Guardians Of The Keep tbod-2

by Carol Berg

  I poked through the pile and pulled out a decent sword. Strange to feel a weapon in my hand after so many days. Tempting. But the warrior’s personal slave knelt beside the slavehandler. I knew the price of any misbehavior on my part.

  The Zhid warrior took his stance, sword raised. “Ready,” he said.

  I stepped to the center of the training ground and raised the sword. Unnerving that he was armored, while I was left in my skimpy tunic and sore, bandaged feet. But the day’s rest had done me good, and I liked great-swords. I had the height and weight to carry them well. Besides, I held the echo of a dying man’s voice in my head, and the cursed Zhid had no imagination at all.

  Five times during the morning, the warrior called a halt to our sparring, rested, changed weapons or armor, and started again. The sixth time, he complained to the slave-handler that I’d taken a superior weapon, and that I should properly be handicapped in some way for not noting it. A hand cut off, perhaps.

  The slavehandler summoned Cinnegar. The red-haired Zhid, who evidently had final say in all matters regarding the stable of practice slaves, said he would not allow me to be damaged. Being new, perhaps I’d not been rated properly. The warrior didn’t like hearing that, but wasn’t of high enough rank to overrule Cinnegar. I was glad for that. He sent me back to the stable.

  It was made clear from the first that these matches were strictly physical combat. The Zhid did not use sorcery in their training, believing they must achieve superiority in arms as well as all other aspects of their power. Just as we Dar’Nethi hoarded our power for healing and the defense of our cities, the Zhid hoarded theirs to use in their Seeking, which stole the minds of their enemies.

  No sooner had I been penned up again than I was called out for a warrior named Comus. His training ground looked exactly the same as the other, except for the dead slave sprawled on the hard ground with one arm mostly severed and his skull cloven in half. A servant shooed away an army of flies and removed his practice armor so I could put it on. Comus preferred an armored opponent. The padded leather was still warm and wet with the dead man’s sweat and blood.

  Comus used a great-sword, too, and was big, strong, and vicious. After slogging through a half-day with my earlier opponent, I wished this one preferred a lighter weapon, but eventually I managed to make him yield.

  “This one again tomorrow when I’m fresh,” Comus said to the guard, pointing his sword at me.

  Without heed to heat, hunger, thirst, sore feet, or the various scratches I had collected, I collapsed on the straw and fell instantly asleep. I had survived one day.

  I trained with Comus every day, sometimes with padded practice weapons, sometimes with real blades. He was good, but I was just enough better to avoid serious injury. We worked on strikes and appropriate counters, defensive strategies appropriate to certain positions, timing and balance. He began to copy a few of my moves, and it made me wonder what in perdition I was doing. It was an argument I could not resolve. To fight the cursed Zhid-what slave could ask for more than a chance to injure or kill his captors? Yet I was teaching him to kill more of my own people.

  But I could not refuse to fight or to follow their rules. In my first week with Comus, I was given a clear demonstration of the consequences of disobedience. During one of our rest periods, Comus laid a wager with another Zhid that his personal slave had more impressive private parts than did his friend’s slave. When Comus commanded his slave to strip to prove the bet, the kneeling man, who had not moved during the animated discussion, closed his eyes.

  “… And arouse yourself,” said Comus, sniggering. “I do not like losing.”

  The slave looked up at Comus in shock, then hardened his jaw and slowly shook his head.

  Comus’s bullish face went livid, and he belted his slave across the mouth. “I could have invoked your compulsions,” he said, “but it was inconceivable that my slave would refuse a simple command.” Then, without taking a breath, Comus lopped off the head, not of his own slave, but that of his friend’s slave. “Now. I command you once more. Strip yourself and this dog meat, and we shall see how the cock of a live Dar’Nethi compares to that of a dead one.”

  The horror-stricken slave did as he was commanded, and though I averted my eyes so as not to witness his shame, I could not help but be relieved at his compliance. There was no other slave nearby. My head would have been the price of another refusal.

