Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (56 page)

while I was left in my skimpy tunic and sore, bandaged feet. But the day’s rest had done me good, and I

liked great-swords. I had the height and weight to carry them well. Besides, I held the echo of a dying

man’s voice in my head, and the cursed Zhid had no imagination at all.

Five times during the morning, the warrior called a halt to our sparring, rested, changed weapons or

armor, and started again. The sixth time, he complained to the slave-handler that I’d taken a superior

weapon, and that I should properly be handicapped in some way for not noting it. A hand cut off,

perhaps.

The slavehandler summoned Cinnegar. The red-haired Zhid, who evidently had final say in all matters

regarding the stable of practice slaves, said he would not allow me to be damaged. Being new, perhaps

I’d not been rated properly. The warrior didn’t like hearing that, but wasn’t of high enough rank to

overrule Cinnegar. I was glad for that. He sent me back to the stable.

It was made clear from the first that these matches were strictly physical combat. The Zhid did not

use sorcery in their training, believing they must achieve superiority in arms as well as all other aspects of

their power. Just as we Dar’Nethi hoarded our power for healing and the defense of our cities, the Zhid

hoarded theirs to use in their Seeking, which stole the minds of their enemies.

No sooner had I been penned up again than I was called out for a warrior named Comus. His training

ground looked exactly the same as the other, except for the dead slave sprawled on the hard ground with

one arm mostly severed and his skull cloven in half. A servant shooed away an army of flies and removed

his practice armor so I could put it on. Comus preferred an armored opponent. The padded leather was

still warm and wet with the dead man’s sweat and blood.

Comus used a great-sword, too, and was big, strong, and vicious. After slogging through a half-day

with my earlier opponent, I wished this one preferred a lighter weapon, but eventually I managed to make

him yield.

“This one again tomorrow when I’m fresh,” Comus said to the guard, pointing his sword at me.

Without heed to heat, hunger, thirst, sore feet, or the various scratches I had collected, I collapsed on

the straw and fell instantly asleep. I had survived one day.

I trained with Comus every day, sometimes with padded practice weapons, sometimes with real

blades. He was good, but I was just enough better to avoid serious injury. We worked on strikes and

appropriate counters, defensive strategies appropriate to certain positions, timing and balance. He began

to copy a few of my moves, and it made me wonder what in perdition I was doing. It was an argument I

could not resolve. To fight the cursed Zhid—what slave could ask for more than a chance to injure or kill

his captors? Yet I was teaching him to kill more of my own people.

But I could not refuse to fight or to follow their rules. In my first week with Comus, I was given a

clear demonstration of the consequences of disobedience. During one of our rest periods, Comus laid a

wager with another Zhid that his personal slave had more impressive private parts than did his friend’s

slave. When Comus commanded his slave to strip to prove the bet, the kneeling man, who had not

moved during the animated discussion, closed his eyes.

“... And arouse yourself,” said Comus, sniggering. “I do not like losing.”

The slave looked up at Comus in shock, then hardened his jaw and slowly shook his head.

Comus’s bullish face went livid, and he belted his slave across the mouth. “I could have invoked your

compulsions,” he said, “but it was inconceivable that my slave would refuse a simple command.” Then,

without taking a breath, Comus lopped off the head, not of his own slave, but that of his friend’s slave.

“Now. I command you once more. Strip yourself and this dog meat, and we shall see how the cock of a

live Dar’Nethi compares to that of a dead one.”

The horror-stricken slave did as he was commanded, and though I averted my eyes so as not to

witness his shame, I could not help but be relieved at his compliance. There was no other slave nearby.

My head would have been the price of another refusal.

The days may have been filled with enough combat and sweat to block out rational thought, but the

nights were long, with plenty of time for guilt and self-loathing. I did as I was told. I had to live ... I had

things to do in my life . . . vital things . . . This conviction rumbled in my belly like war drums. Was this

some Zhid compulsion laid on slaves along with our collars to prevent us doing away with ourselves?

After three weeks Comus wanted to move on to some other kind of training, and I was assigned to

another warrior. He was a rapier man and very quick. From the beginning, he forbade me to withhold,

insisting that I fight with every skill I possessed. He certainly withheld nothing. If his accuracy had been

better, I might have taken more than a few punctures and a bloody cheek while I was adjusting to the

different style of fighting. I worked with him for over a month, and then I killed him.

It was a lucky thrust at the end of a long day, and I think the sun got in his eyes. He had wanted to

practice a new technique with unblunted tips and had not bothered to put on his sparring vest. Caught up

in the exhilaration of combat, he had expanded the practice into a full-blown duel. When I realized what I

had done, I immediately looked around to see who had witnessed it. My handler had not returned. The

only other person present was the officer’s personal slave whose usual bleak expression brightened into a

grin. He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned me away. He knew I had no binding compulsion to stay

where I was.

Run ... I had at most an hour before the handler would come. If I could get through the encampment

without anyone noticing the mark of the sword on my collar, then perhaps I could make it as far as the

cliffs by nightfall. Barefoot. Unarmed, for I dared not carry a weapon through the camp. One chance in a

thousand I would make it to the hills. One in fifty thousand they wouldn’t find me. One in a million that I

could make it across the Wastes to the Vales of Eidolon. I wasn’t certain even in what direction they lay.

And yet, I would have tried except for the nagging conviction that I was not alone, that I had to listen and

be ready. . . . Oh, gods, be ready for what?

