by Walter Rhein
Malik crawled between the towering walls in dark and crooked alleys, searching for food of any kind, table scraps that he could make a meal out of. Something to drive him forward and give him the strength to see the next dawning day.
Anything.
Rats were a problem, for they were hungry, too, and often objected to Malik’s theft of their boon. They bit and squealed and oftentimes drew blood. But even at seven, Malik was bigger than they were, and could handle them.
Dogs were another story.
They came in mangy packs and were as apt to try to make a meal out of Malik as steal whatever sustenance he had managed to scrounge up.
He started carrying a rod he found discarded in a random heap.
Malik was seven, but he already fought with tooth and claw.
Down by the docks where there were always fish, he searched beneath the posts that held back the crashing waves.
He could smell them.
He stepped lightly along the freshly washed sand.
And there they were, a pile of newly cut fish heads that had been discarded by merchants who knew they had no value on Camden’s wealthy shores.
Malik sucked what tiny rivulets of meat he could from the lanky bones. One after another after another, grasping whatever meager satisfaction he could. So focused was he on his task that he gave up making cursory glances around him.
So focused was he, the dogs took him by surprise.
The first one bowled into him and knocked him over, sending him scurrying into the pile. The wetness of the animal’s breath lay fast upon Malik’s back, the scratch of its teeth left a burning imprint.
Malik was down, but he wasn’t out, for though he had been derelict in his guard, he had never relinquished his weapon. Even as he had eaten, the spear had been lodged firmly beneath his arm. The second he had been struck, his fingers had tightened around it, and as the dog rolled him, he came up with the sharp end pointing.
The beast growled at him now, a hundred pounds of rabid fury. Malik crouched. He felt no fear, for he was accustomed to death leering over him.
The animal sprang, its terrible weight crashing down.
Malik’s spear came up and the beast impaled itself upon it. He slid down to Malik’s trembling fingers, still snapping and spitting until the life blood drained out of it.
It …
Malik looked up and saw the rest of the pack, hovering, waiting.
But they had no interest in Malik now that fresh meat had been supplied.
Howling, Malik dove into the corpse, licking at the hot blood with famished eagerness. The pack surged forward to join him, tearing at the fur-covered flesh with reckless abandon.
The meat was good.
For a brief, flickering instant, Malik knew satisfaction.
Then came the sound of a man’s hands slapping together in grim applause.
The dogs looked up and scattered. Even the promise of food couldn’t overcome their fear of this invincible foe.
Only Malik remained. He reached for his spear and tugged it from his fallen victim with a growl.
The act invoked a laugh.
Malik stared at the man who lounged easily against the railing of the pier above him. He was a lean, powerful figure average in his appearance and size except for the fierce set of his jaw.
That feature alone indicated that he was ruthless and unyielding.
“Fear not little one, I have no interest in your feast.”
Malik regarded the new threat for a moment but could make no sense of him. He made one more threatening thrust with his spear before returning to the body of the dog. Even as he chewed, he gazed upward, ever vigilant of this strange, lanky creature.
After a time, Malik’s hunger eased and the one on the bridge began talking.
His voice was strong and low. He spoke in smooth words as if he were accustomed to having to tame the wild.
“Do you understand the man-talk little one? Did you live among us long enough to pick that up?”
Malik glared.
“Do you know that I saw how you handled that animal? Do you realize that I didn’t raise a hand to help you? Can you comprehend that I could have just as easily watched it tear you apart and would now be in the process of gaining the trust of a new hound instead of a new soldier?”
Malik grunted again and lifted his spear.
The man laughed.
“Yes, I think you do.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slice of meat. It was a prime cut of beef, not the mangy, foul flesh of a dead street dog.
Malik could smell the difference instantly. All at once the bloody loin became the focus of his existence. The effect on him was electric. This was something he had to possess. There could be no alternative. Without thinking, he began to paw at the wall, looking for a way up to the pier.
The man inclined his head toward a shadowed stairway and Malik ran to it. He had overlooked the stairway completely in his frenzy.
Up, up he climbed, all the way to heaven, out of his pitiful, irrelevant hell.
But there at the top was a demon, the last gatekeeper he had to pass.
The demon held forth the meat.
“I am Oberon Keels, and you will be a member of the Camden Guard.”
With that he threw the meat to the ground and walked away.
Malik pounced upon it and devoured it in an instant.
When the morsel was gone, he stood up and followed.
Oberon knew he would.
The child was exactly the same as the hundreds of others who had come before him.
Malik was ten, lean and muscular. On his back, he carried a stout bow, for the Camden cadets earned their keep. They were required to hunt, and no bounty was ever shared.
For the three years Malik had been with the cadets, it had been constant schooling. If he was not sitting in a classroom studying odd scrawls on parchment or teaching boards, he was out in the practice yard twirling a sword or aiming a bow. It was only in moments like these, on hunts, that he was not driven by some taskmaster.
At least not one that he could see.
Out in the grasslands, he stooped low, running swiftly. In the distance, an antelope trotted, smooth and beautiful.