  The days may have been filled with enough combat and sweat to block out rational thought, but the nights were long, with plenty of time for guilt and self-loathing. I did as I was told. I had to live… I had things to do in my life… vital things… This conviction rumbled in my belly like war drums. Was this some Zhid compulsion laid on slaves along with our collars to prevent us doing away with ourselves?

  After three weeks Comus wanted to move on to some other kind of training, and I was assigned to another warrior. He was a rapier man and very quick. From the beginning, he forbade me to withhold, insisting that I fight with every skill I possessed. He certainly withheld nothing. If his accuracy had been better, I might have taken more than a few punctures and a bloody cheek while I was adjusting to the different style of fighting. I worked with him for over a month, and then I killed him.

  It was a lucky thrust at the end of a long day, and I think the sun got in his eyes. He had wanted to practice a new technique with unblunted tips and had not bothered to put on his sparring vest. Caught up in the exhilaration of combat, he had expanded the practice into a full-blown duel. When I realized what I had done, I immediately looked around to see who had witnessed it. My handler had not returned. The only other person present was the officer’s personal slave whose usual bleak expression brightened into a grin. He pressed a finger to his lips and motioned me away. He knew I had no binding compulsion to stay where I was.

  Run… I had at most an hour before the handler would come. If I could get through the encampment without anyone noticing the mark of the sword on my collar, then perhaps I could make it as far as the cliffs by nightfall. Barefoot. Unarmed, for I dared not carry a weapon through the camp. One chance in a thousand I would make it to the hills. One in fifty thousand they wouldn’t find me. One in a million that I could make it across the Wastes to the Vales of Eidolon. I wasn’t certain even in what direction they lay. And yet, I would have tried except for the nagging conviction that I was not alone, that I had to listen and be ready… Oh, gods, be ready for what?

  I had lived for eight weeks, each day tallied carefully with a length of straw placed in the bottom of my bread basket. Only two men had been in the stable longer. The rest of those who had been there when I arrived were dead, and new slaves had taken their places. I could no longer imagine the taste of any food but the dry, sour graybread, nor any drink but stale, tepid water. The remembrance of savory roast chicken or frostberries soaked in wine filled me with disgust. All such physical cravings had gone dead or turned into revulsion. Food, wine, women… even a touch would be unbearable. The faces of my friends had faded from my memory no matter how hard I worked at reconstructing them, and I cursed bitterly when I discovered I could not bring to my mind the winding lanes of Sen Ystar. Even the memories of the beauteous Vales had blurred. So why could I not run?

  I shrugged my shoulders at the eager slave and sat down in the dust by the dead warrior to wait for the slavehandler. I had to live, but I was damned if I knew why.

  When a slave killed a Zhid in training, it was not taken lightly. The slavemaster came in to lead an investigation. He interrogated Cinnegar to ensure the keeper hadn’t scheduled a mismatch, and the surgeon to determine the cause of death. Acquaintances of the deceased were questioned, as well as his servants and aides. The slave was placed under compulsions to discover if any person, Zhid, slave, or servant, had aided him in the match. Even when all was found to be proper, one more ritual was involved.

  “Lest you forget your place,” said the slavemaster, touching my collar. He sneered in disgust at my retching sp
asms.

  And so it went on. I made it past four months and saw seventeen men-the flower of Dar’Nethi manhood-perish in that wretched stable. For every one I whispered the Healer’s invocation, weeping in impotent fury at the lonely ignominy of their deaths. Only a few of them even heard the words, but I could think of nothing else to do for them. I hounded the guards and the surgeon as much as I dared, to care for their wounds more quickly, to preserve the Lords’ “investment” in experienced practice partners, but soon it was rare for a guard to answer my rattling of the bars or to permit me to speak when I begged it.

  I killed another warrior and paid the price again, and then I took a wound in the shoulder that kept me out of action for a week. The surgeon said he had been given orders to make sure I was healed. “The Lords are interested in skill-even of your mundane sort.”

