When the recruits arrived at the 2nd Platoon long house, the platoon was absent, except for the corporal who'd guided them, and three men who'd helped test them. There Corporal Jeremid talked to them about their new life. They would, he said, become not only the best fighting men in the tribe, but the best in the world. And they had the toughest sergeant in the world; he'd beaten a man to death with his bare fists once, for backflashing him.
In the Rude Lands, most months are divided into four weeks of seven days each, with freedays at the end so that each month begins with the new moon. (Twelve-Month and One-Month are trimmed and patched so that One-Month begins on the New Moon nearest the Winter Solstice. The system lacks elegance, but suits their needs.) On six days of the standard week, the Heroes trained to improve their weapons and tactical skills, and the novices learned horsemanship.
Most Ozian farmers owned no more than a single horse—some plowed with their milk cow—and few new Heroes were satisfactory horsemen. So each morning of their rookie month, the novices were taken out to ride across rough pastures and through forest. At no more than a trot to begin with, later at a canter and eventually a gallop. When they could gallop breakneck through forested hills without losing control, they were ready to hunt.
Jeremid's eyes glistened in the telling. Hunting, he said, was the high point of training. They'd ride behind hounds, pursuing whatever game they put up—fox, wolf, bear, the great and small cats—with the Heroes hurtling after them. Most deaths or cripplings in training were from hunting accidents: a neck or head broken by a low branch, a horse failing to clear a blowdown, even a jaguar brought to bay and charging. Heroes were forbidden to use a bow against large prey, he went on; it was considered cowardly. The spear was the kill weapon, with only one man wielding it.
The training days, he told them, started at sunup and continued till dusk. During the week, drinking was forbidden, except for a large mug of ale served nightly with supper. But after supper on Six-Day, the slave girls were brought in. Slave girls selected for Heroes, good-looking girls who considered it a privilege. So the corporal said. It was a party for the girls as well as the Heroes, and it gave them favored status, sparing them the more disagreeable jobs between parties. And on Six-Day night, there was all a man could drink, spirits as well as ale. Seven-Day was given to recovering.
As the corporal described it, Macurdy decided he'd have to sneak out. He'd be true to Varia in spite of all.
Meanwhile it was One-Day. He had five days to come up with a strategy.
He found it easy, adjusting to a Hero's workday life. You just did it. Riding was the aspect he'd felt concern over. He'd ridden horses all his life, both in the saddle, and bareback on work horses. But back home, riding had pretty much amounted to plodding. Now and then, mainly as adolescents, they'd raced on a road or in a pasture, hopefully when no one's pa or ma or sister was watching, but that was about it. So the notion of galloping headlong through forest and brush was sobering.
All the new trainees were skilled with weapons, though probably few at throwing the ax, or even the knife. (Hauser and Arbel had given him the knife he'd learned on, as a parting gift.) But here they learned additional techniques, with spear, sword, and shield, techniques well beyond those taught to militia. And from the first, the infantry tactics they drilled included tactics more refined than he'd learned before. Thus Macurdy discovered he hadn't been as skilled as he'd thought.
On the other hand, the horsemanship training wasn't as hair-raising as he'd expected. Most of the other new Heroes were no more skilled in the saddle than he, and the training was pitched accordingly.
By the end of his first week, he'd improved a lot—and had his strategy for avoiding the Six-Day evening orgy. It was simple enough: Heroes had access to the several Oztown shamans, which gave him somewhere to go. So he told his platoon sergeant his back was seizing up on him. Sergeant Zassfel scowled but gave his approval, and Macurdy left. On the premise that it was best to go to the top, he'd already learned which shaman was regarded as most powerful. When he got there, though, he said nothing about his back. His hope was to be accepted as a student on Six-Day evenings.
He told the shaman an edited version of his history with Arbel, but this man was no Arbel. He was haughty and unimpressed, and sent Macurdy on his way. Bumpkin soldiers and rural shamans were beneath his interest. So Macurdy found a decrepit, abandoned outbuilding not too far from the longhouses, and spent the rest of the night there.
