River Secrets (9 page)

“You wouldn’t just ask for no reason. What would I need to take care of?”

“Just… stuff. I mean, I was just wondering if I could do anything for you while you’re gone.”

“I’m in a real muddle, Razo. I wish…” She looked at him, so hard that it made him squirm. “No, I don’t think you can help me.”

“Are you sure? I’m pretty smart.” That sounded stupid. He inhaled through the space in his front teeth as if he could suck those words back inside.

“You don’t…Never mind. But thank you.”

Her thanks seemed so genuine, he had a passing stitch of guilt for pretending to offer help after prowling around her chambers, searching for a sign that she was a murderer.

“Um, uh, you’ll be wanting to get sleep, then, I guess, if you’re on your way tomorrow.”

He left, congratulating himself for coming up with the weakest good-bye ever spoken.

In short order, his guilt was overcome by a cramp of hunger. He found a tangerine tree in the courtyard and looted the leaves for the last of the season, eating the stingingly sweet fruit in its branches. The ground felt too dangerous, the place where Tiran like Tumas walked, eager for a chance to skip the nose breaking and move on to Razo’s spine. Rubbed between the sensation of fear and the pleasure of food, he watched Dasha’s window.

A lamp flickered on her windowsill. Had she lit it without spark or flint? She knew something, Razo was certain. Her gaze often shifted, her fingers twitched. Her bearing declared too heartily that she was happy, fine, all openness and nothing to hide.

So what did she hide?

The lamp sputtered; the window went dark.

12
The Best Sling Finn Ever Saw

Razo woke to the guttering snores in the barracks, sat up, yawned, and gasped for air. Heat weighed down his body, slick and damp, crawling into his mouth and down his throat with each breath. It seemed the change of seasons had accosted the city of rivers overnight.

The Bayern soldiers staggered into their boots and outside, hoping to find breathable air, but out was as stifling as in, shade as scorching as sunlight. The air was heavy with ocean, the invisible drops of water clinging to everything. Razo wondered if he might drown.

“Welcome to an Ingridan summer,” said Victar, joining Razo on the way to breakfast.

“This heat’s cruel mean.”

“No meaner than a Bayern winter.” Victar recounted winter nights during the Tiran invasion, runny noses forming tiny icicles on upper lips, raids canceled because the men could not lift a spear for shivering. He flung his words casually, laughing and gesturing with no hesitation. He seemed completely unaware how his talk of the recent war tightened the mood around him.

“My elder brother is already at our father’s estate in the country, but I’m a military man now and must stand the heat like any Ingridan lad. The rich and squeamish flee the city summer. The hearty stay behind.”

“Stay and sweat,” said Victar’s friend.

The two companies breakfasted in a dark, first-story room in the north wing of the palace, all the windows open, holding their breath for a breeze. The cheese was salty, the bread gristly, and Razo missed his ma’s stewpot with a cruel ache. But he was becoming crazed for those spicy Ingridan olives. He liked how when he bit them, they bit back.

He had filled his plate and was about to join Conrad when Victar waved him over.
Might be good to make friends with
some Tiran,
he thought.

Razo was gabbing with Victar’s friends when Tumas entered, as big and angry as the heat. He looked at Razo, and his lips twitched in what might have been a smile, though it resembled more the snarl of a feral dog. Razo returned an openmouthed grin and waved with mock glee.

“Tiran Fifth Company,” called Ledel’s secondman, a lean, tall soldier with skin tanned dark brown. He stood in the doorway, waiting for the room to quiet.

“Where’s your captain?” Razo asked Victar in a whisper.

“On one of his many jaunts, I suppose. Yesterday was a feast day, and the captain always disappears on feast days. Beat me with a spear if I know where he goes.”

“I have news from Lord Belvan,” said the secondman. “Our summer assignment has changed to the Tacitan province. We leave in the morning.”

The Tiran cheered and slapped the tables. Razo guessed Tacitan was a cool, windy place.

“For once, birdface Belvan does something right,” said a young, squinty friend of Tumas. The raucous laugh among the Tiran made Razo feel as though he’d been insulted but was too thickheaded to see.

“What’d Belvan do so wrong?” Razo asked Victar.

“He was opposed to the war from the beginning and was not demoted after the failed invasion. Nowhere outside his own company is that man much loved.”

“Do you like him?” asked Razo.

Victar shrugged. “I don’t concern myself with him.”

“What say we have a last bout with these Bayern boys?” asked Tumas, his glance sliding over Razo. “Stretch our backs before the long march?”

Talone was having his weekly meeting with Lord Belvan, so Brynn was in charge of the Bayern. He looked around, gauging the eagerness in the expressions of his countrymen. Finn had been the sound victor at the last scuffle, and none of Bayern’s Own seemed opposed. Razo wondered if he could sneak away unnoticed.