I had lived for eight weeks, each day tallied carefully with a length of straw placed in the bottom of

my bread basket. Only two men had been in the stable longer. The rest of those who had been there

when I arrived were dead, and new slaves had taken their places. I could no longer imagine the taste of

any food but the dry, sour graybread, nor any drink but stale, tepid water. The remembrance of savory

roast chicken or frostberries soaked in wine filled me with disgust. All such physical cravings had gone

dead or turned into revulsion. Food, wine, women . . . even a touch would be unbearable. The faces of

my friends had faded from my memory no matter how hard I worked at reconstructing them, and I

cursed bitterly when I discovered I could not bring to my mind the winding lanes of Sen Ystar. Even the

memories of the beauteous Vales had blurred. So why could I not run?

I shrugged my shoulders at the eager slave and sat down in the dust by the dead warrior to wait for

the slavehandler. I had to live, but I was damned if I knew why.

When a slave killed a Zhid in training, it was not taken lightly. The slavemaster came in to lead an

investigation. He interrogated Cinnegar to ensure the keeper hadn’t scheduled a mismatch, and the

surgeon to determine the cause of death. Acquaintances of the deceased were questioned, as well as his

servants and aides. The slave was placed under compulsions to discover if any person, Zhid, slave, or

servant, had aided him in the match. Even when all was found to be proper, one more ritual was

involved.

“Lest you forget your place,” said the slavemaster, touching my collar. He sneered in disgust at my

retching spasms.

And so it went on. I made it past four months and saw seventeen men—the flower of Dar’Nethi

manhood—perish in that wretched stable. For every one I whispered the Healer’s invocation, weeping in

impotent fury at the lonely ignominy of their deaths. Only a few of them even heard the words, but I could

think of nothing else to do for them. I hounded the guards and the surgeon as much as I dared, to care

for their wounds more quickly, to preserve the Lords’ “investment” in experienced practice partners, but

soon it was rare for a guard to answer my rattling of the bars or to permit me to speak when I begged it.

I killed another warrior and paid the price again, and then I took a wound in the shoulder that kept

me out of action for a week. The surgeon said he had been given orders to make sure I was healed. “The

Lords are interested in skill—even of your mundane sort.”

The week of idleness was almost unbearable. The demands in my head to live and to learn became so

insistent that every voice made me start. I paced my cell, unable to rest and unable to eat. I forced down

the graybread and water and commanded myself to sleep, for I dared not lose my edge. Yet when I

dropped off, strange dreams plagued me, of rooms and faces I didn’t know, of horrors that made me

wake up screaming, of words that made me weep though I couldn’t capture them on waking. The

surgeon examined my wound and said it was healing as expected, but I had best get some sleep or all his

work would go for nothing.

I slapped the back of my hand against my mouth. “Speak,” he said.

“Can you give me something to make me sleep? So I won’t dream?” My own voice sounded harsh

and alien to me. I had gone weeks without speech.

Gorag, the Zhid surgeon, poked around in his leather case and came up with a blue vial. “Perhaps this

will help.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I shouldn’t give it to you, but I have a wager with Cinnegar

that you’ll make it past half a year. I don’t like to lose.” He poured the contents down my throat and

called the handler. I slept for two days straight and had no dreams at all. When he examined my shoulder

and pronounced it fit, I asked permission to speak again. He shook his head. “Better not. Just stay alive

two more months.”

I managed it. I fought and trained like a madman, as indeed I began to believe I was. Gorag’s blue

vial had only suspended my strange malady temporarily. I considered asking him for more of it, but I

couldn’t afford to be drowsy either. The only way to sleep was to work myself to exhaustion. So even

after a full day of training with a Zhid warrior, I would run in place or do some other exercise until I

dropped to the straw like a dead man.

On the day I had been in the stable six months, I killed my seventh Zhid. Nincas was a murderously

cruel villain, who tortured his servants and slaves to death for the pleasure of it. I enjoyed killing him. We

battled for half a day in a series of timed bouts. A bull of a man, he was not about to yield to a slave as

long as there were any onlookers, and Gorag had gathered at least a hundred of them to witness the

winning of his bet. I could think of nothing but death that day, and when at last I pulled my sword from

his belly, I stabbed it in again and again and again, until my arms were covered in blood and I could no

longer lift my weapon. I fell to my knees on the hot desert floor and began to laugh, but there was no joy

in it. I could not remember joy. . . .

“V’Saro!” Hands slapped my cheeks. “V’Saro, wake up!” Straw poked at my cheek. I couldn’t

remember being taken to my cell. I was achy and dull and smelled like death. “Here, have a drink.” My

waterskin was thrust into my hands. I drained it and then promptly heaved the water up again. “Come,

V’Saro. You’ve made me a rich man, and for that I will do you a favor. A risky matter. No one is

supposed to talk to you until you’ve been interrogated.”

Gorag. He had helped me sleep. I slapped the back of my hand to my mouth.

“Yes, yes, speak.”

“Go drown yourself in your cursed water.”

“You’re raving. No one has ever seen such a match as you fought today. The slavemaster comes.

He’s heard of your feat . . . and also of how you finished it.” The wiry little surgeon gestured in disgust at

the dark blood that covered my arms and crusted my stiff tunic. “If you want to live, then you’d best

gather your wits.”

My existence had no relation to life. I could not feel life any more—thanks to the collar. But I had to

keep breathing. There was purpose to my existence. I was not alone. “How much could you win if I

make it a year?”

“Not enough to make me a Lord of Zhev’Na, but perhaps enough that I could get out of this blasted

camp.”

He stuffed a lump of graybread in my hands. “Eat, and clean yourself. They talk of sending you to

Zhev’Na, where the elite of our commanders are trained. But they’ll not send you if they think you’re

mad. They won’t allow a madman to live with such strength and skill as yours. Do you understand?”

I grunted.

Gorag slipped out of the cell and locked it quietly, then scurried away in the dark. After a while, I

banged on the bars, and the smirking guard came.

“Speak,” he said, to my gesture. “Unless you are going to tell me about some whining slave who