The afternoon was spent training with Shain. Almak called them off early to announce that, as soldiers-in-training, while they were expected to perform routine maintenance of their equipment and bunkhouse, their group would also be assigned three servants to allow them more time to train. One of those given to the young soldiers was Brakk, who clapped happily when he heard the news.
Almak turned to go, then stopped himself. "Almost forgot. In case you're ever lost out on the slopes, and you run into someone from the castle, show them this. It's a symbol of the No-Clan. When they see it, they'll know to bring you right home."
He handed them each a black leather necklace strung with a plain white stone the size of a walnut. The stones were round on the sides and flattened on the top and bottom.
Faddak dangled his pendant in front of his eyes, nose crinkled. "A hunk of white rock? How does this represent the No-Clan?"
Almak scoffed. "Don't tell me you've never seen a martan's tooth before. I thought you were supposed to be a chieftain's son. Worldly and all that."
Faddak flushed, face tightening.
Tull raised his hand. "A martan's a sea beast, isn't it?"
"That's right. Jaws wide enough to swallow a wozzit. At the front of its mouth, its teeth are like daggers, but at the back, it's got dozens of these to grind up your bones. We hunt them sometimes, to remind ourselves the oceans can be sailed, so long as you're as mean as what's there beneath the waves."
Almak turned on Faddak with a dark look. "Right now, it's blank because you ain't done anything yet. But when you accomplish a real feat—if you ever do—you take your tooth to Wok the Scrimshawer, and he'll carve part to show what you done."
The anger drained from Faddak's face. He closed his hand on the stone. "By the time I die, I'll have enough carvings to fill a martan's whole mouth."
The next morning saw them back at Shain's. She put them through the strikes they'd learned the day before, grumbling at their awful form, then taught them a handful of basic blocks. Late that afternoon, she paired them up to practice with each other. The clack of wooden swords filled the training square.
Shain watched with increasing dismay until she couldn't stand it anymore. "What in the Eight Clans do you people think you're doing?"
"What you told us to," Kata said.
"I told you to wave your swords around like you're trying to hack down a migrating goose? If your foe's swing is that long, why bother to block it? Why not gut them like a trout?"
The students gave her a collection of uncertain looks. She sighed—a swift, efficient blast of air—and gestured Joti to her with the tip of her sword.
"This is your body." She traced her blade along his outline. "All of this is not your body." She swished her sword wildly to all sides of him. "Attacks on the not-your-body portion of the world may be safely ignored. It's a wasteland. Meanwhile, the space directly between you and your foe is the holy land. Your weapon must occupy it at all costs. If the enemy abandons it…"
She motioned at Joti, directing him to lift his sword as if to make a massive overhand hack. As soon as his weapon was clear of his body, she lunged forward, sword aimed for his chest. At the last second, she arrested her movement, the tip of her sword touching his shirt.
She left it there a moment, then sheathed it with a click. "When you see a sword coming at you, your first instinct will be to swing yours at it as fast as you can. But the fastest way to stop their sword is to stop their heart."
After lunch, rather than returning to the House of Steel, they were marched to the House of Distant Death. Joti was disappointed to discover that despite its name, this was just an archery range: a long wooden platform with a two-story building at one end and targets spaced at regular intervals until its end. Unlike the House of Steel, the range was roofed over, presumably to protect the bowstrings from moisture.
After a minute of waiting outside, Brakk gave the front door a timid knock, then danced back from it, smiling too widely, eyes sliding from side to side. A human man exited the building, considering them with glassy eyes. He sipped from a tall pewter cup that left foam in his red mustache. His shirt was half untucked from his belt, doing little to obscure his paunch, but his shoulders were as thick as a smith's. He was the one who'd told the joke when Cog Loton had made them all choose whether to stay and serve the No-Clan, or leave the Peak of Tears forever.
"I'll tell you one thing about you orcs." The human made a circular gesture, slopping red-brown fluid onto the boards. "No matter how long I spend with you, you never get any less ugly. Now, how many of you have used a bow before?"
