by Anthony Ryan
Both Vaelin and Nortah opted to remain behind. There were rumours that the Crows continued to nurse their grievance and it seemed pointless to invite retribution at the scene of their humiliation. Besides, Nortah had no wish to revisit an event synonymous with his father’s execution. They spent the day hunting in the woods with Scratch, the slave-hound’s nose quickly leading them to a deer. Nortah put an arrow through the animal’s neck from fifty paces. Instead of carrying the carcass back to the kitchens they decided to butcher it on the spot and camp out for the night. It was a pleasant evening in the woods, the leaves of early autumn laying a greenish bronze blanket on the forest floor and shafts of sunlight streaming through the thinning branches.
“There are worse places to be,” Vaelin observed, cutting a slice from the haunch of venison spitted over their camp fire.
“Reminds me of home,” Nortah said, tossing a slice of meat to Scratch.
Vaelin hid his surprise. Since his father’s execution Nortah rarely spoke of his life before the Order. “Where is it? Your home.”
“In the south, three hundred acres of land bordered by the Hebril river. My father’s house was set on the shores of Lake Rihl. It had been a castle when he was a boy but he’d made many changes. We had over sixty rooms and a stable for forty horses. We’d often go riding in the woods, when he wasn’t at Varinshold on the King’s business.”
“Did he tell you what he did for the King?”
“Many times, he wanted me to learn. He said one day I would serve Prince Malcius the same way he served King Janus. It was the duty of our family to be the King’s closest advisors.” He gave a short, bitter laugh.
“Did he ever tell you about the war with the Meldeneans?”
Nortah gave him a sidelong glance. “When your father burned their city you mean? He only mentioned it once. He said the Meldeneans couldn’t hate us any more than they already did. Besides they’d had ample warning of what would happen if they didn’t leave our ships and our coast in peace. My father was a very pragmatic man, burning their city didn’t seem to concern him greatly.”
“He didn’t tell you why he sent you here, did he?”
Nortah shook his head. The hour was growing late and the glow of the fire shone brightly in his eyes, his handsome face sombre in shadow. “He said I was his son and it was his wish that I join the Sixth Order. I remember he had argued with my mother the night before, which was strange because they never argued, in fact they rarely spoke at all. In the morning she wasn’t at breakfast and I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye when the cart came for me. I haven’t seen her since.”
They lapsed into silence, Vaelin’s line of thought leading him to questions he felt were best unasked.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Nortah said.
“I wasn’t thinking…”
“Yes you were. And you’re right. My father sent me to the Order because you were sent here by your father. I told you they were rivals but I didn’t tell you all of it. My father hated the Battle Lord, loathed him. For a while it seemed all he could talk about was how his position was constantly undermined by a gutter born butcher. It irked him greatly that your father was so popular with the people, a thing my father could never achieve. He wasn’t one of them, he was high born, but your father was a commoner, risen to greatness on his own merits. When he sent you here it was a great symbol of devotion to the Faith and the Realm, a public sacrifice that could only be matched one way.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t apologise. You are as much a victim of your father as I am of mine. It took me years to reckon it, why he had done it, one day it just popped into my head. He gave me up to better his position at Court.” He gave a wry, humourless smile. “Our dear King, it seems, cared little for his gesture.”
I am not my father’s victim, Vaelin thought. My mother sent me here, to protect me. He left the thought unsaid, suspecting Nortah would find it difficult to accept.
“It’s ironic don’t you think?” Nortah asked after a moment. “If we’d never been given to the Order most likely we’d have become enemies, like our fathers. And our sons would have been enemies, maybe even their sons, and on and on it would have gone. At least this way it ends before it could begin.”
“You sound almost content to be in the Order.”
“Content? No, just accepting. This is my life now. Who can say what the future will bring?”
Scratch yawned, his teeth gleaming in the firelight, then moved to Vaelin’s side, snuggling close before settling down to sleep. Vaelin patted his flank and lay back on his bed roll, looking for shapes in the vast array of stars above and waiting for sleep to claim him.
