Prince of Malorn (Annals of Alasia Book 3)

by Annie Douglass Lima

  Korram held his gaze for a long moment in the firelight. “Have you ever taught anyone how to fight?” he asked finally.

  “I’ve helped lead training exercises among the palace guards, Sire.”

  “So you could teach a group of people to fight together? Make them drill, get them to work hard, to practice regularly; prepare them to face armed enemies?”

  The sergeant looked thoughtful. “To be honest, I’ve mostly worked with guards who already had some combat skills. But I’ve helped the new recruits learn to work as a unit with the rest, and Captain Callium has always made us sergeants take turns leading drills when we practice together. And my brother is a military captain; I’ve seen him whip his troops into shape, so I know a fair amount about how it works.”

  “Good enough.” Korram grinned. “All right, Sanjik: I hereby appoint you trainer of my personal army. You’re going to come with me and turn my friends into soldiers so I’ll have a fighting chance against Rampus.”

  Sanjik looked startled at first, and then his expression changed to surprised delight. “It will be an honor to serve, your Highness! What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Meet me here again tomorrow at noon,” Korram told him. “You’ll need a horse, and probably a tent and blankets, and a supply of food. I want you to go and let my mother and sister know that I’m safe and I send my greetings; but it would be wise not to tell them any more than that.” He paused in thought. “Actually, ask my mother for some money. We’ll probably need to buy more supplies and equipment later. Get her to give you as much gold as you can safely carry.”

  The sergeant frowned anxiously. “Ask the queen for money, Sire?”

  “I’d send you with a note if I could, but I don’t suppose you brought anything to write with.” Sanjik shook his head. “Well, that’s all right. Just tell her it’s for me and she’ll be glad to give it to you.”

  “Suppose she doesn’t believe me, your Highness?”

  “Show her this.” Korram twisted his signet ring off his finger and handed it to the guard. “Just don’t let anything happen to it. I want it back tomorrow.”

  The sergeant examined the ring in the firelight and slipped it into his pocket, looking a little nervous at taking responsibility for something so valuable. “And what reason shall I give the captain for leaving my job, Sire? If I just disappear, someone’s bound to come looking for me.”

  “Get my mother to make you an excuse. She can say she fired you, or that she sent you on a mission to a distant part of the kingdom.”

  “She can pretend she’s sending you to look for Korram,” Thel suggested. “Then it would make sense that you’re taking a tent and supplies.”

  Korram nodded. I should have thought of that. “Good idea. That’s what you should tell everyone, even your family. We’ll all be in danger if anybody finds out the truth and tells Rampus.”

  “I know, Sire,” Sanjik assured him. He placed a hand on Jeskie’s shoulder. “You hear that, lad? Not a word.”

  “I wouldn’t tell,” protested the boy, looking offended. “Anyway, that’d put me in danger too, ’cause I’m comin’ with you.”

  “Coming with us? Certainly not,” the sergeant retorted. “A military training camp is no place for a young child.”

  Jeskie folded his arms stubbornly. “I’m not that young. I’m nearly eleven and a half.” He shot a glance at Thel. “Besides, if women can go, why not children? Anyways, I wouldn’t be in the way. I’d be your assistant and do whatever you said. Run errands, deliver messages, that sorta thing. You know how good I am at that.”

  The boy turned to Korram. “Truly, your Highness, I’m an important piece of your plan. You need to send someone to the nearest town for supplies? I don’t think any of your Mountain Folk friends could do it. No offense, but after what I saw in the tavern, they’d draw a lotta attention to themselves and probably get confused or cheated in the process. You need to send a letter to the queen? I know other people who work in the palace besides Sarge here; I could easily take messages to her or bring her replies back. You need to find out what’s goin’ on in the city? I know my way around through all the back alleys, and I’ve done odd jobs for people in most every trade. I know how to listen to conversations and find out information and usually not even let people notice me. And I know Captain Ebbrem, Sarge’s brother in the military; don’t I, Sarge? I polish his boots for him now and again and he buys me supper. So if you needed to find out what the army was doin’, I could go talk to him.” Jeskie grinned triumphantly, as though he had already won the argument. “See? You can’t manage without me!”

