Book 4. Chapter 19
“I'll let you all grow acquainted,” Galan said. Then he and Lyssa were gone, and Brin was alone with a group of young men who were all various degrees of hostile.
Was that really all the introduction Galan was going to give him? Announce that he was the Second and then take off? Brin didn’t even know what a Second was. Did that mean he was the Second in command? From the way the other [Knight], who [Inspect] called Hedrek, was glaring at him, he thought that was probably the case.
The [Warrior] and [Hunter] also eyed him with distrust, while others like the [Porter] and [Armsman] looked on neutrally. The leader, whom Galan had called Gurthcid stared at him with a look of extreme annoyance.
“And are you to follow me everywhere I go?” asked the man who’d stepped into the courtyard just ahead of Brin. He realized he knew him; it was Rhun. Somehow, Sion’s idiotic bodyguard and he had ended up in the same Lance. Brin hadn’t even known that Rhun was in this castle.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Brin.
“You two know each other already. How grand. Today we’ll focus mainly on getting acquainted with each other and our roles in the Lance. We’ll need a full day at least to teach you all how to ride, but that won’t be today,” said Cid, speaking in Prinnashian. It was the language Brin was most fluent in outside of Frenarian, but he still spoke it with a pretty bad accent.
It took Brin a half-second to parse all that in Prinnashian. Couldn’t everyone slow down while they were speaking? He supposed he was lucky they were speaking Prinnashian and not Ollandish, since he only knew like ten words in Ollandish, but that didn’t spare him the embarrassment of stumbling over every other word.
“Yes… sir,” said Brin. Was Cid his commanding officer now? Better to be safe than sorry, he supposed. Wait, should he salute as well? He didn’t know, but Rhun wasn’t saluting, so he guessed probably not.
Cid looked at him, clearly expecting him to do or say something, but Brin honestly wasn’t sure what. This was his first experience with any kind of military; he hadn’t enlisted in his past life and he doubted that knowledge would help at all here.