Their Grappling ollamh, Dubhlainn, was exceedingly jolly, liked group work, and had arms that seemed to measure a full two-thirds of his height. He could make these arms seize your ankle before his head touched your shoulder in the clinch, or so it felt when you wound up face to the dirt before you were even close enough to apply your strategy.
Perhaps that was why he liked pairing the short cadets – which included Dominicus – with their bigger classmates in group work. Perhaps that was also why he seemed to take particular pleasure when the shorter cadets – including Dominicus – got the better of their opponents. His laughter, booming and outsized for his lanky frame in lecture and demonstration, was, when low and bubbling, frequently the signal an individual bout was over. For the first few weeks it had made Dominicus nervous, until he realized teaching appeared to be a constant delight for this particular ollamh. Except perhaps for the Tactics ollamh, who was apt to get over-excited about his own descriptions of unexpected kinks in the supply route and other dramatically consequential but infinitesimals details of campaigning (Dominicus had heard his specialty was Logistics, which… made sense), this was the only ollamh who seemed to take such joy in his subject.
Maybe that was why Dominicus sometimes felt absurdly desirous of doing well, very much in spite of himself. He also thought maybe had an unfair advantage, in that Catillia, in particular (though Auriol and Spenova had their part to play) spent a great deal of their childhood making sure Dominicus was used to being grabbed and sat on, and escaping such grabbings and sittings-on. Surely some of his classmates had siblings, as well.
He had always known his siblings were… unique, though.
“Galen,” said one of his group-mates, leaving the rough circle of grass where they were practicing. “You’re up.”
Dominicus had been watching the ollamh walk through the groups, watching the other combatants and the way they struggled their way through the exercise, thinking it shouldn’t be quite as difficult as they were making it out to be.
His opponent in the rotation was, this time, about his height. A cadet named Brahn, as fully a third of their class seemed to named, who had started going by ‘Kiso’, which presumably had something to do with his family name (Dominicus had no idea how such things were being decided; they had defaulted to addressing him – when being polite – by his family name, and Dominicus had to admit this was appropriate despite how common Midraeic family names could be. They weren’t likely to run into other ‘Galen’s here, or even in Ainjir as a whole). Kiso was nervous, sandy-haired, and generally a bit clumsy with his forms.
Dominicus stepped forward and lowered himself down into what he had determined was his comfortable starting position. Kiso used the form the ollamh had demonstrated for them, despite the fact he wasn’t comfortable in it. He didn’t hold his balance correctly. He was top-heavy from the start, leaning forward as he crouched down, not keeping his weight full across his feet. Knocking him down through that weakness wouldn’t help him learn the new grip, though, so Dominicus ignored it.
One of the other cadets started the count, and barked the command for them to start.
Kiso lurched before Dominicus had moved, but not to do anything – just anticipating the clinch. He laughed uneasily; he wasn’t focused. Dominicus took a sudden step in and to the side to encourage him to focus, allowing Kiso to clumsily mirror and begin a rotation. He was less unsteady when he was moving because he couldn’t over-think it, but had no idea what to do next, naturally, except the few ways of closing and seizing an opponent they had been taught.
Once Kiso was moving comfortably and had stopped laughing, his eyes more locked-in on Dominicus, Dominicus telegraphed the clinch they were expected to perform to lead into the next movement.
Kiso was slow – a fraction behind in matching Dominicus – but once he was focused he performed much better. They met arm-to-arm, heads pointed over eachothers’ shoulders. Now it was a matter of who started the move first, and Kiso was reluctant – or, perhaps, just still slow.
It was just practice – they weren’t supposed to be creative or necessarily trying to ‘win’ as much as trying to practice reading their opponents and feeling out the motions they needed to make – but Dominicus didn’t really need to practice this particular move. So he pushed on Kiso in the clinch, refusing to take the step.
“Why do you hesitate?” he asked, pulling back enough to be sure he was heard.
Talking was a mistake. It utterly distracted Kiso who looked stupidly up into Dominicus’ face, seemed embarrassed but at least didn’t laugh, then put his considerable power into pushing back. Kiso really was quite powerful, and as almost Dominicus’ height, could negate some of the advantage Dominicus had with other cadets by being equally grounded. But only if he focused.
