Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  "We're being followed," she said. "Bandit scum. Marshal Nod says there's at least twelve of them."

  Shain appeared behind them. "Someone followed us from Hongold. Saw an unguarded cart hurrying off in the middle of the night and guessed it would soon be hauling something interesting. Kata, Faddak, go with Nod. The rest of you, be ready."

  Faddak and Kata followed Nod into the trees ahead and to the right. The day was overcast, an unsteady wind sifting through the branches. Hurriedly, Joti strung his bow, borrowing arrows from the others.

  Shain sighed testily. Forty feet up the road, a man dressed in thick furs stepped onto the path, flanked by a towering woman with an equally tall bow.

  "Ho there!" The man grinned, showing plenty of fang. "Can't help noticing you're ramblin' down our road. Anyone tell you about the toll?"

  "Let me guess: it goes to you." Shain glanced to the trees on either side. "And to your friends over there. Should I bother to ask why we should pay you?"

  "Why, we keep these lands safe."

  "Ah yes. Presumably because once you collect your toll, you get too drunk to prey on anyone else that day."

  The man narrowed his eyes, smiling harder. "We know you're onto a strike. Now see, real blackguards would kill you and take everything in the wagon. Me, though, I'm right with my gods. All I ask is a share of the color."

  "That should be easy. We haven't got any." Shain made a shooing motion. "So let's get out of the way, shall we?"

  "No mithril, eh? Just a cart so laden down the team can hardly draw it. How about you give us a look inside to see what's weighing it so?"

  "Interesting. I have a counter proposal: go fuck yourself."

  "Then here's my counter. We murder you, have our fun with the little ones, and take everything you've got."

  Shain touched her chin. "Allow me to consult with my colleague."

  She drew her sword and charged, veering slightly right to put the bandit captain between Shain and the tall archer. The captain grinned and bowed, right arm tucked behind his back with theatrical exaggeration. As soon as he cleared the archer's line of fire, she let loose.

  The arrow streaked toward Shain. Before it struck its target, Joti could picture it doing so, the image as clear and forceful as if it had already happened: the shaft burying itself in Shain's neck; the arrowhead punching out the back of her throat; the gurgle as she fought her own blood to draw breath. The vision was so strong he cried out.

  With unnatural speed, Shain collapsed to the left, the arrow whooshing over her right shoulder. She popped to her feet. As she closed on the bandits, she swept her sword to her right. It intercepted something with a wooden clack. Two pieces of an arrow fell to the ground—someone had fired on her from the trees, and she had, somehow, cleaved it out of the air mid-flight.

  Before Shain could recover from her strike at the arrow, the captain growled and swung his axe at her chest. Yet she moved at the same time he did, as if anticipating the exact angle of his strike, flowing inside his guard and driving her blade deep into the furs covering his body.

  He screamed, falling in a streamer of blood. The woman archer had fallen back, bow tensed to aim at Shain.

  Joti had already let fly. The arrow hit the tall woman in her ribs, knocking her backward. Her shot sailed off into the air.

  Shain sprinted toward the trees on the left side of the road, giving the downed woman a complimentary stab as she passed by. Gogg charged after Shain. Joti ran into the cover of the birches, hunting for targets. On the other side of the road, men yelled in surprise, then pain: Nod, Kata, and Faddak had found them.

  Arrows flew back and forth, rapping into birch trunks. Joti shot at a bandit and missed. The man fired back, obliging Joti to dive behind a tree. Emerging a moment later, he watched in horror as four bandits closed on Shain, bearing axes and long knives.

  She swooped between them like a hawk among chickens. As she bent and weaved, reacting to their attacks the same instant they made them, it looked more like a dance than a fight. She laid open one man's belly, pivoting to take a second bandit through the throat with her shorter blade.

  The third man seemed to fling himself onto the point of her sword. She dropped the embedded weapon and whirled to face the fourth bandit as he swung at her. She ducked under his axe and rammed her smaller blade up through the underside of his extended jaw.

