The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic

Gord pushed away from the tree. We followed him back to the path and resumed his slow pace. The wind was building and the first wild drops warned that another squall was on the way. I wanted to hurry but did not think that Gord could keep up with us. In the dormitory buildings nearby, lights were starting to go out. If we came in after lights-out, Sergeant Rufet would have a few choice questions for us. I didn’t want any more demerits to march off. I gritted my teeth and put it down to the cost of my friendship with Spink.

‘On the lowest, simplest level, the military and the cavalla are about physical might. I’ll concede that. But the King made my father a noble, and when my father made me, he made me a soldier son with the opportunity to serve as an officer. And that isn’t about physical strength, Spink. No officer could prevail if his troops turned on him. An officer leads by example and intelligence. I have the intelligence. I won’t set the example that I can be beaten physically and cowed that way. And I won’t let you set it on my behalf. If you fight Trist again, know that you are not fighting for me, but for yourself. You seek to salve your own bruised pride, that you have to accept help from someone who is fat. Somehow, you think that reflects badly on you, and that is why Trist can goad you to fight. But my battles belong to me, and I’ll fight them my own way. And I shall win.’

A terrible silence fell then, and it seemed to bring on the rain that suddenly drenched us. I longed to sprint for shelter. Gord seemed to share my impulse for he clasped his belly more firmly, lowered his head to the storm and walked faster. I finally felt I could speak. ‘What did happen to you, Gord? Caulder said you were beaten.’

Gord was puffing more heavily now, but he managed an answer. ‘Caulder can say whatever he likes to whoever he likes. I fell down the library steps. That is the truth.’

Spink figured it out before I did. ‘Part of the truth, you mean, and that’s why you can hold to it. You hold the honour code above all else. When did you fall down the steps, Gord? When you ran from them, or after they had beaten you?’

Gord stumped stolidly on. I looked over at Spink, blinking raindrops from my lashes. ‘He’s not going to answer you.’ I felt stupid for only now realizing what should have been obvious to me. By sticking to his story, Gord kept the battle on his territory. Those who had beaten him could not openly boast of it. Doubtless, their friends would know of it. But if Gord refused to admit that he had been beaten, if he refused to acknowledge a defeat from them, he took some of their triumph away.

I walked more slowly, falling somewhat behind them as I pondered. In bemoaning the fact that both Spink and Trist seemed to have a natural leadership that I lacked, I had overlooked something. Trist based his ability to attract followers on his golden charisma. I had already seen its effect on young Caulder, with disastrous results. Spink was tough and stubborn and the son of a war hero. He gave and demanded great loyalty. Those of us who followed him were swayed by those things, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that he did not always look far enough ahead and reason out where his actions might lead. Tonight, I had admired that he had stood up to Trist, despite the differences in their sizes, and I had been impressed that he used unconventional tactics to bend the larger man to his will. But now I had to consider the far-reaching consequences of those actions. He and Trist, by taking their rivalry to blows, had put all the lads in our patrol into a compromising position. We had all witnessed an Academy rule being broken, and none of us had kept our honour vow to report it. It bothered me, even though I knew that I would have felt more truly disgraced if I had raced off to report the infraction.

Only Gord had had the foresight to save himself from that. Even now, battered and facing a hellish day tomorrow, he forced his body to be subject to his intellect. I had considered him weak because of his girth. But in truth, now that I pondered it, he did not seem to indulge his appetite any more than the rest of us did. Perhaps he was simply born to be a portly man and always would be.

And perhaps he was demonstrating a quiet leadership that I had not witnessed before. Even if his only follower was himself, I admired his foresight. Then, my mind suddenly transposed an idea that I’d assumed. I had thought that Gord had attached himself to Spink because of the small cadet’s leadership. But perhaps, in offering his help to Spink, Gord had been, not following him, but offering his leadership. So, then, if Spink followed Gord, and I followed Spink, was it not Gord whom I was actually accepting as my commander?

We had almost reached the walkway to Carneston House when Caulder ran past us, headed back toward the infirmary. He paused, and spun, skipping backwards as he shouted at us, ‘Seems to be an unlucky night for New Nobles’ sons! I’m off to fetch the doctor again.’ Then he turned and ran off into the darkness.

