“Well, we’re nearing civilization once more, and you can be sure, I do my uttermost to be civil in such places. So put aside your sullen looks and bruised emotions. Or don’t. As ever, the choice is your own.”
CHAPTER 3
A quiet uneventful day and a half passed before a rider approached, and from her stiff carriage and small pony, it was obvious from some distance that it was Lloi.
She reined up in front of us, and Braylar scowled. “I believe I ordered you to wait for us with the others, did I not?”
“Others don’t much like me waiting around with them, Captain Noose. Least, one in particular. Best for everyone if I waited on the road.”
Braylar asked, “So, have you been there at all, then? Or did you simply decide to disobey me completely?”
“Oh, I been there.” Lloi waved a fly away. “Never disobeyed you in the entirety. Not once. I let them know you was coming. Mulldoos about spit out his ale when he found out I rode ahead with you still behind. I told him I wasn’t doing nothing but following orders, and even then, only reluctant-like. He asked what held you up, and when I told him what happened out here in the grass, he scalded me something fierce. Being derelict in duty, he said. I told him again, you ordered, so there I went, and if that were dereliction of some sort, then he was a cockless wet nurse. Hewspear hadn’t been there, Mulldoos and me, we might have tussled a bit just then, but he was, Hewspear that is, so we didn’t. But Mulldoos ordered me out of his sight, told me to tell you they’ll be just behind me. So I rode back out here. And for that, I get accused of shirking this way or that too. Which, I have to say, after the abuse I suffered from that pale whoreson lieutenant of yours, ain’t no kind of balm at all.”
Braylar rolled his eyes. “If by some miracle visited upon me by a jestful spirit, I come to understand the half-reasoning and action of women, you’ll still be a murky mystery to me, Lloi of Redsoil.”
Lloi looked at me and said, “And if you can ever figure out a way of divining whether Captain Noose is paying compliment or insult, you tell me straight away, because most times, he’s talking about a foot above my head.”
“Lloi, you are an insufferable-” He stopped, and I feared he felt violence approaching again, and was somewhat shocked to discover I no longer doubted the flail’s curse at all. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t disbelieve either. But he must’ve only heard the horses galloping towards us an instant before I did.
Lloi pulled her hat off her head. “Didn’t waste no time, did they?”
Mulldoos and Hewspear reined up first, with Vendurro and Glesswik just behind. While Mulldoos was glaring at Lloi, Vendurro whistled and said, “Never seen anybody go through wagons faster than you, Cap. Three in the last tenday? Some kind of record, that.”
Glesswik patted his horse’s neck. “Four.”
Vendurro looked over at him. “What’s that?”
“Four wagons, you dumb whoreson. Four.”
Vendurro looked ready to argue, stopped himself, and then went right ahead. “The one in Rivermost, the one we outfitted with the smuggler floor, and this one here. Who’s the dumb whoreson now?”
“Still you. Guessing Cap will be wanting to get rid of this one right quick. Be needing a fourth straight away. Ain’t that right, Cap?”
Vendurro sighed. “You can’t count wagons that don’t exist or ain’t been swapped yet. That’s foolishness. Might as well call it ten, then, or twenty, or-”
Braylar said, “We’ll be needing a fourth when we reach Alespell. That is a fact. But so long as we’re counting, I count you all dumb bastards for disobeying a direct order.”
Mulldoos rode alongside us, looking smug. “I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong. And I got to say, couldn’t have been more wrong. You didn’t need us out there in the grass at all. No, not one bit. By the gods, an extra detail would’ve only slowed things down for no good plaguing reason. No danger at all out there in the grass. Can’t say what I was thinking there.”
Braylar smiled, if a little. “Very good, lieutenant, very good. Your point is well taken.”
“Not quite sure what that means. But it sure can’t be you’ll pay more heed next time every one of your men objects to a course of action. Can’t mean that, because-”
The amusement was gone. “Enough, Mulldoos.” Mulldoos seemed no less smug, but he let it go as Braylar looked at his small company. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Tend to your horses. We hold for the night. Then to Alespell.”