Faddak lifted his hand, as did four others, including Joti.
The man raised his mug to his mouth. Human curse words echoed inside it. "Wonderful. Then maybe you can teach your friends here while I go catch a nap."
Joti drew back his head. "You're our instructor?"
"No," the man grated, "I'm your Marshal. Willam of Youngkent. A name that will mean nothing to your pointy green ears. But you'll use it anyway." He jerked his thumb at the side of the building. "Bows are over there. Go get one. Or don't. If you'd rather, we can go fishing, and just tell everyone that we spent the day training."
They each grabbed a bow from the racks. The strings were lax, with one loop slid six inches down from the limb notch. Willam showed them how to brace the lower end of the bow between their ankles and push forward on the upper end, bending it enough to slide the loose end of the string upward into the notch.
Joti listened with a bored ear as Willam explained drawing, nocking, and aiming. Though Joti hadn't fired a bow in two years, the art came back to him even more quickly than the staff had. Seeing Kata struggle to draw, he moved beside her.
"Push out on the handle as you pull back the string," Joti said. "Easier that way."
She gave him a dirty look. "Who asked you?"
Nonplussed, he moved back to his position in the line. Studiously ignoring him, Kata pulled back on her string and pushed forward with her grip. The bow bent into an arc.
Willam went inside to refill his cup and then to lug out a barrel of practice arrows with vaguely sharpened wooden points. He stationed the trainees 25 feet from the nearest targets and instructed them to let loose. With each wayward arrow that sailed into the river, lost to the currents, Willam laughed. Other arrows skittered over the planks. Joti and Faddak were the only two who never missed their targets, blobby burlap sacks stuffed with densely-packed leaves.
With afternoon wearing on, Willam called them over to an uncovered section of the platform. A light mist sifted onto their faces.
The human pointed up into the gray sky. "Before you wear your fingers down to the bone, let's have a little fun, eh? We're going to see who can fire an arrow the highest. Whoever wins gets my last bar of dragar chocolate. Aim straight up now! Ready…aim…fire!"
The eighteen students unleashed a skyward volley. Maybe Joti was slow-witted after a hard day of training, or perhaps he was beguiled by the enthusiasm of his teacher and swayed by the willing participation of those around him. Whatever the cause, it wasn't until the arrows reached their apex, stalled, and reversed course that he understood what was about to happen.
He sprinted toward the covered section of the platform. "Run!"
The youngest of them screamed. Boots thundered after Joti, rattling the walkway. The first of the arrows smacked into the boards right where they'd been standing.
"Willam!" Shain's voice boomed over the water. She was running down the platform, her cap threatening to tear loose from her head. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Willam shrugged broadly. "Having a little contest, that's all."
"You're trying to kill them! How?" When he shrugged again, Shain pounced on him, grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm behind his back. "How did you do that?"
"I wasn't going to be the killer. It was gravity! Surely even you green swine know that an object launched upward must by necessity—"
Shain gave a
n upward jerk on Willam's elbow. The man went whiter than an eggfruit and passed out on the spot.
She dumped him to the ground and turned to the students. "This is the day's last lesson: never have blind faith that your commanders give a shit about your life. Now put away your bows and go get some grub."
The group spent the first part of dinner trying to figure out what had happened at the House of Distant Death, but the best they could come up with was that Marshal Willam had been testing them—though nobody could agree whether that test was for their loyalty, their intelligence, or some weird human value. When the conversation lulled, Mart mentioned that he'd heard that a group of four Marshals had recently gotten in a scrape with an entire Sum tribe. As he detailed how the Marshals had made their escape, everyone forgot all about the rain of arrows.
On his way to the bunkhouse, Joti found himself shadowed by Brakk. Brakk smiled and gave a small wave. "Hear of trouble with Marshal Willam today. Brakk hopes no one was hurt!"
"Everyone's fine, Brakk." Speaking with the servant, Joti had discovered a tendency to repeat his name back to him like a nervous tic. "I think Marshal Willam was just playing a joke on us."
