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.
That’s all they need, Parven had told me. That’s how they serve you.
By the second month of my command, we were taking long marches into the red cliffs that were the southern boundary of our encampment. We practiced disappearing into caves and niches and the long, narrow shadows, climbed impossibly steep tracks carrying heavy packs of water and food, and survived for days at a time with no sound and no movement and only the most minimal sustenance. Of course I had to do all these things with my troops, and I could not complain lest they think me weak.
Lak and I always climbed together, for we were lighter and so had an easier time scrambling over rocks and crevasses. One day we got to the top of a rocky ridge while the rest of the men were still out of sight below us. The day was murderously hot, and when I reached for my waterskin, I found it empty, a ragged rip in the side. I had not allowed a water stop for several hours. My mouth felt like iron, and my head throbbed, but I could see no remedy. I was the commander. I could show no weakness.
Lak was panting and red-faced. As he pulled out his own water skin, he glanced at mine, and his eyes grew wide. “Your water, sir.”
“Unfortunate,” I said, looking off in another direction- any direction but his bulging waterskin.
“But it will be hours until we reach the camp.”
“It is the way it is.”
“If you would honor me…” He pushed his waterskin into my hands, nodding his head ever so slightly down the hill. No one was in sight. It would be only moments until the others came into view, and I was already feeling desperate at the thought of the long, hot afternoon. I said nothing, but nodded in return and took a sip of the warm, stale liquid that tasted as good as anything I’d ever drunk before. I was amazed. I had never seen a Zhid share anything. This is dangerous, whispered Parven. You know it.
If I don’t take it, I’ll risk collapsing in front of them, I thought, maintaining silence with Lak. He’ll not tell anyone.
Lak was the only one of my men that ever smiled. He smiled on that morning when I shared his water and again a few days later when he was sparring with me and got in a decent lick that left me in the dirt on my backside.
“A commander does not spar with his troops,” said Kovrack, his small mouth set hard, his empty eyes glaring at Lak as the soldier walked away.
“I choose to do so, in this case,” I said. “I don’t want to lose practice while I’m in the field. None of your practice slaves are the right size, and Lak needs the work, too. I can’t let him be lax just because he’s small.”
Kovrack and Parven were both annoyed with me. But it was the most enjoyable practice I’d had since I’d come to Zhev’Na. Because Lak was a soldier, he was allowed to wear leather practice armor when we sparred, so I was unlikely to damage him severely. The work was good for both of us, and we steadily improved.