26. Veshion’s Test
Chapter twenty-six
Veshion’s Test
“So much for beating the crowds,” Almatra muttered.
Imalroc stared over her shoulder. It was still early in the morning, and they’d seen almost no one on their way to the training grounds at the far edge of camp, only cold ash in firepits and silent shelters.
He’d taken it as a sign that most of the battleboxers were still asleep, but that had apparently been a mistake.
They were awake, and they had already gathered.
Swarms of fighters scattered across the vast, flat area of the camp's training grounds. The earth was bare and red, sending up clouds of dust beneath skirmishing pairs. Everywhere the glitter of weapons drew his eye. He didn’t like to think of what it meant that they brought their real weapons to train.
Weaponry could make the difference between a round of sparring practice and deadly combat.
He took a step forward. The nearest group of battleboxers swiveled toward him as though in response to a signal. “The last time I saw this many fighters in the open, I was in the Arble. Preparing to kill them all,” he muttered.
Almatra coughed. “Maybe don’t share that when you get out there.”
He forged further onto the flattened ground, and the battleboxers rippled away from him with every step. Only one group in the middle did not move as he approached. They had to be Easterners, all standing in identical poses with arms crossed and feet planted wide.
Opposite them, many of the other battleboxers did look less experienced. Some carried weapons fashioned from branches with knives crudely attached to the ends. Nervous energy poured off their drumming fingers and tapping feet. He felt it creep into him and fought off a shiver.
An unseen voice called from somewhere in the ranks of the stone-faced Easterners. “You are the Kirinoll champion?”
Imalroc was careful to keep his expression impassive. “Yes,” he responded, loud enough for his voice to carry. “My name is Imalroc.”
There were a few low words and glances exchanged among the Easterners, but none that he could make out. Hopefully, there were no battleboxers here who had felt the bite of his blade.
The Easterner who’d addressed him shouldered aside a few of his fellows. “You’ve brought a sword. Good. I’ll spar with you.” He was a stocky man, leaning on what looked like a spiked mace. A chain looped from the handle of the weapon to his forearm.
The gleam in the man’s eye did not promise a friendly match, and the spiked mace could not be mistaken for a practice weapon.
This opponent intended to beat him badly, and if he was anywhere near as tough as he looked, Imalroc would have to knock him senseless to end the fight.
It would probably give the Easterners a fair reason to hate him.
He scuffed his toe in the dirt. Standing here felt like being surrounded by hunting hounds, all of them testing the air, searching for fear or weakness. He could either turn away and be seen as a coward or fight and be seen as an enemy.
Sparring wasn’t his favored way to start training. A free man did as he pleased.
“I don’t train by sparring first. I was taught to begin by running,” Imalroc said.
Expressions all around him contorted, and some of the Easterners hissed. He’d said something wrong.
“Taught?” sneered the mace-wielding Eastern battleboxer. “Handlers do not teach.”
There was a rumble of agreement.
Imalroc ran his gaze over the expressions nearest him. Some were doubtful, but most were angry. Looking for a fight.
He stretched his arms above his head and shook out his legs.
Checked the scabbard lashed tightly to his back, the weight of the sword as familiar as a part of his body.
All of it was done with unhurried relaxation, a feat of complete disregard for the hostile faces around him.
Good thing he had half a lifetime’s worth of practice hiding a queasy stomach and rabbit-quick pulse.
He presented his unguarded back to the Easterners and jogged off without another word.
He didn’t move quickly enough to miss the mace fighter’s dismissal. “Another Kirinoll coward,” the man said.
The other battleboxers got out of his way, allowing him to run the perimeter of the cleared ground. But he caught sidelong glances and snatches of talk as he passed.
“He was the Duke of Wester’s favorite—”
“—Kirinoll champions, coddled pets—”
“—last owner carted him all over the place. Why wouldn’t he try to get away?”
Rage rolled into his veins, snaked through his limbs, and pulsed in his forehead. He gritted his teeth to keep from snapping at every watching face.
Thudding footsteps echoed his own. He risked a glance back, half expecting to see the mace already whirling toward his head. But it was Almatra, jogging a stride behind him. And Martau, who grinned at him.
“Running. My favorite,” Almatra huffed.
