They presented this offer like it was a gift. He forced a smile and thanked them.
They brought him to the bunkhouse, gave him a bed and a foot locker. He placed his sword and armor at the bottom of the locker, covered it with a rough wool blanket, and locked the trunk. That night, it was hard to sleep without the constant rustle of rain against the roof.
The others in his cohort were two or three years older than him and had all known each other for years. Few were rude to him, but most weren't anything more than professionally polite. A couple made efforts to befriend him, but he couldn't seem to answer with more than a word or two. Soon, they stopped trying.
His second week in the castle, their sergeant, a Har woman named Tokk, brought them out into the woods for a hunt. It was a clear summer day, sunlight spearing through the gaps in the leaves. He supposed it was beautiful, but it still felt uncomfortable to be out of the clouds and mist. Here, anything at all could see him. He wanted to turn in a circle as he walked so he could make sure there was nothing behind his back.
Tokk had taken four of the trainees out. After three hours of hunting, one of them had taken down a buck and two of them had missed their opportunities. As Tokk crossed a flat stretch of forest, she swung abruptly behind a trunk.
She pointed into the trees. "See it?"
It took Joti a moment to spot the tan back half hidden by the branches. Four hundred feet away if it was an inch, the deer was twice as far away as the weaker but more accurate hunting bows were typically good for.
"Your turn, Joti," Tokk murmured. "Get downwind and make your move. Damn things are skittish today, so you might not have more than one—"
With a thrum, Joti released his arrow. Tokk swore in surprise, cuffing him over the ear. "The matter with you? What'd I just say?"
The arrow struck home with a flat whap. The deer lurched forward, trying to sprint but veering into a tangle of brush. It thrashed, fighting to free itself, but couldn't find its feet. He'd hit it behind the right shoulder. The lungs. It wouldn't rise again.
"Son of a bitch." Tokk smiled ruefully. "Well, go get your catch."
The summer lingered on like a case of hatchet cough. The castle sent regular patrols into the woods and messengers down into Hongold. They seemed to spot bandits every few days, but the outlaws melted into the forest as if they'd been born there. Down on the plains, the Sum had pushed across the river and taken the western plains. There were rumors they'd come for the hills next.
Joti spent his free time learning the shifts and movements of the guards and the schedule of the gates. Within two weeks, he felt like he could have walked out without being discovered. Then why did he stay? Duty? Though his training bored him, and he felt no connection to Dolloc, he still felt honor-bound to his pledge to the No-Clan.
Yet in the dark hours of the night, the reason he stayed became as clear as the mist-free skies. As long as he stayed in the mountains, he could believe his family had escaped and were living happily to this day. But if he descended back into the world?
He might have to learn the truth.
~
A month into his term at the castle, one of the other boys came to him with word there was someone there to see him. When he set eyes on Shain, Joti almost turned on his heel and walked away. But where could he run that she couldn't find him?
Streaks of white salt stained the base of her hat. Her expression was no less crusty. "When they told me you'd defected to Dolloc Castle, I had to ask them if we'd recruited a second Joti I didn't know about. When they insisted it was true, I came this close to pledging to eat my hat. Do you have any idea where my hat has been? Because I sure as hell don't."
Joti blushed like his face was a brushfire, but he made himself meet her eyes. "Was there a question in that?"
"The question is what the hell is the matter with you? What are you doing here?"
"They didn't tell you?"
"Cog said you were 'dissatisfied with your progress.'"
"I can't find the Warp," Joti said. "I can't become a Marshal."
Shain's chin jerked ten degrees to the left. "That can't possibly be true. Unless they know you have potential, you don't get more than one test. They gave you three."
"Potential's a lot different from skill, isn't it? They told me I was out. That I'd never be more than a warden."
"I don't understand. I was so sure of it. Could feel it in you like snow on my cheek." They had met in a small square behind the baker's and she paced among the spilled grains, sending pigeons bobbing away. "How could I have been wrong?"
"What is the Warp?"
"They didn't even tell you that much?"
