're all fancy things. Good enough to cut open a pirate if it comes to it, but they're meant to be pretty first."

  "I want an axe," Carnel said.

  Jorvin eyed her, then nodded. "Let's finish training with these in the morning. I'll see about teaching you how to handle an axe ter. But boarding axes aren't proper weapons."

  "What's the difference?" Veridian asked.

  "A weapon is designed for combat first and foremost. Setting aside any comforts, a perfect weapon should be comfortable to use and effective in its task of taking lives."

  He grabbed one of the training short swords and spun it through the air before going through a few quick forms. The wooden sword hummed as he sshed the air, then lunged into a few quick jabs.

  "A stick can be a weapon, but a crafted weapon should be something honed and tailored to its task. In that respect, you will find certain forms across history returning over and over. The spear is one, the sword another, the halberd a third. The axe is a poor weapon. Its function is to rend and chop, where often the thrust is the superior killing motion. However, under certain conditions, the chop is the correct motion and in that case, the axe is appropriate. There is a reason that they are still found on the battlefield, even if they are inferior in some respects."

  Carnel stared at him, then nodded. "Okay," she said.

  Jorvin had them grab a sword each, and then line up. Viridian felt strangely naked as she stood there with only a sword in hand, going through the motions of the forms the Mage-Knight showed them.

  He ran them through several drills, and as they didn't tire, he never let up. He barked instructions, had them make changes to how they stood and held their swords, then came in and corrected their stances in small ways.

  She was slower. The impression was only solidified as she ran through the exercises under Jorvin's watchful eye.

  Then the knight had them spar against him. Three on one.

  She thought they might stand a chance. They'd taken out that man at the lighthouse, and he hadn't been a pushover.

  Instead, Viridian spent the next half hour being thrown to the floor, disarmed, and tripped while Jorvin danced around the three of them. It was frustrating how someone so big could simply dance around them as though this were nothing but a game to him.

  "Well," he said as the sun hit its zenith above. "You're not complete lost causes, but you're not exactly strong. I've seen squires with only a week's training who were leagues ahead of you. If you come across anything that isn't an emaciated, unarmed vilger, then I wouldn't even give you even odds."

  "Can we be better?" Viridian asked.

  "You're getting better," he said. "What you need is time and experience. Unfortunately, I think we're short on one of those." Jorvin grabbed a small piece of cloth and rubbed his sweaty face down. "Let's see about getting you armoured."

  "Armoured?" Carnel asked.

  "Yes. Even the most basic soldier will have a gambeson, at the very least. You have no muscles to tire, so I can't see a reason not to have you carry some amount of armour on your selves. Though it will slow you down further."

  Viridian was excited for a moment. She didn't like the idea of heading out naked as she was. There was nothing to show on her puppet body, but... something about not being clothed felt wrong on some fundamental level.

  Unfortunately, she was soon disappointed in what the Mage-Knight had to offer.

  He brought them down to a level below the main deck where the ship's quartermaster pulled out the only armour they had avaible. The gambesons were nothing impressive to look at. Rather, they were thickly padded shirts coloured an uninspired beige, with ties running down the front.

  "We've got caps too," the quartermaster said. "Don't use 'em much. Sometimes at port we'll outfit some of the boys as guards and station them 'round the ship, to keep people's minds in the right pce."

  He went into the stock room and returned with a trio of caps made of soft-boiled leather with metal ptes around them and a small brim at the front. They were also far from pretty.

  "It will do," Viridian said as she took one of the caps and turned it over. It would do... but it was also very ugly. For some reason, that bothered her, though not as much as being undressed. She looked past the quartermaster, and her eyes caught something which she pointed at. "What's that?"

  "This?" he asked as he reached back. "It's a sewing kit. Thread and needles and the like. Our boys go through clothes fast, especially when we're out at sea for a while. Give them a few months, and some of them are stitching rags together to make it through one more day."

  Viridian stared. "I want that," she said.

  The quartermaster stared back, then shrugged. "I can sell it to you. And if you don't have the coin, well, I'm sure we can arrange something with the purser."

  ***