Chương 24: The Trial Week (5)

A moment later, a cat jumped onto the wall, its tail raised up, and vanished behind a rain barrel. He let out a slow breath. He had nearly panicked over a cat. He flexed his fingers once, then went back inside. He did not try again that night. The next morning, training resumed as usual. Because nothing had happened, Teren told himself. No one shouted. No one dragged him from the barracks. No old mage came with questions Teren didn't have answers to. No white fire crossed the yard.

The violet light had been too small. Too brief. He had hidden it well enough. At least, he hoped so. That raised another question. Whoever had brought the white fire in those first loops apparently could not sense every time he used his purple mana. Had they actually been watching the intake assay? Or had something about the assay itself warned them? Or was it some kind of automated system, which only did it based on the results of the intake assay? Teren still had no idea who they were.

After spear drills, the older guard with gray in his beard and the missing finger walked the new recruits through the first rules of leaving the compound. His name, Teren learned from another guard, was Rulven. Rulven stood before the four of them with a slate in one hand and the patience of a man who expected disappointment but did his duties anyway.

"You get your first week's wages at sunset," he said.

"Do not smile like that, Hask. It is less than you think." Hask stopped grinning.

"You may spend coin only in approved taverns within three streets of the gate compound. You do not enter gambling rooms. You do not buy debt. You do not touch whores on recruit wages unless you want to owe money to men who break fingers for sport. You do not drink enough to vomit on your mark. You do not speak about gate routines, patrol timings, armory stores, prisoner counts, or anything else you learned inside these walls." Drem raised a hand. Rulven looked at him.

"This better be a useful question."

"What can we speak about?"

"Food. Weather. How badly your feet hurt. How handsome your minder is." Drem glanced at Rulven's missing finger.

"Will lying cost extra?" Hask coughed into his hand. Rulven's face did not change.

"Marr." Teren straightened.

"Tell Drem what happens if he tests how fond I am of jokes." Teren looked at Drem.

"He finds out whether losing a finger made the others stronger." Drem rubbed his cheek and nodded solemnly.

"Useful warning." Rulven stared at Drem for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile.

"You can learn. Good." The moment passed. Training continued. Wooden sword work came in the afternoon. Teren took two strikes to the shoulder, one to the thigh, but managed to land one clean hit on Drem's ribs when the other man got too pleased with himself.

"Damn it," Drem muttered, rubbing the spot.

"You left your whole side open."

"I was just trying to take a breather."

"Try doing that with your guard still up." Drem pointed his wooden sword at him.

"That's the kind of answer that gets a man hit after drills."

"After drills, I plan to be holding ale." That got a real grin. Hask overheard and said, "If our wages can even buy ale."

"Oh, they'll buy ale," Drem said.

"Maybe not good ale, though." Hask shrugged.

"Bad ale still knows its duty." For once, the laughter felt earned. By sunset, the recruits were lined up before a clerk seated behind a small table. Each received a few copper coins, with the amount counted aloud and entered in a ledger. The coins looked meager in Teren's palm, their stamped profiles too worn to identify. It was still the first money he had earned in this world. He closed his fingers around it. Rulven took them out after dusk.

The approved tavern stood two streets over from the compound and half a street down, tucked between a leatherworker and a cart repair shed. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted with a black cup and a crooked loaf. Inside, the room was low, warm, and loud. Not nightclub loud. Not pit-crowd loud. Just dozens of men eating, drinking, arguing over dice and cards they were not supposed to be playing, and calling for more stew or ale. Two tables near the back held soldiers and guards.

A few laborers sat closer to the door. A woman behind the counter poured ale from a barrel with the steady boredom of someone who had seen every kind of fool and charged all of them. Rulven took a bench near the wall where he could see the door.

"One mug of ale," he told them.

"Eat first. Anyone starts trouble, I drag all four of you back and let Gannik decide whether your wages were a mistake."

"Generous man," Drem muttered.

"Keep talking and you drink water." That ended the complaint. They bought stew, bread, and ale that tasted sour enough to strip rust from iron. Teren drank anyway. The first mouthful nearly made him cough. Hask thumped his own cup down.

"This is awful." Drem lifted his cup.

"To our first wages." Hask looked at the ale.

"Feels more like punishment."

"To punishment," Drem said. They drank again. Teren took a smaller sip this time. Warmth spread through his stomach. Not much, but enough to remind him that his body was young, tired, underfed by Earth standards, and not used to alcohol in this life. He ate more stew. Around them, the senior guards talked over one another.

