The Serpentwar Saga: The Complete 4-Book Collection

Sho Pi said, ‘It is but a part of this. You will learn many things.’

The man nodded and stood next to Erik. Sho Pi nodded to Erik, who said, ‘Put your feet like so.’ He showed him. ‘Now balance your weight so it is neither too far forward nor too far back, but just in the middle, even on both feet.’

The man nodded. ‘My name is Jerome Handy,’ he said.

‘Erik von Darkmoor.’

Sho Pi demonstrated the four moves they would practice, and slowly led the men through the series. Then, instructing them to try it again, he moved quickly among them, correcting position and balance.

From the quarterdeck, Foster and de Loungville stood watching. Foster said, ‘What do you make of that?’

De Loungville shrugged. ‘Hard to say, Charlie. It could be something just to kill the time. Or it could be something that saves some lives. That Keshian could just as easily have killed me as embarrassed me with those kicks. He pulled them, despite the fact he was mad at me.’ He was silent for a while, then said, ‘Let it be known that I won’t mind if the others follow Handy’s lead. It’s about time our last six birds joined the rest of our flock.’

Slowly, over the next few days, more and more of the other thirty men joined the group, until at the end of the third week all were practicing kata under Sho Pi’s supervision.

‘You’re all prisoners?’ asked Luis, incredulity on his face.

‘Ya, man,’ said an ebony-skinned man from the Vale of Dreams named Jadow Shati. ‘Each man here took the fall in Bobby de Loungville’s little drama. Each of us looked the Death Goddess in the eye, or at least thought we were going to.’ He grinned and Erik found himself smiling in return. The man’s smile had that impact, as if all the sunlight and happiness reflected off teeth made brilliant white by the contrast with his dark skin, the blackest Erik had ever seen. In the short time he had known Jadow, Erik had discovered he had the ability to find some humor in almost any situation. He also had a way of putting things so that Erik almost always ended up laughing.

Roo threw up his hands. ‘Then why were you such a bloody bunch of bastards when we first came to camp?’

They were all sitting around in the hold barracks. Over the last few days, after practicing with Sho Pi, the men had begun speaking with one another and the barrier between the six men Erik had come to think of as ‘us’ and the other thirty he thought of as ‘them’ had started to weaken.

Jadow spoke with the patois common to the Vale, a no-man’s-land claimed at various times by the Empire of Great Kesh and the Kingdom, where languages, blood, and loyalties tended to be mixed. It was a musical sound, softer than the harsher King’s Tongue, but not as guttural as High Keshian. ‘Man, that was the drill, don’t you know? Each time a new group came, we were to give them bloody hell! Bobby’s orders. Not until he knew he wasn’t going to have to hang us did he treat us better than dirt on the sole of his boot, don’t you see? Then we got to take off the damn ropes, man. Then we began to think we might live a bit longer.’

Jerome Handy sat across from Erik, the biggest man in the group after Biggo and broader across the shoulders. ‘Jadow and me were among the first six. Four of our mates died. Two tried to go over the walls, and those Pathfinders picked them off with their long bows like quails on the wing.’ He made a flying motion with his two hands, as if throwing shadow puppets on the wall, and made a funny flapping sound with his mouth. Then suddenly he turned his hands over and made a sign of a wounded bird falling. Erik had delighted in discovering that as rough and intimidating as Handy could be, he also could be very amusing given anything remotely like an audience. ‘One lost his temper and died in a sword drill. The other …’ He glanced at Jadow.

‘Ah, that was bad, man. Roger was his name,’ supplied the Valeman.

‘Right. Roger. He was hung when he killed a guard, trying to escape.’

‘How long ago was that?’ asked Erik.

‘More than a year, man,’ said Jadow. He ran a hand over his bald pate, which he kept free of hair by dry-shaving with a blade every morning. While most of it was naturally hairless, the little fringe around the ears was persistent enough that Erik winced each time he saw the man give himself a trim.

‘A year!’ asked Billy Goodwin. ‘You’ve been at that camp a year?’

