Chapter Eleven #2
The keep itself stood near the fort’s main gate, where warriors upon the wall faced the land beyond armed with spear and bow.
In a nearby courtyard, Lorath saw the stables and animal pens where he expected to soon be working.
Chickens roamed freely outside their coop, pecking at hard ground compacted by the accumulated weight of innumerable foot- and hoof-falls.
The entrance to the keep forced them through a narrow corridor with a raised portcullis at each end. Along the passageway, Lorath looked up into murder holes in the ceiling, through which hot sand, boiling water, or deadly substances of a magical variety could be poured onto invading enemies.
At the end of the corridor, they entered the great hall at the center of the keep.
Three levels of columned balconies looked down on the chamber from above, each lined with doorways.
Glass deck prisms had been installed in the roof high above as if it were the upper deck of a ship, admitting a strained greenish light into the hall.
The air smelled of dry stone and incense.
A few rugs lined the floor, bearing the stains and patterns of wear that came from long use, and the banners hanging from the balconies appeared dingy and gray.
The wooden benches and tables had many notches and dents but were otherwise oiled and well cared for.
The appointments gave Lorath the impression of former glory, enjoyed during periods of greater status and priority for the fort.
A battle plan covered the largest of the tables at one end of the hall, and Lorath sauntered over toward it.
The map portrayed all of Athulua and a portion of Atanos, with labels for Askari settlements and tokens representing the placement of Amazon troops.
Adreona had been honest when she said they had suffered losses—their forces were spread thin.
On Athulua’s northern coast was a site labeled Temple of Courage , which he assumed to be the structure he had seen in the clouds while sailing to Temis.
Near the middle of the western shore, he noted a fortified position, which he assumed to be the garrison Tavie had mentioned, as well as a marking near it, set just off the western coast, portraying the image of a flame.
“You are needed in the stables,” Adreona said, standing behind him.
Lorath accepted this with a slow nod, then looked around the hall. “Did Keldon already head out there?”
“He asked my permission to work at the dock instead, which I granted.”
“I see.”
“Welcome to Athulua.”
She turned and strode away toward Tavie and a waiting group of warriors. Lorath took another glance at the map and then left the hall.
He found the stablemaster in the fort’s barn, leaning against a thick timber post with her arms folded, watching over a dappled gray mare with her foal in one of the pens.
The little white colt stood firmly on its spindly legs as it nursed.
The stablemaster appeared older than many of the warriors Lorath had seen in the fort, her black hair threaded with pewter.
Instead of armor, she wore brown woolen trousers and a leather vest over a linen shirt.
A puckered and ragged scar ran the length of her left forearm and disappeared up her rolled sleeve.
“Almost gives one hope,” she said as Lorath approached.
“What does?” he asked.
She nodded toward the foal. “New life. Brief as it may be on this island.”
Lorath was reminded of something Tyrael had once said about mortality. “Every story comes to an end, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth telling.”
The stablemaster looked at him fully then, her brown eyes flicking back and forth between his. “I like that,” she said. “You must be the new stable hand.”
“Reporting for duty,” he answered.
“I’ve been told to keep you busy.”
“To keep me out of trouble, you mean.”
“Why? Are you much trouble?”
“I won’t be for you.”
“Glad to hear it.” She unfolded her arms and extended her hand for a shake. “I’m Tanna. The proud mother there is Zerae, and the little one is Arjak. He’s only two months old, but he’ll grow into a fine warhorse one day. And you are?”
“Lorath.”
“Been around horses much, Lorath?”
“I have.”
“But I don’t imagine you’ve mucked out many stalls.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You carry yourself like you know how to use that polearm on your back.” She made a show of appraising him. “I wonder if you’ve got what it takes to wield a shovel or a pitchfork.”
“My father was a blacksmith,” he said. “I’m not afraid of hard labor.”
She laughed. “We’ll see about that.”
She spent the next few days trying to prove him wrong.
Lorath had hoped that the same muscles used for swinging a polearm would help him heave a shovel, but he quickly discovered that was not the case.
The fort kept a herd of more than thirty horses for scouting patrols and messengers, as well as a large drove of swine and a few goats for their milk.
At the end of each day spent feeding the animals, cleaning the stables, and hauling barrow after barrow of manure from the fort to the dung heap outside its walls, he fell into bed exhausted.