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ I said to Spink.

‘He came from the direction of the carriageway,’ Gord gasped. ‘We should go see who is hurt.’

I shook my head. ‘You’re done in, Gord. Go up to bed. Spink, make sure he gets there while I go find out what Caulder was talking about.’

I had expected Spink to argue with me, or for Gord to say he could get back to the dormitory alone. Instead, Gord nodded miserably, and Spink said, ‘If you don’t come back soon, I’ll come looking for you. Be careful.’

That was a strange admonition to receive on the campus of the King’s Cavalla Academy. I wished I hadn’t said I’d go, but I couldn’t turn back now. I nodded to Spink and Gord and ran off toward the carriageway. The wind gusted and the rain slapped my face as I ran. I saw no one, and I was beginning to hope that Caulder had lied. I had actually turned back and was hurrying home to Carneston House when I heard someone groan. I stopped and looked back. In the shadows of the trees by the carriageway, something moved. I ran back to find a man lying prone on the wet earth. He was wearing a dark cloak, and the deep shadows of the trees had hidden him from me. I was surprised Caulder had found him.

‘Are you hurt?’ I asked him stupidly as I knelt down by his side. Then the reek of raw spirits hit me. ‘Or just drunk?’ I amended my question. My disapproval must have been in my voice. Cadets were forbidden to drink on campus, and surely no instructor would be falling down drunk on the grounds.

‘Not drunk,’ he said in a faint hoarse whisper. The voice was familiar. I leaned closer, trying to make out his features. Mud and blood caked them, but I recognized Cadet Lieutenant Tiber, who had rescued me from humiliation during initiation. I decided not to argue with him about being drunk.

‘But you’re hurt. Lie still. Caulder’s gone to fetch the doctor.’ It was too dark for me to know what sort of injuries he had, but I knew better than to try to move him. The best I could do for him was to keep vigil by him until Caulder sent help.

Despite my words, he scrabbled faintly at the ground, as if he would get up. ‘Bushwhacked me. Four of them. My papers?’

I looked around. A few feet away, I saw a dark shape on the ground. It proved to be a satchel. Near it I found a muddied book and a handful of trampled papers. I gathered them up by touch and brought them back to him. ‘I have your papers,’ I told him.

He made no response.

‘Lieutenant Tiber?’

‘He’s passed out,’ a voice said. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Sergeant Duril would have done more than hit me with a rock if he’d been there. I’d been completely oblivious to the three figures who had walked up on me in the pouring rain.

‘Drunk as a beggar,’ said the man behind me and to my left. I turned my head to see him but he took a couple of steps back. I couldn’t make out his face, but his voice was almost familiar. I’d caught a glimpse of his jacket under his coat. He was a cadet. ‘We saw him arrive here. Carriage brought him from town. He staggered this far and passed out.’

If I hadn’t been kneeling by Tiber, I don’t think I would have made the connection. I was coldly certain of it now. The cadet talking to me was a second-year, Jaris, the one who had ordered me to strip during initiation.

I said a foolhardy thing. I only realized it when the words were out of my mouth. ‘He said he was ambushed by four men.’

‘He talked to you?’ Dismay was clear in the voice of the third man. I didn’t recognize his voice at all. It was shrill with alarm.

‘What did he say?’ demanded Cadet Ordo. The pieces of the puzzle were fitting in all around me, and I didn’t like the picture they made. ‘What did he tell you?’ Ordo demanded, coming closer. I don’t think he cared if I recognized him or not.

‘Just that. That four men had jumped him.’ My voice shook. I was shivering with cold, but icy fear was also creeping up my spine.

‘Well, but he’s drunk! Who could believe a thing he said? Why don’t you run along, Cadet? We’ll get help for him.’

‘Caulder’s already gone for help,’ I pointed out. I was almost certain they knew that. ‘He’s the one who sent me here,’ I added more boldly, and then could not decide if that was a wise thing to say or not. I doubted Caulder would give witness against them if they dragged me off, killed me and threw me in the river. In the pouring rain and cold wind, with Tiber dead or unconscious before me, it did not seem such an impossible thing that they might kill me. I wanted so badly to stand up, brush the mud from my knees, and tell them I was going back to my dormitory. Yet if I was not coward enough to leave Tiber there, I was also not brave enough to voice what I suspected. They’d seen him get out of the carriage, noticed he was drunk, and known that in that condition, he was no match for them.

