The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (5 page)

He smoothed his clothes, garments that would scarcely qualify as a uniform. An oversized beige cloth tunic and pants hung from his sinewy body, the pants dirty and stained from use, his bare feet just as dirty. While he still fussed with his tunic, another bevy of graduates stampeded through the narrow staging tunnel, knocking him down on all fours into a warm mound of fresh elephant dung.

Being dead can't possibly be worse than this,
he thought.

Still on the ground, trying to extract himself without getting more dung on him, he saw a well-shined pair of boots approaching with the relaxed, confident gait of a trained warrior. Urus immediately knew who wore those boots. He could tell just from the way they moved that they belonged to his best friend Goodwyn.

Goodwyn was every bit as tall and narrow as Urus was short and muscled. The few training bouts Urus had won had been with strength, while Goodwyn's speed and ability to out-think his opponents had left him undefeated since his twelfth birthday.

"Last time I checked, dung wasn't part of your performance uniform," Goodwyn signed after helping Urus up. Goodwyn and his uncle were among the few non-merchants in Kest who knew tradesign.

"At least you have a uniform," Urus signed, admiring Goodwyn's freshly made dark red leather armor with shining metal studs, the dye alone costing as much as the rest of the suit. "This is prisoner cloth. Funny how the acolyte uniform is the same as the war-prisoner outfit used in the reenactment."

"It's not that bad."

Urus knew that placating look, the awkward grin Goodwyn used every time he felt the need to apologize for winning some accolade while Urus fell further behind the others.
 
He gave his friend's uniform another appraising look, noticing a bronze pendant hanging from his neck.

"That's new," Urus signed, then pointed at the pendant.

"It's nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing. You've been turning down courtship proposals from all the most beautiful girls for months now. Did one of them finally hook you? What was it, did she beat you in combat or just soften you up with ale?"

"I said it's nothing," Goodwyn snapped. He scuffed the ground with his boot then, unslung a chain and shackles from his shoulder and held them out to Urus, his mouth turned into a grim frown.

"They sent you to shackle the culled?" Urus asked.

"I have to check the ropes and chains for all the procession lines."

"But that's a job for the new First Fist recruits," Urus signed, the realization of what was happening only hitting him after he put his hands down.

Goodwyn shifted his weight from one foot to the other, saying nothing.

"You got picked, didn't you?" Urus grabbed the shackles and threw them down. "Answer me!"

Goodwyn nodded.

"If you got picked, that means my uncle knows," Urus signed.

"Your uncle is the one who selected me."

"And you wait until you're about to put me in chains for the ceremony to tell me this?"

Urus couldn't believe that his friend would do this. He was used to being jealous of Goodwyn's accomplishments, but nothing had ever stung more than his friend trying to hide this from him like he was some weak, pathetic little creature who couldn't handle the news.

Worse, his uncle had taken the time to personally select his best friend for service in the First Fist, but still couldn't even finish one conversation with his own nephew.

"I'm not going to apologize for my achievements, Ury."

"I've never asked you to, but you could've told me. We're supposed to be friends."

"We may be friends, but I've wanted this all my life and I'm not going to let you hold me back."

The air went out of Urus's lungs, pressure squeezing in on his heart like a hammer-blow to the chest.

Goodwyn's eyes bulged wide.

"So I hold you back, do I?" Urus signed. He snatched up the shackles and clamped them around his wrists. They were props, but looked real enough to complete the illusion that he was a prisoner of war.

"I didn't mean it like that," Goodwyn signed.

Urus held up his hands, rattling the shackles in front of his friend's face. "I know what you meant. Being shackled to someone like me could ruin your chances to be the hero you were meant to be."

Goodwyn glanced over his shoulder back up the ramp, his head cocked to one side. Someone must have been calling him.
 

