Garn growled deep in his throat, lowering his head until his shaggy, bronze hair fell into his eyes. He dropped to a crouch as the guards drew near enough to recognize. Rache and Nantel. Garn watched the golden-haired sword master through narrowed eyes, thrown into a familiar maelstrom of loathing that washed his vision red. Eight years of living like an animal had fanned the sparks of his hatred into a raging bonfire he could scarcely contain. It was Rache who trained me to respond to threat with violence, who pounded war tenets into me until they became instinct. Then, when I followed them, he turned against me to side with a spoiled bully who planned to force himself on Mitrian.
The new train of thought further fueled Garn’s rage. Mukesh had been the leader of the group, a loud-mouthed, only child who would never have let the gladiator’s son join their play if not for Mitrian’s insistence. Still, when she was not there, Mukesh stole every opportunity to call Garn “slave brat” and to remind Garn how poetic the names Mukesh and Mitrian sounded together. Garn tightened his hands into fists, feeling the trinket bite into his palm. Years later, he could still hear Mukesh’s taunt verbatim: “Mitrian needs a strong man, one who can bend her to his will. One way or another, I’m going to do a kindness to her.” He thrust his narrow pelvis, in case Garn had missed the obvious euphemism. “And when I’m done, she’ll beg for more.”
Garn continued to stare at the guards through vision blurred by rage and anguish. Mukesh never got Mitrian, but I never won her either—because the man I trusted sold me into slavery to take her for himself. The image of Rache and Mitrian together thrust him to the brink of the same blind, uncontrollable madness that had goaded him to continue battering Mukesh’s body long after death.
For the sake of his sanity, Garn refocused his attention on Nantel. The sight of the quick-tempered archer captain raised a less biting malice. Yesterday, during feeding, he had dropped his defenses to steal the trinket he now clutched from the guard distributing food. During his lapse, Garn’s right-hand neighbor had stolen his dinner.
Garn recalled how he had spun, managing to grab the thief’s hand as it disappeared. Dragging the other gladiator toward him, he had grasped the man’s neck in both hands. He remembered the feel of his fingers twining around the cords of the throat, the other slave fighting, first with trained deliberateness, then in wild, gasping panic. I had him. Garn’s hands curled and twitched at the memory. Until Nantel came. Garn snarled, recalling how Nantel had jabbed and pounded him with a staff until he released the other man, then whipped him through the bars. Garn’s stomach still churned from a day without food, and the beating made every movement painful. Damned archer coward didn’t even have the courage to come into the cage to hit me. Garn clenched his fingers so tightly, the grimy, jagged nails cut into his palm, and the metal frame of the trinket gouged creases into his flesh. Maddened to a frenzy that left no thought for the consequences, Garn drew back and hurled the jewel at Rache’s head.
As the missile left Garn’s hand, Nantel glanced over. Before he could shout a warning, the trinket crashed against Rache’s ear, staggering him. Hesitating only long enough to make certain his friend had not been badly injured, Nantel raced toward Garn.
Panic seized the gladiator. An attack against a guard demanded punishment, and Nantel would certainly deal it. What have I done? Garn’s throat dried to raw misery. “No!” His plea emerged as a dull croak that went unheeded.
Nantel paused at the training quarters to gather a whip and chains. Then, sword drawn, he wrenched open Garn’s cell.
Garn leapt backward. His head struck the wall, harder than he expected. Dazed by the impact, he could not dodge. The flat of Nantel’s sword crashed against his skull, knocking his awareness to the fuzzy quality of a dream. Garn staggered. He thrust out an arm for balance and felt it yanked painfully against the other. Familiar chains secured his wrists and ankles. Garn howled. He lunged blindly, but steel cracked against his ear and jarred him to his knees. Cold fingers yanked him to his feet, jerked him from the cage and pinned his chest against his cell door. Garn clasped the bars and fought to regain numbed senses.
The sting of the whip across Garn’s back jolted him to alertness, the taste of bile bitter in his mouth. Every lash shocked pain through his body, sharpening his wits with hatred. But Garn remained flaccid as a doll against the bars and hoped Nantel would tire of battering a semiconscious slave.