At early dawn he awoke from cold, not for the first time, and went to the 2nd Platoon longhouse. The place buzzed with snoring, and smelled of vomit and rut. By dawnlight and the glow from the fireplaces, he saw the bodies of Heroes and slavegirls, most of them naked, lying singly or more or less entwined on low beds, floor and tables. In some obscure corner, two of them had re-engaged, grunting and moaning, the sound stimulating Macurdy sexually. Yes, he thought, it's a good thing I wasn't here last evening. I'd have never held out.
Next Six-Day, not having come up with a better strategy, he again used that ancient military complaint, the bad back. Zassfel eyed him skeptically. "Again? If this keeps up, I'm sending you back to the slave crew. Heroes don't have bad backs."
The man's aura reflected irritation and hostility, but not suspicion. "Yes, sergeant. I never had it before, and I'd just as soon never have it again. If this time doesn't take care of it for good, I'll tell you so you can get rid of me."
Zassfel, who was larger than Macurdy, jutted his jaw. "All right. This one time. Jeremid says you're the best of the new men, otherwise I wouldn't put up with it. Now get out of my sight!"
Macurdy got. He tried a different shaman, but the man's aura showed little psionic talent; he might or might not be a competent herbalist. This time Macurdy spent the night in a hayloft, which risked discovery by someone at morning chores but was a lot better sleeping.
Many in the new training class found themselves attracted by Macurdy's charisma. All his life his peers had tended to look up to him, more so since Arbel had freed him of the false modesty imposed by his upbringing. In addition he was older than the other rookies, twenty-six compared to their twenty or twenty-one.
Macurdy, in turn, particularly liked Corporal Jeremid, a third-year Hero from Oztown itself. Jeremid was nearly as tall as he, and if somewhat less powerfully built, was exceptionally athletic. His principle duty was teaching horsemanship to the recruits.
The next Six-Day was the first time the rookies hunted, riding with the veterans, galloping recklessly through woods and brushy bottomlands, while the hounds bayed on the trail of a jaguar. Finally they brought it to bay in a broad-crowned oak, to snarl down from a branch well up in the crown. The hounds circled, necks craned, their trail song become a clamor.
Zassfel looked around. "Macurdy!" he shouted, "take your spear and drive him down out of there."
Even the veterans found the order hard to believe. "Yes sergeant," he called back, mind racing. Drive him down out of there! he echoed mentally. What an ass! It seemed to him he'd better take his shield, too, so he left it slung on his back. "Gester," he said to one of the others, "hold my spear till I get up in there." Then, while the others watched, he rode to the oak. Leaning his hands on the thick trunk, he stood up on the horse's back, grasped the only branch he could reach, and pulled himself up, then regained his spear from Gester. Sliding it through the back of his sword belt left both hands free, and he began to clamber up through the branches, doing his best not to catch the spear on a branch, or dislodge his shield.
No one spoke, not even Zassfel. Not even any horseshit advice, Macurdy told himself grimly. They don't have any more idea of how to do this than I do. He stopped about fifteen feet short of the cat, which had been hissing at him the whole way. So far, so good, he thought eyeing it, but if you come for me now, I don't have a prayer. He withdrew the spear, an awkward job. "One hand for climbing, one for the cat," he muttered. "This is the shits!" Sweating with tension, he climbed one branch higher, paused, and reaching with the spear, poked at the jaguar. Its hiss swelled, and swatting, it cut its paw unexpectedly on the blade, almost knocking the weapon from Macurdy's hand. Shit! he thought, got to get closer. His heart drummed in his rib cage, but his hands were steady. One branch more and see what happens.
The cat began to back out on its branch, flattened to it. Just what I need: two hundred pounds of spotted cat out on a limb, with me between him and the trunk. He stopped on a branch about five feet below the cat, stood on it, and edged outward. The cat moved up one, but didn't take the opportunity to move to the trunk again. Okay, Macurdy thought, give me a chance at your belly. He rested the spear on the branch overhead, like a pool cue on a bridge, ready to stab upward. The cat reached down, slapping in his direction with a broad hook-rimmed paw, slaps so quick he couldn't have counted them, and Macurdy realized even more how overmatched he was. Again his spear darted, stabbed a muscled shoulder, and after squalling, the cat moved in to the trunk, to begin backing down. Hopefully to continue downward, because now it was Macurdy who was out on a limb.
