Guardians of the Keep

by Carol Berg

  Directly in front of us was a wall of the familiar narrowly spaced black bars. Taking the lantern that hung over the sink and opening a gate in the center of the wall, the guard led me down an aisle between the cells, some twenty of them in all. The lamp wasn’t bright enough for me to see more than indistinct shapes sitting or lying on the floor in each one. No one moved as we passed.

  Halfway down the aisle was an open door, leading into a cell with a thick layer of straw over the dirt floor. The guard unhooked the tether chain and shoved me inside. “Water and graybread will be brought. Down there at the far end of the stable is a pile of clean straw. You’ll be permitted to change the straw once in a month, so you’ll want to have a care with your habits. Remember, slaves don’t speak without permission.” He grinned again as he slammed the door and locked it. “I like removing tongues.”

  I sank onto the straw, grateful to get off my wretched feet. The cooling night breeze blew through the bars. As the guard’s footsteps receded, a dreadful quiet enveloped me. Whatever scraps of resilience I had left withered in the silence.

  My cell was a cube some eight paces on a side. The graybread basket and waterskin were hung on the bars beside the door and center aisle, where they could be filled from outside the cage. Nothing but the vague dark outlines of buildings was visible past the outer bars, and though the cells on either side of me were occupied, I could neither see nor hear the occupants, only feel their human presence.

  An hour later, as I huddled in the corner trying to persuade myself to sleep, the stable gate opened with a clang and the lamp moved down the aisle. The guard stopped outside my cell. “Up with you.”

  Holding onto the bars, I dragged myself to my feet, unable even to speculate on what was coming. He led me to one of the rooms in the brick enclosure, shoved me onto a long wooden bench along one wall, and attached both my tether chain and my hands to an iron ring set into the wall above my head. Then he left me alone in the sputtering yellow light of an oil lamp.

  The small room had wooden benches around every wall and more iron rings set into the walls and the floors. The room also sported a long table, a backless stool, and a small wheeled table holding a basin and pitcher. Surgeon’s room, the guard had told me.

  Before very long, a Zhid hurried in, carrying a large leather case. He was a small, tidy man with a short beard trimmed close around his full lips. Tossing his case on the table, he yelled at someone outside the door to bring him cavet.

  He dragged the stool over beside the bench and sat down. “Let me see your feet,” he said, slapping the stained wooden bench. “Here.”

  I propped my throbbing feet on the bench, and the Zhid took one in hand and examined it, poking here and there with his thumbs, dusting off the caked sand. His face wrinkled in disgust, he dropped my foot and retrieved his case. After fetching one of the basins and filling it with water from the pitcher, he set to work—none too gently—cutting the dead skin away, and draining and cleaning the nastiest festerings. A boy brought the surgeon a tin cup filled with steaming dark liquid that smelled strongly of anise. He gulped the drink and went back to work, mumbling about the waste of his time and talent on slaves. Several times he made odd gestures with his fingers and I felt a painful burning and stretching deep in my foot. Some devilish enchantment, I guessed, but I could not detect such things any more. I tried to concentrate on anything else, but there wasn’t much to distract me.

  As the surgeon covered the open wounds with ointments and bandages, and I was breathing a little easier, another slave was brought in and attached to the wall across the room. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh and had a vicious swelling over one eye. I tried to engage the man’s attention, but he kept his eyes averted.

  “This one has to fight again tomorrow, so patch him well,” said the guard. “Are you done with this lot?”

  The surgeon tied off my last bandage, cut off the end with his knife, and stood up. “Keep him idle for a day. And send the mule-brained Drudge with more cavet.” As I was detached from the ring and led hobbling away, he was pulling out materials to stitch the other man’s thigh. I didn’t envy the poor bastard.

  A Zhid Healer. The very concept made my head hurt.

