by Trish Mercer
“I know,” Perrin whispered soothingly. “I feel it too. I just can’t see it. But it’s there.” The thought filled him with dread.
Someone was still alive. Maybe many “someones.”
It had been too much to expect that all of the Guarders would vanish and no one would ever return. When he’d told Mahrree of his hope last year, he’d been riding high on sheer enthusiasm of his success. But after only a few days he had the nagging feeling that it was all too good to be true. There had to be a few remaining, and therefore a purpose for forts, according to the garrison.
Perrin knew that coming alone to inspect Moorland wasn’t the safest or smartest thing to do. But he wasn’t helpless. Far from it.
“Did you hear me?” he announced loudly to the forest. “I know you’re there! You may think you’re unnoticeable, but obviously we noticed. And you see me here patrolling Moorland and you know why, don’t you? I don’t take anything for granted!”
He continued to stare, as did Clark, at whatever it was making its presence in the trees. Or bushes. Or fallen logs. Perhaps there were still Guarders, but they were gutless. He was the easiest target in the world right then, and he must have been the Guarders’ most wanted man. If ever there was a time to take revenge it was right now, and he waited with his hand twitching on the hilt of Relf Shin’s sword.
But for some inexplicable reason they didn’t take the opportunity. Maybe it was just one sole survivor, or two, that were maybe lost but certainly not about to take action. That was what Perrin was hoping: that they’d never dare to take action again.
After another full minute he squinted into the stillness. “I’ll never stop keeping the world secure from you,” he promised.
He prodded Clark who, after snorting his disdain to the trees, promptly turned and trotted away from the forest.
---
Only after the sound of horses hooves died away did a clump of shrubbery collapse into an unconscious heap.
Two more heavy clusters of leaves dropped from nearby trees and rushed over to the fallen foliage.
“He’s already coming around,” said one bunch of leaves to the other. He pulled off his concealing hat for a clearer look at their companion.
The second man had already pulled away part of the collection of branches that created the shrub disguise.
The shrub opened his eyes slowly at first, then they flashed in panic.
“Shh,” one of the men patted him. “He’s gone. Stay down until you can focus properly. You passed out.”
“That’s what happens when you lock your legs and don’t breathe for five minutes,” said the other man.
The shrub-man exhaled and rubbed his eyes with a green gloved hand. “That was the most terrifying moment I’ve ever had!”
The first leaf man chuckled. “I have to admit, as initiations go that was probably the most intense any new recruit has experienced.”
The second man nodded. “Most of us were initiated by what we refer to as the ‘trial by fire’ last year, when Moorland burned and the flames traveled to the forest. But to be stared down like that? All I can say is, Welcome to the corps!”
Shrub-man nodded once. “So was that him?”
“That was him, all right,” the first man said, helping the shrub-man sit up slowly. “No one else does ‘glaring’ quite like a Shin.”
“What was he doing this far east?”
“Inspections, like a thorough commander should conduct.”
Shrub-man exhaled again.
“So what did he say there at the last?” the second man asked. “I couldn’t quite hear all of the speech.”
Shrub-man rubbed his head which still pounded from its impact with the ground. “He said something like, ‘I’ll never stop keeping the world safe from you.’”
The first man looked at the second and nodded. “Sounds like something he’d say. Except that he got it all mixed up.”
---
The lanky sixteen-year-old with wavy brown hair leaned against the fence railing and watched the gray stallion. Up close it was even more impressive—the perfect blend, bred for strength and speed. He longed to hop the fence and run a hand down the withers. If this were any other property he would have already been at the horse’s side. But even he knew the importance of not violating the fort’s boundaries without permission or an escort.
At least, not in daylight.
He felt a presence right behind him.
“If you think he looks good now, you should see him at a full run.”
“Sir!” the young man jumped, startled. “I’m sorry, I know I’m a little early—”
“It’s all right. ‘On time’ is already ten minutes late,” the officer said, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Lannard, it was, right?”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
Captain Thorne smiled thinly. “Well, Lannard, are you ready for your first assignment?”
Lannard delivered a nervous smile and a sloppy salute.
Thorne winced as he turned to lean against the fence. “We’ll work on that. Another year yet before you can be a soldier. You just may need that much time to improve that salute. So, in the meantime, there he is: Streak. He just doesn’t get as much exercise as he deserves. I have to spend so much time in the office now.”
“I understand sir. It’s my good fortune. I’m well aware of that,” Lannard said, looking longingly at the stallion.
“Well, I don’t know if it makes up for not going on the expedition, but yes, it was fortunate we met. I could tell you’re a potential horse man.”
“Oh, yes sir! My father keeps cattle, but I don’t see the appeal.”
Thorne sighed in appreciation. “Indeed. Why would you be drawn to cattle . . .” He bristled at the recent memory of Briter out in his fields grouping the clumsy animals for some odd experiment involving cheering and applause.
“. . . when I could be caring instead for a stallion?” Lannard said, nodding at the horse. “My thoughts exactly, sir.”
Even a sixteen-year-old can see the logic in that, Lemuel thought. But it just proved another one of his father’s theories: men are far more logical than girls.
