At the edge of the field, in two little boxes, sat two little teams of very jittery cadets. Or, rather, they didn’t sit. One of them sat.
Cole found it very interesting the way that the Cogadh picked and chose elements of battle to try to replicate. He had heard it said by some of the old ollamh and older cadets that the two teams warmed up in little squares, perfectly visible to one another, at one side of the field, was an imitation of the way two armies would meet one another at the field of battle. Tantalizingly close. If disciplined, immobile until orders. Waiting, with bated breath, watching what might be their death.
This wasn’t as serious as all that, but you could hardly tell from the way the cadets treated it.
The way Cole treated it.
The way he hoped – or knew in his very bones – the way The Midraeic treated it. He had to, or he would not have been so daring in their practice combat.
Anyway, it was supposed to train them to gentle their spirit, seeing their soon-to-be-opponents so close, but Cole already had an exceedingly gentled spirit. But he still bent and stretched and limbered, while The Midraeic sat stone still in the corner of his team’s box.
They were watching one another. Cole knew it, though he was trying not to show it, and he assumed The Midraeic knew it, though he, too, was staring as if utterly disinterested in the proceedings at a point off in the distant middle of the filed, or perhaps the sky. Cole could have been projecting, but again, he thought that perhaps The Midraeic had an instinct very like his own, so while that unreadable ‘something funny’ in his gestures and expressions made The Midraeic’s inner thoughts decently opaque, Cole felt comfortable making assumptions.
Cole had also contemplated being absolutely still, appearing relaxed or disinterested before the match, but decided it put too much emphasis on him. His strategy relied on his team’s perception of being a team – that is, more a unit, a single force under a single, joint, will, and not strictly individuals enacting common commands. Entirely hypocritically, he observed The Midraeic’s stillness and thought it pretty deep for a First Year cadet to be playing such psychological games.
He could walk over and say something – he rather liked the idea, imagining it gave him some satisfaction, though he couldn’t fill in the gap of what The Midraeic might do or say. But he certainly couldn’t easily maintain his silent, separate, aloofness. Maybe.
But again – too much attention would be called to him. Maybe after. Then again, maybe after The Midraeic would feel like Cole had felt after their practice match.
He hoped so. Fiercely.
Anyway, the strategy was puzzling, because the rest of The Midraeic’s team looked so tense. His team seemed easy, friendly – very quiet, which wasn’t the natural state of Cogadh teams in the pre-match areas, but The Midraeic’s team was also nearly silent. They looked a little unhappy. He wondered if they were trying to look ‘tough’ and missed. The Midraeic himself looked cool and unbothered, but also separated. Alone. Perhaps even exiled. Glances back at him from his team looked nervous more than like they were seeking comfort. Then again, maybe ‘cool and unbothered’ was just the way his face was.
Cole was intrigued by the thought, but by then, the old ollamh acting as teistméir had started to walk up to where the teams waited.
Cole straightened up, and caught Ardghal’s eye; he was lieutenant, which had surprised (not quite insultingly) the rest of the team, but wouldn’t once they got the match going. They exchanged a nod, and Cole gave him a broad, easy smile, but said nothing. Ardghal’s eyes lifted, shoulders finding their way backward just slightly more, confidence so easily imparted in just a gesture. Cole shouldn’t be surprised it worked – he spent a long time making sure it would work – but it still gave him a funny feeling to see it in action. After his defeat, though, he had drilled them so hard that his confidence was their confidence. He could have imparted it from beyond the grave.
As he had instructed, they maintained absolute silence as they formed up, waiting for the teistméir’s word to head to their starting positions. It was a show of force, of discipline, but also to contrast the noise that had won their opponents their last match. The other team maintained their silence, as well, but even to Cole’s only half-attending eye, it was less intimidating than it was morose.
The stands exploded in a last bit of concentrated noise as the teistméir faced the teams in his ceremonial black, the overblown sleeve of his robe hanging down from tight, long cuffs like a curtain between the teams as he raised his hand. The gesture sending them to their respective ends of the field made it seem like he was physically pushing them apart.
They were not allowed to cross into the field, but had to skirt its edges to look for their end – only once the match started could they enter the foliage and find a place for their cró. That didn’t keep them from scanning the scenery that passed them frantically for clues as to the layout.
In the case of Cole’s team, they did it at a clip, rather than at the barely-above-standing pace Cogadh teams usually took, to maximize their time surveying. With Ardghal in the lead, they trotted to their side and lined up, conversing in whispers only as to areas they saw of promise despite the fact that there wasn’t any chance the other team could hear them, at this point.
This was all part of the plan. For this match, Cole had inculcated a kind of ultimate seriousness, drilling his team in their behaviour as much as actual tactics to employ. In fact, he had only really done behaviour (sure, some tactics, as his faith in Ardghal was good but he wasn’t SO highly ranked he could be relied upon without help). As much as they had a goal, they had an attitude to maintain, something that gave them coherence enough to shatter any half-committed team.
And it would all operate with little-to-no input from Cole.
So they waited.
In the silence, Ardghal did catch his eye, apparently having selected an area for their cró, seeking Cole’s approval, but Cole kept resolutely still – no acknowledgement, no concession of attention. He was pleased to see it harden Ardghal’s expression as he turned away.
