Chương 17: Gate Seventeen (2)

After the marking, the candidates were given water, bread, a bowl of thick stew, and a strip of salted meat. Teren stared at the bowl. It was not good food but it was still better than the labor meal. The stew had beans and actual pieces of vegetables. The bread was hard, but not old enough to break his teeth. The strip of meat was tough and over-salted, but Teren was hardly going to complain. Teren ate slowly because his body wanted him to devour it like an animal.

Across from him, Dagan did not bother with restraint. One of the younger candidates ate half his bread, then looked toward the training yard.

"When do they start?" A guard standing nearby answered.

"Tomorrow." The young man blinked.

"Tomorrow?"

"You've spent days chained in wagons with barely enough food or sleep. If we started drilling you now, half of ya wouldn't get up again once ya hit the ground." The guard snorted.

"So count yourself lucky. Ya get a night to rest. Eat, wash if there's water enough, sleep where we put ya, and try not to do anything that gets ya sent back to labor. Trial week starts at dawn." That was far more rest than the laborers had been given. In the previous loop, Teren had been sent to work almost immediately after lunch.

"Trial week?" the young man asked. The guard looked at him.

"Candidates get a week to show they can earn their keep. You do basic drills with weapons. You learn when to stand, when to move, when to keep your mouth shut. At the end, you test. Pass, you're taken as a recruit. Fail, and ya go where the yard-master says."

"As labor?" another candidate asked. The guard smiled.

"If you're useful." No one asked what happened if they were not useful. Teren understood anyway. Pit. Mines. Worse. Still, this was the first loop that showed any real promise. A week of training could give him a chance at recruit status, regular food, access to weapons, and maybe a regular wage eventually. And eventually, perhaps enough freedom of movement to learn the city without climbing walls barefoot in the dark. None of that meant he could forget about the white-fire attacker.

He could still be nearby, and Teren would never recognize him until it was too late. His only defense was to keep the purple mana buried. After eating, the candidates were taken to a barracks hall with plain wooden bunks instead of floor mats given to laborers. The room smelled of old sweat and oiled leather, but it had shuttered windows and enough space that men were not lying shoulder to shoulder. Teren sat on the edge of a lower bunk. His body wanted some sleep immediately.

He resisted for a while, watching the room, the door, the men around him. The lizardfolk man took a bunk near the wall and lay down with one arm under his head, eyes half open. Two younger candidates whispered until a guard shouted from outside for silence. Teren leaned back. Training would start tomorrow. If he survived that long, he could learn something real this time.

One day of spear drills would not make him a fighter, and even a full week would hardly make him a veteran soldier, but any real instruction was more than he had now. He closed his eyes. He thought of the pit. Of Brakka's post. Of his own failed attempt to summon purple flame. He thought of the dark lane and Gannik's sword. Then he slept. Not deeply like in the labor hall, where exhaustion had dragged him under and held him there. This sleep came in broken pieces. A noise would wake him.

A boot outside the door, or a loud cough. Maybe a distant shout from the yard. Then he would remember where he was and force his eyes closed again. He had no idea how long he had been asleep when the barracks door slammed open. Weak daylight still showed around the shutters, though it had faded considerably while he slept.

"Up! Get up!" Teren jerked upright and blinked blearily. The guard at the doorway had a spear in hand and a tense expression.

"Candidates out! Now." The room exploded into motion. Men cursed, stumbled from bunks, and reached instinctively for belongings they did not have, then remembered they owned nothing except what they wore. Dagan swung his legs down from his bunk.

"Training time already?"

"It's Gate Seventeen," the guard snapped.

"Move." Teren stood up. Gate Seventeen meant nothing to him. But the urgency in the guard's voice made it clear this was no routine order. Outside, the restricted section of the yard was alive with movement. Soldiers were forming near the far gate, buckling straps, taking shields from racks, pulling spears and swords from storage. Grooms brought horses out, though only a few riders seemed to be mounting. Lanterns had already been lit as the fading daylight gave way to evening.

A broad man in his forties came across the yard at a hurried jog, his dark surcoat shifting over the mail beneath it. Teren had seen him from a distance in previous loops and knew he was the captain of the military compound. He had a trimmed beard and weathered skin, and the soldiers made way for him without being told. A messenger with blood on his face and hands moved to meet him, then bent forward with both hands on his knees, struggling for breath.

