The Path of the Sword (49 page)

He always made the platoon pay, of course. He rode them incessantly, assigning extra duties and meting harsh discipline for even the slightest transgression, but his retaliations only served to make the men strive all the harder to find ever more creative ways to display their contempt. And creative they were. She had no idea how someone had managed to write 'I'm a flaming horse cock' on his cloak without him noticing, but she wished she could congratulate the soldier for his or her resourcefulness even if the Soldier would have had to be subsequently whipped for insubordination.

She never stepped into these frays, knowing that it was all a part of the growing process. Her platoon was made up of veterans who knew their places and their duties, and their pranks were no more than their harmless way of telling Higgens that he need not treat them like a band of raw cadets. For Higgens's part, he was simply trying to find his stride. She never countermanded his disciplinary actions; it would not do to undermine his already tenuous authority. She could only hope that he would learn his lessons soon. She had a feeling they would need to be a united force when they faced their adversary.

The platoon looked forward to the day that they entered Threimes City with their prisoners, none more than she herself. Even Salma thought the reception they would receive when they dumped the infamous Kurin into the deepest cell they could find would ensure her a promotion. She was not overly ambitious and she did not resent field work—on the contrary, she often rather enjoyed it—but the thought of receiving her major's clusters and perhaps being reposted to a cushy office job where she would not be forced to go tramping about in this kind of miserable weather made her dreamy with pleasure.

The camp went up quickly, seeming to rise out of the ground of its own volition as she sat on her horse, watching her men perform their functions efficiently while pointedly ignoring Higgens's bawled orders. Fires were lit and cooks began the process of preparing food while others set about removing and polishing spots of rust from their armor. Clotheslines went up and almost immediately, tabards and cloaks were hung to dry, spanning one end of each clothesline to the other, creating the illusion that their camp was surrounded by a fluttering wall of crimson and black and white. Jovial chatter filled the air; men and women recounted old tales that made their listeners laugh raucously, while good-natured insults hurled from one end of the camp to the other. There was an air of ease, like well oiled gears working in perfect tandem to keep the machine running smoothly. This platoon was close-knit, as much a group of old friends enjoying each other's company as a rank of trained soldiers who would stride without emotion in formation onto a battlefield at her order.

She remained in her saddle until her tent, the biggest and most difficult to manage, was erected and when the last of the stakes were driven into the ground, and her rickety chair and table disappeared through the fabric mouth, she dismounted, handing her reins to a waiting groom and strode purposefully into the shelter. Exhaustion took her as she slumped into her seat, thinking about the days ahead.

Kurin was a wily old bugger. He had been evading the Soldiers for decades, always slipping through their fingers like smoke. Unlike smoke, he often left their blood behind him.

On the bright side, there was another platoon heading south to meet them halfway. Caught in a pincer between two platoons, Kurin would have nowhere to run. They would get to Threimes with their prize. Of that she was certain. What she was uncertain of was the price her platoon would have to pay to get him there.

* * *

Under his heap of blankets, Jurel floated between the land of sleep and the world of wakefulness. It had been another long day of boring travel along the monotonous road followed by a long evening of being pummeled by his merciless tutor in the small glade outside their camp.

He ached. Everywhere. He ached in places he did not even know existed before Mikal had so generously decided to show him. Those aches, more than anything, were what kept him from the mindless oblivion of sleep that he craved so desperately. Fleetingly, he grasped the irony: if Mikal did not train him every night, he would not be so exhausted that he begged for sleep like a starving man begs for a scrap of moldy cheese, but since his training had started, he was so sore that no matter how much sleep called, he could never quite answer.

Gingerly, he shifted trying to get a rock out of his back and somehow managed to wedge a sharp end deeper into his bruised flesh. With a wince, Jurel came out of his uneasy doze and cursed under his breath. How did anyone manage to get used to sleeping on the bloody, god forsaken ground? At least he was warm. The fire crackled close enough to him that he could reach out his arm and touch it. And at least his appetite was sated. His boar still provided meat and they were able to forage for winter berries as they traveled. There was still some cheese and fruit stored in the cart, so food was not a problem. It was the blasted rocks. What exactly did they have against him, anyway? With another muttered curse, he rolled over and concentrated on breathing evenly, begging for that ever elusive sleep to take him.

