Arcten had dismissed them from the lecture room just long enough to leave their notebooks behind and collect practice weapons, and by the time Cedric reached the training yard, the pass from the map had become a lane between two rows of waist-high barriers. Chalk marked the bend where his first line would stand; from its far end, a second line of chalk ran toward a wooden post that stood for the road. The yard had no ridge, but it had room enough for each side to find out what happened when an order had to pass through men already fighting.
Cedric tested the edge of his blunted longsword with his thumb. Across the yard, Kaireth was briefing the students assigned to attack, indicating the mouth of the lane with the butt of his spear. Lucavion stood among them with a practice estoc at his side, a weapon the Academy had added to its training equipment. Kaireth had put him in the reserve and spoke to every other fighter on that side but him.