"It's starting and I have to go. Look, Ury, I'm sorry about what I said. Maybe after the ceremony we can—"
 

Urus cut him off before he could finish. "You go on,
hero
. Go and listen to the crowds cheer your name. Don't let a culled like me hold you back." Unable to hold back the tears, little rivulets carried salty dirt down his cheeks.

Goodwyn opened his mouth to say something but stopped. He shifted his weight, lifted his hands to sign something, and gave up on that as well. He stood there looking sorry and angry and even a little guilty for a few moments before finally running back up the ramp.

There Urus stood, covered in dung and chained to the back of an elephant, given the role of playing a prisoner of war in a ceremony to honor those talented enough to have graduated. All the magic that had somehow saved his life the night before hadn't helped him as a warrior, hadn't helped him pass the gauntlet or avoid being culled.
 

What good is a magic you can't use?
Urus thought.

When they were younger, he and Goodwyn had dreamed of standing on a hilltop, overlooking a battlefield as victorious generals. Now Urus figured he would be cooking stew for the soldiers while Goodwyn stood alone on that distant hilltop.

He wanted to be happy for his friend. Goodwyn deserved the honor of being in the First Fist, and there wasn't a Kestian alive who could match him in single combat. But right now all Urus could see was a mundane future helping negotiate worthless trades. He would rather clean up elephant manure on the battlefield than be a translator miles away from the action.

The procession started, thankfully giving him something to do other than think about his future. He made his way up the ramp, following the lumbering elephant through the maze of landings and corridors. The first performers were already a few minutes into their routines before daylight hit him.

The stadium held more people than Urus thought possible. Nearly every citizen of Kest and every visiting trader or diplomat had crammed into seats with barely enough room for their drinks in oversized ceramic mugs made just for the occasion.
 

The smells of roasting meat, spices, and mouthwatering pastries filled the city. Most holidays could come and go in Kest with little pause or concern, but Kestians started preparing for the next graduation ceremony before the debris from the previous one settled. Were it not for the stench drifting up from his clothes, the aromas wafting into the tunnels would have made him hungry.

The younger warriors went first, giving combat demonstrations to show off their rapidly growing skills with training blades and staffs. Kestians didn't use shields, seeing an unarmed hand as a wasted attack. Instead, many of their sword hilts had defensive metal plates that were so big they seemed to swallow the arms of the little fighters.

So far no one seemed to notice him, their attention focused on the children performing dazzling feats of gymnastics and martial arts.

After the first few hours of the ceremony, Urus's legs cramped. He stretched and shifted but nothing seemed to help. He couldn't decide which annoyed him more, the pain in his legs or the boredom. Finally his elephant moved. It was time for the part of the drama where the prisoners of war were paraded in front of the citizenry as trophies of glorious victories from far-off lands, showcasing the strength of Kest's armies.
 

There was only one prisoner this year.

As the mock battlefield shifted, the groups headed off to the side while the solo performers made their way into the center ring. The elephant dragged Urus in a full circuit around the arena, assuring that every citizen of Kest got a good look at the boy who wasn't good enough to be a warrior—to be a true Kestian.

The solo performances were so much fun to watch, Urus almost forgot that he was watching from the ass-end of an elephant. A few of the most skilled graduates each got to give a demonstration in their specialty, some performing feats of archery, others showing off their speed or strength. Goodwyn, the most gifted warrior in the class, performed last.

As a pair of children from the earlier performances carried an ornate box between them to Goodwyn, the vibrations of the crowd's cheers and stomps went silent. Goodwyn opened the lid and withdrew its contents with the reverence one might show for a holy artifact. To the warrior caste, the weapon inside was as close as an object could get to holy. It was a
suzur
, a twenty-foot length of barbed metal chain, at one end a heavy spiked mace and at the other a long, curved blade. Goodwyn gripped the leather-wrapped wooden handle in the center of the weapon and let the chains unravel.

Most people just called the weapon "the stumper" in honor of the missing limbs that invariably resulted from the weapon's use, even by the most skilled soldiers. Suzurs were as renowned for killing their wielders as they were their enemies. Goodwyn was the only graduate brave—or foolish—enough to wield the weapon, let alone specialize in it.

