5

“I’m out in four months. I’ve done my time. I want to see my children. Every day, not just for a week twice a year.” Mikoto speaks to me quietly.

“That’s understandable.” I try to push down my envy. A wife. Children. I would give almost anything for those joys.

Yuudai is the first to realize we have a problem. He shouts to warn us. The scouts must have been killed already. There are Tarvil everywhere. They are among us before we can organize. Our formation is ragged, but we are well trained, and we pincer the Tarvil among us as we close ranks.

They have archers. They outnumber us. Badly.

We make them pay dearly for their victory, but we are lost.

Blood spatters across my chest, Yuudai’s blood. His throat is open, but even fallen to his knees, he brings up his sword with his last strength to block a blow meant for me.

Sword brothers.

We will die together.

My chest blooms into brilliant pain, searing. I am staring along the length of a javelin at the sun-streaked sky.

I woke with a jerk. My chest hurt, a heavy ache, and I sat up, hunching forward to rub the scar with my left hand. The pain was in my mind more than my chest. I tried to calm my breathing.

“Are you well?” Hakan was up on one elbow looking at me.

“Fine.” I closed my eyes again. Phraa. It still felt like the shaft of the javelin was grinding against my ribs with each breath.

“Do you want a drink or something?” He sounded a little frightened.

“I’m fine.” I lay back down and stared up at the stars. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stare at me a minute longer before settling down again. It took a long time for my shoulders to relax and to sleep again.

“Do you dream of battle often?”

“Sometimes.” I didn’t want to talk about my dreams.

I could hear him breathing hard behind me as we hiked up a steep hill. We’d moved on northeast that morning from the clearing where we’d camped for weeks.

He didn’t question me much that day. I set a quick pace, and I suppose I looked rather grim, because when we stopped for lunch he glanced at me a few times and ate in silence. Dinner was the same.

The next day we started early but stopped while there was still good light left so I could practice. I hadn’t been training much while I concentrated on Hakan’s training, and I didn’t intend to let myself get too far out of practice. He threw himself on the ground and watched tiredly as I began.

Deep breath. Relax. The sequence I had done before, the hardest one I knew. Three times, then again. Then the strengthening exercises. The balancing move, again, over and over, and yet again. Jumping into the flip, legs extended in proper form. Always proper form. Often people forget how important it is; they get sloppy and lazy. But the form was designed to be the most efficient, the most effective, the best possible way to move for the given goal. The flip, again and again.

I wonder sometimes how much of my success as a warrior is because of my great size and strength, for which I can take little credit, and how much is attributable to my need for perfection, the insatiable desire to do it better, the willingness to sweat and bleed in training, to train longer and harder and not to rest until I have done it right.

Afterwards I was spent, and I lay in the growing darkness with the calls of insects and birds surrounding me in a trilling roar. The exhaustion was soothing, comforting. It took my mind off the dreams, the loneliness, the sorrow. The sense of failure. It would have been impossible to know about the ambush, but that didn’t stop the memories from returning. Just as it was impossible for me to earn my place in Erdemen society.

Finally I stood, almost shaking with fatigue. Hakan had gathered some wood, and I fixed our dinner in the vibrating air of a spring evening, when everything with a hard exterior rubs its legs against its body, calling for its mate. Or two or three mates, as the case may be.

I heard the flap of a night hunting bird above us and the soft rustle of small rodents in the leaves well back from the fire. We ate in silence, and I rolled myself in my cloak for the night. Hakan too rolled up in his cloak, but after some time I heard him sit up and move closer to the fire. It was quite dark, the embers glowing faintly under a layer of ash. He sat near me, behind my back but within reach. I could feel his eyes on me, though I did not open mine.

I half-expected a knife blade between my ribs, the knife I’d chosen for him. I had not been especially kind to him that day; I’d been irritated by his grumbling. His complaints had diminished in the past weeks, and he’d helped me with the simple work of provisioning ourselves. Though he was no great hunter, he would gather firewood, roots and kiberries, and I’d showed him how to make a simple stew from dried or fresh meat and whatever could be gathered in the wood. I’d taught him how to shoot the crossbow and how far to lead his target when shooting something small like a dove or purflin. He did not have the gift of good marksmanship, but he showed more patience than I’d expected. I’d taught him to aim for the lungs when shooting deer with the larger arrows, and how to clean his kill afterwards. How to roast meat, and how to wrap it so it would stay fresh for several days.