When it got to his branch, it paused. Macurdy jabbed again, the blade slipping past the jaguar's guard, slicing into the muscles of the chest. The cat screeched—the sound freezing Macurdy's heart—partly lost its hold, then recovered. Macurdy had drawn the spear back; now he jabbed again. This time the paw was quicker, striking the spear aside, and now the cat stepped out toward him, inside the spear's reach. Hands almost spasming, Macurdy gripped the branch next to his head, the cat hardly six feet from him, jaws wide, the sound from its throat like the steam hose at the creamery.
He tossed the spear away, drawing cries from the men on the ground, but at such close range, he couldn't use it one-handed. Then, holding the branch above with his right hand, he rolled his left shoulder enough to slide his shield down onto his left arm, shifting it between himself and the cat.
He couldn't crouch—the branch he held for balance was too high—and he could only bend a little. If the cat chose to, it could easily attack his lower legs. But he thrust the shield toward it, and that held the cat's focus. "Haah! Haah!" he shouted. A paw struck the shield before he could see the movement, struck so hard it almost dislodged Macurdy, who nonetheless inched another step forward. "Haah! Haah!" The cat backed away. For a moment it crouched with its hindquarters against the trunk, then with a quick scrabbling began to back down the tree again. When it reached the next to lowest limb, it paused, then launched itself, clearing the men near the tree, landing on last fall's dead leaves.
Its impact and horizontal momentum caused its legs to collapse for just an instant, and two of the hounds were on it before the cat could streak away. It twisted, raked one hound off, then other dogs were at it, and the action, with squalling, yelping and growling, was too swift for Macurdy to follow. A spear drove, taking the cat in the flank, another spear struck, and another, and the dogs swarmed over it, tearing.
Shit, thought Macurdy. Whatever happened to the rule that only one man wields the spear? It was just as well though, he told himself; saved wear and tear on the dogs. He reslung his shield until he reached the lower branch, then tossed it to the ground.
On the way back to town, most of the trainees were still exhilarated from the kill. Macurdy, on the other hand, was grim and angry. He'd hunted all his life, perhaps not with great enthusiasm, but it was what men did, and he'd found pleasure in it. But this time—
He sat beside Jeremid at supper. The young corporal was still somewhat excited. "You've got to stay for the party tonight, Macurdy," he said. "There's not only the slave girls; there'll likely be a spear maiden or two, maybe more. Probably try someone out. A good-looking guy like you, one of them may even take you home with her for the night. Get her pregnant, and you've got a life of ease, making babies with her. With luck she'll even let you hump slave girls on the side." Jeremid laughed. "Especially if she doesn't know about it."
Macurdy had heard about spear maidens. Other nations didn't have them, he'd been told. The daughters of Heroes were trained from girlhood with weapons, the best being honored as spear maidens. They almost always married Heroes. No doubt the practice had been started deliberately to breed up warriors.
Marrying a spear maiden was nothing he wanted to do, but to leave with one, then pretend to get too drunk—
So he waited around, sipping at an ale to pass the time. There was cheering from the doorway, and laughter, male and female. Slave girls came prancing in, wearing nothing but little aprons in front and behind. Thirty or forty poured through the door in a brief flood, dispersing through the room, pairing off, men grabbing them, kissing and pawing. One, a blond with bold breasts, had spied Macurdy's large body and fended off other Heroes to reach him.
"I never saw you before," she said, and grabbing him, kissed him roundly while rubbing against his erection.
Good God! he thought, talk about brazen! "Sorry," he said, "I'm waiting for a spear maiden."
"Come on, Muscles, don't be that way. Let's you and me hump, and then you can wait for a spear maiden."
His powerful hands gripped her shoulders and removed her, holding her at arm's length. "When she comes in," he said, "I want to be ready and loaded. You're a great looking woman, and there's lots more guys here. You'll get all you want."
She tossed her head, insulted despite the compliments, and turning, walked away, reaching back to flip up her rear apron and expose her buttocks to him. Macurdy sighed. This could be a trying evening. Not a dozen feet away, one of the Heroes already had a slave bent over the table, his buttocks driving. More, though, were drinking and laughing with their girl of the moment, kissing between swigs.