  The next day was long and unsettling. Left idle by the surgeon’s order, I listened and learned. The other slaves were taken out one by one through the morning, assigned to high-ranking warriors who had summoned sparring partners. Evidently some of them had regular assignments, while others were moved from one Zhid to another depending on special needs and requests. One man was assigned to wrestling, one to a match with knives and axes, one to speed work with a commander who had been demoted for his lack of agility.

  Over and over, I heard the rules laid down. The slave would wear only such armor and use only such weapons—real or blunted practice weapons—as the Zhid warrior specified. The slave was required to fight to the best of his abilities and to participate in such exercises and drills as the warrior or his instructor devised. The slave was not permitted to yield the match or stop the exercise. Only Zhid could call a halt.

  As the slaves were taken out of the pen, led by tethers attached to their collars, none of them looked to one side or the other. Was it forbidden, or was it just too painful to see others witnessing one’s degradation? Perhaps it was only fear of what was to come, for one day’s watching taught me how fleeting was a career as a sparring partner for the Zhid.

  A man was found dead in his cell that morning. Two more wounded men were brought back by midday, told they would be looked at when the surgeon had time. One of them was in the cell next to me, and in his shallow struggling breaths I heard an ominous gurgling. I banged on the bars of my cell. When the guard came, I slapped the back of my hand on my lips.

  “Speak.”

  “The man next to me is dangerously wounded. I can hear it in his breathing. His chest—”

  “Is that all? Call me again for such a reason, and I’ll have you flogged.” He spat at the dying man and walked away.

  I had to do something. My hand fit between the bars, but only as far as the wrist bands. The steel loops that were used for restraints wouldn’t fit through, and my neighbor lay too far away for my fingers to reach. With no talent for healing and no power for mind-speaking or anything else, words were all I could offer him. Many times in the days I’d fought on the walls of Avonar, I had heard Dar’Nethi Healers pray their invocation and found comfort in the familiar words. Perhaps they might do the same for the dying man and remind him of who he was. So I whispered the verse through the bars of the cell, hoping the guard would not pass by and hear.

  “Life, hold. Stay your hand ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill his soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place. Je’den encour, my brother. Heal swiftly.”

  A rasping whisper responded. “L’Tiere calls. I go freely.”

  “May Vasrin’s light show you the Way beyond the Verges.”

  “I had almost forgotten. . . .”

  “I, too,” I said, but only to myself, for the struggling breaths had ceased with his last word. It was several hours until the guard noticed the man was dead and dragged him down the aisle. I could not see his face.

  The other man survived until the surgeon came. Evidently his leg was maimed beyond easy repair. He was taken away in a cart.

  The afternoon stretched long and hot and quiet. My graybread basket and waterskin were kept filled by a boy who wore no collar. I supposed he had no power that required such bondage. No way to tell. Snippets of conversation from the guards and those who passed by outside the pen drifted on the air: Someone named Gensei Senat had been posted to Zhev’Na; the previous slavemaster, who had only taken office a month before, had died suddenly; another Dar’Nethi village had been taken. The Lords were pleased with the outcome of th
e raid.

  The Lords . . . Zhev’Na . . . No Dar’Nethi child grew up without nightmares of Zhev’Na, and yet I could not say I had ever really believed in the Lords or their fortress. I was beginning to believe.

  What I did come to believe in was the Zhid surgeon. He knew his business. By the next morning, though still tender to the touch, my feet were no longer hot with festering. He dressed them again, wrapped them tightly, and cleared me to fight.

  One of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me while the air was still cool. After reminding me of the rules, he led me through the camp to a walled yard of hard-baked dirt. In one corner was a water barrel. Piled beside it were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Standing in the center of the arena were a brawny Zhid warrior, clad in a hauberk and steel cap, and another slave, who was strapping steel kneecaps over the warrior’s greaves. “The warrior has requested sparring with great-swords,” said the handler, detaching my tether and nodding toward the pile of arms. “You will follow his instructions.”

