Reign of Shadows (2 page)

Officers
and cavalry, however, were the most flamboyant. They wore polished armor
breastplates beneath their red cloaks and had leopard skin saddlecloths. Booted
and spurred, with mail leggings and armored knee and elbow protectors fitted
with wicked spikes, they wore mail cowls, and their helmets dangled on straps
from their saddles. Their curved swords had crooked hilts for one-handed
fighting. War axes and spiked clubs also hung from their belts. Their massive
war chargers—also armored—made ordinary horses look like mere ponies.

The
hoofbeats of the trotting chargers on the stone road rumbled like constant
thunder, a glorious sound that made Caelan’s heart beat faster.

At
that moment he would have given anything to go with them.

“Caelan!
Here you are.”

Startled,
Caelan slid off the wall and turned around.

For
a split second he saw only the long robe of a disciple, and with disgust he
knew he was in for more demerits. Then the boy stepped out of shadow.

Caelan
let out his breath in relief. “Oh, it’s you. Well met, Cousin Agel.”

Black-haired
and blue-eyed, Agel was a slim, handsome boy who always looked neat and well
dressed. Unlike Caelan, he never slept in his robe. He never used it to dust
his room. He never knotted up stolen apples and cheese in it, using it as a
makeshift haversack on outings.

Agel
was townbred, unlike Caelan who had grown up in a country hold. His father was
a merchant and a wealthy man. As a result Agel possessed a level of
sophistication Caelan had always envied. Agel was poised and well mannered
around adults, who thought him incapable of the pranks he could think up. When
he laughed, he had a pair of dimples and a charming twinkle in his eye. He
could sweet- talk any cook into slipping him extra food for a growing boy.

But
right now as he stood there with his fists on his hips, he wore a frown instead
of a smile. “Are you deaf tonight?” he asked. “The Quarl Bell has rung.”

Disappointment
crashed into Caelan. He thought Agel had come to share this moment with him
like old times.

“Did
you hear the bell?”

“Yes,”
Caelan said with a shrug. “What of it?”

Agel
blinked. “You know very well—”

“Careful!
You’d better run for hall before you get a mark and spoil your perfect record.”

Agel’s
frown deepened. “I was upstairs in the hall of studies when I saw you sneak
off. I came to bring you in before you ruin yourself. You can’t risk another—”

“Never
mind.” Caelan grinned and beckoned. “You’re in time. Come look.”

Agel
shook his head, but Caelan caught him by the front of his robe and pulled him
over to the wall.

“Look
at them!” Caelan said. “Did you ever see anything like it?”

Agel
gave the troops a quick glance and turned away immediately. “They’ll probably
loot and burn Meunch on their way through.”

“No,
they won’t!” Caelan said, disappointed in his reaction. “They’re heroes. I’ve
dreamed of the chance to see a fighting force this large.”

“Well,
now you have. Come, let’s go before the proctors catch us.”

Caelan
sighed. His cousin used to be fun, always ready for mischief, eager to join in
any adventure. But since coming here to study healing, Agel had turned into a
dullard. It was as though he’d checked his sense of humor and fun at the gate
when he took his matriculation oath. This term, he’d advanced a grade to
disciple, and he was more pompous than ever before.

Hooking
his elbows over the wall, Caelan turned his back to Agel. “Go on, then. Sit in
hall and eat your stew while Master Umal delivers another boring lecture on
philosophy. I’m staying out here until it’s too dark to see anything.”

“You’re
mad!” Agel said angrily. “It’s too dangerous, especially in winter hours. The
wind spirits—”

“Silly
old superstitions,” Caelan said, keeping his gaze stubbornly on the troops.

Agel
slapped his back, and Caelan flinched and whirled around. “Don’t!”

“You
still have bruises from the last beating the proctors gave you,” Agel said,
glaring at him. “Why don’t you ever learn?”

“Learn
what?” Caelan retorted, angry now. “To fold my hands and practice
severance
until my eyes cross? To
recite passages that are so dull I can’t say them without yawning? What’s the
point of it?”

“You
know,” Agel said in a low, disapproving voice. “Or maybe you don’t. You’ve
acted like a child ever since you came here.”

“I
hate it here!” Caelan cried. “Last term you complained as much as I did.”

“But
I advanced, and you didn’t. You’re at the bottom of the novice class in
ranking. For shame, cousin! You’re already on academic probation. If you fail
again, that will be the end of your studies here.”

“Good,”
Caelan said stubbornly, hating this lecture. “Then I’ll be free.”

“How
can you talk so? Rieschelhold offers the best training in the empire. To be a
healer with any kind of reputation, you—”

Caelan
scowled. “I don’t want to be a healer.”

“Nonsense.
Of course you do.”

“I
don’t!”

“You
have to be!”

“Why?”
Caelan shot back. “Because my father’s one?”

“Of
course.”

Caelan
spat over the wall in the soldier’s way of insult, and Agel’s eyes narrowed
with disapproval.

“You
don’t mean any of this,” Agel said. “It’s time you grew up and started acting
your age.”

Caelan
sighed. He would be seventeen next month, which meant he was one year short of
being able to legally defy his father, one year short of residing under a roof
of his own choosing, one year short of breaking his apprenticeship,
one year short of taking
himself out of school, one year short of living as and how he chose.

