“There are other ways,” Royce allowed slowly. “The Sentinels who fought at Meridan never broke Oath.”
But Craig was having none of it. “Darien’s father died at Meridan! And Lauchlin was not alone; twelve mages were lost within the first hour after the fighting broke out!”
Darien’s brow creased as it suddenly came to him why Craig was so incensed. It wasn’t simply because of his refusal to use his ability as a weapon. To Darien’s astonishment, he realized that Craig was furious because he was afraid for his life. Like any good soldier, the captain had absolutely no patience for what he considered imprudence of any sort. Darien sagged against the stiff back of his chair, all of the anger leaching out of him to be replaced by a feeling of relief. He was comforted to know that Devlin Craig was still his friend. As any true friend would, Craig was simply trying to protect him.
Proctor’s eyes were like smoldering, silvered coals as he said to Royce, “We cannot use Darien the way the Sentinels were used at Meridan. If we put him in the thick of battle yet Bound by those chains on his wrists, he’ll be a target for every Enemy spear in the Black Lands.”
Darien had to nod in agreement; it was true. A black cloak was a target on any field of battle, a trophy prized by the Enemy far above any other. In an effort to appease, he assured them, “I still have my sword. The Oath does not prevent me from using it to disarm—I just can’t follow through and kill with it. And I can heal any wound I take almost instantly.”
But his words had the exact opposite effect than he had intended. Royce was furious. He twisted away from Proctor. With a blademaster’s speed, he grabbed a fistful of Darien’s cloak at the neck, hauling him forward and half out of his chair.
“Can you heal yourself when an axe takes your head off? Can you save yourself from the flames when you’re beaten senseless? Your own father burned to death with those chains on his wrists. That’s what the Enemy does to your kind. Is that how you wish to die? You’re the last Sentinel left, Darien. You can’t just throw your life away!”
“Or is that exactly what you mean to do?” accused Craig, eyes livid with concern. “You’ve lost everything. Aerysius was destroyed by your own brother’s hand. You’ve lost Meiran, and I know how dear she was to you. You’re drowning in pain, though you try to hide it. Tell me, Darien. Did you come back here just to die?”
Darien was shaking as he reached up and firmly disengaged Royce’s hand from his cloak. The entire room was reeling around him. Never in his life could he remember ever being so enraged at a friend. He clutched Royce’s hand in a trembling fist as he glared the full wrath of his anger into the other man’s face. Then he threw the soldier’s arm away from him forcefully, rising from his chair as he growled through clenched teeth, “I don’t know what you expect from me.”
There was a long, gaping silence. Then:
“Stop.”
The commander’s word had the bite of an order. But neither Craig nor Royce backed down. Instead, they stood frozen in place, glaring. Proctor told them firmly, “Leave him be. He’s been through enough.”
There was a tense moment of hesitation before both soldiers finally relaxed. But Darien couldn’t. He stood confronting the two men with shoulders tensed, quivering in a rage of righteous fury. Long strands of hair that had escaped the band at his neck wavered in front of his face, tousled by the ebb and flow of his shuddering breath.
Craig bowed his head, blowing out a heaving sigh. After collecting himself a moment, he looked back up with sincere regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, shaking his head. “And I’m sorry about Meiran. I’m sorry about everything. Gods, Darien.” He turned and stalked away, a fist swiping out at the air in front of him.
Royce nodded, lips clenched together tightly. “Look,” he said finally. “We’re all tired. Let’s get some sleep. We can hash this out in the morning.” He looked over his shoulder and waited for Proctor to nod his permission.
“You can bed down here in the tower,” the commander told Darien, rising from his chair as if nothing had happened. He waited patiently until Darien finally nodded. Without another word, both Royce and Craig departed, the stiff sounds of their boots echoing down the stairs.