Yet that day he’d complained about the food, the walking, the heat of the sun and the cold of the water when we waded through a small stream. Then it was his wet boots. He was a boy yet, but would perhaps someday be a king. He tried my patience. At eighteen, I was an officer in the king’s suvari, commanding men twice my age. Complaints about wet boots would not have been tolerated.

I waited, my breathing even and very calm.

Finally I asked, “What do you want?”

He spoke very quietly. “You don’t like me, do you?”

“What?”

“You don’t like me very much, do you?”

I answered with my eyes closed. “Does it matter?”

He was very quiet, poking a stick into the embers. Finally I rolled over and looked at him. He turned his face away and brushed angrily at his cheeks, though not quickly enough to hide the shiny streaks of tears. I sat up, feeling guilty and awkward.

“I like you well enough.” I could see his jaw clench in the dim light. “What do you want me to say?”

He shook his head wordlessly, stabbing the stick into the ashes. I waited, my eyes drifting closed though I still heard him clearly.

“If you don’t like me, if you don’t believe in me, then who else will? And who’s to say you should? Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not good enough, and it would be better if I left. Better for everyone.”

I put one hand on his shoulder, feeling more guilty when I realized how thin he was. Maybe he wasn’t eating enough. “You’re not ready yet, but when the time comes, you will be.” I cursed my lack of words, my inability to speak more kindly.

“Do you think I’m a coward?” His words were very quiet as he stared into the feebly glowing embers.

“I think you’ll need to exercise your courage more now than you have in the past.”

He choked out a short bitter laugh. “You mean, ‘Yes, Hakan, you are a coward.’”

“Nay, I think not. I think you haven’t been pushed until now. Being pushed isn’t a comfortable thing, Hakan. I wouldn’t expect you to be happy with it.” I squeezed his shoulder a little, hoping it was a comforting gesture. The bones shifted beneath my fingers. I fed a small branch into the embers. It blackened and then a tiny puff of flame started its burning. “What did you study, in your education as a prince?”

“Trade. History. Diplomacy. Military strategy. Mathematics. How to manage the various ministries. Languages. Common, Kumar, Modern High Tongue, archaic High Tongue, Rikutan, Ophrani. A little agriculture. Riding. Swordplay, though you’ve seen how badly I failed at that.”

“All those things are necessary for a king. Swordplay is not, though it may be necessary as you regain your throne. But it is a good way to exercise your courage. Later you’ll have the entire army to do your fighting for you, and it won’t matter if you’re a bit slow in your strikes. It’s earning your throne that counts now, Hakan, not your skill with a sword.”

He looked at me, eyes glowing oddly in the orange light of the fire. “Why do you push me, Kemen? I don’t even think you like me, but you make it sound as though you would make me king. Why? If you don’t think I would be a good king, why do you bother?”

I must have been harsher than I’d realized, for in truth I was warming to him, despite my frustration that day. “It’s your right. You’ve been trained for it. I believe you’ll be a good king.” I phrased it as a certainty that he would become king, though we both knew it was still a question.

“I think only a few things are lacking in your education, and they aren’t things I’d expect you to receive in the palace. Courage. You have it in you, but courage grows by exercise. A willingness to work hard without complaint. The job of a king is often a thankless one, open for much criticism but little gratitude. As a prince, you were pampered and spoiled; it isn’t your fault you haven’t worked hard until now. But as king, that will not continue. Best to learn to work hard now, rather than when your nation depends on you. An awareness of the problems that those outside the palace face. This you will learn as we near the border. I imagine it will help you form your policies as king, and perhaps even show you how to regain your throne.” I clapped my hand on his shoulder again.

“I don’t think it matters much whether I like you or not. But if you care, I do. We need a king as we haven’t had since before the Famine began, and I see the promise of that great king in you. I’m doing my part to help you grow into that role, for it is a large one and challenging. If I didn’t believe you could do it, I wouldn’t push you so.”

I don’t know how encouraging my words were, but that was all I could think to say. “Now get some sleep.”

He poked the fire for another moment, looking very thoughtful. Finally, he turned away and rolled up in his cloak, and I did the same.

Did I believe he’d be a good king? I’m not sure what I believed, but the words had come to me. I am not given to untruths, so I suppose deep inside I must have believed it.