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I nodded, the dray horses would do. “No saddles, then?”

“
None that will fit. You'll have to ride bareback,” he made it sound unimportant, and he wasn't far wrong. I had done it in my youth and I could do it again. I had no doubt of Sapphire. I let the barkeep go and arrange things, walked around the bar and poured myself another brew. Idly kicking barrels as I walked the length of the bar. There were few and what remained were mostly empty. A bad time to be a brewer, I thought. “How much scrip do you have?”

“
Enough.”

“
In my Father's name?” It wasn't really a question.

“
Yes.”

He did not elaborate and I left it. It didn't matter that I suspected he had enough to equip and maintain an army. There was no hope of doing that now, just the two of us in enemy territory.

As I sipped my second beer I became a little less aware of the constant growling, whining and snuffling of the dogs. I was so used to the sounds that I barely noticed.

#

Sapphire had led the way to a small gate in the wall. There were two guards. We killed them fast. Sapphire took the keys and opened the gate. There were shouts from the wall above and running feet. A bell sounded but by then we were leading our horses through. Once outside we mounted and fled. A couple of crossbow bolts had followed. One had passed close by my head and went clean through the ear of my horse. I controlled its wild reaction and we rode on, galloping wildly down a track lined with trees, grape vines trampled in the fields to either side. We would be chased, but I didn't care. If they caught up to us they would die, bathed in hot oil, or by our blades. I was coldly angry and arrogant. We left the town behind us, and the war. It would progress as it progressed. Two men are not an army, but two men can sometimes do what an army cannot. I was determined to pull some gain for myself from this mess; seeing as I seemed incapable of commanding an army, unable to protect those I cared about, I would instead go and rescue someone I didn't care about, and the gods help anyone who tried to stop me.

We took a track north and headed deeper into enemy territory. When the opportunity allowed I intended to turn somewhat west and close on the Eyrie, where Tahal Samant waited for the head of a king or some other ransom. Instead he was going to get me, a drunken patron, and Sapphire, my father's spy.

#

Heading north and west, sticking to the country tracks, we pushed hard that first day. When the big drays could run no more we walked them, frequently glancing back, aware that there might be pursuit. We saw none. I wanted news but those few people we did encounter either ran when they saw us or had none. There were no traders on the road. War kills trade, and barbarians who prey on traders kill or steal from them as well as discouraging others to move goods. When trade dries up economies falter, production slows and dies, communities rely on their own skills and make what they need. If the situation persists civilizations fall into barbarism, travel and trade cease, quality goods are no longer fabricated for want of a market for them. A generation later and old people talk about peace and prosperity while young people listen and don't believe them. Our enemy wanted to barbarize the world, to make everyone poor, we wanted to civilize it and make everyone rich. I knew where the right lay, knew what ought to be, but could not find a comprehensive justification for enforcing it; 'life is better for you our way' just was not enough of an argument. Not that I thought our system was perfect; we took and controlled only sporadically over the centuries, giving up lands we controlled when a patron let them go for whatever reason. Client kingdoms could be and had been left in a patron's will to a foreign power as return for some favor done. The client kingdom rarely did as well under that rule. Some won their freedom in war against a patron and he was not dynamic or strong enough to take it back without aid and no other patron desired to help. A century later it might be taken again, or not. The Prashuli, Orduli and Alendi had once been clients and now were not; when we crushed them and ruined the north they might be again, or they might be looted, depopulated and left to their own devises. Weakened, other tribes from the east and west would move into the vacant territory to use it for their own and enslave or displace the current populations. It would be better if we had a stronger system of development and control, but that would be in the hands of government and we did not much approve of government, recognizing it as a necessary evil but keeping it to a minimum. The assembly of patrons split the powers of state between themselves in several magistracies and changed magistrates every year to avoid power being consolidated by one or few men. The two consuls were only the two senior magistrates, and the senior consul usually prosecuted a war, either punitive or of conquest, in order to line his own pockets with loot. That money was spent in the city and filtered down, even moving back to whence it came over time and aiding the conquered people. The council raised taxes from the conquered state, built roads, founded institutions, enforced the peace, allowed trade, and so on. The people prospered under those conditions and life was almost certainly better under our rule. Life is better for the common man under the light touch of our rule, but was that justification enough for it? I shrugged the matter off and turned my mind to other thoughts as we rode on. Sapphire was not a talkative companion.

The whining and growling of dogs echoed in my head, the sound vibrating through my skull from the stone set in my forehead. I wondered if I would wear that stone for the rest of my life, allowing anyone who attuned a stone to it to find me no matter where I was. It occurred to me that if they were allies it would be no bad thing, but enemies could track me that way and so far only enemies had. I wondered what the Turned were doing; had Lentro spoken to the others? Had they heard him and were they now outraged and fighting the control that the last king's amulet had over them? Were they plotting and scheming to bring down the one who wore it? Had Kukran been burned to ash already or had whoever made the attempt failed? I put that thought aside as well. Whatever happened would happen and we would hear word of it in time.

Fields of hops, barley and wheat thinned to smaller and smaller patches, the country becoming wilder. We passed meadows empty of livestock and villages empty of people, both man and animal either slaughtered or fled.

In the first empty village we entered, Sapphire had reined in and slid easily off his horse, the wound in his arm not seeming to give him much trouble. I could not see it but guessed he had cleaned and bound it. No blood showed through to his coat, at least, and in any case it was his arm, not mine.

“
What?” I asked him.

He pulled down the pack he had tied to his horse and began loosening the ties.

“
Time to change,” he said.

I thought about it and nodded. “You speak Gerrian?”