“So, how does he fare?” Kurin asked, bringing Jurel back to the surface. Damn it.

“He's good,” Mikal answered. “Very good.”

They spoke quietly, apparently trying not to wake Jurel. He decided to make them happy, to let them think he slept on.

“How good?”

“Only a few days in the woods and already I think he could sneak up and tickle a rabbit's ass before it knew he was there. Only a few more days with a bow and I'm certain he could thread a needle with an arrow at a hundred paces. He's better than I ever was with it.”

“Oh come now,” Kurin scoffed. “You can't be serious. You're nearly as good with a bow as you are with your blade. No one can get that good in so short a time, no matter who they are.”

“Believe what you will. The boy has a natural talent. I would not want to face him in ranged combat.”

Kurin was silent as he digested Mikal's report; the only sound in the camp was the angry hiss and pop of the fire as it added its own thoughts to the conversation. “It don't matter to me,” it seemed to say, “Attack me with arrows and fuel my flames.”

As spent as Jurel was, there was still enough of him left to revel in Mikal's praise. He had spent many days toiling on Galbin's farm, performing labor that could only be called back-breaking. Lifting huge mounds of baled hay and digging endlessly long trenches had been par for the course. When he was done, he would slog home as exhausted as he felt at that moment—though not quite so bruised—and he would describe his day's work to his father, like a soldier reporting to his sergeant. Every once in a while, if he had exceeded expectations, taken the initiative or performed some duty that would lessen the next day's task list, Daved would smile at him, and squeeze his shoulder. “You did good, lad.” Every time Daved had said those words, Jurel had beamed and quivered with pride. He had cherished those words even more than he had cherished curling up under his frayed blankets. Oddly, he felt the same welling of emotion now.

“And what of the sword?” Kurin asked.

A quiet grunt was Mikal's only answer and Jurel's pride withered a little. He knew he was not so good with the sword as he was with the bow. His body was living, bleeding proof that he seemed incapable of mounting any sort of useful defense. Mikal routinely slapped him silly and he seemed able to pick and choose where he would raise the next bluish black welt with no more concern than a shopper picking and choosing strawberries at a fruit stand. “How about that one?”
Bonk
. His arm would go numb. “No. Perhaps that one instead.”
Ding.
That would leave a mark in the morning. Every time he landed a blow, he berated Jurel, mercilessly taunting him to keep his guard up, or set his stance better.

Once in a while, Jurel landed a blow but instead of a word of praise or even an appreciative nod, Mikal would berate him some more about picking his attacks more effectively, stop being so clumsy, and to stop hitting with the force of a wet noodle, all the while seeming not to be aware that an angry welt rose on his forehead or along his ribcage.

“That sounds promising,” Kurin said wryly.

“He's good with that too. He wields a blade like he's a veteran soldier. He's as yet no match for me but I think that at this rate it will not be much longer before I have nothing left to teach him.”

Jurel held his breath, fearing that if he did not control himself, he would yell triumphantly. Squinching his eyes shut, he wrapped his arms about himself and tried to keep from jumping up and dancing a little jig at Mikal's words. Somehow, it did not occur to him that just two short weeks before, he had wanted nothing to do with swords and bloodshed.

“That's wonderful news,” Kurin said, and Jurel could almost see the old man smiling into the night. “He will need those skills in the coming months.”

“Aye, but he has a fatal flaw,” Mikal warned, ominous as a looming thunderhead.

“Oh?” the old man asked.

“He learns the forms quickly. Far more quickly than anyone I've ever known. But he lacks discipline. He acts rashly. He makes decisions that could get him killed no matter how good he is at wielding his blade.”

“Give him time. He's young.”

“Aye,” Mikal snorted. “And if he keeps it up, he'll never get the chance to grow old.”