“I… feel I owe you a debt, brother,” Nortah said.
“A debt?”
“For my life.”
Vaelin realised Nortah was trying to thank him, in the only way Nortah could thank anyone. Not for the first time he wondered what kind of man Nortah would have been had his father not sent him here. A future First Minister? A Sword of the Realm? Battle Lord even? But he doubted he would have been the kind of man who gave his son away just to better his rival.
“I don’t know what the future will bring,” he told his brother eventually. “But I suspect you’ll have many chances to repay the debt.”
It was a curious fact of life in the Order that the older they got the harder their training became. It seemed their skills had to be raised ever higher, honed like a sword blade. And so as autumn became winter their sword practice doubled, then tripled until it seemed it was all they did. Master Sollis became their only master, the others now distant figures preoccupied with younger charges. The sword became their life. Why was no mystery. Next year would bring the Test of the Sword when they would face three condemned men, sword in hand, and triumph or die.
Sword practice began after the seventh hour and continued for the rest of the day with a brief interlude for food and the relief of a short re-acquaintance with the bow or their horses. In the morning Master Sollis would show them a sword scale, flashing through the dance of thrusts, parries and strokes in the space of a few heartbeats before commanding them to copy it. Failure to repeat the scale exactly earned a full pelt run around the practice ground. Afternoons saw them swap their swords for wooden replicas and assail each other in contests that left them all with an increasingly spectacular collection of bruises.
Vaelin knew himself to be the best swordsman among them. Dentos was master of the bow, Barkus unarmed combat, Nortah the finest rider and Caenis knew the wild like a wolf, but the sword was his. He could never explain the feeling it gave him, the sense that the blade was part of him, an extension of his arm, his closeness to it accentuating his perception in combat, reading an opponent’s moves before they were made, parrying blows that would have felled another, finding a way past defences that should have baffled him. It wasn’t long before Master Sollis stopped matching him against the others.
“You’ll fight me from now on,” he told Vaelin as they faced each other, wooden swords ready.
“An honour master,” Vaelin said.
Sollis’s sword cracked against his wrist, the wooden blade flying from his grasp. Vaelin tried to step backwards but Sollis was too fast, the shaft of ash thudding into his midriff, forcing the air from his lungs as he collapsed to the ground.
“You should always respect an opponent,” Sollis was telling the others as Vaelin fought to contain his rising gorge. “But not too much.”
With winter came Frentis’s Test of the Wild and they gathered in the courtyard to see him off with a few choice words of advice.
“Stay out of caves,” said Nortah.
“Kill and eat everything you can find,” Caenis told him.
“Don’t lose your flint,” Dentos advised.
“If there’s a storm,” Vaelin said, “stay in your shelter and don’t listen to the wind.”
Only Barkus had nothing to say. Finding Jennis’s body during his own Test was still a raw m
emory and he confined his farewell to a soft pat on Frentis’s shoulder.
“Lookin’ forward to it, I am,” Frentis told them brightly, hefting his pack. “Five days outside the walls. No practice, no canings. Can’t wait.”
“Five days of cold and hunger,” Nortah reminded him.
Frentis shrugged. “Been hungry before. Cold too. Reckon I’ll get used to it again quick enough.”
Vaelin was struck by how strong Frentis had become in the two years since his joining. He was now almost as tall as Caenis and his shoulders seemed to grow broader by the day. Added to the change in his body was the change in his character, the whine that coloured his speech as a boy had mostly disappeared and he approached every challenge with a blind confidence in his own abilities. It was no surprise that he had emerged as leader of his group, although his reaction to criticism was often instant anger and occasional violence.
They watched him climb into the cart with the other boys. Master Hutril snapped the reins and steered the cart through the gate, Frentis waving with a broad grin on his face.
“He’ll make it,” Caenis assured Vaelin.