"They acted like it was some great secret. Like if I ever learned the truth, they'd have to bash me on the head until I forgot."
"It is a secret. If it ever left the No-Clan, all of our work could be undone."
"Well, once you're done making ominous statements about it, I'd still like to know what it is."
Shain laughed a bit. "The Warp is…difficult to explain. To put it as simply as possible, each of us is only capable of seeing a small slice of the world. That means none of us comprehends more than an equally small slice of what's happening around us. However, by reaching into the Warp, a skilled practitioner is able to catch a glimpse—a 'sense' might be more accurate—of other slices of reality. Including what other minds are seeing."
"So you can use it to read their thoughts? That's why it looks like you know where your enemy's weapon is going before he moves it."
"That's a part of it, yes. With a fuller understanding of the present, you're more capable of guessing the future. Most Marshals can only employ this in the limited sense of anticipating our foes. But a few of us are capable of seeing more deeply than that. Sometimes, we—and I'm absolutely excluding myself here—can see days or even weeks down the road. The more people's lives an event will change, the more likely you can see it in the Warp."
"There was an eyelock at my village who could do that," Joti said. "He saw the flames coming to burn up my tribe—and then to burn down the world."
She gave him an alarmed look, then shook it off. "Come back to the Peak, Joti. I know what becoming a Marshal meant to you, but there's no sense squandering your talents. You'll still learn far more as a warden than you will down here."
"I can't."
"Show me your chains."
He squinted at her. "My what?"
"Your chains. The ones wrapped around your ankles and wrists that are locking you here. Otherwise, the only reason you would be unable to leave is that the castle hired an Alliance wizard to drop everything, jump on the back of the nearest griffin, and fly here to Bind a soldier-in-training who's barely old enough to wear long pants."
"Do you have a point? Or do you just like to hear yourself talk?"
Something flashed in Shain's eyes, but she stamped it out like a stray spark. "The point is that unless you are physically or magically restrained, there's nothing holding you here. Come back to the Peak of Tears."
"This is where I belong, isn't it?"
"Do you think so? You like it here, then? How is your fencing progressing? Learning lots of new techniques, are you?"
"Are you telling me Dolloc Castle doesn't know how to train its own soldiers?"
"Oh, son of a bitch." Shain put her back to him, swept the back of her arm across her eyes, then turned back around. "I am certain that Dolloc does a more than adequate job of training more than adequate soldiers. But I am triply certain you don't really believe you'll learn more down here than you would up at the Peak. What does this lead me to conclude? That it isn't reason keeping you here. It's pride."
"Thank you for telling me how I feel about my own decision."
"Go on, get drunk on it. Pride's as intoxicating as any spirit. And when it's gone, the hangover's worse than any spirit, too. Spend a year here and let's see how much of your pride remains."
Joti bit his teeth together, jabbing a finger at her chest. "You sh
ould have talked to Loton! Shown me how to use the Warp! But you weren't even there!"
Shain parted her lips, as hurt as if he'd struck her. Worse—because if he'd hit her, she would have known how to respond. Seeing her face fold on itself, he wanted to tell her he was sorry, to let himself be talked into walking uphill with her and returning to the Peak.
She tipped back her head, chin as sharp as a spar of rock. "If you couldn't handle the solitude of the job, and fend for yourself, Loton was right. You don't have what it takes to be a Marshal."
She turned on her heel and strode away, her metallic gray cloak snapping behind her. Joti wanted to call after her, but he couldn't speak the words any more than he could cough up his own ribs.
~
High summer baked the mountain with monotonous heat. Joti drilled with the older trainees. Went with them on hunts. Followed Tokk as she showed them the land and the small towns further down the mountain. Except when it was time to show discipline, the other boys and girls were boisterous and competitive, joking and jostling, but Joti found himself only speaking when Tokk or one of the other sergeants addressed him directly. During fencing, his limbs felt wooden. During archery, the bow no longer felt like an extension of his will, but like a dull tool, as joyless as a shovel or hoe.