"Report!" the captain said.

"Dungeon Gate Seventeen. The monsters are pushing toward the entrance hall. The gate could be breached within the hour." The captain's face tightened.

"How far up?"

"First floor. Past the lower stairs, but not into the entrance hall yet. The gate guards are holding at the third bend, but they've already lost men there." The messenger drew another ragged breath.

"The gate commander has asked for fifty men." Teren glanced toward the far gate. Edras had told him that Karthane was built over a dungeon. Gate Seventeen must be one of the entrances leading down into it, and likely one of the closest to this compound. If the monsters broke through, this garrison must be responsible for stopping them before they reached the city streets.

"What came up this time?" the captain asked.

"Ashback boars. First-tier monsters," the messenger replied.

"Big ones, and fast. There may be more coming behind them." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Where's Master Edras?" the captain asked the yard-master.

"He could end this quickly."

"He and his apprentices returned to his research lab in the noble district," Gannik said.

"Their work here was finished for the day."

"Dammit." The captain looked toward the far gate, then across the yard, where soldiers were still forming into ranks.

"I can spare thirty guards. Maybe thirty-five if I push it. Any more and I leave the city gate too thin." The messenger looked even more worried now.

"But thirty-five may not be enough to hold the gate..." The captain's gaze shifted to the candidates already assembled outside the barracks. Then he looked at Gannik.

"Good work. You brought them out already."

"Thought you might need more bodies," Gannik said.

"Choose fifteen," the captain ordered.

"The strongest ones. Give them shields and spears. They go behind the line, not in front." Several candidates reacted at once. Some exchanged worried looks, while a few took a step back.

"We'll die there!"

"We're not trained for this!" another said. Dagan only watched, his eyes narrowing with interest rather than fear. Gannik rounded on them.

"You'll go where you're sent!" The captain raised one hand, and Gannik fell silent. He looked over the candidates, judging their size and condition.

"You were brought here for a week of training before we decide whether you join the military or return to labor." No one spoke.

"The breach at Gate Seventeen cannot wait a week. Any candidate who proves useful there skips the rest of the trial. Serve well enough, and you become a recruit tonight." The worried murmuring stopped. Recruits tonight... It meant no trial week, or waiting to fail the test and be sent back to labor. And no chance for Gannik to decide they would serve better as meat shields for Brakka to break in the pit. The captain gave them one breath to consider it.

"Run, and we track you through the mark—you'll be dead by dawn. Break formation, and the men beside you die—theirs will be a far easier death than the one you'll get. But hold your place, obey orders, and you may return here as recruits." He turned to Gannik.

"Pick the strongest ones." Gannik moved down the line. He selected Dagan first. Of course he did. The lizardfolk man was easily the biggest one in the group. Three others came next before Gannik pointed at Teren. He wasn't sure whether to feel proud that Gannik considered him strong enough, relieved by the chance to become a recruit without the test, or afraid he would die before earning it.

After him, Gannik chose ten more—men with broad shoulders, thick arms, steady eyes, or at least bodies that looked less likely to collapse beneath a shield. The remaining candidates were shoved back toward the barracks.

"Follow me," Gannik grunted. Teren walked with the selected men to the weapon racks. A guard thrust a spear into his hands. It was heavier than he expected. It was not enormously heavy, but the solid wooden shaft, iron head, and worn grip where other hands had held it before him made it feel very different from the broken weapons he had handled in the pit. Then a round shield was shoved against his chest. Wood faced with leather, iron rim, hand grip on the back.

The shield was scratched, dented, and stained in a way Teren did not examine too closely. The guard pointed to the shield.

"Left arm through here. Grip this. Spear in your right hand. The pointed end stays where a guard tells ya, unless you're ordered to move it." Teren adjusted the shield. Even before he moved with it, he could feel the shield altering his balance. Its weight pulled at his shoulder and blocked part of his view, while making him feel safer but noticeably slower at the same time. Dagan took his own spear and shield with more confidence, though Teren doubted he had much formal training either.

The big man caught Teren looking.

"Got somethin' to say?" Teren shook his head and looked away. He wasn't sure whether Dagan could be trusted to think about the men beside him once the fighting began, but for now he had no choice but to follow the orders. Then a guard shoved him forward before either of them could continue. They left through the far gate at a fast jog. Karthane looked different from this street. It wasn't the wide avenue running from the city gate, or the cramped lanes of his failed night escape.