Garn screamed once in anguish, and Rache’s voice chorused with his, far closer than he’d expected. “Nantel! Watch out!” Rache lunged in, hauling Nantel away from a threat Garn could not yet see. The beating stopped abruptly.
The gladiator in the next cage hurled a rock that Rache barely dodged. Though dizzied, Garn tapped his hatred for strength. He sprang. His chain-wrapped fists hammered Rache’s back, and he and the guard captain tumbled to the ground together. Rache lay limp beneath him. Garn bellowed in triumph as he plunged steel-weighted hands to shatter Rache’s skull. Then his own head exploded into blackness.
* * *
As Garn awoke, the whip cuts’ sting and the cold, hard floor felt reassuringly familiar. Although conscious, he did not move, and his eyes remained closed. The other gladiators would certainly notice the subtle change in his breathing pattern and know he had awakened, but the guards would not. Their survival did not depend on their perceptiveness. Usually.
After years in the pit, Garn knew a good blow when he gave or received it, and the one he gave Rache should have been fatal. A single thought ran repeatedly through his mind: I killed Rache. I killed Rache! I wish I’d got Nantel, too, but I killed Rache!
Garn heard the creak of cart wheels and focused on the sound. After killing a guard, alertness became even more necessary for survival. A short while later, he heard the rattle of wooden bowls and the familiar plop of meat falling into them. These sounds continued for some time, followed by the grating of wood across stone as the bowls slid into the cages. Since the guards only served meat as the evening meal, he knew it would soon become dark. Then, he must escape. After killing Rache, he had even less of a future here. His only option was to escape or die in the attempt, though the unknown seemed even more frightening than forced battles and the guards’ whips. Garn remained still.
Later, the guards collected the bowls as the last rays of sunset left Garn’s eye-closed world totally dark. The smaller man in the cage to Garn’s left settled down with his back pressed against the bars separating him from Garn. There was a reason for his neighbor’s choice of resting place. Whether he meant well or ill did not matter. As long as Garn remained awake, the man was no threat.
Garn heard the guard pace past his cell three times before the smaller man whispered. “Rache’s bad, but alive.” Then he scuttled to the center of his cage.
No! Now Garn did not care whether the guards knew he lay awake. Frustration flowed, scalding within him. Until Rache recovered or died, they would watch him too closely for escape. Gods! Don’t take this one triumph away from me. Over and over, Garn drove his fist into the cold stone floor until blood ran. The knuckle next to his thumb bulged oddly, and agony shot through his hand. Garn concentrated on the pain as the familiar sensation lulled him to sleep. He slept the sleep of the innocent.
* * *
That night, Mitrian’s father did not come home for dinner. Instead, Nantel arrived at the house and announced that Santagithi had business with his guards and would not return until morning. Mitrian squirmed with curiosity. Her father rarely missed one of her mother’s meals. Only a matter of grave importance could detain Santagithi, perhaps one substantial enough to keep Rache from her promised lesson as well.
Mitrian found waiting for her mother to extinguish the candles in her parents’ bedchamber nearly unbearable. She rested only until her mother had time to enter the pre-sleep haze that dulls the senses. Then Mitrian sneaked from her bedroom, took a broadsword from the armory, and slipped into night’s concealing darkness. She stole south, along the forest’s edge, hearing a steady, uniden
tifiable rhythm above the song of the crickets. As she crept nearer to the guardhouse, the noise resolved into the bells and rattles of the medicine man. Someone’s sick. Judging from her father’s absence, it was someone important. Icy fear touched Mitrian, but she forced it away. It made no sense to speculate; she felt certain her mind would invoke the worst possibilities in her ignorance.
Mitrian fumbled through the brush and into the clearing of the southern woods, certain whatever concerned her father had detained Rache as well. An opening in the foliage admitted a beam of moonlight for which she felt grateful. Usually Rache brought the lantern. Drawing the broadsword, she angled it until its steel reflected the full moon. She raised her head regally and imagined herself upon a snow-maned stallion, riding into battle at Rache’s side, her movements as smooth and graceful as his.