Darien turned out his bedroll on the other side of the hearth as Proctor took to his own pallet, fully dressed, as was his custom. Darien placed his sword on the floor and eased himself down beside it, pulling his cloak tightly about him as he lay his head back and stared up into the shadows of the rafters above. He closed his eyes, but sleep did not come. He could still hear the throb of his own pulse in his ears, a constant and irritating rhythm that seemed louder than even the shriek of the wind that hissed in through the arrow slits. He measured the pace of his breathing, trying to calm the race of his heart as he stared up into the shadows.
He lay there a long time. Finally, he pushed himself to his feet and crept across the floor to the opening where the stairs slanted downward, winding along the tower’s thick and curving walls. He started down the steps, trying to move as quietly as he could. He let the steps carry him around and down to the tower’s ground floor.
The massive oaken door stood closed and barred, so he turned away from it. He would have liked to have gone outside to stand looking out at the tall crags of the Shadowspears as he had done so often in the past. But instead, he turned back toward the soft glow of light coming through the far door. Walking into the hall, he nodded to a sentry he had known from before, the man returning the greeting stiffly. There, he picked his way quietly around the scattered bodies of slumbering men to the far corner. He stopped beside a fire that had burned low, now only a red glow of dying coals. He stood still, eyes scanning over the sleeping faces of the men that lay sprawled on the rough wood floor. He let his eyes wander silently, moving slowly over each face until he found the one he was looking for. Then he knelt down on the floor beside the slumbering man with curly blonde hair and the look of an innocent.
Darien stared deeply into the man’s face, taking in every smooth feature, his gaze traveling to the hand clasped limply around a longbow at his side. Darien had noticed the man earlier, and something about him had drawn his curiosity. He reached down, lifting the flaccid hand from the smooth shaft of wood. He ran his fingers over the palm, tracing upward to stroke the pads of the fingertips. Beneath him, the young man stirred in his sleep, sensing the touch. Darien drew his hand away, setting the man’s arm back down gently at his side. The skin he had felt was soft and smooth, but for a small buildup of callous at the base of the fingers. Those hands were used to the fine strokes of tools, not the steel grip of a weapon or the coarse handles of a plow. More intriguing was the small callous on the third finger of the right hand, where a writing quill would be held.
Darien turned his gaze to the longbow by the man’s side. It looked to be good wood, though unstrung. Gingerly, he drew it toward him, rising to his feet as he held the shaft out before him, angling his gaze down the bow’s slight, symmetrical curve. There was no warp in the wood. It was an excellent bow. He lowered it to his side, resting it on the floor like a staff. Turning, his foot scuffed against a rusted metal hilt on the floor.
Darien raised his eyebrows as he took in the enormous bastard sword lying by the side of a slender young man with tousled auburn hair. He scoffed silently as his eyes appraised the delicate wrist that stretched across the hilt. The man was a fool; he had selected a blade that was much too massive for him. If he could even swing it, Darien would be surprised. And even if the man could, he would be so grossly overbalanced and underspeed that he’d find himself easy game for even the greenest Enemy spear. Darien knelt again, drawing the hand away from the hilt of the weapon and sliding the steel off the floor. He turned and moved away, clutching the elegant longbow in one hand, his other hand clenched around the rusted hilt of the bastard sword.
Kyel awoke the next morning to find that his bow had been expertly strung sometime in the night while he’d slept, the ends of the bowstring cleverly loop
ed and then twisted back around where they met the notches at the ends of the shaft. It gave the bow a smooth curve that Kyel found himself admiring. Traver’s sword had disappeared, as well. It had been replaced by another, this one much smaller and cleaner-looking. The blade was well-oiled, and someone had meticulously honed the dual cutting edges. Traver had been irate. At least until he’d tested the edge of the steel with his thumb, wincing at the cut that appeared instantly in his skin. After that, he had stared down at his new weapon with growing appreciation.
Kyel’s belly rumbled as he waited in line to get his meal, bowl in hand. It was porridge, or at least it was something that resembled porridge. Two soldiers were ladling the watery substance out of a large kettle by the door of the hall. Kyel thrust his bowl out when it came his turn, looking away as the bearded soldier slopped the thin liquid into it. The porridge was hot, at least. It steamed a rank odor as Kyel walked silently back to his place, throwing himself down beside his bow.
