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Ailene quickly helped Thorburn and Stuart set up his courtyard to the training standards of the one Frang and Bjarkë set up at Lady Luck and began working with them to quickly train up the men on the new training order. When it was ready, Thorburn asked her to take charge, explain the new training.

"I want you to look where you're going to be training now," Ailene explained. "Don't walk around yet. Just look for a moment. Now, Grant, tell me what you see."

"There's a bunch of new stuff, walls and fences and the like."

"Does it seem more where you'd be likely to fight rather than a big, flat field?" She asked. "When we got ambushed on the road, did it look like your training ground? Tam?"

"No, there were trees and bushes and gorse, some hills to the side and the like."

"This is designed to be similar to where you're most likely to be fighting, outside or in or around buildings. If you're defending the Keep, you might be on the ramparts, or in some of the buildings, or fighting in the woods outside. You should get to used to fighting under those conditions if that's where you're going to be fighting for your life, don't you think? Tam, look harder. Where are you going to be able to use your preferred weapon and where will you not?"

"I don't understand, Lady Ailene," Lachlan said.

"You use a claymore, don't you Lachlan?"

"Aye."

"There's a mock doorway, Lachlan. I want you to take out your claymore, stand just inside the door and try to swing it."

Lachlan did as she requested and could barely swing it, hitting a chunk out of the wood.

"It didn't work very well, did it?"

"Nay, Lady."

"Now, let's say you're fighting me, and you've got me retreating and I go into this doorway. Come on, show me."

She started retreating toward the doorway and Lachlan followed, swinging at Ailene. She easily turned aside his strokes, though she kept backing, right through the door. As soon as he started to step through, Ailene made a quick attack. He tried blocking her but his sword got caught on the door jam and he died.

"Lachlan's dead. In your new training, if you die, you're done for the day. If you really were to die, you can't pick yourself up and try again. Your life is over. I want to reinforce this concept in your minds. If you die, it's over. Think about that. I appreciate bravery as much as anyone, but you just ended your life for no good purpose, Lachlan. You didn't save anyone, you didn't get me. You followed me into a doorway where I had the advantage. I don't need to swing my sword like you do. As soon as you stepped through, I could attack you and you were helpless to defend yourself. What could you have done instead of needlessly throwing your life away?"

Lachlan thought for a while, puzzled. "I'm not sure, Lady."

Everyone laughed. Ailene shushed them all. "It's why we're training, to learn what he should have done. Tam, you were laughing pretty hard; what would you have done?"

"I'd have followed you through the doorway like Lachlan, and likely died just like yesterday, Lady."

"An accurate answer, but the wrong one. I don't want to lose you anymore than I want to lose Lachlan. Anyone?"

No one responded.

"If you see the danger of following an opponent into someplace where they have the advantage, don't follow. Send another rapier trained man into the doorway, or shoot an arrow through, or let them get away, capture or kill them someplace else on another day. If you refuse to go in, maybe they come back out. There are always choices to be made. Grant, I want you come at me now."

Grant raised his sword and Ailene quickly put him on the defensive with a furious attack, backing him up up. He backed up to a new log on the training ground, tripped and went to the ground. Ailene was on him in an instant and he was dead.

"Sorry, Grant, but you're dead too. You should have known there was something behind you. You've looked around enough. But I want to know why none of you warned him he was going to trip over a tree limb?"

"Can we do that, warn him, I mean?" Tam asked.

"If you don't look out for each other, who's going to do it?" Ailene asked. "You're on a battlefield now. You've no one to look after you but each other."

"Even if we're not participating at the moment?" Tam asked.

"Why not. Get into the habit of helping each other out. The life you save today may be the one saves your hide tomorrow. The only time you won't is when you're fighting someone; you don't want to warn the man you're fighting he's about to trip. You want him to trip, but if you see someone else falling into a trap, tell them, unless you're dead. If you're dead, you're dead and you can't speak. Now I want you to walk around, see where you or an opponent might trip, where your weapon may be more or less effective, what you might have to throw or kick or tip in someone's path. You can beat a better opponent out here if you understand the battlefield better than they do. Tam, you died yesterday when I threw some dirt and sand in your eyes, did you not?"

"Aye. I thought it was unfair of you to do so."

"Unfair? You thought it was unfair? Like it was fair for twenty of you big, strapping lads to come at two dainty, defenseless little women. A short mornings work, I think someone said."

Grant snickered and soon several others were as well. Ailene laughed with them too.

"Okay, maybe not so defenseless," she admitted, laughing, "but what's fair is I was alive and twenty of you were dead. That was fair in my book. I took advantage of my battlefield, and you didn't. Isobel and I went through a gate where only one or two could follow and we took advantage. When you split up, we took advantage, by concentrating ourselves on two sides of a smaller group. When we split up, we took advantage, splitting you into smaller groups which were easier to handle.

"I don't know if you've been told, but Bjarkë knocked me unconscious before we started this type of training. I was beating him. I'd killed him five times already. I was about to kill him again with my blade to his heart, and he took the stab wound to his arm and laid me out cold. He sacrificed his arm to a wound so he wouldn't die again. Hopefully, none of you will have to sacrifice a limb to save your life, but hopefully, you'll be able to if you need to protect your life. If we do this training right, you'll start to realize all the ways to defeat a better opponent. Because I'd never been in battle, I didn't realize the lengths you must go to save yourself. Bjarkë did. Frang realized I needed to put myself on a battlefield to find out what I didn't know, which was a lot.

"It's why we created this training, because I want you to find any method to save your life, from throwing dirt in the eyes to sacrificing an arm to save your life. Do you understand. I'm tired of burying my friends in the cold, hard ground. So take a real good look around and figure this out. When you're satisfied you think you know it, pair up with someone of equal skill and go out there, and spar it out. Once you're dead, you can watch the others, hopefully to learn from their deaths today so you don't die tomorrow. The winners will continue against each other until only one stands. I suggest you don't try to memorize the ground, it's going to change tomorrow. Everything that can be moved, will be moved, but learn to recognize the traps and the opportunities to press for your edge. Go on now. When you're done, we'll try to point out anything which might have saved your life. Thorburn and I will be watching."

They started wandering through the new training ground, looking around, trying to figure things out.

"You sounded like a commander out there," Thorburn said. "It was good. You pushed and motivated them, gave them reasons to listen to you, something to strive for, showed you care for them. I couldn't have done better myself."

"Thank you, Thorburn."

They started to drift onto the training ground. After about five minutes in, some of them started fighting.