My stomach flopped the pain spread form it like the poison had spread from my shoulder. "Do you mean I am dismissed from Talion service?" I forced the words past the lump in my throat, then ground my teeth together to keep my jaw from trembling.
Lord Hansur smiled kindly and shook his head. "No, Nolan, not that at all. Your shoulder is just not up to the rigors of the test at this time." He looked to the Wizard for confirmation, and the white-haired magicker nodded gravely.
I hesitated, then nodded to the Wizard. "Please do not take this question as any my doubting your ability in any way, because I do not, but can't you just, um, fix my shoulder?"
The Wizard smiled benignly. "No, Nolan, I cannot just repair the damage with magick. You suffered a serious injury. The poison destroyed a great deal of muscle tissue. I can use spells to stop infection and to stimulate growth of new muscle and flesh, but the spell's effectiveness is in direct proportion to how soon it is cast after the injuries occur." He frowned and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "My spells could regenerate a severed limb, if I could summon enough power and direct it at the wound the instant the limb was struck off."
I nodded, but Adamik saw I still had reservations so he pressed on. "You know the Archer Seventeen in the bed beside you?"
"Dyre, the one with the broken leg?"
The Wizard nodded. "That was a nasty break. Dyre snapped both bones in his left shin and one poked through his flesh." The Wizard turned to Lord Hansur. "He was out on a survival exercise and fell into a gorge. It took several days to find him." Adamik faced me again. "The people who found him set the bones, but did a poor job. Healing had already begun by the time he came to us, so we had to break the bones again and reset them. Our spells can only aid his recovery, like yours, and both you and he will have to do the rest."
Lord Hansur rose. "So, Nolan, I expect you to design a full regimen of exercises to speed your recovery, and fit that into a full training schedule. Wizard Adamik tells me it should take you six months to fully rebuild your damaged muscles. By the Festival I expect you to be ready for your final test."
I realized I was dismissed. I stood and bowed to both men, then walked from the room. Outside, in the hallway, Marana and Jevin detached themselves from the shadowed walls and fell in beside me. Marana slipped her left hand into my right hand.
"So, Nolan, what did he say?" Jevin's deep voice revealed none of the nervousness I knew he felt.
I smiled. "Well, I won't be tested with the rest of the Seventeens and I won't go through the Ritual with you." Marana's hand jumped within mine, but I just smiled at her and slipped my right arm up around her shoulders. "But I am not discharged and, once my left arm works well enough, I will be tested."
* * *
Lord Hansur decided, and Wizard Adamik concurred, I should live in the infirmary until my recovery had progressed to a level to be determined later. This kept me apart from the other Seventeens, and that was a good choice because it kept me from distracting them in their final preparations for the Ritual, and saved me from depression as I watched them move further and further away from me.
During the evenings Marana, Jevin, other Seventeens beside Lothar, and I did get together, but my days were so full I saw virtually no one from my old group. The time I spent pushing and training myself were not happy times, because I drove myself very hard, but they did satisfy me.
Adamik kept my shoulder numb for a full two weeks after I awoke, and that caused a certain problem with my training. Until I had some use of that arm I could do nothing to build it up, so my first two weeks' exercise consisted of long runs in the morning and evening, and an interesting research project in the afternoons.
Lord Hansur had never spoken to me about my Journey. I knew better than to imagine he'd forgotten, though it did occur to me he might have put me aside while the others prepared for the Ritual. Whatever the case, and whatever he planned to say to me, I decided to salvage something out of my final adventure and perhaps prove I'd not been as foolish as I felt.
I sought out and conspired with a heavyset, square-jawed Services armorer by the name of Gilbere to produce a dozen of the Xne'kal throwing darts. I described the weapons to him as best I could, and under his thorough interrogation I recalled more details than I realized I remembered. He rejected immediately the idea of a flint needle, and by the next afternoon had made a triple-edged triangular needle and sunk it into the body of a featherless crossbow quarrel.