It was still dark out, though the sun should have already risen. When he looked up through the open roof of the keep, Kyel saw the same black sky that had been there the day before, full of churning dark clouds and buffeting winds. Kyel turned his face away from that dreadful sight, looking back down into his bowl. They hadn’t given him a spoon. He raised the bowl to his lips, holding his breath as he drank. The mixture tasted dreadful, but the heat warmed his stomach, at least. The fortress was bitterly cold.
Suddenly, all conversation around him died. Kyle glanced up from his bowl to find that all of the men were staring in the direction of the door. Following their gaze, he saw the reason for their abrupt silence.
The mage had entered the room. He stopped to stand beside Craig, eyes roving over the faces of the men gathered in the hall, by all appearances completely unaware that almost every stare was focused solely on him. Slowly, the sound of muted conversation resumed around him. Kyel waited a moment and then tilted the bowl back up to his lips and drained the last of his porridge. When he lowered it again, he was startled to find himself looking directly into the Sentinel’s eyes. The man had been watching him. Kyel dropped his gaze immediately as an uneasy feeling crept over him. The man had been looking at him with an expression of shrewd appraisal, exactly as he had the night before. Kyel lowered his head, staring down into the bottom of his empty bowl and pretending to contemplate the last few drops of liquid in the bottom. When he looked back up again, the mage was gone.
“He gives me the shivers,” he heard someone behind him mutter. “It’s the eyes.”
Kyel found himself agreeing; those gold-green eyes were utterly disquieting. Especially the way the man kept staring at him. Assessing him was more like it, though Kyel could not understand why. Kyel saw Traver looking at him with a troubled expression on his face. His friend had noticed the mage’s interest, too.
“I’d give that one a wide berth,” Traver advised, nodding his head toward the place where the mage had just been standing. Kyel nodded, for once in whole-hearted agreement with him.
After the meager breakfast they were assembled into lines and marched outside to what appeared to be some type of practice yard. It was really only a wide, flattened area a short distance away from the keep. There were fires lit all around the yard, which provided a good amount of light. The winds had changed direction since the night before, now coming up from the south instead of the north. An exceptionally high wall on one side of the yard effectively blocked the wind. Kyel found himself admiring the clever intellect of whoever had constructed that wall in exactly the right position to deflect the wind at this time of day. The soldiers of Greystone Keep were a shrewd lot; but then, they had to be. Otherwise, they would have never managed to survive so long in such a desolate place.
The men were sorted into groups based on their respective choice of weapons. Kyel found himself separated from Traver and thrown in with a cluster of men holding longbows exactly like the one in his own hand. Kyel didn’t recognize most of the men in his group. Most of the conscripts he’d arrived with had taken up swords or maces. Kyel had wondered at that, finally deciding that convicted murderers and rogues were probably drawn naturally to more violent-looking weapons.
A dour-faced old soldier tromped up and introduced himself gruffly as Sergeant Ulric. He then broke into a tedious discussion of the bow, then spent quite a bit of time modeling the proper grip to use and where to place the hand on the shaft, about an inch below the midpoint. He worked his way from one man to the next as they just stood holding their weapons, adjusting an arm here, a wrist there. Kyel was getting frustrated and more than a little bored. It was blastingly cold in the yard, even with the wall to block the wind.
They had been at the drill for what seemed like hours before he was even allowed to nock an arrow to the bowstring. When he did, Kyel was in for a mild surprise. The arrow he picked up from the sand at his feet was altogether different than any he had ever seen before. For one thing, the arrowhead was set horizontal to the notch at the end of the shaft where the bowstring was meant to fit. The arrowhead itself looked wickedly barbed. The shaft was long, made of dark wood with stiff gray fletching.