“Too right he will,” Dentos said. “He’s the type that comes back fatter than when he went out.”
The days passed slowly as they practised and nursed their bruises, Vaelin’s concern for Frentis growing with every dawn. Four days after the boy’s departure it had begun to dominate his thoughts, dulling his sword skills and leaving him with livid bruises he barely noticed. He couldn’t shake the nagging knowledge that something was wrong. It was a familiar feeling by now, a shadow on his thoughts he had grown to trust, but stronger now, nagging, persistent, like a tune he couldn’t quite remember.
When the fifth day passed he found himself hovering near the gates, clutching his cloak about him as he searched the gathering dark for sign of the cart bringing Frentis back to the safety of the Order House.
“What are we doing here?” Nortah asked, his face for once made ugly by the pinching chill of a winter’s night. The others were back in their tower room. Today’s practice had been hard, harder even than they were used to, and they had cuts to tend before the evening meal.
“I’m waiting for Frentis,” Vaelin replied. “Go inside if you’re cold.”
“Didn’t say I was cold,” Nortah muttered but stayed put.
Finally, as the clear winter sky darkened to reveal its stars, the cart came into view, Master Hutril guiding it towards the gate, bearing four charges, three less than had left with him five days before. Vaelin knew even before the drays’ shoes clattered on the courtyard cobbles that Frentis was not among them.
“Where is he?” he demanded of Master Hutril as he reined in.
Master Hutril ignored the discourtesy and gave Vaelin a rigidly neutral glance. “Wasn’t there,” he said, climbing down from the cart. “Need to see the Aspect. Stay here.” With that he stomped off towards the Aspect’s chambers. Vaelin managed to wait a full ten seconds before hastening after him.
Master Hutril was in the Aspect’s rooms for several long minutes before he emerged, walking past Vaelin without a glance, ignoring his questions. The Aspect’s door remained firmly closed and Vaelin found himself stepping forward to knock.
“No!” Nortah’s hand was on his wrist. “Are you mad?”
“I need to know.”
“You have to wait.”
“Wait for what? Silence? No sign that he had ever been here? Like Mikehl or Jennis? Light a fire, say some words and it’s another one of us gone, forgotten.”
“The Test of the Wild is hard, brother…”
“Not for him! For him it was nothing…”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what could have happened beyond the walls.”
“I know hunger and cold would never have laid him low. He was too strong.”
“For all his strength he was but a boy. As we were when they sent us out into the cold and the dark to fend for ourselves.”
Vaelin tore his wrist away, smoothing his hands through his hair in frustration. “I don’t think he was ever a boy.”
The sound of boots on stone snapped their attention to the corridor, seeing Master Sollis striding towards them. “What are you two doing here?” he demanded, halting before the Aspect’s door.
“Waiting for news of our brother, master,” Vaelin replied evenly.
Sollis showed a brief spasm of anger before he reached for the door handle. “Then wait.” With that he went inside.
It was only five minutes or so but seemed like an hour. Abruptly the door opened and Master Sollis jerked his head indicating leave to enter. They found the Aspect behind his desk, his long face as inexpressive as ever but there was a calculation in the gaze he levelled at Vaelin, as if what was about to transpire had more import than he could know.
“Brother Vaelin,” he said. “Do you know if Brother Frentis has any enemies outside these walls?”
Enemies… Vaelin felt his heart plummet. He found him. I couldn’t protect him. “There is a man, Aspect,” he replied, his tone heavy with sorrow. “The leader of Varinshold’s criminal fraternity. Before Brother Frentis joined us he put a knife in his eye. I have heard that he still bears a grudge.”
Master Sollis gave a snort of exasperation and Nortah, for once, appeared lost for words.
“And it didn’t occur to you,” the Aspect said, “to share this information with myself or Master Sollis?”
Vaelin could only shake his head in numb silence.
“You arrogant idiot,” Master Sollis said, very precisely.
“Yes master.”
“What’s done is done,” the Aspect said. “Do you have any notion of where this man with one eye might take our brother?”
