Song of the Shiver Barrens Read online

  Arrant nodded, hoping Firgan wouldn’t be around that day. He hadn’t forgotten the nastiness of the man’s welcome, cabochon to cabochon. He had meant it to be unsettling, and he had succeeded. ‘Damn him,’ Arrant muttered under his breath. ‘He’s made me fear him, right from the beginning.’

  When they arrived at the practice yard of the Magoroth Academy, Garis and Yetemith were sparring in the centre while students watched from adobe benches along the sides. High walls surrounded the yard, and the students had clustered where one wall cast shade on the seats. Heads swung Arrant’s way, there was a muttered whisper or two and a flutter of excitement before the students resumed their interest in the fight.

  Arrant used their preoccupation as a chance to scan them unnoticed. Seated nearest to him was one of the most beautiful young women he’d ever seen. She would have been even more attractive if she hadn’t been wrinkling up her nose in disgust at the sweat the two men were flinging into the air with the rigour of their battle.

  ‘Elvena Korden,’ Temellin whispered. ‘Seventeen. I doubt if she’ll ever graduate from this particular class.’

  Arrant nodded. Further down the line he thought he could pick out another two of Korden’s children: they had the same lean, aristocratic faces as their father. ‘Rather like thoroughbred horses,’ he thought. ‘Handsome, but haughty.’ The boy must be Lesgath, the girl Serenelle. Garis had said something about them both on the last day’s ride into Madrinya. What was it again? ‘Serenelle is the same age as you are, and the best of the bunch, not that saying that means much.’ About Lesgath he had been even less enthusiastic. ‘The lad strikes me as shifty. Not sure why. Watch yourself around him, Arrant.’

  He turned his attention to the fighting. The two men were enjoying themselves, using wooden practice swords and bucklers, but no Magor power. They were evenly matched. Every time one of them appeared to have the upper hand, the other would reassert himself and seize the advantage. Clearly, the winner would end up being the one who had the most stamina, probably Garis, seeing as he was at least ten years younger than his opponent.

  Arrant had been taught his swordplay by the best, the same teachers who had hammered technique into Ligea’s legions. Even General Gevenan himself had tutored him. Arrant had started young but as the years had gone by, his passion for fighting had waned. His lessons, however, had continued sporadically, and he’d practised with grown men who had known life-and-death struggles on the battlefield. He could recognise a skilled veteran when he saw one, and to his enormous surprise, he wasn’t seeing one in either of these two men. They were competent, but no more than that. Several times he saw opportunities missed and strokes fumbled. Gevenan would have skinned them alive, had they been his soldiers.

  ‘What do you think?’ Temellin asked.

  ‘I expected better. They’re not very good,’ he blurted, then blushed. He looked around, but no one was looking his way.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  He was uncomfortable, but gave an honest reply. ‘If they fought against experienced legionnaires as Ligea’s army did in Tyrans, and made the kind of mistakes they are making now, they’d both be dead.’ Damn. Sarana. He should have called her Sarana. He was relieved when Temellin laughed.

  ‘You are probably right. You see, Arrant, they are both Magor. And that means they carry other skills with them wherever they go. Unfortunately, it also means that they have less incentive to perfect battle techniques that don’t involve the cabochon.’ He watched them for a moment longer. ‘They are both experienced. They have killed more battle-scarred veterans than they would ever care to count. They just did it with a combination of physical skills and Magor power.’

  The fight ended just then, with Yetemith calling a halt, pleading fatigue. Garis went off to clean up and Temellin introduced Arrant to the armsman.

  ‘We are glad to have you here,’ Yetemith said, giving a neutral cabochon clasp. Up close he had the appearance of a battle veteran: his face was scarred, and part of an ear was missing. ‘Do you want to watch him put through his paces, Mirager?’

  ‘Not now,’ Temellin replied, much to Arrant’s relief. ‘I’ll leave him in your hands.’ He smiled at Arrant, and left the yard.