“It’s a good way to loosen up,” Martau began knowledgeably.
“Shut up, Martau, you’re four hours old,” Almatra said.
The tightness in his chest loosened a fraction. Imalroc turned his attention back to his path, following the perimeter of the training ground.
The ground was rocky in places and riddled with blackened tree stumps.
He stumbled unexpectedly into a long stretch of softer dirt, which shifted and sucked at his feet as though it meant to send him sprawling.
His clumsy legs seemed to have grown heavier.
At the edge of the jungle, he ran alongside pits of brackish water, sludge caked to his ankles.
It was terrible, and Master Xavian would have called it a perfect place for a training run.
A few of the battleboxers watched their progress, but by the time they had completed a single loop, most turned back to their own work.
The Easterners ignored him deliberately.
Martau proudly pointed out a contingent of fellow Westerners.
Imalroc took in their sloppy footwork and flailing strikes and held his tongue.
He rounded the first corner again, his rhythm becoming more fluid.
“If this is where your stamina comes from, I don’t think I want it,” Almatra panted.
“My last handler always made us run in the morning,” Martau said.
“That fucker Colm Lydak used to run us alongside horses,” Imalroc said, his words coming evenly despite the pace. “If you lost your footing, they’d just drag you.”
“Fucking bastards,” Almatra snarled.
“What about—” Martau barreled up alongside him “—the other one?”
“Hize.” Imalroc bared his teeth. Farewell to his even breathing. “He wasn’t interested in training; he was trying to break people. Hize never wanted to see any strength at all.” He lengthened his stride, anger finding its natural outlet in his pounding feet. A wake of red dust bloomed behind him.
“And—Stop trying to cut me off, Martau!” Almatra yelled, swerving into a protesting Martau before she resumed her questions. “And the one who brought you to Drida?”
“Oh.” He was half horrified and half tempted by the thought of explaining that spending all night fucking his handler was by far the most enjoyable stamina training he’d ever experienced.
Thank the gods, earthbound and Eternal, neither of his companions recognized the blush beneath his already heated skin.
“Just more running. Around a courtyard.”
Dola appeared on their third loop. Word of their training method must’ve spread.
She brought buckets of cool water and tin cups.
Imalroc stopped long enough to swallow a cup and pour another over his head, and then he loped off, deaf to Almatra’s complaints.
The heaviness had left him, and his legs remembered running in the desert.
The sun climbed higher, and he saved his breath for running.
Sweat dripped down his arms, back, forehead.
His shoes were soaked with it. He welcomed the strain and exhaustion driving everything from his mind.
There was only the earth cracking beneath him, and heat rising in shimmering waves.
The training grounds felt like running in a kiln, and Imalroc imagined that his feet, if he could still feel them, burned with every step.
They slowed to a stop next to the buckets after he lost count of how many loops they had completed. Almatra dropped to her knees and let out an indecipherable string of curses.
“I think,” groaned Martau, breathless. “That’s enough.”
Imalroc rested his hands on his sweat-slicked knees. His chest heaved and his thighs felt swollen with molten liquid. No one looked his way. There were still a few battleboxers drilling in the heat, but the crowds from the morning were gone.
“Where is everyone?” he asked once he managed enough air.
“This is only the start of the midday heat. It gets far too hot to train, so most go to the river,” Martau said.
“Please tell me we’re going for a swim.” Almatra sprawled on the ground.
Imalroc straightened and bounced on his toes. “Alright.” He lifted his eyebrows and cocked his head innocently at her. “Should we run there?”
She picked up a handful of dirt and pebbles and hurled them at him.
Almatra said that the Southerners called the river Glautoa, after some ancient noble feld lord, but the battleboxers simply referred to it as the river, as though it were the only one in Inofar. And it might as well have been. Imalroc stopped walking when he saw it.
Near the banks, the water was a clear jade, revealing each pebble and sand drift that covered a submerged rock shelf.
Further out the shelf dropped away, and the water ran with more shades of blue than he had names for, alongside shifting threads of purple and emerald and iridescent grey.
In the midday sun, every ripple and whirl dazzled.
Wild knots of trees shaded the rolling green knolls along the riverbank.
Enormous white trees bent gracefully over the water, their silvery leaves combing the current. He had never seen a place so beautiful.