Arvel was stunned in silence. He’d never seen Lunette looking so fragile. Her bare, slight shoulders were trembling, and as she looked back over one, her green eyes brimmed with unshed tears. He wanted to raise his voice and shout at her for asking such a foolish question.

“What if I were to give up?” Lunette asked, barely a whisper, nearly choked by the sobs she struggled to contain.

“You can’t give up,” Arvel replied, doing his best not to clench his teeth, “You’re Rain’s knight.”

“She doesn’t need a useless knight,” she said, her voice beginning to crack, “Rain needs someone strong to protect her, and for that, I am grateful that she has you. As I am now, I would only be a hindrance to my lady.”

“Well you ain’t gonna be like this tomorrow!” he said, clutching a roll of fresh bandages tightly in his hands.

“I will,” she said, “Maybe tomorrow I’ll be strong enough to walk on my own without becoming winded, and maybe next week I can help feed the chickens... But it would take years to become as strong as I was. I am no longer suited to being a knight, Arvel.”

Lunette gasped when Arvel suddenly leaned in close, wrapping both of his arms around her tightly and pulling her back against his chest. One of his arms was around her shoulders, and the other around her middle, mindful not to grasp her across her injuries, nor her bare breasts.

Arvel kept his eyes shut, and buried his face against her golden curls, saying, “You’re not talking right. You’re not thinking right. You’re just lettin’ all your pain ‘n misery eat you up. Okay! So you won’t be swinging a sword next week. And maybe it’ll take you years to be as strong as you used to be. But nobody needs you to be Ser Goldmane right now.”

“But I was Ser Lunette Goldmane,” she whispered, her delicate body quivering.

“You will be Ser Lunette Goldmane,” he said, “Who you are, being a knight, is about more than muscle and swingin’ swords. You’re honorable, a good leader, ‘n all the other stuff that Rain needs you to be. And you giving up wouldn’t be just giving up on you, it’d be giving up on all the folk who count on you.”

“I’ve already let them down!” she argued, tears beginning to roll down her face.

“No!” he replied, “You ain’t let nobody down. You sacrificed yourself to protect Rain and fight alongside me. What do you take us for? The kind of folk who ask what you’ve done for them lately?”

Lunette slowly turned her head toward Arvel, and he felt her tear-stained cheek brush against his forehead. He lifted his head, and opened his eyes just a bit, looking into her emerald gaze.

“I know we’ve all asked a lot of ya,” he said quietly, “but I’m gonna ask a little more. Don’t give up. You can decide you want to retire someday, trade your plate mail for apron strings ‘n go make a dozen babies. But don’t give up. Not now.”

Lunette watched him, swallowing back her sobs. She leaned a little closer, her breath mingling with his, before she gently pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

“It’s gonna be hard,” he whispered, his lips near hers, “But you got me. And you got Rain. And Fidget too. You got a whole bunch of people around who want to see you get better.”

“You told me something when I first woke up,” Lunette whispered, “You said that good people don’t abandon the people they care about just because they need a little extra help.”

“You sure that was me?” he asked with a little grin, “Sounds too elegant.”

“Eloquent,” she corrected him, laughing softly through her tears, “Yes, I’m very sure it was you.”

Lunette slowly opened her eyes again, looking up at him.

“I’ve never forgotten it,” she continued, “Because you told me that everyone in this house cares about me. It’s a kind of warmth and closeness I have not known in a very long time.”

“Well I meant it, every word of it,” he said, hugging her a little tighter, “Even if I ain’t sure I said it quite like that.”

“You said it exactly like that,” she replied with a small smile, leaning back against him, letting him be the strength that held her up when she could not.

The next day, Arvel decided to hold his lessons for the militia at the settlement. It was also a good excuse to walk Rain and Fidget to camp. Arvel couldn’t help being curious at what sort of teacher Fidget would be.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

It didn’t take him long. While Arvel went through practice drills with a dozen of the militiamen in an open space near the tents and small huts that were being constructed, Fidget went through the camp collecting women, and soon, she walked out into the field with Arvel with twenty womenfolk in tow. They ranged in ages from young teenage girls, to elderly hunch-backed women, but they all followed Fidget with curiosity and attentiveness.

“Well I guess ‘able bodied’ wasn’t a requirement,” one of the men muttered.

“That’s the point of traps,” said Arvel, “You don’t have to have the strength to throw a rock if you can make a rock drop on somebody instead.”

Whereas Arvel had lined his men up in orderly rows, Fidget sat her ladies down in a big circle, with herself standing in the middle.

“Hey, everyone take a water break,” Arvel said, digging his shovel into the ground and leaning on the shaft, making no effort to hide the fact that he wanted to watch what was about to unfold.

