A Stranger to Command

by Sherwood Smith

  One very hot morning, so hot that Shevraeth was going to skip breakfast, he met Baudan after he ducked inside the door. On Baudan’s tray there was only a hunk of bread and cheese, and a brimming mug of water.

  “No oatmeal?” Shevraeth asked.

  “They didn’t event cook it. Everyone’s to have bread-and-cheese.”

  “Better than hot food,” Shevraeth said, and Baudan followed him as he got his food and water. “And better than that, we’re not out with the lances today.”

  “I almost wish we were,” Baudan grumbled. “When it’s this hot they’re wild at the archery targets. Especially now that Tevac has ’em all convinced that the king is going to war.”

  “What?” Shevraeth exclaimed.

  Baudan snickered. “What they can’t decide is, which kingdom. And why. But some of their reasoning is better than any joke.”

  They walked to the senior table. “Like?”

  “We’re going to war against the south because the king’s mother came from there, and she left it to him.”

  “Oh, and they hadn’t noticed until now?”

  Baudan grinned. “Right. And she wasn’t the heir anyway.”

  “So they really must be listening in those history lectures.”

  “Oh, they do listen—some. Believe me, they’re less ignorant than our own year was when we were pups. Then there’s the insult-caused wars. Let’s see... the king declared war because some king or other said he’s too short to get on a horse without a ladder.”

  “A perfectly valid reason to go to war. If you are ten years old.”

  Baudan wiped his arm over his forehead “Too hot to think of the rest, but Hem knows. He was there.”

  Gannan loomed over them. “Listen, it’s too hot for padding this morning, so we’re to take sword classes over to the barns. Nermand and Hauth are already there, moving out all the gear. While the girls are gone, we’re apparently to begin rebuilding the loose boxes.”

  “But everything else as is?” Shevraeth asked, thinking of knife target practice in the simmering heat, the sunlight glancing off the steel in eye-piercing shards. The new seniors would be wicked.

  “Everything else as is,” Gannan snapped. He was irritated by the heat, by the tension, and most of all by being ordered to lower himself to carpentry work.

  Baudan rolled his eyes, and it was Shevraeth’s turn to laugh.

  The watch-change bell rang then, indicating the end of breakfast. Shevraeth stuffed the last of his bread into his mouth and loped off toward the practice courts. It was strange to be able to write every day to his father now. It was good, for they’d been discussing everything Shevraeth had read. But it was strange to get a note that his father had just penned, mentioned a long, cold rain falling—and not a hundred heart-beats after, there’s Shevraeth sweltering away, reading it. He ought to ask for his father to include some rain drops next time.

  Why was he thinking about rain? He was already thirsty when he reached the knife practice court ahead of Marlovair’s crowd of new seniors. From the sound of their voices, they were arguing. Tempers hotter than the air. What sort of lesson could he offer them, he wondered as they shuffled in, some of them shoving back and forth with quick, irritated jerks of arms and shoulders.

  He raised a hand to summon their attention when the double-tang sounded.

  The boys ignored it; they were used to the double-tang for messengers. Shevraeth almost ignored it, his mind running irritably on other things—

  Tang-tang!

  “They’re here,” he said, not even aware of speaking. His nerves tingled with cold, as if he’d fallen into snow.

  Three or four of the boys fell silent, staring at Shevraeth’s blanched face.

  “They’re here,” he said, louder.

  “Who’s here?” Marlovair retorted—then stepped back warily, on the look-out for Gannan or one of the other seniors who was a thought too ready with the willow wand at what they considered backtalk.

  But they were alone, because Gannan’s sword group was on the other side of the academy, at the stables.

  “Norsunder,” Shevraeth said.

  FORTY-SIX

  Tang-tang.

  Third ring.

  “Norsunder?” someone repeated. “That’s not funny.”

  “No.” Shevraeth lowered his hand, which had still been half-raised. He flexed his fingers. They’re here. “But it’s true.”

