Soldier at the Door (2 page)

Perrin groaned. “Sent the confession this morning. Should reach him by tomorrow. And then . . . we’ll likely hear him bellowing all the way from Idumea.”

“If not him, then probably your mother.”

Perrin shut his eyes momentarily.

“
My mother!
Please, little one,” he said to his wife’s expecting bulge, “Come out now and be a distraction to your grandparents’ wrath.”

“Oh great,” Mahrree sighed. “Now it’ll never be born.”

-
--

It was near the end of Planting Season, in the new year of 321, when Relf Shin opened the envelope with the familiar writing on the outside.

“So am I a grandfather again, Perrin?” the High General smiled as he opened the message. He pushed aside the other messages on his desk to pay full attention to this one. His smile diminished as he read. His left hand clenched into a fist, he pressed his lips tightly t
ogether, and he closed his eyes to stop seeing the words.

“Son, son—you
stupid
boy!” he whispered.

The General opened his eyes again and continued to read, the faint smile reforming on his lips.

“But fantastic, Perrin!” he said a few minutes later. “Why did I know you went further into that forest than a few paces? But
now
,” he sighed heavily, “what to do with you? What will Mal—”

Relf Shin pondered.

“Fourteen Guarders dead, no soldiers or citizens hurt, your wife preserved, and you were the only one injured, and not by a tree branch . . . Sounds to me as if your twenty stitches were punishment enough. And since this is an army matter,” he said with a sly smile, tossing the message into the fireplace where the flames consumed the confession, “the head of the army will take care of it.”

He pulled out a piece of parchment and began writing.

As High General of the Army of Idumea, I must inform you, Captain Perrin Shin, that your behavior in deliberately entering the forest a second time three moons ago
—although
for noble and commendable reasons—violated the firm admonitions sent to you by General Cush. I hereby officially reprimand you with a strict warning to never reveal your activities that night to anyone else. Not even to your mother. This is not a matter to be celebrated or boasted about, but one to feel great shame and embarrassment, as you undoubtedly do, thus prompting your most remorseful, albeit delayed, confession to me . . .

The High General chuckled the entire time.

---

Captain Shin stared the formal-looking message from Idumea two days later. He held it at arm’s length as if waiting for it to bite.

“It’s
his
handwriting, isn’t it?” Sergeant Major Grandpy Neeks said, stopping in the process of opening another message.

Lieutenant Karna looked up from the latest announcement he was scanning to look at his commander.

“Yep,” was all that Shin said as he slowly unfolded the parchment.

Karna and Neeks exchanged worried looks as Captain Shin started to read the High General Shin’s response to the report—the
real
report—of what happened in the forest a season ago.

The men held their collective breath as the captain read, his eyes revealing no emotion until he got to the end. That’s when he finally blinked and folded the letter again.

“Well?!” Neeks nearly burst out.

Shin swallowed. “My father is very disappointed in me. I’ve been reprimanded. I should never brag about that night, nor reveal to anyone else what I did, so that no other commanders or soldiers feel the need to replicate my deplorable actions. He’s
so
disappointed in me that he won’t even reveal the enormity of my ‘success’ to General Cush or Chairman Mal. Or even my mother. I am officially on notice.”

Neeks scowled. “Notice? Never heard of an officer on ‘notice.’ What does that mean?”

Shin smiled. “Absolutely nothing at all.”

Then he started to chuckle.

-
--

Two weeks later in the evening of the 89
th
Day of Planting Season, in the forests outside the small village of Edge, several men stood in a thick stand of trees. All but one of them was dressed in concealing clothing, allowing them to blend into the woods. The one who didn’t was younger than the others, and wore clothing like the villagers.

They had been watching the erratic patrols all evening, trying to predict the pattern. One patrol went by, followed by another. Then another.

Realizing it would be impossible to choose a perfect moment, the young man suddenly nodded once, then darted across the dark, barren field unnoticed.

Tomorrow, the fort at Edge would receive a new recruit.

-
--

On the 90
th
and almost last day of Planting Season, Captain Shin jogged up the stairs of the command tower in the late afternoon.

Lieutenant Karna looked at him expectantly.

The captain shook his head. “False alarm. Again. Might as well finish out the day. But I don’t know how she can get any bigger. She bumped into the corner of the table last night and I fully expected to hear a large popping sound.”

Karna chuckled. “You spend over a season helping her to
stop
the pains, now you can’t get them started again?”

Perrin shook his head soberly. “It’s hopeless. Nothing will scare that baby out.”

“Now, not being a father or married, I won’t confess to knowing anything about children,” Karna began, “but if her expecting is any indication of the kind of baby she’s about to birth, that will be one stubborn, annoying child. Probably a boy, much like his father.”

Perrin chuckled and rubbe
d his eyes wearily. “That’s what my uncle Hogal said last night! Brillen, I’m not sure how much more of this I can stand. We were up half the night counting the minutes before the pains suddenly stopped. I thought she was going to explode from disappointment. Then the same thing happened at midday meal. I’ve got Corporal Yip patrolling the alley behind the house so she can holler to him if anything happens.”

“Poor Captain,” Karna smiled and patted his shoulder symp
athetically. “Maybe this is why people have only two children.”

Shin smiled sadly. “Not for population control, but for sanity preservation! I couldn’t imagine doing this a third time.”

The men chuckled and Captain Shin headed for the command office.