‘Go home, Cadet Burvelle,’ Ordo quietly commanded me. ‘We have things under control here.’

Coincidence saved me from having to decide if I were a man or a coward that night. I heard the rasp of hurrying feet on the walkway. Through the rain and dark I made out the figure of Dr Amicas. He was carrying a lantern and it made a small circle of light around him as he came. Two brawnier men followed him, carrying a stretcher between them. The relief that surged through me weakened my knees, and I felt lucky I wasn’t standing. I waved my arm over my head and called out loudly, ‘Over here! Cadet Lieutenant Tiber is hurt.’

‘We think he got beat up in town and then came home here in a carriage and passed out. He’s drunk.’ All of this was volunteered by Cadet Ordo. I expected to hear the others confirm it, but when I looked around, they were gone.

‘Out of the way, boy!’ Dr Amicas commanded me. I moved to one side, and he set his lantern on the ground beside Tiber. ‘This is bad,’ he said at first sight of Tiber’s face. The doctor was still puffing from his trot here. I turned aside, thinking I might be sick. A blow from something had split his scalp and it was sagging open over his ear. ‘Did he speak to you?’

‘He was unconscious when we found him,’ Ordo volunteered quickly.

The doctor was not a dull-witted man. ‘I thought you said he came here in a carriage. Surely the driver didn’t carry an unconscious cadet over here and dump him before they left?’ Hard cold scepticism was in his voice. It made me brave enough to speak.

‘He talked to me a little bit, when I first got here. When we were taking Gord back to Carneston House, Caulder ran past us. He said someone was hurt. So I came here, thinking I might be able to help. Tiber was conscious when I got here. He said he wasn’t drunk. And that four men had attacked him. And he asked me to be sure his papers were safe.’

The doctor lowered his face, sniffed at Tiber suspiciously, and then drew back. ‘Well, he certainly doesn’t smell sober. But drinking doesn’t lay a man’s scalp open either. And he didn’t get this sort of mud on himself in town. He’s damn lucky not to be dead after a blow to the head like that. Load him up on the stretcher and let’s get him back to the infirmary.’

The doctor stood and held the lantern for the two orderlies who carefully edged Tiber onto the stretcher. In the lantern’s feeble light, the doctor looked older than he had in the infirmary. The lines in his face seemed deeper and his eyes were flat.

‘He might have got muddy here after he fell trying to walk back to his dormitory,’ Ordo suddenly volunteered. We all turned to look at him. The reasoning sounded laborious to me, and the doctor must have agreed, for he suddenly snapped at him, ‘You’ll come with us. I want you to write down everything you saw and sign it. Burvelle, you go back to your dormitory. And Caulder! Get yourself home this instant. I don’t want to see you again tonight.’

Caulder had been holding back at the edge of the circle of light, staring at Tiber with an expression of both fascination and horror. At the doctor’s words, he startled, and then scampered off into the night. I stooped and picked up Tiber’s satchel and papers.

‘Give those to me,’ the doctor commanded me brusquely, and I passed them over to him.

Dr Amicas’s path led in the same direction as mine, so I walked on the other side of the stretcher from him. The swaying light of the lantern made the shadows travel over Tiber’s face, distorting his features. He was very pale.

I left the miserable cavalcade at the walkway to Carneston House. The windows in the upper floors were all dark, but a lantern still burned by the door. When I went inside, I took the last of my courage and reported to Sergeant Rufet. He stared at me as I stammered out my excuse for coming in after lights-out. I thought he would take me to task over it, but he only nodded and said, ‘Your friend said you’d run off to see about someone who was hurt. Next time, come here first and report it to me. I could have sent some of the older cadets with you.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said wearily. I turned to go.

‘It was Cadet Lieutenant Tiber, you said.’

I turned back. ‘Yes, sir. He’d been beaten up pretty badly. He was drunk. So I don’t think he put up much of a fight.’

