Sanctuary, a town which might just become a strategic staging area if war did
come down from the north. As liaisons, both teammates had come to him often for
advice. Part of Niko’s workload had been the making of an adequate swordsman out
of a certain Ilsig thief named Hanse, to whom Tempus had owed a debt he did not
care to personally discharge. But the young backstreeter, emboldened by his easy
early successes, had proved increasingly irascible and contentious when Niko
aware that Tempus was indebted to Hanse and Kadakithis inexplicably favored the
thief-endeavored to lead him far beyond slash-and-thrust infantry tactics into
the subtleties of Niko’s own expertise: cavalry strategies, guerrilla tactics,
western fighting forms that dispensed with weaponry by accenting surprise,
precision, and meditation-honed instinct. Though the thief recognized the value
of what the Stepson offered, his pride made him sneer: he could not admit his
need to know, would not chance being found wanting, and hid his fear of failure
behind anger. After three months of justifying the value of methods and
mechanics the Stepson felt to be self-explanatory (black stomach blood, bright
lung blood, or pink foam from the ears indicates a mortal strike; yarrow root
shaved into a wound quells its pain; ginseng, chewed, renews stamina; mandrake
in an enemy’s stewpot incapacitates a company, monkshood decimates one; green or
moldy hay downs every horse on your opponents’ line; cheese wire, the right
handhold, or a knife from behind obviates the need for passwords, protracted