So Dominicus met and returned Kiso’s force. Kiso let out a small breath between his teeth, as if surprised (why? He shouldn’t be), and finally took the step in. He fucked up getting around Dominicus’ arm, but because the only thing they had practiced more than starting clinches was protecting themselves while falling, Dominicus was unhurt when Kiso rolled him over his hip. Whether through fumbling or forethought, Kiso was able to help Dominicus not get the breath beat out of him when his back hit the ground, but the fact that he was seemed to surprise him.
“Good,” Dominicus said, as Kiso (again, a little surprised) helped him up.
“What d’you mean ‘good’,” a voice from the group scoffed, in that half-volume between wanting and not wanting to be generally heard.
Dominicus knew who it was, if not because he was getting better telling the Ainjir apart then because he had noticed this cadet’s brewing and totally unaccountable hostility during class today.
“Uhh,” Kiso said, “was that not good? I thought it was okay,” he looked at the rest of the cadets, some of whom shrugged or nodded.
“No, I mean, what are YOU doing telling HIM ‘good’? You’re not the ollamh.”
Dominicus busied himself brushing grass off his uniform, but kept his eyes fixed on the cadet.
His name was N’teämo, which Dominicus had heard shortened by others to something that sounded like ‘Teh-uh’. He was on Dominicus’ Cogadh team, but nothing that had happened at the few team meetings explained why this cadet seemed suddenly so annoyed by Dominicus.
Dominicus at least understood why the whole situation with their Cogadh team was annoying, so maybe that was it.
The ollamh did nothing to help them find their teammates, except further attenuate the already-loosely organized ‘Groups’ class by releasing them to work with their teams. This was a serious problem for Dominicus, who other than having a vague notion that he had heard some of the names from his team said in classes, had no idea who his teammates were.
It was a coin flip whether he was more disinterested in asking his other classmates for guidance, or they were more disinterested in helping him. Particularly in his Groups class, where he had frequently found they met each other at the edges like mismatched paving stones. At their release from Groups, he waved to Ruaridh (who had offered to help, only to rather nervously be of no use), Feichín (cheerfully of no use), and Fachtna (who he hadn’t asked for help; Fachtna hadn’t grown on him) and tried not watch them depart for their various meeting places. He kicked at the grass as he walked – going nowhere in particular, just walking, and more or less stumbled on his team by process of elimination.
The First Years nominally sequestered themselves from one another in the general scope of their ‘territory’ on the campus, but none risked going too far. The lines of their area of safety had become more and more marked thanks to the marauding of the Second Years, who would also be out to work with their Cogadh groups at this time. Dominicus, who had taken to being rather dilatory in his walk to meet his group had already noticed a drop-off in the amount the Second Years were preoccupying themselves with policing the First Years.
Cogadh seemed to have everyone dreadfully worked up.
On the one hand, he didn’t care very much about Cogadh. Or, he wasn’t well-prepared to care about it. It made him nervous; he felt the frisson everyone else also felt, just distantly. It wasn’t for him.
Fachtna and Ruaridh had each half exploded when the list of teams came out. Apparently, arranging the Cogadh teams before ranking the cadets was some signal of… something. They speculated. It happened, periodically (apparently), but… why?
An uncomfortable, silent-but-obvious-in-their-sliding-glances assumption was that it had something to do with him. Dominicus had some to realize that anytime anything even slightly unusual happened, there would be some speculation it was because he was here. No matter how absurd. And because they were First Year cadets, everything seemed unusual until somebody told somebody else who told somebody else they were all being ridiculous.
Admittedly, it was hard to learn things about Academy life when no one wanted to ask the ollamh – for fear of looking ignorant and thus losing esteem – and the Second Year class seemed determined to murder them, one by one, like cuckoos pushing siblings out of the nest (it wasn’t clear to Dominicus if this was unusual, but it definitely wasn’t his fault and nobody seemed to blame him for it as a general thing).
He should care, at least a little about, about the Cogadh; he did enough to at least find his team in the first place. But from their first meeting, they were already fighting. One named Bannamorga and one named Ergamuth both intended to lead. The other six cadets sat around the little copse they had chosen to meet in stood or sat in various states of boredom and dejection; the two fighting had clear physical advantages over most of them, except one, who saw Dominicus appear at the edge of their group and said,
“Oh, no, they fucked us.”
This one, Dominicus would come to realize, had been among the group trying to kill him on the very first day. Separated from his companions, he had apparently lost interest in pursuing the grudge. And despite having the physique of one who had long been comfortably well-fed, he appeared to have no interest in further asserting himself in the team, either.
