Several weeks had passed since Kirsch's death and Lexa had thrown herself into her training with a fury that she had never before encountered - not even when Anya refused to train her. Every task given to her she completed and then some. She stopped talking to the other seconds. Despite Kirsch's relationship with her being mild at best, Lexa had personally taken his death to heart.
The Isagedakru had not attacked since. Anya told her that after meeting with Tohru and the other geda, that battle had scared them off and they likely wouldn't attack again for a while, although the heda said he wouldn't put it past them to regroup with the other villages of the Ice Clan. Grounders don't take a hit like that and ignore it. As for how long it would take...the geda had no idea.
"Several weeks, months, it could even take years. Sometimes the other clans, when they get into skirmishes, don't attack again for years and then when the other clan least expects it, they strike back with a vengeance. Or even worse, backstab a clan in an alliance to get back for a skirmish that happened a generation ago," Anya had said when Lexa had asked about it. Teh geda were very busy with meetings and discussions and strategy plans. Anya had to attend them practically every other day. She had taken Lexa to the first several to show her how they worked, but quickly saw that because Lexa was so young, many of the terms and ideas they talked about went over her head, and after a session where she found Lexa under the table giggling with Ophus, Reed and Costia, had decided that a better way for them to use their time would be to practice their skills. So from then on, every time there was a geda meeting, the seconds would all be put together to practice their skills. Which generally was a mess and usually ended with someone (usually Ophus or Alana) getting sent to the healer. Lexa was too busy sitting in the corner meditating to focus on her tasks.
In training, Anya was teaching Lexa several things at once. She would take Lexa into the trees, where they would practice running through them and swinging on the branches. And then Anya began to teach Lexa how to disappear into the trees - be there one moment, then quickly grab a branch and haul yourself up so quickly that you seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye. Especially if you were wearing camouflage.
Lexa also continued with her archery skills. Anya was secretly very impressed with how quickly progressed, reminding the geda why she had picked Lexa as sekon in the first place. As Lexa began to move through the trees with increased agility and skill, Anya began instructing her to shoot at targets as she ran through the trees. At first Lexa had too many things for her body to do and would fall out of the tree. Luckily, because of the way her body worked and what she was taught as a young member of the clan, she instinctively rolled on the ground to disperse the shock from breaking her arm or leg, so it could have ended worse. But as they progressed, Lexa fell from the trees fewer times and hit targets in the center so much that Anya quickly saw this was no longer becoming a challenge. She sought to change this at lunch one day.
Anya had sent Lexa out to gather some food - dandelion leaves, cattail stems, pine needles, sorrel, anything they could eat. Lexa returned and Anya pulled out some deer meat from the village. They wrapped everything in crude metal sheets from the village and placed the whole mess in the fire to cook.
"Lexa," Anya said in the silence as the two watched the fire crackle. Lexa looked up. "Your progression with archery is satisfactory. You have come a long way with working with the bow on foot.
Lexa, on the inside, was glowing, but she kept her face a mask. Anya saw the cracks though. "Thank you, Anya."
"I am going to take you back to the village when we are done eating," Anya continued as she poked the package in the fire. "You are going to pick a horse and we will work on archery on horseback. You will begin calvary training."
At this, Lexa could not contain her poker face and it fell apart as her jaw dropped open and her eyebrows flew up to her hairline. "What?"
"Do I need to repeat myself?" Anya asked, and then smiled. "You heard me correctly. I want to begin calvary training with you."
Lexa was so happy that she could cry. None of the other seconds had begun working with horses. This would be the first thing she had ever done before any of the other seconds. And then she thought a little bit. Working with calvary would be fantastic. But more than anything Lexa wanted to work with a sword. It was the purest weapon, in Anya's words. She looked up to the Heda, with his katana that was used in battle, peace, ceremony and practice. It was the epitome of Lexa's desires to work with a sword. In her secret heart, she watched with pleasure when it came time for the Heda to end a traitor's suffering with the sword. Lexa was ashamed, and jealous. Perhaps one day she would be Heda and get to have that duty...but ending a life was a very serious task. And Lexa was getting off task, speaking of. She would have to give this some thought later. Right now she had to ask Anya a question.