I smiled as he pointed out a target in the back of his shop. "Go ahead, Nolan, you'll be the first to try it."
I flipped the dart at the target as I would have tossed a knife. The dart spun end over end, slapped flat against the target, and fell to the ground. I tried it a dozen more times, and as I got used to the weight I got better, but still could only stick the six-inch-long needle into the target about half the time.
Gilbere and I both shrugged and I offered him the dart back. He waved it off. "I can make more. Perhaps you can practice while running or will figure something out."
I practiced with the dart during my evening run, but the results, if anything, were more discouraging than earlier that day. I left the dart on my bed and snuck out of the room so I'd not awaken Dyre—he was asleep in the next bed over. I walked to the baths and soaked myself until my hands and feet looked like prunes, then reluctantly returned to my ward in the infirmary.
Walking down the hallway I heard thunk, creak, thunk, creak repeat itself several times over. I burst into the room and saw Dyre sitting up in bed throwing the dart into his footboard. Thunk. Then he leaned forward, creak, and pulled it free. The footboard was peppered with little holes and the two throws I watched sank into the wood perfectly.
Dyre looked up when I entered. "Hope you don't mind." He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I was bored. This thing is pretty neat. What is it?"
I stabbed an accusatory finger at his footboard. "How'd you do that?" A look of horror passed over his face as he realized, for the first time, the damage he'd done to his bed, but I shook my head. "No, not the bed. How did you make it stick so often?"
Dyre shrugged his shoulders. "It was easy. This thing needs some more weight up front, but it flies fine." He brought the dart up by his ear, held it in the middle of the quarrel, and threw. The dart spun from his fingers, never flipped end over end, and stuck perfectly in the footboard.
I let my breath out. "Oh, you're throwing it the wrong way." I plucked it from the footboard and flipped it at the wall across the room. True to form it slapped the wall and bounced to the floor.
Dyre narrowed his eyes. "Don't they teach you Justices anything? Give me that dart." I picked it up and handed it to him. "I'd have put it into the wall long ago, but then I couldn't get to it." He tapped the dart on his numbed leg.
Dyre once again threw and the dart flew straight to the target. As I stared in astonishment, Dyre chuckled. "The most important thing is a spin, Nolan. Why do you think we fletch arrows? It makes them spin so they fly straight."
I thought for a second, then crossed and pulled the dart from the wall. "Fletching. I hadn't thought of that because the Xne'kal didn't do it."
Dyre snorted angrily. "They don't fletch their darts because they don't need fletching. You give the dart a spin when you throw it. Think of it as a javelin and try again."
Slowly what he was saying got through to me. I held the dart as he had and threw. It wobbled a bit in flight but stuck in the wall. I smiled broadly. "And fletching would make it turn in only one direction, right?" I pulled the dart from the wall and held it down at my side with the needle pointing toward the ground. "But that spin would be wrong for an underhanded toss, like this."
I whipped the dart forward and spun it hard. I released as my hand swept up above my waist and the dart stuck into the wall two feet above and to the left of Dyre's rapidly sinking head. I laughed at the expression on his face when he looked up at the dart, but then he joined my laughter.
"I think," he sighed, "you
understand the principle, Justice."
* * *
Because of that night's revelations I introduced Gilbere to Dyre and the two of them took over the whole process of designing the darts. They never gave me any advance notions of what they'd have cooked up by the time I returned from my morning run, and I'd spend most of the afternoon trying different prototypes. After I'd completed the series of tests they gave me, they mercilessly interrogated me and nodded conspiratorially when I said something that pleased or angered them.
Adamik finally lifted the spell on my shoulder and the stiffness and weakness appalled me. My first impulse was to shift away from all other exercise and just work on my shoulder, but Adamik advised against that and I saw the wisdom of his warning. All I needed to do was tear the muscles up worse by overworking them. If I did that I might never recover.
A week after I regained use of my arm, Wolf reappeared in Talianna. He no longer wore my saddle or bridle, but he looked fit. His Excellency took charge of the tack he arrived with—I would not have wanted to be identified as the person who kidnapped a Talion horse—and I made his care my responsibility.