Still haunted by the memory of the eyes in the clearing as well as Rache’s absence, Mitrian slid angrily into her practice. The more she mulled over the presence of the medicine man, the faster she drove herself to force the distraction from her mind. She labored over a complex maneuver Rache had taught her. Mitrian had never learned the word “Renshai,” nor would she have understood its meaning. She knew only that many of Rache’s recent feints were incredibly difficult to master.
A breeze toyed with Mitrian’s sweat-dampened hair. She sheathed her sword, discovered she was trembling, and wondered whether to blame the cooling night air or anxiety. Rache had never missed a promised practice before. Though uncertain whether his loyalty was toward her or the sword craft, Mitrian knew the pattern had been ingrained in him in his childhood by a teacher he once described as “hard as flint and half as human.”
Mitrian headed home. As she rounded the guardhouse, the chitter of rattles and the high, clear chime of bells sang a warning. Cold sweat dampened her skin, clammier than the perspiration induced by exertion. Her feet grew leaden. She knew she could not sleep until she assured herself that her father, Nantel, and Rache were well.
The shuffle of approaching footsteps sounded unusually loud to Mitrian. She pressed against the stone wall of the guardhouse and listened to a brief exchange between passing sentries.
“. . . gladiator’s strong as a bear.”
“Rache’s not stirred yet, poor . . .”
Numb as death, Mitrian did not hear the men part. Grief tightened her throat and nearly paralyzed her body. She unhooked the sword from her belt and allowed it to fall to the ground. With a flicker of hope, she paced, stiff-legged, along the wall and pounded on the guardhouse door.
Nantel opened the panel, eyes wide with surprise. “Mitrian? What are you doing . . . ?”
Mitrian pushed past before Nantel could finish. She raced down the hall to the main chamber. The tools of the medicine man had fallen silent. Tense whispers mingled eerily from beyond the closed door. Opening it, she stepped inside; the stillness compounded her fear. Rache lay on a wooden table, swaddled in a woolen blanket, his hair the color of the straw on which his head lolled. His face was so pale it appeared carved.
“No,” Mitrian said in disbelief. She reached for his face, but a callused hand seized her wrist.
Mitrian whirled, noticing the circle of guards for the first time. She stared into her father’s eyes. His face looked haggard. “You shouldn’t have come. Rache wouldn’t want you to see him this way.” Santagithi nudged Mitrian to a corner. “Stay quiet and out of his sight.”
Rache’s eyelids fluttered, and his head wobbled.
A lump grew in Mitrian’s throat. The scene had the terrifying, unreal quality of a nightmare. Surely someone had painted Rache’s features on a frail and dying stranger.
“What?” Rache’s childlike tone seemed to come from a great distance.
The guards settled into an uncomfortable silence. Santagithi controlled his words with obvious effort. “How do you feel?”
Rache’s voice rasped like sea against stone. “Why did you tie me up?”
At a nod from Santagithi, one of the guards loosened the blankets. Mitrian stared at Rache, his weakness awakening pity and outrage. What could have done this to Rache?
What little color remained in Rache’s face drained away. His mouth fell open, but his words never came.
Questioning murmurs swept from a dozen throats.
Rache thrashed his head wildly. “Get out!” he managed to scream. “Everyone leave me alone!” His next breath was an anguished sob.
Mitrian’s heart hammered against her ribs. No one moved.
“Go!” Rache’s voice trembled. “Go, please. Go.”
“Go.” Santagithi’s softer, calmer voice echoed Rache’s.
As the men trooped obediently through the portal, Mitrian hung back. She met her father’s warning glance with pleading eyes, but he shook his head, granting no quarter.
Miserably, Mitrian trailed the others from the room until only Santagithi remained.
* * *
The closing click of the door released a flood of tears from Rache’s eyes. He had always hoped death would take him with a violent separation of spirit and flesh, his life consumed by flailing steel. This could not be real. He lay there, completely paralyzed.