Then he saw another woman enter, broad-shouldered, dressed in decorated calfskin breeches and shirt, wearing a short sword on one hip and a knife on the other. Just inside she paused, scanning the chaos with half a smile. Macurdy waved to her, and she started over. None of the unpaired Heroes grabbed at her, though several spoke as she passed. She answered without looking aside, her focus on Macurdy.
Half a dozen feet away she stopped and looked him over, seeing a man taller than most, lean and hard, with wide heavy shoulders and a strong, good-looking face. Macurdy, on the other hand, saw a woman as tall as an Ozman. Eighteen or twenty years old, he guessed, and long-legged, with shoulders that made her waist look small, and large muscular hands. She had a warrior aura. Her brown hair bordered on blond, and her face, dusted with freckles, suggested straightforward honesty.
She smiled at him before she spoke, and her teeth were strong and even. "I haven't seen you before. Where've you been?"
Suddenly Macurdy felt stupid. He couldn't tell the truth, it seemed to him, yet anything else would sound lame. "Visiting a couple shamans," he said.
"Shamans? On Six-Day evening?"
"When else?"
She cocked a critical eye at him. "My name is Melody."
Melody. With a sword and knife, fully clothed at an orgy. "Mine's Macurdy,"
"Macurdy? Never heard of a name like that. And you've got an accent. Where are you from?"
"I came here from Wolf Springs. Before that—I came from a far place."
"Sit down," she said, and motioned to a long bench built along the south wall. They went to it, and sat side by side. "Wolf Springs sends more than their share of Heroes," she said. "My dad's from Wolf Springs, and got my mother pregnant with me. She was a spear maiden too. Now tell me about this far place."
Without examining the wisdom of it, Macurdy began to talk on the premise that truth is usually safer than lies. "You've heard of the wizard gate there?"
She frowned. "Sure. What about it?"
"I came through it."
"Are you lying to me?"
"Nope. I came through a year ago. Got made a slave, and then the shaman's apprentice, till he found out I didn't have a healing touch. So he had me put in the militia. Now I'm here."
"A slave in the Heroes! I never heard of such a thing. You must be something, to have gotten sent here."
While they'd talked, a grinning Jeremid had come over with a slave girl, one of his hands kneading a breast. "He's a Hero, all right. We got a big jaguar up a tree today, and he climbed up and chased it down! It's true! Better grab him, Melody. He's going to be one of the all-time best!" He led his partner to his sleeping pad then, where she began undressing him. From nearby came the urgent, passionate grunts of some Hero's orgasm.
"This place gets me horny," Melody said, and getting up, sat astride Macurdy's lap, her face in his. "Let's you and I get acquainted. Where's your bed sack?"
"Uh, Melody, I'm married."
"Married!? They don't send married men here."
"Married on the other side. Through the gate."
Both her eyebrows raised. "On the other side doesn't count," she said. "The gate is one way. Guys have tried to go through it, but no one's made it except Sisters. Like swimming against a strong current, and the closer they got, the stronger it got." She put her arms around Macurdy's neck and kissed him, soft and moist, lingering. "The other side's lost to you, Macurdy," she murmured. "While I'm here, and I like you. I want to try you out. Who knows? Maybe I'll marry you."
He reminded himself to breathe. This woman was a lot more enticing, compelling, than the big blond. "I promised her to take no other woman as long as we both shall live."
She stared. "Even when she's somewhere else? Why would you promise such a thing?"
"It's part of the marriage agreement."
Melody frowned. "Crazy! Do the men there actually live up to it?"
"Most of them."
She kissed him again. "Think about it," she said. "Think about us naked on your bed." She got graphic then, describing sound, sight, and feel. Taking a long quavering breath, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Please," he said. "You're making this hard for me."
She laughed. "That's how we want it. The harder, the better."
"I'm not the one for you. Really. I'd like to be, but my wife is on this side too." It occurred to him that he might be saying too much, but he went on. "She got stolen and brought through. That's why I came through. And I love her more than my life. If I ever have a chance, I'll find her."
Melody stood up frowning. "Macurdy, you're a strange one, no doubt about it." She backed away a step. "I'll ask you again sometime. I don't give up easily." She turned then and walked away, his eyes following her to the door. When she reached it, she stopped and looked back, as if to see if he'd changed his mind and followed her. Instead he waved, once. She turned away again and disappeared.
