CHAPTER 30
Gerick
One morning, after I had been in Zhev’Na for several months, I went down to the fencing yard ready to begin the day. I had been working with a new sword, not a rapier, but an edged blade, a war sword. It was fine-a one-handed blade with a deep fuller to keep it light, a sharpened, tapered tip, and a length that was exactly right for my height. With so many new things to learn-cutting and slashing movements, different kinds of thrusting, appropriate stances, footwork, and defenses-I made sure to arrive at the fencing yard early every day and stayed at least an hour longer than usual. Though Calador never admitted it, I knew I was making good progress.
Someone new stood waiting with Calador that morning. Like Calador he was a Zhid-one of the warriors of Zhev’Na with the strange eyes. He was very tall, and his thin red hair was combed straight back from a high forehead. His whole face was long and pointed, especially his nose. If he hadn’t been talking to Calador, I might have thought he had no mouth at all.
Calador bowed to me and to the tall man. “My lord Prince, may I introduce Kovrack, a gensei of the Lords’ armies-our highest military rank. Gensei Kovrack has been charged with the next phase of your training, that of military command. You are to live with the gensei in the war camp of Elihad Ru, and he will teach you how to lead your soldiers. I have been honored to be your swordmaster.”
“But wait…” I was just getting used to Calador and Harres and Murn, just beginning to improve so that maybe they would think I was worth something. I liked my house and my servants and my horses. I didn’t want to change things.
It is necessary, my young Lord, said Parven, inside me. You are to be the ruler of two worlds. You agreed to let us guide you in the accomplishment of your purposes, and we warned you that there were hard lessons to be learned. Your destiny is not to be comfortable. That will make you weak. Weakness-fear of true power-was the downfall of Avonar and the line of D’Arnath. Have we not made you more than the sniveling child you were?
Of course, he was right. They had made me better, harder, more like what I should be. I could run for an hour across the desert and still come back and win a fight. I could pin an opponent that outweighed me by half again and break his arm to boot. It didn’t make my stomach hurt any more when I cut a sparring partner’s legs so they wouldn’t hold him up, and I could seal the slave collar on a new captive without even hearing his screams or feeling anything but relief that there was one more of the Dar‘Nethi unable to kill kind old women. Even if Prince D’Natheil was dead, I would have my revenge on him. I had sworn my oath. “Of course, I’ll do whatever is necessary.”
We left the fortress immediately, without even returning to my house. All that I needed would be supplied, Kovrack told me as we rode into the desert.
Two leagues from the fortress was the heart of a Zhid encampment that stretched as far as I could see into the brown dust haze that was the horizon. I had been into the Zhid war camps only twice: once to see a new lot of horses delivered from the breeding farms, and once to watch the execution of a Zhid who had spared a captive Dar’Nethi from a punishment. The warrior’s commanders had staked him out on the ground and given him only enough water to keep him alive while he baked in the days and froze in the nights. Every day they would lash him until his flesh was shredded, and the wind blew sand into the wounds until you couldn’t tell he was a man. Every night they worked some sorcery that made him whole again. He was out there for days. By the time he died, he was mad.
We spent my first day in Elihad Ru touring the ranks of tents, the supply huts, and the training grounds, stopping occasionally to watch a mock battle or other exercise. At sunset, we rode to the top of a small rise where several larger tents were pitched. The gensei assigned me a tent next to his own and told me we would share a fire. A slave was kneeling in front of my tent. “The slave will keep you supplied with water, wine, and food, cook for you, and clean your clothes,” Kovrack said. “You’ll have no other luxuries in a war camp.”
The slave looked a few years older than me. No one told me his name. Luckily he seemed to know what to do, because I didn’t know what to tell him. After taking my weapons, brushing off my clothes, and putting out the light, he curled up to sleep on the sand outside the door of my tent.
On the next morning before sunrise, when the light was still dull and red, I heard Gensei Kovrack up and about. My slave was kneeling at the doorway of the tent waiting for me. I dressed quickly, had him buckle my sword belt around my waist, and stepped out of the tent. Kovrack was stretching and flexing his arm and shoulder muscles. I didn’t say anything, because it looked like he was concentrating. My slave brought me a cup filled with cavet-the thick, strong tea the Zhid drank-and Kovrack flicked his fingers at his own slave as if he wanted some, too. Kovrack’s slave filled a cup, but just as he offered it to his master, he stumbled over a tent stake and spilled the cavet in the sand. Scarcely interrupting his exercise, the gensei reached over to the post where his scabbard hung, drew his sword, and ran the slave through. My slave fell to his knees and pressed his head to the sand. I almost dropped my cup.
Kovrack snapped his fingers. While two slaves dragged the body away, and a third cleaned his sword, he resumed his exercise. He lunged forward in a half squat and brought his arms over his head, holding the position for longer than I could hold a breath. “You think me harsh?” he said.
I did, but would never say so. I was becoming accustomed to how things were done in Ce Uroth. I shrugged.
Again Kovrack motioned with his hand. My slave filled a cup and presented it to the gensei when he left the position and stood up again. “The first rule of command: tolerate no imperfection. Otherwise your soldiers will lose their fear of you. Slaves are not inexpensive, but they are cheaper than armies such as this.” He waved his cup about us. “My soldiers know that no one of them is exempt from this same penalty. They work hard for me.”
When we finished a breakfast of hot bread and soft cheese, we walked down into the camp. A troop of ten new soldiers of various ages were waiting for me. Throughout that day, Kovrack showed me how to run them and drill them, how to use my voice and my power to command them, and how to make them fear me even though I was so young and scarcely taller than their shoulders. “You are their commander and their sovereign. You hold their lives in your hand, and no one of them is worth a fistful of sand unless he obeys you without hesitation. They must be taught that you, too, will tolerate no imperfection.”
The Zhid weren’t like soldiers I had known in Leire. They didn’t laugh or tell bawdy stories around their camp-fires. Though a few fierce-looking women warriors lived among the Zhid, none of the warriors seemed to have families. They talked of weapons and battles, and who they would kill if the Lords would let them. I didn’t think they knew what the jewels in my ear signified.
These do not, whispered Parven as soon as I thought it. But they’re new. They’ll learn.
Gensei Kovrack supervised my training, but it was the Lord Parven who taught me the subtler things that I had to know, watching everything that went on through my eyes and my thoughts. The first weeks were anxious and difficult for I had to learn so much at once, while developing my own strength and endurance as well. Fortunately my soldiers’ infractions were small, and I had no need to use any punishment beyond extra practice. I dreaded the day one of them balked at a command.
One of my men was younger than the others. His name was Lak, and he was about fifteen, only a little taller than me, dark-haired, wiry, and strong. He seemed a little brighter than the usual Zhid. Not that Zhid were stupid.
Most of them were intelligent and powerful. But if you were to think of them like metal, you’d say the Zhid were made of iron, not silver. Maybe it was because they never thought of anything but hatred, battle, and death.