“Sir,” Karna stopped him. “There’s someone in there waiting. Said he wants to be a volunteer for a time. I was just about to go i
nterview him, but—”

Shin frowned. “Volunteer? I’ll take care of him.” In a whisper he added, “Something must be wrong with him if he wants to work for me without wages.”

Karna laughed as Shin went into his office. Inside stood a strapping young man, already at attention.

Shin nodded a greeting. “Captain Perrin Shin,” he held out his hand in introduction. “And already I doubt your ability to be of se
rvice.”

The young man with light brown hair swallowed hard as he shook the captain’s hand. “Sir?”

“You want to do this without pay? What does that say about your intelligence? Not a great deal.” Shin winked at him and sat down at his desk. He gestured for the hopeful volunteer to take a seat across from him.

With a hesitant smile the large boy sat down.

Shin shifted some neat stacks of paper needlessly around on his desk before launching into his routine of subtle interrogation. There were only a few other cases of volunteerism he had ever seen, and each one ended up with the prospect taken in chains to incarceration. The army was no place to hide from law enforcers, difficult parents, or expecting girlfriends. Even if he didn’t sign up officially, someone’s still going to write down his name.

“So,” Shin said, finally looking up at him once he was sure the young man had grown uneasy with waiting, “my lieutenant says you’re interested in volunteering?”

The hopeful cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, I am. For two, maybe three seasons, sir. Just to see if I really want to stay.”

Shin squinted. “Two seasons? Work half a year without slips of silver?”

“To be honest, sir—”

Deceit frequently begins with the words
To be honest
, Perrin thought to himself.

“—I’m not sure I’m up to being a soldier. But I’m very interes
ted in helping track down the Guarders. I’m good at tracking. My father has a herd of cattle that are always escaping. I can find a lost calf anywhere.”

Shin nodded once. “Good skill. But Guarders don’t moo. And we’re not allowed to track into the forest.”

“But sir, I can tell you if someone has come
out
of the forest, then gone back
in
.”

Shin couldn’t help but smile at his confidence. “Well, I’d be foolish not to accept your help, then. I can let you stay in the ba
rracks and eat in the mess hall, but I can’t issue you a uniform if you’re not official.”

The young man began to smile back. “That’s all right, sir! Don’t need one. And I have a little bit of savings, so I don’t need slips of silver.”

Shin pulled out a clean paper. “Well, then, I don’t have a stamped form to fill out for volunteers. You must be the first. But I do need some information. Name?” He would check it, along with variations, with the chief of enforcement later.

“Shem Zenos, sir.”

He offered that up easily, Perrin thought. Usually young men stammer a bit with a false name, even if they practiced it.

Still . . .

Shin furrowed his brow. “Zenos? Never heard that last name before. Not from Edge, are you?”

“No, sir. I kind of wanted to get away from home. So I came north.”

“Understood,” he said casually as he wrote the name. “Where are you from? Mountseen? Quake? Rivers?”

“From between Flax and Waves, sir.”

Shin blinked, completely taken aback. Even though he knew the villages were at the furthest southern edges of the world, still he turned to stare at the large map of the world that hung on the wall.

“Really? Talk about getting away from home. You can’t
get
any further than that.”

Zenos shrugged. “I know, sir.”

Perrin’s suspicions rose, but he remained relaxed. “Take you a long time to get here?”

“
Weeks
, sir,” he sighed. “Sold my horse down in Trades to have enough silver to get up here, so I wouldn’t have to touch my savings. Walked the rest of the way.”

Shin watched him for a moment. “Sold your
own horse
?” Few young men owned their own horses. Only very wealthy families could take on the expense of an extra animal.

Even Perrin had never owned his own horse, he remembered with the smallest twinge of jealousy, although he ‘claimed’ one or two over the years that the stables at the garrison allowed him to ride.

And although he was allowed to choose a horse at the fort to be designated his own, he had yet to do so. None of the animals were the right blend of strength and speed to match Perrin’s build. If a stallion was fast enough, it also grew tired too quickly. If a mare was sturdy enough, it couldn’t keep up. Perrin alternated between three different animals, occasionally wishing he could find the right one.

And this overgrown boy in front of him had his very own?

He also realized that farmers often owned a horse in conjunction with their oxen, and ranchers—yes, very successful ranchers frequently had several horses to keep up with their cattle.

But why would a father allow his son to sell such a valuable a
nimal?

Or perhaps, he
didn’t
.

Shin watched the young man for signs that the sale had
n’t been sanctioned, but he met the captain’s steady gaze.

“Yes, sir, I did. So I could come chase Guarders. No forests
near Waves, sir. Only salty water.”

Shin leaned back in his seat, intrigued. “There are places closer to your home where Guarders are attacking. In fact, there was that raid just a few weeks ago on Coast. Guarders came in on canoes. Might be coming to Waves in canoes, too.”

Zenos smiled cautiously. “And they’ll have just as a difficult time. The water is rougher at Waves than at Coast, sir.”

The captain nodded as he appraised the large boy, still unco
nvinced that he travelled so far. It was common knowledge that the waves in Waves were much stronger than Coast. The name was a bit of a giveaway.

“That it is,” Perrin said. “I’ve been to both villages. I’m not in the least bit surprised the Guarder canoes all sank, although I was rather disappointed. I was hoping someone might be able to catch one of them alive. Guess it would be rather hard to track on the w
ater, wouldn’t it?”