Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

  Four armed guards were waiting at the gate. “This one for the mines… For house slave… For the farms…” They were sorting us.

  I was the first to be designated “practice slave,” and was shoved back into the pen. Evidently the collars were marked with our assignment. When the next practice slave was selected, I saw the image of a sword etched into the dark metal of his collar, so I guessed mine had one also. I almost reached up to find out, but I could not make myself touch the thing.

  Three of us were designated to be practice slaves. As soon as the assignments were complete and our former companions led away, we were taken inside the building again, this time to stand before a pale man with a narrow, aristocratic face. He sat behind a wide desk in a bare, windowless, stifling room, flanked by two heavily armed Zhid.

  “Only three this lot?”

  “Yes, Slavemaster,” said the Zhid who had brought us in.

  “I understand we’ve used up three practice slaves this week alone. We’ll have to do better.”

  “There’s another lot due tomorrow.”

  “Well, let’s have a look at these.” The Zhid officer rose from his desk and walked around us slowly, poking at each of us with the handle of a whip. He stopped in front of us. “So, my Dar’Nethi friends. You’ve been chosen to die in order to make your enemies invincible. The time of your death will depend on how diligent you are-and how obedient. You will be required to fight to the best of your ability, even if it means death to one of our warriors.” He tapped his whip in his hand. “Because you must be able to fight effectively, we cannot bind you with the same compulsions we use on other slaves. But we do have methods to prevent your taking advantage of your freedoms. You will be penned when not in use, and- Let me show you what I mean. You”-he pointed the whip handle at me-“kneel.”

  I did so. Grudgingly. But I did.

  “It is required that a slave spread his arms when kneeling. Ten lashes if you fail to do so again.”

  He stood close enough that I could smell his slightly astringent sweat. “Now, take me down.” I looked up stupidly, and he spit in my face. “Are you deaf? Obey, or one of your companions will find himself without a head. Take me down.”

  With much misgiving, I swept my arms around to grab his knees, releasing far too much anger in the process. But I had scarcely touched him when he laid his finger on my collar. Spasms of fire rippled through my muscles, my chest, my limbs… everywhere. The collar constricted my throat, so I couldn’t get a breath. When he took his hand away, I collapsed, gasping and shaking, huddled in a mindless knot on the floor.

  The Zhid resumed his seat. “Cinnegar here is your keeper and will tell you how it is you will eat, sleep, clean yourself, and train. Speak without permission, and we will remove your tongue. You have no life that is your own, no function save what we require of you, and so it will be until you die.”

  For the rest of the day, Cinnegar, a short, burly Zhid with reddish hair and a nasty scar on his left cheek, put the three of us through one exercise after another. We ran, jumped, and demonstrated our skills with bows and staves, and he had us fight each other with a variety of blades and knives, and with bare hands, our only orders not to damage each other. We worked in an unshaded, walled compound, but were allowed to dip into a water barrel as often as we needed and eat graybread until we felt bloated.

  One of my companions was a scrawny youth of about twenty. He was a decent fighter, precise and quick with his movements, able to present a variety of attacks and defenses, but he had no training in tactics and no endurance at all. Our second bout left him panting and lead-footed. Eight days of the desert and the horror of the collaring had done nothing for any of us, of course, and my own arms felt heavy early on. My feet were wretched. Raw and stinging, they bled as we worked.

  The second man was nearer my own age, a short, blocky fellow with thick brows. He had no skills, only brute strength and such fear that it brought him near frenzy when I wrestled with him.

  “Calm yourself,” I growled in his ear as we rolled on the ground. “Live.” I pinned him in moments. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears rolled down his leathery cheeks. As I stood and reached out my hand to help him up, he gripped it ferociously.

  By sundown we were too tired to move. Cinnegar made no comments about our efforts. He shoved us into individual cells in a stable-like block of them, giving us each a basket of graybread and a waterskin. “Bang on the bars if you need more. Someone might come or might not.” He showed us how to ask permission to speak. You slapped the back of your hand against your lips, then drew it sharply away.