He started by hurling the mace end of the chain to shatter pottery targets filled with bright, multicolored sand, each resting on wooden posts at different heights. The audience rose to their feet, clapping and clanking mugs in salute after Goodwyn broke three targets with one swing.

Urus had seen Goodwyn practicing this routine and knew what was coming next. The audience was in for a spectacle. All of the children who had performed earlier formed a line, each carrying a heavy burlap bag. Goodwyn nodded to the first child, who stepped forward and threw the bag as high in the air as he could.

This was the first day of his life as one of the culled, and Urus was getting a taste of what it felt like to have everyone in Kest ignore him while they stared in awe at the spectacle of his friend's skill.
 

Goodwyn wrenched his right hand and the chain lashed out at the bag. The blade at the tip sliced through and spilled colored confetti into the air, which swirled high above the spectators in the cool afternoon wind.

One line of children separated into two small groups. Then more lines appeared, then more, of graduates and even some of the battlemasters and other adults, who finally formed a circle of queues around Goodwyn like rays shooting from the sun.

Each line passed bags from supply carts inward to the circle around Goodwyn and his whirling blade and smashing mace. Bag after bag flew into the air and Goodwyn cut through them all, even with a half dozen bags in the air at once.
 

He spun and rolled and turned his slashing blade into a dancer's prop, no one able to escape the lethal beauty of his skill. He threw the blade into the air and the bags seemed to fall toward his weapon, as if landing on the blade by random chance. Goodwyn was in one of his rhythms, a dance where he knew every move his opponent would make before they made it. It was what made him impossible to defeat and what made his performance so mesmerizing.

Urus was so enthralled by the performance that he almost didn't notice the two groups of First Fist slowly making their way around the outside of the stadium, heading away from the performance and toward him. At first the movement started as a flicker of red in the corner of his eye, but as they drew closer they stared back at him, the only people in the stadium not watching Goodwyn. He had no idea what the First Fist could possibly want with him, but it couldn't be good.

The closer they drew the more worried he became, his mind careening through a list of all the things he had done wrong that might warrant a visit from the First Fist. He thought of the cookies he'd taken from the palace kitchen; the ale he and Goodwyn routinely smuggled from the storehouse behind the Victor's Chalice; and all the other mischief the boys had a penchant for getting into.

His mind returned to the fall from the palace roof and he wondered if he had somehow broken a law, either by jumping or by surviving. Maybe they knew about his family's magic and the shaman wanted to interrogate him.

Then a truly terrifying thought occurred to him: Had High Shaman Kebetir seen him? Were the First Fist coming to arrest him for spying on the man's conversation?

His heart raced, his chest tightened, and sweat poured from his head as the men approached. He looked for a way out, but he was still shackled to an elephant's hind end and had nowhere to go. The rapt audience focused solely on the performance. If he made a move to run, everyone would notice.

"Urus Noellor," the first man to arrive said aloud, "you're to come with us."

Urus held up his chained hands and tilted his head at the elephant, forcing a smile.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something," he signed, dragging his chains as he made each word.

The men shared a laugh at his expense, pointing to the dung on his clothing and sneering at his chains.

"You play a good prisoner," remarked one of the men, who stood close enough to for Urus to see and read his lips. "It suits you."

"What do you want with me?" Urus asked, relenting and speaking aloud.
 

The men chuckled again.

"Not only does he fight like a baby, he talks like one too."

The insult didn't hurt. Urus had long ago developed a thick skin when it came to his speech problem.

 
The leader of the group leaned in so close to Urus's face that he could smell the spicy meal the man had just eaten on his breath. "Boy," he said, "if it were up to me I would drag you and all the other culled outside the city walls, bury you neck-deep in the dunes, and let the crows feast on your eyes."

Urus swallowed, wondering if this man had been responsible for what happened to the last boy to be culled.