"Anya," Lexa began after a deep breath, then opened her mouth to begin her speech and question.
"You want to know when we will begin sword skills," Anya said before Lexa could get a word out. Once again, her second's mouth dropped open.
"How did you know I was going to ask?" Lexa said, and then winced when she heard the slight whine in her voice. Thankfully, Anya smiled.
"Because I was the same way as you. My first did not let me use a sword until I was fifteen. She made me master - not just be competent with, but master - every single other weapon. Bow, mace, axe, knives, spear, staff. He made me master every single one. And only then was I allowed to begin sword skills. The sword is the purest weapon, in her words. She had trained with the sword almost her whole life and still did not consider herself a master. The sword, she said, is elegant and complex. A bow requires distancing yourself from your enemy. Knives require such a short distance it almost makes them impractical unless the user has the highest of skill. Axes and maces both smash, they require brute force but no finesse. Spears are too regular, they are the weapons of footmen. Staffs, unless wielded by masters, can be unwieldy and case too little damage to the enemy. They are a weapon of defence. But a sword is a weapon perfected. In times of old, the art of swordsmanship was a sport, played for honor, not gore. Swords, ceremonially, were used by the kings of an age past to honor warriors with the title of 'knight', signifying their contribution as a warrior and their mastery of skills. A sword is a weapon that, no matter if you practice every day, day after day, you will never master. The closest you can come is having it master you." Anya ended her speech with a glow in her eye Lexa hadn't seen before.
She turned to her second. "I will not make you master every weapon before I make you practice your sword skills. But you will at least have to show me competence with an axe, mace, spear and staff first. I will not make you master knives. It is far too difficult and impractical for me to command you do that.
"However, I will make you master the bow. Archery is a style of fighting that is apart from the others, which are all melee combat, in other words, you must be near your enemy to damage them. Archery allows a warrior to cause damage from a distance, keeping the upper hand. Some geda consider archery a lowly form of fighting, fit for cowards and fools, but I disagree. Archery, when used correctly, can make the difference in a battle, especially if one is defending, as we did with the Isagedakru attacked. If it weren't for you in the tree, we would have likely had many more casualties than we did.
"And you have progressed to the point in your archery skills that we need to add another element, which is why after we eat (here, Anya pulled out the meat from the fire) we will go to the village and you may select a horse."
And here, Anya fell into silence as the two of them ate their food together. Lexa watched as Anya stared into the fire, falling into the hypnotizing gaze of the flickering flames dancing red, orange, yellow, and at the heart of the fire, a greenish-blue color.
Once the two were done eating, they put out the fire and disappeared into the trees, running and swinging on the branches high above the ground. Swinging through the trees at this point to Lexa was almost second nature as they climbed high above the ground. They were, after all, tregedakru. The Woods Clan, the Tree People. Climbing trees was what they had done since the beginning.
Anya jumped down into the village, and Lexa landed beside her. "Come," Anya said, walking into the village. The stables were at the far end of the village, and next to the food supply, they were the most heavily guarded area of the entire village. Horses were the highest grounder commodety. They were a symbol of a geda, they were transportation, they were advantage in battle, they made the difference between life and death. The horses were treated better than anything else in the village. They got the best crops, they were tended to by the highest geda. If you were a stablehand, you had proved yourself in many battles. If you were in charge of exersizing the horses, getting to ride them - Lexa couldn't think of a higher honor. Riders were even higher than the Heda in terms of honor. Riders were the epitome of the geda. And she was about to pick hers.
Their village, more so than the others, had a wide variety and a high number of horses. Tohru was, after all, in charge of not only this village but of the entire woods clan. And there were eleven other clans.
