by Guy Antibes
The monks looked to have a much better selection. He found a box of knives that few monks bothered to examine. Pol found a brace of throwing knives at the bottom. They were brand new and sharp. He quickly snatched them and shoved them in his pack. The swords were laid out on the tables with new scabbards. The monks had trained with straight-edged wooden swords, but there were many different styles on the table. Double-edged swords, curved, narrow, and wide. It didn’t make sense unless monks were used to the different weapons. Having practiced with many of the monks, he doubted that.
He found a long, thin blade with a slight curve. Only a few monks took their blades out, selecting their weapons based on how the scabbard looked. Pol didn’t care about what they thought. He pulled the sword out. It was obviously used, but in perfect condition. He wondered where they found this unique sword. He found an empty spot in the room and swished the sword around to check the grip and balance. It was a superb weapon.
He found an extra-long knife in the same style as his sword, but with a different design on the scabbard. The grip was similar. All he had to do was find a belt to mount the scabbard, and he was ready.
Shro passed him, walking in as he walked out.
“That doesn’t look like boiled leather to me,” Pol said.
She bit her lip. “Waxed canvas. Stupid.”
He looked down at her boots seeing the skin of her shins. “No socks?”
“Why do you need socks?”
Pol pulled out another pair of socks. Now he only had a spare pair. “Blisters. Trust me. Put them on. The boots should be snug, but not tight. If you have the chance, get another pair of stockings. By the way, there are bow and arrows for those so inclined. See if you can grab something you like.”
She eyed his weapons. “How did you get a Shinkyan blade?”
“Shinkyan?” Pol said.
“Your sword. Can I look at it?”
Pol handed it to her.
She looked at it really hard. He suspected magic.
“This had to be stolen.”
“Why?”
“It is first quality.”
Pol looked back into the weapons hall. “I suspect that much of those are. You can find quite a variety of things in there.”
“Nater!” a voice called from outside the doors.
“Yes, Captain Horker.”
“Come with me. Time to find a mount.”
Shro narrowed her eyes and looked at Pol. “Mount?”
Pol shrugged. “I guess it comes with the uniform. If you’ll excuse me,” he said quickly, catching up to the Captain.
“Who is that acolyte?”
“My roommate, sir. Former roommate, I guess.”
Horker looked at Pol as they walked. “You get a two-man tent, but no monk would deign sleep with an acolyte. If you want, you can share it with him. He’s even shorter than you are.”
“Shinkyans are small-statured, I guess.” Pol said.
“I couldn’t care less,” Horker said. The man’s personality seemed to have changed now that he wore an officer’s uniform. He even carried himself more stiffly, somehow.
Once Horker selected a mount for Pol, he found his personal horse. “I assume you know how to ride?”
“I do, Captain.” Pol smiled.
“Good. Tie these nags up over there and get some more food in you. We’ll be leaving in an hour or so.”
Pol did as the Captain requested. He sat down next to Shro with his tray of food. She had just about finished.
“We don’t even merit tents,” Shro said with her mouth full, waving a half-eaten roll. “I’ve got a bow and quivers to carry, along with a knife, a spear and a shield, a bed roll, and my regular clothes. My monk’s robe, I’ll gladly leave behind.” She shook her head in despair.
“You have half a tent,” Pol said. I’ve got a two-man tent of my own and a horse to carry it. As long as I’m riding, I can carry your bow and quivers. Go grab a long knife or a short sword. I’ll take those as well. If you’re not trained with a spear and shield, you’ll die too quickly. If we have to fight, throw those away and use your other weapons.”
“Do you care if I die?”
Now those were words spoken by a female, Pol thought. He remembered Amonna, his stepsister, asking him things like that in the past.
“You’re as close to a friend as I have in this place, so yeah, I would be disappointed to step over your body on the battlefield,” Pol said.
That seemed to mollify her. “Eat quickly and help me pick out a suitable sword.”
Pol ate and Shro watched him. It was quite unnerving, and it felt like Honna, his oldest stepsister, hovered over him, tapping her toes.
They walked together towards the assembly hall. Menkin pushed Pol from behind.
“Who do you think you are, wearing a monk’s uniform?”
“Captain Horker gave me this uniform to wear.”
“Horker? The monk’s trainer?”
Pol nodded.
“I thought he pulled you out of practice to sharpen weapons or something.”
Pol shook his head. “I defeated two monks in sparring matches, and one thing led to another.”
“You’d think you were a prince or something.” Menkin gave Pol a little shove and walked away.
Shro smiled. “Isn’t the term you use in the Empire something like ‘My Prince’?” She gave him a little bow.
“Disinherited,” Pol said. “It’s been over a year.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that royal blood flows through your veins.”
And alien blood, too, Pol thought. “Let’s go. They’ll likely be calling us to move out soon enough.”
Pol found another Shinkyan blade, shorter than his own sword, among the weapons left behind by the monks.
“Stolen, too,” Shro said quietly, but she accepted it. “Yours are better.”
“Hey, what’s an acolyte doing over here?” Bettlor, the monk who Pol first defeated, said.