“Does this mean the Second Years are going to be harder on us?”
“Somebody had to…”
“Will we get extra consideration? Like the team with the extra cadet gets harsher evaluations?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ergamuth had said sharply, in a good imitation of command, instantly deflated by his uncertain shock it seemed to work and silence followed. He had swallowed – visibly and awkwardly – before continuing in an unsteady voice, “We just need to be a good team and we’ll have the advantage.”
Almost meaningless as this was, an unhappy truth weighed it down as Bannamorga immediately scoffed – “Who is on the team definitely matters” – sparking a return of the mixed babble that had filled the clearing following Dominicus’ entrance.
Only with difficulty had the two prime combatants returned to dominance, only to fruitlessly pursue each other in circles with proposal and counter-proposal as the others wilted into boredom.
Now, generally, it was Dominicus’ policy to stay out of Ainjir fights. He was in the wrong place for it, but it remained a firmly ingrained habit. Yet.
Yet.
Yet–
“That will not work,” he said, causing another silence. Despite having pitched his voice to interrupt, he was still a little surprised it worked. And unsettled by the way the two fighters focused on him.
Bannamorga scoffed, ready to ignore him, but Ergamuth asked, “Why not?”
He tried to explain – he thought, in a very kind way – “We have just learned this lesson. The skills required… are not widespread.”
“It’s good to reflect lessons,” Ergamuth protested, “even if we fail.”
“You’re planning to fail,” Bannamorga spat at his opponent. “Winning is the only way forward.”
“I’m not planning to fail, I just—”
“We don’t need clever strategy, we need to survive, and for that, we only need to put our strongest fighters forward.”
Then he was looking at Dominicus, and it was clear Bannmorga did not count him among their strongest fighters.
“We need some strategy,” Ergamuth said. “Everyone else will have some strategy.”
Bannamorga scoffed, and another cadet from the circle said, “We don’t even know what the field will look like. What strategy can we have?”
This was an incredibly stupid thing to say, so Dominicus was unpleasantly surprised by the murmur of agreement that passed through the group. Even Ergamuth – who, if he had bad ideas, had nonetheless seemed not to be stupid – gave a little nod of concession, though he also seemed to be ready to continue to argue his point.
“No,” Dominicus said, and received a rather less accommodating silence in return. “To say so misses the point of strategy.”
“What’s that mean? D’you mean I don’t get it? Are you saying I’m stupid?”
Perhaps Dominicus had said it that way. And also meant it that way. And also was saying that, a little bit. But that was also a needlessly combative reply, which just proved he was right. He tried to trust that the two friends with hands on the cadets’ shoulders would check any violence – but also, this was their stupid game, their stupid set of ideas. Dominicus didn’t even want to know it. They ought to know this – God, wasn’t it being beaten into their heads, too?
“Strategy and tactics are different…”
But this caused even more disruption, as the group exploded into groans and lamentations:
“Not this again…”
“Ugh, Tactics is going to kill me…”
“Can we not? For once?”
Bannamorga took the opportunity to seize control of the conversation again.
“Right, Cogadh won’t be held in a classroom, so keep that shit to yourself. When we need a fucking reading to cross the cró, we’ll call for you.” Another word hung on his lips, but he seemed to think he had done enough to dismiss Dominicus for now.
“It’s been fucking books and classes up to now, but that’s over. All we need now is skill, not words…”
Dominicus had never seen these cadets fight, but he didn’t need to. They did not have the skill to accomplish the feats Bannamorga and Ergamuth proposed. Despite this, even Ergamuth seemed to accept that plans could not laid on a group unwilling to learn them. What followed was the necessary and deeply stupid sifting of the strong from the weak, with those particularly eager forming an impromptu wrestling tournament while the others were content to let Bannmorga and the small group that quickly coalesced to kiss his ass rank them.
Dominicus, of course, was at the bottom. Not least because at least one of the other cadets was in his Swordplay class, but also because he had no interest in combat for a place in a meaningless hierarchy, a point which he made clear by refusing to participate in any ‘ranking’ bouts. But if he had any hope that any of the other cadets so ranked had similar feelings, they quickly disabused him of the notion.
One, with gritted teeth as he watched two idiots wrestle in the leaves, simply asserted that “This was the team they were on,” as if that explained things sufficiently.
