A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  After the first set of blows, it became obvious that Onan was not used to sparring against the unorthodox weapon. Each time Errol attacked his high lines Onan parried so quickly it seemed as if his sword moved of its own volition, but when Errol changed his assault to a low line just above the ankles, Onan floundered. His parries came at the last instant after a hesitation, and each time his face twisted in concentration.

  Errol understood. Onan, older and more experienced, had fought so long with the sword and against the sword his responses no longer required thought, they sprang from his experience. He simply reacted. Once when Errol moved his hands to thrust the end of his staff toward the guard’s midsection, Onan engaged in a double-circular parry, even though his sword engaged the staff at first contact.

  Realization came to Errol then. Onan couldn’t win. The eighth’s responses were automatic and tuned to fighting another swordsman.

  Errol stepped back and grounded the staff.

  Onan stared at him in surprise. “What are you doing, boy? You’re not conceding are you? This is your challenge, not mine.”

  He shook his head. To continue would be pointless. The matter had been decided. Further sparring would only result in Onan’s needless defeat, and he might get injured in the process. Besides, he considered the man his friend.

  “I’m offering you the chance to concede.” Errol gestured with the wooden rod in his hands. “I can tell you haven’t fought many people who use the staff.”

  Onan shrugged. “True enough, boy, but if this were a real fight I don’t think I’d get the chance to surrender. Let’s finish it.” And he attacked.

  For a moment the flurry of blows caught Errol off guard, and he backpedaled as he defended, but the momentum of the attack passed and Errol countered, launching blow after blow at Onan’s low line. Forced into unaccustomed parries, sweat beaded on the eighth’s brow.

  In quick succession Errol struck his ankle, stomach, and sword hand.

  The sword hit the ground. Wooden laths clacked softly. Errol’s defeated opponent dropped to a sitting position on the ground with a curse. “Why do you all hit the same leg? That’s the same ankle Jhade hit.”

  Errol offered his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Onan took it, levering himself up on his good leg. “Humph. What for? Can’t fault a man for wanting to earn a little extra. I’m just glad you’re using ash instead of oak. Probably would have broken the bone if you’d landed a decent blow.”

  “Conger,” Errol called.

  The seventh lifted his head from his book and gave him a questioning look.

  “I want to challenge you for the seventh.”

  Conger looked at Onan, watching Errol’s previous opponent hobble across the ground. “Can I win?”

  Onan looked first at Conger and then Errol. He gave a small shake of his head.

  Conger scratched an armpit, then shrugged and went back to his book. “It’s all yours, boy. See me after you get done fighting,” he said without raising his head. “There’s some amazing stuff in here.”

  Errol turned, found Rokha looking at him with the same measuring look as before. Without a word, she retrieved the practice sword where Onan dropped it. She dropped into ready position, gave a small salute with her weapon.

  The smile she gave him made him sweat.

  “I think I’m next, Errol.”

  21

  CLIMBING THE LADDER

  NO!”

  Errol turned to see Skorik standing by the supply wagon, his face livid.

  Rokha rounded on him without frowning, but every line of her stance held challenge. “No? Doesn’t he have the right to challenge me for my position?” Ru’s daughter glared at the first. “More to the point, do you have the right to make my decisions for me?”

  Skorik gaped. His mouth worked, but nothing intelligible came out.

  Errol gaped at the realization. Of course. Skorik was in love with Rokha. No wonder the man despised him. He’d been forced to watch as Ru encouraged his daughter to show affection to someone else. Skorik had watched them kiss, had watched them lie together in the grass.

  Despised him? The first probably wanted to kill him.

  Errol lowered his staff, stepped toward his opponent, and whispered, “I think Skorik’s in love with you.”

  She gave a throaty chuckle. “Are you just now figuring that out?” She patted him on the cheek. “Errol, you have so much to learn.”

  He snuck a glance over her shoulder. The first looked as if he would charge him any second. “Are you in love with him?”