  Without a word, the remaining archers broke from cover and fled in a dead run, scattering into the forest. Joti shot at the closest, but the branches knocked down his arrow.

  He lowered his bow and wandered toward Shain. "How did you do that?"

  "By sticking sharp metal inside them. Make yourself useful and burgle their pockets."

  He did so, going over what he'd just seen her do. It had been so fast. So fluid. It had been more than a dance. It had been as if whatever they did, it was exactly what she wanted them to do.

  He found no more than a few shabby coins in their pockets. When Shain examined the slain captain, she pulled a necklace from his head, dangling it out for Nod's benefit. It was a chain of fine silver loops bearing an iron skull, grinning broadly, the dome of its head dented in.

  Nod frowned, lips bunched together. "Brokehead tribe? Long way from home."

  "They won't be the only ones. They've found mithril here." Shain pocketed the skull necklace. "Trouble's on its way. The true color of metal is always blood."

  They dragged the bodies into the woods and ascended into the mists.

  ~

  When they reached the Peak, they held a funeral for Tull, placing two charred knucklebones and a blue stone he favored in the bunkhouse shrine. They brought the rest of his remains and possessions to the falls. As he passed over the waters, Cog Loton said some sorrowful words Joti didn't particularly listen to.

  After, they brought Tull's bloodwood sword to the House of Steel, where they placed it back on the rack. Joti supposed that, later that year or the next, a new boy or girl would be given it, in hopes their life would be spent to protect these borderlands that none of them had grown up with as their own.

  Loton brought him in to recount the battle with the dragon, recording his answers in a leather-bound book big enough to crush a toe. Afterward, Shain met Joti outside, looking childishly pleased.

  "I've spoken to the smith," she said. "There wasn't as much flame ore as they would have liked—but they've decided to reserve enough to make you whatever you want. Including a spear."

  He shook his head. "It should be a sword."

  "I'm not talking about some dinky little point. I'm talking about a proper polearm. The kind of thing you can really gut a man with. Don't you still prefer the spear?"

  "Marshals use swords—and I'm going to become a Marshal."

  Shain grinned. "I'll let them know. Oh, and let me see your whitestone?"

  He took off his necklace and handed it over. She tossed it in the air, caught it, and winked.

  ~

  As he got back into the routine of his training, he had the impression he could have coasted for a while, gliding along on the glory of having slain a dragon and saved a Marshal. Instead, he pushed himself harder than ever. For he'd now seen what a Marshal could do against common thugs and bandits. And he'd seen how impossibly far he was from being able to fight like Shain.

  But there was a second source of inspiration pushing him on: the memory of Tull disappearing into the flames. The consuming fear that they were all as helpless as a child before a dragon, to be destroyed in a blink, and forgotten in a week.

  One morning, after being fitted at the tailor's for a shirt to replace the one he was outgrowing, he found Brakk waiting for him outside. The servant was all grins and propriety, but as soon as they were out of earshot of the tailor, Brakk fixed him with a sour look.

  "Brakk found out about the old man in the tree. But Brakk thinks Joti won't like what was found."

  "It doesn't matter if I like it. I need to know it."

  "It's a test. Those who pass becom
e Marshals. Those who fail become wardens." He gave Joti a sardonic look. "Yes, the wardens. All of the early death in the field, none of the glory."

  Cold shock poured over his skin. "How do you pass this test?"

  "Brakk doesn't know. Maybe Brakk should take the test and find out for you. But the young master will have to wait for Brakk to escape from servitude, be recruited for soldiering, and climb trees for gross fruits for weeks on end."

  "If I'd turned you into the Marshals, ground-up little bits of you would be feeding those trees right now. There's no need to get smart with me. I just want to know what this is about."

  Brakk crossed his arms tight. "You didn't think any old trash could become a Marshal, did you? Every Marshal must be able to fight like a rabid bearmouse. To do this, Marshals must have the Warp."

  "The Warp? What on earth is that?"

  "Brakk surely wouldn't know. He's fit for nothing more than cleaning up after messy little apes. You'll have to ask Prock the tree-man."

