Alex cringed as the young squire hit the target off center again. “Duck, lad—oh, bloody hell.” As predictable as the path of the moon, the heavy leather ball swung fast around the pole, whacked into the lad’s back, and knocked him to the ground. “Up you come, boy!” Alex reached him nearly before he landed, grabbed hold of his leather-armored forearm, and sat him upright, trying to judge the extent of the damage. Gordon ran a grueling training program, but Alex insisted on working with the new squires himself. A solid foundation in warfare would keep them alive in the thick of battle. One lifesaving skill built upon the next, reinforcing the one before. But this dizzy young man hadn’t yet learned that the laws of nature couldn’t be broken without consequence. “Didn’t…see it, my lord!” “You’re not supposed to see it, Harkness; you’re supposed to know in your gut that it’s coming for you. Because it will. Be glad it was only a leather ball, lad. In combat it would have been the deadly end of a sword, and you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
