by Alex Paul
“You’re sure?” Lar leaned in closer, blocking Arken’s view of the gull.
“Yes.” Arken rose to his elbows. “What am I doing on the ground?”
“You blacked out lifting the rock,” Lar said.
“I didn’t pass the test?” The memory came flooding back as he asked.
“You will next year.” Lar offered his hand. “You’re strong enough—just not tall enough.”
“I know.” He felt proud he’d at least been strong enough to lift the rock.
“Do you want to try your luck sparring with Gart today?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” Arken surprised himself with his answer as Lar helped him to his feet. He didn’t care if he lost, or even if he got hurt sparring Gart. He wanted so badly to go on SeaJourney. Life at sea called to him.
“Good. I admire your spirit, Arken, though you’ll probably lose.” Lar chuckled and shook his head.
“Maybe.” Arken tried to brush the red clay from the back of his white tunic but with little success. Arlet, their Nander kitchen slave, would scold him tonight for the dirty uniform.
The swordtooth screamed again, this time so loud it echoed around the courtyard.
“It’s close to the wall! The guards are going to kill it!” Lar pointed to the guardhouse where soldiers were running for the chariot-mounted giant crossbow. Then Lar spoke to Gart. “Arken will fight you, Gart, after we watch the guards kill the swordtooth. Lead your class to the top of the wall.”
“Yes, sir, I accept Arken’s challenge. Cadets to me!” Gart jogged for the wall.
The cadets saluted and were gone, like armored quails bursting from a tuft of grass in fear. Tanned legs carried lean bodies up the stairs to the wall top in seconds.
Arken jogged two steps to Lar’s one despite Lar running with his ceremonial robe gathered in his hands to prevent tripping. Arken was grateful for some time to regain his strength before sparring with Gart. He had been so excited about beginning his officer’s apprenticeship as a saldet, a junior officer. Only one thing stood in his way: Gart.
CHAPTER 2
ARKEN SPARS GART
We will lash our ships together tonight when we gather rinfall and rest the slaves. They rowed admirably today, and I ordered extra food and water rations for them. If we let them die, we will drift forever at sea. Tonight I will train with the necklace when the cool of rinfall allows concentration.
—Diary of Princess Sharmane of Tolaria
“I did lift the rock, didn’t I?” Arken asked. His memory wasn’t clear. Just then, the cat roared, the sound echoing off the walls of the courtyard.
“Yes, you did, you just weren’t tall enough to lift it onto the post.” Lar was agitated. “Arken, we have to hurry if we’re going to see the cat.”
“Yes, sir.” Arken couldn’t help but sound defeated and Lar noticed.
“Don’t worry about failing the rock test, Arken.” Lar glanced over as they ran. “You’ll grow taller and easily lift Tok next year, and another year of training is guaranteed to make you an even better officer. Though Kal knows you’ve got the courage for it already.” They began to climb the stairs leading to the top of the wall. “I admire you for wanting to spar with Gart today. You’re in for a pounding, though. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, probably so,” Arken said. If Lar was trying to make him feel better, it wasn’t working. The swordtooth screamed again.
“That was close.” Lar looked up. Some of the boys were at the top of the stairs, waving them on. They sprinted up the rest of the stairs. “Well, if you lose, you’ll have nothing to be ashamed of. Gart’s much bigger and older than you.”
“Yes, sir.” The smell of freshly baked cornbread reached them as they hurried across the bridge over the barracks between the courtyard and the fort wall. A southeast onshore wind carried the scent from the fort’s bakery.
“I’m being honest, Arken,” Lar continued as they climbed the last few stairs, “you’re an excellent student with unusual skills; you’re the only one in this class to pass the advanced archer’s test. Most cadets can’t draw the heavy bow until they’re seventeen, yet you can do it already. That proves you’re strong.”
“Thanks to my grandfather. We practice every other evening after school.” Arken smiled at the memory of grandfather working with him since age six until shooting a longbow felt as natural as combing his hair. “There’s a technique to it as well as strength.”