Maximum effort of Rache’s neck and eye muscles assured him that his limbs remained intact, but the knowledge gave him scant comfort. The loss of a major body part would have barred him from Valhalla, but to reach the haven of dead warriors, he still must find death in battle. Affixed or not, a limp arm could not wield a sword; useless legs could never carry him to war. He had lost all means of entering Valhalla, the glories of death stripped away as fully as the pleasures of life. Trapped in a limbo of pain and despair, Rache fought madness.
“Rache?” Santagithi prodded gently.
Frustration and grief channeled into rage. “I hate you.” Rache’s words emerged too choked to sting. “A friend would never have let me awaken.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t move.” Tears hot as fresh blood coursed down Rache’s cheeks. Self-pity closed over him. “Don’t let me lie here like a sword without a soldier. Kill me.”
Santagithi’s features framed concern and confusion. “Rache, I can’t—”
“Kill me.” Rache’s mind narrowed to these two words. He gritted his teeth until his vision hazed to dancing pinpoints of light.
“Listen to me, Rache,” Santagithi started firmly.
“Damn you, kill me!” Rache clenched his eyes, his face streaked with tears he could not wipe away. “Don’t make me beg.”
“Rache!” Santagithi’s command left no place for interruption. He reached for his captain. “You will listen.”
Rache could scarcely feel his leader’s hands upon his shoulders. His tear-blurred gaze met eyes nearly as cold as his own. “Or what, Santagithi?” Rache’s voice seemed to drip with venom. “You’ll have me walk extra guard duty? I’ve served you faithfully for sixteen years. Why should I listen to an old dotard who won’t honor my one request?” Rache’s attention fixed on the scabbard at Santagithi’s hip. Beyond reason, he hoped his leader would retaliate with action rather than words.
“Rache. . . .”
Rache raved. “Should I listen to a man who leads farmers to war? My people razed a thousand Western towns like yours, and we had half the numbers. We. . . .” He broke off in horror. He had spent so many years hiding his heritage only to reveal it in one burst of hopeless anger. Surely Santagithi knew the gory history of the Renshai. Rache’s face fell into a grimace. What does it matter now? Will my million enemies travel long distance to kill a dying man?
“Rache.” Santagithi seized upon his sword master’s silence. “I’ve seen men in your condition recover in days. Days, Rache.” Santagithi’s features contained the hungry look of a falcon. “If you’ve finished insulting your companions and wallowing in self-pity, you might try recalling them also.”
Sanity slowly replaced Rache’s wrath. Men who survived the initial spinal shock of a back injury sometimes did recover surpr
isingly quickly. Rache attempted speech. The world spun. His ethereal grip on consciousness failed, and he dropped into oblivion.
* * *
Delirium stripped Rache of years, driving him back into memories he had hidden behind elaborate defenses. Ghosts returned, veiling him with remembrances that ranged from gleeful to terrifying: his sister’s laughter, his father’s ululating battle cry, and old Episte’s stoic misery during the days when he sacrificed his soul to train the last Renshai. It forced scarcely remembered images of a child a few years younger than Rache, a huge, dark boy, silent with misery, brought by the Eastern Wizard to live in Santagithi’s guardhouse three years before Garn became Rache’s charge. Other things assailed Rache, too, dream devils that disabled him, then conjured enemy sword strokes he no longer had the prowess to dodge.
Thoughts of Garn came, too. A thousand times, Rache’s fevered mind replayed the crippling blow, each time driving him deeper into the same black rage Garn felt for him, a loathing that chased Rache into his rare moments of lucidity. And Rache relived a time he would rather have forgotten, a foolish age when he had still dared to care about the child that Garn had been:
At eighteen, Rache had scarcely entered his early adolescence. Yet lack of chest and facial hair and a hand’s length of difference in height could not keep Rache from questioning the leader he usually trusted and obeyed unconditionally. “Sir, if Garn says he was protecting Mitrian, I believe him.” The words fell just short of a challenge. Mukesh’s father had played on the sympathies of the masses, and Garn’s savage thoroughness had seen to it that no one would take his word at the expense of a mutilated child’s honor. “Doesn’t rescuing your daughter gain him anything?”
The Last of the Renshai Page 11