The Syldoon dismounted, all save Lloi, who decided to ride off back down the road. She never got enough of scouting or had already had too much of Mulldoos. Both seemed equally possible. Everyone launched into activities they’d clearly done thousands of times before-saddles and bridles were unfastened and dropped on the ground, helms and greaves, lamellar shirts and bazubands or bracers placed in bags to protect them from elements, horses seen to.
I helped Braylar with our normal routine, undoing the harnesses, feeding and watering the horses (we switched to flaked maize, as we were finally running low on oats, and some parsnips in strips), hobbling the horses near the wagon when we were through, brushing them, and rubbing them down with herbs that kept the worst of the biting insects at bay. When that was complete, he told me the harness leather looked dry, so my job for the remainder of the evening was to break the harness down and rub it thoroughly with neat’s-foot oil.
Vendurro offered me his saddle to lean against while I worked. I thanked him, asking why he wouldn’t need it.
He rolled up his sleeves and gave his toothy grin. “Worse jobs than oiling harness.” Then he disappeared into the wagon and returned holding a shovel, a smaller spade, and a large sack, full of something. Vendurro tried handing the spade and sack to Glesswik, who argued that he should have the shovel and no sack instead. The pair moved off several feet into the short grass, bickering.
I leaned back against Vendurro’s saddle and dipped a rag into the oil and began working it into the leather.
Hewspear was leaning against his saddle, carving away at a flute. Mulldoos was working his falchion across a whetstone in deliberate strokes, oiling as he went. Braylar was replacing some scales on his cuirass that had been damaged during the wagon attack in the Green Sea. He worked a large needle and sinew through the brass scales, connecting them to the other scales in the row and also to the leather backing.
While Glesswik and Vendurro didn’t seem to know how to do anything without running commentary about how big an ass the other was, the other Syldoon went about their tasks in relative silence, with only Hewspear humming quietly. Figuring this was as good a time as any to try to get some more information, I said, “You might’ve guessed by now, but I’m not Anjurian. So I’ve never had direct dealings with your kind before, and-”
“What kind is that?” Mulldoos asked, swiping his thick blade across the whetstone. “Can’t wait to hear this.”
I rubbed the oil into the leather a little harder. “The Syldoon, I mean. I don’t know much about you. I’ve only heard stories really.”
“About how we eat virgins? And babies?” Mulldoos laughed, clearly enjoying my discomfort.
Vendurro stopped bickering long enough to hear the exchange and added, “Or at least our mothers. Heard that a time or two.” He jammed his shovel into the ground and pushed it in deeper with his heel.
I tried again, “Well, I know you’re slave soldiers, but-”
“Then you know horseshit, scribbler.” Mulldoos shook his head, the blade running along the stone again with an unnerving “skiiiiit.”
“I thought-”
“We all been freed,” Glesswik called over, his smaller spade plunging into the earth. “Rite of manumission. Every Syldoon goes through it.”
“They make it that far, they do.” Mulldoos said.
Braylar added, “Agreed. It’s a rough tenyear indeed.”
I looked at the wrinkled leather straps, wondering if they would ever be properly sat
urated. “So, how does it work exactly? You were taken as slaves, and then what? What happened during the tenyear?”
Mulldoos pressed a thumb against one side of his nose and blew snot out the other. It didn’t miss me by much. “Weren’t taken. Given.” I raised an eyebrow and he continued, “Our people gave us to them, when we were children. Been a couple of centuries since the Syldoon needed to raid for slaves.”
I asked, “Why would your people do that? And what people were those exactly?”
Hewspear held his flute up to his eye and looked down its length. He shook his head, not satisfied with his work. “The hinterlands, my young friend. We all hailed from lands far from the center of the empire.”
Mulldoos laughed. “Oh gods. You wanted a history lesson, scribbler, you got the right windmill for the job. This ought to be good.”
