Saliak screamed and slashed wildly. Tarli leapt back, laughing. The others, hearing the noise, struggled to stand, grunting and cursing.
Moran viewed glumly the shambles of the exercise. 'All right, take off your blindfolds.'
Those who could helped those who couldn't. They gaped at what they saw: themselves, unarmed, in the center of the courtyard, and Tarli, still blindfolded, standing confidently over a stack of daggers.
Most of the boys were bruised, hardly any cut. Moran supposed that the exercise might be judged a success.
Saliak tugged angrily at his blindfold. 'It won't come off.' Several boys tried to untie Saliak's blindfold, but every tug made the knot tighter. Finally Janeel asked Tarli for a dagger.
Tarli shrugged and tossed it, lightly and easily, without having to look, then he cut his own blindfold off, picked up his ever-present duffel and thonged stick, and walked to lunch alone, whirling the stick, listening to it hum.
Saliak, rubbing the marks out of his head, stared viciously after him. 'I'll kill the little animal. I'll kill him. I'll kill him.'
Moran, standing behind him, said coldly, 'Saliak.'
Saliak spun, reddening. 'Sire.'
'A word of advice: Don't attempt it blindfolded. You'll hurt yourself.'
Steyan laughed aloud. Saliak shot him a nasty look. Moran thought sadly, He'll pay for that laugh. Rakiel watched the boys limp out of the courtyard. 'Tarli's hearing is amazing — for a human,' he commented.
'It's a common enough human talent,' Moran retorted irritably. 'My own hearing — ' He stopped.
'You were about to say something about your hearing?' Rakiel prodded him.
'It's fairly good.' He looked pointedly at the cleric, daring him to continue. Rakiel smiled, shrugged, and walked off. As soon as he was alone, Moran began sorting and counting the daggers. The count was woefully off. A trip to the barracks — and Tarli's duffel — replaced only a few of them. Tarli was vague about what had happened to the rest. A search of the manor produced no more daggers.
Moran spent the evening in more paperwork, helped by a sarcastic and skeptical Rakiel. A late-night bout of Draconniel, in which Moran lost seven footmen to Rakiel's suicide squadrons, did nothing to improve the knight's temper.
'Another expense?' Rakiel asked a week later.
Moran grunted. This one was for missing pots and pans — Tarli had used them in the nightly barracks battle, for 'armor.'
'Doesn't anyone ever ask you if you're overspending?' the cleric demanded.
'No.' Moran gritted his teeth, then said calmly, 'Knights trust one another. I write the forms, I sign and seal documents, and I hold the gold and silver in the treasury room below, not far from the novices' barracks and… Oh, Paladine!' It was the first time in twenty years that Moran had sworn aloud.
Rakiel watched, amazed to see an old man run so fast.
By the time the cleric arrived, puffing and panting from his exertions, Moran was standing in the open door, staring at the shelves laden with sacks of gold, coins, caskets, bowls, and chalices. There were noticeable gaps.
Moran started down the hall, then turned back around. 'Here.' He tossed Rakiel the key. 'Make an inventory, then lock up as tight as a dragon's… Tight.' Rakiel nodded dazedly. 'Then sit against the door till I come back.'
Moran was planning for a long search, but it was all too short. He found the missing items standing on a stone windowsill in the barracks.
A golden chalice, encrusted with gems, tapered into a griffin's foot, clutching a silver semispherical base.
A marble chest was inlaid with onyx. The top handle was in the shape of a red dragon swooping down on a knight and horse. The dragon's eyes were rubies; the knight's shield was a single multifaceted emerald.
A tray, inlaid with pearl, jet, and diamonds, portrayed the tomb of Huma by moonlight. The tray was propped up so that the diamonds, catching the sunlight, reflected onto the ceiling.
'Aren't they beautiful?' Tarli was sitting on the bed in the comer. The bed legs had been removed, or maybe he had traded beds with Steyan. He was alone in the room, calmly whittling on the thong-stick.
Moran pointed to the articles in the window. 'Are those
… Did you…'
'Put them there? Yes. I borrowed them.' Tarli, stick in hand, walked to the window. 'The room needed something cheerful, and — can you believe it? — these things were just sitting on shelves in the dark. I thought they'd remind some of us of our training,' he finished quietly.
'Are these the only things you… borrowed?'
'They were all I could carry.' Tarli looked around the bare, dismal room critically. 'I could go back for more — '
'No!' Moran said, then, more calmly, 'Don't go into that storeroom again. Don't take things out of it again. Don't do anything at all in relation to the storeroom, unless I give my written permission to do so.'
'All right, Sire.' Tarli looked puzzled.
'And now I'll take these back.' Moran gathered up the chalice, the chest, and the tray.
'Why? They won't do anyone any good, shut up in that room.'
Moran said delicately, 'The knights prefer that these things be locked away, to discourage thieves.'
'No!' Tarli was shocked. 'Thieves? Here?' A monstrous idea occurred to him. 'Among the novices?'
'It's been known,' Moran said dryly.
Rakiel had completed the inventory when Moran returned. The cleric quickly added the last three items. 'Do you want to see the list — ?'
Moran shook his head. He sat heavily on an oaken chest whose lock, he noted thankfully, was rusted shut and intact. 'That's the lot. Sorry to put you to the extra work.'
'No trouble.' Rakiel crumpled the list and stuffed it in his robes. 'I assume it was Tarli who stole them. Have you noticed — ?'
Moran cut him off. 'Go to the basement. Bring me a handful of spikes and a hammer. I'm sealing this door.'
Rakiel did not move, eyed him grimly. 'Have you noticed,' he said determinedly, 'that the novices are right about his being like a kender? He doesn't have the pointed ears, of course,' he added hastily, 'or the topknot hair, and he is a little taller, but his habits, and his recklessness, and his…'
Moran glowered at the cleric. 'Loraine was human. Very short, a bit odd, but human. Go.'
Rakiel left. The knight, alone on the trunk, sagged and closed his eyes, too tired even to dream of Loraine.
Moran sat clearing away his manuscripts. Drill reason was nearly over.
The game of Draconniel was over as well; last night Rakiel's forces, depleted over months of ruthless tactics, withdrew in disorder. Moran killed and captured as many as mercy and logistics allowed, then accepted Rakiel's sullen congratulations and gladly slipped downstairs to check on the novices.
In retrospect, he wished he had stayed with Rakiel.
Hidden in his niche, Moran listened to the boys in the barracks. This was their last night. In the morning, the novices would be given squires' tunics and the names of the knights they would serve.
The boys had smuggled in cakes and ale — Moran had known — but they didn't feel like eating or drinking. It was no longer fun breaking the rules.
Unfortunately, none of them felt that way yet about bullying their three victims.
Janeel, with false heartiness, said, 'Gully Gut can celebrate for us.'
Dein and Faron had bound Maglion's arms to his bed. By now he offered only a little resistance, mechanically pushing the others away. Only his eyes showed anger and pain.
Steyan, his legs doubled up behind him and his body stuffed into an open trunk, watched as best he could. His head and neck were bent forward to fit in the trunk, which was labeled, 'Gnome's Shortening Device.'
