Chapter 77: Playing Nice

Chapter 77: Chapter 77: Playing Nice

"Holy shit," someone says, and Binny nearly drops the knife like it’s white hot until he recognises just who it is who’s jogging over. Looking, Binny was quietly pleased to note, suitably impressed. "Binny what the fuck was that?"

"Oh, hi Khobi," he greets coyly, wiping the horror off his face as Khobi hurdles the fence, and holding up the knife like he’d known it was Khobi’s the whole time. "Did you lose something?"

"Not me," Khobi shakes his head, looking up like he’s trying to see the afterimage of the path the knife had taken through the air. And then how on earth Binny had managed to stop it dead in its tracks without taking it to the chest.

"Rogard." He jabs a finger back over his shoulder towards the ring, where there’s a familiar-looking blonde looking their way. "He can’t use a knife to save himself, apparently."

"Still?" Binny says, almost absent-mindedly as he hands over the weapon, keeping one eye trained on Khobi’s opponent in the ring. He’s being watched right back, and he can’t say he likes it.

The guy’s old man is well known to the servant population for all the wrong reasons, and in recent times Binny can’t say he’s been given too much reason to believe that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Binny says, and is grateful once again that Khobi often takes a lot of what he says without too much thought. "I’m uh, heading to the stables. Prince’s horse is making trouble again."

"That thing?" Khobi snorts, "Dunno what you guys keep talking about, he’s fine."

He’s most certainly not fine. Anyone who’s ever worked the stables has tried to get that nightmare of a stallion to behave himself, all to approximately zero success.

If it weren’t for the prince, that thing would have been set loose on the plains years ago. But for all its beastly attitude, when given the chance it never bolted for freedom. No one could figure it out.

It had to be the worst behaved animal in the kingdom --one that hated locks and chains and being shut inside, but there was something about this place that made it content to stay.

The more unkind grooms whispered among themselves that it was probably the only thing left in the world that loved its master.

" You’re the one who’s been sneaking him treats!" Binny exclaims crossly, stabbing him in the chest with a finger. Khobi immediately looks guilty.

Briefly, Binny thinks that Khobi must have gotten in trouble an awful lot as a kid. Sometimes he had a far too honest face. "You are, aren’t you! You’re a part of the problem, Khobi! You’re rewarding bad behaviour."

"Oh come on, he’s not that bad," Khobi complains, even though he’s wrong. That horse is a wicked, wicked horse. He’s too clever, and he’s got a bad temper and thinks it’s very funny to scare the new stableboys.

(Which it is, but Binny makes sure the horse never sees him laughing.)

"He’s kicked three grooms this month," Binny points out flatly, "And two soldiers, I think."

"Not badly, though."

Binny rolls his eyes. Dramatically, so Khobi can tell that’s really not the point . He jerks his head towards the ring. Subtly, because there are still amber eyes watching them.

"So, did you two finally make up?" he inquires curiously. It’s escaped no one’s notice that Rogard Spidra has been frequenting the training grounds in days of late, and keeping what his father would probably call --behind closed doors, of course, ’the wrong kind of company’.

"Nope."

In Binny’s professional opinion, that seems very much like a lie. But Khobi seems to have himself fooled, so he doesn’t call him out on it.

"Captain’s looking this way," he says instead, which is a lie, and one that Khobi buys as much as any of the other men in the castle. If rumours were true, Drogger Noog had eyes in the back of his head and then some. To a soldier it always seemed perfectly feasible that he was watching.

"Oh shit , I better go," Khobi grimaces, waving the knife in thanks. "See you around, yeah?"

"I’m always around," Binny calls after him, and tucks his hands into his pockets so he won’t be tempted to snatch it back off him.

It’d be easy, he reckons, but he’d definitely get in trouble for it. He’s already come too far out of the shadows as it is, and the stables are waiting on backup.

Khobi looks back over his shoulder, spinning the knife between his fingers.

He nicks himself.

Amateur .

"It’s okay, Khobi," he says quietly, because he knows what Khobi’s getting at. But it’s not his place, in there. No matter how much he wants it. "I gotta go, too."

He’s got a date with a real asshole of a horse.

...

"Montrel, if you don’t close your mouth something’s bound to fly into it."

"...Seriously, did you guys not just see what I saw??"

...

