It was as if the casteless had somehow not expected the challenge, but they weren’t very bright. He held the shaft close to his chest protectively and shouted, “It’s mine!”
“No . . . It is not.” Ashok scowled. The Law demanded that he go over there and cut the casteless down for this violation, but Ashok was wounded and very tired. He quoted the statute from memory, “A non-person may only possess the tools granted to it necessary to fulfill its assigned duties. Casteless are never allowed to take up arms.”
“I didn’t steal it. I found it washed up on the beach.”
“Good.” If he’d stolen it from a warrior, then regardless of how exhausted Ashok was, he’d have to execute him on the spot. A member of the first caste didn’t thank a casteless for anything, but this creature had saved his life, so Ashok had no desire to harm him. “Then you may live.”
The area was being secured by the paltan. Several warriors had spotted him and a shout went up that the Protector was still alive. Then they saw the first dead demon and began to cheer. That noise turned into a stunned silence when they saw the second demon. No one had expected that. Word spread quickly and more warriors came running. Soon he had a crowd on the beach, all staring at him and the two huge, lifeless bodies. Even in the stillness of death, they were still sleek and intimidating.
Some of them ran off to alert their wizards, so that the bodies could be butchered before the magic spoiled, but the rest of the warriors of House Gujara went on cheering Ashok. He didn’t particularly care, but they had never heard of anyone defeating two demons, so he allowed it. Some were bowing their thanks. The fat havildar he’d smacked some sense into had put his forehead clear into the sand, probably hoping that a sufficient sign of deference now might save him from a flogging for his earlier cowardice.
Ashok was too tired and injured to care about the honors. The dents in the armor over his ribs was annoying and needed to be hammered out so he could breathe freely again. He began untying the many straps, when he realized that he’d almost forgotten his earlier distraction. The fool with the spear was still there. Turning to the old casteless, he waved his hand dismissively. “This transgression will be overlooked due to your circumstances. Throw down that spear and return to your overseer.”
It was a remarkably merciful act for a Protector.
“No!” the old casteless shouted. He slammed the butt into the rocks for emphasis. “It is mine!”
Ashok was stunned by the outburst. The assembled warriors looked up in surprise.
“It is forbidden.” He should have acted decisively already, to do otherwise was to make the Law appear weak before these witnesses, and the Law held no leeway for the lowest showing any disrespect to their superiors.
“I’m the one who took it out of the water. I’m the one who cleaned off the rust and sharpened the edge on a rock. I used this to protect my family!”
Casteless didn’t have family. They were all property, to be organized according to their overseer’s will. Was this imbecile trying to provoke him? “Fighting isn’t your duty,” Ashok nodded toward the warrior caste. “It’s theirs.”
“Where were they when the demon came? No duty for them. No. The warriors supposed to guard this village, they ran! They ran away and left us to die!”
“That is true,” Ashok agreed. The assembled warriors began to mutter to each other at this terrible insult against their caste, but Ashok cared about their opinions about as much as he cared about the casteless’s. “Only truth doesn’t change the Law.”
“Who will protect us from the warriors?”
“The fish-eater speaks of revolt!” exclaimed one of the soldiers as another nocked an arrow.
This had gone too far. Insolence could not be tolerated. Why am I wasting my time? It was like reasoning with a pig. He should have just taken the casteless’s head and been done with it, but Ashok lowered his voice and tried one last time. The warriors wouldn’t be able to hear him over the crashing surf. What he was about to admit would bring shame to the Order. “You helped me. You probably saved my life, so I do not wish to kill you.”
“Then don’t!”
“I have to obey the Law like everyone else.”
“The Law is wrong,” the old casteless snarled as he lowered the spear and aimed the point at Ashok’s face.
“The Law is everything,” Ashok whispered.
And then one of the warriors casually shot the disobedient casteless through the chest with an arrow. He was so thin that the arrow sped clean through his torso and skipped down the beach. The casteless’s eyes widened in surprise. He managed to turn and take a few halting steps before falling on his face, where he twitched a few times and then lay still. His precious spear rolled free and clattered down the rocks.
At least the man didn’t suffer.
That was curious . . . Ashok had never thought of a casteless as a man before.
The Protector lifted his hand in front of his face. Rivulets of blood had dried between his fingers, and for just a second, it was as if he was looking at the small hand of a child. Then the moment was gone. The water on his hands was unclean saltwater and the blood was only his own. This was not a dream. This was real. The warrior who had released the arrow had already gone back to marveling at the mighty demons. No one remarked on what had just transpired. There was nothing noteworthy about putting down a disobedient dog.
More warriors joined him as he stood over the corpse, including the risaldar, the experienced leader of fifty who had escorted him on the long hunt. “Excellent work, Protector. I will convey word of your great victory to our Thakoor. Your unmatched skills have brought incredible honor to your order. House Gujara will remember this deed forever. You have saved us from this menace.”
“It was only a casteless . . .” Ashok muttered.
“I meant the pair of sea demons.”
“Oh.” The sand beneath the untouchable’s body was slowly turning red. “Of course.”
“Are you all right, Lord Protector? Do you need to rest? You appear to be hurt. We must clean your injuries. Wounds fester quickly in this jungle.”