Hewspear set the flute in his lap and ran his hand through his black and gray beard. “Before the Syldoon were the Syldoon, there was a king, hundreds of years ago, named Hulsinn, who ruled over lands far to the west of here, a country called Oliad. Oliad was surrounded by hostile, barbaric people. On all sides, sporadic warfare and trembling borders. But Hulsinn was clever-he knew attrition wouldn’t favor Oliad-every time he turned his attention to one border, another one was overrun. So, being a far-thinker, he devised a far-reaching plan. He began raiding the camps of his enemies, stealing their children in the middle of the night, and-”
“Didn’t eat any, though.” Vendurro kept digging.
“-enslaving them. But he didn’t waste them in the fields or in construction of gaudy monuments, as is often the case with slaves. No. He trained them. A decade of intense military instruction, a tenyear of constant propaganda. Brought in as boys from barbarian tribes-prideful, ill-mannered, already proficient in weapons and familiar with warfare, they were transformed into disciplined, merciless men who knew how to kill even more efficiently as part of a unit. And they were taught to hate their homeland. Each year Hulsinn enslaved more. And a decade later, when he deemed the first group battle-ready, he set them loose against his enemies, against their old families, their old people. Their enemies now. Hulsinn led them into battle himself. They fought like mad dogs. And his borders trembled no more.”
“Riveting.” Skiiiiiiiiiiit.
I considered everything Hewspear said, and then asked, “But Mulldoos said you were given as slaves. Raiding wasn’t necessary any more. I still don’t understand why parents would give up their children to their overlords so willingly.”
“Like I said,” skiiiiiiiiiit, “you know horseshit. Where you from, boy? By the coloring, I’d say Vulmyria. Maybe Urvace, am I right?”
I had no idea what my father looked like, but I’d clearly inherited the fair skin and hair from my mother anyway, which did little enough to disguise blushes of any kind. “I was born in a road inn, if you must know, but it was on the border of Vulmyria, yes.”
He stopped sharpening and laughed. “Bastard boy, I’m guessing.” I colored up worse as he continued. “Got nothing against bastards-no worse or better than most, on the whole-but uppity provincial bastards who think they know something when they know shit all… well, that’s altogether different, ain’t it? So I’m curious, where do you get off telling us what we’re about when you got no experience on the subject?”
Braylar pricked his finger and sucked at the blood before saying, “In fairness, Lieutenant, our good scholar was asking questions, not making proclamations.” He turned to me. “To a parent in the hinterlands, plagued by constant warfare with other tribes or clans, often scraping and scrapping to simply survive another day, this was an opportunity that would never occur otherwise. They hoped their sons and daughters would become rich or powerful after they were freed. And as time passed, they began to see it as an honor if their children were chosen when the recruiters made their annual visit, and from this uneasy understanding, established the tradition of holding Choosings.
“Make no mistake, the children still enter slavery of a sort-they’ll have no choices for the next ten years, and their days will be spent in obedience. But they’re also not slaves in the typical sense of the word. In many parts of this world, a slave is a creature who is choiceless, but futureless as well. They tend a field, or mine the earth, or pull the galley oar, and that is what they’ll die doing. Even the best-off of them, they clean their master’s teeth and ears, wash the dirt and shit from their smallclothes, perhaps serve as objects of pleasure, and they’ll die doing that as well. There’s no movement for a slave. They begin and end their lives in the exact same spot.
“But Syldoon slaves are different creatures. For the ten years after they’re chosen, they have neither voice nor choice, but they don’t do the same thing endlessly. Oh, they do their fair share of physical labor, mucking stables, scrubbing pots, butchering hogs, carrying wood and stone-”
“Cleaning latrines, shining officer’s boot, digging holes, always digging more holes…” Vendurro offered as he leveraged a large chunk of earth out of the ground and moved it to the side.
“But they’re also trained,” Braylar continued, “and trained and trained. They drill with every weapon imaginable. They sit in classes, learning to read and write, and later, learning new languages, military history, and tactics. Figures and sums as well, the names of the constellations, the sciences of the masters, the proper way to bandage a wound and the poultice to apply to keep it from festering. How to groom a horse and compose a sonnet. The language of blazonry and the art of sculpting and painting. In short, their education is broad, and wildly diverse.”