  Impossible! Impossible! He could feel them thinking it. He was thinking it himself. And Gannan was at the stable. He was here alone with the most hot-tempered, hard-to-handle House in the academy.

  Already things were jagging out of the prepared-for groove. “Grab the knives,” he ordered, though they were supposed to take nothing. But then he wasn’t supposed to be alone with a group, either.

  He lunged at the rack, slapping a knife into each boot and one into his sash beside the worthless wand. Weapons clattered as the other boys, now furiously whispering (“He’s gone mad!” “No, there’s something with the bells. We all knew something was wrong.” “Quiet!” “Who’re we gonna fight?”), armed themselves.

  “Run,” Shevraeth said when the rack was empty.

  He bolted out of the court.

  They were too well-trained not to follow. But Marlovair thumped directly alongside him. “What about Norsunder? You can’t say ‘Norsunder’ and expect us to—”

  “War,” Shevraeth said, aware of the medallion clunking against his chest at every step. He could leave by magic—he might be expected to leave by magic—but not before he’d handed off these boys, who knew nothing of the plans. “That signal was for a Norsunder attack. They’re here.”

  “Here?” someone else said, voice cracking.

  The boys tried to look around as they ran, two nearly stumbling.

  “Maybe. Maybe at the border. In the country,” Shevraeth said, without breaking stride—or looking back.

  The word Norsunder having—for now—quashed any notion of rebellion in the ranks, the seniors followed Shevraeth as he ran his chosen route along one of the inner walls. They dove through the arch down by the lower academy, and outward along the back wall. Shevraeth tried once to gauge the castle walls, but the sun was too bright. Norsunder! Where?

  His job was to stay unseen.

  And so he did not try again to look back, but stayed low, and the other boys stayed low, following him in a snake line through the last bit of the academy. Just once they heard rapid steps—small boys, from the swift sound—but not a voice, and the steps vanished. Someone else’s route, going who-knows-where.

  They reached the outer fence of the riding paddocks. Temptation seized Shevraeth, almost unbearable—not 500 paces away rose the senior barracks. His trunk. All the books he’d so laboriously copied out. His letter case!

  But he could not stop, and so, bitterly regretting everything he left behind, he cut to the stream and ran, bent low and arms swinging. He and his line raced alongside the water, Shevraeth checking frequently on the others humping along at a back-aching crouch right behind.

  They reached Shevraeth’s designated first pause as dust clouded up ahead, on the other side of the bend. He flung down a hand to stop his charges, then pointed at the dust.

  He pointed at the stream edge, then flattened his hand. Most of the boys dropped down willingly, half of them stretching out crimson faces to the water. Marlovair, his thin face stubborn, made as if to follow, but Shevraeth gave him such a terrible look of taut-faced intent he stopped right where he was.

  Shevraeth tiptoed up the rocky incline and peered through the shrubbery. Gannan, a master, and another senior vanished through the shrubbery toward the north. Should he shout?

  No, the orders had been to stay quiet—and also not to double up. But Gannan’s bunch were already doubled, all the classes assigned to carpentry. Already things had changed in small ways. But even so, he still knew exactly what to do. Is that the real secret of command, then? When the impossible happens, you know what
to do?

  There was no command class to ask, he was alone. And in charge.

  So do it!

  He slid down in a small tumble of rocks, and reached the waiting boys.

  “Eleveners?” Marlovair mouthed the word.

  “No, some of us.” Shevraeth kept his voice low. “Everyone has different hideys, you know that from all the games.”

  Marlovair jerked his head to the side, then frowned. “Where’s yours?”

  “You’ll see. Get a drink, and we’re off.”

  He knelt down, splashed water over his head, then drank as much as he could hold. When he lifted his dripping head, one of Marlovair’s friends whispered, “So where did the girls go?”

  Marlovair snorted scornfully. “If this isn’t another game, of course they’d hide the horses so Norsunder can’t get at them. I wager they’re scattered from Vasande Leror to Methden.”

  “Let’s go,” Shevraeth said.

  They were off again.