Distracted, Ashok shook his head. “I can’t get sick.” In Vadal, they used cremation. Ashok had no idea what the traditions of House Gujara were. “How do you dispose of your dead?”
“For the villagers? The worker caste will tend to their own.” The risaldar said, before realizing that Ashok was still looking at the body. “For this? It’s a casteless. I don’t know what they do for non-people. Let the gulls and the crabs eat him. Please, come along, sir. You look like you need to sit down.”
“What would you do for one of your own men?”
The risaldar seemed confused by this. “Gujaran warriors bury our own dead. The labor is performed by those whom he has served with.”
That made a sort of sense. Ashok glanced around. The ground at the edge of the jungle didn’t seem too rocky. “We will require a shovel.”
“What?” the risaldar was incredulous. He looked at the blood drying on Ashok’s scalp as if searching for signs of a head injury. “Why would you have us bury this wretch?”
“Because he showed more heart than any of your caste did tonight.”
It hadn’t been meant as an insult, but the risaldar certainly took it that way. His face darkened with rage, but no matter how skilled he was, or how injured Ashok might be, he wasn’t fool enough to risk a duel with a man carrying an ancestor blade.
“Has offense been given?” Ashok asked quietly.
“No, Lord Protector. Offense has not been taken,” the risaldar replied in a legally acceptable manner for avoiding a duel.
The warriors were too distracted to notice that the discarded spear was being carried back out to sea by the tide. Ashok sighed. “Forgive me, Risaldar. I’m weary and have misspoken. You and your men may attend to your master’s village. I release you from your obligations to my Order. Your responsibility to escort me has been fulfilled. I will make my own way from here.”
/> The officer gave him a stiff bow, and then stormed off.
Ashok needed to rest for a bit, and then he would find a shovel.
Chapter 3
Five years ago
The massive funeral pyre burned so hot that they could feel the warmth even from their distant vantage point. The orange pillar lit the night sky. The tower of smoke blotted out the moons and stars. Their duty satisfied, the small group of Protectors stood on the hillside and watched the bodies burn. It was rare to have so many members of the Order in a single place at the same time, but the Capitol saw full-blown house wars as serious events, requiring a swift, merciless dispensation of justice. Their battle had lasted a few hours of the morning. It had taken a huge crew of untouchables the rest of the afternoon to gather up all the dead the Protectors had left in their wake in order to build that fire.
Of course, their instructor took this moment as a teaching opportunity. “Since there is nothing beyond this life, why are we required to give respect to the remains of our dead?” Mindarin asked his students.
It was a rhetorical question, but the inexperienced members of the Order were used to Mindarin constantly asking them questions. Mindarin was known as the philosophical, scholarly leader. Questions and reasoning were his method of teaching. He applied logic to the Law so that there could be no misunderstanding its principles. Most of the acolytes found his way preferable to Master Ratul’s method of severe beatings and long runs in full armor.
Ashok listened, distracted, as the young men rattled off the expected answers, it was tradition to appease the houses, or it was to prevent enemies from defiling the corpses as an insult which would lead to more strife between families, or even such practical matters as preventing the spread of disease, but because the Law requires it was the primary response. Within the Order, because the Law requires it was a safe answer to nearly every question.
The Law had required him to kill a lot of people today.
“Your answers are acceptable, as was your performance here.” Mindarin told the students. It was as close to a compliment as most of them had ever received from someone of his status. “Return to camp and rest, for tomorrow will bring new duties for us all.”
Ashok watched them walk down the hill, heads held high, because today they had made war on behalf of the Capitol, brought justice to a lawless family, and ended an unapproved house war. They’d fought hard, striking so fast and so efficiently that only a few hundred of their warrior escorts, and not a single member of the Order, had died in the battle. Tonight they would celebrate, unaware that this process would never end.
“Ah, the hero of the day has decided to keep his old teacher company.” Mindarin stopped next to Ashok and gestured at the fire. “It is quite the sight, it is not? We taught a valuable lesson today, one that the great houses will not soon forget. They will tremble at the idea of violating the Law, and it is all thanks to you.”
“It was nothing.”
“On the contrary, Ashok. Your legend grows with every mission. Our obligations have increased tenfold since you joined us.” Mindarin looked around. “Where is your brother?”
“Devedas took a spear thrust through the stomach and will need time to recover.” The last time Ashok had seen him, he’d been in the healer’s tent, vomiting up coagulated blood. “He should be ready to travel in a few days.”
“That’s what he gets for trying to keep up with you, lad. I saw you fling yourself into their lines. Impressive work. I’m thankful every day that your house obligated you to our Order. If we hadn’t had you and that sword today, I have no doubt some of my boys would be on that fire.”
“I was only doing my duty, the same as everyone else.”
“You are too humble.”
“I had a teacher who said that all great swordsmen need humility, because humility leads to awareness, and awareness leads to victory.”
“Don’t use my own words against me. You may not seek praise, so I should know by now not to waste my time giving you any, but we both know your value to the Order,” the old master said. “When I was your age, the Order was a shadow of what it is today. We were fading, shrinking. You made us important again, effective and vital! You are a weapon, Ashok, a tool of justice. Your very existence has become a warning to all that they must comply with the Law. Your reputation is worth more than a legion of Inquisitors.”