A surge of joy flooded Malik, for he had not had a successful hunt in some time and he already felt his reserves of strength were dwindling.
Bow back.
Arrow swiftly flying.
The target collapsed in a lifeless heap.
In a few moments the animal was gutted and hoisted over Malik’s shoulders. He took a few bites of raw meat to aid his stamina, and then began making his way back toward the barracks with his prize.
Two hundred yards from home, he stumbled across the body of a weak boy laying prone in the trail. It was Carter. Malik knew he had been suffering even more misfortune in his hunts than Malik recently and was quickly diminishing past the point of no return.
If he were not successful in a hunt today, Carter would never hunt again.
Help was forbidden, but despite that, Malik weighed the odds.
It took him only an instant to decide.
Malik dropped the antelope and with a deft cut of his dagger, produced a small morsel for Carter that he placed on the lad’s lips with a smile.
Carter smiled back.
And then an arrow pierced his eye.
Malik jumped back into a combative crouch and scanned the horizon for enemies, but it was to no avail. He’d been discovered. Oberon Keels stood not twenty yards away hefting his mighty bow.
“Each cadet must pull his own weight. That is our law. Weakness is not tolerated!” he bellowed.
With a sinking feeling, Malik realized that it had been a test.
He had failed.
Oberon strode forward.
The antelope was confiscated.
And Malik was left as bruised and broken as the corpse beside him.
Fifteen.
Sword practice.
Run
ning. Always running.
The hundred or so children who had made up Malik’s original class of cadets had been cut down to forty.
Only then could the training begin in earnest.
A panel was erected bearing each cadet’s name, numbered in order from the boy held in highest regard, to he who was considered the weakest.
Every single one of them knew they would be pitted against each other at the end of the next year. Number one against number forty, number two against number thirty-nine, all the way down the list. It would be a duel to the death. The winner would join the elite Camden Guard. The loser, forgotten.
Already, numbers twenty-one through forty were preparing for their demise.
Malik was number thirty-three.
They ran through the woods, naked except for a loincloth, a wooden practice sword clutched firmly in each hand.
Fifteen miles… Twenty.
Exhaustion set in like the cold, icy hands of the plague.
That was when the instructors jumped them.
A barrage of blows from the underbrush. Wooden swords raining down from the sky like a hailstorm, wielded from adult soldiers, true Guardsmen. Above it all, the voice of Oberon Keels bellowed like lightning.
“You must always be ready! You must never let down your defenses!”
Five highly trained Guardsmen assaulted Malik.
Malik held them off for a moment, but soon he was down. The blows rained upon him.
All through the line it was the same. And, true to the instructors’ evaluation, cadets one through twenty outlasted the bottom half.
Then again, they were only ambushed by one or two Guardsmen, and even these fought only with a tenth of the enthusiasm reserved for the “whipping boys.”
An example had to be made, and Oberon was quite willing to sacrifice half of his charges to accomplish it.
From the dirt, his vision clouded by perspiration and a rivulet of his own blood, Malik watched the top twenty go through the motions of a drill while he took a terrible beating. He saw cadet number seventeen, Riley, actually drop his weapon and his “attacker” wait courteously for him to pick it up again.
The blows continued to crash down on his body, but Malik didn’t even feel them now. His mind was in a different place.
It wasn’t envy he felt, that would have required a highly developed sense of self; a belief that he deserved to be treated fairly.
No, in Malik’s mind, his beating was just. He was in the bottom half, he needed extra training to achieve what the elite cadets could do.
That was what the instructors told them, anyway.
But while this “extra training” broke his fellow cadets, it motivated Malik.
Lying among the dusty rocks, he resolved to run faster, study harder, and practice more diligently than all the others. He would gain his bone sword. He would be a Guardsman.
At that moment, Oberon Keels made his way down the line. Cadets one through twenty he congratulated, for most of them were still on their feet and that meant that they had handled the ambush well.
Twenty-one was down, and Oberon kicked him viciously in the stomach.
“Pathetic!” he bellowed. “Look to your betters—a Guardsman does not fall!”
All the way down the line he went, each fallen body receiving a hearty kick.
Upon his arrival, most of the cadets turned away. But Malik lifted his head and met Oberon’s gaze. Fierce determination twinkled there and he wanted his instructor to see it. He wanted him to know he had not given up. He wanted him to understand that he, Malik, would not fail.
Above all, he wanted his teacher’s admiration.
“Insolent swine!” Oberon cried, “You’ll never grow to be more than a pint-sized runt. I should have left you to the dogs beneath the pier.”
He kicked Malik squarely in the face and Malik quickly descended into darkness.
But it had not escaped him that the great man, Oberon Keels, remembered him, remembered where he had come from. That thought gave him pride as he drifted off into oblivion. That was something he could cling to and build on.
That was something that gave him hope.
Sixteen.
The day of the test.
Hands sweaty and trembling.