  Even after Cinnegar left us alone, we kept silent. Though no guards were in sight, I wasn’t willing to risk my tongue by saying anything.

  I sank down on the straw and picked a chunk of graybread from the basket. Eating was about the last thing I wanted to do at the moment, but I forced myself. The days would get no easier, I guessed, and I wanted to live. As I leaned against the bars, staring at a second unappetizing lump, a motion from one of the other cells caught my eye. The older man had lifted his own bread to me in salute. I returned his gesture, and we matched each other bite for bite through piece after piece of the sour stuff.

  With every swallow, I felt the collar. Could one ever become accustomed to such a thing? It was wide enough to prevent a complete range of motion with the head- something to be considered in combat. The Zhid warriors would know. It was as tight as it could possibly fit without choking, tight enough to keep you on the near edge of panic all the time, tight enough you could never forget it. Tentatively I reach my hand up to touch the thing. Oh, gods… I heaved up all the foul stuff I had eaten, and after an hour’s venture into the realm of despair, I fell asleep shivering and empty. At some time in the night, though, I woke and forced myself to eat. I had to live. It was imperative that I live. I just couldn’t imagine why I felt that way.

  For a week the three of us trained together every day, all day, under the watchful eye of Cinnegar or one of his deputies. The work was long, hard, and viciously hot, but we managed. Each day I grew a little stronger, my principal worry being my feet. Swollen and festering, they’d become so tender that even to stand still was agony.

  At the end of the week, the slavemaster came to watch our practice. “Have you decided on placement?” he asked Cinnegar.

  “This one should stay here.” The red-haired Zhid pointed to the older man. “He can join the battle exercise planned for next week. He is mediocre at best and is unlikely to survive more than one or two rounds. The youth has improved his stamina, but will always be unexceptional in his skills. However, he could serve us in a low-level training unit. Niemero’s unit lost a slave last week, and this one can replace him. This one”-his pale eyes fell on me-“is interesting. If he were to get his feet in better condition, he could possibly begin work with the command training unit. Sword training in particular. He might do very well.”

  “I hear that your eye is excellent, Keeper Cinnegar. As I’m new to the post, I shall have to rely on it. All shall be done as you recommend.”

  Cinnegar bowed to the slavemaster, and then returned us to the pen. The youth was taken that evening. He nodded to each of us as he was tethered and led out of the pen. Not long after that, one of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me, linking my hands and feet and hooking a chain to the collar. The other man saluted me with his graybread one last time and sat alone in the pen as I was taken away.

  The slavehandler marched me through the vast encampment to another “stable” of black bars-a long cage attached to one end of a brick building. “Here’s the new one to put away,” he said to a warrior who stood in an open doorway in the brick wall, drinking from a metal cup. “His first placing. Only a sevenday in.”

  The guard, a wide-nosed fellow with deep weather creases across his brow, poured out the remaining contents of his cup, splattering damp globs of sand on my legs. After hooking his cup to his belt, he took my tether from the slavehandler and rake
d an insolent gaze over me from head to sandy toes. “Big fellow.” He coiled the tether chain around his hand until my face was only a handsbreadth from his own, his soulless gray eyes unblinking. His meaty finger traced a line across my shoulder. When his finger encountered my collar, I flinched. He grinned-a grotesque, unnerving expression on a damnable Zhid. But he just tapped on the metal surface without triggering the enchantment. “We’ll see how long he can stay alive.”

  “I’ve got to fetch Gorag,” said the handler. “Keeper says we’re to see to his feet.” As my escort hurried into the night, the guard released the tether to its full length and dragged me through the door.

  We stood in a small open space, sheltered by the brick wall behind and to the right of us and a brick enclosure to the left. The Zhid jerked his head to two doorways on the left. “Supply room and surgeon’s room. Over here”-he indicated the corner to our right where a rectangular stone sink stood half filled with nasty-looking water-“is where you will wash yourself before a match. Our commanders don’t like fighting with slaves who are filthy.”