“This is a Shinkyan blade, and he is a Shinkyan. I want to make sure he has a good weapon.”
Pol slid it in his belt. Now he felt over-armed with three scabbards as they walked out. Shro accompanied him to his mount. Pol began stashing weapons on his horse.
“And these,” Pol said, pulling out the throwing knives. “These are decent quality. I think I can make them work.” He put one in each boot.
“Can you really use those?”
Pol nodded. “Come with me.”
He escorted Shro to the stable and stood in front of an empty stall. “Point out a spot.”
She pointed to a knot in the wood at the end of the stall, some fifteen feet away.
“Easy.” Pol pulled out the two knives and tossed them up and caught them to get a feel for their balance.
He threw the first, hitting the knot and then the second ended up right by the other.
“You are very good.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time using these things. Thrown weapons have saved my life more than a sword has.”
“You really are quite capable,” Shro said.
“Indeed he is,” Captain Horker said. Pol looked back to see the monk standing a head taller behind Shro. “Showing off your talents? I’m impressed, if your Shinkyan friend isn’t.”
“I’ve had some talented tutors,” Pol said.
“I’d say they’ve been more than successful. You’re probably the best knife thrower among Tesna’s Guardians.”
“Guardians?” Shro said. “I haven’t heard that term before.”
“You will. In a few days, we will no longer call ourselves monks. Nater now calls me Captain. We will be Guardians once we are on the march. You must be Nater’s former roommate.”
Pol could see the gleam of fanaticism in Horker’s eyes that wasn’t there before. He wondered if Horker had just returned from a meeting with the Abbot.
“We are about to leave. Retrieve your knives. I wondered if anyone would be daring enough to choose those. Most of the kn
ives were left.” He turned and left Pol and Shro standing there.
Pol nodded and pulled out his knives. He could do the same thing from a much longer distance. What possibly caused him to show off in front of Shro? He shook his head and had returned to his horse when he heard a bugle sound. They used bugles now? He guessed that he’d have to get used to a lot of strange things that the monks did from here on out.
“Scary,” she said. “I have a note to shoot before we leave.” She took her bow and an arrow from Pol’s horse. “A practice shot.”
“Be my guest.”
She winked at Pol and tied a note to an arrow and quickly drew her bow and fired the arrow in the same direction as she had with her slingshot.
“Do you still have your slingshot?”
Shro smiled and nodded.
Pol tried one last time to contact Demeron but didn’t hear anything back. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy about not getting word to his friends.
~
“Does this mean I’m a monk?” Pol asked Horker as they rode down the road from the monastery.
Horker laughed. “No, not in the slightest. I want a soldier who can protect my flank,” the monk said. “You are the perfect acolyte to suit my needs. You can’t ride unless you wear a monk’s uniform, but don’t get any fancy ideas.”
Pol couldn’t help but blush. So he wore a monk’s, no, a Guardian’s uniform in order to fetch and carry. Pol vowed to himself that he wouldn’t be raising his sword against North Salvans, regardless of how he felt towards his stepfather, King Colvin.
“I am happy to serve the Great God Tesna,” Pol said to appease Horker.
“The Great God Tesna,” Horker intoned the words just like he would in the midnight assembly.
All these monks were addled. Pol would soon find out where they were headed, but what could he do about it? He twisted in his saddle and looked back at the monastery, still filling up his vision. Pol hoped Val and Darrol had noticed the mustering of the monks.
Shro tapped Pol on the foot. “Thanks for the stockings. I think I will need them.” She touched her bow, securely tied to Pol’s saddle. “As long as you carry my weapons, I’ll stick with you.”
Pol nodded. ‘That’s all it takes?
She nodded back.
He looked over the rabble. That’s what the monks were. They marched as rabble. There were no straight lines, or lines of any kind, actually. Horses mixed in with the acolytes as they took their way down to the town at the bottom of the road, more of a horde than an army.
He moved over towards Horker. “Shouldn’t we be marching in some kind of formation?”
Horker raised an eyebrow. “Why? We’re Guardians, not soldiers.”
“If we carry weapons, the enemy will think we are soldiers. A spy would look at us and wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“I went along on a training campaign with my father, once. The army marched with discipline and fought with discipline. What kind of discipline are we showing anyone who’d care to watch?”
Horker laughed. “There aren’t any spies within miles of us. We’ve cleared out all the hiding places. Don’t worry about spies. They are our soldiers now.”
“How?” Pol furrowed his brow. Part of it was an act, but he also worried about Val and Darrol, not to mention Demeron.
“Magic of the mind,” Horker said, pointing to his head, although Pol knew the real term. “That’s how we will control a vast army. Even our South Salvan allies will be forced to pledge their allegiance to the Tesnan side. King Astor thinks his generals run the army.” Horker laughed. “We do. You’ll meet our most powerful Guardians tonight.”
There had to be quite a few monks to handle thousands of men, but then he remembered the Abbot’s spell worked on over the three hundred or so monks and acolytes during night assemblies.
Pol looked down at Shro, who tapped his shoe with her spear. She nodded and pointed to her head. Perhaps they were the only people within miles who could resist the monks’ secret weapon.