  “What will your family say if you leave Sazellia?” Thel wanted to know.

  “I don’t have a family. My mother died when I was little, and I don’t remember my father. I’ve got friends all over the city, though, and lotsa places to eat and sleep. But I don’t go to any of them at any regular times, so nobody will worry if I don’t show up for a while.”

  “I think we should let him come,” Thel told Korram earnestly. “I bet he could help, and what he said about any of us going to the city for supplies is true.”

  Korram shrugged. “Why not?” It did sound as though the boy could be useful. He turned back to Sanjik and Jeskie. “All right then. Both of you, meet us back here tomorrow at noon.”

  Chapter 18

  When Ernth, Korram, Thel, and the two Lowlanders returned to the foothills, Korram called all the others over the moment he had dismounted.

  “This is Sergeant Sanjik,” he announced when the group had assembled, “and this is his assistant Jeskie. The sergeant is going to help us all learn to be a proper army. Yes, I know he and Jeskie are Lowlanders, but they’re on our side and we’re going to make them welcome among us.”

  Suspicious stares were the only response, until finally Fretchal, standing in the front, voiced what everyone must have been thinking. “We should vote on whether they get to stay here with us.”

  Korram looked indignant. “This isn’t up for discussion! You all agreed to join my army and to follow me. I’m telling you that we need these two and their help, and we’re going to accept their presence here. Sanjik will be training us as soldiers, and without his help we don’t have a chance of defeating Rampus.”

  The Prince of Malorn may have been Accepted, but obviously he still had a few things to learn about life outside the Lowlands. Ernth turned to him with a smirk. “We’re going to vote,” he informed him. “That’s the only way everyone will ever agree to let them stay. You should know by now how things work.”

  And so they voted. The group decided 194 to 46 to allow the two Lowlanders to live among them and to treat them well while they were there. And so of course everyone was polite, even those who had voted no. Thel showed the man and the boy where they could pitch their tent, and some of the others even invited them to share their food. Then the newcomers joined Ernth, Korram, and a group of their friends around one of the campfires.

  Over supper, Sanjik asked the others about their weapons and how they used them. Ernth and the others told him stories about hunting and defending themselves against wild animals, and the two Lowlanders listened intently, Jeskie with wide eyes.

  The next morning Sanjik came to Ernth and asked to examine his spear. Ernth showed it to him, explaining proudly how he had made it and demonstrating the different ways of holding, throwing, and striking with it. Sanjik borrowed Thel’s spear and practiced the moves himself, getting Ernth to demonstrate each one again and again until he could do them too. The man was a fast learner, for a Lowlander.

  Sanjik and Korram went off and talked for a little while, and then Korram called everyone over again.

  “Sergeant Sanjik and I have made some plans now, and starting from this afternoon, he’s going to be in charge along with me. Please listen as he explains how our training will work.” He gestured to the man beside him. “Sergeant?”

  The man stepped forward with a nod. “Thank you, Sire.” He raised his
voice to address the crowd. “I’m told you all know about Regent Rampus, the enemy of Prince Korram and anyone loyal to him. The regent has an army too, and it is much bigger and more experienced than this one. If nothing changes, he and his men will almost certainly kill Korram and the rest of us along with him; and Korram’s plans to help your people will come to nothing.”

  Ernth looked to see what Korram thought of this dramatic assertion and saw that his friend was nodding seriously.

  “Even if you’ll let me train you, the danger is real,” Sanjik went on. “I can’t promise that any of you will return safely to your families when this is over. But I can promise that if you’re willing to do as I say, I can turn you into a skilled army worthy to stand beside our prince and defend him against our enemies. And you may just make a difference in the future of Malorn.”