Vaelin’s head snapped up. “He’s alive?”
“Master Hutril found a body, but it wasn’t Brother Frentis, although the unfortunate fellow had one of our Order’s hunting knives buried in his chest. There were signs of a fierce struggle, several blood trails, but no Brother Frentis.”
Somehow they knew he was here. So stupid to think One Eye’s servants wouldn’t find him. They must have followed the cart, took him alive. The words of Gallis the Climber came back to him: One Eye says he’s gonna take a year to skin him alive when he finds him…
“I will recover him,” he told the Aspect, his voice cold with certainty. “I will kill those who took him and bring him back to the Order. Living or dead.”
The Aspect’s eyes flicked to Master Sollis.
“What do you need?” Sollis asked.
“Half a day outside the walls, my brothers, and my dog.”
Scratch followed them to the city gate willingly enough, his initial joy at the novelty of being outside the Order House muted by the evident gravity of their mood. He seemed to know what was expected of him, sniffing the sock they had found under Frentis’s bunk and immediately sprinting for the gate with a brief yelp. They ran after him, labouring to keep him in sight. The slave-hound set a killing pace as they traced a winding route through the city’s back streets. It was no surprise to Vaelin that he soon led them to the southern quarter.
The streets were mostly deserted save for the usual assortment of drunks and whores, most of whom found somewhere else to be when they saw five brothers from the Sixth Order running behind a very large dog. Eventually Scratch stopped, standing tensed and still as he did when he was pointing out a trail when they hunted together. His nose pointed directly at a tavern nestled in a shadowed alley way. The sign hanging over the door marked it as the Black Boar. Lamplight glowed dimly through the windows and they could hear the raucous babble of liquor induced merriment.
Scratch began to growl, a soft but chilling rumble.
Vaelin knelt down, patting him gently on the head. “Stay,” he commanded.
The hound gave a plaintive whine as they moved towards the inn but did as he was told.
“What’s the plan?” Dentos asked as they paused at the doorway.
“I thought I’d ask them where Frentis is,” Vaelin replied. “After that I expect we’ll find out if we’re as well taught as we think we are.”
The vocal good humour of the inn’s patrons died instantly at the sight of them. A room of mostly unwashed and prematurely aged faces stared at them with a mixture of fear or palpable hatred. The man behind the bar was large, bald and clearly less than happy to see them.
“Good evening sir!” Nortah greeted him, striding towards the bar. “A fine establishment you have here.”
“Order ain’t welcome ‘ere,” the barman said. Vaelin noted the thin sheen of sweat on his top lip. “Ain’t right you comin’ in ‘ere. ‘Snot your place.”
“Oh don’t fret my fine fellow.” Nortah clapped the man on the shoulder. “We want no trouble. All we want is our brother. The one who stuck a knife in your master’s eye a few years ago. Be a good fellow and tell us where he is and we won’t kill you or any of your customers.”
A rumble of anger ran through the crowd and the barman licked his lips, his bald head now shining with sweat. For the briefest second his eyes flicked to his right before snapping back to Nortah. “No brothers here,” he said.
Nortah gave one of his best smiles. “Oh I beg to differ. Tell me, did you know a man can live for several hours, in agonising pain of course, after his stomach has been slit open?”
Vaelin followed the line of the barman’s brief glance, seeing little but the shuffling feet of nervous patrons and a dusty floor, except for a clean patch near the fireplace, a patch about a yard square. As he moved forward to take a closer look a man rose from a table, a muscular man with the broad knuckles and indented nose common to prize fighters.
“Where’re d’you think you’re go-”
Vaelin punched him in the throat without breaking stride, leaving him choking on the dusty floorboards. There was a cacophony of scraping chairs as other patrons rose, a murmur of anger building in the crowd. Vaelin crouched to inspect the patch of dust free floorboards which quickly revealed itself as a trap door. Well made, he judged, his fingers tracing the joins.