  She shrugged. Her eyes burned like embers beneath her lashes. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Were you just using me to make him jealous?”

  Rokha laughed and ran her hand along his cheek. “No, Errol. I wasn’t ‘just’ using you. I meant every kiss, but you’re not the one for me. That compulsion you’re under will take you to the conclave at Erinon. Soon I think. A half-Merakhi has no business on the isle.”

  “Your father means to kill me. How will I make it to Erinon?”

  Rokha stepped close. “I know my father. Wait for his anger to die down.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  She shrugged. “Then I will help you escape.”

  Errol nodded, gestured to Skorik. “He’s afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  Her eyes flared. She was the hawk once more. “You should look to yourself. I earned the sixth. Father had nothing to do with it. He didn’t even want me as a guard.”

  “I don’t want to fight a woman.”

  She shook her head. “Then you’re a fool, Errol. Women won’t hesitate to take your emotions and your noble intentions and use them against you. If you don’t guard your heart, you’ll end up dead.”

  Rokha stepped back, brought her sword back to ready. “Now, let’s see how good you really are.”

  Skorik came over and stepped between them. “Since you mean to do this, I will judge.” He shot a look at the pair of them and the watching guards, daring them to disagree. Then he looked at Errol, his eyes burning with hate. His lips twisted. “Have a care, boy. Winning could be the death of you.”

  From the beginning, Rokha made it plain she meant to defeat him if possible, and if she couldn’t beat him, meant him to earn his victory. Ru’s daughter flung herself at him, her sword flicking at his face, body, and arms.

  Whereas Santosh had tried simply to defend, Rokha bet everything on her attack, even to the point of ignoring her defense. Time and again Errol hesitated, let opportunities to strike slip by, and the bout wore on in a frenzy of sword cuts and staff parries.

  However hard she tried, Rokha couldn’t penetrate Errol’s defense, but she continued to expend her energy in extravagant attacks. Already, she panted and sweat, and her strikes began to slow.

  Errol didn’t need to hurt her; he could just wear her down.

  Their battle raged back and forth across the campground. Her steps dragged across the sod. He feinted an attack toward her unprotected side, and she stumbled as she tried to parry.

  Minutes later, exhausted, she tripped and fell to the grass. Errol stepped forward and pulled the sword from her grip, but when he held out his hand to help her up, she slapped it away. The look she gave him bore nothing but hatred.

  Rokha ran from the circle.

  Confused, Errol turned to see the guards looking at him in disgust.

  Skorik appeared at his elbow, pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “I will make you pay for that, boy.” He strode away, taking the same route as Rokha.

  Conger edged up to him, his book closed around one finger to keep his place. “That was poorly done, Errol.”

  He shook his head. “What did I do? I was trying not to hurt her.”

  Conger shook his head. “It would have been better if you had. By beating her that way you said you had no respect for her as a warrior. You took her honor.”

  “But Skorik said he’d kill me if I hurt her.”

  “Hmmm, I dou
bt he would have followed through. The first growls a lot, but he knows the rules as well as any man. Most likely, he was trying to make you hesitate so Rokha could beat you.”

  How did I get into this? “What do I do now?”

  Conger shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, but I wouldn’t sleep where Ru’s daughter could get to me.”

  Errol laughed a bitter cough of a sound. Ru and Skorik would be locking him back in the wagon once he’d eaten. He wouldn’t be in danger from anyone.

  But if his plan to defeat Skorik didn’t work, how would he escape without Rokha’s help? The sixth position now belonged to him. He would have to fight and win five more times just to have a chance of escape. Jhade would be his next opponent. He felt confident of winning that bout, but after he fought her he would have to face Kajan Vujic, Diar Muen, and Sven before he could challenge Skorik.

  And he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to fight any of them. The only time those men had fought during his stay with the caravan was during Eck’s attack—and Errol had been too busy trying to stay alive to notice their strengths and weaknesses.