  Malorn is for Lowlanders, Ernth wanted to say. We don’t care about what happens to Malorn. But he knew Korram considered the mountains to be part of Malorn as well, even though those who lived in them were different from Lowland Malornians in almost every way.

  “So,” Sanjik continued, “You should take another vote about this. Decide together if you’re willing to follow my orders and begin military training. The process won’t be easy, and it will go against many of the ways you’re used to doing things. Before we can start, you need to make up your minds that you’re willing to go through with it until the end. Otherwise you might as well go home now.”

  He stepped back to where Jeskie was sitting, watching, beside the tent the two of them shared. Ernth and the others drew together to discuss the matter, but there was little discussion necessary. They had already agreed to come, hadn’t they? Yes, it was annoying to think of this Lowlander ordering them around and making them practice things they weren’t used to, but that, it seemed, would be their best chance of success.

  So they voted again, but this time it was a mere formality. There were no dissenting votes. Everyone in the camp agreed it would be best to let Sanjik teach them.

  Korram grinned in triumph when the vote was counted, but Sanjik just nodded seriously. “Good. You’ve made a wise decision. For the next step, I want you to divide yourselves up into groups of twelve. If I’m not mistaken, there are two hundred forty of you altogether, so that will make twenty groups. The group you are in will be called your platoon, and you will practice with them for the duration of our training.”

  Everyone chuckled at the funny sound of the word platoon, and then came the confusion of arranging their groups. None of them had ever had to do anything like that before, so it took a long time. Close friends and families tried to stay together, but inevitably that led to too many or too few in a platoon. Korram came around again and again, reminding them that there had to be exactly twelve in each, though no one could understand why the number mattered. He helped them rearrange themselves, pulling extra people out of some groups and guiding them to others that needed more. Finally they had exactly twenty groups of exactly twelve people each. Korram himself became the twelfth member of the group Ernth and Thel were both in.

  “Good,” Sanjik congratulated them again when at last they were ready. “Now make sure you remember who’s in your platoon; these are the people you’ll be training with from now on. The next step is for each platoon to choose a leader. The leaders will be called corporals, and the rest of you will be privates. Your corporal will be in charge of passing on instructions from me and making sure the rest of your platoon follows them. If there are any questions or problems, the corporal will bring them to me on behalf of his or her platoon. There will be some extra work involved with this, so the person you choose needs to be diligent and responsible and willing to put in the effort, as well as strong and skilled with a spear. Talk to those in your platoon and vote for the person you think will make the best leader.”

  Ernth’s platoon voted for Korram right away, but Sanjik came over and explained that they had better pick someone else, since Korram might have to go off now and then and do things without the rest of them. There was a thoughtful discussion as to who else would make a good leader. Ernth would have liked to be corporal – it sounded so important – but he couldn’t think of any good reasons to put forth. In the end they chose Thel, who had four younger brothers and sisters and was used to being in charge.

  When all the groups had picked their leaders, Sanjik called the corporals up to the front and had them tell him their names. While he talked to them and made marks on a piece of parchment, the others stood around and chatted and looked to see which of their friends had ended up in what platoons.

  When Thel returned, she brought her first set of instructions. “He says we need to arrange ourselves in two straight lines, six people in each line. Whenever he says, ‘Platoons, form up,’ we have to get in our lines, each in the same spot every time, and I have to be in the front on the left. Korram will be in the back on the right so that when he’s not with us it won’t leave a gap.”

  They lined up as directed, Ernth standing next to Korram in the back. None of them could understand what any of this had to do with learning to fight.

  The next instructions were equally odd. All the platoons had to stand in a long line behind each other, so that there were forty rows of six people per row. That was the way they would travel, Sanjik explained, when they needed to march down to the Lowlands someday. Again, they were told to remember their positions so they could stand in the same spot every time. Then each platoon was given a number between one and twenty, depending on their order. Ernth’s, at the front of the line because Korram needed to be able to talk to Sanjik, was Platoon One.

