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had trained to be knights and warriors.  To those who found an affinity with arms, the prospect of a life of books instead of steel was as appalling as Tyndal found them.  Every day one or two of the students would sneak down to the practice yard out behind the guardhouse and work out with the guardsmen.
    Tyndal had acquaintance of them since the first time he had come to Inarion – through the magical portal of the molopor from Boval, a refugee fleeing an invasion.  The weeks he had spent here while the authorities sorted out what to do with the four thousand Bovali suddenly appearing in the courtyard had introduced the apprentice to the guard captain, Ancient Galdan, a grizzled old mercenary with a limp and a strange accent. 
    Galdan had been in dozens of campaigns and hundreds of fights, but age and weariness had convinced him to apply for an easy position guarding snotty magical students.
    He’d liked Tyndal from the first, partially because he wasn’t a student, and partially because Galdan was Wilderlands-born himself, he said, from just south of Vorone, and he liked Tyndal’s enthusiastic approach to swordplay.  He’d started working with the lad back then, in his off time, right up until Tyndal  departed for Tudry-on-Burine with his master’s pregnant intended bride.  Now that he was back, a year older and a few campaigns more experienced, the old soldier enjoyed working with him even more.
    Unfortunately, Galdan wasn’t alone in the yard today.  Apart from the two guardsmen who were working on shield technique, there were two noble students Tyndal had gotten to know in the week he’d been here.  Stanal of Arcwyn and Kaffin of Gyre.
    They had been hanging around watching him for a few days now, and Tyndal had learned a little about them without actually speaking to them.
    Stanal was a beefy boy Tyndal’s age, and would have been knighted by now with his own domain to rule if his Talent hadn’t emerged.  Under the old Bans of Magic, he couldn’t own property or be ennobled if he had Talent.  Under Master Minalan’s new system, he could now inherit from his father’s estate, and even keep his noble title.
    Unfortunately his bulk did not deter his intelligence, which was canny, or his arrogance, which he had in abundance.  His father was Baron Sargal of the southern Riverlands region of Arcwyn Dales.  He was Sargal’s third son, and not a favorite, from what Tyndal had learned.  The Baron had apparently been more than happy to ship the brutish-looking, arrogant boy off to a cloister of magi, rather than deal with his powers at home.
    Kaffin of Gyre was also of noble stock, but was the second son of a knight from the coastland domain of Gyre Shore.  The Sea Knights of Gyre, as Tyndal had learned six times in the two weeks he’d been here, were descended from Farisian pirates who’d sworn fealty to the Dukes of Castal, in return for keeping their brethren at bay . . . and engaging in a little lucrative piracy against Merwyn and Alshar themselves. 
    Kaffin reveled in his family legacy of honorable cutthroats and their skill with the blade.  Becoming Talented was, from Tyndal could see, a crushing blow to the enthusiastic heir of the Sea Knights of Gyre.  He did not let that stop him from learning how to use the slightly-curved blade his family preferred.
    “Where’s Ancient Galdan?” he asked the corporal on duty.  “I was going to see if he was up to sparring for a bit.”
    “He’s gone to town with the manciple to collect a debt,” answered the corporal.  “But have at it, Sir Tyndal,” he said with a smile.
    Tyndal really wished he hadn’t said that – as one of the few knights magi to have been created, he was one of the very few amongst the largely-aristocratic population of Academy students to actually be ennobled . . . and that was a sore point among many of them, who had been forced to give up their titles when they entered the trade.  Under the Bans that was law.