Robin Hobb - The Complete Soldier Son Trilogy - Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic

I had no time to see more than that. A corps of third-years was coming down the rank on foot, roughly hustling us into a straighter line. Sergeant Rufet came behind them, quickly checking to see which of his charges were severely injured. Trent and Jared were hustled off to the infirmary, each escorted by two third-years, as if they were criminals under arrest. Despite the anger and buried fear we saw in the eyes of those evaluating us, Rory was unabashed. His battle lust was clearly unabated, regardless of a bloody abrasion high on his cheek. He elbowed me joyously in my sore ribs and pointed to five cadets from Bringham House being escorted to the infirmary, one of whom was being carried. The rest of us were judged fit to stand and take our punishment.

Stiet spared none of us. He held us all responsible, not just the brawling cadets, but also the second-years who had incited us, the third-years who had not stopped the second-years, and the house sergeants who had ignored the brewing mischief. He promised us severe repercussions before dismissing us to our houses, with the stern order that we were all confined to barracks until further notice.

We did not break our ranks to return to our rooms, but were marched all the way up to our quarters, where a furious Corporal Dent ordered us into our respective rooms. As soon as his footfalls were no longer audible, we all crowded to the doors of our bunkrooms, to talk quietly across the short hallway that separated us.

‘We done ’em good!’ Rory exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.

‘Think we’ll get kicked out?’ Oron asked in a far more subdued tone.

‘Nar!’ Rory was certain of it. ‘It’s like a tradition. Every year, the new cadets mix it up a bit down there on the parade ground. I’m just surprised it was only two of the houses instead of all four. We’ll march a lot of demerits, and have a lot of extra duties. Prepare to man those manure forks, men! But then it will all settle down and we’ll be in our regular harness the rest of the year.’ He patted his cheek cautiously, winced, and looked philosophically at the blood on his fingertips. ‘You’ll see.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ Trist said quietly. ‘One of theirs looked badly hurt. If he is, then someone is going to have to pay. No Old Noble family is going to send their boy off to Academy, and then be bland about it when he’s sent home an invalid. We may be in for some hard times.’

‘Count on it,’ Gord said quietly. ‘Count on it. What got into us? I’ve never even been in a real fight before in my life. I should have known better, I should have known we were being set up.’

‘So should we all,’ Spink said solemnly. I hadn’t seen him in the battle, but one of his eyes was starting to blacken and blood crusted his nostrils.

Trist rolled his eyes at them. ‘Yes, little saints all, that is what the cavalla wants us to be. Come on. It happens every year. Don’t you think it was a test of our mettle? If we’d all said, “oh, sorry, fighting won’t solve anything, let them keep our flag, it’s only a rag” do you think we’d have had any respect from anyone the rest of the year?’

‘What happened to our flag, anyway?’ Natred asked with a smile. There was a sheen of blood on his teeth.

We looked at one another for an answer. But it was Nate himself who pulled our brown horse out from under his shirt. He grinned as he showed it to us. ‘You don’t think I’d leave our colours in the dirt, do you?’ he asked.

Rory crossed the hall to pound him on the back, and then lift our flag and proudly wave it for all of us. Despite my desperate fear of what punishment might befall us, I could not help but grin. In our first engagement, our patrol had won, we had saved our colours, and seen only two of our men wounded. It seemed to me that it boded well for the future. And yet, in the next instant, I wondered how harshly we would be judged for the five fellow cadets we had injured. We talked for a time longer in our hallway, and then retreated to our rooms again.

There, we sat on our bunks or did small chores. I rinsed some blood from my shirt with cold water, and then sat down to mend the sleeve. Natred dozed. I stared at the ceiling. Spink and Kort talked quietly about their families, and how they would react if bad reports on them were sent home. I didn’t want even to speculate on what my father would say about such a thing.

The dinner hour came and went, and the light faded outside our window. Trent and Jared were returned to us. Both were so dosed with laudanum that they could not complete a sentence. The neat row of black stitches on Jared’s brow and the splint on Trent’s arm spoke for them. They went to their cots and closed their eyes. The long evening dragged on. I made a brief foray to the study table and brought back my books. We sat on the floor and dispiritedly completed the lessons we had abandoned when we went to battle. A gloom settled over us. We had been told nothing, and I think that brooding silence was more threatening than any pronouncement could have been. When Sergeant Rufet bellowed ‘Lights out!’ up the stairwell, we obeyed promptly, and then sought our beds without a word to one another.

I didn’t sleep well. I doubt that any of us did. I bounced from one vivid, incomprehensible dream to the next. All were disturbing. In one, I was a woman, wandering the Academy grounds by night and crying out, ‘But where are the trees? What has become of the ancient forest of the West? Is all wisdom lost to these people and that is why they have gone mad? What can be done for such a folk? What can stand against their madness, if they have done this to their own forest?’

I woke myself tossing restlessly in my bed, and then lay there with that question wedged in my mind. It made no sense to me but some part of me urgently desired an answer. Why was the city better than the forest that had once stood there? That was what I wanted to know, and yet the question itself seemed to make no sense.

I sank back into sleep as if I were sinking into a tar hole. I dreamed I walked on the logged off hill above the river, and that a presence walked at my side. Every time I tried to turn and look at him, he was always just a few steps behind me, always at the corner of my vision. I glimpsed his shadow on the ground. His shoulders were wide and above his head, I saw the shadows of antlers. We walked up the burned and scarred hillside. Everywhere, men in rough work clothes plied their axes and saws, oblivious of our passing. They shouted genially to one another, and sweated as they hacked and chopped all through the chill day. When a horn sounded, they all hiked down the hill to a noon meal of soup and bread. Finally, I turned to my companion and answered his unspoken question.

‘You will find no answer here. They don’t know why they do it. They are told to do this by others who give them money for their work. They have never lived here or hunted here. They only came here to do this task. And when it is done, they will leave and not look back. It never belonged to them, and so what they destroy is no loss to them.’

I saw the shadow of the antlered head nod slowly. He did not speak, but I heard a woman’s voice say heavily, ‘As they do here, so will they do in every place that they go. It is worse than I feared. You see that I am right. We must turn them back.’

And again I woke, sweating as if I had just broken a fever. Bleakness settled over me as I recalled the pale stumps like broken teeth, and the old scar on the top of my head pounded. I felt sick with someone else’s sorrow. It was a moment before I could find my own foreboding over the mêlée on the parade ground. My own concerns seemed foreign and petty. When I tried to refocus my mind on them, I drifted into a restless sleep.