CHAPTER 9
Kira suddenly stood, sheathing her sword.
“Keep working,” she ordered when they all stopped. “It’s time for lunch. The tent’ll be watched, so don’t even think about sneaking out. If I have reason to believe you used magic while I was gone, you’ll be back tomorrow.” She vanished through the tent flap.
They looked at each other in silence, waiting to be sure she was out of earshot before saying anything. Butu felt her leave, and nodded once. The other two stared at him, then Phedam let out an explosive breath and checked himself for bruises.
Nolen spoke first. “I thought she’d never leave. What’s your name?”
“Butu. How long’ve you been here?”
“Three days.” Phedam smirked. “We’ve spent two of them in here.”
“We just can’t seem to stop using magic. It’s such a terrible thing, don’t you think?” Nolen asked, dripping sarcasm. “We’re from Pophir. How about yourself?”
“Jasper.”
“So you’re a tem,” Phedam declared. Butu’s eyes widened. “We’re both tems, too. It’s rare for boys our age to be kus, yet, or so I’ve heard.”
“I suppose so.” It made sense. A ku had to be old enough to desert his birth clan and convince another clan to adopt him.
“Your crime the same as ours, I take it?” Nolen asked. His voice was slightly deeper than Phedam’s, too.
“I was out of uniform.”
“That’s a no, then.”
“Using magic got you here?” Butu asked.
Nolen nodded and then smirked. It seemed to be his natural expression. “Plus, I asked Zhepal too many questions. Like why won’t they let us use magic.”
“Zhepal told us that we’ll lose our magic as we get older,” Phedam said, picking up another shield and polishing it too quickly.
“Do you believe him?”
“No,” Nolen snorted at the same time Phedam said, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either,” Butu said. He stared at the breastplate on his knees, and Nolen drawing wavy patterns on his sword. He picked up his rag and concentrated on not using magic to clean the leather. “I think they want us to forget how to use magic so they can control us better.”
“It’s the treaty, I think,” Phedam said. “After Mnemon unmade the last king, all the clans agreed to stop using magic in war. Everyone else is bound to attack anyone who breaks the treaty.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, thinking about that.
How great would the Ahjea sordenu be if they could use magic in battle? Butu thought. If the Ahjea had had magic when the Kadrak had betrayed them, the Ahjea would rule Mnemon. Except the Kadrak would’ve had magic, too. You can only do it once. Well, you can do it for a generation, because it would take that long to train an army that could use magic. After that, war would change forever. Maybe there could be a way to end wars.
“I’m never going to stop using magic,” Butu told them. It felt good to say it out loud, even to people he had only known for a few hours.
“You’d better get used to polishing for Kira, then,” Nolen said with an angry swipe of his cloth.
“There’s got to be a way to practice magic when no one is watching,” Butu said.
“They watch us pretty closely.” Phedam sounded dubious. “But they can’t be...”
They stopped talking as all of them felt Kira returning. Butu focused on sullenly and slowly polishing the breastplate. Kira entered the tent with a tray. The smell she brought with her made their mouths water. She set it down on the low table near the back of the room.
“Come eat,” she said, smiling coolly. “Quickly, now. There’s still lots to polish.”
It was nothing remarkable — a large loaf of fresh bread and a pot of bland barley porridge — but all three of them were glad for the food. They ate it in silence, and it disappeared as if by magic.
“Back to work,” Kira ordered when she had heard the last gulp.
The rest of the afternoon moved in a lazy haze of polish followed by occasional swats from Kira’s sword. Butu’s thoughts wandered all over the desert, and so Kira’s order to stop surprised him.
“That’s enough,” she said, standing up. “Get out. I don’t want to see you three again.”
Butu followed Nolen and Phedam outside. He was the shortest of them, by almost half a hand. And darker, by half the night.
“Which barracks you in, Butu?” Nolen asked.
“Four.”
“Same here,” Nolen said. “My bunkmate snores.”
“So do you!” Phedam objected.
“Yeah, but you snore louder.”
Butu chuckled. “Do you think there’s any chance we’re in the same squad?”
Phedam shook his head. “After the initial training, new sordenu join existing squads. They’ll do some shuffling of the ranks to make room for us. It has to do with making sure we’re surrounded by sordenu who can teach us as we go.”
“And who can make sure we don’t use magic,” Nolen muttered.
“You meet Corporal Blay, yet?” Butu asked.
Nolen nodded. “He brought us to Kira’s tent the day we arrived after we showed up some of the veteran sordenu on the obstacle course. Sarge caught us and had Blay bring us.”
“Meet any other recruits?”
“Retus and Lujo gave us a little tour our first day,” Nolen said. “They’ve been here a bit longer.”
They reached the mess hall. Sordenu waited in long lines for the evening meal. From their place at the back of the line, Butu couldn’t even see what they were going to be eating.
“So, have you two started training with a sword, yet?” he asked hopefully.
Nolen made a dismissive sound.
“It could be months before that happens,” Phedam said. “From what I’ve heard, they’ll drill us for a couple months. It’ll be really harsh, but it’s meant to teach us to obey orders. We won’t get swords until they’re ready to assign us to a squad.”
“Our foster father comes from a long line of sordenu, and all three of his sons are sordenu, now,” Nolen added. “Phedam was much better at getting them to talk about the training.”
“Which is why I almost stayed a farmer, no matter what General Pater thinks of my potential,” Phedam said with a smirk. “But if you’re going to endure countless indignities on your path to becoming a sordenu, I mean to be there to see it.”
“So, training and polishing, that’s it?”
“And pranks,” Nolen said with a conspiratory wink.
“Yeah, but pranks get you punishment duty,” Phedam reminded him.
“That’s certainly why Retus and Lujo spent the day in the armory yesterday,” Nolen said. “It wasn’t a flattering sculpture, but Lujo got Zhepal’s eyes exactly right, don’t you think?”
Phedam snickered. “Yeah.”
“They weren’t punished for their prank,” a pimply sordenu in line behind them said. They all turned to him. Irritation flashed on Nolen’s face. “They were punished for using magic to do it. And if you get caught using magic, you’ll be punished even worse. That’s the way it works. The armory is just a warning.”
“We heard about the treaty,” Butu said, trying to head him off.
“Yeah?” The sordenu on their other side had noticed them. His face seemed to be mostly jaw. “Well, the treaty don’t say how you’re supposed to stop using magic.” He spat a pebble from his mouth to his hand. “Your whole squad gets punished for it. If you keep using magic, your whole platoon gets punished.”
“There’s not that much armor,” Nolen muttered.
“It’d never get that far,” the pimply sordenu said. “The reason being, after your first warning, your whole squad’ll be against you. Getting caught by your officer is the best thing that can happen to you.”
Butu felt queasy. So if the squad catches me …
“And one of us will catch you before your officer does,” the sordenu with the jutting jaw growled. “So quit it n
ow, kiddies.”
“Yes, sir,” Phedam said drily.
Butu grinned mildly. This morning, he would’ve beaten the pants off both of those sordenu if they had talked down to him like that. Now, he knew more than when he started.
Kira’s punishment worked, he thought, and knew then he’d never go back.