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I introduced myself as a down-at-heels noblenize a Red March prince and, thinking themselves old croith Grandmother’s face on it and remonstrated about the family resemblance, but I didn’t have one Or a silver crown And the coppers ned before Grandhter or me

Snorri said little at the inn, his tension clear, worried that word ainst him We spent the ree soup andon into Rhone, which despite s, seemed very much like Red March, except that the people tended to roll out their r’s in an annoying manner

The first Rhonish toe ca A sizable place with the dull but worthy nah street, a thoroughfare croith traders, travellers, and townsfolk Snorri reined in towards a smithy open to the street and loud with hammers

“We should get you a sword, Jal” He’d taken to calling me Jal, not “my prince,” or “Prince Jalan,” or even “Jalan,” but “Jal” I didn’t let him know it annoyed me because he’d just do it exactly the sarin “How are you with a blade?”

“Better than you are with a horse,” I said

Snorri snorted and his mare joined in He’d called her Sleipnir after so on despite hi about the same as his steed He dis falling off its perch

“Show me?” He pulled out his sword and offered it hilt first

I looked around “You can’t just go swinging swords on the main street Someone will lose an eye! And that’s only if the to aren’t on you first”

Snorri looked puzzled, as if on the ice-coated slopes of the North it would be thein the world “It’s a blacksery laid out beside us “The smith makes swords People must try theain

“I doubt it” Hands firmly on the reins I nodded down to the display tables—scythe blades, baling hooks, nails, and other doht have a weapon-sh”

“Ha!” Snorri pointed to a sword hanging up back in the gloos “Smith!”

The sly with sweat, thick in the ar bookish look to him “Evenin’”

“I’ll test that blade” Snorri pointed to the hanging sword

“Repairing that for Garson Host,” the se on it T’aint for sale”

“Don’t humour him” I nodded my approval at the man

The sotten that Rhonish men always look for a chance to put a Red Marchbetter than seeing their betters knocked about I would have been wiser to hold ner but at least he hadn’t coner from the country next door

“Don’t s’pose Garson’ll mind if it’s three notches I knock out of the blade or five notches” The smith went back and reached up to retrieve the sword

Resigned to my fate, I disain It happens that I’er In the practice yard with dull blades and sufficient padding I could always hold h More than well But all those lessons went running down one leg on the only day I was ever called on to swing a sword in earnest As we crashed in ast those Scorron soldiers up in the Aral Pass, raw terror washed away all ryto cut pieces offwound and all the complex little bits inside a man all broken up and sliced open, and known that they weren’t ever getting back together again, and vomited your last two meals over the rocksit’s not until then that you understand the business of swords properly and, if you’re a sensible ain I re froether—steel flashing, cri on blood as he backed away fro, of course I still hear that today Everything else about the battle is a blank