“Heartily accepted,” said Brynn. “Bayern’s Own don’t turn down a challenge.”

Yes, yes, all right, curse them,
thought Razo.
I’m an Own. I
won’t flee.

He grumbled as he followed the others to the training ground, tapping his javelin against his backside, herding himself like a sheep to the slaughtering shed. Enna and Finn caught up with him.

“What’s all this?” she asked.

“Mock combat. You going to join us, Finn?”

“Sure, I’ll play.”

Razo snorted. If this was
play,
the game should be called Humiliate Razo with a Wooden Sword, not unlike many of his childhood games: Five Brothers Wrestle Razo, Little Man Underfoot, Razo the Rug, Razo Our Tiny Foe. His mother never had guessed why her youngest son spent so much time tromping alone through the trees with his sling.

They arrived at the training ground before Razo had been able to formulate any plan. He stood on the sidelines, cheering and jesting with the others. Inwardly he crouched and shuddered and felt that bowl of olives in his stomach start to churn.

Ledel arrived, carrying a bundle of something under his arm. “What is going on?” His voice was raspy again from lack of sleep, and his jaw scar was an unpleasant purple color.

“Another bout, Captain,” said the secondman, “before we prepare to leave. Your permission to continue?”

The Tiran soldiers held still, waiting. Victar yawned.

“Proceed,” said Ledel, though he seemed particularly grumpy about something.

Brynn set up two fighting rings, and practice battles began to swirl and clash, Tiran and Bayern stepping in and out. With each defeat the sun scorched hotter.

Waiting for his first turn, Razo bounced on the balls of his feet, chewing on his bottom lip. The heat made his eyelids sticky and lungs heavy. Though not as heavy as his stomach. He burped extravagantly.

“Razo,” Brynn called.

“And Victar,” said the Tiran secondman.

Razo hopped into the ring, wiped the sweat from his palm, and gripped the wooden sword. He was so relieved it was not Tumas, he winked at Victar as though he were having a lark. Like Finn, Razo dodged the first swing and the second, made a few jabs, and dodged again. His focus was so taut, a rope could have tied his gaze to his opponent. He swung and dodged, rolled and hopped up again, and felt he was really doing well.

“Match, for Tira,” said the secondman.

Razo had not even felt the sword graze the middle of his jerkin. A few of Bayern’s Own shook their heads.

Two failed matches later, noon was nearing, and the heat fell straight down, pushing his shadow into a pool around his feet. That spit of shade did nothing—his toes were hot and scratchy. Razo thought there might be just one more chance to redeem himself.

When Brynn called his name again, he strutted into the ring, calm and confident, and took his stance opposite Tumas’s red-nosed, lisping friend. The Tiran swung, Razo dodged, swooped. And met a sword hilt in the stomach.

He stumbled forward, shuffling on his toes, and vomited cheese and olives beside someone’s sandals.

“Was that necessary?” asked the Tiran in slightly stained sandals.

“Sorry,” said Razo. He straightened and saw that the other ring’s match had ended and all eyes were on him.

Tumas was elbowing his friend. “I told you that little one is a joke, and if you ask me, he makes the whole lot of them laughable.” He glanced at Ledel as if checking for his permission to keep speaking, then said to Brynn, “When my horse didn’t do the job, I put him out of his misery.”

“That’s enough,” said Brynn, because Ledel, for some reason, did not.

Razo shambled a few more steps away and flung the wooden sword at the ground. Words were churning in his belly that he was ready to belch up. He almost said, “That’s it.” He almost yelled, “I’m through. I quit. I’m an embarrassment, a scarecrow, noodle-armed, sized for tossing. I’m gone.”

The words burned like stomach acid on the back of his tongue, and if he had spoken them, he would have lived by them—he would have gone home to the Forest and spent his days solitary among his brothers’ families. At least, in the moment before he spoke, he envisioned that future. It was a prospect he would not have to test out, because Finn spoke first.

“Try him with a missile weapon.”

Finn had been sitting on a stone, his sword upright in the dirt, his hands resting on the cross. He had been silent after each of his three victories and silent as he watched. When he spoke, his unruffled voice was loud enough to cut through the noise.

Some of the Tiran laughed.

“A game of spears would be the cake to this meal,” said Tumas.

Finn shook his head. “Razo’s sling to your spear.”

Some of the Bayern looked away, as though embarrassed that Finn had brought a sheep boy’s plaything into a soldier’s battle. The Tiran laughter pitched and climbed.

Razo sidled up to Finn, swatting at the sweat trickling into his eyes. “What’re you doing? Trying to humiliate me further?”

Finn stood, tapped the dirt off his sword tip, and put it in his sheath. He met Razo’s eyes, and his expression was as sincere as that of a child too young to lie. “You’re the best sling I ever saw.”