Subsequent meetings had gone just the same. Now that a hierarchy had been established, a habit of dismissing any of the ‘bottom-ranked’ cadets’ ideas had set in, meaning each meeting often devolved into a revisiting of their wrestling matches among the same four or five ‘top’ cadets most willing to make asses of themselves to get their points across.
Their points, which were often stupid.
Sometimes the only point was to undermine someone they had a particular grudge against that day. Ergamuth – who at least tried to think differently – fought valiantly to get any purchase, but Bannamorga had developed a couple of lower-ranked hangers-on who were always willing to try to score points with him by antagonizing Ergamuth in particular.
It was profoundly stupid. That Dominicus thought it was profoundly stupid often showed on his face. Last meeting, someone had made the mistake of trying to force the issue through grappling with him, however, and Dominicus had rather handily put him down. This only confirmed how shockingly stupid the decision-makers on his team were. Some of the other cadets had warned the group that Dominicus was good at Grappling already, though he refused to prove it, when they were (at Ergamuth’s frustrated suggestion) at least trying to account for their individual strengths as possible contributions to their strategy.
Now, here was Teä, apparently aiming to try it again.
Maybe his whole Cogadh team was terminally stupid.
“Yeah,” one of Kiso’s friends in the circle of cadets said, “but… uh… he’s, like, probably the best at this, out of us, so…”
A small but uncommonly gentle dispute erupted.
“I’m pretty good…”
“Yeah, but he tossed your ass like nothing first thing…”
“Kiso kind of cheated, I mean, he could have taken you way faster…”
“How’s that ME cheating?!”
“He tossed like six cadets at the front of class the other day. I think the ollamh just didn’t like them.”
“Let’s not be assigning best, you know, getting to demonstrate is like extra practice…”
“I’m sure you’ll get there, buddy.”
“Good at demonstrating doesn’t mean shit,” Teä said, flinging the jacket he had slung loosely over his shoulders to the ground and stepping up to the circle. “‘Good’ when it’s not for anything, when it’s not a real bout, doesn’t mean shit either.”
This wasn’t the right order for practice, but nobody seemed inclined to point that out to Teä. Dominicus might have tried walking away – class was one of the few places where walking away often worked – except the other cadets had all settled into their positions around the ring as observers.
“This is not the place for real bouts,” Dominicus said. “This is practice.”
“Practice without application is a waste of time,” Teä growled, setting himself into a starting position.
This cause some murmured discussion, which was irritating.
“What application? When will this be applied?”
“Now, believer,” Teä said, and lunged.
Dominicus hadn’t set him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t ready. He turned to step out of the way, only to be surprised by Teä’s arm catching his hips and slinging him around and down. He hadn’t expected Teä to be that fast, which was really his own fault, but if he let himself fall he was dead. Despite stumbling over his own feet, he seized the back of Teä’s undershirt with both hands and dragged himself upright with it. Teä not only held his ground, but defended his front with crossed arms in case Dominicus tried to knee him in the face or torso.
Dominicus’ heart leapt, blood beating instantly faster, all other thoughts flushed out of his mind.
Teä was serious. Fast arms leapt out again, and this time Dominicus didn’t dodge, but as his hips were seized, seized Teä’s waist in return and threw himself backward to the ground. They rolled and separated, both skidding in the grass to get turned around and set to face one another again – and again, Teä struck forward, trying to keep Dominicus off-balance through speed. Dominicus met him this time, forcing the clinch to be one he wanted, his right arm higher. Dominicus pushed off the ground, forcing Teä to pause to contend with his weight, then feinted in, his right arm slipping down and in to sweep Teä’s left leg out from under him.
Teä really was good, and was quite fast, and shifted his leg back out of reach, shoving back into the clinch, but this was what Dominicus had aimed for him to do. Dominicus turned his sweep into a step in, folded Teä over his hip and threw him to the ground – the very move they had been practicing.
There were a few ‘ooh’s from the circle that were soon subsumed under the burbling laughter of the ollamh. More than having a delight in teaching, he had an ear for conflict.
“Excellent, both of you,” he said, clapping quietly a few times. “Almost at speed. Galen – you need to be practicing at speed. N’ teämo, excellent opposition, excellent fall.”
Teä had risen, furious, as if to close again, but the ollamh had already pushed through the circle and one long arm around Teä’s shoulder turned him around before he could visit any of the violence on his face on Dominicus. As if he had intended to from the start, the ollamh led Teä out to another circle, explaining his skill would be of more use in this new group, and in the same gesture banishing another to Galen’s group and signalling that exercises should re-start.
