Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (52 page)

“It is the way it is.”

“If you would honor me ...” He pushed his waterskin into my hands, nodding his head ever so slightly

down the hill. No one was in sight. It would be only moments until the others came into view, and I was

already feeling desperate at the thought of the long, hot afternoon. I said nothing, but nodded in return

and took a sip of the warm, stale liquid that tasted as good as anything I’d ever drunk before. I was

amazed. I had never seen a Zhid share anything.
This is dangerous
, whispered Parven.
You know it
.

If I don’t take it, I’ll risk collapsing in front of them
, I thought, maintaining silence with Lak.
He’ll

not tell anyone
.

Lak was the only one of my men that ever smiled. He smiled on that morning when I shared his water

and again a few days later when he was sparring with me and got in a decent lick that left me in the dirt

on my backside.

“A commander does not spar with his troops,” said Kovrack, his small mouth set hard, his empty

eyes glaring at Lak as the soldier walked away.

“I choose to do so, in this case,” I said. “I don’t want to lose practice while I’m in the field. None of

your practice slaves are the right size, and Lak needs the work, too. I can’t let him be lax just because

he’s small.”

Kovrack and Parven were both annoyed with me. But it was the most enjoyable practice I’d had

since I’d come to Zhev’Na. Because Lak was a soldier, he was allowed to wear leather practice armor

when we sparred, so I was unlikely to damage him severely. The work was good for both of us, and we

steadily improved.

Things were going well. The move to the desert had been all to the good.

“Young Lord,” called Kovrack one morning as we were doing our dawn exercises. “I clocked your

men running yesterday. They were not near fast enough.”

“They’ve been dragging all week,” I said, spinning on my heel and launching my knife at a wooden

post halfway down the hill. The blade dug deep, right at the mark. And I was drawing it twice as fast as I

could when I first came to the desert. “I plan to run them double time this morning.”

When I walked down the rise for morning inspection, I told my troop what I intended. But our

morning sword practice took much longer than I had calculated, and so the sun was almost at the zenith

by the time we were ready to run. “I suppose I’ll have to run them this evening instead,” I said to

Kovrack, who had come down to watch. To run in the midday sun could be deadly.

Kovrack curled his lip the way he always did when he thought I was being weak or stupid. “Indeed

you will not, my lord. You told them they would run double time this morning. You cannot back down

from your word. The news of your softness would travel throughout the entire camp by nightfall.”

I looked around the cluster of tents. Several of the older men were already lounging in the shade of

their tents, assuming I wouldn’t make them run. They were the same warriors who never seemed to draw

blood when they fought each other and looked sullen when I insisted they clean and polish their weapons

every night. They were on the verge of not taking me seriously. I nodded to Kovrack. I understood.

“All of you malingerers, up. Now! Run!”

I ran them two hours in the desert noonday. At the end of the first hour they were dripping and

panting. When they passed by the place where I stood watching them with my hands clasped behind my

back, I didn’t change my expression or say anything. They ran on. A half-hour more and they were

laboring. One soldier dropped to his knees, holding his belly, about two hundred paces from where I

stood watching. Cramps.

I was tempted to stop the exercise, but Kovrack was beside me, glaring, just waiting for me to show

how weak I was. And Lord Parven was inside, whispering.
You know what to do, young Lord. He is

worthless if he cannot follow your commands. He knows it, too. A soldier has pride, or he will turn

traitor when battle is hard. The warriors of Zhev’Na do not live if they do not obey
.

I drew my sword and walked across the cracked ground to where the soldier had slumped over. It

was Lak. I had a full waterskin at my belt, but it might as well have been at Comigor for all the good it

could do him. I touched the point of my sword to his neck. “Run,” I said.

His breath came in harsh gulps, and he didn’t look up.

I pressed just enough harder to break the skin. “Run,” I said again. I willed him to run; every muscle

in my body begged him to get up. Slowly, he pushed himself up and staggered forward through the heat

shimmer.

Only nine of the soldiers returned. The oldest one collapsed and died fifty paces from the end. Lak

returned with the others, falling on the ground and grabbing for his waterskin.

What should you do
? asked Parven.
Has he obeyed your command completely
?

He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew what I had to do, even though I hated it. “Hold, Lak,” I

said. “You haven’t finished the course.”

Lak gaped at me stupidly, holding his middle, bent double with cramps.

“You were told to run double time, but you spent a quarter of an hour on the ground until I persuaded

you to continue. You’ll not drink with your obedient comrades until you’ve done what I told you.” I

kicked his waterskin out of his hand. A look of such hatred blossomed on his face that I drew my sword.

“Run,” I said.

He stood up and stumbled away. “Neto, clock him a quarter of an hour.” I turned away and watched

the other men drinking and wiping their faces. It seemed like a year until the other soldier gave the call.

With a loud thud Lak collapsed behind me.

Well done
. Parven was still with me.
But you know you are not finished. He defied you. You had

to tell him twice
.

Lak lay on his back in the dirt. One of the other soldiers was dribbling water in his mouth. He

coughed it up several times until his cramps eased enough to let him hold a little of it. I stood over him

and watched him heave. He was weak. I could read it in his face, and he didn’t think I could. He wasn’t

afraid of me at all.

And he must be. He defies you with his lack of fear. What will he do when you tell him to die

for you? Will you have to tell him twice?

“Bind him,” I said. “Ten lashes. Five for making me say it twice, and five for thinking I wouldn’t notice

that he shortened the time.”

Lak started to protest, but I raised my hand. “One word . . . one whimper . . . one cry, and there will

be ten more . . . and ten more after that.”