Sergeant Rufet knit his brows at me. ‘Drunk? Not Tiber. That boy doesn’t drink. Somebody’s lying.’ And then, as if he suddenly realized what he had said, the sergeant snapped his jaws shut. ‘Go to bed, Cadet. Quietly,’ he told me an instant later. I went.

I found Spink waiting for me by the hearth in his nightshirt. He followed me into our room, and as I undressed in the dark, I quietly told him everything. He was silent. I shook out my damp uniform but knew that it would still be wet when I donned it again tomorrow. It was not a pleasant thought to take to bed with me. I tried, instead, to focus my mind on Carsina, but she suddenly seemed far away in both time and distance; girls, perhaps, did not matter as much as deciding how I would make it through the rest of my first year. I was in my bed before Spink asked his question.

‘Was the liquor on his breath?’

‘He reeked of it.’ We both knew what that meant. As soon as he recovered, Tiber would be suspended and face discipline. If he recovered.

‘No. I mean, was he breathing the smell at you? Or was it just on his clothes?’

I thought about it for a minute. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t think to check anything like that. I just smelled spirits, very strong, when I got close to him.’

Another silence followed my words. Then, ‘Dr Amicas seems very sharp. He’ll know if Tiber was really drunk or not.’

‘Probably,’ I agreed, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. There wasn’t much I had faith in any more.

I fell asleep, and dreamed deep. The old fat tree woman sat with her back against her tree and I stood before her. Rain was falling on both of us. Although it drenched me, it did not wet her. As soon as it touched her, it was absorbed as if her flesh were thirsty earth. I didn’t mind the rain. It was gentle and soft, and its chill touch was almost pleasant. The forest glen felt very familiar, as if I had been there often. I was not dressed against the weather, but sat bare-limbed in the rain, enjoying it. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Walk and talk with me. I need to be sure I understand what I have seen through your eyes.’

We left her tree, and I led the way, walking on a winding path through a forest of giants. In some places, the overhead canopy of leaves sheltered us completely from the falling rain. In others, the water plashed down, from leaf to twig to branch to leaf and then down, to soak into the forest floor. It did not bother either of us. I noticed in passing that although she seemed to walk freely with me whenever I glanced at her she appeared to be in some way part of the trees. Her hand would touch the bark of one, her hair would tangle against another. Always, always, she was in contact with them. Despite the swaying bulk of her body, her heavy walk had an odd grace. She was strength and opulence in my dream. The pillows of flesh that softened her silhouette to curves were no more repulsive to me than the immense girth of a great tree or the vast umbrella of its branches and foliage. Her largeness was wealth, a mark of skill and success for a people who lived by hunting and gathering. And this, too, seemed familiar.

The deeper I went into her forest, the more I recalled of this world. I knew the path I followed, knew that it would lead to the rocky place where a stream ran down from a stony cleft to suddenly launch itself in a glittering silver arc into the forest below. It was a dangerous place. The rocks close to the edge were always green and slick, but nowhere else was the water so cool and so fresh, even when the rain was falling. It was a place I cherished. She knew that. Letting me go there in the dream was one of my rewards.

Rewards for what?

‘What would happen, then,’ she asked me. ‘If many of the soldier sons who are to be the leaders were slain, and never ventured east to bring their people against the forest? Would this stop the road? Would it turn these people back?’

I had been thinking of something else. I came back to her question from my distraction. ‘It might slow them for a time. But it would not stop them. In truth, nothing will stop the road. You can only delay it. My people believe that the road will bring riches to them. Lumber from the forest, meat and furs. And eventually, a way to the sea beyond the mountains, and trade with the people there.’ I shook my head in resignation. ‘As long as wealth beckons, my people will find a way to it.’

She scowled at me. ‘You say “my people” when you speak of them. But I have told you. You are no longer of those ones. We have taken you and you belong to The People, now.’ She cocked her head and stared deep into my eyes. I felt she looked inside me and out the other side, as it were, to some other eyes I did not know I had. ‘What is it, son of a soldier? Do you begin to wake to both worlds? That is not good. Not yet should you do that.’ She set her hand fondly on the top of my head.

It was a comforting touch that dispelled all anxiety. Some worry I had felt had slipped away from me. All would be well.

