"Good." The man lifted a bony finger, pointing at Joti's brow. "Hold it. Feel it. Do you want to change it?"
"More than anything."
"What's done is done. It can't be fought any more than you can battle the moon. But the wrath of what happened can be made stronger than swords and swifter than arrows. Grab tight to it now. Do you have it?"
"I think so."
"Breathe in. Out. In. And out." The man repeated this, hypnotic, until Joti's breathing matched his words. The man flicked a bloom of powder at his face. Joti flinched at the iron-like smell. His breath started to feel like vapor in his lungs, dense and cool. The old man held out a small porcelain plate. "Give me your hand."
Joti obeyed. The man nicked his finger with a small knife. He caught a single drop of blood on the plate.
"Do you still hold the feeling? Then use it to make the blood move."
Dry-mouthed, Joti stared into the red bead. Felt the rage at the raiders. The despair of the coming defeat. The anguish as his head struck the rock. It swirled around him like a tempest and he poured it into the droplet, willing it to slide across the plate. There—had it quivered? He looked up at the old man, who watched with an unreadable expression.
Joti's head pulsed. His wrath toward that day felt like a giant's hammer, a bow with a two-ton draw. His breath thickened until he could barely expand his lungs. The world lurched. The red drop arced across his vision like a sling stone. Warmth showered his head, he was falling…
An acidic tang shot up his nostrils. He gasped and sat up. He was on the floor. The old man crouched over him holding a small, cloudy bottle. The eyelock corked the bottle and straightened, hands planted on the small of his back.
"You collapsed," the old man creaked. "You will be fine. Return to your training."
"Was this a test? Did I pass?"
"Did the blood move? Then that is enough."
Hearing this, Joti turned to go, but the man grabbed his arm. The hand that gripped his wrist was far stronger than it had the right to be.
"Tell no one of what you saw," the old man hissed. His breath smelled like black pepper. "Ask no one of what they saw. If you do, I will know—and if I know, you will not see me again."
The man released him. Joti climbed down the tree and returned to the House of Steel. There, the training yard was empty; Joti turned in a bewildered circle, only then realizing the others were at lunch.
The powder the old man had blown in Joti's face had left him feeling slightly sick. Disinterested in food, he walked back to the bunkhouse. As he entered, Brakk exited, bowing low and brushing past him. Joti went to the shrine in the back room, kneeling before the collection of knives, feathers, and crude carvings. They didn't yet have a name for whatever force was emerging there, but Joti could feel it, an active, pacing thing like a wolf cub ready to test the wilds on its own.
The walk had cleared his head and he was no longer sure what he'd seen with the blood and the plate. He reached in his pocket and fished out his only coin. A blackened piece of silver with clipped edges, worn so thin he couldn't make out the chieftain on its front, it was no doubt all but worthless in trade.
But it was also all his wealth in the world. If they thought the price was right, some gods would let you buy divine knowledge. He bequeathed the coin to the shrine, tucking it under a scrap of rabbit pelt.
He glanced over his shoulder, ensuring he was alone. "Nameless one. I don't know what I just did. I don't even know if I actually did anything. But I do know that, whatever it was, it was important. I've had so much taken from me. Whatever this is, please help me understand it."
He kneeled in silence for a full minute, then stood and backed out from the shrine. Were the gods fair? Did they balance your good luck with your bad? If they punished you when you'd done no crime, would they, in their time, reward you for enduring?
Or did they care at all?
~
The days shortened. The nights cooled. Some afternoons, the clouds burned away, revealing a sky so sparkling blue it made Joti's heart ache. During a bloodwood sparring match, Faddak broke the little finger of Joti's right hand. Nod's herb-filled bandages reduced the pain to an occasional ache. While his injury healed, Joti practiced with his left hand instead.
No one spoke about what they'd seen on their visit to the old man. Sometimes, in the gap between archery and dinner, some of the other students were nowhere to be found, Kata and Faddak among them. One time Joti tried to follow Gogg through the maze of boardwalks and forest, but he'd barely gotten anywhere when Brakk padded up beside him.