  Directly in front of us was a wall of the familiar narrowly spaced black bars. Taking the lantern that hung over the sink and unlocking a gate in the center of the wall, the guard led me down an aisle between the cells, some twleve of them in all. The lamp wasn’t bright enough for me to see more than indistinct shapes sitting or lying on the floor in each one. No one moved as we passed.

  Halfway down the aisle was an open door, leading into a cell with a thick layer of straw over the dirt floor. The guard unhooked the tether chain and shoved me inside. “Water and graybread will be brought. Down there at the far end of the stable is a pile of clean straw. You’ll be permitted to change the straw once in a month, so you’ll want to have a care with your habits. Remember, slaves don’t speak without permission.” He grinned again as he slammed the door and locked it. “I like removing tongues.”

  I sank onto the straw, grateful to get off my wretched feet. The cooling night breeze blew through the bars. As the guard’s footsteps receded, a dreadful quiet enveloped me. Whatever scraps of resilience I had left withered in the silence.

  My cell was a cube a few paces on a side. The graybread basket and the waterskin were hung on the bars beside the door and center aisle, where they could be filled from outside the cage. Nothing but the vague dark outlines of buildings was visible past the outer bars, and though the cells on either side of me were occupied, I could neither see nor hear the occupants, only feel their human presence.

  An hour later, as I huddled in the corner trying to persuade myself to sleep, the stable gate opened with a clang and the lamp moved down the aisle. The guard stopped outside my cell. “Up with you.”

  Holding onto the bars, I dragged myself to my feet, unable even to speculate on what was coming. He led me to one of the rooms in the brick enclosure, shoved me onto a long wooden bench along one wall, and attached both my tether chain and my hands to an iron ring set into the wall above my head. Then he left me alone in the sputtering yellow light of an oil lamp.

  The small room had wooden benches around every wall and more iron rings set into the walls and the floors. The room also sported a long table, a backless stool, and a small wheeled table holding a basin and pitcher. Surgeon’s room, the guard had told me.

  Before very long, a Zhid hurried in, carrying a large leather case. He was a small, tidy man with a short beard trimmed close around his full lips. Tossing his case on the table, he yelled at someone outside the door to bring him cavet.

  He dragged the stool over beside the bench and sat down. “Let me see your feet,” he said, slapping the stained wooden bench. “Here.”

  I propped my throbbing feet on the bench, and the Zhid took one in hand and examined it, poking here and there with his thumbs, dusting off the caked sand. His face wrinkled in disgust, he dropped my foot and retrieved his case. After fetching one of the basins and filling it with water from the pitcher, he set to work-none too gently-cutting the dead skin away, and draining and cleaning the nastiest festerings. A boy brought the surgeon a tin cup filled with steaming dark liquid that smelled strongly of anise. He gulped the drink and went back to work, mumbling about the waste of his time and talent on slaves. Several times he made odd gestures with his fingers and I felt a painful burning and stretching deep in my foot. Some devilish enchantment, I guessed, but I could not detect such things any more. I tried to concentrate on anything else, but there wasn’t much to distract me.

  As the surgeon covered the open wounds with ointments and bandages, and I was breathing a little easier, another slave was brought in and attached to the wall across the room. He was bleeding from a deep gash in his thigh and had a vicious swelling over one eye. I tried to engage the man’s attention, but he kept his eyes averted.

  “This one has to fight again tomorrow, so patch him well,” said the guard. “Are you done with this lot?”

  The surgeon tied off my last bandage, cut off the end with his knife, and stood up. “Keep him idle for a day. And send the mule-brained Drudge with more cavet.” As I was detached from the ring and led hobbling away, he was pulling out materials to stitch the other man’s thigh. I didn’t envy the poor bastard.

  A Zhid Healer. The very concept made my head hurt.

