The Talented by J.R. McGinnity Page A

instead. “You’ve mentioned it before. Who started
it?”
    “ Why, King Burin started
the commission, of course,” Tam answered, seemingly delighted to
impart that bit of information.
    Adrienne wanted to roll
her eyes. Since the death of the last Fuiron two centuries ago, no
royal family had kept the throne for more than a single generation.
Most of the kings and queens since then had ruled for only a
handful of years before losing the throne, and often their lives
along with it.
    King Burin was only the
latest in a line of poor or unlucky rulers who paid for a personal
guard while all but forgetting the encampments like Kyrog that kept
the countryside safe. Were it not for private backers and wealthy
lords like Lord Neecham, places like Kyrog would not exist, and
Samaro would be overrun by the bandits and rogues roaming the
plains long before Almet came to enslave the survivors.
    Adrienne remembered again
the young girl buried in a grave outside of Pelarion, and wondered
if her life might have been saved had King Burin not neglected the
armies so.
    Tam, however, did not seem
to share Adrienne’s poor opinion of their current ruler. He was
practically glowing with the importance of being a part of King
Burin’s plan.
    “ King Burin has decided
that, since the old ways have proven unsuccessful when dealing with
Almet, it is time to look for an alternative solution.”
    Adrienne was fairly
certain that the king’s hope for a successful ‘alternative
solution’ to dealing with Almet had more to do with wanting to keep
his head on his shoulders than concern over the conflict itself.
“So he put together a commission to find a solution?” Adrienne
asked skeptically. “What exactly do you do?”
    “ I am not a member of the
commission, per se,” Tam admitted. “The commission asked me to go
on this errand for them, as they are all much too busy with their
work to leave the city themselves. However, I have been privy to a
great many of their discussions and know as much as anyone who is
not a commissioner himself.”
    Adrienne nodded, wondering
if the scholar was really as important as he thought himself to be,
or if was no more than a gofer to the rich and
privileged.
    “ You see, after it was
decided that a peaceable agreement with Almet is not likely at this
point, it became apparent that what needed to change was the means
of warfare.” Tam looked uncomfortable, as if the subject of warfare
was distasteful to him, but Adrienne became keenly
interested.
    Many different strategies
had been used in an attempt to finally put an end to the fighting,
with the implementation of new technology and strategy being
foremost among the changes. Still, the basic means of fighting had
always been the same: soldiers armed with weapons versus soldiers
armed with weapons.
    “ Go on,” Adrienne
urged.
    “ It was decided that
scholars would begin looking through the histories to see if there
was an alternative to the current means of warfare employed by the
armies.”
    Adrienne’s excitement
leached out of her, and Strider tossed his head as if sensing his
rider’s disappointment. Changes in warfare evolved and improved.
There was little use in looking back in the histories to find
different means. What use could history be here? Adrienne had
studied battle history almost her whole life, and some of what she
had studied had involved battles before bows and arrows—and even
cavalry were implemented. Battles where spears were the main
weapons, before the invention of swords. Such battles offered great
insight into military strategy, but there was nothing there that
would change the way that Samaro should fight Almet. Strategies
could be learned from studying history, but there was nothing new
in the old books and stories.
    “ I don’t know what you
could have found,” Adrienne said. “War is war.”
    Tam waved away her comment
as if it was of no importance. “It isn’t research into war that
yielded metaphoric gold,”