An hour later, Esk kar unbarred the door and stepped out into the courtyard. The guard still attended. Gatus had joined him, both men sitting under the tree. From the grim look on Gatus’s face, Esk kar guessed that his own contentment was about to vanish. “Yes, Gatus, what is it?”
“Can we speak privately, Captain?” he glanced toward the house.
Trella was up and dressed, but the room still reeked of sex.
“Yes. Let’s go to the tavern for some food and beer.” Esk kar had worked up an appetite, and what had formerly been an unheard of luxury was nothing now. He started walking and Gatus followed. Bypassing the cheaper alehouse near the barracks, Esk kar strode two streets over to a smaller tavern, one not usually frequented by soldiers. This tavern’s wine and ale didn’t wrench your stomach, and if you wanted something other than bread, they’d fetch it from the street vendors.
The innkeeper tried to seat his guests near the doorway so anyone passing by could see them. But Esk kar chose a dark corner and told the owner they wanted privacy along with some bread and beer. Esk kar might have gold now, but he didn’t plan to waste it on drink.
“Well, Gatus,” he began after taking a deep draught of the ale. “What’s the problem now?”
“The men. While you’re taking your pleasure, they’re standing about, worried about the barbarians and all this talk about fighting them off.”
Gatus stopped to take a sip of his ale. “They know there aren’t enough of them to resist the barbarians, even with a wall. You need to talk to them.
Some are getting ready to run, like Ariamus. I see it in their eyes. They turn away when I look at them. Say something to them, and soon, or they’ll be gone.”
Esk kar’s hand had tightened on the ale cup when Gatus mentioned his time with Trella, but he relaxed it immediately. He couldn’t get angry at Gatus over that. When Ariamus had wasted away hours or even the whole day, his dalliances annoyed all those who needed him, including Esk kar.
Besides, Gatus kept close to the men. If he said they had a problem, then there was one. Otherwise Gatus would have handled it himself.
A week ago Esk kar would have stormed out of the tavern, returned to the barracks, and started knocking some heads. That response wouldn’t work, not with the threat of the barbarians moving toward them. Now he needed the soldiers more than they needed him.
Without them, any wall would be useless. Worse, the wall would never be built without the threat of force from Orak’s guards. Esk kar sat there, thinking, listing in his mind what he could say and do. Some ideas occurred and he examined them, slowly and in more detail than was his wont. Perhaps Trella was right. He should think everything through before he spoke or acted.
They sat there in silence. “What did Corio have to say?” Gatus finally asked as he finished his beer. “Can the wall be built in time?”
Esk kar told him what Corio said. “Now that you know as much as I do, let’s get back to the men. Here’s what I want you to do.”
Ticking them off on his fingers, he listed the items he wished Gatus to assemble. When he finished, Gatus smiled as he leaned back against the rough stone wall, and called for more beer.
Two hours of preparation later, including some time telling Trella what he would do and say, Esk kar walked around the barracks to the training area. Gatus had brought in all the men, leaving only a single man at each gate. Esk kar wore only a short linen skirt, leaving his chest bare. He carried his long horse sword in his hand.
Gatus, Jalen, Bantor, and Sisuthros waited together in the open space in front of the men. Two blankets at their feet concealed what lay beneath.
A high wagon with four large, solid wheels stood behind them.
“Sit down, in two ranks,” Esk kar growled at the men. He counted twenty — seven seated before him. At least none had run yet, though the day and week were far from over. He looked at each of them as he strode up and down in front of their ranks.
“You men, scum that you are, are going to help me defeat the barbarians. You’re going to do that by training all the hundreds of new men and villagers that will be pouring into Orak in the next few months. Before you can do that, however, you’ll have to be trained properly yourselves, and that’s what we,” he waved the sword toward Gatus and the others, “are going to do, starting today.”
He watched their eyes shift and a few squirmed in their positions.
But they said nothing, proving they’d learned the two basic lessons of soldiering-never volunteer and never be the first to ask a question.
“I see you have your doubts,” Esk kar said with a smile. “Well, good.
Maybe we’ll have a little wagering. You all like to wager, don’t you? Let’s pretend that I am a fierce barbarian warrior. Gatus, come here.”
Gatus stepped forward at the command, drawing his short sword as he did so, and faced Esk kar ten feet away.
“Now, men, let’s make a little wager. The barbarian against Gatus.”
Esk kar hummed his horse sword through the air. It was nearly twice the length of the short swords carried by the soldiers. “Who would win?”
No one said anything, so he shouted at them. “Answer me, dogs! Who would win?”
Grudging replies of “you” or “the barbarian” answered him this time.
He waited a moment. “So, nobody thinks the soldier can win. And why not?” He prodded them until he heard the reply he wanted. “Because of the long sword, I can cut him down before he even reaches me.” He glared at them. “Or can I? Jalen!”
Gatus stepped back. Jalen reached under the blanket, put on a thick leather vest, and lifted up a stout wooden shield reinforced with two thick strips of weathered copper. Sliding his arm into the straps, he drew his sword, and walked aggressively toward Esk kar, raising the shield to his eyes as he did so. The short sword that had looked so puny a moment before now seemed much more menacing.
Esk kar instinctively gave back a pace as he raised his sword before Jalen halted, the same ten feet away.
“Well, men, let’s get back to our wager. The barbarian or Jalen? Who’d win now?”
After a moment, most of them began muttering Jalen’s name.
“What happened to change your minds? The shield makes the difference, doesn’t it? Now the barbarian’s long sword is of little value. Instead the protected short sword becomes deadly. Jalen can move in to close quarters with the barbarian, take the sword stroke on his shield, and kill him easily.”
One of the men called out, “The barbarians don’t fight on foot. They use their horses as shields.”
“Ah, we have a leader of men here, I see,” Esk kar remarked and nodded at Gatus again.
Lifting his fi ngers to his lips, Esk kar gave a shrill whistle, and in a moment a stable boy ran up, leading a horse. Esk kar leaped on the animal and raised the sword on high. The horse reared up, showing high spirits, and forcing Esk kar to grip him tightly with his knees and pull back hard with the halter rope.
Gatus, meanwhile, had dragged out a training post, a four — foot — tall post he set into a block of wood buried in the ground. The block held the post upright, and on its top, he set a melon from the market.
Esk kar wheeled the horse and rode a short distance away, then turned and raced the animal back toward the post, giving voice to a barbarian war cry that acted like a whip to the excited animal. As he flashed by the post, Esk kar leaned outward and struck down hard with his sword, exploding the melon as a man might crush a grape and splitting the post as he thundered past in a spray of flying dirt and splattering fruit.
He rode back slowly, talking to the horse soothingly and smiling to himself because he’d nearly missed the melon. Esk kar stopped in front of the men. “Who wants to stand against the barbarian and his horse?”
No one answered. “Come now, men, I’ll even give you a horse of your own, though I’ll warrant you’ll have a better chance on the ground. What, still no takers?”
He looked down at them and laughed. Turning toward Gatus, he nodded again. This time Gatus and Bantor jumped into the wagon and gathered bows and arrows which they notched but did not draw. The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, standing over the side of the wagon.
“Now who will you wager on, the barbarian on his horse, or the men standing with drawn bows on their wall? Because that’s what the barbarians are going to see when they reach Orak. Only the wall will be twenty — five feet high. Show them, Jalen.”