  After that Sanjik came around and inspected the way they were standing, telling most of them to move further apart so they would have room to handle their spears without poking each other. He made sure they were spaced evenly, and once again told them to remember exactly where they were in relation to those around them.

  Ernth had long since grown bored of learning to be a soldier. The horses were all grazing in a big herd by the edge of the meadow, and he wished he could go find Hungry. He wanted to vault onto her back and gallop through the brush with the autumn wind in his face. What in the world was the point of all this?

  But instead he had to practice something called marching, where Sanjik made them all walk in their straight lines at exactly the same speed. He even told them which foot to use when, which was the strangest thing Ernth had ever heard. Who cared whether you stepped out with your right foot first or your left? But Sanjik said that it mattered, and so they practiced it over and over again, starting when he said, “Forward march,” keeping in time with his, “Left, right, left, right,” and stopping when he called, “Halt!” Whenever anyone grumbled or spoke at all, the whole group had to stop and wait while he scolded the offenders, and then start all over again.

  They stopped for a rest and a snack in the middle of the day, and then Sanjik called everyone over again for more training. There was a chorus of groans, but they had voted, and so everyone followed his instructions to form up.

  It was dusk by the time Sanjik finally decided they had done enough marching practice for one day. There were exclamations of relief as everyone scattered to gather firewood, prepare for supper, and spend a little time with their horses. Over the meal, they all discussed how strange and useless army training was.

  Later, Ernth saw Sanjik sitting by his tent, whittling away at a small piece of wood with a knife. “I haven’t made one of these since I was a boy, Sire,” Ernth heard him admit to Korram, “but since we don’t have a trumpet and I wouldn’t know how to play it if we did, I think a whistle will be the next best thing.” He brought the object, about the size of his thumb, up to his lips. When he blew into it, it emitted a piercing screech that startled Ernth and everyone else and made the horses jump in alarm. But Korram and Sanjik merely chuckled.

  The next morning before breakfast, the two of them had a long conversation, and Ernth saw them both examining Ko
rram’s spear.

  “We all need better weapons,” Korram told Ernth later when he joined him by the fire. “Sanjik is going to send Jeskie down to the city to have some new spears made.”

  “What’s wrong with the spears we’ve got?” Ernth demanded indignantly. It had taken a lot of work to fashion his, and he was proud of it. His spear had served him well for both fishing and hunting over the years, as well as herding goats and occasionally brandishing at Lowlanders.

  “Our spears are just made of wood,” Korram explained, fingering his own. “Our enemies will have steel swords and shields, so we ought to at least have steel spearheads. They’d be much stronger and sharper than what we’ve got now. Apparently Jeskie knows several different carpenters who can carve the shafts – that part will be easy – and then there’s a blacksmith who Sanjik is sure has no loyalty to Rampus and will be willing to forge two hundred forty steel spearheads with no questions asked. Thanks to my mother, we now have plenty of money to pay for them, and for the shields we need as well.”

  “And you’re sure this boy Jeskie is trustworthy?” Layth inquired from across the fire. “What if he takes the money and doesn’t come back?”

  “I thought of that,” Korram admitted. “But Sanjik knows him well, and he says Jeskie has always been responsible and honest. Apparently Sanjik has been sort of like an uncle to him since the boy was orphaned.” Korram stretched out his hands over the flames. “He’s going to borrow Sanjik’s horse and head back to Sazellia this morning. They’ll get the spears finished as quickly as possible – Sanjik will send notes to the craftsmen explaining they’ll be paid more if they can get it done in a hurry – and then Jeskie will borrow a wagon from someone Sanjik knows and bring back the spears and some other supplies. We’re planning to order some food, too.”

  “Get more of those orange things,” Ernth suggested, “but not the squashed insects or the mushy white stuff. And coffee. Make sure he brings lots of coffee.”