  The week of idleness was almost unbearable. The demands in my head to live and to learn became so insistent that every voice made me start. I paced my cell, unable to rest and unable to eat. I forced down the graybread and water and commanded myself to sleep, for I dared not lose my edge. Yet when I dropped off, strange dreams plagued me, of rooms and faces I didn’t know, of horrors that made me wake up screaming, of words that made me weep though I couldn’t capture them on waking. The surgeon examined my wound and said it was healing as expected, but I had best get some sleep or all his work would go for nothing.

  I slapped the back of my hand against my mouth. “Speak,” he said.

  “Can you give me something to make me sleep? So I won’t dream?” My own voice sounded harsh and alien to me. I had gone weeks without speech.

  Gorag, the Zhid surgeon, poked around in his leather case and came up with a blue vial. “Perhaps this will help.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I shouldn’t give it to you, but I have a wager with Cinnegar that you’ll make it past half a year. I don’t like to lose.” He poured the contents down my throat and called the handler. I slept for two days straight and had no dreams at all. When he examined my shoulder and pronounced it fit, I asked permission to speak again. He shook his head. “Better not. Just stay alive two more months.”

  I managed it. I fought and trained like a madman, as indeed I began to believe I was. Gorag’s blue vial had only suspended my strange malady temporarily. I considered asking him for more of it, but I couldn’t afford to be drowsy either. The only way to sleep was to work myself to exhaustion. So even after a full day of training with a Zhid warrior, I would run in place or do some other exercise until I dropped to the straw like a dead man.

  On the day I had been in the stable six months, I killed my seventh Zhid. Nincas was a murderously cruel villain, who tortured his servants and slaves to death for the pleasure of it. I enjoyed killing him. We battled for half a day in a series of timed bouts. A bull of a man, he was not about to yield to a slave as long as there were any onlookers, and Gorag had gathered at least a hundred of them to witness the winning of his bet. I could think of nothing but death that day, and when at last I pulled my sword from his belly, I stabbed it in again and again and again, until my arms were covered in blood and I could no longer lift my weapon. I fell to my knees on the hot desert floor and began to laugh, but there was no joy in it. I could not remember joy…

  “V’Saro!” Hands slapped my cheeks. “V’Saro, wake up!” Straw poked at my cheek. I couldn’t remember being taken to my cell. I was achy and dull and smelled like death. “Here, have a drink.” My waterskin was thrust into my hands. I drained it and then promptly heaved the water up again. “Come, V’Saro. You’ve made me a rich man, and for that I will do you a favor. A risky matter. No one is supposed to talk to you until you’ve been interrogated.”

  Gorag. He had helped me sleep. I slapped the back of my hand to my mouth.

  “Yes, yes, speak.”

  “Go drown yourself in your cursed water.”

  “You’re raving. No one has ever seen such a match as you fought today. The slavemaster comes. He’s heard of your feat… and also of how you finished it.” The wiry little surgeon gestured in disgust at the dark blood that covered my arms and crusted my stiff tunic. “If you want to live, then you’d best gather your wits.”

  My existence had no relation to life. I could not feel life any more-thanks to the collar. But I had to keep breathing. There was purpose to my existence. I was not alone. “How much could you win if I make it a year?”

  “Not enough to make me a Lord of Zhev’Na, but perhaps enough that I could get out of this blasted camp.”

  He stuffed a lump of graybread in my hands. “Eat, and clean yourself. They talk of sending you to Zhev’Na, where the elite of our commanders are trained. But they’ll not send you if they think you’re mad. They won’t allow a madman to live with such strength and skill as yours. Do you understand?”

  I grunted.

  Gorag slipped out of the cell and locked it quietly, then scurried away in the dark. After a while, I banged on the bars, and the smirking guard came.

  “Speak,” he said, to my gesture. “Unless you are going to tell me about some whining slave who needs a nursemaid.”