"Careful, young master." The servant ducked his head. "Brakk isn't the only one who's watching."
Brakk gave a simpering grin and loped away. Joti stared into the trees, then turned back, detouring to the bunkhouse. In the shrine, his coin was missing. A thrill ran up his spine. Their new god had accepted his offering.
A week later, as they followed Nod down a trail on the east side of the mountain, Joti was still thinking about what it meant that the shrine had taken his gift but given him no answers. The further downhill they got, the stiller and colder the air became. At roughly the same elevation as Dolloc Castle, where the trees were spinecones with bark as rough as a rasp, snow gilded the pine needles and hid in the shadows of the forest floor.
Nod stopped and gazed into the trees with the same look learned people donned while reading a scroll. "You are in a forest. The area is somewhat known to you. You are with a partner but are otherwise alone. There are enemies out in the trees and you must be quiet."
She snapped her jaw shut so quickly her teeth clicked. The students exchanged covert glances.
"Your enemies attack," Nod continued. "You defeat this enemy, but your partner's wounded. She's bleeding badly." She drew a water skin from under her cloak, pulled a tiny stopper from its bottom, and pinned it to a spinecone with her knife. "This skin is your partner's blood. If it runs dry before you find something to stop the bleeding, she dies. Now go!"
Nod had never raised her voice before. The urgency of her command rocked Joti on his heels. He took off at a run. The troop scattered in every direction. Within a minute, all Joti could hear was the thump of his own boots and the snow sifting through the pines.
The cold air stung his lungs. He slowed, casting about for any of the numerous plants Nod had spent the last months teaching them about. Hoardroot would do it—with smaller wounds, a well-chewed mouthful applied to the site would cause it to scab over in a minute flat. Pixie's Veins would do it, too, slowing the flow of blood throughout the entire body.
He knew both grew on the slopes, but much of the undergrowth had gone brown or lay hidden in snowy drifts. How much longer did he have before the water skin emptied? Five minutes? He ran from clump to clump, finding nothing.
In the distance, booted footfalls ran back toward Nod. Time was almost up. Heart racing, Joti sprinted uphill, looking for anything he could use. Something pulled at his leg. He slowed, plucking at the green stalk stuck to his trousers.
Shitweed. So-called because every time you stumbled into the middle of it, breaking its fragile stems and getting coated with its tar-thick sap, you inevitably responded with the same word. A patch of it thrust from the snow. He yanked up a handful and ran downhill to rejoin Nod.
The bag was still dripping slowly. Joti hadn't been back for ten seconds before it stopped altogether. Without a word, Nod moved from student to student. A few had found hoardroot or Pixie's Veins. Two had found footwort, which you could eat to make your blood thicken faster. Others had nothing. In a curt, flat voice, Nod informed them they had failed.
She came to Joti. Her eyes lowered to the stalks in his hand. "Shitweed? How will that save your partner?"
He fought not to laugh nervously. "I'll smear the sap over the wound. That should plug the bleeding."
"When the wound is healed, how will you get the sap off without taking the skin with it?"
"Dwarven whiskey. That'll dissolve any glue."
<
br /> "Along with most of your intestines," Faddak said.
Nod slitted her eyes at the shitweed, whispering to herself, then nodded. "Good. Your partner lives." She addressed the others. "Those who failed. Step back in shame. Those whose partners survived: they are now moaning in pain. You have ten minutes to find something to make them stop before the noise brings your enemies down on you. Go!"
Again, they broke into the woods. Joti had only been gone a minute before he spotted the telltale flash of purple nognuk within a stand of browning plants. This time, he was the first to return. When Nod assessed what they'd brought back, she passed him without a single question. Eight others advanced with him.
"The last test," Nod said. "Your partner is now unconscious. They won't awaken for two days. You have to guard them at all times. You have ten minutes to find something to help you stay awake. Begin now."