  The next day was long and unsettling. Left idle by the surgeon’s order, I listened and learned. The other slaves were taken out one by one through the morning, assigned to high-ranking warriors who had summoned sparring partners. Evidently some of them had regular assignments, while others were moved from one Zhid to another depending on special needs and requests. One man was assigned to wrestling, one to a match with knives and axes, one to speed work with a commander who had been demoted for his lack of agility.

  Over and over, I heard the rules laid down. The slave would wear only such armor and use only such weapons- real or blunted practice weapons-as the Zhid warrior specified. The slave was required to fight to the best of his abilities and to participate in such exercises and drills as the warrior or his instructor devised. The slave was not permitted to yield the match or stop the exercise. Only Zhid could call a halt.

  As the slaves were taken out of the pen, led by tethers attached to their collars, none of them looked to one side or the other. Was it forbidden, or was it just too painful to see others witnessing one’s degradation? Perhaps it was only fear of what was to come, for one day’s watching taught me how fleeting was a career as a sparring partner for the Zhid.

  A man was found dead in his cell that morning. Two more wounded men were brought back by midday, told they would be looked at when the surgeon had time. One of them was in the cell next to me, and in his shallow struggling breaths I heard an ominous gurgling. I banged on the bars of my cell. When the guard came, I slapped the back of my hand on my lips.

  “Speak.”

  “The man next to me is dangerously wounded. I can hear it in his breathing. His chest-”

  “Is that all? Call me again for such a reason, and I’ll have you flogged.” He spat at the dying man and walked away.

  I had to do something. My hand fit between the bars, but only as far as the wrist bands. The steel loops that were used for restraints wouldn’t fit through, and my neighbor lay too far away for my fingers to reach. With no talent for healing and no power for mind-speaking or anything else, words were all I could offer him. Many times in the days I’d fought on the walls of Avonar, I had heard Dar’Nethi Healers pray their invocation and found comfort in the familiar words. Perhaps they might do the same for the dying man and remind him of who he was. So I whispered the verse through the bars of the cell, hoping the guard would not pass by and hear.

  “Life, hold. Stay your hand ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill his soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place. Je’den
encour, my brother. Heal swiftly.”

  A rasping whisper responded. “L’Tiere calls. I go freely.”

  “May Vasrin’s light show you the Way beyond the Verges.”

  “I had almost forgotten…”

  “I, too,” I said, but only to myself, for the struggling breaths had ceased with his last word. It was several hours until the guard noticed the man was dead and dragged him down the aisle. I could not see his face.

  The other man survived until the surgeon came. Evidently his leg was maimed beyond easy repair. He was taken away in a cart.

  The afternoon stretched long and hot and quiet. My gray-bread basket and waterskin were kept filled by a boy who wore no collar. I supposed he had no power that required such bondage. No way to tell. Snippets of conversation from the guards and those who passed by outside the pen drifted on the air: Someone named Gensei Senat had been posted to Zhev’Na; the previous slavemaster, who had only taken office a month before, had died suddenly; another Dar’Nethi village had been taken. The Lords were pleased with the outcome of the raid.

  The Lords… Zhev’Na… No Dar’Nethi child grew up without nightmares of Zhev’Na, and yet I could not say I had ever really believed in the Lords or their fortress. I was beginning to believe.

  What I did come to believe in was the Zhid surgeon. He knew his business. By the next morning, though still tender to the touch, my feet were no longer hot with festering. He dressed them again, wrapped them tightly, and cleared me to fight.

  One of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me while the air was still cool. After reminding me of the rules, he led me through the camp to a walled yard of hard-baked dirt. In one corner was a water barrel. Piled beside it were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Standing in the center of the arena were a brawny Zhid warrior, clad in a hauberk and steel cap, and another slave, who was strapping steel kneecaps over the warrior’s greaves. “The warrior has requested sparring with great-swords,” said the handler, detaching my tether and nodding toward the pile of arms. “You will follow his instructions.”