For so many years I had believed that nothing… nothing… was worth taking a life, certainly not the preservation of my own life, and not even the preservation of the lives I cherished most. I had not yet come to terms with the dreadful consequences of my idealism, but on that night in the slave pen of Zhev’Na, I told myself that I no longer had the luxury of choice. I was fighting a war, and my son’s life was bound up with the safety of two worlds. I just didn’t know if that would be enough when next I faced a living man with a sword in my hand.
I could not sleep for thinking of Seri and Gerick and preparing myself for the morning. Daylight arrived far too soon. As always, I was led to the day’s sparring ground by the chain hooked to my collar. Gabdil again.
“These keepers insist that you can fight, slave. I don’t believe it.” The big man grinned and tossed me a two-handed great-sword-my favorite weapon. “I think you are Dar’Nethi vermin who plays at swords the same way your people play at sorcery. The Lords of Zhev’Na will teach you one discipline, and I will teach you the other.”
Anger stirred in my gut. No blank-eyed, unimaginative, misbegotten Zhid knew more of swordplay than the Prince of Avonar. I lifted the weapon up to the light, letting the sun glint along its shining edge, and then I pointed it at the empty eyes staring at me, as if to say “I’ll put it there,” and took my ready stance.
V’Saro had been but a mask, a flimsy veneer of experience and memory painted over my soul, with skills and inclinations that were very much my own. The Dar’Nethi Healer’s invocation was at the core of V’Saro’s being, and he risked mutilation to comfort his injured cellmates, because I was Karon, a Healer incapable of any other response to their suffering. And V’Saro knew how to wield a sword with deadly precision because I was D’Natheil, who valued nothing in life save the art of combat. It might take me a full lifetime to become accustomed to this other set of habits and instincts existing alongside my own, but when I raised my sword on the first morning of my second life in Zhev’Na, I was glad he was with me. D’Natheil did not think. He fought. And so my life continued.
“The Wargreve Damon has asked for this one?” The slavekeeper ticked off an item on his list.
The slavemaster, hands clasped behind his back, chuckled. “The wargreve asked for a challenge. Says our stock is poor these days; threatens to report unfavorably to the gensei if he doesn’t break a sweat today. We’ll see what he thinks of V’Saro.” The slavemaster had begun visiting the stable often, especially on days I fought wager matches.
The keeper flicked a finger at a slavehandler who unlocked the cell gate and motioned me to kneel with my hands behind my back so they could shackle them together. I threw the piece of half-eaten graybread back into my basket and complied. As my wristbands were linked together and the handler’s boot informed me it was time to stand, my stomach constricted in the now-familiar anxiety. Uncounted days had passed since I had learned my identity. Nothing had changed. I had to keep fighting. I had to keep winning.
“Wargreve Damon is a brilliant warrior,” said the keeper.
“If he takes this one, he’ll be almost as good as he thinks. Of course, if V’Saro takes Damon, we’ll have grief to pay to the gensei. But it might be worth it.”
Most unsettling to hear my day’s opponent was the protégé of a gensei-a general. The nearest I’d come to death in my months in the slave pens had not been from a wound of my own, but on the day I had lamed the protégé of another gensei. Only the intervention of the slavemaster on behalf of “the Lords’ property” had kept me alive.
My spirits sank even lower when I was delivered to the training ground and saw Damon. He was big and young, and as I was unshackled and given a weapon and a thinly padded leather tunic, I watched him use his long-sword to hack a thickly padded practice drum into as precise, thin slices as if he were slicing butter with a dagger. This one was good.
“Is this the best you can do?” He surveyed my battered body and shabby turnout scornfully. “I said I wanted a challenge.”
The handler bowed. “The slavemaster says to report any dissatisfaction.”
We set right to work. Interesting. The young Zhid used incredible speed and brilliant instincts to mask abysmally poor technique. He was every bit the dangerous opponent I had judged him, but in the first hour I spotted a weakness in his defense. Stubborn and prideful, he would never evade or step away from a strike, but always chose to parry, assuming that his quickness would allow him to reset and counter. But his favorite parry was soft, his blade angled improperly, a blatant opening that would permit me to kill him easily. Yet, as I had learned before, killing the fool would be a risky proposition.
The Zhid had no children, but they were inordinately possessive of other warriors they had taken on as protégés in a murderous perversion of Dar’Nethi mentoring. To injure the wargreve would draw the angry notice of a gensei, but if I didn’t exploit this weakness, Damon could very possibly wear me down enough to take me. An untenable situation.
We completed an exercise.
“Excellent, Damon,” said the young man’s Zhid swordmaster. “Perhaps a bit forceful, but excellent overall. Shall we try it again? Position, slave!”
The swordmaster spent most of his time praising his pupil’s skills and little giving any meaningful critique. As the hours of practice passed, he showed no sign that he had noticed the glaring weakness so obvious to me.
By the time we stopped for a midday rest period, the wargreve had scarcely broken a sweat. I walked over to the water barrel, waiting until my back was turned to gulp for air and leaning casually on the wall as I drank, as if I didn’t really need the support for my aching shoulders.
“Position, slave!”
I returned to the center of the courtyard. The heat beat on my head and shoulders like the hammer of Arot, the Leiran god who forged his own weapons to battle chaos. I had to act. I ducked a stroke that came near removing what hair the slavekeeper’s hacking had left me and made a wide spin that brought me up next to the swordmaster, well away from my opponent. Quickly I slapped the back of my hand to my lips. The swordmaster looked puzzled-such a thing was unusual in the middle of a match-but he held up his hand to stay the wargreve’s blade that hung unpleasantly close to my head.
“What is it, dog? Surely you recall that a slave cannot yield?”
“Swordmaster, there’s been a dreadful mistake. You cannot mean for me to fight this youth.”
“A mistake?” snarled the wargreve, not giving his instructor a chance to respond. “Our profound apologies. If you’re mismatched, then you’ll just die all the sooner. I’ll just have to sacrifice the day’s training.”
“I am not the one matched above his skill. We Dar’Nethi hold our honor dear. I’m sworn to fight to the best of my ability, and that I will do, but when I’ve been put up against a beginner, I must issue a warning. If this fight continues, you will be the one to die.”
The young man laughed harshly. “A beginner? I’ve not lost a match since I was transformed.”