The surgeon tied off my last bandage, cut off the end with his knife, and stood up. “Keep him idle for a day. And send the mule-brained Drudge with more cavet.” As I was detached from the ring and led hobbling away, he was pulling out materials to stitch the other man’s thigh. I didn’t envy the poor bastard.
A Zhid Healer. The very concept made my head hurt.
The next day was long and unsettling. Left idle by the surgeon’s order, I listened and learned. The other slaves were taken out one by one through the morning, assigned to high-ranking warriors who had summoned sparring partners. Evidently some of them had regular assignments, while others were moved from one Zhid to another depending on special needs and requests. One man was assigned to wrestling, one to a match with knives and axes, one to speed work with a commander who had been demoted for his lack of agility.
Over and over, I heard the rules laid down. The slave would wear only such armor and use only such weapons- real or blunted practice weapons-as the Zhid warrior specified. The slave was required to fight to the best of his abilities and to participate in such exercises and drills as the warrior or his instructor devised. The slave was not permitted to yield the match or stop the exercise. Only Zhid could call a halt.
As the slaves were taken out of the pen, led by tethers attached to their collars, none of them looked to one side or the other. Was it forbidden, or was it just too painful to see others witnessing one’s degradation? Perhaps it was only fear of what was to come, for one day’s watching taught me how fleeting was a career as a sparring partner for the Zhid.
A man was found dead in his cell that morning. Two more wounded men were brought back by midday, told they would be looked at when the surgeon had time. One of them was in the cell next to me, and in his shallow struggling breaths I heard an ominous gurgling. I banged on the bars of my cell. When the guard came, I slapped the back of my hand on my lips.
“Speak.”
“The man next to me is dangerously wounded. I can hear it in his breathing. His chest-”
“Is that all? Call me again for such a reason, and I’ll have you flogged.” He spat at the dying man and walked away.
I had to do something. My hand fit between the bars, but only as far as the wrist bands. The steel loops that were used for restraints wouldn’t fit through, and my neighbor lay too far away for my fingers to reach. With no talent for healing and no power for mind-speaking or anything else, words were all I could offer him. Many times in the days I’d fought on the walls of Avonar, I had heard Dar’Nethi Healers pray their invocation and found comfort in the familiar words. Perhaps they might do the same for the dying man and remind him of who he was. So I whispered the verse through the bars of the cell, hoping the guard would not pass by and hear.
“Life, hold. Stay your hand ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill his soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place. Je’den encour, my brother. Heal swiftly.”
A rasping whisper responded. “L’Tiere calls. I go freely.”
“May Vasrin’s light show you the Way beyond the Verges.”
“I had almost forgotten…”
“I, too,” I said, but only to myself, for the struggling breaths had ceased with his last word. It was several hours until the guard noticed the man was dead and dragged him down the aisle. I could not see his face.
The other man survived until the surgeon came. Evidently his leg was maimed beyond easy repair. He was taken away in a cart.
The afternoon stretched long and hot and quiet. My gray-bread basket and waterskin were kept filled by a boy who wore no collar. I supposed he had no power that required such bondage. No way to tell. Snippets of conversation from the guards and those who passed by outside the pen drifted on the air: Someone named Gensei Senat had been posted to Zhev’Na; the previous slavemaster, who had only taken office a month before, had died suddenly; another Dar’Nethi village had been taken. The Lords were pleased with the outcome of the raid.
The Lords… Zhev’Na… No Dar’Nethi child grew up without nightmares of Zhev’Na, and yet I could not say I had ever really believed in the Lords or their fortress. I was beginning to believe.
What I did come to believe in was the Zhid surgeon. He knew his business. By the next morning, though still tender to the touch, my feet were no longer hot with festering. He dressed them again, wrapped them tightly, and cleared me to fight.
One of Cinnegar’s slavehandlers came for me while the air was still cool. After reminding me of the rules, he led me through the camp to a walled yard of hard-baked dirt. In one corner was a water barrel. Piled beside it were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Standing in the center of the arena were a brawny Zhid warrior, clad in a hauberk and steel cap, and another slave, who was strapping steel kneecaps over the warrior’s greaves. “The warrior has requested sparring with great-swords,” said the handler, detaching my tether and nodding toward the pile of arms. “You will follow his instructions.”
I poked through the pile and pulled out a decent sword. Strange to feel a weapon in my hand after so many days. Tempting. But the warrior’s personal slave knelt beside the slavehandler. I knew the price of any misbehavior on my part.
The Zhid warrior took his stance, sword raised. “Ready,” he said.
I stepped to the center of the training ground and raised the sword. Unnerving that he was armored, while I was left in my skimpy tunic and sore, bandaged feet. But the day’s rest had done me good, and I liked great-swords. I had the height and weight to carry them well. Besides, I held the echo of a dying man’s voice in my head, and the cursed Zhid had no imagination at all.
Five times during the morning, the warrior called a halt to our sparring, rested, changed weapons or armor, and started again. The sixth time, he complained to the slave-handler that I’d taken a superior weapon, and that I should properly be handicapped in some way for not noting it. A hand cut off, perhaps.
The slavehandler summoned Cinnegar. The red-haired Zhid, who evidently had final say in all matters regarding the stable of practice slaves, said he would not allow me to be damaged. Being new, perhaps I’d not been rated properly. The warrior didn’t like hearing that, but wasn’t of high enough rank to overrule Cinnegar. I was glad for that. He sent me back to the stable.
It was made clear from the first that these matches were strictly physical combat. The Zhid did not use sorcery in their training, believing they must achieve superiority in arms as well as all other aspects of their power. Just as we Dar’Nethi hoarded our power for healing and the defense of our cities, the Zhid hoarded theirs to use in their Seeking, which stole the minds of their enemies.
No sooner had I been penned up again than I was called out for a warrior named Comus. His training ground looked exactly the same as the other, except for the dead slave sprawled on the hard ground with one arm mostly severed and his skull cloven in half. A servant shooed away an army of flies and removed his practice armor so I could put it on. Comus preferred an armored opponent. The padded leather was still warm and wet with the dead man’s sweat and blood.