Ashok nodded. After the way today’s conflict ended, it would be a long time before any other great houses grew so ambitious. “All must know their place.”
Mindarin smiled. It was usually him quoting the Law, not the other way around. “Adherence to the Law is the only thing that keeps the world from descending into madness. It was the Law which lifted man out of superstitious barbarity and brought us into an age of reason, yet the Law is always vulnerable. The Law is a dam, and on the other side is an ocean of chaos. If a chip isn’t repaired, the dam will crack. Today we simply plugged a leak.”
The only thing he’d seen leaking today had been blood from thousands of bodies. “I’m not one of the newly obligated children, Mindarin. Spare me the allegories. I do what I must, that’s all.”
“My dam example is a metaphor, not an allegory. Sometimes, though, it is good to repeat the lessons learned in our youth. It helps us keep our minds focused the same way a whetstone keeps an edge on our steel . . .”
“You truly can’t help yourself, can you?”
Mindarin chuckled. “Only some of us carry swords that never need to be sharpened.” He looked pointedly at sheathed Angruvadal. “Tell me, fifteen-year senior, how many men did you strike down today?”
Regulations required him to be as exact as possible in his reports, so he’d trained himself to remember every blow, every cut, every face. “Twenty-six violators killed and thirty-four injured during the battle itself. I estimate half of those may survive their injuries. After House Makao surrendered, I executed another five specific officers as per the Judges’ sentence for fomenting rebellion, as well as their wives, and their firstborn sons.”
“That is a terrible burden.”
“It was just another day.”
The two of them watched the great bonfire in silence for a time.
“What troubles you, Ashok?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he answered truthfully.
The old master thought that over before speaking. He was no longer using his instructor’s voice, but rather sounded like any other tired old man. “The acolytes’ answers were acceptable, but wrong. We know there’s nothing beyond life. The fire doesn’t go somewhere else when the candle is extinguished. We are meat with a spark of life inside, nothing more. Yet still, something compels us to treat a corpse with the dignity we’d reserve for a whole man. They are wrong because the Law doesn’t command us to respect the dead, but rather the Law allows us to do something we would be compelled to do regardless, something ingrained into us since ancient times. We honor the dead so the survivors remember to live.”
Ashok had never been one for Mindarin’s philosophical contemplations. “If you say so.”
“With all the weight we have put upon you, don’t forget how to live, Ashok. At times I fear our people have forgotten too much as it is.” The master’s words verged on the subversive, but thankfully he did not continue with that thought. “Forgive an old man his ramblings.”
Ashok nodded after the young Protectors. They had taken up one of Ratul’s marching chants on their way back to the camp. “Was I ever that idealistic?”
“Was?” Mindarin put one hand on his shoulder. “Lad, you still are.”
Chapter 4
“You know, Ashok, I’ve seen you fill a lot of graves over the years, but I do believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen you dig one.”
Ashok glanced up and saw a familiar scarred face. He’d been too focused on his labor to notice the other Protector sitting on the rocks above. His old friend could be quiet as a demon when he felt like it.
“Hello, Devedas.” As
hok had barely finished pushing the last of the dirt into the hole and stomping it down. It was said that the jungle scavengers were very persistent here, so he’d dug the hole deep. “What brings you to this muggy hell?”
“Looking for you, among other things. Who’s in the hole?”
“Someone who didn’t deserve to be eaten by crabs.”
“We don’t dig graves where I come from. The ground’s always frozen. Why are you digging anyway? Doesn’t this province have any slaves?”
“I felt like digging. That’s not illegal. How long have you been sitting there?”
“Long enough to be glad I wasn’t born in the worker caste. Can you imagine toiling under this miserable sun every day?”
Ashok stuck the shovel in the dirt so it would stand upright. “Do you think digging endless holes would be so much worse than endless fighting?”
“Spoken like a man who has nearly completed his house’s obligation. Twenty years is a lot of service for the Order to wring out of one man.” That was meant to goad him. Devedas had been doing this a bit longer than he had. “No wonder you’re curious to see how the other castes live.”
“There were two demons.” Ashok gestured toward where the alchemists and wizards were butchering the demon carcasses further down the beach. “Big ones too. If they’re getting into the habit of working in pairs, then I look forward to my retirement.”
“Two?” Devedas tried not to let his concern show, but he failed. “I didn’t say digging holes would be worse than what we do, but it would be terribly dull.” Devedas slid down the rock, hopped the last six feet, and landed effortlessly next to him. “Good to see you, brother.”
The men obligated to the Order were sons from each of the great houses, and they all brought some traditions with them. It was one of the small, allowable ways each Protector could maintain some of their history. Devedas was a southerner, so he preferred to shake hands rather than bow in greeting. It was probably because in the cold lands you had to wear such a pile of furs to live that nobody could tell if you were bowing or not, or as Devedas liked to joke, southerners didn’t like to look down because that’s when the bears ate you. Devedas’ grip was as firm as his own.