Wolfs return, and the growing strength in my left shoulder, shifted my training regimen again. I still ran in the morning, and now included exercises along my run to strengthen my arm. My afternoons changed so I could train with other novices and regain my battling skills. I abandoned my evening run and spent much of that time with Dyre and Gilbere working on the darts.
The two of them decided on a final design. The needle design Gilbere came up with originally survived to the finished product. A lead ring crimped the wood in around the needle tang and added weight to the dart's front half to increase its tendency to hit needle-first even with a poor throw. Finally twelve inches of hardwood made up the weapon's haft and had three-inch long grooves, eight of them, carved parallel into the base of the shaft. They acted as very simple neutral fletching and stabilized the dart in long flights.
Once they gave me the final darts I started training with them in the evenings. Dyre's initial observation, that spin was all important, still held true. I discovered that no matter how I threw a dart, if I gave it enough spin, it flew straight and usually hit the target I aimed for. I practiced hard with the darts, at least two hours a night for five months, and became more than proficient with either hand.
The new weapon attracted a certain amount of attention. Dyre was finally up and around and his enthusiasm for it intrigued a number of Archers to try it. Because I'd practiced with it a great deal, my ability dwarfed theirs at the start, and that discouraged many of them. Still, the few who did remain quickly learned to use the darts very well, and the evening training sessions usually ended up with a contest and wagering to see who could hit whatever improbable target we selected that night. Overripe tomatoes topped the list of favorite targets because of the way they exploded when hit dead center.
* * *
Interest in the darts prompted, about a month before Festival, an official demonstration of the weapon. The Master wanted the weapon evaluated as a possible addition to Talion arms. As his judges he chose Lord Fletcher, Lord Hansur, and His Excellency. They spent the early part of the day questioning Gilbere and Dyre about the weapon's design and manufacture. Once they'd satisfied themselves about technical details, they invited me to demonstrate the weapon in a practical combat simulation.
The demonstration range occupied a small portion of the training yard southeast of the Star. Four Justice Fifteens and I waited at the start of the range. Each of them carried a pouch of overripe tomatoes to use as missiles against me and wore a different color armband. I was armed with a dozen darts and could take one of them out of the fight by hitting one of the dummies scattered over the course that corresponded in color to their armband. The only difficulty stemmed from the condition that I could only hit a dummy if the appropriate Fifteen was in sight, and there were plenty of barricades for them to use as cover.
Lord Hansur waved the Fifteens into the range and waited until they'd hidden themselves before he signaled me to hunt them. I turned and ran into the range with one dart in each hand. I caught a flicker of motion in the corner of my right eye and dove forward. A tomato burst behind me and I saw a trace of blue before the novice vanished.
I grimaced and rolled to my right. That Fifteen, a dark-haired, gangling kid named Alf, would be the toughest to get. I rose to my feet, then crouched and rolled back left. Two Fifteens, yellow and red, stood and threw tomatoes through where I'd stood. I threw with my right hand and sank a dart into the red dummy, but Yellow ducked away too quickly for me.
I ran forward and stopped in front of the barricade where the red Fifteen had hidden. To my right I heard a rasping sound and turned just in time to see White rise up and throw. I twisted aside and the tomato exploded on the barrier. White dropped back out of sight as the fruit drenched me with seeds and pulp.
"Damn," I swore aloud and raised a dart beside my ear. White popped back up to see if he'd hit me, and recognized his mistake. I launched the dart and hit a white dummy square in the chest.
I shifted the dart from my left to right hand, wiped tomato from my face, and reached up with my empty hand to the top of the barricade. I jumped up and pulled myself over the three-foot-tall wooden breastwork, but the second my feet touched the ground I had to push off and flip myself back over it again.
A tomato flew between my spread legs and smashed into the wood. Alf dropped from sight again before I could throw, but while I was falling, and in midair, the chances any shot I took would be accurate were extremely long. I slammed rather hard into the ground, but continued to somersault backward to make myself as small a target as possible.