~
Shro had a hard time carrying the shield and the heavy spear, so Pol took the shield from her and tied it to the top of the gear behind his saddle.
“Thank you. I thought I was in better shape,” she said.
Pol looked back at the trail of acolytes who had stretched from a bunch into a long line in the late afternoon. Shro still kept up with Pol, walking close by with the hardiest of the spear-carriers.
“Our evening camp isn’t far,” Horker said. “The Shinkyan needs a bit of help, eh?”
Pol nodded. Horker talked as if Shro couldn’t hear his every word. “At least the servant will have a servant.” Pol gave the Captain half of a grin.
Horker laughed. “Good thinking. I’ll make a proper monk of you before all of this is over.”
Pol shuddered to contemplate what ‘over’ meant. He was tired enough just riding at such a slow pace for six hours. His stomach grumbled something about missing lunch. He drank a few sips of water from his skin.
“Water, Captain?”
Horker smiled and ambled over to take the skin from Pol. He took big gulps from Pol’s waterskin and ended up draining the thing. He handed it back. “Good job, Nater.”
At least the servant in Pol remembered to graciously receive a compliment. Pol took the empty skin and hooked it around a knob on the front of his saddle. He didn’t perceive Horker as a bad person, but a product of living at Tesna. There were good and bad monks at Deftnis, too.
He wondered how controlled Horker had become. The man certainly needed to get out in the world. A stint in King Astor’s army might do him some good. The thought made Pol laugh. Horker was an enemy. What was Pol thinking? He was part of an army of mind-controlled humans.
Pol shuddered at the blood that would be spilt. He wondered how much thought and how much initiative Tesna’s army had. Among the ranks, too much independence led to a lack of discipline, but among the officer corps, lack of initiative often led to poor decisions. Pol had read enough about that when he studied under Farthia Wissingbel at Borstall Castle.
Another life. He hadn’t even thought of his old, frail body on the march until now. He still had energy. Searl, the healer monk, had done an admirable job on him. At least Pol admired his job. He smiled and flexed his arm. He now possessed a strength that he never could develop when his deformed heart kept him back.
The column began to slow, and the riders and marchers began to overflow the road, like a river breeching its banks.
“We have arrived. Ride ahead and find the command tent. I’ve been told there is a space set aside for my tent. I’ll want you next to me, so make out enough space for the both of us. Your Shinkyan friend is welcome to join you in your tent.”
He had already been told that. Pol looked down at his ‘Shinkyan friend’.
When he threaded his way through the Guardians ahead of him, he came upon a roped-off field. Signs led to the officers’ section. The officers’ camp was organized. Pol didn’t know if he should have been impressed or disappointed.
He set up his tent at the side of the spot assigned to Captain Horker. He scribbled a note saying he had taken ill and fastened it to a tie-down on the tent. Then Pol took a deep breath and looked around at the chaos. This might be his last chance to talk to Val, so he would take it now or regret not doing something for days to come.
He took everything off his horse except for the waterskin, and then headed west, intersecting with the route he had taken to the monastery weeks ago. Pol alternately walked the horse and then galloped his way west, finding a track that led him in the direction he wanted to go. He raced against being labeled a deserter, but Pol knew he had to take the risk.
His path intersected with the north-south road, and Pol continued north a little to the turn-off that Val made him memorize. He rode up into the mountains, remembering the spot on the map where Val said they would camp.
It was still light when he found a likely spot. It was as if wh
oever stayed there had left in a hurry. Pol dismounted and began to use his seeking skills to determine what happened. He recognized some of Darrol’s cookware left behind, so this definitely was the Seeker’s camp. Additional hoof prints were evident, different from Demeron and the other horses. Demeron had clearly taken off towards the west, farther up the mountain, but he was alone. Darrol or Val might have ridden him off, but Pol couldn’t find any evidence of that.
Pol called for Demeron with his voice and with his mind, and the lack of response frightened him. He was in no position to go off to find them. He sat on a fallen log someone had dragged up beside the cold fire pit and put his head in his hands. His friends were gone. Demeron gone. He rummaged around the camp in the approaching twilight and could find no other evidence that might help him understand the utter abandonment that he currently felt.
He made another round of the camp to see if he could note any traces of fighting or blood, but came up with nothing. Pol reluctantly filled up his waterskin at a nearby spring and mounted up with a goal to make his way back to the army’s camp before midnight.
The ride back was filled with pain. His bottom hurt, the horse was abused and inside, deep inside, Pol felt deserted and confused. Where had his friends gone? He could find no note at the camp, not hidden under a rock or written in the dust.
He didn’t know if he’d ever find his friends again. Doubt began to roil in his head. What could he do now? He would have to figure something out. He couldn’t return to Deftnis and abandon Shro. Pol had to find some way to salvage his mission, but he didn’t know what that represented without Val’s guidance. Fatigue had drained his thinking, so his mind didn’t want to work, but putting off making a decision for another day, he finally made it back to the camp.
“Where were you?” Shro asked. She had already laid her bedroll out.
