Shadow War - Deborah Chester [119]
The officer’s gaze swept around the barrack like a cold northern wind and came to rest on Caelan. “Is this the man?”
The sergeant stepped forward smartly. “New recruit, yes, sir.”
The officer looked Caelan up and down, his eyes missing nothing, not even the pail of dirty scrub water with the brush floating on top of the scum.
His mouth tightened. “In my day, sergeant, the recruits were set to polishing armor as part of their initiation. Floors don’t seem quite in keeping with the dignity of the Imperial Guard, do they?”
The sergeant’s face stayed as blank as the wall. “No, sir.”
“Present the men for inspection by second bugle.”
The sergeant’s fist slammed against his left shoulder. “Yes, sir.”
The officer pointed at Caelan. “You, come with me.”
Caelan stepped forward warily and walked past the silent row of men. He no longer knew what to think. Their cruelty in letting him believe he was still a slave stoked his growing resentment. He remembered the brutality of the soldiers he had met as a boy and how they had robbed him on the road like common brigands. These men were no better, and as guardsmen, they were the elite of the emperor’s fighting forces. He glanced at their stoic faces as he walked past and wondered how many more unpleasant surprises they had in store for him.
Outside, the air was frosty and still. Caelan’s breath streamed about his face as he looked around. A small cluster of men in crimson cloaks and armor stood waiting.
“Get it done quickly, Sergeant Baiter,” the officer said to a short, burly individual who saluted.
The officer walked away without another glance at Caelan.
Frowning, Caelan stared at the others. “What am I—”
“Silence!” the burly sergeant snapped at him. “Fall in.”
The other two guardsmen stepped behind Caelan, and he had no choice but to follow Baiter down the long row of barracks to a sort of courtyard formed in the angle between the last barracks and the stables. Paved with flat stones, the area held a set of stocks, a whipping post, a fountain stilled beneath a skim of ice, and a smithy.
It was to the last that Caelan was taken.
He stepped into the open-sided hut, ducking his head beneath the low ceiling. The smith, muscular and sweating, already had his bellows going and a fire burning in his forge. The air in the hut smelled of charred hair, hot metal, and ash. Caelan suddenly suspected what was coming. He tensed, swallowing hard, and made his mind a blank.
Sergeant Baiter exchanged a brief word with the smith, then snapped his fingers at Caelan. “He will remove your slave chain.”
Caelan’s throat was too full and tight to answer. He nodded silently, his eyes full of what he could not say.
“Come o’er,” the smith said. Bearded and taciturn, he pointed at an anvil.
Caelan stepped over to it.
“Show us, then,” the smith commanded.
Caelan fished out the golden chain around his throat. The smith’s blackened hand fingered it.
“Pity to break that,” he said, but pointed again at the anvil. “Lay yer head to it. Hold still, else the chisel’ll go through yer throat ‘stead of next it.”
Swallowing, Caelan felt tremors go through him. His emotions were threatening to overwhelm him, and almost savagely he forced them down. He must not think. He must not feel. If he was to be freed, then let it be done. Until the chain was taken off his throat, he would believe in nothing.
Bending over, he pressed the side of his face to the cold, hard surface of the steel anvil. The smith moved Caelan’s head so he could loop the slight amount of slack in the chain over the narrow, pointed end of the anvil. It was an uncomfortable