For the younger ones, Jarnulf did his best to take her place, especially for little Gret, wrapping the child in his arms as the long nights crept past and the wind tugged and probed at the cracks in the cold stone buildings the Hikeda’ya called the “slave barns.” Some nights Gret shivered for hours, even in her sleep. His brother suffered too, and in the first winter after their mother left, Jarngrimnur died of the sweating sickness and his body was carted away to the Field of the Nameless to be burned.
The slave barns and the slaves themselves belonged to White Snail Castle, one of the last great estates still remaining in Nakkiga-That-Was, the city outside the mountain, which had once spread far beyond the base of great Stormspike. The old city had been a miracle of fluted stone and wide causeways, of great stone houses and walls, but now it was largely fallen into ruin. Still, a few of the older families had refused to withdraw inside the mountain; they kept to the old ways, living in the ancient gyrfalcon castles perched on the mountainside, supervising their own slaves and Bound farmers instead of leaving the work to overseers who were slaves themselves. The masters of White Snail Castle and the other outside estates raised sheep and cattle and horses on the terraced hillsides of Stormspike’s eastern foothills, living the way their ancestors had when they first came to this land of exile they called Do’sae né-Sogeyu—the Shadow Garden.
Jarnulf had gained more from his mother and his long-lost father than merely his slender, strong build, his height, and his knowledge of the old runes. His mother had also taught him to watch and to think, had showed him that the way to defeat strength was not always simply to be stronger.
“Do not mistake me,” she had told him more than once. “We are strong too, even though we are slaves. Remember, we come of the Jarn clan—the Iron clan—and the fairies have always hated iron and feared its power.” Again and again Ragna had insisted he learn to keep his temper, reminded him that there were other ways to fight, even to win. “Cleverness can save you where strength or size cannot,” she had told him, illustrating it with the story of how the fire god Loken once tricked the king of the ogres. “Patience can do it, too, because Time can do what men cannot.”
Jarnulf had liked that story in particular because he knew about giants. He often saw the massive creatures at work—the Hikeda’ya called them Raoni—moving heavy rocks and beams for their masters, because the giants were slaves just like Jarnulf. Seeing them, he had realized that there were some enemies he would never be strong enough to fight, and it was a lesson he would not forget. Thus, when their mother was taken away to be a house slave, instead of attacking the Hikeda’ya overseers who came for her, young Jarnulf had held in his anger until he felt scorched inside, but had said and done nothing.
Cleverness can do it, he had told himself over and over, though his blood seemed to boil inside him. Patience can also do it, he had thought, clutching the favorite saying of Ragna’s even as she was led away, not even allowed to look back, because Time can do what men cannot. But it had been a bitter day and the wound had never healed.
As he had grown older he had begun to be chosen for the sort of jobs that the Hikeda’ya gave to young slaves, cutting black barley on the steep hillsides until his skin itched all over, and carrying water to the harvesters, rubbish to the midden, and nightsoil to the fields. In this way he began to come into contact with the children of his Hikeda’ya masters. The estate that surrounded White Snail Castle was like a little city, and housed many kinds of people. The giants and the changeling creatures called Pengi seemed little more than animals, and were considered lower even than Jarnulf and his mortal kind, but several castes of Hikeda’ya lived in the castle as well—the Bound, the Pledged, and the Recognized. The Bound were the farmers, who had only a little more freedom than the slaves, but were still Hikeda’ya: even the meanest and lowest of them had life or death power over any mortal. The Pledged were the master’s soldiers and other important servants and functionaries. And of course the master and his family were of the Recognized, the caste of those who had been confirmed in the ranks of nobility by the queen herself.
Jarnulf hardly ever saw the children of the Recognized, who were raised and educated in the castle’s great keep, but the young sons and daughters of the Pledged came every day to a fallow field near the slave barns, a place put aside for the purpose of training them in the arts of war, since all Hikeda’ya except the Bound were taught to fight.
At first Jarnulf only watched them when he could snatch a moment of freedom. He was especially fascinated by the old, sharp-faced Hikeda’ya who supervised them. It was hard to guess the years of Jarnulf’s masters, who did not age as mortals did, but this teacher moved with a certain lack of hurry that suggested experience, and he did not leave his hair white as most of the other men did, but colored it a shade of witchwood gray that had fallen from fashion long before Jarnulf or even his grandparents had been born.
He learned that the old man was a famous swordsman and one-time Sacrifice commander named Denabi sey-Xoka. None of the other slaves knew much more than that about him, but everyone on the estate could hear his piercing voice as he shouted at, directed, and mocked his students, Hikeda’ya youth only a little older and bigger than Jarnulf himself. The young slave was grateful for that voice, which he could hear even at a distance, and which allowed him to memorize most of what the old warrior was telling his charges.
Soon Jarnulf had begun hurrying through whatever work he was given so that he could steal a few moments near the edge of the training field, watching the young Hikeda’ya learn to wield sword and spear and shoot a bow. After a while, frustrated by having no weapon of his own, Jarnulf sat up nights after his sister had fallen asleep and made himself a wooden sword from scraps, tying stones to it with stolen twine to give it enough weight for proper practice. He kept it hidden in a stand of birch trees near the training ground, and would lurk in their shade, blocked (as he thought) from the view of the young warriors at work, and imitate what they were being taught.
When the keen-eyed Hikeda’ya students finally noticed him, as had been more or less inevitable, retribution was swift and painful. A half dozen of them broke away from the main group and ran toward him. Before Jarnulf could get away, they vaulted the fence and surrounded him. For a few moments he held them at bay, whirling his wooden blade and dodging their first attacks, but before long they moved in close and overwhelmed him with numbers. They beat him with the flats of their swords until he fell to the ground, then beat him some more, and ended by kicking his limp form until he thought he would die from pain and lack of breath. At last they lost interest. After breaking his wooden sword and scattering the pieces over him like funeral flowers, the children of his masters wandered back to their practice.
Jarnulf lay for a long time with his belly against the ground and his face in the cold, wet dirt, wanting to get up, or at least to crawl off and hide his shame, but his ribs were aching so badly he could not push himself upright. He felt the sun move across the sky, and knew that if he could not climb to his feet he would lie out all night, and that would mean death. But every movement seemed to grind something broken inside of him against something else equally damaged. He wept silently as the wind began to increase.
“By the Garden, what is lying here?” The voice was cheerful but mocking. “Is it a little mouse that the cat has played with? Poor mouse. Happy cat.”
Jarnulf tried to roll over to see who was talking, but the pain was too great.
“Or is it a fish that has climbed out of Lake Rumiya and tried to walk like an animal? How strange, to find a fish so far from water.”
It was maddening. Jarnulf pulled his knees underneath himself, letting out a gasp of agony as he felt all the bruised places, the cracked places. He choked down a cry—it came out as a gurgle from behind his clenched teeth—and at last managed to push himself up to where he could see who was talking. It was Xoka himself, the old warrior who trained the Pledged, staring down at him with an amused look. Older Hikeda’ya had much the same appearance as younger, but the effect of centuries of sun and wind showed up at last even on their near-ageless faces. Xoka was less fine-featured than younger male Hikeda’ya, as though his face had been carved with blunt, crude tools.
Jarnulf crouched on his hands and knees. It was hard to hold his head up.
“Do you have a name, little mouse, little fish?” the weapons master asked. “Or are you a dog? You look like a dog, down on all fours that way.”