Joti sprinted off into the trees. Haddy's Bloom was the obvious choice, but that was a summer flower that would have died long before the snows came. The only other options that came to mind were lugnul and wootz tea. He slowed to a jog, eyes sharp. Both plants were highly distinct, but he didn't see a trace of either one. Five minutes slipped by, then seven. Just as he was about to turn around and pray that he'd find something on his way back, he spied a flash of curled wootz leaves hidden behind a pine.
He came around the tree and slid to a stop. Faddak was already there. He grabbed up a sizable handful of wootz, but there was still enough left in the ground to keep somebody awake for two weeks. Joti waited for him to get on his way.
Faddak glanced over his shoulder, then at Joti's empty hands. "Fancy meeting you out here. Shouldn't you be looking for herbs?" Staring Joti in the eye, he yanked out another handful of plants.
Joti took a step forward. "What are you doing? You have more than enough."
"I don't have any idea what the future may throw at me, now do I? This is my patch and I'll take as much as I please."
He uprooted and pocketed the rest of it, gave Joti a smile and a wave, and ran to rejoin Nod.
Not a single wootz leaf remained. There was no more time to search. Joti hurried back toward Nod, eyes sweeping both sides of the game trail he'd followed out. Lost in the hunt, he stumbled, pain crackling through the toe he'd just stubbed.
He limped on, joining the others across from Nod. Faddak and two others had found wootz. Gogg had produced three sprigs of lugnul. Five others had nothing—including Joti.
Nod glanced at his empty hands and grunted softly. "Four of you have endured. This is good. This is—"
"Wait," Joti said. "I found something, too." He drew his knife.
She gave him her level stare. "The handle is plain wood. Walnut. Consuming it might make your movements more regular, but it will do nothing to keep you awake."
"But the blade, when applied to my skin, will wake me better than Haddy's Bloom."
"Cutting yourself? Wouldn't work. In two days of cutting, you'd lose too much blood."
"Not if I smeared groal oil on the old cuts rather than making new ones."
"Irritating the wounds. Fresh pain. But also keeping the cuts clean. Fascinating." She leaned forward, neck extending. "You think you could do this for two days?"
He set the knife against his left forearm. "Try me."
Nod pulled back her head and smirked. "Creative. Well done. You and your partner have made it home."
~
Sleets came, freezing the trees of the Peak until the leaves became static waterfalls. A western wind from the coast melted the ice within two days. They sparred relentlessly, drops of blood from nicks and scrapes vanishing into the color of the bloodwood. When Joti dueled Kata or Gogg or Faddak, who were typically the best swordsmen, he envisioned himself attacking the woman with the orange braid. Sometimes, he held his own. Most times, they disarmed him, put their blade to his heart or neck.
He tried to take pride in his growing mastery of the bow, but he felt more defined by his failures than his successes. Nod took them downhill to where the snows began to show them how to track each other—and how hard it was to hide your presence in winter. Once, the forest had felt strange and foreboding to Joti. After having spent so long in it, it now felt like a place where others should be scared to find him.
When the year changed over, they were given a day off to drink spirits, listen to the Marshals' stories of their travels in the many-claimed lands, and make drunken boasts. It was good to have a break from training, yet Joti couldn't wait to get back to it.
Every few days, he returned to the shrine to repeat his question to whoever was listening. One day, he entered and found Brakk elbow-deep in a pile of trinkets.
"Ah, young master." Brakk whirled to face him, grinning in that way of his. "You must be training hard. You move as silently as an owl in flight!"
Another time, and he might have fallen for Brakk's habitual flattery. But he'd come to the shrine for answers, and one seemed to be revealing itself to him. "You thief. You're the one who took my coin."
"Young master is mistaken. Simply tidying up, as Brakk is supposed to."
"That's why things keep going missing. You've been stealing from the shrine!"
Brakk's grin quivered. "No, no! Sweeping dust, clearing cobwebs—"
"Turn out your pockets."
Brakk edged to the side. Joti shifted, putting himself between Brakk and the exit. Brakk was a grown man, but he was small and thin even by Krannish standards. Seeing there was no way out, Brakk's whole being seemed to collapse—and then, just as quickly, he reassembled into a new person. One with deep, dark eyes and a chiseled frown.