"Tell what happened. Maybe Brakk will understand."
"Know a lot about training to become a Marshal, do you?"
"Oh, Brakk knows many things. Share what you know and you might get lucky."
Joti relayed what had happened. Brakk chuckled, popping his knuckles. "This was no joke, young master. Marshal Willam tried to kill you!"
Joti sighed. "Brakk…"
"It's true! Willam hates being here. Hates orcs, too. He was a great Alliance hero. Finest archer in all the land. Now, he loathes that he's made to train those ones he used to fight."
"That makes no sense. If he hates it so bad, why doesn't he leave?"
"Oh, he's Bound!"
"Bound?"
Brakk gave him a sidelong look. For just an instant, Joti would have sworn there was a flash of contempt in his eye. "Wizard business. Much too complicated for servants and pig-herders to understand. You be careful, Master Joti. This place is full of orphans, slaves, and the discarded. Such things make good No-Clan warriors, yes—but this also means that, should one of you die, no one will come looking for revenge."
~
In the lowlands, summer transitioned to autumn. In the Peak of Tears, the nights got a little bit cooler, but otherwise failed to notice the change of seasons.
Mornings, Joti trained with the sword. Afternoons, he worked with the bow. Marshal Nod continued to lead them around the mountain, showing them caves they could shelter in, secret trails they could maneuver through, favorable ground they could fight on, and useful plants they could use to heal themselves or sharpen their nerves.
Almak made the illiterates take reading lessons. To Joti, it felt like a complete waste of daylight, but when Almak told him that Marshals needed to be able to record what they saw and heard in the field, he buckled down, learning trunktalk—symbols left for other travelers using sticks, stones, and so on—along with the Summite runes used throughout the Many-Claimed Lands.
A few weeks into this new routine, when Almak came around to make his weekly inspection of the bunkhouse, Tull raised his hand. "Marshal Almak?"
"Spit it out, Tull."
"Is there a shrine somewhere in the Peak?"
"Plenty." He stared down at Tull, daring the boy to meet his eyes. Tull's implied question was obvious, but the Marshal seemed to enjoy forcing him to speak up. There was a cruelty to this, but if Tull couldn't toughen up, he'd never survive the rigors of the borders.
Tull bobbed his head. "Is there one that we can use?"
"Sure isn't. You want one, you got to make one for yourself. Back room should do nicely, I'd think." Almak turned and left.
The others looked at each other, then filed into the back room. This was a simple storage space for things like spare blankets, boot laces, medical kits, and the packs they used on Nod's ventures.
Tull frowned at the empty packs. "We come from all over. How are we ever going to decide who the shrine is for?"
"We're going to be the best soldiers in the world," Kata said. "But only if we dedicate our shrine to Kard."
Faddak laughed. "The grunting, drunken oaf? No wonder you shepherds can never hang onto a piece of land to call your own. Our shrine should be to a real lord of war. Like Fanguk the Conqueror. The Uniter of Clans."
Joti scoffed. "Fanguk's arrogance brought down the wrath of the gods!"
"Meaning the moral of the story is that the gods were the only ones who could hope to defeat him. A far better hero for our tribe than Kard, the god who once drank so much miklin he got lost in a rabbit warren for three months."
Within moments, the argument turned into a shouting match. Joti was as loud as anyone: Kard was a fearless, just chieftain, not the drunken lout Faddak made him to be. Erst shoved Woggo, who shoved him back. Hands curled into fists.
"Stop it!" Tull's shrill voice cut through the babble like a cleaver through pot-roasted ham. Everyone turned to him in surprise. He flinched at the attention, then made himself stand taller despite how hard he was blushing. "Those people you're arguing to give this shrine to represent who we used to be. They don't represent who we are now. And definitely not the soldiers and Marshals we're going to become."
Kata squinted at him. "So who represents us now?"
"I'm not sure that anyone does. But what if we build our own shrine? Bring the things that matter to you to this place, and it will grow along with us—so that if we become great warriors, then it will become a shrine for great warriors."
