The armory was moved to a large room on the same level as the Great Hall from where it had been, where her room, adjacent to Draka and Maud’s rooms, would be soon. Aurie had to go along the barracks corridor, behind the stables, down a cramped wooden walkway of doors, sometimes sliding against the wall to allow knights and Clerics to pass by.
Each room looked the same. Bunks with the same wool blankets tucked over thin mattresses with a single pillow and wardrobes lining the walls and nothing else. Neat. Tidy. Empty of anything that would separate them from the next. And every door was left open, even if someone was sleeping in one of the bunks. The nightwatchmen, she guessed.
As she entered the armory, it too was like those rooms. Neat and tidy. The walls were racks of spears and pikes, double edged swords of different lengths and widths, all gleaming with polish. There were mannequins like those that Alice used, but instead of being covered in fabric, they had been stripped to their wood bones and were dressed in chainmail and armored displays. Other racks had assortments of belts and studded boots. Aurie’s steps echoed as she moved to the empty center of the wide room.
“There are some padded clothes on the tables over there,” Nina’s voice echoed.
Aurie shuddered. That’s what Enya meant, she gritted her teeth. On the far end, she saw stacks of quilted robes with mesh faced helmets on top of them.
The sound of rubbing from above her and Aurie found Nina dangling upside down from the rafters in her usual leather and hide outfit. Her knives weren’t in the belts that covered her thighs and tiny waist. Aurie let out a long breath and went to the table. The only time she wasn’t being punished was when she was sleeping anymore. She began putting them on.
Nina hit the ground with a loud thump and joined her at the table. “Either she woke up and chose violence today or you really stepped on her toes this morning,” she put on her own padding.
Aurie bit her lip as she tied the drawstring of the padded pants before pulling on the quilted shirt. The last thing she was going to do was encourage the redheaded bitch. She was getting tired of being told how small she was. Tired of being knocked down. Tired of being kicked and trampled again and again by everyone around her. Even Draka had managed to crush her.
“Before we begin,” Nina faced her with all but her mesh helmet on, a kindness in her mousey face. Aurie met it with a glare.
“I understand, you know.” An upward half-roll of Nina's eyes with a nodding shrug, “More or less. He’s worth fighting for, more than any man I’ve ever laid eyes on. If I actually loved him the way you do, there’d be blood on our blades for sure, and I wouldn’t regret a single drop. Neither should you.”
Aurie crinkled her brow and blinked at her.
Nina cocked a grin. “Let me finish and…try to keep up. God has a plan. You met him when you did for a reason. You were made to be a Paladin for a reason. All this happened, exactly when it happened, for a reason. Which means,” Nina tipped her head sideways and pushed Aurie’s shoulder with her fist before sliding her helmet on, “You’re going to learn to fight my way…for a reason.”
“Wonderful,” Aurie slid her own helmet on. All she had in herself to do was frown.
“Oh, and before we start,” Nina’s voice was slightly muffled by the mesh screen of the helmet, “Know that I plan on marrying someone else. Your King is yours, Pally. I saw that the moment I saw the way he looked at you. No one in the world stands a chance of getting between you two.”
Aurie felt her eyes water to that and a grin did form, though she knew Nina couldn’t see it. So, Draka does love her, too? She isn’t mistaken? He didn’t cast her off. He was resisting. It was desperation, not disgust. Maybe.
Nina went to a rack with empty shoulder packs and grabbed one before going to another lined with balls that had handles attached to them, each with numbers etched in their sides. She grabbed two of the smaller ones and wrapped them in one of the spare quilted robes before stuffing them in the pack.
“Enya fights the way most Pallies do. Big swords, big shields, lumbering like cows into battle,” Nina motioned for her to where she was standing in the middle. Aurie came to her. “You know, like morons.”
Aurie snickered.
“If only you could go into those battles dressed like I normally do,” Nina shrugged. “Your armor is going to be heavy. So,” She got behind Aurie and lifted the pack over Aurie’s shoulder.
