Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (66 page)

swordmaster’s blade.

You will not
! Parven burst into my head.
For now, true power and physical training are two

separate aspects of your life, young Lord. You must be able to fight to your maximum capability

with every weapon you possess
.

“All right, all right.” And so I let the air go back to normal, and I slogged on, practicing one move

after another. I trained with my swordmaster all day. Notole said she didn’t want me that night. I wasn’t

surprised. The pattern said it would be six or seven days until we ventured out again. The thought of

sorcery left me hollow inside, hungry, my skin buzzing like it did when you didn’t get enough sleep. To

call down lightning . . .

That evening after my riding lesson, I took Firebreather for a gallop to help take my mind off of my

craving for sorcery. It was near midnight when we got back to the stable, though this time we made the

entire journey together. When I led Firebreather into his stall, I wasn’t too surprised to hear a voice from

the corner. “Did he behave?”

“He expects oats.”

“Thought he would. I’ve brought some already.”

We rubbed Firebreather down and made sure he had an extra scoop of oats.

The Leiran boy kicked the straw into a pile in the corner of the stall and flopped onto it. “You’ve not

been riding much lately.”

“I’ve had other things to do. Have you stayed out of trouble?”

“It came out all to the good. They think I’m a half-wit. Was it you who told ‘em?”

“I might have mentioned it.”

“You’re not the first to notice.” He grinned.

I patted Firebreather’s neck and gathered up my cloak and my pack to go. The Leiran boy glanced

at my pack, and then looked away quickly.

“I’ve a packet of field rations in there,” I said. “You wouldn’t want it, would you?”

“If you were ever to run this place, I’d be happy to give you a word or two on improving the

cooking.” I tossed him the greasy bag, and he laid back on the straw, groaning in pleasure as he chewed

on a leathery strip of dried meat. “Blazes! You can promise Firebreather oats, but if you want to get me

anywhere, promise me jack.”

“I don’t have any more tonight.” I rummaged through my bag and found a slightly battered darupe.

“You can have this. That’s all I’ve got.”

“I’m not choosy.” He dispatched the fruit in half a heartbeat and tossed the pit over the gate of the

stall.

I squatted down beside the gate. “You’re not good at riddles, are you?”

He blinked in surprise. “What makes you ask that?”

“Just seeing the fruit pit ... It sounds strange, I know, but it makes me think of a riddle.”

“Never thought I was good at ‘em. Never had much call to. But once I helped somebody figure one

out. We did pretty good.”

As the stable lamp faded and sputtered, leaving us sitting in the dark, I told him about the things I’d

found in my house. “. . . So what do you think? Is it the Lords’ puzzle or not?”

The voice coming from across the dark stall was more serious than I expected. “I’d say somebody is

trying to tell you something. Somebody that maybe can’t come out and say it for fear you wouldn’t allow

it to be said. Not the Lords, though.”

“A slave, you mean?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it’s not important the who, but only the what.”

“I can’t figure it out. I’ve tried all kinds of solutions using the names of the things, the sizes, the

substances; I’ve tried to match their names with other words, but they don’t seem to fit together at all.”

“Maybe they’re just to look at. No secret at all.”

“That sounds like a proper half-wit.”

“Bring me another bag of jack, and I’ll take another guess.”

“Don’t count on it.” I stood up, brushed the straw off my legs, and gave Firebreather another pat.

“I’d best go or I’ll fall asleep over my sword in the morning.”

“Did you ever get a swordmaster that could teach you proper?”

“No. I’ve not learned anything new in a month. My swordmaster is a fine fighter, and he makes me

work hard. I suppose I’m just not the best pupil.”

“But you want the
best
sword fighter—one who can teach you and show you, not just make you

sweat. Maybe the best one isn’t one of them—the warriors.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard some of ‘em talking the other day about a new slave, one that fights with the warriors, you

know, to practice.”

“A sparring partner? A practice slave?”

