Gods and Chaos- 3

Other hopefuls were in the guard’s barracks, getting changed or just sitting nervously. It was good to see that he wasn’t the only person anxious about what was soon to occur. A few guards were lounging on their bunks, and one of them who Kale knew greeted him, wishing luck and offering a few last words of advice. Everything Kale knew about wielding an axe and being a guard had been taught to him by the guards he’d interacted with during his time at the palace. It was strange to think that in a few hours, if he passed the testing, Kale would be one of them. He couldn’t help but wonder which of the empty bunks around the room would be his.

“Ey! That lot’s mine; don’t touch it!” A tall, gangly figure nearby Kale grabbed his blue tunic from the hands of the squat, heavyset lad who’d been about to put it on. “Couldn’t you see that this would never fit you?”

“I’m sorry, I . . . I’m sorry.” The heavyset character glanced down at his toes as if he were ashamed of committing a major sin.

“Just don’t touch what’s mine.” The gangly figure was thin to the point of scrawniness, but he was all lean muscle. There wasn’t enough fat on his body to feed a speckled lizard.

Kale exchanged his loose woolen servant’s robes for the blue tunic and black trousers of a guard, then pulled the leather boots overtop and secured their buckles. The tasks were perfunctory, but his hands trembled a little as they went through the motions.

Then there was nothing to do but sit on the edge of a bunk and wait.

“So, how’ve you convinced yourself that you were made to be a guard?”

Kale blinked. “I don’t understand.”

The tall gangly figure helped himself to a seat on the bunk next to Kale. “It’s my observation that unless people are brutally honest with themselves, they usually invent high, lofty reasons for what they do. You, like me, want to be a guard: deep down you probably just want to swing weapons, get women, and feel tough. Plus the pay isn’t bad. But you probably believe that there’s some high ideology or principle that gives you a ‘calling’ to this job.”

“To me, it’s more than a job. I believe that I have a responsibility to protect others.”

“You see?” the lad exclaimed triumphantly. “A belief! Oh, I’m certain that there’s no chance at all of you failing this testing. The gods themselves have probably called you to this life so that you can become a hero and serve them mightily.”

Kale looked at his companion for a long moment, solemn. “I don’t believe that life is complicated. Actually, there are only two motivations that make me who I am. All my experiences and natural instincts come together within them. The first is that I am an idealist.”

The young man scoffed. “I should’ve known.”

“The second is that I don’t believe in gods.”

Real surprise swept the cynic’s face. “Well then, maybe there is something to you after all. But you’ve forgotten one other thing that’s important to who you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“What name do they call you?”

Kale smiled faintly. “I’m Kale.”

“Kale. Well, I suppose it’s a pleasure. At least as long as you keep doing interesting things like condemning your own soul. You may as well know that my name is Ven.”
                “My name is Courm,” blurted out the heavyset man who Ven had just yelled at for taking his tunic. He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot and appeared to be worried he’d offended them.

“Courm?” Kale asked, surprised. “That’s an unusual name. Is if foreign?”

“No, it’s not! It’s not Shin, I promise!”

“I didn’t say it was. All Shin have two syllables in their names, not just the women. But the middle sound in your name is softer than is common here in Telenine. That’s why I thought it might be foreign.”

“Well, someone got drunk on his own knowledge,” Ven muttered. “Ey, you! While we’re making pleasant conversation, you may as well introduce yourself!” Ven gestured to the man who’d been standing close by, partially turned away to give the impression that he wasn’t listening. There were others in the room who seemed to be preparing for the testing, but all besides the four of them were older and looked as if they were soldiers trying for rank advancement in the King’s army.

The figure on the outside of the circle didn’t answer. Instead, he walked away and sat on the opposite bunk. Ven shrugged his shoulders. “Friendly fellow, that man.”

The door to the barracks swung open, and as an officer swept through it, all of them hastily stood in respect.

“It’s time,” he said simply, then turned on his heel and left.

Kale’s heart was a dancer’s drum, beating furiously as trepidation whirled and spun in his chest.

The hopefuls silently fell into line, then marched from the barracks. Several guards were waiting on the other side of the doors with an axe for each of them. This weapon was heavier than what Kale was used to, which was a worry.

They marched behind the officer, each man alone in his thoughts and fears. Some of the soldiers had no cause for worry. For them, this was just a ritual, no different from the sacred protocols that governed the life of every citizen in civilized Telenine. But then some of those about to be tested, such as Kale, were depending on this day to provide them with a future.

Their journey ended back in the courtyard, where the banquet tables had been moved aside to provide ample space. Thell flashed Kale an encouraging smile as he caught sight of her.

“Form up!” the officer commanded, and they spread out from a vertical line to a horizontal one, backs to the throne, facing the door through which they’d just entered. Another line of blue clad figures marched through it just as they had, coming from the other barracks. The two lines faced each other, each individual standing straight as an axe haft. The officer strolled down the center.

“Forward lunge!”

This was the first command in a long series. The familiar movements were old friends for Kale, who’d practiced these stances and procedures a hundred times. But evidently, that wasn’t true for everyone. As the officer stalked down the ranks calling commands, he would occasionally motion for someone to leave, dismissing that man’s hopes like smoke puffed from a pipe.

“Reform!” he finally called, and the two lines, now made of sweating men, took their places again.

“To the side, at rest.”

The soldiers made their way to the walls, leaning gratefully against them but not daring to sit without an explicit command. All were on edge for what they knew would come next.

The officer began calling names in pairs of two, and weary men left the positions of rest they’d just taken up and made their ways back to the open floor. Half would be judged now, and half in a second shift.

Kale’s new acquaintance Courm was called out. He nervously fell into line opposite the man who had been called out with him, a strong looking fellow.