The weight made her nearly bend backwards but Nina braced her and wrapped her waist with straps that she quickly tightened over her hips. That’s where she felt the weight until Nina turned her around and tightened the shoulder straps.
Nina was saying through a knowing sigh, “This is exactly a third of the weight you will have on you when you are in your full armor.”
“I thought they make the armor to fit the wearer,” Aurie said as Nina tugged at the straps and shook her.
“Fit you, yes,” Nina tightened a strap with a jerk. “But Paladin armors are made of specific metals that can’t be repaired like normal armors. They’re drop-forged.”
“What does that mean?”
Nina took a step back from her, shaking her head. “Not an expert on it, but basically, your armor is going to be so strong that nothing made by mortal hands except from those forges can get through it. Mind you, I said mortal hands. Demons cut through us like paper. Your armor is made to protect you against them. It’s heavy. And you will have more layers underneath, too.”
“That, I know,” Aurie remembered how it took Balor, Gerard, and Alden just to carry Draka’s front and back plates. Three men to carry two of numerous pieces. Hers will be the same, apparently.
“Stay here and watch,” Nina said before walking toward one end of the room. She stopped a pace from the wall. “You will sprint to here and let yourself slide without touching the ground with your hands and use your foot to send you back this way.” She walked back across to the other side and stopped the same distance from the other wall, “and do the same thing here. I’ll count each time so you know your progress.”
“What?” Aurie threw her hands out at her.
“Watch.” Nina sprinted across the room.
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Exactly where she had said, she dropped to the ground, sliding on one knee with her other leg straight so that her foot slammed into the wall to propel her back onto her feet. She sprinted back the other way and did it again.
When she returned to Aurie at the middle of the room, she said, barely out of breath, “Your turn. Start from the wall so you have enough momentum, but sprint.”
Aurie was glad the woman couldn’t see her gaping. She was a fast runner, sure, but she had never thought to try anything like that before in her life. And the way Nina did it so smoothly, so agilely, made her second guess everything about the woman.
Her first slide ended without her foot even reaching the wall. Nina’s laugh echoed through the empty room. She gritted her teeth and got back up to sprint the other way. That time, she was able to reach the wall, but her launch only slid her across the ground. Nina cackled.
“Glad you think this is funny,” Aurie climbed on her feet, the weight in that pack feeling like it had doubled.
Nina was in front of her without the helmet, pressing her back down. She flipped Aurie’s helmet off and tossed it as well so that their eyes met. She wasn’t smiling any more than Aurie was.
“Like this,” Nina pulled the bent knee to a sharper angle, bringing the foot under her extended thigh.
“When you hit the wall, you use this leg,” she tapped Aurie’s straight one, “Like spring to go that way, and this one,” she slid the bent one so her foot became planted, “you use to go up. At the same time. One movement. Now, with me.”
This time, Nina was at her side. Even though she still wasn’t able to do much more than slide a little from the wall, Nina didn’t poke fun or berate her—she laughed, which wasn’t much better—but she also was smiling as she went over Aurie, at the wall, adjusting how her body should be positioned when it reached it. Over and over, she slid to the wall, and over and over she was only able to slide herself back a little, sometimes a bounce or two, every so often with a jerk upwards. And Nina was there, with a smile, with a giggle, helping, no matter how frustrated Aurie became. Aurie was getting frustrated…until she, too, was laughing at all the times she just couldn’t do it.
That was when Aurie, with Nina by her side, found herself sliding across that last pace to launch herself back onto her feet in a sprint for the other wall. She wasn’t thinking when she did it. She wasn’t concentrating on how to twist her hips, how to place her knees, or where her feet needed to be by then. She just saw the wall, then the other wall, and then the other. It wasn’t until she did it a second time, the third time, then the fourth, that Nina stopped her.
“You did it!” Nina beamed, catching her breath. Aurie was about to cheer with her until Nina let out an exhaustive, “Finally.”
Aurie only glared at her.
“Now, this time,” Nina straightened and pointed, “I want you to do the same thing, but switch legs each wall. Right leg, this wall. Left leg, that one.”