  Stop, run, check. Stop, run, check.

  o0o

  What the boys and Shevraeth could not know was that Norsunder had sent mages to test his defenses. This was not the attack Senrid was bracing for, which would not come for several years.

  But Senrid did not know that.

  After months of consultation with older, far-seeing mages, and some of the few adults in authority whom he was coming to trust, Senrid was sure that the mages would be followed by warriors if his magical protections, labored over so desperately for five years, were brought down.

  The warriors were sent, but to other countries. The Norsundrians were too fractured among themselves to face the extended, bitter struggle they knew it would take to gain possession of Marloven Hess. Norsunder had to know—Senrid’s own ancestor, Ivandred the Blood-Handed, was still there—that Marlovens would resist down to the last child unless the Norsundrian leader was extremely clever as well as merciless.

  So all across the kingdom Senrid’s army was vanishing into defensive hideys to await further orders, while the unseen, sinister mages (and it might be only one, the terrible Detlev) tested the wards that Senrid and his mage allies had been working on for two years.

  They blew them away in a day... and then began an ominous silence.

  o0o

  Shevraeth and his charges reached the forest in mid-afternoon.

  At first they were relieved at the relative coolness. It felt good to be out of the sun. There was even the faintest stirring of a breeze coming up the river bend.

  But when Shevraeth stopped and said, “Here we are,” it was to a circle of astonished faces.

  And he watched his command dissolve as they exchanged glances of disbelief, affront, and anger.

  “We’re not going in trees,” someone exclaimed. “We may as well surrender now, before Norsunder laughs us right off the branches!”

  Shevraeth could use Stad’s name. But he knew if he did then he’d given up his own authority to hide behind the Danas Valdlav’s rank. And he’d have to use Stad’s name constantly to reinforce orders—until even the name didn’t work, which it wouldn’t if Stad himself failed to show up.

  Shevraeth straightened. Inside his damp shirt the medallion clunked against his ribs. He let out his breath slowly. He could vanish. If these boys revolted against his authority, he might as well use the spell and go home, because it would mean that despite nearly four years of training he had failed what he was here to learn.

  “Find me,” he said, and sprang into the tree.

  He ran along the branches in his boots, his heart thundering in his ears.

  As soon as he was out of sight, the boys burst into arguments, exclamations, and insults, Marlovair shouting “Shut up! Shut up! Wait, shut up!”

  Apparently he had lost authority among his fellows since last year. Except for his riding-mates, the others did not listen to him, either. The voices were followed by grunts and thuds—fist fights.

  Shevraeth cupped his hand round his mouth, shouting northward, “Find me!” The echo ricocheted away.

  “Why?” someone wailed. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s hiding right up there. What’s the point of that?”

  “Shut up! Find him! He’s the only one who knows what’s happening!”

  The thuds of running feet was joined by violent thrashing in a tree farther up hill.

  “Hey, he’s not here!”

  “Go up higher, horse apple.”

  “I am high!”

  “Hey, he’s not here either!”

  “Shevraeth, where are you?”

  “Here.” He shouted from a tree two hundred paces from where they crowded around, staring upward in futility. They all whirled around, their shock almost comical.

  Then they stampeded his way. He moved along the branches, as the boys dashed below. Some looked up as they ran, but none of them long enough to spot him.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here.” He dropped down from the first tree he’d climbed.

  They whirled around and ran back, then stopped in a semi-circle, all semblance of order gone. Marlovair stood in the front, arms crossed, face red.

  Shevraeth said, “You have two choices. You go up with me into the trees, where I have stashes for half a day’s travel to the south. We won’t touch the ground for that half day, which means any Norsundrians trying to track us on the ground will run around in circles.”

  Now they were listening, though most were wary, doubtful.

  “I’ll show you how to make a path on the branches. Without making noise. Or you go right ahead and run off. I’m not going to stop you. Maybe Norsunder will find you—maybe Stad. Which one, do you think, will be happier to see you running wild?”

  “Trees?” came an insolent voice from the back.