Most of it was ordinary: sore feet, boots with soles worn nearly through, a sergeant who snored, a skarnak that had bitten a groom, and whether the cooks at the west gate watered their stew more than the ones at the south gate. A pair of older guards at the next table argued in lower voices.

"The grain caravans from the east are late again."

"Roads are bad these days."

"Roads are always bad. Caravans still come." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"You think it's because of all this war talk?"

"There's no war yet."

"Doesn't stop the eastern lords from filling their own granaries."

"Keep your voice down. People have been questioned for saying less." The first guard looked into his cup and said nothing more. Teren listened without turning his head. Delayed grain caravans. Eastern lords filling their granaries. Rumors of war. The dead empire. Gate routines. Mage candidates. Dungeon gates. Slave marks. Every loop gave him pieces. None of them fit yet. Drem nudged his elbow.

"You always look like you're counting roof beams?" Teren glanced up automatically. Drem grinned. Teren looked back at his bowl.

"Only when the ale tastes like old rope. I was wondering whether chewing the beams would be better." Hask barked a laugh and nearly spilled his cup. Pell would have laughed too, Teren thought, then remembered Pell was in the labor yard now. The thought soured his mood. He drank water after that. An hour passed. Maybe more. Teren wasn't sure. He stayed aware of the door, Rulven's position, the guards at nearby tables, the alley visible through the small front window. It was his habit now.

He did it without even thinking. Rulven stood and moved to their table.

"Marr." Teren looked up.

"Come with me." The others quieted. Drem raised his brows. Hask looked from Rulven to Teren, then back down at his cup. Neither said anything. Teren set his spoon down.

"Did I do something?"

"If you had, I wouldn't ask nicely." Rulven gave him a brief smile and jerked his head toward the door.

"Outside." Teren stood, still unsure what the guard wanted to discuss. Rulven had treated him better than most of the other guards, correcting mistakes instead of merely cursing at him. Whatever this was, Teren doubted the man meant him harm. He followed Rulven out into the cool street. The night air smelled of damp timber, horse dung, smoke, and frying fat from somewhere farther down the lane. Lanterns burned at intervals along the street, though this lane had fewer crystal lamps than the main roads.

Rulven walked without speaking. Teren kept half a step behind him.

"Where are we going?"

"Someone wants a word with you."

"Who?"

"Somebody you answer to." Who was it? Gannik? Captain Rastor? The white-fire attacker? Teren still did not know who Rulven meant, but he had no good reason to refuse. They turned past the cart repair shed and into a narrow side lane. The noise from the eating house dulled behind them. Rulven slowed. Teren stopped behind him. A second man stepped from the shadow near the wall. Younger than Rulven. Clean-shaven. Guard cloak. One hand near his belt knife. Teren's stomach tightened.

"What is this?" Rulven looked almost disappointed in him as his hand settled on his knife.

"Bad time to hide magic in a military yard." Shit. With rumors of war spreading, they would not assume Teren had hidden it out of fear. They would think he was an enemy spy. Teren tried to pull away. Rulven drew the knife before Teren could take a step. The blade punched into the outside of his thigh. The pain came hot and sudden. Teren staggered back, hitting the wall with his shoulder. His hand went to the wound. Warm blood welled between his fingers. The younger guard caught his arm before he could fall.

"Easy," the man said.

"Don't make it worse. We were told to bring you in, not kill you." Teren stared at Rulven. The old guard wiped the knife once on Teren's tunic, then held it low at his side.

"You can walk, or he can drag you."

"What…" Teren's breath hitched.

"What the hell is this?"

"You test clean for magic," Rulven said.

"Then someone sees you making witch-light behind the barracks." Teren's skin went cold despite the heat of the wound. The purple glow from last night. Too small to matter, he had thought. But not too small to be seen. Rulven stepped closer.

"With a war coming, we don't leave unknown mages walking around wearing fresh recruit marks."

"I'm not a spy!""'Course not. No one ever is." The younger guard tightened his grip.

"Move." Teren tried to think through the pain as they dragged him. They had not killed him. That was worse. If they only wanted him dead, they could have easily cut his throat in the alley and left him in a ditch. Instead, they had wounded him just enough to stop him from running. They wanted him weakened. Taken somewhere. Questioned. But they would still kill him when they were done. He had no answer they would accept, and telling them about the time loop would not save him. He could not let them take him.