Joti wasn't sure how that would work—shrines were supposed to be to specific people, gods and heroes and ancestors—but everyone else seemed to like the idea, so he decided to agree to try it and see what would happen.
Day by day, the former storage room accumulated new items: small knives; river rocks; scraps of dyed ribbon; teeth, both their own and from animals; glossy feathers; arrowheads. At first it was a random jumble, but sometimes Joti entered to discover someone had arranged the donations into pillars and patterns. Soon, although he wasn't sure what exactly he was praying to, he did so anyway.
Two months after they'd started their arms training, Joti found himself facing an unpleasant truth: he was probably never going to be a great swordsman. He was studying hard, honing his technique the best he could, but whenever he sparred, he saw that something was missing. When he fought Kata, her relentless fury battered through his defenses. Gogg waited with terrible patience for you to make a mistake, then drove through with overwhelming strength. Faddak was downright spooky. He fought like he had a sixth sense that let him know what you were about to do before you did it.
Joti was far from the worst of the bunch. But seeing these others excel where he merely improved, it felt like he was lacking some final spark.
Shain pulled him aside after a match with Faddak that had left Joti's knuckles bleeding and stiff. She looked him up and down. "Are you frustrated?"
"Shouldn't I be? Faddak beats me down like I peed inside the house."
"You're far more skilled than when you killed Ukkad. This is a special place, Joti. So are the people we bring here."
"Right. A bunch of street rats, eighth sons, and failed criminals."
"All of whom kick ass like it's a divine revelation. We roam through all eight clans to find our people. Don't let their talent discourage you. Let it push you. In the end, hard work will trump talent." She smirked and gave him a whack on the rear with the flat of her sword. "Now show me the fourth form."
It was some consolation to know that whatever the gods had withheld from him in swordsmanship, they'd granted him in archery. Joti was already bulls-eyeing targets most of the others struggled to hit. When Willam finally got tired of watching him pin the far targets, the Marshal had him learn to fire on the move. Drawing the bow and sighting down the shaft, Joti felt like a god about to strike down an enemy warlord with a thunder
bolt.
Three months after the end of Who Got the Strength, Brakk came to their bunkhouse and announced that Faddak, Tull, and Woggo needed to go with him. The three boys shrugged at the others and left the bunk.
As the others progressed through their morning practice at the House of Steel, the three boys returned one by one, walking sluggishly, expressions glazed and preoccupied. Brakk called out three more names, leading them off into the rains.
As lunch neared, Brakk came back and called Joti's name. Brakk brought him and two others to a wooden staircase that spiraled up the trunk of a massive tree. Fifty feet up the stairs, they came to a landing. Brakk motioned Joti through a doorway into the trunk, closing the door behind him.
Weak shafts of light entered through slits cut around the ceiling, illuminating a room that looked wider than the trunk could possibly be. An old man sat on a cushioned stool at the back of the room, a blanket draped over his shoulders. The top of his head was perfectly bald. On the sides and back of his head, white hair spilled to his shoulders. The air smelled strange, unwelcoming, like snow from a hostile land.
"There is a power." The old man's voice creaked like stuck hinges. "There is a secret. There is a glimpse of a higher world."
Having absolutely no idea how to respond to this, Joti kept his mouth shut.
The man leaned forward. "Think of your worst memory."
"What? Why?"
The old man smiled harshly, eyes boring into Joti. "You don't have to speak it. Just think it. Hold it in your mind like a shell that will break without your touch keeping it whole."
"As soon as you tell me what this is about."
"About? It is about making you something more than you are. Something that can survive what will soon be asked of you. Will you think of this memory? Or will you walk away?"
Joti frowned, wanting nothing to do with this—the old man was clearly an eyelock, who weren't even trusted by the people of their own tribe—but the memory came to him anyway. The rain lashing the water, the cold of it around his legs, the amused faces of the line of warriors coming to destroy him. The day Drez and his family had been taken from him—maybe gone, maybe dead.
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