“But I just…”
Nina nodded, “Yup. Now you need to learn how to use both legs. Wait until I teach you how to use a sword. I don’t use shields, Pally.”
Aurie blinked at her beneath furrowed brows. “Everyone uses shields, even pikemen have shields.”
“I don’t,” Nina shrugged. “And I’m the one who will be teaching you to fight, so neither will you except on your own time. You’ll learn to use both legs and both hands. So, lefty on that one,” she pointed, “Righty on that one. Run, Pally, run.”
Aurie bit her lip. She did it. With her left leg, she had the same problems as before, but not for nearly as many rounds. She caught on quicker than before. Each time she passed Nina, she heard the mousey redhead call out numbers, each one higher than the last.
“I know you’re getting tired, but you need to go faster,” Nina shouted.
Aurie tried to sprint harder, but her calves were tightening into painful rocks, her thighs were turning into burning coals, and her hips were merely extensions of the aches in her back from that shoulder pack. She was beginning to stumble and stagger with her steps.
“Come on, the battle’s not over. One more!” Nina called out.
Aurie drew in a breath and spurred herself forward for another round. As she launched herself to the finishing sprint, Nina shouted, “Nearly done, one more!”
Aurie fumed, sprinting harder.
“Just one last one!”
Another good springing momentum for that last sprint…
“All you have is one more to go!”
Aurie felt her legs begin to give out. Her knees were wobbly, yet they were carrying her. Her back was aching, yet she was still standing. Her feet were being driven by hammers in her heels, yet she was still sprinting at her fastest.
“Just a little further.”
Aurie thought she could go no further. She thought she was nearing the end of all her muscles could take. Of all she could endure. And yet, she was able to sprint from wall to wall again, able to launch herself one more time, and then another, and another.
Finally, Nina stopped her, mere seconds after saying that she had only ‘one more’ with a proud grin and an arm across her. Then, to a symphony of clicks and a loud thump, the weight of the pack fell from her shoulders. Nina stood in front of her with a smug, proud grin.
“I thought I had one more,” Aurie’s eyes stung with sweat.
Nina regarded her for a moment. “You have to get cleaned up and ready for the feast, Pally Regent.”
It’s almost evening? Already? Aurie was stunned. Speechless. She had been running, sprinting, launching herself with that weight on her, from wall to wall, for hours!
Nina grinned with more than a hint of admiration. “Don’t worry,” she widened her grin over her teeth, “You still could do one more if you had to, Lioness of Talkro.” Then, with a red cheeked giggle, “Now, go get in your finest paniers and make your King see what he’s going to be fighting for and beside. And,” Nina winked, “Don’t kiss him, but don’t let anyone else dance with him either. Except maybe the Princess.”
“I could get revoked,” Aurie was still breathing hard and wiping sweat from her face.
Nina shook her head. “Maybe I didn’t say it correctly. I keep forgetting that you’re a commoner,” she lifted Aurie’s chin with a hooked finger. “Show him your worth. Your actual worth. And let everyone see you near him. When a woman approaches him, all you need do is look at her. She’ll know. Trust me, I knew. The moment you looked at me, I knew. And all it will take is one look from him—you’ll get that look, if you dress how Alice wants you to—and they’ll know exactly what I realized in that single moment.”
“And what’s that?”
Nina’s green eyes pierced deep into hers, “That you and Maud are already his wife and daughter. It just hasn’t been made official yet. I’m actually thankful I saw it before I actually fell in love with him because I would have been devastated to find that no one could ever hold his heart as tightly or deeply as you. And, yes, even to me, you’re worthy of it.”
Aurie warmed. “Thank you. I really needed that today.”
“I know, that’s why I said it,” Nina flicked her brows, “I was a nun, you know. Well, almost...One of our skills. But it’s also the truth. And remember, if you feel like you want to give up and can’t take anymore…you have just one more to go.”
Aurie rolled her eyes with a chuckle. “You bitch.”
