Chapter 94: Lead the Target

Chapter 94: Lead the Target

The target was a leather disc the size of a dinner plate, stuffed hard with straw and painted with a red ring. It sat upright on a low wooden sled, and the sled sat on a straight track of packed sand that ran the length of the east training yard.

A loop of rope ran around pulleys at either end of the track, secured to the front and back of the sled. A broad, sleepy-looking second-year stood beside one pulley, paid to haul either side of the loop. Ferrow had told him to vary the speed and direction. He seemed particularly pleased about reversing it.

"Rooke," Ferrow said. "Your lane."

Silas’s lane was a strip of chalk eight paces from the track and parallel to it, about as wide as a doorway. Two other Bronze students waited on the bench by the fence.

Ferrow stood at the end of the lane. "Walk while the sled runs. A hit counts if your dart strikes the red while you’re moving inside the chalk. Stop to admire your aim, and you lose the throw."

He held out a practice dart from the yard rack, the same length as Silas’s own, blunt-nosed and weighted with lead.

"Retrieval," Ferrow went on. "When I call hold, he stops the sled and drops the rope. Then and only then you bring the dart back. Along the ground, not over the track, and not if anyone’s past the fence line. Understood?"

"Understood," Silas said.

"Five throws a run," Ferrow said. "Hold."

The yard hand dropped the rope. Silas lifted the dart off Ferrow’s palm with Remote Grasp, a finger’s width, and felt the familiar outdoor drag on it. It wasn’t the feather it would have been in his room. He let it hang at his shoulder.

"Run," Ferrow said.

The sled started moving.

It went at a walking pace, scraping along the sand, and Silas walked his lane beside it. Eight paces was nothing. He’d hit strikers at twelve in Carrow Hall. He watched the red ring, felt the moment line up, and threw.

The dart smacked into the red.

"Feet," Ferrow said.

Silas looked down. Both boots were planted squarely in the chalk. He’d stopped without even noticing.

"Doesn’t count," Ferrow said. "Hold. Bring it back."

The sled stopped. Silas drew the dart back low across the sand, face warm, and set off again when Ferrow said run.

This time he made himself keep walking. The sled had picked up speed. He threw at the disc while moving, and the dart went exactly where he’d aimed it, at the place where the red ring had been when he let go. By the time it got there, the ring had moved on. The dart was going to pass a hand’s width behind it.

He reached after it with Remote Grasp to drag it forward, and the effort pulled his attention out of his legs. His trailing foot came round in front of the other one, the same crossed-foot step that had nearly cost him the assessment against Rovan Kest, and his weight went with it. He went down on one knee in the chalk with a hand flat on the sand.

The dart thudded into the straw at the disc’s back edge, outside the ring.

"Hold," Ferrow said.

Silas stayed on one knee a second longer than he needed to, because he was angry and didn’t want it to show.

It was a stupid thing to be angry about. Not long ago, a fall like that would have jarred his whole body and left him breathing hard. Now his knee didn’t even sting. He had a body that worked, finally, and some childish part of him had decided that meant it ought to know things it had never been taught. He’d thought being healthy would feel less clumsy.

It doesn’t know how, he told himself. You haven’t taught it yet. Get up.

He got up and recalled the dart.

"What happened?" Ferrow asked. He sounded as though he actually wanted the answer.

"I threw at where it was," Silas said. "Then I tried to fix it in the air, and I forgot my feet while I was doing it."

"You’re doing everything one at a time. Walk, throw, fix, walk again. The sled doesn’t wait." Ferrow nodded toward the track. "You told me in Carrow Hall you’d learned to throw at where something’s going to be."

"I did learn it," Silas said.

"Then do it here," Ferrow said. "You’re moving this time, but so is the target. Same idea. Throw at the place it’ll be when the dart gets there, and you won’t need to chase it." He paused. "And don’t cross your feet. Step and close. Step and close. It’s slower. Slow is fine."

Silas practiced side-stepping down the lane without the dart, facing the track. He moved one foot, brought the other close without crossing, and repeated. With two students watching, he felt foolish. But he could keep his shoulders toward the target now instead of twisting to throw.

"Five fresh throws," Ferrow said. "Run."

He stepped and closed. The sled scraped along beside him. He watched the red ring and, this time, watched the gap between where it was and where it was going. He had no number for it, only the feeling from the narrow turn in Carrow Hall, sending the dart into a striker that was still falling.

He threw at empty air a hand’s width ahead of the ring.

The disc slid into the dart’s path. The blunt nose hit the red with a solid thump, and he was still moving when it did, his feet still stepping and closing inside the chalk.

"One," Ferrow said.

Between attempts, Ferrow halted the sled while Silas recalled the dart along the ground. Each restart gave him a moment to set his feet.

The second throw hit the edge of the red. Ferrow allowed it. The third went wide because Silas got greedy and threw too early, then had to nudge it, and the nudge cost him half a step of rhythm. It hit, but outside the ring. The fourth hit dead center.

On the fifth attempt, the yard hand grinned and hauled the other side of the loop.

The sled stopped and reversed. Silas had already thrown. The dart flew neatly into the empty air where the disc should have been and dropped into the sand on the far side of the track.

"Hold," Ferrow said.

Silas let out his breath. His reserve had dropped by about a third; every nudge and recall outside the room cost more than he liked. But he could feel the cost now, and plan around it.

"Three in five, moving," Ferrow said. "Two of them clean. Last week you’d have been on your backside after the first." He jerked his chin at the yard hand. "You still believe he’ll keep going the way he’s going. He won’t. Next time, watch his hands on the rope, not the disc. The rope tells you before the sled does."

"Yes, Instructor," Silas said.

"Bench," Ferrow said. "Kest, you’re up."

Alden was waiting by the yard gate when Silas came off, his sword on his back and a folded slip of paper in his hand.

"I can’t stay," Alden said at once. "Talent advisor. She wants to know how it felt this week, and it felt like last week, only less."

"Is it less?" Silas asked.

"It’s less when it’s easy." Alden pulled a face. "I did Solvain’s distance step twenty times this morning without tripping. Twenty. Osk didn’t even look up. And then she paired me with Dagna, and the second Dagna started actually pushing, there it was again, and I got three good touches on her shield. I feel it much more when I’m struggling."

"So lose more," Silas said.

"That’s exactly what Osk said." Alden sounded wounded. "Word for word."

"She’s right," Silas said.

"I know she’s right. I didn’t say I liked it." Alden glanced at the track, where Rovan Kest was walking the lane. "How’d you do?"

"Three of five," Silas said. "Fell over once."

"Only once?" Alden grinned and started walking backward toward the main path. "Better than me on the first day. I’ll message you."

Alden jogged off toward his appointment. Silas watched him go, still smiling at the wounded way he’d said twenty. He hoped the advisor would at least let him finish boasting about the footwork before finding something else to correct.

Silas turned back to the yard and watched the yard hand’s hands on the rope for the whole of Rovan’s run. Just before the sled reversed, the man’s back shoulder dropped and both hands shifted on the rope.

He fixed that in his head and settled on the next thing. Step and close the whole run. Keep his feet moving while he adjusted the dart in the air. And read the rope before the sled turned.