“So Lannard, your schedule in school: when do you usually leave?”
“You mean, what time am I supposed to leave, or what time do I actually leave?” Lannard asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Thorne shook his head. “I can’t have you breaking any rules, or I can’t have you working for me. Education is important.”
“Yes, sir.” Lannard’s eyes shifted oddly, as if he tried to keep them from rolling but they wanted to anyway. “I’m usually allowed to leave school by three, unless Mrs. Shin needs to have another one of her talks with me.”
Thorne’s body stiffened in an effort to control his breathing.
Lannard wasn’t the only one experiencing good fortune today.
“Mrs. Shin is your teacher?” He tried to keep his voice natural although the words wanted to come out in an ecstatic shout.
“Yes sir,” he said dully. “I had her last year, this year, and I’m doomed to have her next year, unless I ‘improve my behavior’,” he said, impersonating the director of Edge schools quite accurately.
The effect was lost on Thorne, who had never met Mr. Hegek. “I take it you don’t enjoy Mrs. Shin?”
Lannard shrugged. “She’s all right, I suppose. Sir, I really don’t need any of this getting back to the colonel,” he said with a meaningful sidelong glance. “My older brother used to be one of his ‘special cases.’ I don’t need that kind of attention.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think you need his attention,” Thorne assured him. “I’m curious, what kinds of things does she teach? What subjects?”
“She gets to teach them all. But she really loves history and current events. She’s been going on about that expedition for weeks, ever since they announced it.”
Thorne squinted. “I didn’t realize that was going to be on the test this year.”
&n
bsp; “Oh, it’s not. But she doesn’t believe in just teaching what’s on the test. She says we need to learn everything we can. Do you realize how much ‘everything’ is? It’s like . . . every thing! She’s insane.” Lannard felt it safe to roll his eyes now.
Thorne nodded thoughtfully. “Like what? What’s something she’s insisting on teaching?”
“You really don’t want to know, Captain.”
“Oh, I think I do, Lannard. Come on. Let’s go get Streak saddled up and you can tell me some of the tortures of being an upper school student. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been there, but I’m sure I could top whatever you have to say.”
“Captain, I hear a challenge! All right, then,” Lannard rubbed his hands together as they walked to Thorne’s personal tackle shed. “Tomorrow’s assignment is about the kings, and what life was like under their rule. I’m supposed to ask my parents about what they remember, then we’re going to compare it to what life is like now. And it’s not even going to be on the test.”
A smile grew on Captain Thorne’s face. This boy certainly didn’t need Colonel Shin’s personalized attention.
Only Captain Thorne’s.
“Lannard, I can’t tell you how glad I am we met.”
---
That evening a new piece of paper with the date, 2nd Day of Weeding Season, 337, was placed in a thick file. For weeks Captain Thorne had been looking for ways to fulfill the request of Administrator Genev, but nothing had come to mind. Until now.
Under the date were the words, “MPS deliberately ignores Department of Instructions’ mandated lesson plans. Encouraging students to discover differences in life between under rule of the kings and under rule of the Administrators. Information known NOT to be on the end of Yearly Official Uniform Department of Instruction Exam.”
Lemuel looked at the note for a moment and snickered. If you took the first letters of each of the words from the title of the test, it spelled YOU DIE.
Suddenly, everything became very easy in his life.
---
Knock-knock . . . knock-knock-knock.
Oh, if only he hadn’t got the expedition out on time, Perrin sighed to himself. But here he was, knocking on the door in a rhythm that, if Perrin were ever to hear it in a musical piece, would likely make him want to break the musician’s arm.
“Come in.”
Thorne opened the door but he wasn’t smiling. In fact, today there was a determined look that Perrin hadn’t seen since the captain first arrived at the fort. It was solid and hot and, for once, honest.
“Sir, I found a young man who’ll be exercising my horse Streak.”
“Fine,” Perrin said. He didn’t care, but for some odd reason Thorne always felt the need to tell him every little thing he did. He was a three-year-old, hungry for assurance that he was perfect and the favorite.
“I just wanted you to know. I have everything under control.”
Perrin leaned back in his chair. “That’s quite a claim, Captain. No one can ever have everything under control. Control is an illusion.”
Thorne’s piercing gaze sharpened even more. “Oh, I don’t think so, Colonel. I’ll prove that to you. And you will be most impressed and astonished, sir. I promise you that.”
Perrin sighed at the captain’s enigmatic response. “Thorne, I don’t really enjoy being astonished. Not a lot of good comes when something is ‘astonishing.’ Just so you know.”
“You will this time, sir,” Thorne said evenly.
There was no sign of the captain’s normal simpering, but a clear resolve that made the hairs on the back of Perrin’s neck stand on end.
Captain Thorne had a new strategy, but for what?
“I promise you, sir—this time, you’ll be impressed.”
After he shut the door, Perrin exhaled. “And I really hate being impressed.”
---
Lannard was a few minutes late the next day, and ran panting to the tackle shed to find Captain Thorne already taking the saddle off the post.
“I’m sorry, sir. I was held back for a time because . . . well, I’m here now.”
