The next morning Nia calmly donned her suit of armour showing Adelyn and Bria exactly which piece went where, managing not to smirk until the blank-faced helm was latched into place.
‘Nia has worn her armour before so it knows her. Yours may be a little uncomfortable until it has become accustomed to you.’ said Rosa, keeping a straight face. ‘Nia do you fit Bria and I fit Adeline?’
Nia grinned inside her helm and nodded. Before Bria could move, she had a vambrace clamped around her forearm and the matching shriek from Adeline told Nia that Rosa had fastened her first piece too. After several minutes of caterwauling, cursing and, at one stage, Bria rolling around on the floor, the pair were clad in their scarlet armour.
‘I can see’ said Adeline when she stopped squirming.
Nia rolled her eyes before remembering that no-one could see. ‘It wouldn’t be much use against dragons if their first breath boiled your eyeballs, now would it?’
Rosa chuckled. ‘Besides allowing you to see, it will do other things, heal you given enough time, stop a dragon, or anything else, from ransacking your mind and keep you cool. The healing will also stop you aging. It’s that that keeps the rest of the knights alive for so long. Now each take a poleaxe off the table and I will lead you through the first form. Yes, yes, I know them well enough and I am spry enough to show you’
The next half an hour was very chastening for the three young women as Rosa led them through a complex paired form that used every part of the poleaxe in both attack and defence. When her final partner, Nia, collapsed out of breath, Rosa nodded. ‘Not bad for beginners but you need stamina and practice. We will train every morning and every night. Sit in the garden for a few minutes this morning that the weapons may charge a little but do not leave them unattended nor give any clue that that is your purpose. Now go and flaunt yourselves to the boys and bask in their admiration.’
Most of the boys were laying out breakfast, but Heikki and Davorin were taking it in turns to work through a wide sweeping halberd form in the Southern Hall. Davorin had his back to the girls when they stepped through the doorway; He turned around fast enough when Heikki dropped his halberd, striking sparks from the flagstones with the blade. They just stood there open-mouthed as the girls strolled past them towards the refectory, helm in one hand, pole axe in the other and a grin plastered over their faces.
The Preceptor turned as they entered. ‘Well ladies. Don’t you look fine. Like legends come to life. Prop the weapons up somewhere in the garden and have breakfast. We will have to teach you to make full use of those suits. Unarmed combat is Sir Henrik’s speciality and Sir Bern will teach you axe work when he returns. We don’t just fight dragons.’ He chuckled at the suddenly pained look on their faces. ‘You will be just fine. Nothing is worse than putting the armour on for the first time. The boys can enjoy that this morning.’ He turned back to his paperwork, chuckling to himself.
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The girls were on clear-up that morning and Bria and Adeline caused quite a stir in the kitchens when they arrived carrying trays and baskets. The head cook curtsied as they came through the door and some of the younger maids crowded around them, eager to take the empties and to touch the armour. By the time they had escaped, Nia and Sir Henrik had laid out seven suits of armour on the tables in the refectory. Sir Henrik had sent the boys on a run up the mountain side and as they got back in ones and twos, they were clad in armour with predictable results. Hrafn shrieked the most, Vann thrashed the most and Tapani swore oaths so vile that Bria was certain Sir Lars was taking notes. Once his helm was latched on and it stopped hurting, Tapani started to apologize profusely but Nia slapped him on the back. ‘We know what it’s like the first time. We’ll be fine, once our ears stop burning. Go and get a drink.’ By mid-morning Davorin, the heaviest built and slowest of the recruits had got back from the mountain and been kitted out in the pink armour. Luckily he didn’t thrash too much but his curses weren’t far behind Tapani’s.
The rest of the day was spent being flung around the Southern Hall by Sir Henrik. The armour prevented anything too serious but the aches and strains had all of the recruits longing for the steam rooms on the far side of the palace.
The girls thought they had finished for the day when they stepped through into the Lady’s Hall only to see Rosa standing there leaning on a poleaxe. ‘And where are your weapons?’
The girls looked at each other in horror, before sprinting back to the gardens to get the weapons that they had left there before breakfast. Rosa was not amused when they got back to the hall. ‘I said sit with them. I said do not leave them unattended. Foolish children. These are not toys. They will give the unscrupulous a chance to tap the power of the tree, which we most definitely do not want. Bring them, bring them.’ She marched back over to the table and plonked her poleaxe down on the table before holding her hand out for Bria’s. Once the pommel was off, the crystal disk blazed like the sun. ‘Hmm. At its limit but we are lucky.’ She pressed her thumb on the disk and concentrated for a few minutes until the disk had faded down to a gentle glow before repeating the process with the other two weapons. ‘Tomorrow, sit with them in the garden. No more than an hour. We do not want explosions. I will use some of the power I have drained to modify others so that they have a limit. But it will take time. You will be more cautious in future! Now, the forms.’ She passed the poleaxes back to the girls before leading the way back to the empty space before the doors.
The remainder of the summer passed in a blur of training, and occasional sessions with the Lore master and the heralds. They learnt to fight with maces, axes, polearms and even trained with bows once a week although none of them was particularly adept. Sir Lars had just grunted and said ‘Practice when you may. Threatening the dragon’s wings is usually enough. They don’t need to know that you can’t hit them.’
Towards the end of the summer, very thick straw targets were set up at the western end of the Southern Hall to one side of the door to the Lady’s Hall. They were about twice as thick as the targets the recruits used for archery. The knights seemed as baffled as the recruits but the Preceptor refused to be drawn.