  Yetemith looked Arrant up and down. ‘You are much the same size as Lesgath. You can have a practice bout with him in a moment and we’ll take a look at you. But in the meantime,’ he cast a look around the watching group, ‘you lot, you just watched two experienced soldiers fight in practice; what did you learn, if anything? Grantel, what about you?’

  A large pimpled boy of about sixteen, who had obviously been daydreaming, jumped. ‘Um, oh—the way the Magori ducked under that thrust by dropping into a roll, then coming up behind you—that was solid.’

  ‘Solid?’ Arrant wondered. ‘What in all the seven layers of hell does that mean?’

  ‘Dangerous though,’ Lesgath remarked. ‘What if you’d been a bit quicker to spin around, Theuri? You would have caught him still on the ground.’

  Several of them argued the point, until Yetemith directed a question to Elvena. ‘You are very quiet, Magoria. Have you nothing to offer about the fight?’

  ‘All that sweat is horrid.’

  Several students guffawed; others muffled their amusement. Yetemith glared. ‘You are just wasting your time in this class, girl, and you are too much of a distraction to the others. I am going to recommend your removal.’

  Elvena perked up, not bothering to hide a smile, but the armsmaster was already fixing his attention on Arrant. ‘And what did you think, lad?’

  ‘Er, nothing, Theuri.’

  ‘Nothing? Have you not been trained, then?’

  ‘Yes, um—of course.’

  ‘He said neither of you are very good,’ Serenelle piped up. ‘And that you both would have been dead in a real war.’

  Arrant flushed, furious. He knew she had not been close enough to have heard that with normal hearing; she had eavesdropped. He’d been careless. He’d forgotten that everyone here could enhance their hearing. It was a mark of bad manners, of course, but doubtless that wouldn’t stop it happening altogether.

  Yetemith raised an eyebrow at him in a sharp arch. ‘Is that so? Perhaps the expert warrior would like to explain why?’

  Arrant winced. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but spoke up anyway. This was the future fighting force of the country he now called his own, the land his father ruled. He had to tell the truth. ‘You both took too many risks for too small a return. You fought as if it didn’t matter if you made a mistake. Perhaps it doesn’t on a practice field. Perhaps it doesn’t when you have Magor power at your disposal in a real battle, but it’s dangerous to assume you always will. That was how Magor died during the war—when they had exhausted their cabochon power.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate your superior skills?’ Dislike, barely disguised.

  Arrant flinched. Fool.

  Yetemith beckoned to Lesgath. ‘Step into the ring. Grantel, get Arrant a practice sword and a buckler.’ He turned back to Arrant. ‘The rules are simple, young man. If you take what would be a maiming or killing blow with a real sword, you lose. If you are disarmed or rendered ineffective, you lose. If you step outside the circle, then the other steps back to allow you to re-enter. No magic allowed except emotion-sensing and cloaking.’

  Arrant was wary, knowing he was going to be under intense scrutiny.

  Lesgath nodded to him as Grantel handed over a practice sword, and said, ‘This should be interesting. You will have different techniques. You are Tyranian-trained, aren’t you? Your teachers were legionnaires?’ He said the words pleasantly enough, but there was something in his smile that made Arrant wonder if he was not deliberately pointing out Arrant’s foreignness, and his ties to Tyr.

  He smiled back and tried to broadcast a general air of approachability. ‘Not entirely. My first armsmaster was an Ingean. The second was a rebel from Pythia. Miragerin-sarana tried to use the best of all met
hods in her training programmes.’

  ‘Oh. A sort of mongrel army.’ Still pleasantly said, but Arrant had no doubt he was being needled. He shrugged carelessly. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Best of all breeds. Shall we get to it?’

  He raised his sword in salute and the fight began. The first strokes and parries from them both were tentative, testing the other’s reactions and level of skill. Lesgath was no fool, rushing in when he hadn’t had time to size up his opponent. His cabochon glowed gently, doubtless searching for any stray emotion that might help his attack.