For Shain had been wrong about one thing: it hadn't taken a year for his pride to seep away. Most of it had deserted him at the same time she had. Now that his life had crumbled away beneath his feet, he could at last admit to himself what he'd thought his future was going to be—and how stupid he'd been to let himself believe it.
It went beyond believing that he'd become a Marshal despite Commander Loton's repeated assurances that few of them would make it. Somewhere down in his heart of hearts, down so deep he wasn't sure he had ever let himself voice the words in his head, Joti had thought that he'd not only become a Marshal, but that he'd do so in as little as two years—certainly no more than three—and then, somehow, find his family, find Drez, who in his fantasy had been taken captive by the orange-braided woman and put to work doing something miserable (but not too miserable) for the army of the Faval Rusk.
Then he'd kill the woman warlord with his dragon-forged sword, and use it to hack off his family's chains, and he and Drez would get married, and then…
And that was where it ended. Just like a fairy tale. Dumb. Delusional. A pathetic boyish fantasy. Bearing the thoughts in his brain hurt as badly as holding a cinder in his palm, but he forced himself to clench them tight in his mind. For no one else was there to hit him for having been so stupid, so he had to hurt himself.
He no longer knew what his future would be. Except that it would be nothing special. If this was disappointing, at least it was the truth.
Compared to the Peak of Tears, life in Dolloc Castle was easy. In the morning, they drilled with their weapons. In the afternoons, they did chores, gathering wood from the forest or shoveling dirt into the rope-propelled barges to be delivered to the Peak. The rest of the time they had to themselves. The others played games, wrestled and boasted with each other, but remained coolly distant to Joti, who was too young, and who had (according to their rumors) been kicked out of the No-Clan, meaning he was simultaneously too good and not good enough for Dolloc.
Not that Joti cared. Even if they'd welcomed him to join their dicing and stone-throwing, he would have turned them down. Instead, Joti spent his free time wandering the woods. At first, it was to learn the land and take his mind off his troubles, but as he grew familiar with the forest, he found his thoughts wandering to memories of his youth: chasing wozzits through the grassy fields to rejoin the herd; fishing for trout with his bare hands with Drez; sitting by the fire on a wintry night with a blanket around his shoulders and the smell of smoke in his nostrils while his father told stories and his mother smiled and the stars overhead pulsed and burned.
Joti fell so deeply into this shadow world that he often emerged from his reverie to find himself miles from Dolloc with sundown approaching fast. Only his skills as a runner got him back to the castle before the guards closed the gates for the night.
It felt like he was waiting for something that would never come.
Their archery master was a white-haired Gru woman named Unya who taught him nothing. Their fencing master was a squat Tusker man named Vonk whose deep green skin was crossed with countless long, pale scars. Like a lot of Tuskers, Vonk didn't talk very well, and he had a way of staring at you from under his heavy brow that made him look as incapable of thought as a chicken.
On the surface, his simplistic blocks and attacks did nothing to change that impression. But Joti soon learned that was because Vonk's footwork was so deceptively good that he had to do less work with his sword. Almost grudgingly, Joti found himself learning a few things. Not as much as Shain would have taught him, but he supposed it was better than nothing.
Vonk mostly let them choose their own sparring partners, but Joti often found himself transferred to a different partner shortly into the day's work, where Vonk would watch him and his opponent cross their wooden swords.
Joti was the only one he treated this way. At first, he took it as some form of initiation, or even hazing, but he didn't seem to be pressuring Joti in any way. Instead, he spent most of the practice grunting instructions at Joti's partner. It took a few days to understand why: he was using Joti's Peak-honed skills to push the others forward.
Tarak overdid his lunges, so Vonk assigned him to Joti until he learned a little subtlety. Danvad was barely taller than Joti and was overly hesitant to come within striking range, so Vonk paired them, then called Danvad a coward in every dialect of every clan until Danvad's face purpled with anger and he charged at Joti. Joti gave him a whack on the ribs, but Danvad landed a hit to Joti's hip. They wound up jabbing each other in the heart at the same time.