By this time all the slave girls were sexually engaged, Hero haunches bobbing everywhere Macurdy looked. He took a deep quavering breath, walked to the narrow rear exit and left. No one would notice, he felt sure.
Outside, he ran off down the road, through the dusk, determined to run himself exhausted before he came back.
The next morning, Macurdy was lame. He'd alternately run and walked three or four miles the night before, and unaccustomed to it, was sore from buttocks to calves. "What's the matter with you?" the sergeant asked.
All around them were men hung over, or sleeping off exhaustion. "I'm sore," Macurdy answered.
Zassfel scowled. "Someone said you turned Melody down last night, then left. You never screwed anyone at all, did you."
His aura was hostile. To Macurdy's surprise, he found himself feeling better. Hostility was something he could deal with. "You don't know what I did," he said, "or what I can do."
Zassfel's eyes sharpened. "Is that some kind of threat?"
"I don't threaten anyone. Least of all the platoon sergeant."
"Don't play games with me, Macurdy. I can ruin you. Any kind of ruin you can think of."
"Sergeant, I'm the best new man you've got, and by the time the leaves turn, I'll be the best new or old. There's no need to get on me."
Zassfel's face froze in a grimace, and his hand moved as if to the hilt of the sword he wasn't wearing at the moment. "You son of a bitch," he growled softly. "You better be careful. Real careful."
Macurdy nodded pleasantly. Later he'd be astonished that he'd felt no fear, no upset or anger. "Just remember who went up the tree yesterday," he said, "and how it worked out."
Then he walked outside and sat in the sun, to occupy himself with a dream of rescuing Varia.
The week went well enough. Mostly Zassfel ignored him, as if he'd forgotten about it, but whenever his glance passed over Macurdy, Macurdy could literally feel it, and see the anger in the sergeant's aura. Not until Six-Day before supper, though, was anything said. Then Zassfel walked over to him.
"Macurdy," he murmured, "tonight we'll see whether you're a man or a pansy. Don't leave the longhouse unless I say so, or I'll put you on punishment. Bad punishment."
Macurdy nodded without speaking, wishing the uncanny calm of the previous Seven-Day would come back to him. As it was he ate his supper, but his stomach churned.
Afterward the men sat around, waiting for the slave girls, some of them telling what they were going to do. To Macurdy, they sounded like a couple of eighth graders he'd known in the one-room Oak Creek school. Then Zassfel stepped into the middle of the floor and called for quiet.
"Men," he said, "we've got a pansy among us, someone who's been here four weeks now and hasn't humped a single girl, let alone half a dozen a night like a real Hero. So tonight we're going to test him. When the girls come, I'm going to set Maira on him. He turned her down once; she told me so. If he can satisfy her . . ." His pause was met by knowing laughs. "If he can satisfy Maira, we'll keep him around. Otherwise, the slave bastard goes back to the potato field.
"So when the girls come in, nobody grabs one. Nobody." He looked around. "That includes you, Margli. I'm going to take Maira to Macurdy, and he's going to hump her on this table in front of all of us." He grinned at his victim. "We'll see how he does. The rule is, he has to satisfy her. My bet is, he won't even be able to get it up."
When Zassfel identified his victim, the laughter stopped. Macurdy was liked—admired—especially since his climb up the tree. Now his pulse pounded like a triphammer, while his guts kept churning. A long few minutes later, the watchers outside the door began their cheer, answered at a little distance by female voices.
Macurdy became aware of Jeremid behind him. "Ride her rough, Macurdy," the corporal whispered. "Really bang her! It's your only chance; Maira likes it rough. And whisper to her that you'll sneak out and go to her during the week. Maybe she'll fake it for you. Usually she humps one guy after another. Long after everyone's had enough, she's pawing guys in their sleep, trying to get a rise out of one."
Macurdy heard, but his mind had frozen with determination. The girls trooped in subdued, aware now of something unusual pending. The sergeant ordered the men into a large oval around the central table, while he held Maira by an arm. "Macurdy," he said, "drop your pants."
It felt to Macurdy as if his throat was coated with cotton batting, but surprisingly his voice seemed normal. "No thanks, Sergeant. You've got no authority to do this."