He nodded and began pulling clothes from the pack, the kind of rough spun cloth that they wear in the north, where they cannot afford to trade for our superior materials and colors. Yellows, blues, dark reds, wool and supple leather. I got down and we changed, picking clothes that fit where possible, making do where they did not. I took a slug of whiskey, put the bottle carefully away.

“
You don't look like one of us,” he said in the Alendi dialect.

“
My mother was a slave but my father was a warrior who stole her from the south.”

“
What is your name?”

“
Pel Epmeran,” I said without pause.

He snorted. “The son of a slave.”

I smiled back. “The son of a freedman. Stay in character.”

“
Tarl Epjarn,” he supplied. “You are giving me lessons now?”

I didn't answer but instead looked around the ruin of a village; seeing what I wanted I went and got two stout sticks the length of swords. “Speaking of lessons, ours should continue.”

“
I watched you, you have the way of it.”

“
I could be better.”

“
We could all be better, there is always someone better. That's never the point. Just be aware, know, think, act, don't pay attention to the skill of the enemy, only know him and kill him and move on.”

“
Train me.”

He started repacking and I didn't think he would say more, I thought the answer was no, but it was more complicated than that. “They took me when I was five,” he started his story as he slung the pack up on the horse and tied it there. “I was a gutter rat, a... what do you call it? A beggar. A thief. There were hundreds of us gutter rats preying on each other, starving, killing each other. We were free but no one wanted us. There was famine. I was surviving.” He swung up into the saddle. “Bring the toy swords.”

I blushed. It was the contempt he put into the words 'toy swords.' But I didn't protest. I just did as I was told. He was giving me something and I was determined to accept the gift.

“
I'd already killed, twice, by then; older boys who tried to take food I'd suffered to get. I wasn't alone. There was civil war. There was famine. There were thousands of people in Opreth and every one of them was hungry to one extent or another. The enemy had hit us while we fought amongst ourselves and the countryside was ruled by nomads. They didn't want the cities. They were killing everyone outside them so more refugees were arriving every day. Like a thousand rats in a barrel we were turning on ourselves.”

We rode out of the village and I listened, enthralled. I had heard of Opreth. I knew what had happened in the country of Fortherria, far to the north and east, a land once as civilized as ours. Not now. The cities were ruins. The country ruled by nomads who let fertile lands lie fallow and ran cattle on them. The cities were near empty, I had read, thinly populated by wretches who farmed market gardens inside the city walls. In Opreth a population of half a million had reduced itself to less than a handful of thousands. Gang wars, starvation, cannibalism, they had literally consumed themselves while the nomads killed any who fled the nightmare. They were still there, those few thousands in their cities that the barbarians mostly ignored.

“
The noble line of the nomads have a few traditions they maintain. Ku Mirt is one of them. They came into the cities and took some of us. They begin training at five, or thereabouts. They are not too fussy about age so long as the boys look five or so.”

For a good while, as we walked the horses, he was silent but I didn't say anything. I sensed he would tell me more as long as I left him to decide what he would tell.

“
Food is the reward, and we were all hungry. A thousand of us went into Yurpron Fastness. They trained us hard and some died of the training, but the survivors killed the rest. Over twelve years I killed roughly a hundred of them. Maybe more. I didn't count. The competition to survive was fierce. We were told early that only twenty would leave there alive when we reached seventeen. That we would then serve the royal house as tools well made.” He glanced at me then and just a glimpse of those cold blue eyes told me what he was saying this for.

He had asked me once. 'Are you five?' And when I had said no he had told me, 'We begin training at five. No exceptions.' No exceptions.

“
I can't teach you to be what I am,” he put it into words where none were needed. “I killed children when I was a child, boys when I was a boy and youths when I was a youth, and some of the teachers along the way. And every day the training; morning noon and night, training in ways you don't want to imagine and in things you would rather not know about, so no. No, I can't teach you to be me. And would not if I could. But I will teach you a little more of the sword, if you want to learn that.” And then he kicked his horse into a canter and after a long moment I followed.

#

“
The point is faster than the edge but don't favor it, just use what's right in the instant. You are not showing off your skill for a crowd of admirers, you are just killing and every time you move someone should feel your blade in them. Groin and inner thigh, belly and neck are the best killing hits but don't pass up an opportunity, any time you cut them it hurts and they react, step back, twitch, wince, something, and then you kill them.” Sapphire kept up a running monologue as we worked. There was something about the way he used the practice sword that told me he had never held one in his hands before today. It was a frightening thought. When he had learned he had taken wounds any time he failed to block or duck a blow. “You use the term swordplay, the first time I heard the phrase I laughed till I cried, later and in private,” he was striking at me relentlessly and I knew why it had seemed to Kerral that he was holding back, it was because he was not actually trying to kill me. Having seen him in action I could see the difference. “There is no sense of play in killing, and if you have a sword in your hand instead of a rock what difference? Bare handed or a knife, a rope, a plate, a bottle, a brick, a scythe or a rake. There is no play in it, just get the sharp bit into their body and kill them.” I was defending desperately. “You focus too much on the sword, the sword is there but it isn't everything, you learned somewhere how to see that an enemy is going to move but you need more, you need to learn to know how and where he is going to move, and then use it to be out of that and have your blade in his body.” He didn't move his feet, sometimes for a minute at a time, then he would step to make sure he was close enough to hit me with the blade, which he did with monotonous regularity. “You were better than this with a real blade and a real enemy, everyone is more focused, if not more skilled when it matters. Usually less skilled but that doesn't matter, what matters is that you are not trying to kill me and if you don't you will learn nothing from this.” He stepped in past my sword as though it wasn't there and punched me in the plexus so hard that I went down hard on my back before I knew I'd been hit. “That's enough for now. Think about trying to kill me.”