Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [100]
Just as he passed Orlo, the trainer swung the cattail club viciously across Caelan’s bare back. The blow drove him to his knees, and the pain from his rib robbed him of breath. His scream lay smothered in his throat, and for a blinding moment he was awash in crimson and sickly gray. His back burned as though on fire, and he thought he might never breathe again.
Orlo circled around in front of him and gripped his hair to pull up his head. “Are you mute, you big bastard?” he growled.
Tears and sweat streamed down Caelan’s face. Somehow he found enough pride to answer. “No,” he said through his teeth.
“Get up!”
Clamping his jaw, Caelan managed to stagger to his feet. He was a full head and shoulders taller than Orlo, but it was the shorter man who had the advantage.
“The arena is no place for cowards,” Orlo said.
“I’m no coward—”
“Shut up!” Orlo raised the club again, and Caelan flinched back. Grinning, Orlo slowly lowered his hand.
Shame flooded Caelan. He knew in that instant he’d failed some kind of test.
“All Traulanders are cowards,” Orlo said. “Big brutes who can’t move and won’t fight. I know your kind.”
Caelan burned inside. No, you don’t, he thought. Not me.
“If you were any good, the prince would have let his fancy private trainer work with you. He wouldn’t have sent you to me.”
There was something ugly in the way Orlo said that, something resentful that flamed in his eyes. Seeing it, Caelan’s heart sank.
“I am going to make you good,” Orlo said. “I am going to make you fight. Or I’ll kill you in the effort. You understand?”
“Yes,” Caelan breathed. It was what he had prayed for while he waited for the auction. Now he wondered why he had ever thought he could do this.
“What is it you call your religion?” Orlo asked. “Severing?”
Caelan did not trust his voice. Cautiously he nodded.
Orlo raised the club with clear menace. “You try that nonsense around here, especially on any of my men, and you’ll taste this. You understand?”
It was clear Orlo didn’t understand what severance was, but his fear was dangerous. “I will obey,” Caelan said. Any other response was unthinkable.
Orlo did not seem to believe him. With a sneer, he gripped the amulet pouch hanging around Caelan’s neck and yanked it over his head. “You won’t need this.”
Miraculously over the years, Caelan’s owners had respected the pouch and left it alone, although slaves weren’t allowed possessions. Now Caelan felt dismay wash through him. “It is my amulet,” he said hollowly, trying not to betray his concern. “I—”
“Liar!” Orlo said sharply. “Trau is a civilized province, not a pagan one. Your kind don’t carry amulets.”
That was true, but until now no one else had seemed to know it. Caelan stared at the little pouch with its precious contents and swallowed the lump in his throat. Lea, forgive me, he thought in despair.
“Please,” he whispered, but with a scowl Orlo shoved him forward.
Thus it began, a rigorous nightmare that never seemed to end. From dawn until dusk they were pounded, forced to run laps along a track of deep, foot-clogging sand while guards on horseback whipped them to keep going. Practice weapons were heavy, blunt scraps of metal with worn hilt wrappings that often left a man’s hand blistered raw or cut open. Injuries passed untreated. Many a man moaned through the night with sprains, bruises, and lacerations. They were fed plentifully and cheaply, mostly barley grain and beans, twice a day. The one blessing was they could have all the water they wanted, and it was always fresh in the barrel.
The first night Caelan tore strips of cloth off his straw pallet and used it to bind his ribs. Even with that tight support, the next few days were an agony he thought he might not survive. Only severance enabled him to bear the pain. At night when he was allowed to collapse on his pallet, he sweated in the darkness and tried desperately to remember everything he had learned at Rieschelhold and from his father’s teachings in an effort to heal himself. For the first time, he had to acknowledge that he’d been a