Bastion

the Herald Trainees who was certainly “intermediate” if not a bit higher.
    The helmet obscured the face of the young man he was paired up against, but the way the fellow moved let Mags know this was someone he had never fought with before. The young Guardsman’s introduction confirmed that. “Helden,” said the Guardsman, giving him a salute. “You’re Mags, right?”
    “Aye, that’d be me.” Mags made sure that the straps holding all of his padding were snugged down tight, then tamped his helmet on. “Would you be a bodyguard in training?”
    “Aye.” Helden shifted his posture into the ready position. “Queen’s men. Want to lead off as attacker? I’ve been hacking at Grell for the past three days, it feels like. I need some defense.”
    “Trust me, it only seems that long,” Mags replied with a laugh, and went into the attack.
    He spotted Helden’s weakness immediately as he scored a shoulder hit that would have taken his left arm off if it had been a metal blade and would have probably broken the joint if Mags hadn’t been pulling his blows. “Hold up a bit,” he said, “I want to see something. Hold out your left arm and fight what I’m doing.”
    Helden obliged. Mags pressed up on it from below, and got heavy resistance. But when he pressed down from above, he felt the arm trembling and giving way. “There’s yer problem,” he said. “Ye need t’be exercising both sets of arm muscles.”
    “But that’s my off arm,” Helden objected. “I won’t be holding a shield when—”
    Then he stopped. He realized that if the Weaponsmaster had put Mags in charge of him, then Mags knew what he was talking about. So he properly shut up and let Mags explain.
    “Ye’ll have armor on that arm that’s almost as heavy as a shield, and meant to serve as one,” Mags explained patiently. “Except that it don’t work exactly like a shield does. Ye gotta be careful with that kinda heavy arm armor. Ye don’t block with it, ye gotta learn to move and deflect. And ye can’t just tuck yer arm behind ye like ye been doin’. Started on Court fencing?”
    Looking puzzled, Helden nodded.
    “Thought so. Court fencing’s good training, but not for this. It’s all rules and lines. Bodyguardin’ is no rules at all, and figure the one comin’ at ye is gonna play dirty.” Absently he noticed that his speech had lapsed again, but Helden didn’t seem to notice or care, so he continued on. “That’s why ye’ll get armor on yer off arm, and yer to use it sorta a shield, only not the kind yer used to. Get off the line of attack if ye can, but ye may be pinned in—look, I’ll show ye. Come at me.”
    Helden did, using the same pattern that Mags had—a stab at the gut, which was parried and turned into a cut down to the shoulder. Only Mags had brought his arm up in such a way that the wooden blade glanced along it and down, and while Helden was gawking, Mags closed with a hammerlike blow of his hilt to the gut, and as Helden staggered back, a cut to the neck that he stopped short of connecting.
    “See?” Mags said. Helden nodded.
    “It’s a whole different way of thinking,” the young Guardsman said, rubbing his neck.
    “Right, so, instead of thinkin’ of it as unlearnin’, think of it as learnin’ something new. Like ye did when ye learned sword and shield work for in the line.” Mags scratched his head. “Got an ideer.”
    He went to the equipment room and procured a tiny shield, not even the size of a dinner plate, to strap onto Helden’s left wrist.
    “This’ll remind ye t’keep that arm out, not tucked behind,” he said with satisfaction. “Weaponsmaster’ll have some weights for the wrist, I reckon. Or heavier padding for yer off arm. But this’ll do for now.”
    Out of the corner of his eye, he had been watching Amily with astonishment and pleasure. She had changed into a pair of trews that she bound at the ankle and up her calves, and she was giving her partner as good as she got. She was favoring her bad leg a good bit, but compensating for it, and her partner wasn’t good enough to take advantage of the weakness. This was making Mags extremely happy. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she had said she could take care of herself.
    He went back to turning the young Guardsman into a proper royal bodyguard. He suspected this fellow was destined to be part of Princess Lydia’s entourage rather than going to the Queen, since the Queen already had a contingent of men she