Aiten would have laughed, I thought gloomily. If he’d been here, he’d have been the first I’d have suspected of posting the challenge. He’d have thought it a glorious prank and then would have trained with me every waking moment so I’d walk off the sand as victor at the end of the day. But he was two years dead, all but a season and a half. Dead at Livak’s hand, but his death was owed to Elietimm malice. I knew she still fretted about the appalling choice she’d made, to kill my friend to save my life and hers when his wits had been taken from him by foul enchantment. I only hoped this distance between us wouldn’t have her doubting my assurance that I never blamed her.
Fyle returned swinging leather beakers in one hand and a blackened flagon in the other. “We’ll drink to your success tomorrow, shall we?”
“I hope there’s plenty of water in that,” I commented, taking a drink. Aiten was dead, Livak was away and I had to deal with the here and now. Someone had set a challenge and I had to meet it. If I was paying debts run up in my foolish youth, so be it. If someone planned to leave me bleeding on the sand, I’d make sure he was the one needing the surgeon. Then I’d want to know whose coin had bought his blade in defiance of every tenet of oath-bound tradition.
“We’ll lift the good stuff tomorrow,” Fyle promised, seeing my expression as I sipped. “When you’ve seen off whatever dogs come yapping round your heels.”
“You think I’ll do?” If he didn’t, Fyle would soon tell me.
“You’re the equal of any sworn man I’ve had here in the last five years,” he said slowly. “You’re young for a chosen, so you’ll face men with more experience than you, but on the other side of that coin they’ll be older, slower.” He smiled at me, the creases around his dark eyes deepening. “You were a loud-mouthed lad, but you were saying nothing we sword provosts don’t mutter among ourselves over a late night flagon. Too many chosen and proven polish up their armring and let their swords rust.”
Like Glannar, I thought sternly. “So you’ll be putting down coin to back me, will you?”
“You know I’m no man for a wager.” Fyle shook his head. “I only take risks I can’t avoid, like any sensible soldier.”
We both drank deep, thirst gripping us by the throat.
“I’d have thought you’d have had a few more tricks up your sleeve,” remarked Fyle as he refilled our beakers with the well watered wine. “Didn’t you learn anything in those god-cursed islands down south?”
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?” I laughed.
“One of our own gets sold into slavery by those worthless Relshazri, taken off into the Archipelago, where even honest traders say disease takes three men for every two the Aldabreshi kill. He fights his way out with wizards behind him and then turns up on the far side of the ocean, unearthing Nemith the Last’s lost colony, untouched by time?” Fyle looked at me, mock incredulous. “You don’t suppose I’m going to swallow that, do you? What really happened?”
I let go a long breath as I thought how best to answer him. “I was arrested in Relshaz after a misunderstanding with a trader.”
“And they claim to have a law code equal to ours,” scoffed Fyle.
I shrugged. I could hardly claim the trader was being unreasonable when he’d objected to Temar taking over my hands and wits to steal that unholy armring. “Raeponin must have been looking the other way. Some mischief loaded the scales so I got bought by an Elietimm warlord looking for a body slave for his youngest wife.” Elietimm mischief had been behind it but I wasn’t about to try explaining that to Fyle. “I did my duty by her for a season or so, jumped ship, and headed north when I got the chance.” A chance offered me by the warlord, since I’d done him the favour of exposing the treachery of another of his wives, a vicious stupid bitch being played for a fool by those cursed Elietimm. “I got caught up with the Archmage and his search for Kellarin when I took a ride on a ship to Hadrumal.” I shrugged again. “After that, I was just looking out for the Sieur’s interests.” Discovering he’d sacrifice me for the greater good of the Name without too much grief.
Fyle leaned back against some cloak left hanging on a peg. “So what kind of service does a warlord’s wife want?” From the way he loaded the word, he meant it in the stableyard sense.
I laughed. “Oh, you’ve heard the stories, Fyle.” As had I and every other man in Tormalin. The Archipelago was ruled by vicious savages who used their women in common, slaking blood lust and the other kind in orgies of cruelty and debauchery. Crudely copied chapbooks with lurid illustrations periodically circulated round the sword schools, those who could read entertaining their fellows with the titillating details. When one particularly unpleasant example had come to light in a provost’s inspection, Fyle’s predecessor had made a fire of every bit of paper in the barracks.
“Well?” Fyle demanded. “Come on! Half the lads here were expecting you to float up dead on the summer storms and the rest thought you’d be cut two stones lighter if we ever saw you alive again!”
“Luckily eunuchs have gone out of fashion in this generation.”
Fyle laughed, thinking I was joking. I leaned over to him, keeping my voice low. “Fyle, you haven’t heard the half of it.”
“Master Provost?” A shout from the far door saved me from any more questions. It was the Barracks Steward, a thick ledger under his arm.
“Duty calls.” Fyle groaned. “But I’ll have the truth out of you, Rysh, if I have to get you drunk to do it.” He pointed a blunt, emphatic finger at me.
“You can buy the brandy to celebrate my success tomorrow,” I offered.
Fyle laughed as he left. “Yes, Master Steward, what can I do for you?”
I wandered out of the far door, squinting in the bright sunlight. A few lads sat in the dust, playing a game of runes with a battered wooden set discarded by some man at arms. White Raven’s more my game; I never have that much luck with runes, unlike Livak. But then, she makes her own luck if needs be. I wandered past the long, low-roofed barracks where narrow windows shed scant light on the cramped bunks inside. The shrine was at the far end of the sword school compound, a small round building in the same pale sandy stone, ochre tiles spotted with lichen on an old-fashioned conical roof.
I went inside and sneezed, old incense hanging in the air having its usual effect. The ancient icon of Ostrin had a fresh Festival garland around its neck and the bowl in front of the plinth was filled with the ash of more than one incense stick recently burned in supplication. Fyle took his duties as nominal priest of the place more seriously than Serial, sword provost through my early training. He’d left the place to dust and cobwebs that made a greybeard out of the youthful Ostrin, holly staff in one hand and jug in the other.
I looked up at the statue, carved in some smooth soft grey stone I’d never been able to identify, much to my father’s amusement. Ostrin has many aspects endearing him to fighting men: god of hospitality, legends tell of him rewarding faithful servants and even taking up arms to defend dutiful folk being abused by the unworthy. When taking up arms leads to bloodshed, then we can beseech the god’s healing grace. These days I’d be more likely to see what Artifice could do for me, I thought irreverently.
Taking incense, steel and flint from the drawer in the plinth, I lit a casual offering in remembrance of Aiten. I’d failed to bring his body back, to be burned on the pyre ground behind this little shrine. I hadn’t even returned with his ashes, purified in some distant fire and safe in an urn to join in the serried ranks lining the curved walls, mute remembrance of all those men who’d died in D’Olbriot service and now took their ease in the Otherworld. I hadn’t even brought back his sword or his dagger, to lay in one of the dusty chests tucked behind the altar. But I had his amulet, sewn in my sword-belt, the token in earnest of our oaths. I’d lay that to rest here, I decided, when I’d taken suitable revenge, some day, somehow, when I’d won a price in blood with all the interest accrued out of some worthless Elietimm hide. Ostrin, Dastennin and any other god who cared to listen could be my witness, the Elietimm wouldn’t lay hands on Kellarin, not while I was still breathing.