Zassfel grinned. "Strip him, boys."
Most of the men stood unmoving. The four men Zassfel had prearranged things with were his closest friends, four of his own year in the company. They'd stationed themselves close behind Macurdy, and two of them grabbed him now.
"Zassfel!" Macurdy shouted, "if you're such a Hero, fight me!"
The room fell absolutely silent for a moment. Then Zassfel's grin grew wider. "Ho ho ho!" he said. "It seems like every now and then I have to beat someone up. Otherwise people forget." He waved the crowd back at his end of the oval, then stripped off his shirt and stepped forward. "All right, Macurdy, we fight. And when I'm done, we tie what's left of you to the tree out front, with a sign telling people what you are." He raised his hands; apparently this was to be with fists. "Let's do it."
The four let Macurdy go, ready to pounce if he tried to run. He didn't. He stripped off his own shirt, raised his fists, and stepped to meet Zassfel.
When Mr. Anderson had taught Oak Creek school, he'd brought boxing gloves, and had given the boys lessons with them. He had, he claimed, been the Golden Gloves champion of Indiana. Whether or not he actually had, he'd impressed them with his moves and style, and taught them how to jab, to throw a right cross, a proper hook, an uppercut.
And clearly, Zassfel had never heard of any of them, certainly not the jab. What he did know was the crushing roundhouse swing, grabbing the hair, the use of knee and elbow—all things that Macurdy expected and watched for. Meanwhile Macurdy introduced him to the jab and all the rest of it. Within a minute, Zassfel's mouth and nose were bleeding, one eye was swelling, a cheek was cut, and he was raising himself to a sitting position, purple with rage. "Kosek! Ardonor! Kill the son of a bitch."
They were on Macurdy in an instant, not only Kosek and Ardonor, but the other two, grabbing, slugging. When they were done, they threw him out the front door, to lie semiconscious and bleeding in the dirt street. After a bit he was aware of someone, two someones, helping him to his feet and supporting him an uncertain distance to—somewhere, then letting him down onto a bed.
He recognized a voice: Melody's, and opened the eye that would, enough to see lamplight. "Thanks, Jeremid," she was saying. "I'll take care of him now. Tomorrow I'll tell the captain what happened, and you'll back me on it. He might or might not do something, but what Zassfel did in there didn't fit any law I ever heard of."
"He's legally a slave," Jeremid murmured. "You can do anything to a slave, as long as you don't reduce their value."
Her words were crisp. "He's also a Hero. There are laws about what anyone can do to Heroes."
After a minute, Macurdy felt a wet cloth dabbing at his face, and winced.
"You're awake."
His mouth felt ragged, his lips swollen, and he knew he had teeth missing and broken. He began to answer, then thought better of it and nodded. That was a mistake too. She continued dabbing and wiping, hissing now and then, occasionally swearing. Briefly she plucked pieces of broken teeth from his lips. "We'll fix his ass, Macurdy," she said. "My father was captain in his time. He has influence, and he spoils me. When I tell him—"
She stopped there. It seemed to Macurdy she didn't feel much confidence. He was a slave; it would come down to that. He felt her fingers prod his ribs, his collarbones. The ribs on one side hurt, but not enough that he flinched.
"Open your mouth."
He did.
"The filthy bastards!" He could hear her breathe in and out through her nose, controlling herself. "You'll be all right here," she said. "I'm going to the shaman and get some things."
She left. For a while he drifted in and out of consciousness; then she was back. He could hear her doing things, he didn't know what. Preparing poultices from something the shaman had given her, because now she was placing damp cloths over each eye, on a cheek, on his mouth, crooning as she did so. Then she stroked his forehead with gentle fingers, and left him.
He slept. And sleeping, dreamed of the jaguar. And of Varia, who kept changing into the spear maiden. Sometime in the night he felt hands tug down his breeches, fondle him. Felt himself swell and harden. Felt someone straddle him, insert him, ride him gently . . . And when it was over, felt his good cheek very gently kissed. "I love you, Macurdy." The voice was Melody's, not Varia's. "Don't ask me why. I only talked to you once. Maybe I'm crazy."
Then he drifted into sleep again.