  I poked through the pile and pulled out a decent sword. Strange to feel a weapon in my hand after so many days. Tempting. But the warrior’s personal slave knelt beside the slavehandler. I knew the price of any misbehavior on my part.

  The Zhid warrior took his stance, sword raised. “Ready,” he said.

  I stepped to the center of the training ground and raised the sword. Unnerving that he was armored, while I was left in my skimpy tunic and sore, bandaged feet. But the day’s rest had done me good, and I liked great-swords. I had the height and weight to carry them well. Besides, I held the echo of a dying man’s voice in my head, and the cursed Zhid had no imagination at all.

  Five times during the morning, the warrior called a halt to our sparring, rested, changed weapons or armor, and started again. The sixth time, he complained to the slavehandler that I’d taken a superior weapon, and that I should properly be handicapped in some way for not noting it. A hand cut off, perhaps.

  The slavehandler summoned Cinnegar. The red-haired Zhid, who evidently had final say in all matters regarding the stable of practice slaves, said he would not allow me to be damaged. Being new, perhaps I’d not been rated properly. The warrior didn’t like hearing that, but wasn’t of high enough rank to overrule Cinnegar. I was glad for that. He sent me back to the stable.

  It was made clear from the first that these matches were strictly physical combat. The Zhid did not use sorcery in their training, believing they must achieve superiority in arms as well as all other aspects of their power. Just as we Dar’Nethi hoarded our power for healing and the defense of our cities, the Zhid hoarded theirs to use in their Seeking, which stole the minds of their enemies.

  No sooner had I been penned up again than I was called out for a warrior named Comus. His training ground looked exactly the same as the other, except for the dead slave sprawled on the hard ground with one arm mostly severed and his skull cloven in half. A servant shooed away an army of flies and removed his practice armor so I could put it on. Comus preferred an armored opponent. The padded leather was still warm and wet with the dead man’s sweat and blood.

  Comus used a great-sword, too, and was big, strong, and vicious. After slogging through a half-day with my earlier opponent, I wished this one preferred a lighter weapon, but eventually I managed to make him yield.

  “This one again tomorrow when I’m fresh,” Comus said to the guard, pointing his sword at me.

  Without heed to heat, hunger, thirst, sore feet, or the various scratches I had collected, I collapsed on the straw and fell instantly asleep. I had survived one day.

  I trained with Comus every day, sometimes with padded practice weapons, sometimes with real blades. He was good, but I was just enough better to avoid serious injury. We worked on strikes and appropriate counters, defensive strategies appropriate to certain positions, timing and balance. He began to copy a few of my moves, and it made me wonder what in perdition I was doing. It was an argument I could not resolve. To fight the cursed Zhid—what slave could ask for more than a chance to injure or kill his captors? Yet I was teaching him to kill more of my own people.

  But I could not refuse to fight or to follow their rules. In my first week with Comus, I was given a clear demonstration of the consequences of disobedience. During one of our rest periods, Comus laid a wager with another Zhid that his personal slave had more impressive private parts than did his friend’s slave. When Comus commanded his slave to strip to prove the bet, the kneeling man, who had not moved during the animated discussion, closed his eyes.

  “ . . . And arouse yourself,” said Comus, sniggering. “I do not like losing.”

  The slave looked up at Comus in shock, then hardened his jaw and slowly shook his head.

  Comus’s bullish face went livid, and he belted his slave across the mouth. “I could have invoked your compulsions,” he said, “but it was inconceivable that my slave would refuse a simple command.” Then, without taking a breath, Comus lopped off the head, not of his own slave, but that of his friend’s slave. “Now. I command you once more. Strip yourself and this dog meat, and we shall see how the cock of a live Dar’Nethi compares to that of a dead one.”

  The horror-stricken slave did as he was commanded, and though I averted my eyes so as not to witness his shame, I could not help but be relieved at his compliance. There was no other slave nearby. My head would have been the price of another refusal.