Jadow grinned. Man, consider the alternative, don’t you see?’ He laughed, a deep-throated version of a child’s delight. ‘The food was sumptuous, and the company’ – he cast a mock-baleful look at Jerome – ‘diverting, if nothing else. And the longer we were there …’

‘What?’ asked Roo.

It was Biggo who answered. ‘The longer they weren’t headed toward wherever it is de Loungville and the Eagle are taking us.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’ve been playing soldier for a year, then?’ asked Luis.

‘More, and I don’t call it playing when men die,’ said a man named Peter Bly.

Jerome nodded. ‘We thirty are what’s left of seventy-eight who were put through the false hanging over the last year and a bit.’

Sho Pi said, ‘Then this would explain why Corporal Foster and … what is Robert de Loungville’s real rank – when first I saw him, I took him for a noble – does anyone know?’

Jerome shook his head. ‘Sergeant is all I’ve ever heard. But I’ve seen him give orders to a Knight-Captain of the King’s own. He’s the second in command, after the elf.’

‘Elf?’ said Erik.

Luis said, ‘What some of the older guards call the Eagle. It’s no joke. They call him that, but there’s no disrespect in it. But they say he’s not human.’

‘He does look a little odd,’ said Roo.

Jerome laughed, and Jadow said, ‘Look who’s talking about looking odd!’

All the gathered men laughed and Roo flushed with embarrassment, waving off the remark. ‘I mean, he doesn’t look like the rest of us.’

‘No one looks like the rest of us,’ said Sho Pi.

‘We know what you mean,’ said another man whose name Erik didn’t know.

Jadow said, ‘I’ve never been to the west, though my father fought there against the Tsurani in the Riftwar. Man, that was some fighting, to hear the old man talk. He saw some elves at the battle in the valley in the Grey Towers, when the elves and dwarves betrayed the treaty. He said the elves are tall and fair, though their hair and eyes are much like yours, from brown to yellow, don’t you know? Yet he said there is something uncommon about them, and they carry themselves with a different grace – as if dancing while the rest of us walk, is what he said to me.’

Sho Pi said, ‘The man called Eagle is that. He is one I’d not wish to face.’

‘You?’ said Erik. ‘You’ve taken swords out of armed men’s hands. I would have thought you were afraid of no one.’

‘I have taken the sword from an armed man’s hands, Erik. But I never claimed I was fearless when I did so.’ His expression became reflective. ‘There is something very dangerous in the man called Calis.’

‘He’s stronger than he looks,’ said Jerome with a frank look of embarrassment. ‘Early on, in the training, before he left everything to Bobby de Loungville, that’s when I thought to bully him and he knocked me down so hard I thought he’d broken my skull.’

‘Too thick, man, much too thick,’ said Jadow, and the others laughed.

‘No, I mean it. I pride myself on taking a blow with the best, but I’ve never felt anything like it, and I was certainly surprised.’ He looked at Sho Pi. ‘As surprised as I was when you twisted my thumb that time. Same thing. I moved, and suddenly I was on my back and my head was ringing like a temple gong.’

Jadow said, ‘He never saw the blow, man. And neither did I, truth to tell. Calis is fast.’

‘He’s not human,’ said another, and there was general agreement.

A warning creak on the companionway stairs had the men scrambling for their bunks before Corporal Foster was through the hatch. As he touched boot to deck, he shouted, ‘Lights out, ladies! Say good night to your sweethearts, and get your rest. You’ve a full day tomorrow.’

Before Erik could get completely under the woolen blanket, the lantern was doused, and the hold plunged into gloom. He lay back and thought what it must have been like to live in that camp for a year, to see men you didn’t know come in and see them die. Suddenly something Sho Pi had started to say registered.

Erik whispered. ‘Sho Pi?’

‘What?’

‘What were you about to say, about something explaining why Foster and de Loungville were doing something or whatever, when you asked about de Loungville’s rank?’

‘I was going to say that having so many men fail, even after the testing before and during their trials, even after having the woman read minds, explains why they are so worried about the six of us.’