  Arrant had been carefully taught; he knew how to assess a fighter. Watch the way muscles tightened and relaxed; take note of eye movement, even the way your opponent blinked; be alert to the subtleties of his stance and be aware of the instant his weight shifted. He soon knew himself the better fighter: more skilled, better trained, more experienced. He toyed with the idea of ending it quickly, of humiliating Lesgath with the magnitude and speed of his defeat, but then thought better of it. For a start it wouldn’t be kind; moreover, he didn’t want to alienate the watching students by being perceived as boastful.

  He allowed the fight to continue, blessing those hours of training and Gevenan’s years of nagging that had kept him practising long past the threshold of boredom. He blocked and dodged, pretended a vulnerability he didn’t feel, and feigned a few lucky fumbles on his part. Lesgath’s eyes widened as he began to wonder if he was being played with; Yetemith probably guessed as well, but Arrant doubted the others who watched had the experience to tell.

  As Lesgath tired, his frustration grew. His cabochon must have deepened in colour because the glow around his sword hand was brighter. Arrant could see the fury in his eyes. ‘Soon you will do something stupid,’ he thought, and decided to bring the bout to a close. He didn’t want to risk being hurt by a blast of Magor power because he was unable to raise a ward.

  He made a clumsy lunge, pretended to lose his balance, and went down on one knee, with his right hand to the ground, a manoeuvre that he and one of his teachers had perfected after long practice. Like all Magoroth, he and Lesgath fought with the sword in the left hand, and Arrant’s right side was wide open, his sword arm low and towards his front. Lesgath failed to note Arrant’s poise and swung his wooden blade. He intended to slam the flat of it across the right side of Arrant’s neck from above.

  Arrant, though, was perfectly balanced for what he wanted to do. Instead of raising his right arm with its buckler to protect himself, as might have been expected, he swept his buckler from right to left, throwing his weight behind the move. The edge of the shield slammed into the side of Lesgath’s knee. He toppled with a gasp, his blow sailing over Arrant’s ducked head.

  Arrant rolled as he followed through, and was back on his feet before Lesgath. He pressed a foot gently but firmly to Lesgath’s sword arm, pinning it to the ground as he placed his sword point at his throat. Then, without waiting for any sign of capitulation, he stepped back, saluting him with the swordblade.

  There was silence in the yard while everyone stared, gaping.

  ‘That,’ Yetemith said finally, ‘was quite the ugliest piece of action it has ever been my misfortune to observe. You blocked your own line of sight and deserved to have had Lesgath’s sword remove part of your face.’ He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe in Arrant’s foolishness. ‘Still, you did win. Just remember that victory is pointless if you are badly injured in the process.’

  Arrant said nothing. Lesgath stood up, glaring, and limped to take his place among the watchers against the wall. Several of the boys clapped his back, including Grantel, commending him on his fight.

  The lesson continued. There were exercises to practise, as repetitive and dull as always. Towards the end of the morning, the pairs of students were matched up to put what they just been taught into practice, while Yetemith walked around, his eyebrows drawn together in an unpleasant glower, commenting. There were an uneven number of students, so Arrant was left without a partner. He would have been content for it to stay that way, but one of the boys then twisted his foot and his sparring partner sought Arrant out. He was a fair-skinned youth with serious eyes and straight brown hair that seemed to grow in all directions, like a clump of spiny grass. His smile was tentative, yet admiring. His name, he said, was Perradin Jahan. ‘That was trim, what you did to Lesgath. It wasn’t an accident, was it? Do you reckon you could teach me how to do that—?’

  ‘Less chatter, you two,’ Yetemith growled. ‘Practise, please.’

  Perradin shrugged and lifted his sword. ‘Some other time,’ Arrant promised as they crossed blades.

  When the bell rang to signal noon and the students prepared to leave the practice ground, Yetemith singled out Arrant and Lesgath. ‘Go collect all the practice swords and bucklers,’ he ordered, ‘and return them to the racks in the armoury store. The rest of you go to lunch.’