Anya led Lexa into the stable. Lexa had never been before. None of the seconds had. She was the first to be let inside. She gazed around, open mouthed. It was light and airy, the sunlight coming through the wooden planks in the ceilings and walls. There was a long hall full of stables on either side. There must have been at least fifty horses if Lexa wanted to count. Grey, black, white, tan, spotted, brown, chestnut, it was a rainbow of colors. The horses craned their necks over the bars to spot Lexa, their brown eyes large and soft. The stallions started whinnying on the left side of the barn, the mares dancing around in their stables on the right. The colts and fillys at the far end of the stable tossing their manes. Lexa never wanted to leave.
"If a horse has a tag on their stable, that means they have already been claimed by a geda. Not every geda has a horse, and not every horse has a geda. A bond must be created between horse and geda, and not everyone can do that. If you are unable to form that bond, you will simply ride one of the other horses to train, but you will not be a member of the calvary," Anya explained.
"Where is your horse?" Lexa asked. Anya stared for a moment, and then began walking down the long stable corridor. Lexa followed as they walked past black mares and tan stallions, finally arriving at a quiet stable. Lexa stood on her toes and looked into the bars.
A stallion was standing with his eyes half-closed on the far side of the stable. His coat was a midnight black, darker than the night sky, except for one leg that had a white sock up to his knee. He swished his tail to beat away the flies. "This is Levi," Anya said. She put out her hand and the horse came walking over, putting his nose in between her fingers.
Lexa reached out a hand and stroked his black nose, velvety soft. Levi nickered softly, and then snorted and retreated back into the stable. Anya adjusted the green tag hanging from the bar. "Now it's your turn. Walk among the horses. You'll know it when you feel the bond."
Lexa nodded and turned away from Anya. They were near the end of the hall, just outside where the younger horses, the foals, were kept. Lexa knew they were off limits until they had been trained, so she began to walk back towards the entrance, past the older horses.
Many of the horses had green or red tags on their stable bars, signalling that they had been taken, but a few of them hadn't. Lexa stopped at a stable with a mare - no tag. She peered inside. The mare was up against the back wall, her eyes half closed. She swished her tail at the flies. Her coat was a dark grey, with lighter spots on her rump, but Lexa didn't particularly feel anything when she looked at the mare. She was a good horse, but nothing more. Lexa turned away.
She walked past another mare, roan this time, who stuck her head out of the bars. Lexa stroked her nose for a few moments, but like last time, didn't feel anything. Again, she walked a ways past the other horses, all taken, to a stallion this time on the left side of the stable. The stallion was chestnut, with a long mane. He danced in the stall, much more animated than the other two. Lexa kept walking.
She was making her way down to the end of the hall, walking past three more horses and still not feeling anything. There was one more horse at the end. This was her last chance. She turned to face the horse.
She was a mare, dark brown, almost black. She was turned away from Lexa, facing the corner, tail swishing. "Come here," Lexa said softly, making a clicking sound with her tongue. The mare turned around, and came towards the bars, snorting. Lexa stuck her hand between the bars, and stroked her nose. The mare looked up at Lexa, and their eyes met. And Lexa knew.
"This one," she called out to Anya. Anya came over slowly, taking a look at the mare. She nodded.
"That's a good choice," she said. Then turned away and walked down to the end of the stable.
"That's it? Where are you going?" Lexa asked, running to catch up.
"Well, we have to get a blue tag to show that this mare's been claimed," Anya said. Lexa's eyes lit up. "Blue because you're a second.
"Already? We don't have to do anything else?" she asked.
"If you feel the connection, the mare is yours. I trust you're being honest. We start calvary training tomorrow. We're done for the day," Anya said, selecting a blue tag from the bin at the end. Some of the stable hands came in.
"A horse has been claimed?" asked one of the grounders.
"The brown mare near the front," Anya said.
"Ah, yes. She's been getting up there in age, we figured no one would claim her," said the stablehand. "She's turning eleven at the end of the moon cycle."
Anya turned to Lexa. "You've got an experienced horse on your hands there, think you can handle it?"
"I got this," Lexa said with a smile, turned and ran out to the village to brag to Costia about starting calvary training the next day.