The new cadet didn’t look happy. Dominicus was still standing in the middle of the circle.
“I just went.” Kiso’s hand, fingers shaped into a circle, went to his chest. “Not it, for practicing at speed.”
A series of little thumps as the other cadets all repeated the gesture – the last cadet to do so just said, “Fuck.”
“I don’t understand,” Dominicus said, later that evening as he, Feichín, and Ruaridh walked to dinner.
“Come one, everybody knows ‘not it’,” Ruaridh said, perhaps hoping to drag them to dinner faster, continually finding himself a few paces ahead and needing to pause to let them catch up.
“It should be more subtle,” Dominicus returned.
“I think it usually it more subtle,” Feichín offered gently.
This made Ruaridh laugh, as had much of the story. “I wish I could have seen it, a bunch of those chumps afraid to battle the Midraeic cadet.”
“You don’t know who ‘those chumps’ were,” Feichín pointed out. “It’s probably best not to start thinking about your Cogadh team as ‘those chumps’,” he explained to Dominicus.
“What if they are chumps?”
“They deserved it,” Ruaridh interrupted. “I’ll bet ‘believer’ wasn’t the worst they were thinking.”
This had not struck Dominicus as particularly bad, but he realized he was perhaps missing context. Maybe it should have made him angrier. He hadn’t really been angry at all.
“Even if they are chumps, you have to work with them,” Feichín said.
“Ehhhh,” Ruaridh said, getting ahead again, “yeah, that is true. But they can still be chumps.”
“They do not want to work with me,” Dominicus said, but this was obvious. It was also unlikely to change, at least for a while. “I don’t even know what set Teä off.”
“He’s a prick,” Ruaridh called back.
Feichín said nothing, looking at the darkening ground as he walked. Dominicus was learning, however, that this didn’t mean he had nothing to say.
He spoke a little too quietly for Ruaridh, now many steps ahead of them, to hear. “What do you think?”
Feichín looked at him, at first mildly surprised, but then with a slight gathering of his brows and frown. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, pleasantly. “It could very well be he just doesn’t like you for some reason.”
“Would he not have said something worse, as Ruaridh suggests?”
Feichín glanced aside, to where Ruaridh had turned in the dark to make sure he wasn’t losing them before marching on. “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps not,” Dominicus replied.
“Perhaps not,” Feichín agreed. “I wouldn’t want to say anything about a situation I didn’t witness myself.”
“Say it anyway,” Dominicus demanded flatly.
Feichín showed his teeth and hesitated. “Well, you know, it must be rather irritating.”
Dominicus refused to keep playing his game. It was going to drive him insane. Maybe this also showed on his face, or maybe it was too dark.
“It must be rather irritating,” Feichín continued laboriously, “to know that someone could be doing better but refuses to.”
This seemed foolishly charitable, and while Feichín might be charitable, Dominicus had come to see that he wasn’t a fool. Especially when it came to observing his fellow cadets and the situations they were put into in this place.
After a few silent steps, he added. “Especially someone you’re supposed to be working with, depending on – someone with whom you share a mutual chance for success and promotion or failure. Incredibly frustrating.”
“That is a strange way to show frustration,” Dominicus said.
Feichín made a non-committal noise. “Well, what must it look like from the outside? Many cadets – or at least those that are serious about acutally doing well here – understand their own shortcomings, or have come to understand them, and to some degree understand how they must behave to compensate for them or overcome them. A few cadets have come to understand that they have strengths, and are trying to exploit them or cultivate them to overcome any shortcomings they have, whether they fully understand those or not. Cogadh necessarily ties fates together, and whatever the make up, each team either raises or lowers all its members through its performance – Teä’s fate is now tied to yours. It must be a little bit incomprehensible to see cadet with strengths refuse to apply those strengths even to help themselves.”
“I’m not doing that,” Dominicus said reflexively.
Feichín smiled at him, as if to say ‘of course not’ and lapsed back into silence.
“Sweet Peace, you two, at this pace we’ll get there just in time to have to sit nearest the Second Years,” Ruaridh sprang out of the dark to say. “Come ON.”
So encouraged – for it was true – they hustled on, and Feichín said no more on the subject. Then again, he didn’t need to.
Well, fuck, Dominicus thought.