  Fishing the knobblocks from his pocket, he handed them to Conger. “I need help. Can you get these to Grub and see if he can find a way to make them twice as heavy?”

  His friend looked at the hollow iron weights in his hand and shrugged. “I reckon, but you know you’re not allowed to use those in a challenge.”

  Errol nodded. “They’re for training. I’m not fast enough.”

  Conger snorted. “You’re faster with a staff than anyone I’ve ever seen, boy. Just how fast do you want to be?”

  The sky overhead was still clear, but off in the distance huge columns of white were building. Errol pointed to one flat-bottomed cloud that looked like an anvil. A bolt of lightning shot from beneath the billow, forked on its way to the ground. Rale’s words rang in his mind. “Faster,” he said.

  He walked to the supply wagon, endured the other guards’ frowns of disapproval as he ate, and went back to Ru’s wagon even before Skorik came for him. Errol surveyed his prison. The tight quarters didn’t afford him much room to move. He could stand between the bunk and the desk and take three, maybe four steps from one end to the other.

  Four paces long and one pace wide. That’s all he had. He seated himself on the floor, composed as Rale had taught him, and thought through the problem. In the end, he needed two things:

  First, he needed to be faster, always faster with the staff.

  Second, he needed information.

  Access to that information would be cut off until morning, when they let him out for breakfast and a visit to the privy. With luck, he would be able to find Conger and learn what he needed to know in order to defeat the top four guards. Luck. He chuckled at the thought. He would need a lot of it, and it didn’t seem to be an attribute he had in any quantity. And if Deas’s hand was on him as Radere had said, he would need all the help the creator could give him.

  He stood. How could he get faster in Ru’s wagon? The enclosure made the abbot’s cells seem large. Errol put his hand out in front of his body and curled his fingers in imitation of holding his staff. Casting back, he replayed each of the night’s challenges in his mind.

  Eyes closed, he moved his arms, concentrated on the tension he felt in his muscles, and made a mental list of the ones he used most. For over an hour, as the sky darkened and the sound of crickets built to a crescendo, he moved. Then he sat with his eyes open, surveying the cabin, devising exercises he could perform in the cramped space to strengthen the muscles that would make him faster. When he completed the list, he began and didn’t stop until the sounds of the camp died away as one guard after another sought his bedroll.

  The next morning Grub stared at him in surprise as he heaped a plate to overflowing with eggs and cheese. As he went through the line, he stuffed his pockets with sausage.

  When Skorik came to escort him to his makeshift cell, the first gave him an unpleasant smile. “I could almost thank you, boy. Ru’s daughter despises you. In one bout you managed to turn all her affection for you to hatred.” The first gave a raucous laugh.

  Errol grimaced. Too late he understood he’d treated a wild bird of prey like a tamed pet. She’d never forgive him. “You’re welcome.”

  Skorik grabbed his arm, hauled him close enough for Errol to smell the eggs on his breath. “Don’t think this changes anything, boy. If you happen to climb the ladder high enough to challenge me, I’m going to beat you so hard you’ll wish Eck had finished you.”

  Errol tried to jerk his arm away, but the first held him fast in a grip of iron. “And what will Ru do to you, Skorik, if you ruin his chance to be rich?”

  The first snarled and pushed him away.

  Errol spent the day in the wagon pushing his body through endless repetitions of exercises in the small space. He pushed, pulled, lifted, squatted, and stretched. Sweat rolled from his arms and legs to darken the wooden floor. When he became too tired to go on, he ate from the stash he’d filched from Grub, and then after resting or napping, he did it all again. The constant physical exertion kept him distracted from the pull of Luis’s compulsion in his chest, but whenever he stopped he became aware of it. It didn’t seem overpowering, yet. He needed time to get stronger.

  When the wagon stopped at the next village, he almost sobbed with relief. He’d burned through his food hours ago, and his stomach squalled like a child throwing a tantrum.