He only had moments to find a way out. Teren let his knees buckle slightly. The younger guard cursed and caught more of his weight.

"He's bleeding a lot."

"He's young. He'll live," Rulven said.

"Keep him moving." Teren sagged between them, one hand pressed to his thigh. He forced his breathing to come shallow and uneven. That part was easy. The wound helped. Each step sent pain up his leg and into his hip. They moved deeper into the side lane. The lamps were farther apart here. A shuttered warehouse stood on one side, a wall on the other. Voices from the eating house faded until Teren could hear water dripping somewhere ahead.

He waited until the younger guard shifted his grip to pull him around a deep rut in the street. Then Teren dropped. Not a stumble. A full deadweight fall. The younger guard bent with him by instinct to help him up. Teren drove his elbow into the man's knee as hard as he could. The guard shouted and went down. Teren tore free, slipped in his own blood, and slammed one hand against the wall to stay upright. Rulven came in fast. Teren caught his wrist before the knife reached him again.

But a week of training did not make him a match for the veteran guard. Rulven twisted his wrist and broke Teren's grip. Teren turned the way the instructor had drilled into him, keeping Rulven's knife arm away from his body instead of recoiling. Rulven shoved, but Teren moved with the force rather than fight it. For one brief second, the old man lost his balance. Teren headbutted him. Pain burst across his own forehead. Rulven grunted and stumbled half a step.

The younger guard was getting up behind Teren, swearing through clenched teeth. No time. Teren lunged for the knife. Rulven twisted, and the blade sliced across Teren's palm. Teren ignored it and drove his knee into the older guard's thigh. Rulven answered by slamming his own knee into Teren's wounded leg. Pain tore through Teren's leg. His vision blurred, and his grip loosened. The younger guard crashed into him from behind. All three of them struck the wall.

Pinned between them, Teren had no room to fight, and no weapon in his hands. Blood ran hot down his leg, and Rulven's knife was coming up again. He reached inward for his mana. He pulled at the pressure inside him with everything he had. For one instant, violet light flickered over a finger. Small. Shaking. Barely enough to show the blood on his hand. The younger guard froze.

"Shit." Rulven looked at the glow. Then he laughed. Not loudly. Not with joy. Just one short, ugly sound.

"I've seen a dying candle burn brighter." The words hit harder than they should have. Teren shoved the glowing hand toward Rulven's face anyway. The flame went out before it touched the older guard. Rulven drove the knife deep beneath Teren's ribs. The impact drove the breath from him. Pain spread through his chest as Rulven tore the blade free. The younger guard let go and stepped back quickly, as if afraid the weak little glow might return stronger. It did not. Teren slid down the wall.

His legs folded beneath him. His right hand pressed uselessly against the new wound. Blood poured between his fingers faster than he could hold it back. He had felt this before. He was going to die. He knew it with the same calm certainty he had known his other deaths in the final moments. Rulven crouched in front of him.

"Should have come with us peacefully," the old guard said. Teren tried to answer. Only a wet gasp came out. The younger guard tested his injured leg and winced.

"What now?" Rulven did not answer immediately. The younger guard glanced toward the mouth of the alley.

"Thugs?"

"No. Cutthroats." Rulven stood.

"Three of 'em jumped Marr. We stepped in. He fought beside us. They killed him and ran toward the fifth lane." Then he raised his voice.

"Guards! Three men fleeing toward the fifth lane! Recruit down!" The shout carried out into the street. Teren watched through fading vision. The panic in Rulven's voice was only a performance, but anyone hearing it would believe him. The younger guard limped toward the other end of the lane, already calling for someone to stop the men who had attacked them. Rulven looked down at Teren one last time. Teren wanted to hate him. He did hate him. But even through the hatred, he understood where he had gone wrong.

He had made one tiny flame in the wrong place. One stupid, useless flicker, and the military route had ended with a knife beneath his ribs. If he had known how to use his mana—really use it—Rulven and his friend might have been ash on the stones. Instead, he had given them a reason to fear him without having the power to stop them. Teren's hand twitched against the blood, trying to summon the flame again. Nothing answered. The street grew louder. Boots. A woman shouting.

Rulven shouting back, breathless now, playing his part well. Teren stared at the strip of dark sky above the alley and thought of Edras. The old mage had known what the purple fire was. He had warned him not to touch it blindly. Teren had touched it anyway. Damn it. The word did not reach his mouth. The alley tilted. The voices thinned. Then everything went dark. Again.