  “Shut. Up. Just shut up, Eveneth,” Marlovair snapped. “Not like you had any better ideas.” One last, long, unreadable glance Shevraeth’s way, then Marlovair reached for a branch and hauled himself up.

  And just like that, command snapped its invisible reins back into place.

  Shevraeth waited until they were all somewhere on the two main branches of the enormous oak he’d picked as his trail head. He sat down and pulled off his boots, then removed his belt.

  There were some joking whispers about stench and old socks but everyone else copied his movements, threaded their belts in the knife loops, and then slung their boots over their backs.

  “What about our boot knives?” Eveneth asked, not quite as insolently as earlier.

  “This.” Shevraeth had taken off his tunic and laid it aside. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his shirt to his upper arms, where the fabric pulled tight. Then he slid a knife into each rolled cuff.

  “Not ideal,” he said, trying not to laugh as the younger boys stared. It did look piratical, knives in your sleeves like that. “But since we don’t have arm or wrist sheaths.”

  He spoke into a rustle of boys busy rolling shirt sleeves, some of them snickering softly. Shevraeth tied his tunic around his waist by the sleeves, then stood. “Now follow me.”

  At first he deliberately moved too quickly. They stopped talking, some bent double. Moving in trees was not easy at all. Then he slowed, demonstrating silently where he placed his foot, how he used his hands for balance on upper branches, sometimes swinging to a new bough. He had become so adept that he ran back and forth with unconscious and effortless ease as he checked on them.

  The sight of him sauntering along branches two storeys off the ground heartened most of them. Trees! Who would ever hide in trees? But even the least imaginative of them thought of Norsundrians assuming the same thing and passing right below as they busily searched the ground.

  “We’re going to move far enough away from where we left prints,” he said. “Then I’m going to take a party of two back, and if it’s safe, we’re going to make a trail down to the river. Let any Norsundrian scouts assume that we took a raft downriver.”

  Marlovair brushed two fingers
against his shirt in a kind of salute, copied a heartbeat later by most of the rest. He, too, had re-established his old authority. Shevraeth had missed the transition, but right now it didn’t matter.

  They moved along the trees, the boys gradually getting more used to it, though they were hardly quiet. But they did not hear the sounds of pursuit, so Shevraeth said nothing.

  The gathering shadows were making it tough to see when he called a halt. They’d reached his first cache. He would have liked to grab that and proceed to his second cache, to gain distance, but decided not to push too hard. Instead, he asked for a volunteer to stay in charge while he led the decoy party back. He got a gratifying number of hands, picked a pair, and so it went.

  It was full dark when he and his two (one of them Marlovair, who had not spoken a word) made it back to the rest of the boys.

  Shevraeth said, “We can either sleep in the tree—I’ve done it, it works—or on the ground, with watches posted. Tight perimeter. Not enough of us to risk being out of sight of one another.”

  Marlovair said, “If you’re offering a choice, I’m for ground.”

  “Ground, ground,” came the murmurs.

  Shevraeth lifted his head, listening to the forest sounds. No raucous risings of disturbed birds, no galloping of hooves, no howls or whinnies. He sensed that they were the only humans in the wood. “Since we haven’t heard or seen any pursuit, we’ll sleep on the ground. But no fire.”

  They climbed down, leaves and twigs rustling. Everyone put their boots on and belted up their tunics. Knives went into the belts beside the wands that half of them carried, being now second-rads. Then they settled close beneath the spreading oak.

  In a low voice, as night birds wheeled overhead, Shevraeth told them about the command class meeting, and everything they’d been doing for the past year. What the king had said and what Keriam had said and what Stad had said. Except for muffled noises of disgust at being left out, they were fairly quiet. Everyone was trying to comprehend the idea of Norsunder actually invading. They all had knives, but—despite some hot talk about what they’d do to the Norsundrians if they caught up—Shevraeth could feel how frightened the boys were. It was easy to imagine lurking evil in the inky shadows. Moonlight limned the trees, rendering them large and mysterious and not very comforting.