“Best traps are pits and stakes!” Fidget said, “But demons fly, so pits not good. Ideas?”

The women were quiet.

“No bad ideas!” Fidget announced loudly, “Maybe some not work... But none are dumb!”

One of the younger girls hesitantly lifted a hand and said, “A bunch of them landed on top of wagons, so they still have to land somewhere. Maybe we could trap the roofs?”

“We could put thorns and sharp things in the thatch,” one of the older women said, “If they set down somewhere, it’ll stick in their claws and tear em up good.”

“That’s good!” Fidget said, pointing at both of them, “Good idea, good idea! And sharp sticks under thatch too!”

One of the middle-aged women lifted her hand and said, “Well, this may seem a little bit strange, but Martha and I were arguing the other day over using straw for thatching roofs, or for making straw rain coats. It hasn’t stormed in a bit but... Do you think we could put sharp things in a straw shawl, too? In case they try to grab someone?”

“Oh!” an older woman said, “Yes, the armor didn’t help the guards much, did it? But we could put all manner of nasty things under a straw shawl! It would be like trying to grab a porcupine!”

The circle of chattering women seemed like any circle of gossip from afar, but for the men that listened, they heard some of the most horrific, tortuous suggestions for laying traps and defending their little settlement.

“Where do they come up with some of this stuff?” one of the older men asked with a grimace, “You’d think our wives and daughters were goblins in disguise.”

Arvel laughed, a big proud grin across his face, and said, “Well, like a goblin, they gotta think about how to protect themselves from somebody bigger and stronger! No such thing as dishonor when you’re fighting for your life. When you ain’t got a spear, you use a shovel. When you ain’t got a shovel, you throw dirt in their face.”

“And when you can’t get a divorce,” one of the younger men said, “you put hemlock in the soup.”

The other men in the group turned and looked at the young man, who smiled sheepishly.

“Pa was a real mean drunk,” the young man explained, “so mama made sure he couldn’t be mean to us no more. She gave me a good, hardy respect for women.”

“Women are scary,” one of the men said.

Another replied, “Yeah, if you’re a piece of shite.”

“Alright alright,” Arvel said with a laugh, “That’s enough of a break. It’s time to get back to it.”

As the men started to shuffle back into their places in rows, Arvel noticed the approach of one more man, wholly unlike the others. Frederik was walking toward them. Unlike all of the other men in their worn and dirty farming clothes, Frederik was still dressed every bit the nobleman; he wore a cream-colored shirt with puffy sleeves, and a small black tie at his collar above a row of black buttons. His fitted trousers were tucked neatly into his fine leather boots that laced up all the way to his knee, and he wore a flat cap to protect his brow from the sunlight. Over his shoulder, he carried a long-handled garden hoe, with a bright red scarf tied just beneath the head of the tool.

“What in tarnation?” Arvel asked, eyes narrow.

“I’ve come to join your training session!” Frederik announced, “If it’s not too late.”

“Are you tryin’ to mock me?” Arvel questioned, “You look like a jester or somethin’.”

“I mean no such thing!” Frederik replied with an insulted huff, planting the back end of his hoe on the dirt beside him, his other hand on his hip, “I believe I’ve appropriately dressed down for martial practice, but I see no reason to go and borrow a farmer’s slops when I already own sufficient garments.”

Arvel sighed and rubbed his face, asking, “Why are you here?”

“To train!”

“Yeah, but why?”

Frederik was growing annoyed with Arvel’s questioning, but he held his head high and said, “I’ve given thought to what you said the other day. In not so many words, you told me that I could not write a manual about something I only had a surface-level understanding of. Therefore, I am here to learn the techniques that you’re teaching our burgeoning militia, so that I might more accurately record the instruction.”

“Yeah, definitely not so many words,” Arvel groaned, “Alright, it’s fine by me if you want to pass out from heat exhaustion in a big ol’ flouncy shirt like that. But take the damn decoration off your weapon.”

“It’s not decoration!” replied Frederik, holding his hoe out in front of him, “When a spear moves quickly, a tassel or scarf may aid in blurring the vision of one’s opponent! What may appear to the untrained eye as a useless ornament is, in fact, a strategic tool! I read about it in the memoirs of a military general, far more experienced than you or I.”

Arvel heaved a heavy sigh and muttered curses beneath his breath, before speaking up and saying, “Alright, alright, fine, you enjoy your fancy hoe.”

A few of the men snickered at the unintended double entendre; an expression that Arvel himself was unfamiliar with.

“Are we training or not?!” Arvel barked loudly, and the men raced to get back into position.