On my left Yellow stood and threw three tomatoes in rapid succession. The first two splashed the ground behind me, but the third was thrown perfectly and dead on target. I leaped up from a crouched ball as the last tomato liquefied beneath my feet. I swept my left hand out the side and arced a dart at the nearest Yellow dummy. The dart hit home before Yellow safely ducked behind cover.
Now Alf and I were all alone. I ran from barrier to barrier and watched for any movement at all. I saw nothing, then, as I worked myself around toward the east, a small wisp of dust curled out from behind a barricade and betrayed Alf. Beyond his hiding place stood a blue dummy.
In an instant a plan sprang to mind and I acted upon it. I could only throw at the dummy while I could see Alf, and he was far too quick to expose himself for the time it would take to sight and throw. Determined to keep him in sight for long enough to hit the target, I rose up and ran directly at his position.
Alf never moved as I charged. I sprinted across the open ground, ready to throw the second I saw any part of him, but he remained concealed. It was a war of nerves, and neither of us was going to give in.
I laughed and leaped up to the top of his barricade. I kicked off it and jumped yet higher into the air. Alf, lying flat on his back, grinned at me and snapped a tomato past my left ear. Chuckling, I spun slowly and threw the dart in my right hand. It sailed into the blue dummy's head at the same time Alf's second tomato burst on and drenched my chest. I collapsed to the ground and laughed until my sides ached.
My mirth died when Lord Hansur's shadow fell across my face. He stood flanked by Lord Fletcher and His Excellency. I climbed to my feet at once, bowed deeply, and heard Alf scrambling to do the same behind me.
Lord Fletcher spoke first, and addressed himself to Lord Hansur. "Your novice's weapon does seem to have some use, which is more than I can say for his tactical sense." Offered lightly, the latter half of his comment put me at ease.
His Excellency pulled the dart from the white dummy and turned it over in his hands. He frowned. "It penetrates flesh well enough, but does not have enough force to penetrate bone. It would have to be poisoned." Lord Hansur nodded and His Excellency looked over at me. "The Xne'kal poison their darts?"
I nodded. I knew the idea of poison was not well liked in Talianna,
but I'd taken some time to read about poisons in the library. "If you will permit me, my lords, I've read of a plant poison—not the one the Xne'kal use—used by the Harashu in the Green Desert beyond Sterlos. It paralyzes without killing when used in diluted enough form." I looked down. "It is called kutarai."
Lord Hansur bowed his head toward me. "Thank you, Nolan, and you Alf, for this demonstration. Alf, you are dismissed. Nolan, clean yourself up and report to my chambers within the hour."
* * *
Lord Hansur already sat at his desk by the time I reached his chambers. For some reason I felt prompted to wear my uniform—the sleeveless black leather tunic and black leather breeches over riding boots—and felt very nervous at this meeting. Lord Hansur invited me into his room and indicated I should sit in the single chair before his desk.
"Nolan, I have spoken with Ring. I wish to know why you terminated your Journey with him."
His voice gave me no clue as to Lord Hansur's feelings about Ring, my actions, or me, but I stiffened nonetheless. While having read my journal, he had postponed the evaluation of my Journey until Ring was available to him. I forced my fears back into their little box and spoke as a man willing to take full responsibility for his actions. "I will not blame Ring for what I did. I left him because I believed I would learn more apart from him than with him."
Set in a mask of concentration, Lord Hansur's face revealed nothing. He leaned back in his big chair and stared past me. He weighed every word I said, and I knew he wanted to hear more because he'd not stopped me. I complied with his unspoken wish.
"I know the Journey year is especially important for a Justice because we travel and learn about the world, and we have a chance to practice our deductive and detective skills. I know we travel with experienced Justices who show us the world, and show us how a Justice must survive in that world. I understand that part of our Journey, and I value the time I spent with Ring for what of that he did teach me."
Talion Revenant Page 42
