Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (51 page)

Lord’s device? She has received no instructions.” I gave Sefaro the wooden token from Kargetha that

would permit him to answer my questions.

“We’ve no need for the banners at present,” he said, after clearing his throat. His voice was rich and

mellow. “The young Lord is no longer in residence.”

The slave reached out for my arm. “Are you quite all right, Eda?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Pressing my fingers to my lips, I fought back tears and terror until I could

speak again. “I was just so surprised . . . that Kargetha didn’t know. She’ll want to know where he’s

gone. And for how long.” Everything depended on Gerick being in Zhev’Na.

“Five days ago the young Lord rode off with a Zhid officer. I was not told when or if to expect him

back.” His gaze held mine. “Tell Kargetha that I will be here taking care of matters as I have done these

past weeks: the house, the kitchen, the fencing yard . . .” He smiled and raised his eyebrows, as if asking

me whether I understood. Gerick’s wounded young sparring partner ... I smiled weakly. I could not

rejoice in anything.

For my first weeks in Zhev’Na, I had considered my true life as something apart and my existence as

Eda the sewing Drudge only a moment’s aberration. But now this soul-deadening monotony

encompassed my entire existence. The sewing women had lived this way for so long that I could find no

tinder in them to answer what spark remained in me. They were uninterested in ideas or stories and

called my attempts at conversation odd. When I suggested that we take a few moments before sleeping

to clean the dormitory, so that perhaps the mice might find it less hospitable, I got only the blank stares

and shrugs that might have followed an invitation to take wing and fly across the desert.

One afternoon, after I had tried to interest the sewing women in a simple game that might enliven the

hours while we stitched, Zoe mentioned to Kargetha that I was distracting the others with my foolishness.

The Zhid woman touched the tag on my ear and commanded me to cease my useless conversation. I had

to do so, of course, as surely as if the compulsion had actually been attached to the tag. In the days of

silence that followed her command, I speculated on whether the compulsions had really been put there

after all. However would I know, when I dared not disobey?

After I had gone five days without a single word, Zoe mentioned to Kargetha that perhaps her

command had been too effective. She had no objection to reasonable speech in the workroom, and I

had made some useful suggestions about the work in the past. Kargetha was feeling indulgent that day

and reworded her command. “I release you from my bond, Eda. Perhaps you are too stupid to know

what is useless and what is not. Speak as you wish, unless two of your fellows tell you to be silent.”

“Thank you, your Worship,” I said, dipping my knee, but I didn’t resume my attempts. Two months

had passed, and Gerick was gone, and I didn’t have anything to say any more. The prospect of living out

the rest of my days in such a fashion was abhorrent. By comparison my years of poverty in Dunfarrie

seemed endlessly stimulating. They had encompassed growth and change, the acquisition of new skills,

the cycle of the seasons to mark the days . . . the height of the garden . . . the flight of birds . . . such

beauty and variety. That I had considered life in Dunfarrie as near death as I could imagine pointed out a

singular lack of imagination on my part. But then, who could ever have imagined the life of Zhev’Na?

CHAPTER 30

Gerick

One morning, after I had been in Zhev’Na for several months, I went down to the fencing yard ready

to begin the day. I had been working with a new sword, not a rapier, but an edged blade, a war sword.

It was fine—a one-handed blade with a deep fuller to keep it light, a sharpened, tapered tip, and a length

that was exactly right for my height. With so many new things to learn—cutting and slashing movements,

different kinds of thrusting, appropriate stances, footwork, and defenses—I made sure to arrive at the

fencing yard early every day and stayed at least an hour longer than usual. Though Calador never

admitted it, I knew I was making good progress.

Someone new stood waiting with Calador that morning. Like Calador he was a Zhid—one of the

warriors of Zhev’Na with the strange eyes. He was very tall, and his thin red hair was combed straight

back from a high forehead. His whole face was long and pointed, especially his nose. If he hadn’t been

talking to Calador, I might have thought he had no mouth at all.

Calador bowed to me and to the tall man. “My lord Prince, may I introduce Kovrack, a gensei of the

Lords’ armies—our highest military rank. Gensei Kovrack has been charged with the next phase of your

training, that of military command. You are to live with the gensei in the war camp of Elihad Ru, and he

will teach you how to lead your soldiers. I have been honored to be your swordmaster.”

“But wait ...” I was just getting used to Calador and Harres and Murn, just beginning to improve so

that maybe they would think I was worth something. I liked my house and my servants and my horses. I

didn’t want to change things.

It is necessary, my young Lord
, said Parven, inside me.
You are to be the ruler of two worlds.

You agreed to let us guide you in the accomplishment of your purposes, and we warned you that

there were hard lessons to be learned. Your destiny is not to be comfortable. That will make you

weak. Weakness
—
fear of true power
—
was the downfall of Avonar and the line of D’Arnath.

Have we not made you more than the sniveling child you were
?

Of course, he was right. They had made me better, harder, more like what I should be. I could run

for an hour across the desert and still come back and win a fight. I could pin an opponent that

outweighed me by half again and break his arm to boot. It didn’t make my stomach hurt any more when I

cut a sparring partner’s legs so they wouldn’t hold him up, and I could seal the slave collar on a new

captive without even hearing his screams or feeling anything but relief that there was one more of the

Dar‘Nethi unable to kill kind old women. Even if Prince D’Natheil was dead, I would have my revenge

on him. I had sworn my oath. “Of course, I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

We left the fortress immediately, without even returning to my house. All that I needed would be

supplied, Kovrack told me as we rode into the desert.