  The days may have been filled with enough combat and sweat to block out rational thought, but the nights were long, with plenty of time for guilt and self-loathing. I did as I was told. I had to live . . . I had things to do in my life . . . vital things . . . This conviction rumbled in my belly like war drums. Was this some Zhid compulsion laid on slaves along with our collars to prevent us doing away with ourselves?

  After three weeks Comus wanted to move on to some other kind of training, and I was assigned to another warrior. He was a rapier man and very quick. From the beginning, he forbade me to withhold, insisting that I fight with every skill I possessed. He certainly withheld nothing. If his accuracy had been better, I might have taken more than a few punctures and a bloody cheek while I was adjusting to the different style of fighting. I worked with him for over a month, and then I killed him.

  It was a lucky thrust at the end of a long day, and I think the sun got in his eyes. He had wanted to practice a new technique with unblunted tips and had not bothered to put on his sparring vest. Caught up in the exhilaration of combat, he had expanded the practice into a full-blown duel. When I realized what I had done, I immediately looked around to see who had witnessed it. My handler had not returned. The only other person present was the officer’s personal slave whose usual bleak expression faded into a grin. He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned me away. He knew I had no binding compulsion to stay where I was.

  Run . . . I had at most an hour before the handler would come. If I could get through the encampment without anyone noticing the mark of the sword on my collar, then perhaps I could make it as far as the cliffs by nightfall. Barefoot. Unarmed, for I dared not carry a weapon through the camp. One chance in a thousand I would make it to the hills. One in fifty thousand they wouldn’t find me. One in a million that I could make it across the Wastes to the Vales of Eidolon. I wasn’t certain even in what direction they lay. And yet, I would have tried except for the nagging conviction that I was not alone, that I had to listen and be ready. . . . Oh, gods, be ready for what?

  I had lived for eight weeks, each day tallied carefully with a length of straw placed in the bottom of my bread basket. Only two men had been in the stable longer. The rest of those who had been there when I arrived were dead, and new slaves had taken their places. I could no longer imagine the taste of any food but the dry, sour graybread, nor any drink but stale, tepid water. The remembrance of savory roast chicken or frostberries soaked in wine filled me with disgust. All such physical cravings had gone dead or turned into revulsion. Food, wine, women . . . even a to
uch would be unbearable. The faces of my friends had faded from my memory no matter how hard I worked at reconstructing them, and I cursed bitterly when I discovered I could not bring to my mind the winding lanes of Sen Ystar. Even the memories of the beauteous Vales had blurred. So why could I not run?

  I shrugged my shoulders at the eager slave and sat down in the dust by the dead warrior to wait for the slavehandler. I had to live, but I was damned if I knew why.

  When a slave killed a Zhid in training, it was not taken lightly. The slavemaster came in to lead an investigation. He interrogated Cinnegar to ensure the keeper hadn’t scheduled a mismatch, and the surgeon to determine the cause of death. Acquaintances of the deceased were questioned, as well as his servants and aides. The slave was placed under compulsions to discover if any person, Zhid, slave, or servant, had aided him in the match. Even when all was found to be proper, one more ritual was involved.

  “Lest you forget your place,” said the slavemaster, touching my collar. He sneered in disgust at my retching spasms.

  And so it went on. I made it past four months and saw seventeen men—the flower of Dar’Nethi manhood—perish in that wretched stable. For every one I whispered the Healer’s invocation, weeping in impotent fury at the lonely ignominy of their deaths. Only a few of them even heard the words, but I could think of nothing else to do for them. I hounded the guards and the surgeon as much as I dared, to care for their wounds more quickly, to preserve the Lords’ “investment” in experienced practice partners, but soon it was rare for a guard to answer my rattling of the bars or to permit me to speak when I begged it.

  I killed another warrior and paid the price again, and then I took a wound in the shoulder that kept me out of action for a week. The surgeon said he had been given orders to make sure I was healed. “The Lords are interested in skill—even of your mundane sort.”