The sword heavy and clumsy. It was as if he’d never held a weapon before. All those secret hours spent in extra training now seemed to have been for nothing. All those nights when he snuck away from the barracks to practice his form by analyzing his moon-cast shadow.
The ring was set. The instructors took their places around the perimeter, as did the waiting cadets. Four columns of fire lit up the night like midday.
Already, the sand was bloody. Already, four of Malik’s companions had been carried off. Already, four bone swords had been awarded.
Four duels.
The lower-ranked cadet in each match had yet to even put up a fight.
Oberon Keels strode to the center of the arena. His eyes were as black as the night behind him. Malik had fallen steadily in his estimation for the whole of the previous year. He was now ranked thirty-sixth in the group, despite the fact that he had done everything he could to better himself. Despite the fact that it now took seven or even eight guardsmen to detain him on training runs. He had even battled to a standoff the previous week by taking advantage of the terrain and lodging himself into a small crevice.
Oberon scolded him for breaking rank and had him severely beaten. But Malik knew he had done well. He started viewing the beatings as offerings of love. Every blow was a kind of embrace. An encouragement that he become stronger than the others.
“Cadet five, step forward,” Oberon bellowed. He allowed a twinkle of pride to enter his voice as he did for all the highly ranked cadets.
The boy leaped to his feet. He was a handsome lad with a superior expression named Turley. Malik had been watching him for quite some time, preparing for this battle. The instructors had worked with the top twenty extensively, mostly as the whipping boys were lying prone and being beaten. Although Malik had assumed a vacant, pain-filled expression in those moments, he had secretly been focused on the progress of the elite cadets. He memorized every step, every thrust, every parry, and then practiced them himself, alone to perfection.
He knew how Turley moved.
“Cadet thirty-six,” Oberon snarled, “come and test yourself.”
Malik stepped forward.
An absolute silence descended, the silence of an impending kill.
Oberon took one of each cadet’s hands and lifted them into the air.
“To the death!” he bellowed. He released Turley’s hand gently, but wrenched Malik’s arm down as hard as he could. Malik lost his balance and stumbled forward as Oberon retreated from the ring.
Turley attacked, attempting to take advantage of Malik’s awkward stance. He swung his sword in a sweeping arc in an effort to disembowel the teetering cadet. Had Malik fought with his momentum, the fight might have ended there. But Malik learned something during his long nights of practice, and even at the cruel hands of his masters.
He learned that weapons play was like a flowing river, you must always go forward. Any attempt to turn against the current and take advantage of an opportunity that already passed would end in defeat.
You must be diligent.
You must be disciplined.
You must be ready to seize the moment when it presented itself.
Malik dove forward and his opponent’s sword sailed harmlessly under him. Not looking back, Malik rolled to his knees. He knew he had only a split-second to position himself to defend the assault that was surely coming. Oberon had put him three steps behind before the fight even begun. He would have to survive another two exchanges, at least, until he would be able to meet Turley on equal terms.
From his knees, Malik swung his sword behind his back to deflect the slash he knew was coming. Turley was proud and headstrong. Failing to connect with Malik on his first blow would have put him off his fo
oting. Were he to take the extra moment to regain it before his next assault, Malik would be lost, for he could not blindly defend a thrust.
But Malik knew that Turley would slash. His wounded pride would demand that a blow connect as soon as possible, even if it meant giving up the chance at quick victory.
The blow shuddered across Malik’s back, accompanied by the ring of Malik’s blocking sword. Malik’s face twitched in satisfaction. He knew his opponent well.
The echo of the mighty exchange lingered in the clearing. Turley’s companions cheered; it appeared their friend was completely dominating the duel. Indeed, the blow had been mighty, and despite the fact that it had not drawn blood, Malik felt it throughout his entire body.
But now came the moment he played for. The moment Turley needed to recuperate from the assault.
As Turley drew back, Malik made a half turn and rose to a lunging position. He was facing his opponent. One more exchange would put him on even footing. But what would the attack be? An overhead chop? A thrust? A slash?
Malik could defend against any of them, but his chances were better if he guessed correctly before the blow was initiated. The current was moving swiftly behind him, he must channel its vast power to bring Turley’s death and not his own.
Turley surprised him. He took two steps backwards and motioned for Malik to get to his feet.
Turley’s friends loved it. Four of them sat there with their new bone swords, laughing in fiendish mockery.
Malik didn’t understand, and he scoured the situation for a trick. Slowly he rose, waiting for Turley’s face to change from bemused and condescending to triumph as his play was revealed.
But no card was played, and Malik gained his footing uncontested.
Malik simply could not comprehend how Turley could give up his advantage. Malik’s background didn’t allow him to grasp the sheer stupid value the privileged placed on witnessing another’s public humiliation.
Spurred by the approval of his friends, Turley laughed loudly at Malik.
“Come on, thirty-six!” he bellowed contemptuously. “Let’s see what you’ve got!”
Malik awaited Turley with absolute stillness. He had no ego to be piqued by such a remedial insult. His features were flaccid and focused. The only thing he paid any attention to was the position of his opponent’s body and the set of his feet.