“I am not. Why’re you making up stuff? I’m just…Never mind, the captain wouldn’t want me flaunting my sling around anyway.”

“Why not? Talone didn’t tell me to pull back during sword bouts. It’ll be good for the Tiran to have a little respect for us.”

Razo laughed through his nose. “I’m not good enough to cause fear.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” said Finn, but a glint in his eye said he thought otherwise. It made Razo want to go prove him right.

Ledel was giving orders for their march east, soldiers were sheathing swords, gathering idle javelins and spears. Finn walked right into their midst.

“Captain Ledel, we’re not done yet. Let Razo sling.”

A couple of Bayern groaned. Ledel met Finn’s eyes without blinking, reminding Razo of some lidless creature, a snake, a spider. His voice rasped. “We are not sullying a match of men with a peasant weapon.”

That smacked of insulting Bayern, and a few soldiers, especially Conrad and Luzo, who were also Forest-born, put up a fuss.

“That is enough,” said Ledel, his voice sharp enough to split skin.

“Hello!” Dasha bounded up the path, waving and smiling.

“Lady Dasha.” Ledel inclined his head respectfully, and his men stood at attention.

“Captain Ledel, good morning.” Behind her trudged six men loaded down with leather satchels and clothing bundles. Her orange hair was loose, wisps tickling her face. She brushed them away with a smile as though they were playful kittens. “And all my Bayern friends. I am off and wanted to say farewell and tell you…” She paused, seeming to notice the chilly mood. “What’s happening?”

“Razo’s challenging the Tiran to missile weapons,” said Finn, “his sling to their spears, but Captain Ledel won’t have it.”

Dasha laughed, thoroughly amused. “And why not, Captain Ledel? You aren’t afraid?”

The muscle under Ledel’s face scar twitched. “Go on, Antoch,” he said to his secondman, “but I will not stay to watch. We leave at eighth bell.”

The Tiran did not wait until Ledel was out of sight before they began to draw lines in the dirt and hold tug matches to determine who got to face Razo first.

Razo hefted his pouch of stones like a merchant guessing weight and price. What if he lost? Certainly his mark as the greatest failure in Bayern’s Own would be indelible. But if he succeeded, could it spark another clash like the one after Finn’s victory? Or something worse? The stifling heat was the kind that smothered good judgment.

Then Razo noticed that Dasha was watching him, her smile full of marvelous expectation. He stepped up to the line.

The secondman indicated a tree trunk some twenty paces away as the target. Razo frowned.

“Losing heart, are you?” Tumas yelled.

If Razo had not felt so hot and wretched after losing three sword matches, he would have laughed. That target was a mite easy. He put his toes behind the line in the dirt, inserted a stone into his sling’s leather pouch, spun once, and released. The stone hit the center of the trunk with a noise like a long whip cracking.

Most of the Tiran wanted a go, some hitting the tree with their spear, grazing it, or missing altogether. Razo’s stones smacked against the center, again and again.

“Put other thlingerth at the mark,” said Tumas’s lisping friend.

The best Tiran slingers fetched hemp slings and almond-shaped lead bullets from the armory. Now the targets were three metal pails sitting atop a log forty paces away. Razo put three stones in his left hand and turned his left side to the pails. He placed the first stone in the leather pouch, swung and released, heard the
whiz
of stone cutting air and the metallic
clang
of the pail even as he placed another stone in the pouch, released,
whiz-clang,
never stopping the circle, and a third
whiz-clang.
Those sounds felt as satisfying as cold water in an empty belly.

Out of the ten Tiran slingers, only the squinty-eyed soldier hit three for three. The Tiran soldiers cheered him until Finn said, “Move the target back.”

The pails now waited sixty paces away, and the Tiran missed twice. Razo’s turn was a song that rang out in threes.

The Bayern were getting restless and bunched together, keen for their turn at the pails. After a couple of rounds, only Conrad and Luzo had hit all three.

“Move the target back,” Finn said, smiling.

Brynn placed the pails at seventy paces. It was a respectable distance. Two pails chimed for Conrad, one for Luzo. Razo readied three stones and noticed a slight tremble in his hand.

Easier than a squirrel who scampers,
he thought.
Easier than a
twitching hare.

He swung and released three times. Three pails lay on their sides.

There was a general gasp and chatter that did not have time to build before Finn’s clear voice cut through.

“Move the target back.”

Some of the men laughed. Brynn, with a mischievous look, took one pail under his arm and walked on. And just kept walking.

“That was far enough five minutes ago,” Conrad yelled.

Brynn set it down and jogged back. “One hundred and fifty paces, Razo. Miss already so we can get out of this sun.”

Razo stared at the pail, a dark glint on white stone, and felt the heat pressing on the top of his head, insisting itself into each breath. A short sling could never reach that distance. He shook his head and looped up his sling, fastening it to his side.