  Joti interrogated him another minute, but Brakk seemed wholly ignorant of anything more. As he walked away, Joti thought about asking Tull, who always knew things, and was soft-hearted enough that Joti could convince him to cough up the answer even if he wasn't supposed to, but then a pang ran through his chest.

  He tried asking Gogg instead, who claimed ignorance, which was believable. Later that week, Joti was still trying to figure up a way to bring it up with Shain when he was summoned back to the eyelock's tree. Inside, Prock wasted no time in bringing out the white porcelain plate.

  "Hold on," Joti said. "What is this about?"

  Prock blew the disorienting powder in his face. "We see how much you can see."

  "This is to see if I have the Warp, isn't it?"

  Without answering, the old man grabbed his wrist, pricked his finger, and dabbed the blood on the plate. "Return to your worst memory. Hold it. Feel it. Do you have it?"

  Joti nodded, feeling as if his head would roll right off his shoulders. The powder was more intense than the first time and he found the concept of speaking difficult.

  "The will to change. Bring it forward. Do you feel it?" Prock waited for Joti to nod, then lifted a long wooden switch in each hand. "I will hit you. It will hurt. Unless you stop it."

  He lashed his right-hand switch at Joti's neck. Pain fired down Joti's shoulder and up to his jaw. Before he knew what was happening, Prock hit him on the other side of the neck, then the top of the head, then a dozen other points across his body. Joti's arms weren't moving very well and each block or parry he tried felt too slow by a year.

  With most of Joti's body stinging, Prock lowered the switches. "Sit outside. Once your head clears, be on your way."

  "I didn't. Do well." Forcing the words took more out of him than it had to push the stone blocks across the rollers at the monument in the Gru city. "Did I?"

  "Sit. And wait."

  He found himself outside, a cold drizzle sifting through the leaves. He had the sense he'd been sitting there for a while. His welts ached dully. He hadn't stopped a single one of the attacks. He wasn't sure how beating him was supposed to hone his skill with the Warp, but judging by the results, there was nothing there to hone.

  He descended the tree in a state of mounting panic. It had never truly occurred to him that he might not become a Marshal. He'd always thought that no matter what obstacles he ran up against, he'd simply work harder, train longer, bull his way through it.

  But what if asking him to become a Marshal was like asking a man with no legs to win a race?

  Still, there was one thing he was good at. Maybe he could make himself too good for them to deny him. Archery practice wouldn't start for another couple hours, but he jogged to the bunkhouse, grabbed his bow and quiver, and headed to the House of Distant Death.

  The platform was vacant except for the stuffed targets. As he moved beneath the covered firing station, he stopped, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The final target was stationed on an isolated rock fifty feet from the edge of the platform, surrounded by rushing water. Legs dangled ten feet above the target, kicking feebly. Marshal Willam's face was so purple that Joti wouldn't have recognized him if not for the fact he was the only human in the Peak.

  He was too high off the ground for Joti to reach him. The noose hung from the branch of a tree growing from the river. Upstream. Impossible to swim. Only alternative would be to circle around somewhere upstream from the tree, float down to it, then climb it to the limb the Marshal was suspended from.

  By then, Willam would be long dead.

  Joti nocked an arrow. His first shot flew inches from the Marshal's head. He aimed higher, the second arrow clipping the fringe of the rope. His third shot severed it. Willam landed on the burlap target with a leafy crunch.

  Joti stared, dumbfounded, then ran to grab a rope from the building at the other end of the platform. By the time he got back, Willam was on his feet, rubbing his neck and coughing. Joti slung the rope across to him, securing his end to a cleat on the end of the dock. Willam hauled himself through the waters and climbed up on the boards, cold water pouring from his clothes.

  "What happened?" Joti said.

  "Don't you ever get tired of asking stupid questions?" Willam rubbed the angry red line across his neck and grinned. "Why, that was the final archery test. You passed!"

  "You didn't know I was coming." Shame swept down Joti's face. "Are we really that awful to be around?"