This route cut through working streets where people moved aside quickly at the sight of armed men. Soldiers ran ahead to clear carts while a few civilians looked frightened. Others looked annoyed in the way of people used to military emergencies disrupting business. The candidates were kept in the middle of the column with guards ahead and behind them, leaving no opportunity to run or any chance to ask questions. Teren tried to be alert for any opportunities anyway.

They passed a road where three men were dragging a cart loaded with barrels. A woman pulled two children into a doorway at the sight of soldiers in a hurry. A skarnak-pulled wagon turned awkwardly to make room for the jogging column, the beast hissing as soldiers passed too close. Then the buildings opened around a stone-walled square. Dungeon Gate Seventeen was not a gate in a wall. Instead, it was a fortified entrance descending directly beneath the city.

A broad staircase descended into the ground beneath a heavy stone arch marked with the number seventeen in carved symbols. Low guard towers flanked the entrance from the corners of the square. Wooden rails separated waiting carts and wagons from foot traffic. A pair of winches stood near the top of the stairs, their heavy chains running down into the darkness below. Teren looked away from the intimidating gate entrance. The place was crowded.

Several bodies had been laid along one side of the square, most of them human, though Teren also saw an elf and two goblins among the dead. Healers moved between the wounded, white light glowing around their hands as they struggled to treat more men than they could keep up with. Wounded men were still being carried up the stairs on stretchers. One screamed until a robed woman pressed a hand to his chest and spoke sharply to someone beside her.

Another man sat against the wall with his arm bound in red cloth, staring at nothing. Dead monsters lay near the far side of the square. Teren had expected bodies here. He had not expected the smell. Blood, musk, wet hide, opened gut, and something bitter that caught in the back of his throat. The monsters resembled massive boars, though broader and more heavily built. Low, heavy bodies. Thick shoulders. Tusks curving outward and up, some as long as knives and seemingly just as sharp.

Their hides were dark and thick across the front half, while the rear of their backs was ash-gray beneath a line of coarse bristles. Small, beady eyes sat deep in their heavy skulls, and their hooves were flat against the stone. And according to the messenger, these were only first-tier monsters. Teren looked at the bodies again. If this was what first tier monsters looked like, how dangerous were the higher tiers? Was that why Karthane needed the giant barrier over the city?

Teren shook his head and brought his attention back to the present. He had enough immediate problems without worrying about monsters he might never encounter. Butchers worked over the carcasses with long knives and hooks, separating the edible meat for the city's markets before cutting away tusks, glands, strips of hide, and dark organs that were dropped into sealed clay jars.

A small cart nearby held crates filled with mana crystals in different colors: cloudy white, pale blue, dull green, and a few the color of weak amber. None glowed, but each crate was guarded. Beyond the work area, armed groups moved with purpose. Some were soldiers. Teren could tell by the matching gear, the way they followed shouted orders, and the fact that everyone else made room for them. Others looked nothing like part of the garrison.

Men and women with mismatched armor, better boots, different weapons, and oval bronze tags worn at their belts or around their necks. Some wore chainmail. A rare few wore polished plate pieces that looked expensive enough to feed a labor hall for a month. Some also carried potions in narrow glass vials, secured inside padded leather cases strapped at their hips. Teren saw swords, axes, bows, crossbows, spears, shields, and rods or staffs that might have been magical tools.

One woman in a dark coat had three short blades strapped across her chest and a similar dull bronze tag, which a clerk examined before waving her and her companions toward the stairs. Dungeon delvers. Teren did not know much about them or their profession, but he had heard some rumors during the labor loop. He could only guess at their roles. The different weapons and equipment suggested fighters, mages, and even healers. A few of them, though, only seemed to be rich fools with good equipment.

But they all moved like people who had chosen to be here. The guards and candidates moved toward the stairs. Teren looked once more at the monster bodies, the guarded crystals, the armored delvers, the carts waiting to take harvested parts away. This place was horrifying, but it was also profitable. The delvers who survived it repeatedly wore better armor than most guards. Edras had said Karthane itself had been built because of the dungeon.

And something that supported this many citizens, guards, and delvers had to be profitable. Their armed column moved down the stairs.