sure that by now, to all those who swore it, this vow must seem more of a curse.’
Three days later they came upon the first settlement. A squalid fishing village. Traveller had Ereko remain hidden in the woods while he approached alone to dispel their panic. As it was, the appearance of a single man walking out of the forest generated panic enough. Old men and youths came running carrying spears, javelins and bows. Traveller treated with them at the edge of their collection of shacks where a stream braided its way out of the rocks and trees to run in a sheen down the mudflats to the ocean.
He returned alone. ‘They're a wary lot. The usual fears. Don't know if I soothed them at all. Let's continue on a way south. Keep an eye out for good trees.’
‘Trees? So you
‘Yes. I am.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we wait.’
He walked away and Ereko almost laughed at his own surprised flash of frustration. Dealing with this man was almost as irritating as negotiating with that most reclusive of races, the Assail. He shook his head at himself and followed. To think that during all his many years he had prided himself on his patience!
Traveller pushed his way through the dense underbrush, stopping occasionally to point out a possible tree for harvesting and to talk through its merits. Eventually, Ereko joined in his speculations and they exchanged wisdom on the fine art of wood selection for the construction of a sturdy, yet flexible, ocean-going craft.
Ereko decided that Traveller knew a fair bit on the subject, for a human.
In the aftermath of the Nabrajan contract payment arrived in the form of war material of weapons and armour, treated hides, iron ingots and pack animals. The mercantile houses, traditional slave-traders, were also happy to pay in slaves, which Shimmer was also happy to accept. The Guard marched east, downriver, through rolling farmed plains to the coast. On the trading road to the coastal city of Kurzan, the existence of which had only been a rumour to Kyle's people, Shimmer ordered the slaves assembled in a muddy field.
Dressed in bright mail from her neck to her calves, her helmet under an arm, and her long black hair blowing free in the wind, she faced them. ‘We in the Guard do not accept slavery. Therefore, you will all be released.’
Stunned silence met the announcement. Even fellow tribesmen and women stared a cringing wary disbelief. Kyle was ashamed.
‘Those of you who wish to take up arms and join the Guard of your own free will please go to the standard for examination and induction. The rest of you will be free to go.’
And so through that day the line of men and women wishing induction into the ranks of the Guard ran its course. Those too old or infirm were rejected to rejoin their fellows awaiting their release. Eventually, as dusk came, all those who voluntarily chose to join and were found acceptable were marched away.
Needless to say, those remaining were not released. They were re-bound into their linked manacles and led away. They hardly moaned. So beaten down were they that perhaps they imagined the whole exercise a sham solely meant to single out the strong and young to be sold elsewhere. And perhaps, in its own way, that's exactly what it was.
The army, nearly seven thousand souls strong, wound its way east skirting the River Thin. After two weeks the Guard camped on the coast south of Kurzan, overlooking the Anari Narrows where ships rested at anchor in its sheltered, calm waters. Northward, Kyle could just make out the grey and tan towers of the city harbour defences.
‘Ships!’ Stoop announced, slapping him on the back. ‘Ships,’ he repeated, savouring the word.
‘Ships,’ Kyle echoed, having only heard them described. He did not relish having to enter the belly of one. It seemed unnatural.
‘Now what?’
‘We camp. Train. Wait.’
‘What's happening?’
Stoop adjusted his leather cap of a helmet, scratched his grey fringe of bristles. ‘Negotiations, Kyle. Shimmer's negotiating in the city to hire ships.’ The old saboteur pinched something between his nails, grimaced. ‘Tell me, lad. How do you feel about swimming?’
‘It's not natural for people to go into water.’
‘Well, now's a fine time for you to learn.’
Over the next week Kyle joined some forty male and female recruits being forcefully dunked in the muddy water of one of the broader channels of the River Thin's delta. Veteran Guardsmen enforced the lessons and swung truncheons to quiet all rebellion. Kyle sometimes saw Stoop sitting on the shore, smoking his pipe and shouting his encouragement.
From the first day of practice Kyle witnessed another duty of the Guardsmen keeping a close eye upon them when a shout went up and crossbow bolts hissed into the dark water. Immediately, the surface foamed and a great long beast thrashed and writhed, snapping its jaws and lashing its scaled tail. All the swimmers flailed for the shore. After the beast sank below the surface those same soldiers used truncheons to beat the recruits back into the water. Three youths refused entirely, were beaten unconscious and dragged away.
For his part, Kyle decided not to go meekly. When a Guardsman came to force him into the muddy channel he surprised her, a female veteran from Genabackis named Jaris. Together they tumbled down the slick mud slope into the water. From the shore and the shallows the mercenaries laughed and hooted while Kyle and Jaris thrashed in the murky water. He was lucky and managed to get behind her, hook his elbow under her chin, and he thought he might just force her to take his place as a swimmer. While he strained to push her head down below the water, something sharp and cold pricked his crotch. He jerked, strained to climb higher on his toes.
That's right, boy, ‘laughed Jaris. There's another biter in the water and it's after your little fish.’ The point pricked Kyle's crotch again. ‘What'll it be? You want to get bit?’
Kyle released her and she backed away through the waist-deep water. She raised a particularly wicked- looking dagger. ‘Smart choice. And a stupid move, lad. There's others who would've knifed you just for gettin’ them wet.’
Eventually, Kyle was selected as part of a troop and was given floats of tarred inflated skins to hang on to and paddle around for hours at a time in the river. Guardsmen kept watch on shore and in the tall grasses of the marsh.
The second role of the many Guards Kyle discovered on the eighth day when shouts went up from the shore of a mud island out in the channel and mercenaries came running from all around. They splashed through the murky shallows, dived into the tall stands of grasses. Kyle and the other swimmers stopped to watch.
A boy in a ragged tunic appeared, flushed from the grasses and cattails. He ran down the clay shore of the channel island, barefoot, wild-eyed. A Guardsman jumped from the cover of the grasses and tackled the youth into the water. Both disappeared beneath the brown surface. Kyle swam for them as fast as he could.
The mercenary surfaced, dragged a limp shape to the shore. Kyle arrived to see the thick red of heart's blood smearing the mud and the youth's chest. The Guardsman was the short veteran, Boll, whom Stoop had warned him to stay clear of. Despite this, Kyle charged in sloshing through the shallow water. He raised the boy's head — a bare youth — and dead.
‘What did you have to kill him for?’
The veteran ignored Kyle, began cleaning and re-oiling his knife blade.
‘He's just a kid. Why did you?’
‘Shut up. Orders. No spying allowed.’
‘Spying?’ Kyle couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Maybe he was just watching. Maybe he was just curious. Who wouldn't be?’
‘You watch your mouth. I don't play nice like that Genabackan cow, Jaris.’
Kyle almost jumped the squat knifeman — from some place called Ehrlitan, he'd heard — but Boll still held his blade while Kyle held only his ridiculous goatskin bladder. He raised the bladder. ‘You and this thing are a lot alike, Boll. You're both puffed up.’ Kyle pried at a tarred seam of the bladder until the air farted out in a stream. ‘And you both make a lot of loud noise.’
Boll slapped the bladder from Kyle's hands. ‘Don't ride me. This ain't a game.’
Other Guardsmen arrived then and waved Kyle away. He went to find a replacement bladder. The