Thorne hefted the saddle on Streak’s blanketed back. “What were you held back for, Lannard? I really should know.”
Lannard shifted uncomfortably. “For saying some words that Mrs. Shin finds ‘inappropriate.’”
“Hmm,” Thorne said slightly disappointed. “So she kept you after as punishment?”
“I had to write alternatives on the board. Safe words that wouldn’t offend ‘nice young women,’ ” Lannard bobbed his head in irritation.
Thorne smirked as he crouched to tighten the clasp around Streak’s belly. “Don’t care too much about impressing nice young women yet?”
“Show me one, and I’ll have plenty of ways to impress her.” He waggled his eyebrows and made a suggestive movement.
Thorne chuckled without any humor. “Doesn’t always work the way you plan it, Lannard.”
“Well if she’s isn’t impressed with me, why would I want her?”
Thorne stood up and put his hand on the saddle. “That’s an insightful comment, Lannard. With such intelligence, I don’t understand why you struggle so much in school.”
Lannard turned pink. He took the reins of Streak and rubbed his nose. “Where to today, sir?”
“Take him to the western edge of the village and let him go at a full run for about a mile through the farms and back.”
Lannard began to grin. “If I took him a little farther, I could run him all the way to Moorland and back, sir.”
“I want him exercised, not exhausted!” Thorne snapped. “Besides, Moorland is still off limits.”
“I don’t know why,” Lannard frowned. “It’s dead, isn’t it? If I can’t see the western ruins, I could at least see the Moorland ruins.”
Thorne shook his head. “The Moorland ruins are . . . eerie. It’s deathly quiet and empty. When the wind blows, some men claim to hear shrieks and wails. I’ve never heard that, of course, but the place feels haunted. I’ve seen soldiers arrive, look down, see a bone with the flesh and muscle burned off, and turn and run all the way back to the fort. You really don’t want to see that.”
But Lannard’s eyes lit up when the captain said ‘burned.’
“Honestly, sir, I don’t think I would be spooked.”
“If you’re serious about that, then I’ll take you on holiday at the end of this week. I was going to take a few new recruits over there in the morning, and you can come along. But I’m riding Streak,” Thorne said. Then he added with a grimace, “Maybe Colonel Shin’s Clark needs exercising.”
While it was an admirable horse, the Stables at Pools had been a rival to Thorne’s grandfather’s stables for years. The presence of an animal from there, and named Clark of all things, was an added insult.
“Captain, that would be great! Thank you!”
“But first,” Thorne held up his hand, “first you tell me what you did in school today.”
Lannard rolled his eyes. “Oh, I get it. This is one of those ‘mentor moments,’ isn’t it? ‘I’m interested in your well-being, son. Let’s talk.’”
Thorne’s face froze at Lannard’s cadence and delivery of that line. “You know who you sounded like just then?”
Lannard beamed. “Yes, I do. I’ve been working on my Colonel Shin impersonation for a while now. That’s the way he always started with my older brother when he put him in chains and walked him to incarceration. I’m sure you hear him a lot more than I do. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Yes, don’t do that anywhere near Colonel Shin. He doesn’t have the same sense of humor I do. Do you, uh,” Thorne hesitated, “do you impersonate Mrs. Shin?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it. I’ve only got the rhythm of a few of her catch phrases down so far. ‘Details! Give me details!’ and ‘You shouldn’t care what’s on the test!’ I’m still trying to figure out how to do her voice.”
Thorne nodded. “How did yo
ur homework assignment go today—the differences between the time of the kings and now?” he said as casually as he dared.
Lannard sighed. “Actually, it was pretty interesting, I hate to admit it. When I asked my grandfather about the differences, he had to think about it. Usually he rambles on for hours, but it took him a while to come with something. He said taxes now were more stable, but a bit higher, but Guarder activity has been a lot worse during the past twenty years as if the Guarders weren’t as afraid of the Administrators. Of course there’s been nothing for the past year since Moorland, but you know that. The entertainments are better now, though. But he didn’t know if education was any better. He thought that maybe it had gotten worse. And the Administrators have just as many laws and rules as the kings.”
Thorne sifted through the information. “So what conclusions did the class come to?”
“Well, we’re not allowed to debate,” Lannard raised his eyebrows at the captain, “but we do all the time anyway. Of course Mrs. Shin says its mostly bickering rather than debating, but we decided that things were different under the Administrators but not better. Mrs. Shin told us what school used to be like, just before we all started schooling. Can you imagine being in school for only three hours a day? I could like school that way! That’s when I said life had definitely NOT improved under the Administrators!” Lannard started to laugh but suddenly remembered who he was talking to. He choked on the words that he had already let escape.
The captain stared at him.
Lannard swallowed hard. “Um, I didn’t mean that . . . what I mean is, uh—”
Captain Thorne shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’m not the eyes and ears of the Administrators. And I don’t talk to them unless I have to, so calm down. What did Mrs. Shin say when you declared that the Administrators were no better than the kings?” The captain put on his best friendly face while his mind prepared to take the most extensive and careful mental notes ever.