But that was a sidelight. Ironfist wasn’t fighting his brother to entertain the squads. That wasn’t his way. This was a lesson of some kind.

So what was the lesson? It wasn’t how to fight with these weapons.

The two men began fighting, and of course it was dazzling. To most of the nunks, it had to look like Ironfist had picked up a weapon that he hadn’t even thought of in years, and had total mastery of it. It was a good way for Ironfist to use the time he’d had to put into brushing up his skills to a second use. It also gave him an edge on Tremblefist, who obviously hadn’t trained with his own weapons in a good long time.

Ironfist won, despite having what seemed a worse weapon, nine to six. The brothers finished with double swords. Tremblefist won, but only ten–nine. The total of all the bouts went to Ironfist.

“Form up,” Ironfist said.

And here’s where we get the lesson, Kip thought.

The squads were, by this time, highly efficient at getting into place. In seconds they stood in neat lines.

“Tremblefist, thank you,” Ironfist said. He bowed low to his brother, as to an equal. His brother bowed a bit lower, but a smirk played on his lips. Ironfist motioned that Tremblefist could go. “Squad Yod!” he barked. “Being the worst has its perks. Take the rest of the day off. You’re dismissed.”

The members of Yod looked at each other. Some were dumb enough to look excited at getting the day off. The smarter ones looked stung. They’d been called the worst. It was the truth, of course. Of ten squads, they were tenth. But those few had the sense to see that being dismissed early was a perk, but it wasn’t all perk.

Nevertheless, they bowed and left.

“Squad Teth,” Ironfist said, addressing the ninth squad. “What did you learn today?”

“That you’re fuckin’ awesome,” someone whispered in the back. It carried more than intended.

They fell silent as they realized Commander Ironfist had heard it. “Squad Teth, Blackguards guard their tongues. One hour running.” They quietly groaned and hung their heads. He paused. “Minus half, because I am.”

The squads all laughed and cheered.

Ironfist cracked a grin. “Squad Teth, dismissed.” They left, clapping the one who’d spoken out on the shoulders and giving each other a hard time.

After they closed the door behind themselves, Commander Ironfist said, “Squad Kheth, what’d you learn?”

Kheth, Zayin, Vav, and He squads each came up with some technique or combination they’d never seen before. Some of the comments were quite good, noting that a counter only worked because of Ironfist’s or Tremblefist’s reach or strength.

After the door closed behind He, Commander Ironfist looked at the remaining four squads: his thirty-three best Blackguard inductees. “Daleth, Gimel, Beth, Aleph,” he said, looking at each squad in turn. “Being the worst has its perks. So does being the best. What’s your perk?”

Ben-hadad said, “We get more instruction; they get more time off.”

“And what’s that mean?” the commander asked.

“They’re being punished for their ineptitude,” an Archer from Gimel said. “They think they’re gaining something by getting free time, and thus they prove that they aren’t the best.”

“Did all of them look elated to go?” the commander asked.

“The smart ones looked heartbroken,” Kip said.

“Which means the smart ones will redouble their efforts to get better,” Cruxer said. “It’ll make the cream rise.”

“Yes, and?” Ironfist asked.

“Not an ‘and,’” Kip said. “A ‘but.’ But this means—”

“Hold,” Ironfist said. “Squad Daleth, you’re dismissed.”

It was clearly a shot in the gut for the eight nunks of Squad Daleth. Having been identified for one moment as elite, and then pushed out of the circle, not a one of this squad looked happy to get out early.

“Commander, please, let us stay,” the squad leader, Aria, said. Admirably, she didn’t make it sound like begging, simply a request.

“The best are not allowed to stay, they earn it,” Commander Ironfist said. “Dismissed.”

There was sharp silence as Squad Daleth left.

But Commander Ironfist ignored it. Kip had no doubt that everyone in that squad would double their efforts. “Breaker, go on.”

Kip took a breath. “By kicking them out, it just means that the best get better. By our training more, we’ll continue to be the best.”

“Is there any way around that?”

“You could give the most instruction to the worst squads,” Cruxer said.

“That would make them better, at the cost of making you worse than you could be. We’re not interested in mediocrity here.”

“You could have them train just as much as we do,” Teia said.

“They do already. They were here; they saw what you saw, but I guarantee that all the remaining intelligent comments would have come from Gimel, Beth, and Aleph, not the lower squads. Because we’ve done this before. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen how the worst—even in this elite group—slow down everyone. And my time is finite. I cannot teach a class of one hundred as quickly or as well as I can teach a class of ten. Nor ten as well as one. Would that it were not so.

“To have an elite of anything is to be at the best slightly unfair. There is always someone who almost made it, and if you expand the bounds to encompass that one, there’s someone else who almost made that circle. The question is always, what do you get in trade for being slightly unfair? The Blackguard could be a thousand strong, or it could be ten. We make the trades. We decide when to expand the circle to let in someone who is not quite as good as the rest of you.”

“At some level, though, there’s a kind of equality,” Kip said. “Or at least … the differences don’t matter. A Teia has such gifts you’d be a fool not to bring her onto the Blackguard, even if she couldn’t fight at all. You told me that. Ben-hadad can’t command like Cruxer, but he’s so smart, he brings us other things. Big Leo might lose eight bouts of ten to Cruxer, but his very size means there’s times we don’t have to fight at all. At some point, a person has enough gifts that even if he isn’t the best at all things, he’s too valuable to give up.”

The squads looked at Kip like he’d said something smart.

“I agree,” Commander Ironfist said. “That’s why I’m lecturing three squads here, and not just Aleph. Now, what lessons did you learn, Gimel?”

“That practice can get you killed in battle. That you have to always keep the limits of the training you’ve done in mind,” a singularly ugly young man named Cracks said.

“A truism from the very first days of our training,” Commander Ironfist said. “How’d you see it, exactly?”

“In the first sparring, you made a single mistake, and it led to a touch, instantly. Maybe that’s because Tremblefist has fought you so many times that he knows exactly what your skills are, but I think it was instead because in being totally aggressive, he only risked losing a single point. He could fling himself at you with abandon, trying to grab that mistake. Would he have been so fast to attack if he were risking his life rather than a point? I’d say no.”