"That was good, you two," Jaga says, from somewhere up above Khobi. Or rather, from where he thinks is up. He’s not entirely sure at this stage, seeing as how it’s pretty difficult to tell where anything is right now on account of his world spinning uncontrollably.

"Why does when he says we did good, it actually sounds like we did bad?" Khobi manages to wheeze out, in between his chest trying to crush his lungs and his lungs burning trying to reinflate. It feels like someone just threw a mountain at him and then sat on it.

"It feels like we did bad," Rogard’s voice says, just as strained, from somewhere he thinks might be his left. It’s got to be a bad sign that Khobi’s starting to get used to what Rogard sounds like with a mouth full of dirt.

Not that he’s complaining, because honestly, anything’s an improvement on Rogard’s voice.

"It was a good effort," Jaga says firmly, and about six of him appear in Khobi’s vision, floating amongst little bright specks of light against a backdrop of blue. That way must be up.

"Yeah, they almost didn’t get flattened," Gandy heckles from the sidelines, and Khobi would have flipped him off if he was sure his arm wasn’t going to fall off if he tried to move it. "Nice job Jaga."

"It’s all part of learning," Jaga reminds him, and hoists Khobi back to his feet in one easy movement like he weighs nothing.

The sudden lurching movement does his stomach no favours, and he staggers like drunk for a few moments before regaining his bearings.

Rogard gets the same treatment a second later, and looks suitably queasy as the world turns right side up.

"This was a whole lot more fun to watch," he pouts, and most of the soldiers hear the complaint but miss the determined gleam in his eyes. Khobi sees it though, and almost grins, despite himself. He knows the feeling.

"Hey, no one’s keeping you here," Montrel sniffs, gesturing up at the perch on the balustrades that Rogard had spent so many hours watching them from.

"You can go back up there and watch whenever you like. Won’t change the fact that Jaga keeps mowing you down, though."

"Hey! --"

"Ignore him," Khobi snorts flatly, smirking as the vein in Montrel’s forehead pulses. "Everyone else does."

"Give them credit, Montrel," Jaga says sternly, "They keep getting up again. That’s how we get stronger."

("Well yeah , but that’s coz you keep helpin’ them up!")

"Seriously, who taught you that?" Khobi complains, as Jaga falls back into an easy defensive stance, ready for their next attempt at overpowering him. Because the first six attempts hadn’t gone well so far.

"The Third and I trained together a lot when I was younger," Jaga replies, gesturing for the two of them to make their approach again when they were ready.

"Yeah, I’d believe that," Khobi sighs, rolling a kink of his shoulder and giving Rogard a sidelong glance. Rogard catches it and nods.

There’s a pretty nasty graze coming up red on the left side of his jaw from the last time he went flying and broke the fall with his face, but it’s like he doesn’t even feel it.

They’re both out of breath, winded, and probably in possession of some bruised ribs, but his breathing is calm, and his amber gaze is focused, and dangerously even.

It’s times like this that Khobi is forcibly reminded that Rogard has the potential to be a particularly formidable foe.

It does them little good.

All of twenty seconds later, history repeats itself and they wind up scraping themselves off the ground all over again, to raucous laughter.

"Better," Jaga says, and even though he seems sincere Khobi doesn’t feel at all like they did any better.

In fact, he’s pretty sure he hit the ground twice as hard this time. He’s going to hurt tonight. And tomorrow. Possibly into next week.

"Ouch, now that’s not even fighting fair !" Montrel hoots, almost toppling backwards off the fence he’s laughing so hard.

He and Gandy have to grab each other to keep their balance. "Come on Jaga, at least give em a chance!" Jaga tactfully ignores the hecklers and huffs like he’s slightly short of breath.

"Better," he says again, as though Khobi and Rogard had done anything much different from previously. "Montrel, it’s your turn. I was due over at the archery range twenty minutes ago."

"Oh shit, me too," Gandy curses, sliding off the fence and snatching up the gear he’d left lying in the sun while he watched Jaga embarrass Rogard and Khobi. "Ah, it’ll be fine, Ynoro won’t notice."

"What?" Khobi exclaims hotly, and nearly staggers straight into Rogard as the pair of them leap up, aghast. "Come on, just one more??"

"Tomorrow," Jaga promises, and claps them both on the shoulder as he passes. "I have to say, it’s nice to see you finally working together."

Rogard and Khobi share a look of complete disgust, and he chuckles.

"Play nice, you two."