The enormous beaded drum hidden off-field changed from its steady, pre-match murmur to a loud, brief tattoo, announcing the line judges taking their places. It shifted into another rhythm, this one a story beat, which to those who studied such things introduced the historical battle meant to be evoked by the field and the placement of the teams. First Years – Cole was furiously, painfully trying to learn, but musical notation meant nothing to him and like everything else he felt asking questions about it would somehow ruin it – would get nothing from this rhythm except to imbibe the spirit of warfare it represented. They should let it quicken the blood, harden the muscles.
The drum broke into the rhythm calling for a charge, beginning the match and plunging them into silence at once.
Cole sprinted away from his team, who melted into the foliage at their edge of the field at a more deliberate pace. From now on, they were not within his purview.
He needed vantage of some kind. The field was largely flat, though the gardeners had built up some small hillocks. Most of the features were shrubs and small trees, densely packed, with any paths through hard to determine from the outside. This also meant each team’s side of the field was largely screened from the other, though this could be deceptive; Cole didn’t really believe that the Geronese at Osning Pass had fled forces filled by conscripted Academy gardeners, believing that the Ainjir army had leshii on their side manipulating the forests, but story didn’t come from nowhere.
What he had seen from the side, though, was an irregular set of breaks in the brush – like might have been carved by a small river or stream, in a natural landscape. This was his best choice, as otherwise he would wind up either up a short tree – a little too exposed – or pushing his way through deceptive underbrush in a kind of back and forth patrol across the shorter axis of the field.
Truly, any way he did it, he was exposed, but that was kind of the point. The patrol idea had some purchase on his mind because it at least meant he had a chance of finding something that would give him an advantage. Either in terrain, or because the Academy gardeners had performed one of those tricks they sometimes did of lacing the field with certain weapons or traps, able to be stumbled upon and turned to the advantage of one team or another (though often enough a First Year team was likely to stumble into a trap and trap itself rather than use it against their enemies. They didn’t tend to use traps in First Year matches).
Just because none had been found yet in the rounds didn’t mean none existed. In fact, that made it more likely they would be out there, as the gardeners always provided some alteration to the field between matches, lest those sneaky cadets try to get some advantage by reporting the terrain to one another (well beyond most of his classmates’ ability, Cole thought, but a wise precaution).
What he didn’t want was for The Midraeic to have enough time to set up an ambush. Confident as he was in his abilities, he was equally confident an ambush by The Midraeic would almost certainly doom him.
See, regardless of who was actually in charge of The Midraeic’s team, every match they had won had turned upon something The Midraeic had done himself. It was a kind of haunting mirror of Cole’s team – as it had been of Aspen’s – that he, Cole, was the hinge upon which their victory usually turned.
So Cole had, over the last week, entirely flipped his team’s dynamic. He would be impressed if The Midraeic had done the same (maybe, a twinge in his chest told him, disappointed if he hadn’t?). Really, his strategy rested upon the fact that it made sense – for the sake of honour, as much as strategically, they should lock themselves in single combat.
He also wanted a chance to avenge himself, but really, that hardly mattered (it mattered a lot, personally, but he furiously denied this to himself). Like taking Aspen out, taking him out would be a necessity.
Midway through the field now, Cole was beginning to feel unsettled that he hadn’t spotted The Midraeic yet. The trees decidedly thickened a few yards opposite the centre, and if Cole had to bushwhack through thicket (however artificially constructed) ambush seemed inevitable. And if he ran into, say, the whole of the rest of The Midraeic’s team, he wasn’t certain he could take them, or necessarily escape.
Like letting a bolt of cloth billow itself flat to be measured and cut, Cole took a moment to array his options before him without stopping his progress forward. Determining and weighing his options always felt like the act of smoothing his hands over rough cloth. Cole considered plans the way his father dismissed stitches, laid the patterns out with only his mind, fingers and eyes measuring more efficiently than any metered string.
The comparison displeased him, but it was true.
A rustle of leaves disturbed the edge of the false-thicket on Cole's side. Ducking into a shrub, Cole watched one of the cadets of the other team spill nervously out of the thicket and bolt for the next cover.
Cole tried to puzzle out the strategy. It wasn’t like there were dozens of forces to array try to guess the purpose of. This cadet looked half-lost. Nervous. He could, potentially, at least take him down...
“Esras Cole.”
Cole frowned. He shifted to pop his eyes over the top of the shrub. The Midraeic stood about ten yards away, and he had a wooden sword clutched in a loose grip by his side.
Well, fuck.
Standing from his cover, Cole brushed himself free of leaves and stepped into a clear patch. He checked the shrub, to see if it was somehow see-through on one side, but it wasn’t.
Another rustle brought both of their attention around to the cadet who had been standing some yards away, who had begun a half-hearted charge in their direction.
“Stop!” The Midraeic barked, knuckles going white on the sword. “This fight is mine.”
On the off chance this was some kind of planned distraction, Cole tried to keep them both in view, but instead only caught a rude gesture from the other cadet as he stopped in his tracks.
“Whip the kneeler, Third,” he snapped to Cole, not bothering to keep his voice low or anything. “Do us all a favour.”
The Midraeic spat at the space between them (disgusting), temporarily causing Cole’s mind to go blank. If this was some kind of exchange of signals, he had no hope of figuring it out.
But he didn’t have to. All he had to do now was show The Midraeic the difference between a fluke, and a victory.