“Oh, I know, but learning that technique is not easy. You will be able to help our other students next year.”
“I’d be happy to help.” Arken felt upset that Lar was assuming he would lose to Gart. He had a chance; he’d been practicing swordwork with his father at home.
The swordtooth screamed as they reached the roadway that ran around the top of the wall. The cat’s scream sounded like death come close.
“Hurry, it’s over this way. Just fifty legs to go,” said Han, one of the students who had waited for them at the top of the stairs. They ran toward Han, and the rest of the cadets gathered further down the wall and peered over the side.
The leg was a unit of measurement created by Lantish scientists who had preserved, in bronze, the length of King Lanth’s hands, fingers, feet, and legs during his reign. These became the standard units of measurement in Lanth. A leg had turned out to be exactly three of King Lanth’s feet, and twenty-four finger thicknesses equaled a foot.
A two-person chariot exploded from the guardhouse behind them.
“Get on the edge,” Lar ordered.
The chariot driver whipped the two horses into a gallop. A crossbowman clung to an oversized crossbow mounted on a central swivel behind the driver. The chariot shot by them with barely any room to spare.
“That was close,” said Lar. They sprinted after the chariot as it left them behind.
Arken ran at an easy pace, yet found that both Lar and Han were soon winded trying to keep up with him, so he slowed down so as not to embarrass them and looked around the Academy. The Academy was also the main fort that guarded the city.
Two-story, white stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs rimmed the full length of the interior side of the fort’s walls. The buildings served as barracks for the soldiers manning the fort as well as the Academy classrooms, storage, kitchens, armory, blacksmith shop, and horse stables for the King’s Harsemen. The sea breeze mixed the cornbread scent with the musty odor of stable hay and harses.
“It’s been a year since they last killed a swordtooth,” Lar said between gasping breaths when the chariot halted by the rest of the class.
“Why do swordtooth come here?” Arken asked Lar as they ran.
“They’re old. They get driven from their hunting grounds by a healthier animal. The scent of easy prey over the walls draws them in, and then we have to kill them or they try to attack our harse patrols outside the walls.”
“It’s there, sir.” Gart pointed as they arrived. “Stalking the chained goat.”
The stench of damp, dead rotting leaves from eons past filled his nostrils as Arken leaned over the gray stone wall to see.
Water from last night’s rinfall added to the moldy vegetation smell. The scent hovered in his nostrils like the foul poultice his mother used to cure his childhood illnesses.
They could easily see the huge, yellow-skinned cat as it crept through the high grass fifty feet below. Its tail twitched as it neared the goat, which caught wind of the cat’s scent and began squealing and pulling at its leg chain.
The cat’s long canine teeth glistened like curved executioner’s swords at a public beheading. Arken realized his own forearms were shorter than one of the beast’s long teeth, and he shuddered at the thought of being alone in the jungle with such a predator.
“Johann, how long do you venture the swordtooth is?” Lar asked a boy near him.
“Twenty feet, sir, not including the tail,” Johann said. “Roughly seven legs,” he added.
“Good, I agree.”
“It’s a beautiful animal,” Johann volunteered. “Sad it has to die.”
Some of the cadets giggled at Johann’s softness.
“Death comes to all that live,” Lar said. “You should know that Johann... We’re in the business of death.”
“Yes, sir.” But the tone of Johann’s voice didn’t seem sincere to Arken. He, too, felt sympathy for the swordtooth because, despite its ferocity, it seemed the underdog in this unfair fight, and Arken could identify with the underdog.
The archer swiveled the enormous crossbow mounted on the chariot and took aim at the swordtooth. He had already cocked it by cranking on the double-handled winch. The three-foot-long crossbow bolt as thick as a spear lay ready to fly.
“Fire when ready,” an officer ordered.
The string of the giant crossbow slapped the air with an angry buzz while transforming the bolt into a blur. It struck the top of the swordtooth’s back and then bounced high into the trees. The swordtooth screamed and bit where the bolt had hit its spine. A cadet found humor in the animal’s pain, and his laughter followed the silence of the cat’s scream.
