Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (36 page)

the swordmaster, but then I was a better rider than I was a swordsman. The problem with Murn was that

I always came to him last in the day, and it didn’t matter if I was bleeding from sword fighting or bruised

from hand combat, he never changed his lesson at all. Some days I was so tired I couldn’t stay on the

horse when we were practicing jumps, or even control the beasts, they were so wild. It seemed like I

spent half the riding time sprawled out on the ground. Murn shook his head and said that was just too

bad. My technique needed to improve.

It felt good to fight and train, though. After only two weeks I had grown stronger and faster than I

ever had been in my life. And no one bothered me about dressing properly or dancing lessons or being

polite. This was just what I had always wanted.

Thousands of soldiers were camped around the fortress. At night you could see their fires dotted all

over the plains like stars that had fallen out of the sky. In the daytime they marched and drilled and fought

with each other, looking like ants there were so many. They were allowed to fight to the death in their

training, which was never done in Leire. Sometimes they marched crowds of people—slaves and

servants—out onto the plains and made them play the part of the enemy. They killed lots of them. On

almost every day I saw bodies thrown onto piles and burned. Some days I just saw and smelled the

nasty smoke that hung over the desert. You didn’t have to be in Ce Uroth very long before you knew

that the Lords of Zhev’Na were at war with somebody.

One day after I had lived in Zhev’Na for several weeks, my swordmaster Calador came to watch my

hand-combat training. Xeno was teaching me how to disable an opponent without damaging him

permanently. As our practice progressed, Calador’s face turned red and angry. After a while, he called

Xeno over and commanded him to kneel down. Xeno did so, which looked strange since Xeno was

about twice Calador’s size. “What are you are doing here, slave?”

“I’m teaching the young master hand combat as I was commanded, Swordmaster.”

“You are teaching him to be killed.”

“No, begging your pardon, Swordmaster. I am teaching him how to survive, how to deal with

attackers that are larger or stronger or quicker, how to disarm them with guile.”

“Leaving an opponent undamaged will allow the opponent an opportunity to take revenge on the

young Lord. His enemies are unmatched in their wiles and cannot be dealt with in such a fashion. You are

implanting weakness, setting him up to be killed.”

“Swordmaster, it was never my intent to—”

“Tell me, slave, who is your master?”

Sweat dripped down Xeno’s wide face. It was not from fighting with me. “Who but the Lords of

Zhev’Na, Swordmaster?”

Calador curled his lip and laid his hand on Xeno’s slave collar. Xeno suddenly looked pale and sick,

and began shaking like he was horribly cold or afraid. Calador stuck his face right up to Xeno’s, still

pressing on the collar. “I do not think you answer me, slave. Can we be a little more clear?”

“No other answer is possible, Swordmaster.” Xeno was gasping and choking, his face almost purple,

as if the collar were choking him.

“Tell me again, slave, and this time we shall be precise. Speak the name of your master.”

Xeno straightened his back, and even though he was still shaking, sweating, and purple, his voice was

loud and clear. “I call no man my master save the true Lord of Avonar, the Heir of mighty D’Arnath, the

Prince D’Natheil, may he reign in peace and glory until the Wastes are restored and the Darkness is

forever banished from the worlds.”

Xeno did not scream until the last word was out, even though Calador opened his belly so wide that

the slave had to hold in his entrails with his huge hands. Then they all spilled out, and he toppled into the

dirt. Dead.

Calador put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back a few steps. “I knew it! This stinking dog

was assuredly planning to kill you.”

Though it was a bit frightening to know how close I had come to death, I had a difficult time thinking

of Xeno as a servant of the evil Prince. He certainly didn’t look dangerous, all spread out in the pool of

blood and entrails. Calador sent me in for an early supper while slaves were summoned to clean up the

mess. But in truth, I couldn’t eat for the rest of that day.

Harres, my new hand-combat master, was not a slave, but a warrior like Calador and Mum. He was

very strict and came near twisting me in knots. One day I was slow to get up after he had pinned me to

the sand for the twentieth time in an hour. My arm felt like it was half torn off. My face was scraped and

raw from the hot sand. And my side had a cramp that kept me from getting a full breath, even if I could

have done so in the afternoon heat.

“I said, repeat the move,” screamed Harres. “You’ll never get it right if you don’t work at it.”

“I can’t,” I said, barely able to get up on my hands and knees.

“Do you want me to coddle you like the slave did?”

“No, of course not.” But I didn’t understand why Harres couldn’t go just a little slower like Xeno

had. Truly I was making progress.

Harres grabbed my sore arm and yanked me to my feet. “Let me show you what your ‘easy’ master

wanted to do to you, what your enemies want to do to you.”

He marched me through the fortress, past the barracks, the servants’ courtyard, and the slave pens,

to a long low building made of sand blocks. If I hadn’t already vomited up my breakfast that morning

during sword practice, the stink in that building would have made me do so. Harres dragged me through

the open doorway, past a line of empty wooden carts, each with a slave chained to the handles. The

slaves were just sitting there, hot and dirty and scared-looking, waiting for something to be put in the

carts. Beyond the carts were several wooden platforms and some big crates, with more slaves working

busily around them. At first I thought other people were sleeping on the platforms, but when I saw one of

the workers cutting the hair off of the body on the platform, I realized that the body was dead.

At another platform, a slave was tugging a boot off of another dead person. He dropped the boot in

one of the crates and pulled off the next boot. He was starting to pull off the dead man’s breeches, when

Harres kicked him. “Here, slave,” said Harres, “look here.”

The slave waved his arms around his head, as if Harres was hitting him in the head. Harres had to yell

at him again and kick him several more times before the man dropped to his knees and spread his arms

out as slaves were supposed to do. The slave was a young man who looked very fit and strong, but one

look at his face told me that only his body was fit. His mouth hung open and strings of spit dribbled onto

his filthy tunic. His tongue seemed too big for his mouth and kept sliding this way and that. And his eyes .

