Benjin
Haidan Shar was a flurry of movement, and Benj had never seen it so busy. He was walking back to the Flats, nursing the bruises on his arm—Jahaz had let him off lightly—when his friend Shotes shouted for him. The chubby black-haired boy was coming from the stables, covered in filth, waving his hands frantically above his head.
“Benj, ith it true?” he asked. Shotes’s missing front tooth turned his s’s to th’s and made the breath leaving his mouth whistle like a teapot. “Are we really going to war?”
Benj kept walking and simply nodded. His mind was on the horses, even though part of him knew he should be more concerned with the future of the Sharian army.
“When? Where? How thoon?” Shotes asked, with no pauses for breath.
“I don’t know the details,” Benj said dismissively, brushing past his friend and into the stables.
Benj hated war. He hated talking about war. He hated thinking about war. His mother had known that when she had offered him up as an armiger, but that didn’t seem to matter to her.
Even though Benj had been born after his mother left her home city of Ghal Thurái, he felt as if he had grown up in the Mouth of the Deep just from her stories alone. She was always talking about the city, and saying how much pride the Thurians took in their army and how she had always wanted the same for him. But, while the Fist of Thurái was indeed legendary, Benj couldn’t have cared less if he was part of something like that. He just wanted to tend horses.
“Ah, you’re home!” came his mother Nessa’s voice from behind him.
Benj turned around to see her hazel eyes sparkling in the midday sun, even though there was nothing to be sparkling about.
“I am. Jahaz cut me loose for the day to prepare,” he said.
“Captain Jahaz,” his mother corrected.
“Captain Jahaz,” Benj mumbled. He knew better than to slip like that around her. She took such pride in the profession of arms. Especially since, or because of, what happened.
“And how are you going to prepare?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts and looking at him expectantly. “Grooming the horses won’t teach you how to swing a sword.”
“I know it won’t,” he answered curtly.
“Then why are you in here?” she replied, indicating the stables with her eyes.
Benj was moving the feed bag over to their biggest horse, Arrow, whose cream coat and charming demeanor made him the favorite. “Because.”
It wasn’t a good enough answer, but he couldn’t think of a better one.
“That’s not a reason,” his mother said, moving closer. She looked upset now.
“I never wanted to be an armiger,” he blurted out. The words spilled from him so fast that he barely realized he was saying them. His mother was next to him in an instant. She knelt down and grabbed him with her left hand, turning Benj to look her in the eyes. There was anger in them, but also compassion.
“I know you didn’t, Benj,” she said. Her hazel eyes wavered as they looked at his. “But it’s the only hope you have for a good life. You know I would still be in Ghal Thurái if not for . . .”
“Stop it,” Benj said angrily, recoiling from her hand. “I know.” He crossed his arms and glared at his mother defiantly.
The sparkle returned to her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “My days in the Fist are long gone. I gave up everything when I left Ghal Thurái . . .” She looked at him again. “Well, not everything,” she said with a tight smile.
Here it comes, Benj thought. She was going to tell him the story—again—of how she had fled the Mouth for Haidan Shar in hopes of a better life for herself and, unknown to her at the time, the baby growing inside her. About the tales of the city’s wealth that had spread throughout Gal’dorok. About the opportunity that awaited in the Gem of the East, where even a disgraced warrior of the Fist could make something of herself.
But, instead of the story, all Benj got was a hand tousling his hair.
“Alright,” she relented. “Tend to the horses.” She stood up and made for the door. Stopping just shy of it, she added over her shoulder, “Do all the things tonight that Benj the boy would do, because, starting tomorrow, you’ll have to be a man.”
She walked out of the stables and shut the door behind her.