He had been given the loft above the barn for his quarters, and he awoke on his pallet each morning with stiff limbs and joints.
The intensity of the labor did much to quiet the beast within him but could not silence it completely.
He never saw Keldon, though he heard the sailor had been hard at work himself assisting the shipwrights and dockhands.
Lorath saw Adreona only in passing as she marched through the camp, and she seemed to pay him no mind at all.
He began to wonder if he truly would be spending his stay in Skovos as a muckraker.
Fortunately, he made a much more favorable impression on Tanna.
He and the stablemaster got along well, often working side by side for long stretches, speaking easily, though infrequently.
On the fifth day since he had arrived at Fort Galina, she called him to her in the midafternoon, and they settled on a bench near the chicken coop for a rest. She had a honey cake and a wineskin, which she offered to him.
He gratefully accepted both, gulping the wine down first without really even tasting it.
“Easy there,” she said. “There’s work yet to be done before this day is through.”
Lorath wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I’ll be fine. But thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome. Now, eat the cake.”
Lorath’s daily rations consisted of the same plain food received by everyone else in the fort, as far as he knew—bread, cheese, porridge, beans, sometimes fish, sometimes meat—so he relished the rich sweetness of honey on his tongue.
A few chickens had bobbed up close to his feet, clucking and hoping for crumbs to fall.
“Where did you get this?” Lorath asked.
Tanna shrugged. “Cook owed me a favor.”
“And you wasted it on me?”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t have?”
“No, I—”
“Relax. Just enjoy it. You’ve earned it.” She rubbed the scar on her left arm. “I know how frustrating it is to be held back from the fight.”
Lorath had been curious about Tanna’s history since meeting her. Until this moment, she had kept their conversations far away from the personal, but sitting here with him in the sun, she seemed less guarded. “How long have you been the stablemaster?”
“A few years.”
“And before that?”
She sat up straighter. “I was a shieldmatron. I fought the Drowned on the front line dozens of times, killed hundreds of them. Until the day one of those undead bastards almost took my arm. But luck and a bit of magic were on my side.” She raised her arm and flexed her fingers.
The muscles beneath her scar rippled and tightened irregularly.
“I can’t carry a shield anymore. Not reliably.
And if my war-sisters can’t rely on me, I endanger them. ”
“I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want your pity.” She snatched the wineskin from him and poured several gulps down her throat. “I’ve been fortunate.”
“How so?”
“Maybe you’ve heard the expression that an Amazon warrior never grows old?
Most people think that’s about dying in battle, but it’s not.
The truth is that some Amazons take their own lives when they reach the point where they can’t fight anymore.
” She waved toward the encampment with the wineskin, spilling some on the ground.
“For many of us, this is all we’ve ever known.
What are we going to do, become farmers? Weavers? Fishwives?”
“I imagine that would be difficult,” Lorath said.
“Difficult? For many, it’s impossible. They can’t imagine another life. They don’t want another life.”
“It seems you did.”
She looked down at the chickens pecking curiously at the wet dirt where the wine drops had fallen.
“After I was injured, the pain in my arm would keep me up at night. I’d lie in my cot, right down there in that same healers’ tent, and I would think about ending it all.
But one day, Captain Adreona came to me, and she gave me a gift. ”
“What was it?”
“She told me that she and my sisters still needed me. She said that if my days of fighting to defend life were at an end, then perhaps it was time I start helping to bring it into the world. She knew I’d always had a way with horses.
She told me the stablemaster position was waiting for me as soon as I was healed.
And that was her gift. She offered me a way to stay here, in my home, and serve the virtue of life. ”
“And the virtue of courage,” Lorath added.
“What do you mean?”
He wondered if he had overstepped. “I think it takes great courage to face and accept one’s limitations.”
She leaned her head back against the coop. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Neither spoke for a few moments. The remainder of Lorath’s honey cake had gone uneaten while he listened to her story. Tanna suddenly reached over and broke off a piece, which she popped into her mouth and chewed.
“The captain is wise beyond her years,” she said.
“I’m beginning to see that.”
“I know you’re frustrated. I would be too, if I were you. There are still days when I grip that pitchfork in my hands like it’s a spear, and I yearn to be back on the battlefield. But I think you might have misunderstood Adreona.”
“How so?”
“You think she’s keeping you here because she doesn’t trust you, and maybe you’re right. But I think she might be keeping you here to save your life.”