“That’s it. They said he’s the best they’ve ever seen. Stayed alive longer than any slave’s ever done

before. They’re making him teach them what he knows and not just fight any more. Maybe he’s the one

you need.”

“Maybe he is.”

On the next day I asked my swordmaster, Drak, about the practice slave who had lasted longer than

any ever had.

“I’ve heard of him. He’s bound to the Wargreve Damon, but still does training matches with other

warriors. He’s not likely to last much longer, though. He fights Vruskot this afternoon, and Vruskot

hasn’t lost a match in two hundred years. He’s had the Lords burn the words
yield
and
surrender
from

his mind so he can’t speak them even if he wanted to.”

“I want to watch the match.”

“It could be instructional. Vruskot is well known for his attacks. I’ll demonstrate his basic techniques

so you’ll know what to look for. The match will likely be over so fast you’ll miss it.”

We worked until just after midday and then went down to one of the training yards just beyond the

warriors’ court. A good-sized crowd of warriors, Drudges, and slaves had gathered on the open side of

the yard. Others were jammed around the walls. I wasn’t used to crowds, and it made me uneasy,

especially when they parted to let me stand at the front.

It wasn’t difficult to decide which was Vruskot. I had learned early on that the Zhid didn’t age. They

remained the same age at which they had been transformed, and it took a considerable wound to kill one.

But there was something recognizable about the oldest Zhid. They were like old trees with rough bark

that you just knew had the hardest, thickest wood and had stood up through every kind of storm. Though

he looked no more than thirty or forty, Vruskot was very old. He wasn’t tall, but he had exceptionally

long arms, knotted with muscles. His thighs were like tree trunks, and like all of the Zhid, his eyes were

pale and empty.

Lots of slaves were standing along the walls, most of them personal attendants of high-ranking

warriors. I couldn’t pick out the one who was to fight. He must be huge and fierce to have lasted so long.

And he would be controlled, not allowed to wander about. But the only slave who wasn’t someone’s

servant was sitting by the wall with his eyes closed and his head bowed as if he were asleep or afraid. A

chain ran from his collar to the iron ring embedded in the stone wall above his head.

Sure enough, when a Zhid detached the chain from his collar, he stood up immediately. He was tall,

topping Vruskot by a head. His shoulders and arms were big, sun-darkened to the color of old leather

and criss-crossed with scars, but he didn’t look half so strong as the Zhid. Although he was lean and

hard, built well for fighting, he didn’t have the look of a warrior. He was just another slave, standing there

barefoot and quiet as his hands were un-manacled, keeping his eyes cast down as if he were scared to

look at a real fighter. They weren’t going to allow him armor, so he stood barefoot on the blistering

ground while Vruskot donned a thick leather cap, greaves, and a light mail shirt over his well-used

gambeson. I would have bet my eyes the slave could never even scratch Vruskot.

But everything changed when they put the sword in the slave’s hand. He raised his head, and you

would have thought his skin had turned to steel. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see a sword strike

glance off his bare arms, or his eyes shoot off sparks. The small round shield they gave him seemed

hardly necessary.

Vruskot didn’t see it. He looked the slave up and down and curled his lip. Then he touched the tip of

his sword to the slave’s collar. “Through here,” he said. “I’ll take you right through it. You’ve forgotten

your place, dog meat.”

The slave did not even blink, which did not please Vruskot. “Position, slave!” growled the Zhid.

There was no slow beginning, no circling, feinting, or testing to ferret out weakness or crucial points of

style. From the opening, they were in the full fury of battle. They used long-swords, striking so powerfully

that you could feel the movement of air. Three times I had watched my father—the man I had believed to

be my father, Duke Tomas, the Champion of Leire—take on the finest challengers in the Four Realms. I

had thought there could be no one in the world that moved with Papa’s speed and grace . . . until that

day in Zhev’Na. The slave made Vruskot look like an ox.

