When Ravishan reached the dais, Ji continued speaking.
"Ushiri Ravishan is not new to the Fai’daum," Ji said. "His mother and father were comrades of ours. His mother risked her life to free me from the tortures of Umbhra’ibaye. His father aided our escape from the south. They were brave people." Ji paused in silent reverence. Ravishan gazed down at his hands. The flush of emotion that had colored Ravishan’s cheeks at the mention of his parents slowly faded.
"They were murdered and the Payshmura stole both Ravishan and his sister," Ji continued. "But Ravishan has fought his way back to us and he has brought us this opportunity to bring the Payshmura to their knees. It is with immense pride that I sponsor him into our fold." Ji bowed her head before Ravishan.
"Thank you," Ravishan said. He stared at Ji for several moments, his expression impossible to decipher. John wondered if he remembered her at all from his childhood.
Giryyn beckoned Ravishan to his side. Ravishan didn’t flinch when Giryyn cut the Fai’daum symbol into the pale skin of his chest and rubbed dark red ink into the wound. He took the cup of wine Arren offered him and swore his allegiance in a calm voice, then drained the cup in a single drink.
Despite their usual silence, many of the gathered men and women clapped. The sound echoed through the vast chamber like thunder. The applause seemed to take Ravishan off guard. He flushed and almost looked shy for a moment.
"Thank you," Ravishan said again, though his voice was much quieter.
Ravishan returned to John’s side. He looked deeply tired but also surprisingly happy. He grinned a little drunkenly at John and whispered, "I’m going to sleep with you tonight and no one is going to stop me."
"No, no one is," John replied. After years in Rathal’pesha that small freedom seemed suddenly like an immense gift.
Chapter Eighty-Six
The next day Arren expanded battle practice from one hour to three. The men and women remained separate and Ravishan was invited in to observe before he joined the practice himself. Both groups were winnowed down to the best fighters in the Warren. One hundred and sixty men clustered into the training hall with John. The heat of their bodies radiated through the chamber. The strong smell of sweat saturated the still air.
A short, muscular man scowled at John and two other men from the Smiths District glared at him. But most of the men were strangers to him. Some of them, particularly those from the Stable District, returned John’s curious glances. One young man with pale green eyes signed a quick greeting to John. John returned the gesture but couldn’t immediately remember the young man’s name.
Then it came to him – Fenn. They’d met the first day John had arrived.
Before John could strike up more of a conversation, Arren signaled them to attention. Men from the Smiths District dragged in wooden crates of firearms. Arren distributed the new breech-loading rifles. Eriki’yu followed him, handing out rolls of bullets wrapped in waxed paper. The bruise over his eye had turned a dark blue. He smiled shyly at John but said nothing.
Arren demonstrated loading and firing the new guns. Because of the close confines, no one loaded their live ammunition. Instead, they emulated Arren’s movements with empty rifles. The men around John handled their rifles with reverent caution. Some men jumped when they pulled the triggers and the hammers suddenly snapped down to strike empty chambers.
John was already familiar with firearms. As a boy he had gone hunting with his father and brothers. He remembered shooting deer and feeling the hard kick of the rifle’s recoil like a penance for the life he took. The first time he had killed a young stag he had felt sick with himself. It had been such a beautiful animal.
An old dread sank through John as he studied the rifle in his hands. The sharp smell of veru oil wafted up from its empty chamber. The Fai’daum rifle was smaller and heavier than the Winchester he’d owned as a boy. John doubted that this rifle could match the accuracy of his Winchester. But it would still rip through flesh and shatter bone.
John turned one of the short blunt-tipped bullets through his hands. He had killed before. He had murdered Dayyid. But that had been to defend Ravishan. It was very different when he contemplated what he would have to do with this gun. He lifted the rifle and took aim down its notched barrel. He imagined opening fire on another man.
Last night, when Ji had spoken of freeing the issusha’im, relief and hope had flooded John. But he hadn’t spared a thought for what the destruction of the Payshmura would require. Now, he realized that part of his unadulterated joy had been fueled by the idea that the Fai’daum would be the ones fighting and killing. Unconsciously, he had drawn a line between himself and them. This was their revolution, their world. They would fight and kill and die.
John supposed he could still retreat into that conceit. Ji didn’t want him to leave the Warren. She had said as much this morning. If he agreed with her, no doubt he could hide here and let these other men around him bloody their hands. He could try to convince himself that this was their war, not his.
But it was a lie and he knew it. He had suffered from the Payshmura’s tyranny as much as any member of the Fai’daum and he had as much to gain from their destruction. He was not a distant observer, recording the behavior of a strange society. He was enmeshed in this world and he had taken a side. He was a member of the Fai’daum. The red tattoo curled over his heart proclaimed as much. He had an obligation to fight.
John pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped down harmlessly. John checked the bolt, feeling how smoothly it slid. The green-eyed man, Fenn, moved closer to John and signed a question. John demonstrated what he knew about the rifles and the man smiled his thanks.
The rest of the day John practiced knife combat with Arren. The long fighting knives of the Fai’daum were new to John. But the blocking stances weren’t that different from those of hand-to-hand combat.
He learned to watch for the thin edges of the blades and to thrust into Arren’s attacks. When John treated the knife as an extension of his own body, it seemed to move with blinding speed. He blocked Arren’s thrusts and sliced through the thick padding protecting Arren’s chest.
"Good," Arren said. He intensified the speed of his assaults. John matched him, and managed two more strikes.
At last, Arren signaled the end of practice. John stripped off the hot padding. The right arm hung in tatters. Wads of wool spilled out. It stank of his sweat.
"Your attacks are improving, Jahn," Arren commented.
"Thank you." John wiped the perspiration from his face. The entire practice hall smelled of sweat and wool.
"Has Ji mentioned releasing you to Lafi’shir?" Arren asked quietly.
"She only said that she doesn’t like the idea of doing it," John replied. "Can she really keep me from going?"
"Do you want to go?" Arren asked.
"I have a sister…" John started to explain his desire to save Laurie, but then he realized that why he wanted to fight the Payshmura didn’t matter. "I want to fight."
"Then you’ll fight, one way or another," Arren said. "Don’t worry about it too much. Ji’s a reasonable woman. She’ll come around soon enough. You just keep fighting like you did today."
Arren patted John’s shoulder. It was a common enough gesture, but John found it somehow deeply affecting. A flush of pride spread through him.
"Yes, sir."
After dinner, sitting next to each other on the bed in their tiny room, he and Ravishan compared the Payshmura technique of blade fighting with the Fai’daum style. Ravishan thought the Fai’daum style was too loose and left too many openings for counterattack. John didn’t know enough about either to compare them and he said so.
"You know more than you admit," Ravishan whispered to him. His lips brushed against John’s ear.