  Arrant and Lesgath eyed each other cautiously. ‘Yetemith did that deliberately,’ Arrant thought. ‘He must know Lesgath is furious with me.’ He pondered that, wondering if the armsmaster was a petty man who wanted to provoke ill will between him and Lesgath, or if he wanted to throw them together hoping they’d learn to like each other. He had a horrible suspicion it was the former.

  As he collected the swords, he took note of those who made a point of bringing their weapon to him, and those who deliberately dropped them wherever they happened to be. It seemed a good way to decide who might be a friend in the future, and who not. Perradin was one of those who handed his sword over personally. So, unexpectedly, was Serenelle Korden.

  ‘Where’s the armoury store?’ he asked Lesgath after the two of them had collected the swords.

  Lesgath nodded to a building at the end of the yard. ‘There.’ He led the way wordlessly and together they stored the weapons in the racks, still in silence. By the time they had finished, the yard was empty of students and they were alone.

  ‘They say your cabochon is useless,’ Lesgath said as he pulled the door shut behind them. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘No, it’s not true.’

  ‘I also heard people died because you couldn’t control your power.’

  Arrant shrugged. ‘Then my cabochon can’t be useless, can it? And just maybe you shouldn’t make me mad,’ he added, ‘for fear of what I’ll do. By accident, of course.’

  Lesgath grinned. ‘You dare not. The moment you make a muck of using your power, there’s no way you’d ever be confirmed as Mirager-heir, with the Council’s approval and all.’ He took a step closer. ‘I reckon I can do whatever I like.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. After all, what happens if I tell a teacher? Or my father?’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that. You know why? Because if you do, students will scorn you as a tattle-tale. And adults will scorn you as a weakling who couldn’t even raise a warding to save his own pride. You need the Magor to see you as a leader, not as a reed too weak to stand straight. Sure, I’d get into trouble, but it would be worth it.’

  ‘Why?’

  He wasn’t answered. Without warning, Lesgath hit him in the stomach with a beam of gold power. Razor-sharp jags raced outwards, ploughing furrows of agony from a central well of pain so deep Arrant doubled up and collapsed to the ground. He rocked to and fro, unable to speak, dominated by the appalling torture radiating from his midriff. ‘Pain,’ he thought. ‘This is Magor pain-giving, nothing more. It’s not doing any damage.’

  But knowing that didn’t help.

  He glanced up and saw Lesgath looking down on him, laughing. He closed his eyes. He could not have spoken to save his life.

  Time passed. The pain went away enough for him to move, only to find himself enclosed in a prison of power. ‘A ward,’ he thought. ‘The bastard built a ward around me.’ He strained against it, but it didn’t move. And where he lay, in the shadow of the armoury, he wasn’t visible from any overlooking window.

  He lay helpless on the ground, unable to do anything at all.


  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Someone was looking down at him. A girl. She had freckles across her nose, uncommon in a Kardi. She was not one of the class; too young, he decided. Still young enough to be as skinny as a stick, without any budding breasts or the beginnings of shapely hips. He found he noticed things like that more nowadays, even, apparently, at inappropriate times.

  ‘Lesgath doesn’t like you,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He tried to rise, but he was still trapped. At least the pain was gone.

  ‘He wants you to look like a fool.’

  ‘I know that, too.’

  ‘You ought to get out of there.’

  He gritted his teeth. ‘Tell me something I don’t know. Like, how did you know Lesgath made the ward?’

  ‘Wards always carry signatures of the maker. Didn’t you know that? I know him, so I recognised his mark.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘So why don’t you get out?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  She thought about that. ‘He didn’t use his Magor sword. That means it’s a weak warding. It’ll only last a couple of hours.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here that long. Can you break it for me?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m only an Illusa. It’s going to take another Magoroth, one who’s already got a sword. And even then it might be difficult.’

  ‘Then go get one of the teachers.’

  ‘I don’t think I ought to do that.’

  He repressed a swear word. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t you know anything? Cos the other sprouts don’t like a tattle-tale. Lesgath will get into real trouble if you tell on him. If you do, nobody’s going to like you.’

  ‘All right, I won’t tell on him. Just get a teacher to get me out of this.’