"Very clever," Brakk said. "And cleverness must be rewarded. So you will be quiet, and Brakk will give you a share."
"Of what? A few feathers and pennies? You've been stealing, you bastard. From my friends and the gods. I'm letting the Marshals know."
"Yes, tell the Marshals. And then they will drown Brakk to death—and the secret dies too."
Joti crossed his arms. "What secret?"
"No, never mind, you'd have no interest in fortunes. Certainly not ones vast enough to buy you your own castle and queen."
"Oh really? Where is this fortune? And why haven't you taken it for yourself?"
"There is a cemetery. In it rests a vast treasure. Enough riches to make a dragon weep. Now, Brakk knows the grave, but not which graveyard this grave is in. But together, we can find it—if you don't tell the Marshals."
Joti rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't care about riches. I want to become a Marshal."
Brakk sneered. "Then go ahead and tell them. See how much your self-righteousness can buy you when you're old and forgotten."
"I don't want your gold. But there's something else you can get for me. You know everything around here, don't you? I want to know about the old man in the tree. He's an eyelock, isn't he? Who is he? What's he testing us for?"
"Ah yes, the old man in his tree, with his stench and his poisons. His name is Prock. But Brakk doesn't know what he wants from the young masters."
"Oh, come on! Nothing can be kept that secret!"
"Did Brakk say it couldn't be known? Brakk will find it and tell you. And you will keep your mouth shut. Is there agreement?"
Joti stuck out his hand. "Agreed. Oh, and Brakk? Quit stealing. Or at least don't let me catch you again."
The man smirked and walked out from the shrine as lightly as a water strider, which Joti had once thought was his way of moving about like a good and unobtrusive servant, but now knew better. Though Brakk was obviously a scoundrel—the persona he put on and his true self were as far apart as the mountains from the prairie—it comforted Joti to know that Brakk was his scoundrel. He expected to get his answers in no time at all.
Later that same week, when they'd gathered at the House of Steel for morning practice, Shain told them to put away their bloodwood training swords. Instead, she passed out blades of real iron.
"Don't get too excited," she said. "These
are only a loan. We're heading downhill for a few days. We don't expect any trouble, but given that trouble's highest joy is to defy expectations, we'd rather you be able to defend yourselves should any arise."
Nod appeared beside her as if congealing from the mist. "Jolund Forest. New to you, but you've developed the skills to survive it. Prepare for seven days."
She said nothing more. They dashed back to the bunkhouse to pack up. Within an hour, they were traipsing downhill behind Nod and Shain, packs heavy on their shoulders. They advanced down the north face of the mountain—Nod claimed that somewhere far below, the ocean beat against the shore, but Joti had never seen it—then hooked east. Now and again, the clouds below them parted, showing them glimpses of the hills, plains, and desert strung along the borders.
After two days of rocky screes, icy snowfields, and freezing nights, they entered a forest of white birch trees broken up by hulking pines. The ground was unusually flat, interrupted by crooked columns of black rock.
Nod stopped, lifting her nose to the smell of snow and pine resin. "Before, you've learned to find plants and stalk prey. Today, you learn to hunt people. For the next three days, you're on your own. Get caught working together, and you'll be sent back to the Peak."
"With my muddy boot print across your ass," Shain added.
"You can hide. Or you can hunt. Those who last to the end get one point. Those who hunt get one point for each kill. When you kill, you kill with these."
She handed out slings and bags of shot. Rather than rocks, the shot was made of beck nuts, the almond-shaped shells of which were covered in a springy, fibrous layer. These had been dyed red with the pungent livers of mud trout. On impact, the crimson oil would leave an obvious stain.
Shain removed her cap and flicked off a dollop of snow. "If you get hurt worse than you can deal with yourself, and you can still move, come back here. If you can't move, feel free to yell. Otherwise, spit on the hurt and call it good. If you get lost, remember this: home is uphill. You have ten minutes to make yourselves scarce—then you're fair game."
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