“I
get enough lectures from the masters,” Caelan said angrily. “I don’t need any
from you.”

Agel
glared back. “I’ve tried to let you walk your own path, but how can I call
myself your friend and kinsman if I let you throw this away? This place is so
pure, so special. It’s—”

“It’s
smothering me!”

Consternation
filled Agel’s face. “You’ve known since childhood you would train here as your
father trained, following in his footsteps. Why didn’t you protest earlier if
you really didn’t want this?”

“I
did. You know that.”

Agel
shook his head. “If you really want something else, you could have insisted. I
did with my father, and he listened to me. Otherwise I’d be working in the
counting house instead of studying here.”

Caelan
couldn’t believe Agel was saying this. It was like he’d forgotten those summers
when he’d visited E’nonhold. “You know Beva. He hears only what he wants to.
Nothing I’d ever said has made the least difference to him.”

“Well,
if you told him you wanted to be a soldier I’m not surprised he ignored you.”

Caelan
bristled. “What’s wrong with soldiering?”

Agel
threw him a scornful look. “Spend your life tramping hundreds of miles and
being bullied, for what? For the chance to be speared by a heathen wearing
tattoos and a breechclout?”

“I
would see the world,” Caelan said, his dreams turning his gaze back to the
ribbon of soldiers marching into the gloom. A trumpet sounded in the far
distance, mournful and low. The sound made him shiver. “I would serve the
emperor. I would have honor—”

“More
honor in taking lives than in saving them?” Agel sounded genuinely horrified. “I
thought you would grow out of this foolishness, but you’re worse than ever.” He
threw out his arms, making his wide sleeves bell. “We are in the very place
most devoted to the preservation of life, and all you can think about is
killing. It’s a defilement—”

“Oh,
shut up,” Caelan growled. “You sound like Master Hierst. It’s not like that.
You’re twisting everything.”

“Am
I? Or are you? How can you glorify a profession devoted to slaughter? Yes, in
the name of the emperor,” he added scornfully as Caelan tried to protest. “And
does that justify it?”

“Careful,”
Caelan warned him stiffly. “You’re close to treason.”

Agel
sniffed. “Your father has dedicated his life to helping people, to alleviating
suffering, to saving lives whenever possible. He has honored the gods who gave
him the gift of healing. What about you, Caelan? What are you going to honor?
Bloodshed and pillage?”

Caelan’s
face flamed hot. He had never heard Agel so cutting, so contemptuous. “You
sound like you’d rather worship my father than the emperor.”

“Uncle
Beva is worthy of everyone’s admiration,” Agel said. “Yours most of all.”

“I’m
not like him!” Caelan cried. “I’m not
ever
going to be like him. I used to think you understood
that. Now you sound just like everyone else.”

“I’ve
grown up,” Agel said coldly. “You haven’t.”

His
scorn hurt. Caelan glared at him, trying not to let it show. “You used to be on
my side,” he said softly, struggling to hold his voice steady.

“I
still am. If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t be out here now, risking a
demerit to save you another beating.”

Caelan
snorted to himself, almost wanting to laugh except it hurt too much. “There was
a time when you wouldn’t
have cared about demerits.”

“You’re
right,” Agel said quietly, almost with pity. “I wouldn’t have cared. I would
have probably raced you up here and we could have stayed out until we froze in
the cold, daring each other to risk an attack of the wind spirits.

Caelan
laughed. “That’s more like it.”

“But
I have enough sense these days to know that’s stupid,” Agel went on, still in
that same quiet voice. “I have my future to think about, and the way I want to
spend my life. I’m an adult now, not a boy. I want to be a healer, because it
is good work and helpful work. It gives something back to the world. I admire
Uncle Beva more than anyone else I know, and I’m grateful to his kindness in
seeing that I was allowed to enroll here. I’ve had to work hard and prove
myself worthy of that admittance, while you—you have it as a birthright. That’s
why it makes me so angry when I see you throwing your opportunity away.”

“And
it makes me angry when you refuse to see my side of things,” Caelan answered. “I
am not Beva. I will never be him, no matter how much everyone wants me to be.
All my life I’ve had to follow around in his shadow, hearing about his skill,
his gifts, his success, his fame. I’m sick of it!”

“Are
you jealous of him?” Agel asked in astonishment.

“No!
I’m just tired of being expected to measure up to what he is. As though anyone
could ever come close to him.”

“But
he’s the greatest healer in Trau.”

Caelan
shut his eyes.

“More
than that. His fame spreads beyond this province,” Agel said eagerly. “He could
go all the way to Imperia if he chose. An appointment as court physician would
be—”

“My
father doesn’t want that. He’s only interested in living in
severance,”
Caelan said bitterly. “No
fame. No fortune.”

“He
is a good man.”

“He’s
cold and unfeeling!” Caelan burst out. “Damn you, why have you started
worshiping him like this? You used to think he was as strict as—”

“But
since I started studying here, I understand
severance
.” Agel folded his hands in
his wide sleeves and hunched himself against the cold. It was nearly dark now,
and the soldiers could only be heard on the road. They marched in unnerving
silence—the brutal force of the emperor evident and thrilling. “It is a total
philosophy of life,” Agel said. “It is completion.”

Caelan
rolled his eyes. Everything angry and rebellious in him rose up, roaring
inwardly against hearing any of it again. “It’s not for me.”