  Willam's face darkened. "Do you have any idea what it's like? Forced to serve those you hate? No more dreams or goals of your own?"

  "Before Shain found me, I was a slave, too. We were building a monument to a king who'd murdered his brother. Sometimes parts of the statue fell apart and killed the other workers. Other times, the slaves dropped dead from being overworked."

  The Marshal swore, then coughed again, spitting something foul into the river. He dug a flask from his pocket and took a long drink. "You were just a boy. Didn't know what was being taken from you. Me, I was a hero. Killed more orcs than dysentery. Now I'm nothing. Worse—I'm training the soldiers who will go on to kill my friends."

  "The No-Clan stops wars. When we fight, it's to save lives."

  "I don't get it, kid. We're not friends. You've already learned just about everything I can teach you. What do you care what happens to me?"

  The pain and anger in his eyes ran so deep Joti had to look away. "When you were captured, were any of your friends spared?"

  "Ha! Slaughtered like swine. The orcs ripped their livers out and left the rest to rot in the sun."

  "But you made it out. Because the gods don't like to throw away talent."

  Willam grunted, followed this up with a more thoughtful grunt, then took another drink. "What are you doing here, anyway? It's an hour until practice."

  "I came here to get better."

  "At what? Kissing up to your instructors? You're already the best archer in your group."

  "But not in the world."

  The human scoffed. "If you wanted any chance at that title, you should have let me hang."

  "I failed the test," Joti said. "I can't reach the Warp. Unless I find another way, they won't let me be a Marshal."

  "So you won't have to watch your friends die to barbarians hundreds of miles from their homes. What a loss."

  "What is the Warp?"

  "Can't say."

  "Why not? I thought you hated the No-Clan."

  "I can't tell you any more than I can run away from here." He scowled, eyes rolling to the right as he thought. "Apparently I'm allowed to tell you it's a way to fight better. Sorry, kid. That's the best I can do."

  The man swigged his flask. Joti must have looked devastated, for Willam sighed and spat into the river. "You know what I tell myself? That I'm teaching the young to defend themselves from a world that doesn't give two shits if they're murdered in the streets. Maybe you won't ever be the greatest warrior in the Peak. But there's value in helping others get better. Yo
u might start with Kata."

  "Kata?"

  "What, you haven't noticed that she couldn't hit you if she was standing inside you? She's only got one eye, Joti. Shouldn't be a problem, but it seems at war with the idea of taking aim. That anger of hers doesn't help any, either. I'm starting to worry she's getting so frustrated she'll give up."

  "I've never taught anyone before. But I can try."

  "Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get into some dry clothes before the others show up."

  Joti turned to go, then stopped. "You won't do it again, will you?"

  "Ha! Not any time soon. It's like taking ill. Most days, I think nothing of it. Then one morning, I'll wake up and find myself staring into the darkness." He tipped back his flask, emptying it. "Now get."

  When Joti returned less than an hour later, Willam's hair was still damp and he was wearing a high collar to cover his neck, but he lectured them with energy and verve. After rambling on for a while, he set them loose to practice as they would.

  Joti kept one eye on Kata. He'd always known she was one of the lesser archers of the bunch, but once she got more than twenty yards out, she couldn't hit the target itself with any regularity, let alone the foot-wide circle of yellow cloth that represented a disabling shot. In short, she was terrible.

  After a few minutes of watching her struggle, Joti stood next to her. "Try shooting through the target."

  Kata glowered at him. "How am I supposed to do that? It's two feet thick, you idiot."

  "Find something further away, then line it up with the target, like you have to shoot through the bale to get to it. Try it with that tree there."

  She looked ready to try using him for the target, then muttered to herself and took aim. Her first two shots barely hit the bale, but the third hit the edge of the yellow. Mildly less outraged, she kept at it, and didn't even swear at him when he offered other bits of advice.

  By the end of that same day, two things were clear: first, she was already a marginally better shot. And second, there was little chance she'd ever be more than adequate. Joti felt a little better for having helped her, but it only reminded him of his own limitations.