Mikal's assessment sobered Jurel. It was a grim reminder that Jurel was lost, his future in tatters. What would tomorrow bring? Or the day after? Or the next? Assuming he made it that far of course. His existence on Galbin's farm had done nothing to prepare him for the situations he had faced in the past few weeks; he had never worried about assassins in the night when he curled up in his cot at home.

Suddenly, everything came down on his head. An avalanche of memory and emotion, tumbling and bouncing, sent him reeling: Shenk, impaled by his own dagger staring at Jurel in shock and accusation while his life spilled from him; a hooded man commanding him to stand still so he can kill cleanly; trees and farms and rocks passing by in serene silence as he read a chapter of bloody war rendered dry and remote by the author in a history text; a soldier, cut nearly in half, his blood pouring from his armor like a red waterfall erupting from an underground spring high on a cliff; brigands lying dead and bloody in a circle around him, the radius of death being the approximate length of his blade.

It was too much. Here he was, a farmer, thrust into an impossible situation. He had no idea why these things were happening to him and he had no idea what would happen next. He was no more than a leaf held captive by a capricious wind, tumbling end over end, going wherever the next gust took him. Tears of frustration and loss welled up as he tried to fit the pieces of his miserable life together, tried unsuccessfully to find some pattern to the last few weeks, some direction. There was none. There was only an old healer who was also a heretic priest, and a stoic, silent, deadly warrior dragging him across the known world towards an unknown destination for an unknown reason.

“
Why me?”
he screamed into the vaults of his mind. The question echoed as if his skull was a cavern, bouncing back and forth until it faded away into the depths of his subconscious.

There was no answer.

He wept silently so as not to disturb the two men who continued to talk, oblivious to their young charge's breakdown, until a dark blanket finally crept over his awareness and he succumbed to the depthless oblivion of sleep.

Chapter 38

Thalor stormed into Calen's office without bothering to knock and found the corpulent man sitting at his ridiculously oversized desk, scribbling away at some report or other. The man was sweating, red faced as if he had just run a marathon, with damp patches radiating out from each armpit. He was spitefully pleased to see that his sudden entry had startled Calen and caused him to scratch a thick line of black ink on his parchment. Raising eyes that burned with anger, Calen opened his mouth to berate Thalor's unauthorized entry, but Thalor was quicker.

“What is the meaning of this?” he yelled, brandishing a crumpled bit of parchment in his fist like a dagger.

Calen hesitated, his disgusting mouth hanging open though he seemed to have swallowed his reproachful words, taken aback by Thalor's fury. He looked at the parchment that Thalor wanted to stab him with and a sly smile spread slowly across his wormy little lips as a glimmer of recognition dawned in his eyes.

“Ah, so I see that the Grand Prelate has issued his orders as per my advice.” He locked eyes with Thalor. Gesturing to his wine table, Calen continued. “Would you like something to drink? You have the look of a man who could use something to drink. Please, help yourself.”

Thalor trembled with restrained fury. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his lips were pinched so tightly that only a thin white line remained where his mouth should have been. That morning, he had used his scrying bowl to see if he could pinpoint Kurin's location. He knew the heretic would be on the caravan route by now, but he wanted to know exactly where so that he could direct his second wave of agents, just arriving in the general vicinity, accordingly. He had not found Kurin but he had seen the two platoons approaching from north and south no more than two or three days apart. That had been his first shock.

After storming from his office, he had seen a new proclamation hanging from a wall in the main dining hall, signed by Grand Prelate Maten himself. The single page had been the Grand Prelate's authorization that Calen would be taking charge in the hunt for the rogue and that all other members of the clergy were to stay out of it. He had no doubt who 'all other members' referred to. That had been his second shock.

Recovering had taken a few minutes of deep breathing to calm his fluttering heart while he leaned against the wall to keep from collapsing. When his thoughts coalesced into something resembling coherence, one name had called out from their depths. Calen. It had been Calen who had spoken to the Grand Prelate. Thalor knew it as surely as he knew his own name.