She lifted both her hands to her face and hair. She smoothed them over her head as if to ease the anxiety I knew she felt. Then she looked at me through her plump fingers. ‘You still have not spoken of your magic, soldier’s son. At the moment it was given to you, it began to work through you. What have you done for us? The magic chose you. I felt it take you. All know that once the magic of the god touches a man, he does his task. You were to turn the intruders back and make those who are here leave. What did you do?’

‘I do not understand what you are asking me.’

Both her question and my response were as familiar to me as my evening prayers, learned at my mother’s knee. She tried again to explain. ‘You would have done something. Some action of yours is supposed to begin the magic that you will finish when you are a great man. Telling me will not stop the magic. It will only ease my fears. Please. Just tell me. Put my mind at ease, so I may tell the forest that the beginning of the end of waiting has begun. The guardians cannot dance much longer. They weary. They die. And when they all die, there will no longer be a wall. It will fall, and nothing will remain to hold the intruders at bay. They will walk freely under the trees, cutting and burning. You know what they will do. We have seen it.’

We were nearly to the waterfall. I longed to see it. I tried to see it through the forest, but the trees leaned together, blocking my view. ‘I do not understand your words.’

She sighed, like wind in the trees. ‘If such a thing could be, I would say the magic chose poorly. I would say that one of The People would have known better how to use the given gift.’ She shrugged, lifting the soft roundness of her shoulders and then letting them fall. ‘I will have to do what is within my power to do. I do not do it lightly. My time for doing things should be past. This should be only my time for being. But I fear you cannot turn them back by yourself. My strength is needed, still.’ She sighed and then she brushed her fat hands together. Dust, fine brown dust, fell from the surfaces of her palms as they passed one another. ‘I have thought of a thing, and now I have decided I will do it. I will send one of the old magics to you. With it, we can harvest from the intruders some of what they are. No knife is sharper than a man’s own turned against him. Perhaps it will give us more time to discover what it is you have done to help us.’ She lifted her hand and waved it oddly at me. I sensed immense power in the simple gesture. ‘When the magic finds you, it will signal you. So. Then it will begin. Do not struggle against it.’

I felt a terrible fear. She stared at me, the colour of her eyes going darker in disapproval. ‘You should go now. Stop thinking about these things.’

I awoke with a start to deep darkness, and the sounds of rain beating on the roof above me and the stentorian breathing of my fellows around me. The rags of my dreams hung about my mind. I touched them and tried to pull them together, but they went to threads in my fingers. I felt dread unlike the fear I might feel from a nightmare. This was the dread of something real, something I could not recall. The wind gusted, and the rain suddenly pattered harder and swifter against roof and windowpane. It lulled, then gusted again. I listened to that, sleepless, until morning, and then rose wearily to face another day.

FOURTEEN

Cousin Epiny

I don’t know how Gord staggered through his classes the next day. As I feared, I earned punishment exercises for my incomplete maths assignment. My spirits were low. When I heard the rumour that Cadet Lieutenant Tiber had been found disgustingly drunk and was not to be suspended but simply expelled from the Academy for conduct unbecoming an officer, my misery was complete. I suspected his punishment was undeserved, but had no real proof to offer on his behalf. I still wondered if I should not take my suspicions to Dr Amicas, and wondered, too, if my reluctance to do so was cowardice or pragmatism.

The news of Tiber’s disgrace eclipsed all curiosity about what had befallen Gord. I was a bit disillusioned with my roommates, for most of them accepted unquestioningly the tale that he had taken all those bruises tumbling down the library steps. He had developed a fine black eye from his ‘fall’ and limped as we marched to and from our classes, yet seemed quietly pleased about something. I decided I didn’t understand him at all.

I was feeling bleak and downhearted when I returned to Carneston House at noon, and found an unexpected missive from my uncle. In it, he mentioned the upcoming days of freedom, and assured me that he would come to get me on Fiveday evening so I would not have to spend my time in the dormitory. Spink, to his credit, tried to look happy for me when I shared the news with him, though we both knew it condemned him to remaining behind alone there.

‘I need the study time,’ he declared. ‘And I know you’ll enjoy yourself there. Don’t worry about me. Bring me back some of those cinnamon cakes your little cousin baked for you last time, and have a good time.’