I laid on the first two stripes myself, as a symbol of my authority, and then gave the whip to one of the

other men who could do a better job of it. When it was done, I returned to my tent and had my slave

bring water to wash off the blood and flesh that had spattered on me.

The Lords were pleased:
It was necessary. . . . Not pleasant. . . Perhaps now he will live to serve

you. . . . You learn the hardships of command. . .
.

I did not go out the rest of that afternoon. That way the others could clean Lak’s wounds without me

seeing it. It would bind them together in fear of me.
Well done . .
.

For several months more I trained my nine soldiers long and hard, punishing them severely for the

least imperfection. Lak and I no longer practiced together. On the day after I had him lashed, I made him

get out and run with the others and do every exercise his comrades did. His hatred followed me about

like the shadows of the desert afternoon.

Day after day we drilled in the broiling sun, fighting with lead-weighted cudgels to gain strength,

striking at wooden posts to practice footwork and precision with swords and pikes, practicing with

blindfolds to develop perception and with hobbled feet to develop balance. Finally I decided my troop

was ready for testing. We brought in twenty-five practice slaves to fight us. It was a good day. Only one

of my nine soldiers was wounded, while seven slaves were killed. On another day we sent fifty slaves into

the cliffs. Each was given a skin of water and a supply of graybread. I allowed them a day’s start and

told them that they could have their freedom if they could keep it. On the next morning we started

hunting, using all our skills to track them down. Some had banded together to fight or to ambush us;

some had gone their own way. Within three days we had them all back, except for three who had tried to

bring down an avalanche on us and were themselves crushed by it. My men had no wounds.

It was my idea to leave the slave pen unlocked on the night we put the slaves back, thinking that their

short taste of freedom might induce them to run again. I was right, and my troop and I chased them all

down again on the next two days. I didn’t permit my men to sleep until every slave was retaken, and I

had the slavekeeper lashed severely for leaving the pen unlocked. He didn’t know that I had done it. He

believed he deserved the beating. It made a good lesson for the men.

On the morning after we recaptured the slaves, I came out of my tent and looked down the hill to see

my troop and their tents, weapons, and horses gone. “Where are they?” I demanded.

Kovrack was stretching and drinking his cavet as usual. “Reassigned. I don’t know where, and you

shall not.”

“On whose orders?” A stupid question. I knew whose orders.
Why? We were working well. They

were afraid of me. They would do anything I commanded
.

Parven answered.
You know very well why
—
because of who you are and what you will become.

Your time in the camps is done
.

When I returned to my house in Zhev’Na, Sefaro and the other slaves were gone, replaced by new

ones with no names. I was not told where they had been taken. I assumed they were dead, and if not,

then my asking would make it so. A new swordmaster met me in the fencing yard, and a new teacher of

hand combat, and a new riding master. All of them had strange eyes and no smiles, and they taunted and

ridiculed my incomplete skills until I hated them.

I was not to be comfortable. There were hard lessons to be learned. I tried to remember what I had

been before I came to Zhev’Na, but I could not, except that I had been afraid all the time. I was no

longer afraid. Fear had been stripped away along with my softness and weakness until I was as hard and

bare and exposed as the red cliffs of the desert. Never again would I shed a tear into a pillow. I didn’t

even remember how.

CHAPTER 31

V’Saro

My feet were the worst, blistered and cracked and raw. Every step was its own battle. First the

stomach clenched in apprehension, and the spirit steeled itself for the violence to come. Next, the waves

of blistering heat that poured off the oven of the desert sniped at the skin like the initial forays of the

enemy. And last came the assault itself, as raw flesh met salt-crusted sand and wind-scoured rock,

heated to broiling by the fireball of the sun.

I longed for my boots. Who would expect that a man’s life could be reduced to the consideration of a

single step and an unbridled lust for a ten-year-old pair of scuffed boots? They had been fine boots,

coaxed into such softness and perfect shape that my foot settled into them like an egg in a nest. I had

given B’Dallo’s pimpled son B’Isander three fencing lessons in exchange for them. It was a fine bargain

for B’Dallo, as my fee was usually higher, but good bootmakers had become rarer than good

swordmasters in the last years of the war.

The last years of the war . . . We’d thought it was over when Prince D’Natheil returned to Avonar

after his victory at the Exiles’ Gate. Our troops—never truly an army, only sorcerers of every profession

converted to soldiers—dispersed. We came out of hiding and believed we could take up where our

families had left off hundreds of years ago. Fools like me said that those of us born in Sen Ystar could go

back and rebuild a life in our long-abandoned village, lay down a path of beauty for our children to

walk—or perhaps meet a fair Dar’Nethi woman with whom to lay down a path of beautiful children. But

we learned our mistake, and so some hollow-eyed devil of a Zhid was wearing my magnificent boots,

while I ... I had to take another step.

We in Sen Ystar had heard nothing of renewed attacks by the Zhid and had gone about our business

that day with hope and joy. Fen’Lyro, the miller, had called a Builder to reconstruct his wheel, and we

had all been drawn to watch by the beauty of the Builder’s voice. He sang the spokes and shanks into

place, completing the perfection of the wheel with a burst of melody that drew sighs from several village

girls who knew the Builder had no wife. Girls did not swoon over swordmasters.

My art would die away with peace. Though I rejoiced with everyone else at the happy results of

Prince D’Natheil’s journey, I’d not yet come to terms with that. I had thought of taking a mentor for

smithing, but what I loved about swords was not the metal. I had no knack for smithing anyway. I

couldn’t sharpen a nail without three files, nor once done, persuade it to stay that way. It was not even