Danvad drew back, rubbing his bruises but grinning. The breakthrough didn't instantly turn him into a Tusker berserker, but even though he'd technically "died" in the encounter, it seemed to unlock a new level of confidence in the other boy, one he continued to unleash against Joti no matter how many times Joti put him down.
Privately, Joti resented being used as the fencing master's tool. Out loud, he didn't care enough to say a word.
After a few more days working with Danvad, Vonk switched Joti's partner to Lashi. A couple of years older than he was, she had the long limbs and bluish skin of a Summite. She looked him up and down and dropped into a stance, extending her ash-wood practice sword.
Vonk called out for them to begin. Lashi shuffled forward, then lunged. Joti slipped her sword and backhanded his weapon into the side of her neck. She cursed and rubbed her skin, which had gone pale from the impact. Vonk ran them through a half dozen more matches. Though Lashi managed to land a few blows, Joti took each fight.
"You're too excited." Joti pointed to his right eye, then his left. "Whenever you're about to attack, it shows right here."
Beside them, Vonk nodded his agreement.
Lashi set her jaw. "Now you're the master? You're as short as a Tenth-Year."
Joti let the tip of his wooden sword touch the ground. "You're right. I'm not the master. That means I don't have to care when you fail."
The girl snorted, looking away in anger. Without shifting her eyes back to him, she stabbed her practice blade toward his midsection. He backpedaled, tossing his sword forward, but he wasn't fast enough. Her blade gouged into his ribs.
"There." She spat between her teeth, showing black gums. "Now who's the master?"
"You cheated."
"It's a fight. Cheating's fair."
Joti scoffed, then lunged for her liver. She jerked up her sword. Too late. The blade rammed into her gut; she exhaled in a pained whoosh. Lashi swore at him, then grinned and took up her stance.
Over the next few matches, she set aside any tricks to concentrate on concealing her expressions and intentions. Focused on that area, her overall skill suffered, and Joti eased back, content to
defend himself while offering the occasional riposte. Which meant he was taken completely off guard when, with the sun nearing noon, Lashi bullrushed him.
Joti barely managed to intercept her sword. She maintained contact, leaning into her weapon. Though the Sum were leaner than most clans, their women were no smaller than their men. She was both taller and heavier than he was and Joti dropped back a step. She pushed onward, her sweaty forearm pressed against his, her face inches away.
Joti pivoted to the side. Lashi stumbled forward, reaching out to steady herself. He brought his blade down across her back.
Seeing this, Vonk walked off and yelled to the others that the day was done. Across from Joti, Lashi straightened, breathing hard through her grin and rubbing the welt on her back.
She nodded uphill. "You came from up there, didn't you?"
"Why ask what you already know?"
"Is everyone there as good as you?"
"No." Joti lowered his sword. "A lot of them are better."
"The Peak doesn't send us its warriors. It keeps you to itself, greedy-like. But maybe it isn't the Peak what sent you here. Maybe it was Uggot."
"Uggot doesn't give half a damn for me."
"Who says the damns are about you? He gives damns for us. He sent you to bring us the Peak's secrets."
Joti turned halfway from her. "More like Ganak the Mad came and collected your brain when you weren't looking."
"Teach me and find out who's right."
He turned back. She flashed her fangs at him, the teeth bright white against the blue of her skin. He'd always thought Summite women were too skinny to be pretty, but her arms and shoulders bore the smooth muscle of someone who spent all day swinging blades and digging earth.
"I'm here because I failed," he said. "You want a teacher, talk to Vonk."
Lashi pursed her mouth, disappointed (in him, Joti thought), then shrugged and smiled. She turned her back and walked away. The scene couldn't have been more different—a hot, dry summer afternoon in the mountains behind safe walls versus a cold and rain-lashed boulder in the middle of a flooding river; a full day of rigorous but safe practice versus a stark minute of fighting for the lives of everyone he held dear—yet watching Lashi leave, he felt like he was watching Drez' back as she joined the clan on the other shore, safe from the raiders. And even though he'd known he was about to die to foreign invaders, he'd felt at peace.
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