  “I want to wash.”

  “Do you now?”

  “I have an early match tomorrow with the protégé of Gensei Senat. I’ll sleep better if I’m clean, and it will save you trouble in the morning. Perhaps you’ll want to bet on my victory.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and let me out. Likely a small share of Gorag’s winnings prompted his generosity. He sat on the half-wall and watched while I stripped and washed in the slimy sink. I rinsed the blood from my tunic, wrung it out, and hung it on the bars of my cell to dry, and then I pulled straw over me to keep out the chill.

  That night I dreamed of a house in a great city, a graceful house whose owner clearly valued the refinements of art and music and literature. A silver flute lay on a music stand, awaiting its player, and books and manuscripts touching every aspect of history and nature and philosophy were poised to enlighten an intelligent eye. The library opened onto a small garden, its soft, sweet air touched with the scent of roses. I wandered through the softly lit passageways looking for someone, though I did not know who. No one was there. Only emptiness. Only sorrow.

  The slavemaster woke me to the broiling stench of the slave pen and laid me under compulsions for questioning. It took him an hour to conclude that I was not mad; then he touched my collar to teach me my place and sent me to Zhev’Na.

  CHAPTER 33

  Seri

  For unending days and weeks I ate and slept and stitched, refusing every intrusion of thought or sense until I could scarcely distinguish myself from my companions. Every so often my nagging conscience reminded me that I had purpose to my life, that people were depending on me. But impossibility and drudgery quickly stifled such uncomfortable ideas. I went for days on end without registering a single memorable word or incident or giving the least passing remembrance to my son or my friends or the perilous state of the world. My cherished hope that Karon yet existed somewhere in this world withered and died. He never would have abandoned me in this place.

  The morning one of the sewing women was found dead on her pallet was the nadir. Gam had died in her sleep, and only when Kargetha asked where was our eighth did anyone think to mention it. Her body was dragged off by a slave to be stripped and burned. No sign of her remained when we returned to the dormitory that night. She had been a gregarious person as the sewing women went, and not unkind, but she was forgotten as quickly as the breakfast gruel. When I asked the others how long she had sewn in Zhev’Na, they only shrugged and went back to work.

  My blood stirred. No one should finish her life in such a fashion. I had come close to it myself, in my days in Dunfarrie, when I believed I had lost everything, and habit was the only reason I could find to get up every morning. That time a mute, desperate stranger had collapsed at my feet, forcing me to re-engage with the world. Gam’s desolate passing pricked me awake before I had to make that long journey all ov
er again. If I was going to die, then it might as well be to some purpose. And so, the next time Kargetha told Zoe to send someone to the Gray House, rather than staying quiet and sullen as the others did, I spoke up.

  “I think Zoe should go.” The sewing women gaped at me in shock. I shifted on my feet and used my sleeve to wipe the sweat tickling my brow. “She always sends the rest of us, and never goes herself. ‘Tisn’t right. Dia got kicked last week, and Lun got beat bad when she dropped her basket in the Lords’ house, even though she was run into by a Worship. But Zoe never gets in trouble because she never goes nowhere.”

  “What is your name?” asked Kargetha, staring. Incredulous.

  “Eda, your Worship.” I cast my eyes down.

  “Ah, yes. Eda. The one who talks too much. I think perhaps you have talked too much once again. From now on you will make all deliveries from this group and fetch all the thread, leather, and cloth from the warehouses. Do you hear me?”

  “But your Worship-”

  “One more word and I will compel you to silence for a year.” The finger pointing at my ear tag was thin and knotted like an oak twig.

  I dipped my knee and covered my face with my hands, so she couldn’t see my relief… and satisfaction.

  Glowering and mumbling, I made three or four trips a day-hot, dusty journeys, carrying heavy loads, subject to the abusive whims of Zhid warriors and administrators. On the fourth day I was sent to the kitchens of the Gray House.