“But a shovel ain’t never too far away,” Glesswik added, grunting as he worked a chunk of sod out as well, making the hole larger.
“True enough,” Braylar said, needle moving again. “But several years later, after they’ve been exposed to every field of study, their teachers and instructors evaluate them and decide the direction their lives will take for the remainder of their days as Syldoon slaves. Those who show promise with mathematics will be trained as military engineers, and tacticians. Those who display a knack for riding and an affinity for horses will train as cavalry. Those with languages and a good memory for nomenclature, to diplomacy. And so on, each slave being tracked into those avenues they show the most aptitude for. Regardless of what track they take, all of them will continue with their military drilling, as all of them are ultimately soldiers, serving the soldiering class.
“Still no choices. They are well-trained and well-groomed slaves, to be sure, but slaves nonetheless. It’s only at the end of their training, a decade later, that they’ll have their first moment of autonomy. They’re freed in a grand ceremony, and upon the day of their manumission, also free to decide whether they wish to stay or go. It’s a choice that can never be undone. Whether they walk or stay, they pledge their lives to that movement forever.
“If the newly freed Syldoon stay, they’re a part of their household until they die, and swear loyalty to it above all other things. They’re bound to their household, and will serve it and no other until the end of their days. If that household flourishes, they flourish with it. Should it wilt, or be destroyed by another, their fate will be the same.”
“So,” Hewspear said, his small knife working again on the flute, “the tribes give up some of their children, because if they’re chosen by a powerful Syldoon Tower, they might very well grow to be rich and powerful. And while the Syldoon are forbidden from returning to their homelands, their generosity isn’t. Very often, some of that good fortune finds its way back to the tribe.”
Vendurro was breathing heavier as jabbed his blade into the ground. “You didn’t mention the Memoridon, Cap. Kind of important, that. That ceremony-”
Braylar said, “I believe we’ve regaled our archivist with enough of our history for now.
“Are you fine diggers nearly through? Our archivist has been pining for a fire for many days.”
Glesswik pulled up another large swath of earth. While the g
rass was shorter than in the Green Sea, the roots seemed just as dense; the chunks of sod were coming up in large squares and rectangles. He upended the sack he’d taken from the wagon, and dumped a number of roughly oval-shaped things onto the grass next to the hole. “Wasn’t much in the way of wood around these parts, Cap, but Lloi thought these might come in handy. Left them before riding out. You’ll have to pardon the stink though.” He began breaking open the ovals and stuffing them with tufts of dry grass.
It took me a minute to recognize Lloi’s gift for what it was. Rooter dung.
Mulldoos must have reached that conclusion at the same time and finally stopped sharpening. “By the gods, she’s an awful whore, she is. Plagues me even when she’s not plaguing here.”
Ven was taking the strips of earth they’d dug up and lining them around the perimeter of the hole, with the dirt and roots facing where the fire would be. He said, “Told you there’s worse things than working some leather over.” Then he laughed and tipped his head in Glesswik’s direction.
Gless was bent over, stuffing more of the rooter dung with grass, but he caught the gesture. “Don’t think I’m doing this alone, you skinny whoreson. Plenty of shit to go around.”
Braylar turned to me. “You shall have a bit of warmth at last, Arki. Though it’s actually a blessing no one’s had time to hunt anything. Cooking over a shitfire is several kinds of unpleasant.”
I sighed and kept after the harness, supposing that shitfire was better than no fire at all. As it turned out, that might have been a specious proposition.
We continued the last leg to Alespell in the morning, and the remainder of the journey passed without incident. We overtook a pair of men on foot that moved far off the road and into the grass to get out of our path and avoid our dust as much as possible. A short time later, we encountered a deserted village, separated from the road by some fields that once had presumably been tilled but now had grown practically wild again. Only a mossy stone wall gave some indication of its boundary. There were a few beaten and ramshackle windmills along the perimeter, one that couldn’t possibly lean any further without falling over completely. While several communities have recovered from the last plague, this obviously wasn’t one of them.
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