Two leagues from the fortress was the heart of a Zhid encampment that stretched as far as I could see

into the brown dust haze that was the horizon. I had been into the Zhid war camps only twice: once to

see a new lot of horses delivered from the breeding farms, and once to watch the execution of a Zhid

who had spared a captive Dar’Nethi from a punishment. The warrior’s commanders had staked him out

on the ground and given him only enough water to keep him alive while he baked in the days and froze in

the nights. Every day they would lash him until his flesh was shredded, and the wind blew sand into the

wounds until you couldn’t tell he was a man. Every night they worked some sorcery that made him whole

again. He was out there for days. By the time he died, he was mad.

We spent my first day in Elihad Ru touring the ranks of tents, the supply huts, and the training

grounds, stopping occasionally to watch a mock battle or other exercise. At sunset, we rode to the top of

a small rise where several larger tents were pitched. The gensei assigned me a tent next to his own and

told me we would share a fire. A slave was kneeling in front of my tent. “The slave will keep you supplied

with water, wine, and food, cook for you, and clean your clothes,” Kovrack said. “You’ll have no other

luxuries in a war camp.”

The slave looked a few years older than me. No one told me his name. Luckily he seemed to know

what to do, because I didn’t know what to tell him. After taking my weapons, brushing off my clothes,

and putting out the light, he curled up to sleep on the sand outside the door of my tent.

On the next morning before sunrise, when the light was still dull and red, I heard Gensei Kovrack up

and about. My slave was kneeling at the doorway of the tent waiting for me. I dressed quickly, had him

buckle my sword belt around my waist, and stepped out of the tent. Kovrack was stretching and flexing

his arm and shoulder muscles. I didn’t say anything, because it looked like he was concentrating. My

slave brought me a cup filled with cavet—the thick, strong tea the Zhid drank—and Kovrack flicked his

fingers at his own slave as if he wanted some, too. Kovrack’s slave filled a cup, but just as he offered it

to his master, he stumbled over a tent stake and spilled the cavet in the sand. Scarcely interrupting his

exercise, the gensei reached over to the post where his scabbard hung, drew his sword, and ran the slave

through. My slave fell to his knees and pressed his head to the sand. I almost dropped my cup.

Kovrack snapped his fingers. While two slaves dragged the body away, and a third cleaned his

sword, he resumed his exercise. He lunged forward in a half squat and brought his arms over his head,

holding the position for longer than I could hold a breath. “You think me harsh?” he said.

I did, but would never say so. I was becoming accustomed to how things were done in Ce Uroth. I

shrugged.

Again Kovrack motioned with his hand. My slave filled a cup and presented it to the gensei when he

left the position and stood up again. “The first rule of command: tolerate no imperfection. Otherwise your

soldiers will lose their fear of you. Slaves are not inexpensive, but they are cheaper than armies such as

this.” He waved his cup about us. “My soldiers know that no one of them is exempt from this same

penalty. They work hard for me.”

When we finished a breakfast of hot bread and soft cheese, we walked down into the camp. A troop

of ten new soldiers of various ages were waiting for me. Throughout that day, Kovrack showed me how

to run them and drill them, how to use my voice and my power to command them, and how to make

them fear me even though I was so young and scarcely taller than their shoulders. “You are their

commander and their sovereign. You hold their lives in your hand, and no one of them is worth a fistful of

sand unless he obeys you without hesitation. They must be taught that you, too, will tolerate no

imperfection.”

The Zhid weren’t like soldiers I had known in Leire. They didn’t laugh or tell bawdy stories around

their camp-fires. Though a few fierce-looking women warriors lived among the Zhid, none of the warriors

seemed to have families. They talked of weapons and battles, and who they would kill if the Lords would

let them. I didn’t think they knew what the jewels in my ear signified.

These do not
, whispered Parven as soon as I thought it.
But they’re new. They’ll learn
.

Gensei Kovrack supervised my training, but it was the Lord Parven who taught me the subtler things

that I had to know, watching everything that went on through my eyes and my thoughts. The first weeks

were anxious and difficult for I had to learn so much at once, while developing my own strength and

endurance as well. Fortunately my soldiers’ infractions were small, and I had no need to use any

punishment beyond extra practice. I dreaded the day one of them balked at a command.

One of my men was younger than the others. His name was Lak, and he was about fifteen, only a

little taller than me, dark-haired, wiry, and strong. He seemed a little brighter than the usual Zhid. Not that

Zhid were stupid.

Most of them were intelligent and powerful. But if you were to think of them like metal, you’d say the

Zhid were made of iron, not silver. Maybe it was because they never thought of anything but hatred,

battle, and death.

That’s all they need
, Parven had told me.
That’s how they serve you
.

By the second month of my command, we were taking long marches into the red cliffs that were the

southern boundary of our encampment. We practiced disappearing into caves and niches and the long,

narrow shadows, climbed impossibly steep tracks carrying heavy packs of water and food, and survived

for days at a time with no sound and no movement and only the most minimal sustenance. Of course I

had to do all these things with my troops, and I could not complain lest they think me weak.

Lak and I always climbed together, for we were lighter and so had an easier time scrambling over

rocks and crevasses. One day we got to the top of a rocky ridge while the rest of the men were still out

of sight below us. The day was murderously hot, and when I reached for my waterskin, I found it empty,

a ragged rip in the side. I had not allowed a water stop for several hours. My mouth felt like iron, and my

head throbbed, but I could see no remedy. I was the commander. I could show no weakness.

Lak was panting and red-faced. As he pulled out his own water skin, he glanced at mine, and his eyes

grew wide. “Your water, sir.”

“Unfortunate,” I said, looking off in another direction— any direction but his bulging waterskin.

“But it will be hours until we reach the camp.”