“How do you think he’ll do?” Kale asked Ven. The gangly man guffawed.
                “You speak as if there’s some doubt.”

“You don’t think there is?”

Ven speared him with a sideways look. “For all I know, he’s a wonderful person and a fantastic cook. But he doesn’t have the confidence to be a fighter, and he’s not built like one.”

“It’s good to have weight behind your blows.”

                “Sure it is,” Ven scoffed, “but the kind of weight he has is more likely to slow him down than give him strength.”

                They watched as the pairs began fighting, two at a time. A cacophony of cheers, boos, and gasps rose constantly from those invited to the feast as they witnessed broken ribs, bruised bodies, and men knocked senseless by the hard wood of an axe haft. Those who were about to endure the same ordeal kept silent. As each pair finished, the officer presiding over the proceedings called out whether he approved or rejected the fighters.
                “Strange way of testing,” Ven commented.

                “It’s a tradition from the days of Renaden’s father. The King’s feasts were near as legendary then as Renaden’s are now, and one day he decided his guests would enjoy the entertainment of watching the testing of new officers and guards.”

                Ven was looking at Kale with grudging admiration. “Back in the barracks, you taught us something we didn’t know about our own language. And you’re at it again. Yet you claim that you’re looking to become a guard, not a scholar. How do you know so much?”

                Kale shrugged. “I believe in knowing things. So do my parents. My mother saw to it that I was educated.”

                “Look,” Ven said sharply, “that man Courm is up next. Mark what I said earlier.”

                Despite what Kale had said, he too thought that Courm lacked the confidence to be much of a fighter. The squat young man looked horribly frightened as he faced against his opponent. The captain of the guard yelled for them to begin.

                Courm’s attacker evidently entertained the same thoughts that Ven and Kale had. He moved in quickly, too quickly, Kale’s trained eye told him. But in the end, nothing he did could’ve made a difference to the result.

                The speed of Courm’s strike was incredible. His first blow left the other man’s axe quivering in his hands. His second batted it aside altogether. He delivered a third vicious strike to the man’s side, and then, finally, a last brutal sweep to the knees that ended with the man sprawled on the ground.

                Stunned surprise twitched the corners of Kale’s lips into a smile. He glanced at Ven, who gaped openly.

                “Well, I still think he’s fat,” Ven stubbornly held.

                There was absolutely no surprise that Courm was accepted to the guard.

                “Group one, at rest. Group two, to the fore.” The officer began calling pairs of names.

                They pushed themselves from the wall. Kale’s heartbeat was the march of a thundering army. He fell into line, and as the officer called him, he found himself facing the man who would crush his dreams unless Kale crushed the dreams of the man. It was the ill-mannered figure who’d ignored Ven’s greeting in the barracks.

                The fighting began.

                Ven went early on. His movements lacked the power that more strength and weight would’ve lent him, but he was fast and he was smart. His partner was better by a margin, and Ven ended up the loser, but the officer admitted them both. That was how this worked: not by who won, but by the level of competency displayed.

                Finally, Kale stepped forward. It was his time.
                Today, he won or lost his dream.

                His enemy – Kale couldn’t think of him as merely an opponent – struck the first blow. It was heavy, and Kale knew better than to block it head-on. He made sure to be out from under the axe-fall, and, even while halting its downward strike, he allowed some give beneath it. Then he swung in from the side, extending his weapon enough that only the haft would catch the man’s ribs rather than the blade.

                The man was fast; he stepped back and dropped his axe just in time to clip short Kale’s attempt.

Kale’s struggle didn’t look like it was going to be simple. His enemy was skilled.

                The two had briefly separated after their first exchange; now they closed again, using their axes as quarter staffs. A furious clapping of loud, wooden thwacks bit the air.

                It was time to fight unorthodoxly. Kale warded a blow, then kicked his opponent in the shin. He felt his boot make solid connection, and the rhythm was thrown off. Then he drove hard at the man’s center, and for a moment his opponent faltered . . . but he scrabbled out of it, knocking aside Kale’s attack with a wide, desperate swing, then throwing himself violently forward.

                Both of them knew that the longer this fight delayed, the worse they looked. Duels do not exist on a battlefield.

                But now, the other man was within Kale’s defenses. Kale had only one option, and it was dangerous. They were practically tangled up together, weapons currently useless at this close distance, but the other man was in a better position than Kale. A bar of wood smashed into his jaw, and vision frosted over.

                But Kale was already moving. He staggered forward, deliberately putting his opponent at his back. Any moment, a solid blow might strike him down. It was all a matter of impossible timing and blind luck.

                One heartbeat. Two heartbeats.

                Kale swung around with all the momentum he could muster and whacked aside the blow that had been falling on him. Then He smashed the pole of his axe into the other man’s side as hard as he could, catching the man’s arm in the process.

                There was the sickening crunch of breaking bone.

                The man screamed.

                Kale stepped back, dazed, heaving breaths. Medics rushed forward, but Kale wasn’t thinking about the man he’d just put into agony. He waved aside the medic who dabbed at his own stinging face. His eyes swung to the officer who would announce his fight’s outcome.

                One of the nobles had hurried over to the officer and was conferring with him. He kept glancing at Kale and the screaming man on the ground, and his face was furious, though Kale had no idea why it should be. The officer appeared uncomfortable, and he remained so as the noble departed to take his seat once more.

                “The man Nev, formerly a captain in the King’s army, is admitted to the guard upon healing of his injuries.”

                Kale’s mind buzzed. That man had been a captain switching from the army to the guard? Kale had just defeated a trained captain?

                The feast-guests were no longer listening; they were back in their drinks until the next bout of fighting began. But Kale’s dreams hung on the officer’s coming pronouncement.

                “The man Kale, formerly serving in the King’s palace, is rejected from the guard.”