An hour went by. The noise of the crowd—chattering, the placing of bets, gasps, and jeers—had

faded into a silence broken only by the sounds of the battle. The clank and scrape of the swords, the dull

thuds when sword struck shield. Harsh, gasping breaths. Vruskot’s mail shirt chinked with his every

move, and his boots pounded and scuffed the iron-hard dirt. The barefoot slave moved in silence.

Vruskot drew first blood, a slice to the slave’s forward thigh. The Zhid pressed his advantage until the

crowd had to move away from one of the walls. But he was too eager, so intent on his own next strike

that he mistook the slave’s acceptance of his blows for weakness. When the slave was almost to the

wall, the two men close enough to smell each other’s breath, the slave beat off Vruskot’s next hammering

strike with his thrusting shield—a move that made my own left arm hurt even to think of it—while at the

exact same time whirling his own blade from high behind his head in a powerful counter. Vruskot had to

step out or lose his head, giving the slave room to duck, step past, and pivot, leaving the sun in Vruskot’s

eyes. The Zhid wasn’t slow either, despite his thick legs, and had his sword and shield up before the

slave’s next blow could take him. The sweat poured from the two in rivers.

Now the slave was pressing Vruskot with a flurry of cutting attacks—high and then low and then high

again, moving from one to the other with fluid strength. Vruskot held his own. But then the Zhid caught

the heel of his boot in a crack and went down right under the slave’s upraised sword. The crowd inhaled

as one. The slave waited, his sword high—aimed directly for Vruskot’s neck. Vruskot just lay there

breathing hard with such a murderous expression on his face that I wondered the slave could stand up

before it. But the slave slapped the back of his sword hand against his mouth and pointed to the Zhid.

Vruskot flared his nostrils and said nothing.

No one had told him! The slave didn’t know that the warrior couldn’t yield. . .

Instead of finishing the Zhid, the slave stepped back and allowed him to get up. What a fool! Did he

think the Zhid would think kindly of him or have some code of honor that would keep him from gutting

the slave if he got the chance? Vruskot’s face was scarlet—with more than the heat of the battle. He

attacked with a fury. They moved slowly around the yard. The slave pressured the Zhid to his knees, this

time with skill instead of chance, but again he signaled that Vruskot should yield, and again stepped back

when Vruskot refused.

I wouldn’t have believed that either one of them could lift an arm any more, but so they did, circling

and attacking as if they’d just begun. Even so, it would have to end soon. The slave’s thigh wound was

deep. His whole leg was covered in blood. It pained him, too, and he was favoring it. Vruskot began to

concentrate on that side, getting in extra kicks and blows whenever he could. But the slave kept moving,

stepping out, evading, a parry, a short thrust, a small step. And then, in a vertical cut that left the air

rumbling, the slave’s blade hacked right through Vruskot’s sword arm, severing it just below the

shoulder.

For one instant, the silence was absolute. The slave stepped back and let his sword slip to the sand.

Everyone stared at Vruskot’s arm lying on the red earth, its fingers still wrapped around the sword hilt.

Then Vruskot bellowed in such pain and anger that the stones of the fortress rattled and the crowd

shrank back from him. Dropping his shield and fumbling at his belt with his left hand, the Zhid drew his

knife and swiped feebly at the slave. But the slave easily knocked his hand aside and shoved him to the

ground. Vruskot screamed as his stump hit the ground and blood gushed onto the sand.

The slave, his breathing harsh and deep, threw down his shield and dropped to his knees beside

Vruskot. None of the onlookers moved, even when the slave picked up Vruskot’s knife. I was sure he

was going to finish the Zhid, but instead he cut the warrior’s shirt away, wadded up the damp linen, and

pressed it against the warrior’s twitching stump, holding Vruskot still with his other hand and his knees.

Damn! He was trying to stop the bleeding. His chest still heaving, the slave looked around the crowd for

help. For one moment . . . one glimpse . . . something seemed familiar about that face, strained and

exhausted under the close-cropped hair, but before I could figure it out, the crowd erupted.