The swordtooth’s head swiveled around, its gaze following the sound. Then it screamed in the direction of the cadet as if to warn the boy not to laugh.
The harses reared and whinnied at the cat’s menacing cry. Only the drivers’ shouts and soldiers grabbing the tracings prevented a runaway.
The huge cat snorted, blowing up dust from the ground, and then sprinted into the jungle. Its tail disappeared as it plunged down the steep hill to the plains south of the city.
“They missed!” Lar yelled. “Class, make note! Aim low when you’re shooting downward. The archer shot the bolt so high it bounced off the cat’s back.”
“Sir,” the class responded. When Lar said to “make note,” they had learned to pay attention and be ready to answer questions later or punishment would follow.
“War!” a boy’s voice squeaked. Arken and his classmates turned to see a young cadet about the age of eight running toward them.
“What did you say, boy?” Lar grabbed the boy’s shoulder.
“War!” the boy gasped. “A ship has arrived. The Amarrats crossed into Tolaria a moonth ago to conquer the country. The Amarrat King wants the Necklace of Tol. The Tolarians refused to give it to him. The Alda summons all cadets to the Great Hall on the next clock turn.”
“We’re allies with Tolaria!” Lar clasped his hands to his head. “Kal save us!”
The messenger boy stepped back, frightened by Lar’s reaction.
Seeing he had frightened the boy, Lar gained control and saluted, raising his left arm straight overhead while crashing his right arm into his chest. “All Hail Lanth!”
“Hail Lanth!” The cadets and nearby guards snapped to attention and saluted.
“Never defeated!” Lar added.
“Never defeated!” Arken shouted with the cadets and guards.
Arken felt proud. Though small, their city-state of half a million had never lost a war. But could they defeat the Amarrats, the pyramid builders from the east? Lar seemed so upset. Then Arken dismissed the thought. Of course they could. A single Lantish officer was worth any five Amarrat soldiers in combat.
If I defeat Gart today I can become an officer in this war. I can’t wait a whole year to go to sea with a war starting!
Lar turned his gaze to the tall sandglass at the fort’s entrance, which emptied and was turned each half-hour.
“Rally to the courtyard and form a sparring square, class. There’s time enough before we attend the Alda.”
The class saluted Lar, and then jogged along the wall to the stairs.
“Arken, come with me. You need armor.” Lar headed for the armory and Arken followed.
“Sir!” The head armorer wiped sweat from his bald head with a cloth as he stepped from the armory into the sunlight. He was a short, bulky man with a mustache.
“We need to fit the boy quickly with armor. He needs to spar,” Lar said.
“Right away, sir. Come this way.”
Sparks showered from the forge as the armorer led Arken past a smith hammering on a breastplate. The smith used tongs to dip the plate in water, his bare arms bulging with muscles larger than Gart’s thick legs. Arken hoped someday he would be that powerful.
“Which rack?” the head armorer asked.
Arken pointed to his armor, and the head armorer grabbed the pile of bronze Arken had carefully polished and wrapped after he’d last used it. They hurried to the staging area where a second armorer, this one as lean as the head armorer was thick, helped with the intricate task of armoring a soldier.
First came the breastplate, the front and back plate connected by gastag sidestraps with buckled cinches. Sweat dripped from the bulky head armorer’s nose as he labored to fasten the shoulder pads, which extended from the breastplate on gastag straps for flexibility. The man’s sweat splashed off Arken’s shoulder pad and into his eye, but he didn’t flinch from the salt sting.
Collars below the shoulder pads covered his biceps, elbows, forearms, and wrists. The thickset armorer tightened the leather straps that held the collars in place while the lean armorer attached the waist skirt as well as thigh, knee, and shin plates. The final pieces were the belt and short sword.
The thickset head armorer pulled the helmet strap tight, and then handed Arken his circular shield adorned with Lanth’s national symbol, a white swordtooth’s head on a blue background.
“It fits you well,” the head armorer said. He stepped back and twisted the end of his mustache as he appraised Arken’s armor. “Good luck!”