  Grub stared at the mountain of food hiding his plate. “You sure you want to eat all that before a challenge, boy?”

  Errol shook his head. “I’m not challenging anyone tonight, Grub. I think I’ll wait awhile. I’m just going to eat and then go through the forms.”

  “Good thing,” the cook said. “If Sven sees you eat all that, he’ll be jealous.”

  Errol looked around the camp. “Have you seen Conger?”

  Grub nodded. “He went into the village to the smithy. Said you’d know what that would be about.”

  He gave a short nod. “Thanks, Grub.”

  By the time his plate became visible again, Conger walked back into camp, a new book tucked under one arm. “Here.” He held out a new pair of knobblocks. “The supply wagon didn’t have anything that would work, so I went to visit a smithy.”

  Conger gave him a lopsided smile “You owe me two silver crowns. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it, but I just recently had a reduction in pay.”

  Errol laughed and gave him three. The new knobblocks felt twice as heavy as the old ones but looked almost identical, a slight increase in the wall thickness of the cylinder the only difference. Perfect. When he went through the forms, anyone watching would think he’d slowed.

  He tugged Conger’s sleeve, pulling his attention away from another book on church history. “Please don’t tell anyone about the knobblocks.”

  The former seventh smiled. “Not to worry, Errol.”

  For a moment he debated what to do next—work the forms with his new staff weights or pepper Conger with questions about the men he would have to challenge. In the end, the weights won. His muscles ached with fatigue, but all his exercise would be for naught if he lost his feel for the staff.

  Under the gaze of the first, who watched while he ate, Errol worked every move he’d learned from Rale and Jhade. The staff resisted him as though he were trying to swing the wood through water instead of air. He pushed on, swallowed thickly when his oversized dinner tried to come up on him. When Skorik called a halt to escort him back to the wagon and lock him in for the night, Errol almost thanked him.

  For the week it took to reach Scarritt, he followed the same routine. But distraction weighed on his mind, and he started at odd moments, found himself staring westward.

  The morning they camped outside the city, while Ru and Rokha scouted the merchant houses in preparation for creating the lots, Errol emerged from the wagon, passed the table of food Grub laid out for the guards, and sought Jhade.

  Th
e woman nodded and rose from her seat on an overturned crate and gave him a small bow. “You train well.”

  Errol bowed back. “Do you concede the fifth? I would prefer not to fight you for it. Hurting you seems a poor way to repay you for your instruction.”

  She gave another small bow. “I do not concede. I wish to see how much you have improved.”

  He’d suspected she would answer in this way. With a couple of twists of the staff, the knobblocks came loose in his hand. The weight of his staff, now unencumbered by iron, felt almost nonexistent. As he loosened up, the staff blurred in his hands and the buzz of displaced air caused the other guards to stare.

  Jhade faced him, staff ready. At some unspoken signal, she attacked. Errol’s only constraint now was the speed of his thoughts. His mind struggled to keep pace with the wood in his hands. When it caught up at last, Errol launched a flurry of blows that made it seem he handled two staffs at once. The fifth backpedaled, but Errol pressed his advantage.

  He struck each shoulder. Numbed, she dropped her weapon.

  With the same quiet dignity as before, she bowed, but more deeply this time.

  He’d won.

  Moments later Ru and his daughter returned from the merchant houses within the city of Scarritt. Errol knew the routine so well he didn’t require Skorik’s prodding to hurry back to the wagon. He listened to Rokha recount the details of each house and factor, then listened to Ru do the same.

  It only took a few hours to determine where to sell their cargo and what cargo they should pick up for the trip south. It seemed they were supposed to haul hams to the city of Ambridge.

  Throughout it all, Ru smiled so hard his face looked as if it would break. “It’s too bad you can’t find it in you to be more cooperative, boy. As the sixth you’re going to be paid quite well for today’s sale.”