When he finally was allowed to draw the bowstring, it took everything he had in his arms. He heard exclamations from the men up and down the line, which made him feel a little better. But then Kyel heard the sound of sniggering behind him. Turning, he found that a group of soldiers had come up behind them and were sitting against the base of the wall, appearing very entertained by what they were seeing. Kyel felt himself getting mad. Everyone had to start somewhere, didn’t they?
He gritted his teeth and pulled the bowstring back to his cheek. As he did, he trained both eyes down the arrow’s straight shaft at the target, a man-size clump of hay with a circle painted on it, perhaps thirty yards away. Exactly as he’d been instructed, he released his fingers as smoothly as he could manage.
The arrow flew wide of the mark. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was what the bowstring did to his left wrist. Kyel yelped as the string slapped back against his skin, making him jump and almost drop his bow. Behind him, he could hear the soldiers laughing at him. Kyel stared down at the red welt on his wrist in disbelief. That had really hurt. He glared back over his shoulder as he picked another arrow up off the ground.
This time he held his wrist at more of an angle, away from the bowstring’s recoil. Determined to get it right, he drew the waxed string back to his cheek. He took his time aiming, sighting down the shaft until the target slowly steadied. He was so afraid he was going to jerk at the last instant. With as much concentration as he could summon, he plucked his fingers away.
The bowstring hummed, and this time it didn’t score his wrist. The shaft flew perfectly straight. It slapped into the clump of hay, hitting the mark just off-center. The farmer next to him laughed, grinning at him appreciatively. Another strode up to clap him on the back. Kyel looked behind him, feeling exceptionally proud of himself. He was the first man who had even managed to hit the hay. The soldiers on the wall weren’t laughing anymore. Feeling smug, Kyel glanced over his shoulder and almost said something. But then his eyes caught the shape of a dark form standing just behind the group of men.
Kyel’s stomach lurched as he saw the look of quiet satisfaction in the Sentinel’s eyes, right before the man turned and stalked away.
Supper was a wretched affair, worse than even breakfast had been. At least with breakfast, Kyel had known what he was eating. As he stared down at the amorphous clumps of charred meat on his plate, he finally decided that he really didn’t want to find out what type of animal it had come from. He brought a blackened strip up to his mouth, having to worry at it with his teeth before tearing off a bite.
He felt a tap on his right shoulder. Swallowing, Kyel turned to find himself staring up into the face of Sergeant Ulric, the dour old bowmaster who had been working with him in the practice yard. The man was motioning for him to get up. Kyel put down his plate and collected his bow, r
emembering Craig’s orders that he was to take his weapon everywhere he went, no exceptions.
Ulric was cloaked in light gray wool, the same as everyone else in this wretched place, with greasy dark hair that hung just past his shoulders. Kyel fell in behind him as they crossed the hall together, feeling a growing sense of apprehension. As they moved into the circular room at the base of the tower, the old soldier drew up and turned back to run his eyes quickly over him. Evidently satisfied with what he saw, he turned on heel and started up the winding stairs.
Kyel had no idea what he was in for. He suspected it might have something to do with his progress down in the yard that morning; it was the only thing he could think of that could possibly have singled him out from the other men of his company. He didn’t know what to expect in the top of that high turret where he had seen only the officers disappearing to a few times.
The sound of his boots echoed loudly through the dark and hollow tower as Ulric led him upward. The air was cold and damp, moving in through arrow slits that followed the curve of the stair up into the darkness of the ceiling high above. The dim light of torches cast a flickering, eerie shadowplay on the stones. The long climb seemed almost perilous; there was no wall or even a rail around the inside edge of the stair, just a straight drop to the wooden floor stories below. Above him, Kyel could hear the fluttering of bird or bat wings beating against the rafters over his head.
There was no door at the end of the spiral stair. Instead, the steps merely ascended through a large, rectangular opening cut into the ceiling, which turned out to be the floor of a room at the very top of the tower. Kyel followed with a growing sense of unease as Ulric led him up and through the hole, his feet making the transition from the rough stone of the stair onto thin planks that made up the flooring of a circular chamber that reeked of wood smoke and dust.
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