“I’ll need it!” Arken jogged toward the sparring square. His armor felt like a second skin because he had practiced in it so often. It was light armor, designed to stop a knife cut or sword thrust but not a bolt from a crossbow or longbow—no armor could stop that.
“Take your mark,” Lar said as Arken’s clanking armor announced his arrival.
“Yes, sir.” Arken entered the sparring square marked by hand-width wooden beams inlaid flush into the courtyard clay. His classmates sat cross-legged on two sides of the thirty-by-thirty-foot square. Arken placed his toes on the sparring mark, which embarrassed him because standing at the line drew too much attention to his oversized feet. On the other hand, Gart stood at his mark ten feet away and looked perfect: muscular, large, hairy-legged; he was as much of a man as Arken felt he was not.
Gart glared at Arken. He will fight hard, Arken thought. If Gart loses, he will forfeit his salcon position and won’t be able to challenge again for three months. What was I thinking? Arken blew out a shaky breath. He’ll smash me into the ground! Lar was right. I’m in for a pounding.
Gart loomed over him. Not only was he more than a head taller, he was almost twice as heavy.
“Draw swords,” Lar ordered.
Arken drew his wooden short sword from the sheath hanging at his left side. The sparring sword weighed the same as a bronze combat sword. Two lengths of rounded bronze lay in channels along the edges of the wooden blade to give the sword weight but not a cutting edge. The sword would hurt like a club, but it couln’t slice through armor.
Arken held the sword in his right hand, point to the ground. His faceplate remained up, the custom until combat began.
“Standard rules,” Lar said. “No blows to the head. If you do, it’s a one-point addition to your opponent. Three points is a win, one point for each lethal touch. Saldet Tyo will be your referee. Salute referee.”
“Yes, sir!” Arken and Gart acknowledged.
“Salute!” Saldet Tyo yelled. He wore only a simple white tunic with sandals and no armor since he wasn’t sparring. Saldet Tyo was tall and skinny with a pockmarked, greasy face and blond hair the color of bright yellow paint. Arken had learned the previous night that Tyo had graduated two years earlier and had been serving as a saldet on several warships in preparation for becoming a lancon. He had returned to the Academy a week before SeaJourney to a
ssist Lar with preparations, and Lar had put him to work with the class so he could familiarize himself with the cadets.
“Victory for Lanth!” Arken and Gart shouted as they saluted by smashing sword against shield.
“I will act as points judge,” Lar said, and then he turned to Tyo. “Begin at your leisure, Saldet Tyo.”
“Ready?” Tyo asked. He smiled at both boys, and Arken remembered Tyo was not aware of the grudge Gart held against Arken. I hope he intervenes in time if Gart is too violent, Arken thought. Tyo didn’t look too bright to Arken, but there was nothing Arken could do at this point. Changing referees wasn’t allowed.
Arken nodded. He and Gart lowered their faceplates, the sign they had committed to battle. They raised their swords and shields and assumed the ready fighting position: knees slightly bent, left leg forward, right leg back.
“Spar!” Tyo dropped his hand and jumped back.
They circled, with Arken avoiding contact and searching for an opening in Gart’s defense.
Gart raised his sword high, stepped forward, and swung an illegal blow down toward Arken’s head.
Arken reacted instinctively, raising his shield and stepping under Gart’s sword so Gart’s sword handle crashed into the shield instead of the blade.
He’s trying to kill me!
Even though this reduced the force, Arken’s shield arm buckled into his helmet, knocking it sideways and blinding him.
Arken jumped back and pushed his helmet over in time to see Gart swing from the side. Arken slid back another step to let the sword point whistle past his belly from right to left. Gart tried to extend his reach by leaning forward when he saw Arken might escape his swing, but this tipped Gart forward.
Gart moved his shield to the side with his left arm to regain his balance, and Arken swung hard at his extended arm, the sword striking bare skin below Gart’s left elbow.
“Oww!” Gart howled as he stepped back and flexed his arm by lifting and lowering his shield.
“Point to Arken.” Tyo waved an arm toward Arken.