. . they were terrible. Empty in a way much worse than the warriors. And wickedly scared. He wasn’t

thinking
about being scared like other slaves. He was scared as if he was going to be scared forever.

Harres yanked at the slave’s short hair, slapped his cheek, and poked at his shoulder. The slave

flinched and moaned, drooling and trying to shrink up into a ball. “This man was chosen to be your

hand-combat trainer, young Lord. He was intelligent and obedient, his body superbly qualified as you can

see. We thought him well suited to teaching—a good use of a slave. But we have discovered that this

Xeno befriended him in secret, promising to help this fellow escape. When this young slave tried to report

Xeno, as was proper, your kind tutor tortured him and left him hike this, leaving himself in the position to

be appointed your tutor instead.” Harres pushed the slave with his foot until the man fell over in the sand

at my feet. A big wave of stink made me step back; the slave had fouled himself. “Was this the fate Xeno

had in mind for you? If you are like this, then his master, the Dar’Nethi prince, has nothing to fear from

your revenge. Remember, young Lord. You can trust no one in the worlds. No one.”

I shivered, even though it was blazing hot.

“Back to work now.”

After a few more kicks, the slave, covered in spit and sand and filth, crawled over to the dead body

and started tugging at its breeches again.

Even with the hard training and the ugly and unpleasant things, I liked living in Zhev’Na. My house

was fine. I had my own things to use as I pleased and could eat only the food I wanted. The Lords and

their warriors protected me from D’Natheil and the other Dar’Nethi who wished to make me like that

awful drooling slave. And they treated me like a man and not a baby. I knew that the taunting was only to

make me harder and better, and outside of my lessons, everyone left me alone. Best of all, I was too

busy and too tired to think about sorcery.

The slave Sefaro ran my house—they called it the “Gray House.” He laid out whatever clothes I

needed and had my meals brought to my sitting room when I said I wanted it that way. The dining room

downstairs seemed awfully big just for me. Every moment I was not training or eating, I slept. I dreamed

a lot about Papa and Lucy. Xeno was in my dreams, too, holding his belly together so his entrails

wouldn’t leak out, along with that drooling slave that could have been me. And I kept dreaming those

things about Comigor that were more real than life. Every morning when I woke up, I wanted to go right

back to training. I was determined to be as good as Papa—better—because then I could kill the prince

that murdered him and caused all this trouble.

Some things I missed about Comigor—though it got harder and harder to remember exactly what.

Books mostly. Books were one of the few things I asked for that Sefaro could not get for me. He knelt in

front of me and spread his arms wide, saying that I could kill him if I wanted, but no books could be had

in Zhev’Na. I was really angry with Sefaro, because I thought it couldn’t be true that there was no book

in the entire fortress. I even imagined what it might feel like to stick my knife in him. But I didn’t kill him.

Even if he were lying about the books, it didn’t seem like a bad enough thing to kill him for. Later that

night, when I thought about how scared he looked when he told me, and what I had considered doing to

him, I felt really strange . . . freezing cold inside. No one had ever been scared of me before. Zhev’Na

was different that way. Killing was a lot more common than in Leire. I would just have to get used to it.

A few days after Xeno was executed, Darzid came to visit me. He stood at the side of the fencing

yard and watched while Calador whacked me hard with his sword and then teased me while I tried to

counter. Scratching or pricking me on my arms or cheeks or legs while I tried to get in a stroke was one

of Calador’s favorite things to do. That day he kept on longer than ever and started mocking me with his

empty-eyed laugh that wasn’t friendly at all. I knew Captain Darzid was watching, so I tried really hard

to get in a good thrust, but Calador wouldn’t stop. My arms were stinging and bleeding. Calador

whisked the tip of his sword across my forehead, and more blood dribbled down my face. I was so tired

I could hardly lift my rapier. Then Captain Darzid started laughing, and the horrid sun beat down, making

my head pound and my bruises hurt, and before I even could think, I clenched my left fist and pictured

what I wanted.

Calador’s sword flew out of his hand and stuck into the stone wall. I poked the point of my rapier up

to his belly. I very much wanted to push it in and make him scream instead of laugh. But Calador was not

laughing anymore. Nor was the captain. All of a sudden I realized what I had done. Sorcery.

I backed away from the two of them until I was in a corner of the yard, holding my sword out in front

of me and wishing it weren’t shaking so badly. They would either kill me right there or call for soldiers to

take me to prison. But Calador dropped to his knees in front of me and bowed his head all the way to

the ground. Darzid folded his arms across his chest. Without any laughing or sniggering, he said, “Bravo,

my lord. A fine move. Skillfully done. You should kill the bastard. You can, you know. Go ahead. Do it if

you wish.”

I just stared at the captain while blood trickled down my face and my arms, and the sun hammered on

my head.

“Do you think that what you did should bother me or surprise me?”

I nodded stupidly.

The captain crouched down until his dark face and glittering eyes were close to mine. “I know what

you are, Gerick. I know more about you than you know yourself. I’ve known about your ‘talent’ since

the day you were born.”

“You knew I was evil?”

“You are what you are.”

“Why didn’t you tell Papa, then? Why did you help me?”

“Tomas wouldn’t have understood. He would have burned you alive, just as you suspected he would.

What I’ve done is bring you to the one place in the universe where such things do not matter. I’ve

brought you to a place where you belong. This is your land, Gerick. Not Leire, not Valleor, not

anywhere in the Four Realms. Not anywhere green or soft or weak or common. You know what you

are, and you know that this is exactly where you should be.” He waved his hands at the broken red cliffs